Batley and Spen by-election
I continue to update my assessment of the Batley and Spen by-election, which is to be held next Thursday, 1 July 2021: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2021/06/04/the-batley-and-spen-by-election-2021/
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Victoria
I have been watching the dramatization of the life of Queen Victoria. Very good, and unlike most such docu-dramas, does not leave out the major political and socio-economic currents flowing at the time. Very intelligently planned, and finely-acted.
As always, there are imperfections. In the double-length episode I saw today, some lady was playing a piece by Rachmaninov on the piano, though the name of the composer was not mentioned. Anachronistic, in that this was set around 1850. Rachmaninov was born in 1873! So the TV people got it wrong by about 50 years!
Dramatized history is ever thus. In fact, other episodes of Victoria were also rather loose with the historical truth, as when Drummond, the secretary of the Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel, is shot in mistake for Peel. That did happen, but not at all as shown.
The series was based on a book by A.N. Wilson, who is a readable writer, but not always a good historian. I once read one of his books which was so replete with historical inaccuracies that I was surprised that no-one at his publishers had corrected them. In fact, I reviewed the book on Amazon UK, where I was a “top 50” reviewer, but the Jew lobby had all my reviews removed from Amazon some years ago.
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Europe is dwarfed by the burgeoning power of China. In every way— population, overall economic strength, military might. Even the USA is now challenged. The response by the USA (as well as Europe and Russia) to that challenge will define what the second half of this century, as well as succeeding centuries, will look like.
Justice?
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/thug-who-dogs-tear-animals-24390497
This was not justice but entirely misplaced mercy. Look at his previous convictions and (again) far too lenient previous sentences.
Tweets seen
So it begins…
Dump them all back in Africa somewhere (anywhere).
I agree. There should have been also, a mass civil disobedience to the facemask nonsense, with businesses openly ignoring the so-called “rules”. Businesses have almost all cravenly submitted to the Government diktats, so screw them.
Answer: bulldoze it with all MPs and their sycophants still inside. Then plant a wood on the hill of rubble.
https://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/1060047698
In fact, both the German movements for organized youth, and those of the Soviet Union, were inspired by and loosely based on the ideas of Baden-Powell and his Boy Scouts and Girl Guides movement(s): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Baden-Powell,_1st_Baron_Baden-Powell.
In Germany, the NSDAP set up both the Hitlerjugend [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler_Youth] and the Bund Deutscher MΓ€del [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_German_Girls].
What is less-known is that the German Communist Party [KPD] in the 1920s, early 1930s, and 1949-1989 also had such an organization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Communist_League_of_Germany, members of which included some persons later prominent in the post-WW2 DDR (East Germany), such as Erich Honecker [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Honecker] and Markus Wolf [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markus_Wolf].
Subject to correction, I believe that the (German) Social Democrat Party [SPD] also had its own youth movement in the 1918-33 period.
In the Soviet Union, the equivalent organization would be the Young Pioneers [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vladimir_Lenin_All-Union_Pioneer_Organization]. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artek_(camp)
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These people should be on our side!
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Batley and Spen Labour Party by-election candidate Kim Leadbeater runs away from Muslims (and others?) who do not want their young children taught about lesbianism etc. She is said to be a lesbian.
This must damage her campaign, especially with Muslim voters.
I note that System politics website Politics for All is careful to note that Ms. Leadbeater is “Jo Cox’s sister“. Labour is still hoping that the sympathy vote (if it exists), 5 years on, will win the by-election for Ms. Leadbeater. I have no idea whether or not there actually is, or ever was, a “sympathy vote” for Labour arising out of the assassination of the MP Jo Cox by a dissident in 2016. Now? Doubtful, though Ms. Leadbeater is obviously helped by her local roots.
Labour is totally desperate. I wonder, though, what real impact the Conservatives are making at Batley and Spen. All the noise is about either Kim Leadbeater or George Galloway. Is that the Conservative tactic, to keep quiet, and let Galloway bleed Labour of Muslim votes, rather than the Conservatives making noise and so perhaps triggering at least some white voters to vote Labour? Or is that too Machiavellian?
Looking at the past decade, and leaving out the rigged by-election of 2016, the Conservatives have been between 30% and 40% at Batley and Spen [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batley_and_Spen_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2020s], Labour between 42% and 56%. If most of the Muslim vote abstains or votes for Galloway, that must take Labour down to somewhere around 30%. That gives the prize, probably, to the Conservatives. If most of the Muslim vote abandons Labour, and many 2019 Labour white, i.e. English, voters also abandon Labour, then the Conservatives will win easily.
I cannot see Galloway actually winning. He would have to get almost all of the Muslim vote and quite a lot of English votes to do that. Never say never, of course, but it is very unlikely. Having said that, I started off thinking that he might get 5%, then thought maybe 10%. Now I am wondering whether he might not top 20% or more, but the truth is that I am guessing.
Having now read the above article, I cannot say that I am much impressed. I have (if I say so myself) made the same points previously, and better. The point about whether a Conservative Party MP would be better-placed to attract central government support in a Conservative Party-dominated Parliament is a good one, though again one that I have myself made several times in relation both to this by-election, the recent Hartlepool one, and generally.
I have never been to the Batley area. I have no idea what kind of personal popularity Ms. Leadbeater has. She seems very odd to me, at times leaping in the air as if at one of her gym classes; and despite her entourage, she seemed frightened when being challenged by Muslim anti-LGBT etc people. Of course, she is not a politician, as such, and has been parachuted in (for all that she is local) to try to capitalize on the supposed “sympathy vote” (which I frankly do not believe exists anyway).
I can see that there are logical reasons why voters in the by-election might vote Conservative; I can see that there are ideological reasons why voters, especially Muslim voters, might either vote Galloway or abstain. I can see no reason why many voters, English or Muslim, would vote Labour in the by-election.
A supposed leading political scribbler, but he cannot even spell properly the name of the candidate…
What “debate”? The “rules” are for the mugs and scared rabbits…
Boris-idiot’s charmed life continues. Hancock has been approved by “Boris” despite the scandal. He will now be kept on by “Boris”, like a fly kept alive but doomed in a spider’s web, ready to be utilized. Once the moment comes when “Boris” needs a sacrificial victim, there will be a reshuffle and Hancock will then be finished off (sacked and/or demoted).
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Ian Robert Millard 