I am impelled to write a few words about Peter Hitchens after having just seen an interview with Owen Jones [see below], which interview dates from 2017.
I have already written a blog post about Owen Jones:
To examine the views and influence of Hitchens in detail would necessitate a blog article of inordinate length, but Wikipedia has a considerable amount of information about him:
I should like to focus mainly on a few matters raised in that interview.
As to Hitchens himself, he is an odd fellow, apparently fairly well-educated. His family background had elements of tragedy (his mother bolted with an unfrocked priest, and the couple later died via a suicide pact in an Athens hotel). Not mentioned in the interview is that Hitchens (like Owen Jones) has part-Jewish roots, his maternal grandmother having been half-Jewish, in that her mother was Jewish. It was on that basis that Hitchens’ even more eccentric brother, Christopher, declared himself in latter years to be “Jewish” (taking the traditional Jewish course of deciding via the matrilineal side alone).
The interview mentions his having attended a naval school, but that must have been in early years, he then having attended The Leys School, Cambridge, an institution which has schooled a number of well-known people: at least one Rothschild, a few kings (albeit from Bahrain and Tonga), a number of MPs and journalists (in some cases both, as with Martin Bell).
Hitchens then went on to the City of Oxford College (a college of further education) and finally to Alcuin College, part of the University of York.
It may be that the university education and milieu that Hitchens found in Alcuin College permanently influenced his attitude. Wikipedia says of Alcuin College that,
“From early days of the college an uproar for secession of the college from the remainder of the university has been present.[3] It is a self-styled Separatist Movement and at times presented as a running gag at the University of York about Alcuinites….For many years Alcuin College was very much the outcast on the university campus, the only college physically separate from the others except for a bridge from the library…“
The photograph of Alcuin College in winter shows an almost Soviet bleakness and isolation.
Hitchens, though characterizing himself in the Owen Jones interview as having been a “joiner” in his youth, has also been an outsider, defector and maverick. I wonder whether he applied to the University of York because Oxford and/or Cambridge (in both of which cities he had attended school) refused his application, or perhaps he made no application to Oxbridge because (I speculate) his developing extreme socialist views made him reject such “bourgeois” places of learning. A better interviewer than Owen Jones, such as the late and great Brian Walden, might have explored all that.
Hitchens was from 1968 (aged 17) to 1975, a member of the Trotskyist “tendency” called the International Socialists [IS], the forerunner of the Socialist Workers’ Party [SWP]. He joined two years before he went to York. Later, in his forties, he became a card-carrying member of the Conservative Party, but only for the six years 1997-2003, and —typically— at the very nadir of Conservative fortunes, which is interesting, psychologically. Does he court unpopularity? Does he deliberately express unpopular or contrary views?
Hitchens is known as what might fairly be called a “reactionary”, someone who thinks that Britain was a better place in the 1950s, no ifs no buts. In fact, I believe that I watched him say that or something like that on TV once. My own view is different, that some aspects of life in the UK are better now, though many are certainly worse. This blog post is about Peter Hitchens, not Ian Millard, but in my view, things that are better now than in the 1950s (which I scarcely remember, having been born in 1956) or the early 1960s (which I certainly do remember) would include
central heating as the norm;
wider selection of fruits and vegetables (and in general a healthier or at least more varied diet);
less antiquated snobbism;
more understanding of animal welfare;
far easier access to information (via Internet);
Whereas, on the other side, the aspects of British life now that mean that UK life is worse (than in the early 1960s, anyway) are (and Hitchens has a point, because it is a longer list by far)
the general pressure of life now (of course, I was a child in, say, 1963, so my perception is affected to that extent but I think the judgment is still valid);
pervasive lack of freedom of expression;
pervasive “political correctness” etc;
the cost of living, though that is a complex question; it includes
the cost of real property both for sale and rent, and the impossibility for most people to buy a property without family money;
British people swamped by mass immigration;
real pay and social benefits etc generally reducing;
hugely less choice of employment for most people;
many people in full-time work unable to live on the poor pay offered;
unwanted millions of immigrants and their offspring;
congested roads and railways (and refer to the above line);
a huge new mixed-race population;
a huge amount of crime;
public and private housing shortages (refer to immigration, above);
huge numbers of drug-contaminated persons;
workers exploited in terms of having ever-shorter lunch breaks etc, “on call” after hours etc;
public services near to collapse in some respects;
intensive farming, with consequent harm to wildlife;
standards in all areas (NHS, schools, social security, Westminster MPs, police etc) falling like a stone
We often hear (eg from very young Remain whiners) that, eg, “foreign travel is easier now”, whereas that is mostly illusion. True, there were some silly aspects “back then”, such as being restricted as to foreign currency taken on holiday (you even had to have the amount, bought from somewhere like Thomas Cook, written in your passport!), and that silliness (a kind of postwar sacred cow) lasted until Mrs Thatcher stopped it in 1979 or 1980! Yes, true, but that was about it.
If you listen to Remain whiners (esp. the under-30s), you read or hear that Brexit will mean either no visa-free travel to the EU states, or no travel allowed at all! They really believe that, pre-1972, British people were almost imprisoned, as if Cuban, Chinese or Soviet citizens!
Until blacks and browns abused it in the 1980s to import relatives illegally, you used to be able to get a “British Visitor’s Passport” from post offices for a small amount; the passport was valid for short visits to almost all Western European states (not many people went to Eastern Europe as tourists until the 1990s). I had one in 1978 or 1979, in between possession of two ordinary passports, when I wanted to travel to France at short notice. I think that it cost about £5 and took about 5 minutes to be issued at Lanark Road Post Office, Little Venice.
Transport to the European mainland: true, there were no budget airlines as such in the 1950s, 1960s, but there were routes and ways not now in existence: in the 1950s and 1960s, people could take their cars by air to France! The main route was Lydd (Kent) to Amiens. This was not only for the rich: 5,000 cars (20,000 passengers) as early as 1950, and over 50,000 cars (250,000 passengers) by 1955 (incredible when you recall that rationing lasted until 1955!):
The idea that some Remain whiners have that young people will be unable to travel if the UK leaves “Europe” (meaning the EU) is laughable to those who know. As a child I travelled with parents; and then (from 1971) as a teenager, I travelled alone to Paris, Amsterdam etc. No visa required, UK not in EEC (the then EU).
I might add that it actually takes longer to fly to Paris in 2019 than it did in 1970 or even 1960!
One cannot say that Hitchens approves of that aspect of 1950s lifestyle, though, and (if I understand him aright), he thinks that the British war against Germany could have been avoided, but I may be mistaken here. He certainly thinks that of the First World War, which he says, surely rightly, destroyed British naval supremacy and economy.
Where Hitchens is certainly mistaken is in saying (in the interview) that Churchill’s refusal to countenance the German peace proposals of 1940 was “unquestionably the right and moral thing to do”. Oh really? Right and moral, to continue a war only started because triggered by a treaty obligation that could never have been fulfilled (the Anglo-French worthless “guarantee” to Poland) and when an honourable peace via armistice was on the table?
Such a peace might have been bought at the price of German victory in the East, but would that have been so bad? The destruction of the Stalin/Bolshevik regime? The saving of most of Eastern Europe from both wartime destruction and post-1945 Stalinism? The prevention of the enormous damage, loss of life and hurt across Western and Southern Europe and North Africa? Hitchens says, however, that he is “sceptical” about Churchill overall.
Hitchens is on surer ground when he says that British history has gone, in that no-one knows British history. He cites David Cameron-Levita being unable to translate the two words “Magna Carta” from Latin! After 6 years at Eton! That was when “Scameron” was a guest on the Letterman Show. Shaming for the whole country. Not just the Magna Carta bit. Cameron came over more like a part-Jew public entertainer (and not a good one) than a British statesman. Oh…wait…
[the bit about Magna Carta starts around 8 minutes in]
Scameron was also proven, though I think on another occasion, not to have heard of the Bill of Rights! Hitchens cites an apparently intelligent 6th-former whom he met, and who had passed exams in English History, and yet who did not know which side Oliver Cromwell was on during the English Civil War!
I have had similar encounters. Few people under 40 now know even the most basic facts about British history, and less about European history generally. An indictment of the British educational system. One should, though, be wary of thinking that this kind of ignorance developed overnight. I recall having a brief conversation with a South London couple I met by a swimming pool in Sousse, Tunisia, in 1986, and who, it transpired, had no idea at all that what is now Tunisia had been (part of) a Roman imperial province. Not knowing who was Nelson or Drake, though, is arguably of a different order.
Hitchens says, again correctly, that “we” “have no idea now what it means to be English or British”, but does not go on to examine the racial implications. Come to think of it, that may be one reason why so many people in the UK want to denounce others to Twitter, Facebook, the police, employers etc for holding the “wrong” views, i.e. because the denouncers have no idea of the English historical struggle for free speech (John Hampden etc…) and no respect for it.
Owen Jones talks about how open-minded (he says…) Corbyn is, and implies that he, Jones, is the same. Oh yes? Take a look at my blog post about him…
Hitchens himself is really little different. He once had a short and at first reasonable discussion with me on Twitter about the early Zionists, in 2017 or 2016, but then a Jew tweeted to him about how I was apparently an evil “neo-Nazi”, after which, just like Owen Jones, inter alia, Hitchens blocked me. I was unaware then that Hitchens is part-Jew, though not to the extent that would have rendered him liable to sanctions under the 1936 Nuremberg law(s), his maternal grandmother having been only part-Jew (Mischling) and his maternal grandfather not a Jew. In fact, under those laws he would even have been able to work as a journalist.
Hitchens says that Enoch Powell’s so-called “Rivers of Blood” speech “was a disgrace”. Why? He dislikes its tone, it seems. What about its truth, though? He also says that “the intermarriage [resulting from immigration] is great”. I begin to wonder what major part of modern British society he does dislike, when push comes to shove! To be fair to Hitchens, he does disapprove of the ghetto communities established by Pakistanis and others in, mainly, the Midlands and North of England. He is certainly not “white nationalist”, let alone social-national. If he were, he would be sacked at once. Long live freedom!…
An area in which I do find myself largely in agreement with Hitchens is in intervention by the “West” (in my terms, “NWO/ZOG”) in the affairs of the Middle East. Iraq, Syria, Libya. He opposes it. That’s something.
As to Russia, Hitchens seems to take an objective view (informed by better historical knowledge than most msm scribblers), eg:
I apprehend that Hitchens likes the social conservatism of most Russians.
So what is my overall view of Peter Hitchens? I should say that he is someone of considerable intellect, though nowhere near as intelligent as he himself imagines. Someone of considerable education, but who imagines that he knows more and better than almost anyone else, and believes that it is his role in life to pronounce on the truth of any given social, political, historical or ethical topic. Someone who harks back to a supposed golden age prior to, perhaps, 1959, or 1989 (at very latest). Someone who sees what is wrong in the present society but appears to have no programme or (Heaven forbid!) ideology to move from here to there (to a better society).
Hitchens takes a reasonable view such as “the family is a good thing” and tests it to destruction. Likewise, in his critique of both socialism and the contemporary Conservative Party, he goes to an extreme, saying that the Conservative Party is “extreme Left-wing”, by which he means “socially liberal”. He defends traditional marriage and his arguments here have force.
Hitchens thinks that the Conservative Party is dying (understandable, looking at its MPs and ministers) but, yet again, goes to an extreme, wishing that it could have lost the 2010 General Election so that it might have died, and so made room for a new and socially-conservative party. I wish that it had lost too, but for other reasons!
Hitchens reminds me of two other scribblers of note, Peter Oborne and (now rather forgotten) Paul Johnson.
All three are often intuitively correct on some issues, risibly mistaken on others. They are alike in other ways, too. As the Russians say, they are all “Maximalisti”.
Hitchens (like Owen Jones) blocked me on Twitter for ideological reasons. Hitchens (like Owen Jones) makes a very comfortable living from the System msm. Hitchens (like Owen Jones) poses no danger to the existing state of affairs, despite making much noise. Hitchens (like Owen Jones) is a mass media pussycat pretending to be a tiger.
I like to read Hitchens’ words occasionally. He is often right, not always. However, his words are commentary, not inspiration. He says in the interview that Britain is finished and that the only serious history of contemporary Britain will one day be written in Chinese! Maybe, but God moves in mysterious though sometimes sanguinary ways. As a Christian and a student of history, Hitchens should know that.
Hitchens’ recent book (which I have not yet read, but which promises to be at least as myth-shattering as those of the unjustly neglected historian Correlli Barnett)
Update, 18 September 2020
Since the above was written, Peter Hitchens has been almost a lone voice struggling against the “Coronavirus” panic and the allied government-proclaimed fear propaganda.
Update, 24 April 2022
Hitchens is now in the small minority of public figures unwilling to go along with the msm noise against Russia, and for Ukraine (meaning the Kiev regime of the Jew-Zionist Zelensky).
On the face of it, a clear case, with no doubt about the immediately-relevant facts. The defendant admitted to the crime and was sentenced to a year in prison. There are some nuances, however.
Obviously, criminal damage cannot be tolerated, and it is certainly not very nice and certainly not very polite to daub words on the door of a neighbouring dwelling; but to my mind the sentence was harsh.
The defendant was sentenced to a year in prison and will therefore be released in 6 months’ time, possibly earlier. The chances are that he will lose his local authority home. I have no idea what possessions or companion animals he may have, but unless he has friends or family somewhere to look after them, they too will be lost. He will come out of prison with nowhere to go, and may not be rehoused if some local penpusher decrees that he made himself homeless by his own actions.
That is part of the background. Then we have the point that the defendant had no previous convictions save for a silly one, 27 years previously, involving a “sick-note”.
In view of the fact that the local authority would probably take the crime to be a breach of lease terms or conditions, and so would take away the defendant’s home anyway, would it not have been more just simply to have given this defendant a suspended sentence?
This looks like kicking a man when he is down. At the same time, we see the courts daily giving thugs, thieves etc non-sentences. Of course, this was a “racial” crime…the courts have obviously been told to treat any offence having a “racial” element more seriously (harshly), in an attempt to keep the doomed multikulti society from falling to pieces.
I noticed, also, that the victims were from the Congo. Again, I do not know the full facts, but it is odds-on that what we have here are either “refugees” or economic migrants who have left Africa in order to settle in the UK. Odds-on, again, that the British people (including the defendant) are paying for the victims to live here and breed.
The case above reminds me of one about 25 years ago in Hammersmith, in which a man was driven half-mad by the incessant noise of blacks and their “music”, parties etc in the flat above his dwelling; so much so that he burned them out, killing several. He got a sentence, I think, of about 10 years for manslaughter and arson. Again, the act can scarcely be “justified”, perhaps, but it can be understood. Legally, provocation does not exist and provides no defence in such a case. In real-life terms, though, I think that many will feel a little sorry for such a defendant.
There is a further point: the defendant in the immediate case in question felt the need to say that he is not “racist” (perhaps after consultation with solicitors or Counsel). So even he himself felt the need to “virtue-signal”! If he or his advisers thought that a display of “contrition” and “I’m not racist” protesting would mitigate the sentence, they seem to have been mistaken.
There is also the point that, as hundreds of thousands of blacks and browns etc flood into the UK every year, and as politicians bleat about the “need” to destroy what is left of the countryside in order to build little boxes for migrants on agricultural land and forested land, very many fully-entitled British people are homeless (after today’s sentence, add another one, 6 months down the line).
I am at present also preparing a blog post about Peter Hitchens, who thinks that the UK is doomed in terms of its present society. I suppose that most of us hope that he is wrong. I also suppose that he is probably right.
Fiona Onasanya has drunk her last draught from the taxpayers’ trough and has now been removed as MP, the Peterborough seat having been declared vacant on 1 May 2019. We therefore move to the question of who will replace her.
Peterborough
The constituency covers the majority of the city of Peterborough and some rural areas to the East. I myself have visited the city but once, in 1975, and the city I saw in a few hours and 44 years ago is a very different place now. The population increased about 50% in the years 1971-1991 alone, since when it has increased again hugely. The city of 1971 had about 100,000 inhabitants but now has about 200,000 and still increasing. Even that does not tell the full story.
A few years ago, Peterborough was said to have the second-fastest population growth of any city in the UK. In 2007, the Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire noted that, as recently as 2003, 95% of the teenagers in the county had been white (ie English), whereas the figure in 2007 was radically different and the population “diverse”. What is that figure now, I wonder? 50%? Probably far below that.
The true scale of the change is probably covered up. The city’s inhabitants are now 82% white (officially), but many of the white inhabitants are of recent Eastern European origin.
Peterborough constituency and by-election candidates
The constituency has been a Con/Lab marginal for decades, with the two parties usually but not always within a few points of each other. The Liberal Democrats have come third in every election for decades, except in 2015 when the LibDems came fourth after UKIP (there was no UKIP candidate in 2017).
Stewart Jackson was the Conservative MP from 2005 until 2017, his vote share gradually declining from 42.1% in 2005 to 39.7% in 2015 before, ironically, peaking at 46.8% in 2017, in which year he was replaced by Labour’s Fiona Onasanya (she got 48.1%).
I have blogged previously about Fiona Onasanya, who has wisely decided not to bother standing again (Labour has another candidate, but Fiona Onasanya could, in theory, have stood as an Independent, despite her conviction and brief imprisonment).
The Conservative candidate for the by-election, Paul Bristow, is a local businessman who says that “I run my own public affairs and PR business centred around the medical device industry.” I dare say that Bristow, though one of the most likely to succeed candidates, will have an uphill struggle, the way things are with a Conservative Party in meltdown; I also wonder whether voters will want a “multikulti” public relations man (see Bristow’s website in the Notes, below) as their MP. We shall see.
Labour Party
The Labour candidate is Lisa Forbes. A trade union official, she was Labour candidate for Peterborough in 2015, at which election she apparently fought a fairly strong campaign, finishing second with 35.6% of the vote (the Con vote was 39.6%). For the by-election, she beat one other woman in a contest held using a women-only shortlist.
Liberal Democrats, Greens, Change UK
The LibDem candidate is Beki Sellick, about whom a local newspaper reports:
“The Liberal Democrats have selected Beki Sellick as their Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Peterborough. The engineer fought the seat in the 2017 election, finishing third with 1,597 votes. She said: “I’m an ordinary person who’s had a variety of jobs – nationalised and privatised, shop floor and management, full-time and part-time, redundant. And then I started my own business in Peterborough two years ago. I chair our residents association where we run a monthly community café.””
The LibDems (same candidate) got a vote share of only 3.3% in the General Election of 2017, which result was even below the 3.8% they scored in 2015 (cf. 2010—19.6%, and 2005— 14.5%). I cannot see the LibDems winning. They are probably fighting for fourth or fifth place.
One interesting aspect is that Change UK, the new pro-EU and pro-Israel party, is not putting up a candidate. I read somewhere that the very strongly pro-EU and anti-Brexit parties (LibDems, Greens, Change UK) were going to not stand against each other in Peterborough and elsewhere, so as not to split the Remainer vote. Well, it looks like someone forgot to tell the Greens, who are standing, their candidate being one Joseph Wells, about whom nothing much is known.
The Green Party website says about their by-election candidate: “Candidate for Peterborough. Joseph Wells. No Candidate [sic] information at this time. Please check back.”
What a joke the Green Party is! Here we have a by-election held after a scandal. The ideal place for a small party to get some publicity and maybe save its deposit, yet on the day the nominations close, the useless creatures cannot even put out a few basic facts about the poor sap they have chosen as their doomed candidate! Not that it makes much difference: the Greens got 1.8% in Peterborough in 2017. Like the pro-Remain and pro-immigration LibDems, the Greens are unlikely to do well in an area which was over 60% Leave and where many of the English people feel (and have been) swamped by mass migration or “migration-invasion”.
The list closed at 1600 hrs. It is now 1611 as I write. At 1555, 5 minutes before closure of the list, Mark Pack, who does LibDem publicity, was tweeting this!
The LibDems are as useless as the Greens and the new joke party, Change UK!
What is more significant is that Change UK have effectively chickened-out of this contest. Either that or they are just too incompetent even to register a candidate for the only by-election being held! Either way (and as I have previously blogged), they are a total waste of space.
NEW: So much for the remainer joint ticket in Peterborough. I understand that the Lib Dems will be running their own candidate. Looks like the talks broke down.
So there it is: Change UK are too frightened or too incompetent to put up a candidate at Peterborough (voters might like to remember that at the 23 May EU election too…and at the next general election).
This means that, at the by-election, the Remain or pro-EU vote, which at best is probably no more than 40% of the electorate anyway, will be split between Greens and LibDems (and Labour). Bearing in mind that, in 2017, the combined vote for the LibDems and Greens was only 5.1%, it may be that most Remainers in Peterborough will vote Labour; neither of the two smaller parties has any real chance.
Minor candidates
UKIP is standing, thus splitting the hardcore Brexit vote, but is running at only about 3% in nationwide opinion polling. The candidate is John Whitby, a former UKIP councillor, who came last out of 5 candidates in the recent local election for Fletton and Stanground ward, Peterborough (he got 320 votes out of about 2,000):
well, in case people wonder if I know what I'm doing diving in at the deep end……… pic.twitter.com/qbFIACseKJ
Hard to predict UKIP’s vote share at the by-election, except that it will be below 5%. I am guessing that it will be around 2%.
The former journalist and UKIP MEP, Patrick O’Flynn, who now fights for the (post-1990) Social Democratic Party (SDP), is standing, but I would be surprised if he were to get above 1% of the vote. In a way, he was a loss to UKIP, in that he was probably one of UKIP’s more intelligent leaders, particularly on economic issues.
Why O’Flynn has chosen to ally himself with the SDP dead parrot party, God knows. Maybe because he did not want to be an Independent. He, in himself, is not a bad candidate, but the SDP is just silly: in 1992, it put up 10 candidates at the General Election. Total vote was over 35,000 or 0.1%, but individually they did not do badly at average 3,500 votes each. However, since then, their few candidates have registered not thousands, not even hundreds, of votes (at the General Election 2017, 6 SDP candidates stood, and got a total of 469 votes, about 75 votes each; in national terms, statistical zero).
Now we come to the bottom of the barrel: the Christian People’s Alliance (not to be confused with the Christian Party Alliance; yes I know…Judean Popular Front etc…) is standing a Dr. Rogers (not I think a medical doctor, but someone with a Ph.D who is a local teacher). I sometimes puzzle over why people even bother standing for silly no-account organizations like this. Still there it is. He may get 50 or 100 votes, who knows?
There are 2 Independents.
One Goldspink is standing for the faux-“nationalist” English Democrats.
There are candidates for “Common Good” and “UK European Union Party”.
There is a “Renew” candidate. There was one in the recent Newport West by-election: that candidate got nearly 4% of the vote there.
“Howling Lord Hope” of the Official Monster Raving Loony Party needs no introduction: the fat little man wearing a white or yellow suit is a veteran of dozens of elections and in fact was actually elected (unopposed) in a local council election at Ashburton, Devon, many years ago. I imagine that he will beat some of the Peterborough candidates who take themselves more seriously.
Brexit Party
Brexit Party has burst upon the political scene (or should that be “swamp”) and may change everything just by existing. Needless to say (to regular or frequent readers of this blog), I would never “support” a party which is not fully social-national, let alone one that has a “Friends of Israel” section already…Having said that, anything that helps to fragment the “three party” or “two party” FPTP scam, that is conventional politics in the UK, has my blessing.
Brexit Party is mushrooming and now has somewhere around 100,000 “supporters” (by any other name, members) who have, apparently, each donated between £5 and £200,000 (the average is about £30, giving Brexit Party somewhere in the region of £5 million in battle funds).
Below, Nigel Farage, the leader of Brexit Party, arriving in Newport, Wales, to a rapturous and almost ecstatic reception:
The Brexit party turned up in Newport, south Wales last night. A true Labour heartland. Usually. https://t.co/NoBovPxNCv
and here is a comment about both Brexit Party and Change UK rallies (well, Brexit Party’s 2,000-strong Peterborough rally and Change UK’s pathetic almost empty London meeting…)
Change UK London Rally vs Brexit Party Peterborough Rally. One made lead story on BBC News, the other didn’t even feature. That’s right. The tiny one made the front page, the massive one didn’t. Why’s that I wonder? pic.twitter.com/0MVGwgUoly
Peterborough rally for the Brexit Party. When was the last time British politics saw something like this?? Astonishing. They’re doing three rallies a week! pic.twitter.com/YVUlQnhTdw
The bookmakers have Brexit Party favourite to win the by-election: just odds-on, but closely followed at 11/10 by Labour. The Conservatives are on 20/1, the LibDems 50/1, Change UK 66/1 (rather ungenerous since they now seem not to be standing!), 100/1 bar. So Greens and UKIP are both 100/1. William Hill are similar but more generous. They have SDP at 125/1 and Green at 150/1.
A week ago, Labour were the favourites. That though was before Nigel Farage and Brexit Party had 2,000 people attend a rally in Peterborough for which, it seems, tickets were sold at £10 a pop. This is not British politics as we know it…most System candidates would struggle to get 200 (or, in some cases, 20) voters to turn out for a meeting where entrance is free!
Britain Elects has, a minute ago, tweeted the following polling for the EU elections:
Those figures might inform us re. the Peterborough by-election, except that Change UK is not, it seems, a factor.
The Brexit Party candidate is Mike Greene, a multi-millionaire businessman and considerable local philanthropist, who supports 40 local charities and good causes. He comes from modest origins and is a local resident who was brought up in or near the city. He was a Conservative until recently.
Conclusion and forecast
Unless something absolutely stunning happens in the next 4 weeks, this is a straight fight between Brexit Party and Labour. The Conservatives seem to be toast. In fact, now that that is plainly the case, I should expect many more Conservative voters to vote tactically for Brexit Party, in order to keep out Labour.
The Remain vote will probably gravitate to the LibDems, but the Greens will take quite a few Remain votes. Other parties can be more or less disregarded.
There is also the point that, on 23 May, halfway between now and the by-election, the EU elections are expected to be a triumph for Farage and the Brexit Party. The Conservatives are forecast to come 3rd or even 4th.
It looks as though this will be the Westminster victory that might launch the —as yet, policy-free— Brexit Party. Second place will go to Labour. Third? Either LibDems or Conservatives. Quite possibly the LibDems.
Current betting as of today (21 May) is: Brexit Party as odds-on favourites (8/13), though challenged fairly closely by Labour on 5/4. The rest of the field is comprised of also-rans, it appears: Conservatives 20/1, LibDems 50/1, and 125/1 bar those four.
Update, 23 May 2019
There has been movement in the betting market for the by-election: Brexit Party hardening and now at 8/15; Labour less firm and out to 7/4; Conservatives at 9/1 (from 20/1 only two days ago); LibDems sliding to 70/1; 125/1 bar those four.
Just saw the clip below from BBC News. It exemplifies the BBC way of doing bias in political coverage. The whole clip lasts well over 2 minutes (2:16), out of which Mike Greene, the candidate for Brexit Party, was given 5 or 6 seconds! Brexit Party is way ahead in the betting and polling for the by-election, but the BBC chose to present the three System party candidates as the “serious” ones, each of whom got a number of short slots within the clip. Even the lady standing for the LibDems got two or three slots, despite the fact that the LibDems have no chance, are 70/1 to win, and when the same lady stood in Peterborough for the LibDems at the 2017 General Election, she only got 3.3% of votes cast!
I am not a “supporter” of Brexit Party, as such, but the BBC’s bias against it is really showing now.
Update, 26 May 2019
By-election betting now shows Brexit Party hardening to 2/5, and now strong odds-on favourite; Labour slightly out at 15/8; Conservatives, who went from 20/1 to 9/1, are now again sliding and are at 12/1; LibDems in from 70/1 to 50/1; still 125/1 bar those four.
Update, 27 May 2019
After the stellar victory of Brexit Party in the EU elections, the odds on Brexit Party smashing the Peterborough by-election have hardened again, now to 4/11. Labour’s dispiriting results in the EU elections have lengthened its odds to 5/2. The Conservatives’ odds have slid back to 16/1, whereas the LibDems’ odds, also at 16/1, are hugely shorter now (they were 50/1 only yesterday!); 125/1 bar those four.
As my blog, written 9 May, said, this is a contest between Brexit Party and Labour, but now the LibDems are complicating the issue. If all anti-Brexit voters gathered behind one candidate, the Brexit Party could not win. The question arises: which one party and candidate? The Remain-oriented side is split, and there are other issues. It may well be that many Con voters and others will switch to LibDem for the by-election, but many Labour voters will recall the LibDems’ dreadful and dishonest support for the Con Coalition 2010-2015. My prediction is that the Brexit Party is going to win this by a goodly margin in the end.
Update, 29 May 2019
The betting continues to firm for Brexit Party. Now 1/5 odds-on (from 4/11). Labour has weakened to 4/1 (from 5/2). The LibDems are still at 16/1, but the Conservatives are still sliding, now at 20/1 again (from 16/1). As far as the bookmakers are concerned, it’s all over.
As my initial blog post speculated, Conservative voters are now flocking to Brexit Party, either out of conviction or because it is the best way to deny Labour the prize. It may be that, after the Fiona Onasanya fiasco, Labour is badly damaged. The candidate for Labour seems to be not very intelligent, which hardly helps (though I understand that she is at least anti-Zionist. On can rarely have everything.
Latest betting: Brexit Party still strong odds-on favourite at 1/5, Labour still 4/1 (both unchanged from yesterday), but LibDems and Cons have now both slid to 25/1. 125/1 bar those four.
Update, 31 May 2019
Brexit Party still at 1/5, Labour still at 4/1. LibDems have recovered to 12/1 after opinion polling suggesting that, nationwide, the LibDems are now, suddenly, the most popular party in England and Wales! Conservatives are available at 25/1 for the by-election. 125/1 bar those four.
Meanwhile, the newspapers converge on Peterborough to seek opinions…
“A disillusioned Tory, his message is clear that the Lib Dems ‘may sneak in here’. He says Peterborough is ‘an absolute dump’ with poverty rife. People are so poor they think twice about buying even a multi-pack of crisps.” [Daily Mail]
“Back in Lincoln Road, at a cafe bar, I talk to Janet Tobolik, who is 65 and half Polish. A devout Eurosceptic, she says only one party cares about Peterborough’s problems. She is voting UKIP. ‘There is rubbish on the streets. This is my country and you suddenly find a settee in the middle of the road. Peterborough is a slum. They drop everything these immigrants.’” [Daily Mail]
“Down the street, a 73-year-old man who called himself Mr Dhillon, said: ‘I have lived here since 1967. I always supported Labour. But they and the Tories have done no good for Peterborough. I think we should leave the EU and then we can start again.’”
“Yes, as it stands, it is Farage who is on a roll. He is hoping to bury his opponents in Peterborough, just like Catherine of Aragon, and the odds are hugely on his Brexit Party’s side. Next Thursday we’ll discover if the people of this city will change the future of British politics.” [Daily Mail]
Update, 2 June 2019
The betting market has moved as far as Labour and the LibDems are concerned. Brexit Party is still strong odds-on favourite at 1/5, but Labour is now closer at 10/3 and the LibDems , who were 12/1 yesterday and 70/1 only a week ago, now move to 9/1. The Conservatives are still on 25/1; and 125/1 bar those four.
As I commented earlier elsewhere, the battle for second place at Peterborough is intensifying. The Brexit Party seems unchallenged now for 1st place. The only way for Brexit Party to lose would be if those opposed to Farage all clustered round one other party standing. That is obviously not happening. Labour is fighting hard for the seat, but the LibDems are “playing a blinder” bearing in mind that they only got 3.3% in 2017 and 3,8% in 2015. Even at the height of 2010 Cleggmania, they only managed (just under) 20%.
The Conservatives are toast and have no chance. Labour is battling not to be toast. A 2nd place at Peterborough would keep Labour in the game nationally. If Labour drops to 3rd at Peterborough, heads may roll.
Brexit Party tweets cleverly: their tweet (below) is in fact correct, but from the purely electoral point of view helps Brexit Party, because Labour is still the main enemy of Brexit Party in this Peterborough by-election. Tactically, Brexit Party very much knows how to run a campaign.
Only 2 parties are being honest about their positions in Peterborough. Vote for democracy with The Brexit Party or vote to remain the EU with the Lib Dems this Thursday. pic.twitter.com/PD2F56XFk7
“…many Peterborians feel life is getting worse; nothing catastrophic, but a noticeable unravelling. Stagnation of living standards and diminishing prospects, as much as Brexit and migration, are likely to shape how they vote.”
“…people also sense deeper changes to the social fabric, caused in part by the march of buy-to-let property investors, the retreat of the state from providing housing for the working class and ever-shrinking funding for maintaining the fabric of neighbourhoods. With Brexit dominating the byelection, there is little room to debate much of that.”
The BBC has also posted a not very illuminating analysis:
As for the betting market, Brexit Party is now even more firmly odds-on, prohibitively priced at 1/6. Labour has gone out again, returning to 4/1. The LibDems are now also further out at 10/1, while the Conservatives have all but given up the ghost at 33/1 (out from 25/1).
The LibDems were always going to be on the back foot in Leave-friendly Peterborough (in the 2016 Referendum, 61% voted Leave, on a high turnout of over 72%), but their apparent lack of success is a warning light about taking their 2019 EU elections performance and more recent opinion polling too seriously (particularly now that it seems that pollsters have been deliberately suppressing Brexit Party in some polling).
When push comes to shove, can the LibDems hack it? Their performance electorally over many years and in government from 2010-2015 would suggest not.
As to the Conservatives, I suggest that my initial analysis was right: former Conservative voters are backing Brexit Party both for itself and because they have lost confidence in the Conservatives as a potentially-winning party. A Conservative vote in Peterborough is now a wasted vote. The tactical option to keep Labour out is therefore to vote Brexit Party. They are obviously deserting the Conservatives in droves; incredible when you consider that Peterborough has had a Conservative MP for most of the years 1945-2019. A symptom of the general and possible terminal decline of the Conservative Party.
Labour is the only party now likely to come close to Brexit Party in the by-election. The “blacks and browns” (etc), comprising a fifth of the inhabitants, will vote Labour if they vote at all. Remain voters are more likely to vote LibDem now. The non-Brexit-Party vote is thus split. Brexit Party may get 50% of the vote, it may get only 40%, but it does seem likely to win.
Note: in the few hours since I wrote the above update for 3 June, the betting market has moved again. Now Brexit Party is in at 1/7, Labour has gone out to 5/1, the LibDems have slumped to 14/1 and the Conservatives are still in outer darkness at 33/1 (125/1 bar those four).
It is pretty clear that the punters and bookmakers have decided that Brexit Party is unassailable at Peterborough. I think that Brexit Party will be elected, and maybe on as much as 50% of the vote.
The Labour candidate has been (supposedly) damaged by her (again, supposedly) “anti-Semitic” online statements of some time ago (my problem with her is that she has recanted, and cravenly “apologized” to the Jew-Zionist lobby). She will probably get 2nd place, and on a vote of about 25%.
The LibDems have no realistic chance now. They will be looking to get the bulk of the Remain vote in a city where most people (61%) voted Leave in 2016, and where the LibDem core vote has been between 3% and 4% for several years (and even in 2010 was only 19% or so). I shall be surprised if the LibDems can get to 2nd place in this by-election. My guess as to their vote share would be somewhere around 20%.
Conservatives? They are just going through the motions. If their vote exceeds 10%, I shall be surprised.
…and the msm “journalists” are still making assumptions based on their belief that the System parties (LibLabCon) are eternal and immortal. Those parties will all be dead soon. “Protest vote” does not begin to cover what is happening.
So here we are, the day before polling day. The betting has moved in a little. Brexit Party still heavily odds-on but a little out from yesterday (1/7 from 1/9); Labour has come in to 9/2 (from 6/1); the LibDems are at 14/1 (from 16/1), Conservatives still 33/1 (125/1 bar those four).
There was a late attempt in the Guardian to connect Mike Greene, the Brexit Party candidate, with the retention-of-freehold-rights scam/scandal, but it seems to have had little impact for various reasons, not least that 99% of Peterborough voters never read the Guardian.
Brexit Party looks, on the face of it, as if it is going to walk this one.
Update, 6 June 2019
The moment of truth. The polls are open. Brexit Party is still at 1/7 in the betting odds, with Labour again firmer at 4/1; the LibDems and Conservatives have settled together at 20/1.
and at 1330 on polling day…
The betting has altered “in play”, so to speak: Brexit Party still at 1/7 and looking on the face of it like a shoo-in to win; Labour firmed today, to 7/2; as to the others, both the LibDems and the Conservatives have been sliding, the LibDems to 25/1, the Cons to 50/1. (125/1 bar those four).
It is clear that the Conservatives are going to go down very badly. How badly, we wait to see. This may prove to be the most significant by-election since 1945.
(as a light ending, until the result, I reproduce—see below—the most stupid, also the funniest tweet I saw today!)
As I predicted weeks ago, it is between these two now. Labour struggling hard not to be too badly beaten. Many of the Remain votes will go Labour, and almost all of the votes of the blacks, browns etc, and those of any immigrants eligible to vote.
The LibDems are only 40/1 in the by-election betting now. Cons 50/1, others 125/1 or more. As usual, the LibDems talk a good game but rarely follow through. They wasted their chance of getting proportional representation in 2010. That sank their party and many of Britain’s people.
Just saw this, illustrating my point that Labour’s core vote is now “the blacks and browns”:
Brilliant canvassing sessions in Peterborough for our fantastic @UKLabour candidate @LisaForbes_ with colleagues from Peterborough and our extended #LabourFamily
Labour won, unexpectedly (and because of the organized ethnic minority vote, including postal vote), and on 31% of the votes cast (Brexit Party got 29%).
I tweeted (before Twitter expelled me) in the past about freedom of expression and how it is now under attack across the “West”; I have also blogged about it. It is not a straightforward issue but clarity is possible. The same is true when talking about the enemies of freedom.
Below, I link to a BuzzFeed “report” (propaganda piece) promoting the views of Jess Phillips MP, one of the worst MPs in the present House of Commons, who has now said (of a UKIP candidate, Carl Benjamin):
“The Electoral Commission should surely have standards about who can and can’t stand for election. If Facebook and Twitter can ban these people for hate speech how is it they are allowed to stand for election?”
It is hard to imagine being back in 1999, let alone 1989, 1979, 1969 (or any time before that right back to the 18th Century), when a Member of Parliament, even one as profoundly ignorant, uneducated and uncultured as Jess Phillips, would say that a civil service body should decide who should be allowed to stand for election!
Now there are certain kinds of people who cannot stand for election in the UK, and there is a debate to be had about whether those rules are too restrictive, but it has never been seriously suggested before that a candidate should be barred from standing simply because of whatever he or she has said!
Now, those who read my blog etc know that I have rather little time for “Sargon of Akkad” (Carl Benjamin) or his fellow “alt-Right” vloggers (“Prison Planet” Watson etc) but I think that they have the right to speak, to speak online, and to stand for elections. As to Benjamin’s “rape” comments about Jess Phillips, well they were in very poor taste and certainly not chivalrous (though Jess Phillips has no time for courtesy and, still less, for chivalry, in any case), but I do not think that he should be arrested, questioned by police etc about them, nor prevented from carrying on his doomed attempt to become an MEP.
The general assault on freedom of expression in the UK and across the “West”
The attack on what might loosely be called “free speech” is being led and largely carried out by the Jewish or Jewish-Zionist lobby, monitored and supported by the Israeli state. This can be illustrated by a few examples from the UK, starting with my own experiences:
Alison Chabloz sang satirical songs which were posted online; she placed a link on her blog. She was persecuted, lost her job as a result, further persecuted, then privately prosecuted by the fake “charity” called “Campaign Against AntiSemitism”, which then led to prosecution by the CPS and conviction under the bad law of the Communications Act 2003, s.127. At present she is still appealing:
Jez Turner made a speech in Whitehall in 2015, in which speech he suggested that Jews should be cast out from England as they had been on several occasions in the past (eg under Edward I). After a long legal struggle with the Jewish lobby, more particularly the “CAA”, the CPS caved in and prosecuted Jez Turner. He received a 1 year prison sentence in 2018 (he was released on strict conditions after 6 months).
Tommy Robinson
The activist known as Tommy Robinson has been banned from both Facebook and Twitter.
I have written and spoken many times about the “privatization of public space”. In my case, I have been disbarred because Jews wanted to stop me tweeting and/or punish me for exposing them. I have been interrogated by the police at Jewish instigation. I have had other problems with the authorities in recent years. All the doing of Jew conspirators.
In the past, printed matter was the medium of political propaganda. Today, it is online matter that counts, but the online platforms and internet services are in few hands, and most of the hands that matter are Jewish.
An individual can now be effectively silenced by being banned from Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, which can be the decision of a single capitalist “owner”, a manager or executive, or even some deskbound dogsbody.
In addition, that decision-maker, or a couple of such, can deprive the individual of money donations via removal of his or her Paypal, Patreon or other money-donation service.
Likewise, an organization can now be all but wiped out simply by the same methods. Just as I was expelled from Twitter (albeit that Twitter is just a waste of time and effort, really), so have been expelled (“suspended”, in Twitter’s weasel word) Alison Chabloz, Tommy Robinson and innumerable others. They have also been removed from Facebook, YouTube etc (I have no accounts on those platforms) and from donation sites, Paypal etc.
I see that Facebook has now removed Louis Farrakhan’s Nation of Islam organization too (for “anti-Semitism”). The Jews are crowing. Maybe prematurely.
It is clear that power online is in very few hands. One decision by some Jew like Zuckerberg and an organization with literally millions of followers, such as InfoWars, can be sent spinning into outer darkness, with no right of appeal or legal redress qua citizen.
In the USA, these facts also mean that the Constitutional right to free speech is scarcely worth the paper it is printed on. I was always sceptical about it, on the basis that, yes, you can speak freely in the USA, so long as you do not mind losing your job, profession, business, home etc…Now the near-uselessness of the Constitutional freedom of speech is even more stark: by all means speak freely, but you are restricted to howling in the dark, or at least in the street. Your online “free speech”, meaning your communication with anyone not your immediate neighbour or family, is monitored, censored and can be completely taken away from you, not by the State, even, but by online platforms pressured by or owned by the Jewish Zionist lobby. We see that there are moves afoot in the UK even to prevent our taking part in already-stacked elections!
Conclusion
As European people and social nationalists, we can no more rely on online platforms than we can rely on getting elected in a rigged system, on fair reportage from the msm, or on getting justice under rigged legal systems.
Believe it or not, this idiot, Paul Bernal (see below), is a law lecturer! I feel sorry for his students at the University of East Anglia! According to his definition, even Stalin’s Soviet Union or Mao’s China had “free speech” (because you could *say* whatever you liked, but as a consequence might get shot…)
What an idiot! Absolutely prize…!
Time for the regular reminder that freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from the consequences of your speech.
This blog post is not primarily about the Jess Phillips idiot-woman, but it is frightening to see the tweets of her supporters, showing the intellectual dullness even of the supposedly educated these days: see the tweet by one @docsimsim of Richmond, below
Jess Phillips my shero. She should be in the shadow cabinet atleast and possibly the next labour leader should she want the job. #StopBrexithttps://t.co/v0goH4HsOw
Others, however, have seen through the Jess Phillips Empty Vessel performance
Ignorance. Just ignorance. Sad indictment of how poorly ideas/policies are communicated. The MSM only interested in sound bites & those who produce them. The mouthpieces, eg Jess Phillips, always available for comment & contribute nothing. #BBCQT adds nothing to the discussion.
Here’s an American, one “Chris”, who seems to find it unobjectionable that some “authority” persons should “decide” on whether a candidate can be “allowed” to stand:
and here is Jess Phillips trying to make more publicity for herself while trying to squash down what little freedom of expression still exists in the UK:
Happy to discuss indeed. Personally I think we need a code of conduct that cannot be breached by those who stand as public representatives. I'd say saying you would rape someone if forced I'd say was a clear breach. I'll contact you for a meeting. Thanks https://t.co/iMlQvYIOBn
For those who are unaware, since being elected in 2015, Jess Phillips has squeezed every penny she can out of the taxpayers: not satisfied with a salary of nearly £80,000 and very generous “expenses”, she even “employs” her husband on £50,000 a year as “Constituency Support Manager” (he stays at home and is, presumably, a “house husband”). Yet she, this ignorant, rude, uneducated, uncultured creature, has the cheek to talk about “people with literally no discernible skills” getting high pay! That may be so, but she should look in the mirror, if she can bear it!
YouTube have banned me for 'hate speech', I think due to clips on Nazi policy featuring propaganda speeches by Nazi leaders. I'm devastated to have this claim levelled against me, and frustrated 15yrs of materials for #HistoryTeacher community have ended so abruptly.@TeamYouTube
— Mr Allsop History (@MrAllsopHistory) June 5, 2019
Update, 18 June 2019
Just one more random example of the slide into censorship and quasi-official lies or falsity:
A Dr Who writer @OldRoberts953 is expunged from a book by the BBC because he won’t conform to the latest transgender ideology. His views on transgenderism are probably shared by 90%+ of Brits but he’s now a Non-Person for the BBC. The net tightens around free speech. Please share https://t.co/G9fM2BK1e4
The police, CPS etc, but especially police, seem incapable of distinguishing, or unwilling to distinguish, between “grossly offensive” (unlawful) and merely “offensive” (lawful) and tend to treat all “offensive” communications as “grossly offensive”, which runs counter to Court of Appeal and Supreme Court case authority.
This is what happens when plainly bad law, such as Communications Act 2003, s.127, is drafted and passed into statute.
[above, Rory Stewart, many years ago in Afghanistan, consciously reprising Lawrence of Arabia; he was sometimes called both “Florence of Arabia” (in Iraq) and “Florence of Belgravia” (because of his well-connected and wealthy background)]
Introduction
My attention was caught by the BBC Politics tweet below.
Rory Stewart MP [Con, Penrith and Borders], who until yesterday was Minister of State for Prisons, a political dead-end, now can be said, appropriately enough, to have jumped free with one bound, and is now Secretary of State for International Development, a position again not quite in the front rank but a Cabinet post all the same. From his new elevation, Stewart has wasted no time in declaring his candidature for Conservative Party leadership.
I have been interested in Stewart and his political career for several years. I was puzzled as to why someone who appeared to have so many advantages (wealth, family influence, expensive education, pre-political career moves, a degree of public prominence etc) seemed to have run into the sand as an MP. However, it may be that he was playing a long game which will yet bring him to the highest office.
I do blog about MPs individually, but mostly those I term “deadhead MPs”. Stewart is certainly not one of those. However, his CV is almost too obviously brilliant. He seems to have almost too many talents, qualifications and virtues to be true. I do, perhaps unfairly, harbour a suspicion that the sum of his many parts may not quite add up to the same amount.
“After graduating, Stewart joined the Foreign Office.[11] He served in the British Embassy in Indonesia from 1997 to 1999, working on issues related to East Timor independence, and was appointed at the age of 26 as the British Representative to Montenegro in the wake of the Kosovo campaign.” [Wikipedia]
Stewart is believed to have been, like his father, an officer of the Secret Intelligence Service [SIS], a fact alluded to by David Dimbleby on BBC Question Time. Stewart neither agreed nor demurred. Still, a touch of the James Bonds impresses the common herd, I suppose…
[above, Brian Stewart, the father of Rory Stewart, wearing the badge of a Companion of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (CMG), the 4th-highest order of chivalry in the UK (if excluding two now-dormant orders, the Order of St. Patrick and the Order of The Star of India)]
“After the coalition invasion of Iraq, he became the Coalition Provisional Authority Deputy Governorate Co-Ordinator in Maysan and Deputy Governorate Co-ordinator/Senior Advisor in Dhi Qar in 2003, both of which are provinces in southern Iraq.[9] He was posted initially to the KOSB Battlegroup then to the Light Infantry.[12] His responsibilities included holding elections, resolving tribal disputes, and implementing development projects.[12] He faced growing unrest and an incipient civil war from his base in a Civil-Military Co-operation(CIMIC) compound in Al Amarah, and in May 2004 was in command of his compound in Nasiriyah when it was besieged by Sadrist militia.[9] He was awarded an OBE for his services during this period. While Stewart initially supported the Iraq War, the International Coalition’s inability to achieve a more humane, prosperous state led him in retrospect to believe the invasion had been a mistake.” [Wikipedia]
Full marks for honesty, but not for perspicacity. Let’s look at the above again: Stewart joined the FCO (and/or SIS) in 1995-96 and by 1999, at age 26, he is British Representative in Montenegro, at that time emerging from nearly a decade of ex-Yugoslav conflict.
This is rather remarkable. Why was a 26-y-o appointed to this rather important strategic post? Even more remarkably, perhaps, Stewart was then posted to Iraq in the immediate post-invasion era, and was rather famously deputy-governor of an Iraqi province at the age of 28. As noted above, he even “saw action” to some extent when his compound was besieged by militia fighters.
“From 2000 to 2002 he travelled on foot through rural districts of Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan, India and Nepal, a journey totalling around 6000 miles, during which time he stayed in five hundred different village houses. He had previously walked across West Papua in 1998,[115] and has since made a number of long walks through Cumbria and Britain. He also travelled into Libya a day after the fall of Colonel Gaddafi.” [Wikipedia]
“In late 2005, at the request of the Prince of Wales and Hamid Karzai, President of Afghanistan,[15] he established, as Executive Chairman, the Turquoise Mountain Foundation, a human development NGO, in Afghanistan, and relocated to Kabul where he lived for the next three years restoring historic buildings in the old city of Kabul, managing its finances, installing water supply, electricity, and establishing a clinic, a school and an institute for traditional crafts.[4] Stewart was awarded the Royal Scottish Geographical Society‘s Livingstone medal in 2009 “in recognition of his work in Afghanistan and his travel writing, and for his distinguished contribution to geography”.[16] Stewart stepped down as Executive Chairman of the Turquoise Mountain Foundation in May 2010.” [Wikipedia]
By any standards, Stewart’s life up to age 33 at least (he is now 46) was packed with achievements and adventures. Not many UK MPs could lay claim to anything even a tenth as interesting and varied (note my blogs about “deadhead MPs”). Indeed, it seems that, in 2008, a Hollywood studio (Studio Canal/Brad Pitt) actually bought the film rights to do a biopic of Stewart, starring, it was envisaged, Orlando Bloom as Stewart! No film has been made (yet).
This is not the British politics we know! This is somewhere in the realm of John Buchan and Sidney Reilly, a post-imperial Great Game pastiche.
Stewart’s second book, The Prince of the Marshes: and other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq, also published as Occupational Hazards: My Time Governing in Iraq, describes his experiences as a Deputy Governorate Co-ordinator in Iraq.[4] The New York Timescritic William Grimes commented that Stewart “seems to be living one of the more extraordinary lives on record”, but for him the “real value of the new book is Mr. Stewart’s sobering picture of the difficulties involved in creating a coherent Iraqi state based on the rule of law”.[126] Stewart’s books have been translated into multiple languages.
Stewart’s reflections on the circumstances under which outside military and political intervention in countries’ internal affairs may or may not hope to achieve positive results were distilled in a 2011 book, Can Intervention Work?, co-authored with Gerald Knaus and part of the Amnesty International Global Ethics Series. He has also written about theory and practice of travel writings in prefaces to Wilfred Thesiger‘s Arabian Sands,[127]Charles Doughty‘s Arabia Deserta[128] and Robert Byron‘s The Road to Oxiana.[129]
In 2016, he published The Marches, a travelogue about a 1,000-mile walk in the borderlands separating England and Scotland, known as the Scottish Marches, and an extended essay on his Father, Brian Stewart.[130] The Marches was long listed for the Orwell Prize, won the Hunter Davies Lakeland Book of the Year,[131] was a Waterstones Book of the Month,[132] and became a Sunday Times top ten bestseller.” [Wikipedia]
I suppose that many would be well satisfied to have done even one or two or three of the things noted above. Stewart has dozens of accomplishments and successes to his name. A few more are:
“His 2008 cover article in Time magazine, where he debated presidential candidates Obama and McCain, arguing against a troop surge in Afghanistan, has been shortlisted for an American Journalism Association Award
Afghanistan: The Great Game – A Personal View by Rory Stewart, a documentary in two parts that tells the story of foreign intervention by Britain, Russia and the United States in Afghanistan from the 19th century to the present day,which aired on BBC2 and which won a Scottish BAFTA (2012).[139]
Border Country: The Story of Britain’s Lost Middleland, which investigates the rift created by Hadrian’s Wall, and the issues of identity and culture in a region divided by the fabricated border, which was singled out for praise by David Attenborough.”
“Stewart speaks some French, Persian (Dari), and Indonesian. He has also studied at school, in the Foreign Office, and on his Asian travels, Latin, Greek, Russian, Chinese, Serbo-Croat, Urdu, and Nepali languages. He acknowledges that the latter three languages are “very rusty“;
He has lectured at Harvard and even advised Hillary Clinton…;
He is a karate expert (level unknown) and belongs to the Special Forces Club in London, some of whose members were in WW2 secret work, some were in the military and naval special forces, some ex-intelligence personnel —and there are also some who are rumoured to be just gold-plated fakes and fantasists;
“His speech about hedgehogs in Parliament in 2015[39] was named by The Times and The Telegraph as the best parliamentary speech of 2015 and described by the Deputy Speaker as “one of the best speeches she had ever heard in Parliament” [Wikipedia]
Stewart is married to an American woman who had previously been married to a fellow NGO worker. One of the children of the Stewarts was delivered by Stewart himself without medical assistance.
Stewart once tweeted to me about something, several years ago, and was very polite, something that I value. I do not attribute that entirely to the influence of the Dragon School or, indeed, Eton. He seems to know how to behave (though not all agree, I have heard).
Thoughts
Stewart’s stellar career stalled after he became an MP in 2010. Having said that, he has chaired Commons committees, been promoted slowly but surely, and Wikipedia notes that he attended the Bilderberg cabal along with George Osborne. Not that being a Bilderberg attendee is a guarantee of lasting political success (cf. Nick Boles MP) but it does indicate that the primary powers behind the Western throne consider that a person is of interest.
This is Rory Stewart’s moment of opportunity. He has seized it. Once Theresa May leaves office, the Conservative Party will elect a new leader. Stewart is the international System candidate nonpareil. I should not be surprised were he to win a first ballot outright, bearing in mind the collection of fools, knaves, deadheads and frauds likely to oppose him in the contest:
Penny Mordaunt, best known for diving in a swimsuit (she looked good, so be it…) and for being a reserve naval sub-lieutenant;
Michael Gove, pro-Jew, pro-Israel fraud and expenses cheat (I tweeted that once and it was one of 5 tweets that had me disbarred at the instigation of the Jew lobby, so it pleases me to repeat it!);
Boris Johnson (aka Boris Idiot), who proved as Foreign Secretary that he cannot hold down high office;
Andrea Leadsom, a nonentity;
Jeremy Hunt, smarmy clever snake and tipped to take May’s purple;
Amber Rudd, yet another dimwit, though she thinks herself terribly clever. Pro-Israel, pro-EU, pro-immigration. Was involved personally with Kwasi Kwarteng, the “African at Eton” (well, one of them), who has now married, or is about to marry, a younger Amber Rudd lookalike. Amber Rudd’s own seat may well be lost next time;
Philip Hammond, careful calculating Remainer;
Dominic Raab, part-Jew, pro-Brexit, hardfaced and careerist.
There may be others. There would have been Gavin Williamson (who has the self-confidence of the stupid) and Stephen Crabb (sex pest, expenses cheat and so pro-Israel that he could be termed “an agent of influence”) but both of those have ruled themselves out by their egregiously poor behaviour. Deadheads.
It scarcely needs to be said that, as social nationalist and thinker into the future, I am not on the same page as Rory Stewart, so obviously NWO/ZOG in orientation is he, and whose MP voting record etc is far from entirely to my liking. He also wanted the UK to remain in the EU and now seems to want to “leave” but not really leave: Brexit in name only (BRINO). However, there is no doubt that he is the standout candidate now to replace Theresa May, which means that he could be Prime Minister by the Autumn.
Still don’t understand the hard-on people have for Rory Stewart. Guess Brits can’t get over their worship for the military or posh men addicted to lying about statistics.
Military? Does 5 months as an instant 2nd lieutenant count? Or is that a reference to Stewart’s “secret war” posts?
A few more thoughts, 4 April 2019:
It seems that Stewart favours immigration:
“One farmer told Stewart, “All illegal immigrants should be rounded up and on the first ship out.” Some voters might expect their Conservative candidate at least to nod, but Stewart said, “Hmm,” and changed the subject. After leaving that house, he said quietly, “Actually, I’m rather in favor of immigration.” [The New Yorker]
So he favours (mass?) immigration. That would chime with those Bilderberg/Davos linkages. Also, it is all very well for a spoiled son of the “British Establishment” (father was a high-ranking SIS officer; Stewart lives in a country house surrounded by a small estate of a hundred acres or so) and who has always had access to effectively any money or anything he wanted without struggle or effort, to be OK about the mass of British people being replaced by blacks, browns, Chinese etc; and having to live with those basically backward peoples, share limited housing, road/rail space etc. Not to mention the effect on rates of pay, and the huge strain on public services, education, NHS, “welfare” etc.
Stewart is quite consciously remote from the concerns of the British people. He has put in huge effort on his adventures and career, but has never had to. Big difference.
I seriously wonder now, looking at or studying Stewart, whether he is right for the office of Prime Minister. Yes, it is very impressive to have run an Iraqi province (effectively or not, though?…) or part of Kabul (ditto) when only 28 or 30-ish, it is impressive to have walked across Afghanistan etc. It is impressive to have all those literary and other medals. However, how far does that get you in terms of being a British Prime Minister?
As a matter of fact, is it really that impressive to have been deputy governor of an Iraqi province when you were (some say) no bloody good, accomplished almost nothing and got a transfer a few months later to a more congenial post elsewhere in Iraq? I do not know the truth of it all, and I may be unfair or simply mistaken here, but I wonder whether Stewart’s other great accomplishments have a rather thin layer of reality under the surface glitter?
Impressive though those career highlights are, I am unsure as to whether Stewart really does have what it takes to be Prime Minister of this country in 2019 or 2020, as distinguished from being in that high office in a John Buchan political landscape circa 1912, and as a kind of Richard Hannay, a Hannay who is playing the role of an earlier and English/Scottish type of “Jack Ryan”, the American adventurer-patriot who eventually becomes President in the bestselling books of Tom Clancy.
I have spent some time (by my standards anyway) in preparing and writing and rethinking this picture of Rory Stewart. He disturbs me more than he reassures me: he seems rather fixated on himself, his own psychology, his motivations, his own (enormous and not denied by the man himself) ambition.
It worries me that, in the interviews and profiles I have read, Stewart says much about himself, his achievements, his accomplishments (or allows them to be known…), but little about the needs of the world, of Europe, of the European peoples, of the British people. I see little or nothing in terms of policy, or wider ideas, just a self-view that he is the right sort of chap to run the UK. That sounds like a more impressive sort of David Cameron-Levita-Schlumberger to me, and that worries the hell out of me.
Parris is not only remote from the concerns of the British people (though in his case the remoteness comes not from ancestral hauteur but is the self-consciously created la-di-da-ness of the fastidious metropolitan gay), but is also a pro-immigration Remainer who thinks that ruling the UK should be left to people like him and his affluent, cosmopolitan, pro-multikulti friends. Trouble is, it has been, and look at the result! (Parris himself, elected in 1979, was reprimanded by Mrs Thatcher for having replied to a constituent that she should count herself lucky to have a council house, whatever its flaws…), though he stayed on as an MP until 1986.
I started off thinking that Rory Stewart was, judging objectively, far and away the best candidate to replace Theresa May. I still think that he is by far the most accomplished candidate, but I the more I read about him, the more doubts and suspicions I have. I am also disturbed that some of the Jewish lobby on Twitter seem to favour him.
In the end, no System party or candidate has the right to rule the UK. Social nationalism must triumph.
A few recent tweets seen about Rory Stewart
I’ve a horrid feeling it means they are going to do a deal soon. She will announce she is going, the contest will start with Rory Stewart being lined up as her successor. Democracy is dead in this country, I just worry they will do us out of voting for MEPs too.
Rory Stewart abnormal. Who ignores pleas fr help when a quadriplegic prisoner lying on back 24/7 with bedsore so badly neglected & tissue deteriorated that pelvic bone is exposed ? Stewart as Prisons Minister downright cruel.
I thought I’d heard it all from Diane Abacus until this bloke Rory Stewart springs up. Where do political parties find these lying conniving self indulgent corrupt fuckwits? https://t.co/6cbEnUKXnY
Here is a surprise. The MI6 house journal, the Guardian, shills for ex MI6 officer Rory Stewart (whose dad was also deputy head of MI6). The Guardian views his role in the destruction of Iraq and Afghanistan as making him "highly qualified" in International Development. https://t.co/2NrZXzC9tE
The first day of his promotion to Cabinet is an opportune time to recall a classic from Rory Stewart's back catalogue. As Floods Minister he said the flood defences had worked well but the water had come over the top of them. #r4today#BBCNews#Reshufflepic.twitter.com/1N2iHIkvpP
Oh, dear…(see below): I am thinking now that Stewart is rapidly using up his credit with at least some of the public, though in the end the ones who will vote for a new Conservative Party leader will be, initially, the Con MPs in the Commons, not Joe Public. It may be that Stewart will be seen as the ideal “Stop Boris” candidate, someone to rally to. I do not know what level of MP support he now has. I presume some, or why would he risk being humiliated? On the other hand, he does strike me as a very ambitious gambler and chancer.
Am I alone in thinking Rory Stewart comes across as a complete prat. I’ve never seen less leadership qualities from an officer in the armed forces.
The tweeter above is yet another who seems to think that Stewart’s 5 months as a gap-year “officer” on probation is something real, rather than a kind of adventure holiday for the gentry. Unless the tweeter, like others, takes the term SIS “officer” at face value, rather than as a conventional designation (cf. police “officer”, council “officer” etc).
Update, 25 May 2019
Well, here we are after Theresa May’s announcement of departure, and Rory Stewart is on all msm outlets. He has put the knife into Boris-Idiot and may have damaged the latter’s campaign. Opinion on Stewart himself is divided, half seeing his accomplishments and character, half seeing his gaffes. The tweet below is more favourable than not to him
On the other hand, I saw Stewart on TV, saying that “we” must build 2 MILLION (!) houses. My reaction? “Only because the UK has imported millions of unwanted immigrants, who are breeding fast; and Britain CONTINUES to import huge numbers, even in 2019!”
I see no willingness in Bilderberg/Davos Stewart to take on mass immigration. In fact, he seems to support it. The negative effects will scarcely impact him or his family, after all, in his listed Borders country house…
Ah…another tweeter who raises points against Stewart:
and, below, the sort of statement that comes easier to those who have never been poor, hungry, desperate etc…Almost clownish coming from someone who has been an MP and whose votes, with those of other Conservatives and LibDems, enabled the attacks on the unemployed and disabled since 2010…
The country can be a much better and much happier place if we learn again to focus on the small things that make a real difference to people. pic.twitter.com/KfYxEi6E6e
Stewart seems to be an engaging fellow, at least on the surface, but the more I see of him, and the more that I read about his voting record and views, the less I like him ideologically or politically.
Update, 1 June 2019
Ah, I see that I am not alone in thinking that Stewart’s accomplishments and achievements are perhaps not quite all that they seem on paper:
“Though few would speak on the record, there is a broad critique of Stewart that his biography is a little overegged and certainly self-regarding – leading to a nickname, a member of his wider social circle confides, of “Florence of Belgravia”.” [The Guardian]
“Though Stewart has claimed to know “what it feels like to be in the army”, for instance, he spent only a gap year stint in the Black Watch and did not see active service. He can often give the impression his role in Iraq was rather more important than the reality, according to someone who witnessed his work there (“He was regarded as a pretty competent mid-ranking Foreign Office official … He wasn’t a nonentity and I think the view in Iraq was that he was conscientious, but he wasn’t Lawrence of Arabia.”).” [The Guardian]
“Several well-placed observers of Stewart’s time in Afghanistan point out that his much-discussed Afghan walk, the origin of his reputation as an expert on the region, was a month spent crossing a comparatively safe part of the country (“Other people would call it a walking holiday,” notes one).” [The Guardian]
“In general, he has done a lot and it’s all very impressive,” says someone who observed Stewart at close quarters in Kabul. “But it’s not quite as impressive and remarkable as he allows people to think. This is not necessarily all his doing, but the willingness of others to project things on to him … All sorts of journalists wrote up the Turquoise Mountain Foundation [Stewart’s Afghan NGO, which aimed to preserve local crafts] as the most amazing project in Afghanistan, when it was actually a rather low impact thing that affected the lives of a small number of people.” [The Guardian]
“…to his credit he does not dissemble when asked directly about his experience (“It was unbelievably brief,” he told the New Yorker of his time in the Black Watch.)” [The New Yorker; The Guardian]. So not even 5 months? Sounds as though it was somewhere between the 5 months previously claimed and, er, what? A week? A month? A few months?
“Claims this week to have “negotiated in Iraq, negotiated in Afghanistan” provoked “snorts of derision”, the former Afghanistan correspondent Jon Boone tweeted. “Who with, the Kabul guild of potters and calligraphers?” [The Guardian]
Maybe Stewart should not have exposed his gilding to the very harsh light of scrutiny.
A few more thoughts
Since I penned the main blog post, much has happened. Stewart has come under more scrutiny, but also has travelled the country (the UK, not Afghanistan) doing Twitter vox pop chats with random passers-by. At least he is not afraid to do that. He is becoming better-known to the public and apparently now has a few Conservative MPs supporting him; but not many. As to the bookmakers, some have him as 66/1 for “next Conservative leader”, though Betfair betting exchange has him at 12/1, which strikes me as more realistic (making that 66/1 a value bet if you can get it)
“Speaking in her personal capacity – and not in her current role as chief executive of the Jo Cox Foundation – Catherine Anderson told The Courier she was drawn to Rory’s internationalism.” [The Courier]
A few more endorsements like that and it’s Goodnight Vienna to Stewart!
Ah…seems that Catherine Anderson is “an aspiring Conservative MP” who used to be “Chief of Staff” and Campaign Manager for (drum roll…) Rory Stewart! In fact she worked for Rory Stewart for nearly 9 years!
Well, the first ballot has been held and Rory Stewart is still standing. Just. 4th from bottom. All below him (McVey, Leadsom, Harper) eliminated (though only from the contest, sadly…). So far, only 19 MPs voted for Stewart. His immediate prospects look bleak, inasmuch as Boris-Idiot, someone with no real vision, ability, ideas, ideals, nor even basic decency, is the frontrunner still. Boris has 114 craven MPs backing him, so far.
Our analysis of the results of the first ballot of the Conservative leadership contest… three candidates have been eliminated – Leadsom, Harper and McVey. pic.twitter.com/GUlcsa900q
What does it say about the Conservative Party and, to a lesser extent, the UK (England, mainly) that a blot like Boris Johnson may soon be Prime Minister? I am not talking about his character alone, but also his actual ability to be effective. Still, there it is…
Update, 17 June 2019
Well, as I guessed a couple of days ago, Rory Stewart has gained ground, at least in the betting, though the betting exchanges’ and bookmakers’ odds are often not a reliable guide to political results (see the EU Referendum, the Trump election, the recent Peterborough by-election etc).
Stewart is now at 2nd place in the betting to be next Conservative leader, though only at 16/1. Boris Johnson is favourite at around 1/5 odds-on (Hunt 20/1, Gove 46/1, Raab 85/1, Javid 120/1).
By all accounts, Stewart did well in the TV debate (Johnson the sole absentee, obviously afraid of being exposed as an idiot and incompetent, as well as wanting to seem to be the “presidential” figure above the fray).
Having said that, Stewart will have to pull off a considerable coup even to be one of the final two, though that now seems a 50-50 possibility.
Update, 19 June 2019
Well, Rory Stewart is out of the race, which means that, until or unless Boris Johnson leaves frontline politics, his career is stalled again. He pledged not to serve in a Johnson Cabinet, and, as I blogged previously, it is doubtful that Johnson will appoint him to anything significant anyway.
That leaves Johnson, Hunt, Gove, Javid.
Looks as though arguably the worst candidate is about to win…
Talked to a Tory MP last night who was backing Johnson "Do you think he'd be any good as PM" "No" "What on earth will he do about Brexit"? "No one knows" "Why do you want him, then?" "He's the best hope we've got" "By 'we" you don't mean Britain do you?" "No the party, of course"
Having said that, Stewart has staked his claim to be taken more seriously somewhere down the line. System politicians, like revolutionary ones, are all seeking to catch the right wave, like surfers.
Update, 20 June 2019
Just saw this tweet, posted 2 days ago. Worth reading; one has to take its veracity on trust, not ever having heard of the tweeter, and the emailer mentioned remaining unnamed.
So Rory Stewart is standing down as MP for Penrith and Borders at next election. He has also resigned from the Conservative Party. Reasons not given. Maybe, in the end, he just was not hungry enough, which would explain why he did not want further ministerial preferment, or to seek the role of PM, but does not explain why he has also decided not to continue as MP; neither does it explain why he has also resigned from the Conservative Party. Perhaps the situation will be clarified in due course.
Update, 5 October 2019
Ah…mystery solved. Stewart is intending to stand for the post of Mayor of London.
He has obviously seen how Boris-Idiot used the position to keep his profile high until he was ready to re-enter the Westminster fray.
The other main candidates are already known: Sadiq Khan, the present Mayor, for Labour, and Shaun Bailey, the West Indian who will be the Conservative candidate. Sadiq Khan has the support of the msm, the Jewish lobby etc, as a Labour mayor who is rather anti-Corbyn. Shaun Bailey may be seen by the blacks as rather an “Uncle Tom”, and there are still questions around missing or misapplied funds of a “social enterprise” he set up in 2006: the monies missing were never accounted for; other monies, amounting to the bulk of spending by the organization, went on “travel and subsistence”, probably for Bailey himself. No criminal charges or civil claims were ever brought, though.
Despite Khan’s poor record as Mayor, he is probably well-placed vis-a-vis Bailey. Now that Rory Stewart has entered the fray, Bailey is holed below the waterline and his candidature will inevitably sink. Whether Rory Stewart can beat Khan and the other candidates (the LibDem being the main also-ran) is an open question.
London is a mainly non-white city now, and an English candidate (well, Anglo-Scottish) like Stewart may find this an uphill slog. On the other hand, Khan is not a popular figure, Stewart is a fresh and now politically non-aligned contender who, however, has high public recognition and profile. I do not think that he can be written off here, and if that is so, his wider ambition, to be Prime Minister, may survive the presently wintry conditions.
Update and addendum, 10 October 2019
Thank to an alert and well-informed blog reader, I can now add a significant addendum to my study of Rory Stewart:
So it turns out that, notwithstanding the listed country house in the Scottish Borders, notwithstanding the almost caricature “country gentry” persona, Stewart is part-Jew! It now is clear that he is what the Reich called a “Mischling”, in his case one-quarter, his maternal grandfather having been “a Jewish doctor from Wimbledon”, whose own parents were Jews from Romania who arrived in London after having lived in New York City for a while.
Well, now it becomes clearer: the self-publicizing (shades of Boris Johnson…), the liking for “fancy dress”, eg tribal costume and being photographed posing in it, the pro-immigration stance, the Davos and Bilderberg linkages.
More than that: Stewart’s wife, Shoshana Stewart, is half-Jewish. In fact, the “half” in question is the maternal half, which means that, according to the way that Jews themselves calculate ancestry, his wife is “Jewish”, simpliciter; that also means that, according to Jewish custom, Stewart’s children are Jewish (though of course we non-Jews decide such designations according to genetic science, meaning that his children are in fact three-eighths Jewish, if my mathematical calculation is right, which often is not the case; anyway, no matter if the right answer is three-eighths or something else, the exact proportion changes nothing). According to the Jewish Chronicle report, above, Stewart and his wife and children celebrate Jewish religious holidays as well as the main Christian ones.
I smelt a rat about Stewart when I saw that the vocal Jew cabal on Twitter all seemed to favour him during the Conservative leadership contest, but it did not occur to me that he himself was part-Jew. I thought that his odd and dark looks came from Western Scottish origins (as they presumably do, in part). I thought that the Jews were supporting Stewart because of his “liberal” Conservatism…
How do these facts, concealed or at least not publicized until now, affect Stewart’s London Mayor election bid? Damaging, I think. While the Jews of North London will probably support him now, the far greater number of Muslims and others who commonly disfavour Jews will probably not vote for him (despite the fact that the present Mayor of London and Labour Party candidate, Sadiq Khan, a Muslim by origin, has been a complete doormat for the Jewish lobby for years).
Fair comment, surely, if one looks at Rory Stewart’s voting record as an MP (2010-2019).
Without taking away from his interesting and accomplished background, as detailed in my lengthy blog hereinabove, my feeling at the moment is that Rory Stewart is basically an oleaginous, dissembling, part-Jew shit.
Update, 6 April 2020
Stewart is no longer standing as candidate for Mayor of London:
There must be a reason; I do not know that reason.
feels entirely absurd that one year ago this month Rory Stewart became the new DfID secretary in Theresa May's cabinet, and since then he's resigned from that post, run for the Tory leadership, left the Tories, and run for London mayor as an independent
So once again Rory Stewart is the nearly man: nearly something important in SIS or FCO, nearly Conservative Party leader, nearly Mayor of London. Sometimes a candidate has to stick in there and await Fate. Had Stewart not huffed off and resigned as MP after losing out to, ultimately, Boris Johnson, his time might have come, after Johnson messes up even more, which is inevitable.
I always recall being in the USA during the 1992 US Presidential Election campaign. At one point, Clinton was placed third of the three major candidates in the opinion polls. A poor third, at that. He stuck it out (admittedly, what else could he do?) and, after Ross Perot dropped out, beat George Bush snr. for the Presidency, being inaugurated in 1993.
[addendum, 31 October 2021: my point about Clinton sticking to it applies more forcefully to Ross Perot, which I should have explained better. Had Perot shown more resilience, and stuck to it, he might easily have become President and thus, as a non-Republican/Democrat candidate, made history. As it was, he dropped out, later claiming that sinister forces had threatened him and his family. Who were they? NWO/ZOG?].
Years earlier, Clinton, who at 31 had been a very young Governor of Arkansas, was defeated there after one 4-year term. Undeterred, he tried the next time and was re-elected. A stayer.
I should think that this spells the end of Rory Stewart as a potential political leader. What does it mean for the London race? I have not followed it closely, but it must give the Conservatives a better chance, despite their candidate being a West Indian with a very dodgy background in terms of near-fraud (though he has never been charged with anything).
Sadiq Khan was running at 8/1 on (1/8) with the bookmakers. Rory Stewart was at 11/8. Shaun Bailey, for Conservative Party, at 20/1. Now that Stewart is gone, I imagine that Sadiq Khan will go out to about 1/6, and Shaun Bailey go in to about 10/1 or so. Despite his poor record, Sadiq Khan is unlikely to lose to Shaun Bailey.
In a John Buchan story, the Stewart or “Hannay” character would no doubt “retire” from public life only because he would be secretly saving the Empire from imperial Russia, or imperial Germany, or would be thwarting a dastardly plot involving transnational conspirators. In fiction, he would save the Empire, then either be knighted or (and/or) be appointed Chief of the Imperial Secret Service. In real life? I have no idea. Stewart is now, or was until recently, teaching at Yale: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rory_Stewart#Post-political_career.
Update, 22 January 2022
Boris Johnson is a symptom of a much broader problem in British politics – which can only be fixed with new policies, and – almost certainly – new parties and a new electoral system https://t.co/4XUQ8YGAZ8
Had Stewart retained his MP-status, he might now be in again with a real chance of leading his former party. Having decided not to continue as MP, he is necessarily out in the cold.
Update, 9 July 2022
Just read an appreciation of Stewart from the Tatler (2016, expanded and updated 2019). Don’t think I saw it before today. Written by Quentin Letts [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quentin_Letts].
Frankly, nowhere as complete, or as good, as my own assessment, if I say so myself. As for it containing “everything you need to know about Rory Stewart“, I think not! For one thing, no mention of the part-Jewish background, and no mention of the fact that his wife is half-Jewish.
Update, 2 April 2023
Well, in the end, the London Mayoral Election was held in 2021. There were 20 candidates, both Independents and those from political parties. In the run-off, Sadiq Khan (40%), beat Shaun Bailey (35.3%) in what turned out to be a close-run thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_London_mayoral_election.
As for Rory Stewart, now 50, he has pottered around doing podcasts in the past couple of years. He also moved to Jordan in 2021 with his wife and children, apparently to do work connected with his Turquoise Mountain charity.
That article mentions that Stewart is (or was, in September 2021, when the article was written) thinking of possibly standing again as a London mayoral candidate in 2024. I doubt that he will. The 2024 election will be run on FPTP lines, giving an outsider (in his case, as a non-party candidate) fewer chances.
Overall, it seems to me that Rory Stewart’s political career is finished, in all likelihood.
“Anyone with the slightest interest in politics should get a copy of Rory Stewart’s political memoir.
Not because he had a particularly long or even influential career: just nine years in Parliament and only months in the Cabinet. But you will learn more about the nature of Westminster machinations and how government actually works (or doesn’t) from this volume than from those of many more illustrious politicians. In terms of the quality of writing, there has been nothing to approach it since the diaries of Alan Clark (who never made it to the Cabinet at all).
But whereas Clark was a genuinely bad person — part of the attraction, perhaps — Stewart is a fundamentally good man, even if his self-belief, touching on the messianic, occasionally made him appear preposterous.”
[Dominic Lawson in the Daily Mail].
Interesting that Stewart was apparently in SIS/MI6 for several years, and that Dominic Lawson was said to have been a long-term SIS/MI6 source: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dominic_Lawson. Lawson is 17 years older than Stewart, in fact born the same year as me— 1956.
However, the allegations about Lawson do refer mainly to the 1990s and focus partly on the Balkans, particularly (ex-) Yugoslavia. Stewart joined FCO/SIS in the mid-1990s, and was posted to Montenegro in, I think, 1999. Tenuous link, perhaps nothing…
“This silly little man has delusions of grandeur“, “I cant wait to see the back of Khan, but Rory Stewart god help us“, “Gottle of Gear“, “Nay ,nay ,thrice times nay.“, “The guy’s a joke, and not a funny one“, “Please no, he’s a right weirdo” and “Oh no! Not this opportunist” are among some of the more polite.
Rory Stewart has now written his latest book. His profile is high enough even in 2023 to ensure msm interest and comment (not all favourable, though):
Behind a paywall, but I include it for the sake of completeness.
[Rory Stewart, 2023]
I expect that I shall buy the book secondhand off Amazon, once it reduces to about £5 or £2. The price for the new and unreleased (until 14 September) book has already declined from the original £22 to £16 or so.
I am not now in the new-book-buying classes (and prefer hardbacks) so the Amazon website is a great boon for me.
Not long ago, I bought the memoirs of Gorbachev, a heavy tome; great value at about £5 including postage from a used-book company on Amazon.
I have now bought another book: £2.80 only, and also including the postage. Hard to believe. One wonders how they make a profit, but then (to coin a phrase) I never was much of a businessman!
I met the author a few times in the 1980s. Frankly, a rather pompous man whom I (even more frankly) found rather unpleasant in a minor way, but his book might be interesting. As for the author, he is now deceased.
(about how Stewart is now angling for both a peerage and a ministerial portfolio from Starmer…).
Stewart’s ambition and careerism are both relentless, if inconsistent.
Actually, in terms of individual jobs or posts, I should say that Stewart (despite his many accomplishments) is a “quitter”, but behind that is his already-noted enormous ambition, “looming like a thundercloud over the scene“…
An old friend of mine used to quote her deceased husband (ex-Guards officer, ex-Royal Flying Corps, WW1, d. circa 1970): “if you throw a Jew out of the door, the Jew will sneak back through a window“… Of course, Stewart is only part-Jew.
If Starmer can indeed give Rory Stewart a job and put him out of his often expressed misery of not being a politician with a brief anymore then that really would be great for everyone including those who are tired of hearing him pine pic.twitter.com/83Q6CfN6Lz
Stewart will fight Vance over 'ordo amoris' but stands idly by while mothers kill their own children in their wombs and HMG arrests those who pray silently against it!
Emasculated phoney who actually cares nothing for the most vulnerable and marginalized.
USAID: British politician complaining that his wife was supposed to get $1M in USAID grants before Trump cancelled the contract. Rory Stewart's wife runs Turquoise Mountain Foundation, which exposes modern art to puzzled Afghan women.
USAID: The NGO which Rory Stewart’s wife works for just has its USAID funding cancelled, The Turquiose Mountain Foundation, teaches ‘liberated’ Afghan women about modern art like Duchamp’s urinal. pic.twitter.com/0IJdoF2Rwn
Oh this has absolutely made my day. Rory Wrong About Everything Stewart whingeing about his wife having her $1 million contract from USAID cancelled with immediate effect by DOGE. Priceless, absolutely priceless🤣🤣
I was just reading the blog of some Mancunian of whom I was unaware until today. I found his blog interesting despite his (to my mind, rather silly) pro-EU and (evident from his Twitter output) pro-immigration views.
His blog tells of how he and his family were immune from the mass hysteria all around after the death of Princess Diana. I found that interesting, partly because it echoes what I heard from people who were in London when it happened, in 1997 (the actual death was on 31 August 1997). I heard tales of pubs full of blubbing drinkers (days after the actual death), people who did not smile or even look normal in the streets, crowds treating Harrods department store (owned by Mohammed Fayed, the father of the last of Diana’s known lovers, Dodi Fayed) as if it were a shrine, taking flowers there etc.
In fact, I had seen the evidence of that last, because I had been to Harrods to buy a raincoat. I myself was not in England at the time of what I call the Diana Death Hysteria. I was then living in Almaty, Kazakhstan. Only about 70 English/British people lived in Almaty in 1997 (I know that because I had quite close contact with the small British Embassy and in fact visited the Embassy fairly frequently).
I did not have satellite TV and was unaware of the fact that Diana had died until 2 days later, when a colleague told me about it on Monday morning (the death having occurred on the weekend). I was later told that I was pretty much the only British person who had not gone to the Embassy to sign a book of condolence opened by the staff there.
On my return to London a few weeks later, I needed to buy a raincoat (it scarcely ever rains heavily in Almaty), so headed to Harrods in a taxi. When we approached the store, I noticed what seemed to be piles of trash outside Harrods, piled against crowd barriers. I asked the driver what that rubbish was doing there (to me it was reminiscent of the scenes seen during the 1979 “Winter of Discontent”, when rubbish went uncollected) but the driver replied, “that isn’t rubbish, Sir, it’s flower tributes for Princess Diana”. Well…
The phenomenon of mass hysteria or collective grief and/or jubilation has tended to pass me by. I also missed the mass celebrations for the Queen’s Silver Jubilee in 1977 because, again, I was at the time overseas and incommunicado (in Rhodesia). Those who experienced either or both have found it hard to explain what exactly happened to (other) people (I can only assume that my own connections and associates are a hard-bitten lot!).
I am no psychologist (or psychiatrist) but have some tentative theories, revolving around emotional triggers in the population. I have wondered whether such mass emotionalism could be harnessed for the public good in future. In the past, a usually more restrained type of emotionalism bound the British people together. In the 20th Century, that involved devices such as the Union flag, shared “experiences” (even if in reality never actually experienced by many of those emotionally affected), such as the two World Wars, the Poppy Day commemorations, noted historical events and people (such as Nelson, Trafalgar, Wellington and Waterloo, Richard the Lionheart, Florence Nightingale, Robin Hood), music such as “For those in peril on the sea“, the National Anthem, “There’ll Always Be An England” etc. A patriotic and historical pastiche, certainly, neither comprehensive nor even particularly accurate in parts, but true enough and simple enough to bind a people together.
Today, the UK population is so fragmented in terms of race, ethnicity, language, age, (what passes for) “ideology”, culture, even sexual orientation or display, that it is hard to imagine them coming together in collective grief (false or otherwise) or jubilation today. I suppose that some would point to football or cricket games, the Olympics etc, but these are minority interests, despite the large number interested.
If one talks to people, or watches the often incredibly ignorant TV quiz contestants, it is realized that many (and by no means always the “blacks and browns”) know next to nothing of British history, literature, music, or even basic geography. Their world is not even a post-1945 one, but a post-2000 one of X-Factor persons, “soaps”, “celebrities” of whom I at least have never heard, music which is either banal or simply noise.
It may be that the Diana mood of 1997 was an elegiac lament for a Britain —or more accurately an England— which was on the point of disappearing (and now has disappeared).
I interrupted writing a longer article to write this brief piece. I am in fact unsure whether it is worth the effort, but I should regret not saying something about this typical piece of propaganda presented as documentary film.
I made the mistake of watching what passed for a documentary, presented by Alice Levine, a Jewish woman who has apparently (I had not previously heard of her) presented a number of TV and radio shows. Wikipedia says this about her:
I wasted an hour watching this. In the film, London-based Jewish media person Alice Levine spent a week, or at least a few days, living at the house of Jack Sen, a British nationalist activist. The house is in Southport, Lancashire.
I do not know Jack Sen, though I have heard of him. I believe that we exchanged a couple of tweets several years ago, when I still had a Twitter account. He stood as UKIP candidate in West Lancashire in 2015 and, despite being disowned by UKIP after he tweeted something of a critical nature to then Labour Party MP for Liverpool Wavertree, the Zionist Jewess Luciana Berger, achieved an honourable 6,058 votes (12.2%), and thus retained his deposit.
I have to say that I myself would never invite a Jewish (or even non-Jewish) media person into my home, let alone agree to that person staying for days. I can only assume that either Jack Sen is one of those who thinks that “no publicity is bad publicity”, or he received a fee for his participation. I cannot imagine any other motivation.
The film introduced Jack Sen’s mother (also resident there) and his charming Ukrainian wife and little daughter.
The Alice Levine person, when in bed in the room she was allocated, seemed to wear several layers of clothing. Whether that was because the house was cold, or because she did not want Sen to take “sleeping with the far right” too literally, must remain a puzzle!
There was, of course, no attempt to let Jack Sen properly explain his socio-political outlook. One of the problems with this kind of show, for the subject (“victim”), is that not only does the interviewee not know what will be raised by the interviewer, but also what will be left out of the finished product.
I found Jack Sen to be somewhat eccentric, though that was obviously deliberately amplified by the programme-makers. This was, after all, a week compressed into an hour. He seems to be a basically decent person, to my mind, at least on the personal level. I am unwilling to speculate that he is not. “The soul of another is a dark wood” (Russian proverb), in the end. I am aware that many distrust him and his motives, but I cannot comment either way.
At one point, Alice Levine “discovers” from Sen’s mother (I would bet that her researchers discovered the fact well before she ever arrived at Sen’s house) that his original name was Dilip Sengupta, Sen’s father having been either Indian or half-Indian, a fact mentioned by Sen himself to Ms. Levine. The mention of the name(s) to Sen made him angry. He did not present himself well at that point. He allowed the Jewess to provoke him. Later, she tried to give the impression that she was afraid of Sen, which I very much doubt was the case.
It was obvious that Alice Levine had no idea of life outside her comfortable careerist bubble. She went from a comfortable childhood in Nottinghamshire to the University of Leeds and straight into TV and radio. Jack Sen’s background (not much explored in the film) has obviously been more difficult.
Sen did not (out of politeness, or hospitality?) put Alice Levine on the spot about her Jewish origins, beliefs, attitudes etc. Having said that, I was surprised that she was offered pork by Jack Sen (even I found that rather insensitive!) and even more surprised that she apparently ate it.
At any rate, Alice Levine obviously lives in a bubble where everyone thinks and feels much as she does. In a word, biased. She evidently found it challenging even to think that many do not share her multikulti views. She was unwilling to be challenged on Skype or similar by Nick Griffin.
I had to laugh at it all. If Alice Levine thinks Jack Sen “extreme”, what would she make of me, I wonder?
This attempt to copy Louis Theroux was a waste of time, unenlightening. It is the sort of “documentary” that taxpayer-subsidized Channel 4 does. Dull, really.
I was reminded yet again (not that I require the reminder) of the migration-invasion of the UK, having seen a Daily Telegraph article written some 6 years ago (2012), just recently tweeted or retweeted by (ironically) a Jew-Zionist extremist. To read the full article, see Notes, below.
What the article says
In that Daily Telegraph article, the authoress writes that
“I feel like a stranger where I live.”
I am living in a place where I am a stranger.”
“Muslims…it feels as if they have taken over.”
“There are, of course, other Europeans in my area who may share my feelings but I’m not able to talk to them easily about this situation as they are mostly immigrants, too.”
“I suspect that many white people in London and the Home Counties now move house on the basis of ethnicity, especially if they have children. Estate agents don’t advertise this self-segregation, of course. Instead there are polite codes for that kind of thing, such as the mention of “a good school”, which I believe is code for “mainly white English”. Not surprising when you learn that nearly one million pupils do not have English as a first language.”
“I, too, have decided to leave my area, following in the footsteps of so many of my neighbours. I don’t really want to go. I worked long and hard to get to London, to find a good job and buy a home and I’d like to stay here. But I’m a stranger on these streets and all the “good” areas, with safe streets, nice housing and pleasant cafés, are beyond my reach. I see London turning into a place almost exclusively for poor immigrants and the very rich.”
“…now, despite the wishful thinking of multiculturalists, wilful segregation by immigrants is increasingly echoed by the white population – the rate of white flight from our cities is soaring. According to the Office for National Statistics, 600,000 white Britons have left London in the past 10 years. The latest census data shows the breakdown in telling detail: some London boroughs have lost a quarter of their population of white, British people. The number in Redbridge, north London, for example, has fallen by 40,844 (to 96,253) in this period, while the total population has risen by more than 40,335 to 278,970. It isn’t only London boroughs. The market town of Wokingham in Berkshire has lost nearly 5 per cent of its white British population.”
“It’s sad that I am moving not for a positive reason, but to escape something. I wonder whether I’ll tell the truth, if I’m asked. I can’t pretend that I’m worried about local schools, so perhaps I’ll say it’s for the chance of a conversation over the garden fence. But really I no longer need an excuse: mass immigration is making reluctant racists of us all.”
So finally the authoress, obviously by nature something akin to what the Americans might term, mutatis mutandis, a “Country Club Republican” (meaning “liberal conservative”) has to concede that “I no longer need an excuse: mass immigration is making reluctant racists of us all.”
The only thing to be added to her article itself is that it is 6 years since she wrote it. The statistic given of 600,000 white British or mostly British who left (fled?) London in the decade before the article was written could probably be updated to 1M or more now.
Personal Experiences and Thoughts
The Daily Telegraph article focusses on the Muslim influx into London. Firstly, that influx has been far greater in percentage terms in some of the post-industrial Northern towns and cities; secondly, the writer says that “Of the 8.17 million people in London, one million are Muslim, with the majority of them young families. That is not, in reality, a great number.”
In what world is a million (now? God knows…) not a great number? In what world is nearly 13% (now, what?) of the population (and growing fast as those “young families” breed) not huge? The lady writer so obviously wants to be “nice”, and not to “offend” etc, but I fear that desperate times betoken desperate measures. Nice polite sentiments are, well, nice and polite, but we have to face facts with both clear thought and clear expression of thought if Western civilization is to survive.
The Daily Telegraph guest writer prefers to focus on the Muslims as a population bloc (and, though unsaid, population bomb), but effectively ignores the multitude of other races, ethnicities and nationalities that now comprise part of the London population. Africans, West Indians, Chinese etc, a giant multikulti Pandora’s Box. We hear much now about the explosion in youth “gangs” and “knife crime” etc (almost all of which is carried out by blacks and other non-whites), and the System msm and political milieu becomes ever more hysterical with calls to restrict and get rid of…knives! In the old phrase, “’nuff said”!
I once lived in London, starting in Little Venice in 1976 (at age 19; I returned intermittently and that was the main area in which I lived over the years), eventually living in a number of different areas, some good, some not so good: Blackheath, Lee, Lewisham, East Dulwich, Tulse Hill, New Cross, Holland Park. The house in which I first lived, in Little Venice, was valued at £100,000 when sold to the lessee c.1980. It was sold in 2005 (by my friend who bought the freehold c.1980) for £1.4M…That same house, or at least identical Victorian semi-detached villas with good gardens in the same road, were valued in 2018 at up to £4M! A 40x increase in “value” in less than 40 years! A low to average pay in 1976 would have been about £100 per week; similar work would today pay perhaps £400 or £500 a week. In other words, pay has increased, for most people, at a face value of perhaps 4x or 5x over those 40 years, but the cost of a house by 40x! Rent has increased similarly.
Mass immigration is only one of the factors that have driven up the cost of London housing, but it is a major one and probably the most important. The wealthier parts of London now house largely a cosmopolitan crowd of Chinese, “Russians” (many of which are in fact Jews from Russia), Israelis, Arabs, you name it. In fact, large swathes of expensive housing are owned but kept empty by absentee foreigners. The poorer parts (such as in the Daily Telegraph article) are now flooded and indeed swamped by a motley mob of blacks, browns and others (and also whites from the poorer parts of Europe).
Little Venice has changed from, in 1976, being a fairly affluent, in places wealthy, and also rather intellectual (because of the BBC studios in the outer part of Maida Vale, perhaps), inner suburb, to a now very wealthy enclave (one cannot list the famous pop stars, theatrical people, film stars, “entrepreneurs” etc who now live there, so numerous are they). However, this “island” is surrounded by a black/brown sea in all directions North and West. Even in the 1990s, if a school trip party from the nearby areas were to be encountered at Warwick Avenue Underground Station, there were few if any white children.
I myself saw what was coming, decades ago. I stayed in London (for much of the time, though I was sometimes overseas, at times resident in the country or in the USA) until I left to live in Kazakhstan on kommandirovka (work contract) for a year (1996-1997). Others I knew in London had started to leave by then.
One couple, the sister and brother in law of a lady I knew, lived in Catford, South London, in what was probably the only decent road there: a leafy enclave of large detached Victorian or perhaps Edwardian houses. They, professed Labour supporters and, I think, members, no doubt “anti-racist” etc (I was warned not to talk politics with them, and I think that they had been given a similar warning!) were able, for a while, to live there an comfortably affluent life (he a partner in a City of London law firm, she a housewife –though I daresay never accepting such a label– and Open University student) and able also to put out of mind the enveloping near-jungle that started at the end of their own road. They relocated to rural Kent in the 1990s, pleased to discover that their Catford residence could be sold to their advantage, allowing them to buy a country house complete with acres of manicured grounds, a swimming pool, tennis court, stables (and horses) etc, somewhere near Tonbridge.
I doubt that the above couple would ever have said (even between themselves, probably) that there was a racial element to their relocation (escape?); more likely to have cited fresh air, space, less noise, better schools for their two children etc (and would never have linked those factors, at least consciously, to the racial-ethnic one…).
The lady whose sister and brother in law are mentioned above also relocated out of London, in the late 1990s, having contracted a marriage or quasi-marriage. She and her “partner”, to use the contemporary word, sold their London homes (in his case in the “bandit country” of the Seven Sisters neighbourhood of North London) and bought a house in Brighton. Neither of them, I am sure, would ever mention ethnic-related crime as one reason to move (they were both strong “anti-racists” and she is the only woman ever to have walked out on me at a restaurant, the result of an ideological disagreement at the –now and sadly closed-down– Luba’s Bistro in Knightsbridge). More likely to be mentioned: sea air, a less frenetic life etc…
Thirdly, a barrister I knew, who also relocated, also to the South Coast, in the early 2000s, together with his very charming wife and then-young children: another Labour Party member (and one-time Islington councillor, who was offered but declined the chance of a safe seat in the Commons under Blair), I am sure that the reasons which he or his wife might give for having moved out of London would be fresh sea air, space, good schooling for their two children etc; certainly nothing to do with the ethnic swamping of London. They may even believe that themselves. Call me a cynic…
It may or may not be significant that in all three of the above cases, one person from each couple had to commute a considerable distance daily to London. Obviously, those people thought that the trouble and extra travel expense was worth it.
Another case: someone I had known from school, who bought a house (later two others) in South London, rented rooms, converted two houses into flats, starting around 1980. He eventually married and then, around 2000, moved out of London to what the Daily Mail might call “leafy Buckinghamshire”. I do not know whether he would say that racial or ethnic swamping was a cause of his relocation or not; he would probably cite cultural factors. Like the others above, he and his wife are bringing up their children (indeed, by now have brought them up) in a basically white English racial and cultural milieu.
There are similar relocations constantly, from London and other UK urban centres to the country, to Australasia etc. Few of those fleeing or, put less dramatically, relocating, are very “political”; if they were, there might be no need for “white flight”!
Safe Zones
I have previously blogged about the need for English (to a lesser extent, Welsh and Scottish) people to relocate to “safe zones” and in particular to the one major zone which I propose in the South West of England. This is not exclusively a racial imperative. It is also a social and cultural one.
I have been criticized by old-thinking persons who say that English people should “stay and fight” (at least politically). Such people still think in terms of starting a political party, printing leaflets (in the digital age!), holding meetings, and canvassing voters “on the doorstep” just like System party MPs and candidates pretend to do at election time as part of the meaningless flim-flam of System party politics. Well, how has that worked out? The NF tried it in the 1970s (before the Internet). Result? Nothing. The BNP tried it in the 1990s and 2000s. Result? Almost nothing (and eventually nothing). UKIP tried it and is still trying it with its few members. Result? Nothing, really.
How is it possible to fight or struggle politically for social nationalism in a city such as London which is majority non-white/non-European? A doomed struggle. That is what faces us in most UK urban concentrations.
There must be a concentration of forces, to enable a new future to be developed. Not just “white flight” away from certain ways of life, but advance to a new society.
Further to the above, I saw the youtube video below, which is self-explanatory and also hilarious, as virtue-signalling Swedes tie themselves in knots trying to backtrack after lying that they would, if asked, accept a “refugee” into their homes as a staying guest. It reminded me of all those enemies of the people in the UK, who are constantly telling (other) British people to give up their living standards or even their own homes to (mostly fake) “refugees”. You know some of the worst of them: Yvette Cooper, Lily Allen, Billy Bragg, the jew “lord” Dubs etc.
Now look at these virtue-signalling Swedish morons!
and here (below) is the Peter Hitchens view. Sadly, not a social nationalist, but he does castigate mass immigration
Update, 3 June 2019
I am probably wasting my time talking about a random tweet seen, especially when it is typical of thousands, but anyway…
Nicely put! 🙂 I am one of those Brits living in Europe and fighting for the rights of my children and grandchildren to enjoy FOM.
which is in a very pleasant and quiet (and European-race) corner of France (the village or town has fewer than 3,000 inhabitants). Hardly any non-Europeans live anywhere in the whole region.
This woman is tweeting in support of a Romanian girl who wants to stay in the UK, where the Romanian has been living for 7 years (probably at State expense in part, possibly as cheap labour in part) and who is doing a PhD (on “migrants in the UK”! You could not make it up!). Judging from the photos tweeted, the Romanian girl is at least real Romanian, not one of the horde of Roma Gypsies with Romanian or other passports.
My attitude? I have no objection to the odd (real) Romanian coming to or staying in the UK; n.b. not Roma Gypsies, not in the millions (of any kind of person). As for the tweeters supporting mass immigration, “idiots”, “bien-pensants”…..”well-meaning fools” pretty much covers it. Look at the Woolf woman, wishing yet more swamping of the UK… from her rural idyll in one of the most scenic and prosperous (and unswamped) parts of Western France!
I suppose that I should add that I myself was resident in France (Finistere-Nord, Brittany) for several years, but there again (unlike many of those who are swamping the UK) I am of European race and culture, did not use the French social security or free health system, brought money into France rather than exporting funds from France and was never in trouble with the police (save for one minor nonsense “crime”, an on-the-spot speeding ticket, when I was caught doing nearly 100 mph on a dual-carriageway with a speed-limit of about 65 mph).
These idiots tweeting their virtue-signalling tend to equate British pensioners, business owners, or expat residents (working part-time in the UK or elsewhere if working at all), with (often non-European) cheap labour, fake “refugees”, criminals, scavengers etc! Such hypocritical and (at least in their own minds) “well-meaning” idiots are some of the gravediggers of Europe’s future.
Update, 27 June 2019
A Daily Telegraph property report published this week.
“Christopher Snowdon, head of lifestyle economics at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA) said that “property prices are a big deal” and the main cause of internal migration from London. “Obviously people also want a better quality of life, but they also want access to good schools, to live in rural areas and to get away from the stabbings.”“[Daily Telegraph]
“Neil Park, head of the ONS’s population estimates unit, said: “In the last two years, population growth in the UK has been at its lowest rate since 2004.”
“For the fifth year in a row, net international migration was a bigger driver of population change than births and deaths”
The racial-ethnic aspects of migration by English people out of London are not mentioned directly once in the (immediately above) Daily Telegraph report. It’s all “better schools”, “fresh air”, “leisure opportunities”, “knife crime” etc. Same old…meaning same hypocrisy and same unwillingness to face the truth.
The Brexit argument in the UK has brought to the fore divisions and truths which, until recently, had been covered up by a “politically correct” or bien-pensant “consensus” in the (largely Jew-Zionist-controlled or strongly influenced) mass media and political milieux.
Anyone who imagines that “Brexit” is just about the UK’s membership of the EU is indulging in hobby-politics and joke-politics and/or exhibiting very poor political judgment. I have blogged about this on previous occasions, eg:
UKIP is the joke party and hobby-politics party of the UK, effectively a one-trick-pony, obsessed with the EU and EU immigration but not hitting hard on non-EU immigration and only peripherally touching on other issues. However, those voters who grasped at the UKIP straw up to 2015 were voting to a large extent not for Nigel Farage as Prime Minister, not for UKIP’s clown MEPs as UK ministers, not even simply to get Britain out of the increasingly sinister EU matrix, but as a protest and shout of anger against a whole host of issues, not all of which are connected directly to the UK membership of the EU.
What Is Democracy Anyway?
“Democracy” is one of those terms which is rather imprecise and commonly misused (another is “holocaust”, usually and deliberately misused and distorted by Jew-Zionists and others as “the Holocaust”, the definite article and the capital letter supposedly differentiating any misfortunes visited on Jews in the Second World War from similar misfortunes visited on non-Jews throughout history).
In ancient Greece (for example Athens, the home of the idea of “democracy”), we see that only the relative few had full political rights. In the 4thC BC, Attica had about 300,000 inhabitants (in the state as a whole, not just the “urbanized” polis of Athens itself). Out of that population, only about 100,000 were citizens. Out of that 100,000, only 30,000, being adult male citizens who had completed military service or similarly accepted service, were allowed to vote or to participate in political life. Women, slaves, freed slaves, children and metics (foreigners resident in Attica) were not allowed to vote etc. In other words, out of 300,000 inhabitants, only about 30,000, 10% of the whole, played a significant political role.
UK Democracy: the expansion of the electorate
In more modern times and in England/UK, we see that, though a kind of representative Parliament existed from the 13thC AD, the electorate (using the term broadly) widened over the centuries. At the time of the first great Reform Act (1832), the population of England and Wales (excluding Scotland) was about 12 million, out of which only 200,000 in counties and perhaps 20,000 more in boroughs had voting rights (see Notes, below), about 2% of the whole population (nb. population estimates of that era are not very accurate: some estimates say 400,000 in toto, so perhaps 4% of all inhabitants could vote), a far smaller percentage than in Periclean Athens! In France, the percentage with voting rights was even smaller, but was expanded hugely when universal suffrage was introduced in 1848.
The percentage expansion of the electorate in Scotland in the 1830s was far greater than applied in England and Wales. Some historians use the term “revolutionary”. I wonder whether that has perhaps had a lasting effect on Scottish socio-political attitudes down the line, even to the present day. Just a stray thought…
Further expansion of the electorate in the UK (as a whole, not just England and Wales) in the 19thC meant that, by 1912, there were 7.7 million voters, a figure that increased to 21.4 million following the Representation of the People Act 1918, which extended the franchise to most women of 30+ years, as well as to almost all men of 21+. Of course, the actual population had also increased very greatly, from 27 million in 1850 to 42 million in 1918.
In 1928, women 21-29 also gained the vote, increasing the number eligible to vote to about 27 million.
Changes in the Post-1945 era: where are we now?
UK voting qualifications have not changed substantially since 1928, except that, since 1948, university graduates have no longer had two potential votes, and the minimum voting age is now (and since 1970) 18.
There are now about 65 million inhabitants in the UK (some put the figure higher, by reason of undocumented, unregistered “illegals” etc).
Does “democracy” mean that all inhabitants of the state must be enfranchised?
The South African Example
We have seen that, in ancient Athens, only male citizens who had completed military service could vote. In “apartheid” South Africa, there was a fully-functioning democracy limited however to those of European (white) origin.
There had, prior to 1910, been non-racial forms of limited democracy in Cape Province, limited by reference to property etc. From 1910-1961, the vote was granted to all white men in South Africa, to mixed-race men in Cape Province, and to black men in Cape Province and Natal. Only white men could become Senators or MPs. White women were allowed the vote in 1930 and could serve as MPs or Senators. Blacks and “coloureds” (mixed-race) were barred from holding those offices. In 1960, the black franchise was terminated; the mixed-race franchise followed in 1968. Later, in 1984, an attempt was made to re-enfranchise the mixed-race population and to enfranchise, on a limited basis, the Indian population.
In 1992, a small majority of (white-only) voters endorsed, by referendum, the end of the apartheid system, after which South Africa adopted a different system, under which all person of 18+ years can vote or be elected. In practice, however, this led to what is effectively a one-party, typically-African state, shambolic and corrupt. The African National Congress (ANC) operates what is effectively an elected dictatorship. In the most recent election (2014), its vote declined, but it still holds 249 out of 400 seats (on 62% of the popular vote).
Under this “new” (post-1994) “democracy”, the white population of the country is under siege from both crime (racially-based) and/or (connected) “political” attack, such as the robbery, rape and murder of whites, particularly in the rural areas. Neither are the (mainly black) poor of South Africa helped by the “elected dictatorship”. Indeed, in some respects they are worse off than they were under apartheid. The “infamous” pass laws may have restricted the blacks, but also restricted crime, which has become epidemic.
The USA
The USA is supposedly a “democracy”, but in practice any Presidential candidate has to be a multi-millionaire or billionaire, or have the support of such, simply to be seen as a credible candidate, or to be able to buy TV ads (this is about the same thing, in practice). If elected, he will find that to do anything effective requires that he be not opposed by either the Congress or the Supreme Court. This rarely happens. In most cases, the separation of powers prevents anything effective, let alone radical, being implemented.
The UK
In the UK, there is “democracy” (we think). Almost everyone can vote, almost everyone can be a candidate. Yet there are impediments: the powerful Jewish-Zionist lobby (special-interest group), the entrenched First Past The Post (FPTP) voting system, the need for finance, and the way in which boundaries are deliberately sliced up to provide a semblance of “fairness”, but in fact to favour 2-party or sometimes 3-party “stability” over real reflection of popular opinion. There is also the fact that “main party” (System) candidates are usually carefully selected to exclude anyone with even mild social-national views. The “choice” is then put before the electorate (together with the minor candidates who almost invariably have no chance at all).
Another important aspect is that, since the Tony Blair government passed its restrictive laws, political parties have to be registered, can be fined (eg for refusing membership to certain types of person, or certain racial or national groups), and can even be “de-registered”, thus barring them from standing candidates in elections. Democracy?
Here is an example from the General Election of 2015.
Brexit
The Brexit vote has exposed the sham or part-sham of British democracy. David Cameron-Levita thought that the 2016 Referendum would be easy to “manage”. He had, after all, “managed” two previous referenda: the Scottish Independence referendum and the AV-voting referendum. Third time, he miscalculated. The people, on the FPTP basis, voted about 52% to 48% for Leave. This was a shock to the System. Immediately, the Remain leaders started to demand “No Brexit”, and for a second Referendum, which would (once the voters had been exposed to enough fear propaganda) come to a different result, and/or for Parliament (most MPs being “Remain”) to just ignore the 2016 Referendum result which (they said) had been procured by fraud, lies, or post-KGB Russian trickery…
The fact is that, leaving aside the “sheeple”, the hard core of anti-Brexit Remain consists of
the affluent/wealthy metropolitan self-styled “elite”;
the big business people;
the Jews (most of them);
those who have done well financially in the 2010-2019 period;
the brainwashed under-30s, mostly from not-poor backgrounds, who imagine that not being in the EU somehow prevents them from getting (for most of them, non-existent) jobs in the EU, or that they will even not be allowed to travel after Brexit!
Those shallow little nobodies (again, mostly young or would-be young urban-dwellers) who think that it is old, unfashionable and “gammon” (white Northern European British) to support Leave or indeed to have any pride in England’s history, race and culture;
Almost all of those working in the msm.
These groups have become ever more severe and open in their hatred of Leave supporters. There are now open calls for the rights of, in particular, voters over the age of, perhaps, 60, to be restricted, for older people to be disenfranchised, especially if white, (real) British, or “racist” (i.e. people who see their land and culture being swamped and destroyed).
Here, for example, we see an almost archetypal Remain whiner, the broadcaster Jeremy Vine, 53, who is paid over £700,000 a year by the BBC and maybe as much as £100,000 p.a. from elsewhere (despite having been awarded only a mediocre 2:2 in English at university and then been –in my opinion– a markedly mediocre Press/radio/TV journalist).
Do we need a maximum age for voters? We have an aging population and as a result so-called "grey voters" have a huge influence over the outcome of elections and referendums.
We see from examples around the world, eg South Africa, or Zimbabwe (etc) that one-man one-vote “democracy” can lead to elected dictatorship. In the UK, it has become increasingly clear that the Parliamentary democracy in place does not reflect the views of the bulk of the population, and certainly not the bulk of the white real British population, those with whose future I concern myself.
Leave may “only” have won the EU Referendum by 52%-48%, but there are nuances here: the assassination of pro-Remain MP Jo Cox, only a week before the referendum certainly had an effect, and is thought to have changed the outcome by as much as 10 points (at the time of her death, Leave was 10 points ahead of Remain in some polls); particularly as much was made of supposed secondary culpability of Leave propaganda for the attack. The referendum outcome might easily have been 60% or even 65% for Leave.
There is also the point that most “blacks and browns” and other ethnic minority voters (eg Jews) voted Remain if they voted at all. Most Scots voted Remain too (no doubt because they have a faux-nationalist SNP as a comfort blanket). Take away those Remain blocs and it might be that about 60% of white English and Welsh voters voted Leave, which might have been 70% without the Jo Cox matter.
Alternatives to Parliament Deciding Everything
I favour the Rudolf Steiner concept of the “Threefold Social Order”. As I paraphrase it, and in the contemporary UK context,
it means that an elected Parliament decides matters properly within the political sphere or “sphere of rights”;
it means that Parliament (and government) does not run the economy or economic enterprises (though it can regulate it and them); likewise, economic forces and personalities cannot rule the political sphere and/or “sphere of rights”;
it means that the State (or economic forces) cannot rule over the proper ambit of the sphere of spirit, culture, religion, medicine, education.
This obviously moves on from the conventional “Parliament rules supreme” idea, developed in the UK since the time of Cromwell.
We can see that Parliament in the UK is no longer fit for purpose. Those currently elected have only a limited mandate. Greater freedom and a more efficient as well as a more just society depend on proper integration of the three basic spheres: political, economic, spiritual/cultural.
There is no necessity for everyone to vote. Voting should be for citizens who are resident and who are of suitable age (I favour 21 years, at minimum). Foreigners, offspring of foreigners, persons who are mainly of non-European origin etc should not be allowed a vote.
Brexit and the future
People voted for Brexit for many reasons and fundamentally out of a lack of satisfaction with the existing way of life in the UK. That urge for something better may be the basis for social-national reform or even revolution. The British people will no more allow themselves to be treated as helots.
Well, it seems that I spoke too soon in saying that the British people will no longer allow themselves to be treated like helots! The “panicdemic”, weaponized for the purpose, has (or the moment at least) put both the British people and “democracy” back in the box. Still, “the night is young”, I suppose. “Tomorrow is another day”…
Not for nothing is (or was) France called La Belle France. If I had to name a country which, for me, challenges the better parts of England for its countryside, it would be France, where I myself lived for 4 years (in North Finistere, Brittany), commuting by car ferry to the UK every week or so. My first holiday away from my parents was a 3-week stay in Paris in 1971, aged 14/15. I stayed in the –at the time, not very smart– Rue de l’Arbalete, in the 5th Arrondisement on the Left Bank, near the Sorbonne, the Ecole Normale Superieur and the Jardin des Plantes, in which park I spent quite a lot of time looking at chess games, wandering about, sometimes drinking a strange green carbonated mint-drink. In other words, I like France (and often its people) very much, despite French bureaucracy and, at times, hugely irritating inflexibility.
The Present Situation
Now we see that many of the French cities are intermittently burning, that there are violent clashes between protesters and riot police in the streets, including the Champs-Elysees and the Boulevard St. Germain. There have been mobs running through the Tuileries, a ministry stormed, at one point the Jeu de Paume (museum/gallery) on fire. The number of protesters on the streets before Christmas 2018 was around 30,000. Now, in early January 2019, we are are seeing 50,000 and more. What is going on?
Macron and His Regime
We must understand that the current President of France, Macron, is the evil “genius” whose “reforms” have caused the uprising (for such it is becoming). However, the present situation is one which has roots going back to 1989 (when socialism in various forms died across the world), to the establishment of the Fifth Republic in 1958, to that of the Fourth Republic in 1946, and indeed to the fall of the Third Republic in 1940, with the consequent establishment of the Vichy government (in power from 1940 to 1944 and governing about half of the territory of France itself, as well as overseas possessions).
The “democratic” basis of the Fifth Republic has always been shaky, but it is arguable that France is more “democratic” now than it has ever been, at least since 1940: the President is now elected every 5 years (changed from 7 in 2000), and is elected directly by the voters, whereas from 1958-1962, the President, at that time de Gaulle, was elected by an “electoral college”. This “democratic” accolade is perhaps an omen, however: the last very “democratic” France, the Third Republic, collapsed from its own weakness and division, first amid an undeclared civil war between the Popular Front and its many and various opponents, then from external invasion, as the German forces swept across Northern France in 1940.
Macron and his pop-up “movement”, En Marche, did not come out of nowhere. Like other fake “movements” across Europe and the former Soviet Union (eg the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine), Macron’s was funded by Jewish cosmopolitan financial circles. Macron himself worked for Rothschild et Compagnie Banque from 2008-2012. In those four years, and another after he left Rothschilds, Macron is said to have made about (possibly more than) 3 million Euros.
Let’s retrack and look at Macron more personally. He went to a Jesuit school, where, aged 15, he met a woman teacher, married with children and aged 39. This woman became romantically and sexually involved with him (sexually —supposedly— only after he turned 18, by which time she was 42 —and if you believe that, you will believe anything…), and left her husband and three children, later marrying Macron (in 2007, when he was 30 and she 54).
Macron only stopped being a student when aged 27, in 2004. He became an “inspector of finances”, a post at a high level in the civil service. He formed a strong connection with a Jewish businessman called Alain Minc, who lent Macron 550,000 Euros in order to buy an apartment in Paris. When Macron left the ministry, he had to buy himself out of his contract. That cost 50,000 Euros. Did that sum also come from Minc?
Here is what puzzles me about Macron: he reminds me of the young Faust, whom Mephistopheles calls “an intelligent youth whom it is easy to instruct”, if I recall the quotation aright. Thus we have the still-young Macron, only 29 and from, though not a poor background, not one of wealth either. He graduates, from the last of several institutions, aged 27, and within 2 years is lent over a half million Euros by a Jewish businessman, not even for a business idea but to buy personal real property. Not just any Jewish businessman, though. Minc has been on the supervizory board of Le Monde and has also been an advisor to several leading politicians in France, including Nicolas Sarkozy.
The oddness does not end there. In the same year, 2006, one of the wealthiest women in France, Laurence Parisot, who was head of MEDEF, the French equivalent of the CBI in the UK, offered the young Macron, who at 29 was still only 2 years from having been a student, the job of managing director of MEDEF (he declined). Laurence Parisot was also head of the bank BNP Paribas.
What else of note do we know about Macron? Well, in 2018 he was awarded the annual Charlemagne Prize, the first recipient of which (in 1950) was none other than Richard von Coudenhove-Kalergi, the evil mind behind the Coudenhove-Kalergi Plan! Other recipients of the Prize have included Jean Monnet, the godfather of the EU, who received it in 1953, Konrad Adenauer (1954), Winston Churchill (1955), Edward Heath (1963; he brought the UK into the EEC, predecessor of the EU, in 1973), Henry Kissinger (1987), Tony Blair (1999), Bill Clinton (2000), Jean-Claude Juncker (2006), Angela Merkel (2008), Donald Tusk (2010), Martin Schulz (2015), Pope Francis (2016) and the very influential globalist and supporter of finance-capitalism (and alleged to have been an agent of the British SIS), Timothy Garton Ash (2017).
Macron’s En Marche “movement” was, it is alleged, initially bankrolled by the Rothschilds. 5-6 months before the foundation of En Marche in April 2016, Macron visited Israel.
Macron came to power because the French were tired and disaffected, estranged from the System parties. Marine le Pen of the Front National was thought to have a good chance of victory in the 2017 Presidential Election, so perhaps En Marche was formed by the System and Zionists partly in order to head her off.
Macron and those behind him intended to destroy much of what remains in France of “socialist”/social democratic policy as well as the relaxed lifestyle (including restricted business hours, hours of work etc) which is so much part of France’s appeal for those who live there.
Macron conceals his harshness behind a superficially-pleasant manner, but his mask has dropped, repeatedly. He said, for instance, that there are only two types of people, the “important” and the “nothings”. Such words have not been spoken openly in France for many many years. They call to mind 1789 without the cake!
Macron seems to despise the French people and to be sanguine about their replacement by blacks and browns, another thing that links him to Coudenhove-Kalergi, Tony Blair, Angela Merkel (etc) and to the Jewish-Zionist lobby.
There has been a migration-invasion of France and it continues. It was foretold in fiction decades ago, in the book The Camp of the Saints, by Jean Raspail.
The French people have woken up to Macron and to the cosmopolitan finance-capitalist globalists behind him. His approval rating was said to be 25% in late 2018, and may now be as low as 15%. 80% of French approve the Gilets Jaunes or Yellow Vests.
What Now?
What happens now is an open question. The Yellow Vests appear to have wide popular support, far beyond the 50,000 who are fighting on the streets, demonstrating, or standing vigil by roads etc. The government is about to take severe and even harsh measures. It remains to be seen whether such measures contain dissent or whether they will ignite an uprising of the poor and middle classes against the wealthy (relatively) few, against the powerful Jewish-Zionist lobby, and against the EU and other manifestations of the NWO (New World Order) and ZOG (Zionist Occupation Government).
[Addendum, 10 January 2019:I should add that what may prevent the Yellow Vests from developing beyond a mere protest movement is that they appear, as a group, to have no real ideology and little organized direction (not sure about the latter), but something more organized (in both senses) may develop.
Since the original blog post was published, the Yellow Vests have faded away, and Macron has been re-elected (2022), with 58.55% against Marine le Pen on 41.45%. A good result for Ms. le Pen, but nowhere near good enough.
Ian Robert Millard 