Category Archives: Reminiscences and Musings

environment, ethnostate, free speech, immigration, Party Politics, prepping, Reminiscences and Musings, safe zones, society, The Great Replacement, Uncategorized, white flight, wildlife

How Would the Safe Zone Become A Germinal Ethnostate?

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I have previously blogged about various aspects of the proposed “safe zone” or zones which might become the hub of social national activity in the UK. I have explained how the “safe zone” might be created, perhaps most likely by one person, couple or family buying an estate, farm, house, business or whatever in the selected geographical area, then other people gravitating to the same part of the country.

The ideal would be an estate which might include a main house, ancillary or secondary accomodation, houses, cottages, agricultural land, perhaps a separate business such as a garden centre, hotel or whatever (which might give employment to some of those supportive of the safe zone project). For example, I once had a lease of this house in Cornwall:Polapit Tamar House

carriageentrancePolapit
drive1

That house, a mid-19thC construction, originally (certainly by 1900) had a 5,000 acre estate, which by the time I lived there (2002 and 2003) had reduced to about 100 acres, most of which was woodland inhabited by reclusive deer. My own lease included only 4 acres (gardens and woodland) and did not include the secondary accomodation such as the North and South Lodges at the ends of the (more than 1 mile long) private road or driveway, 2 detached houses, and a few flats within or over the stable block.

It can be seen that such a house would be a fine hub for the safe zone project. The original relocators could live in that house, with supporters employed on whatever land surrounded it or in the nearby town (in that case, the nearest town was about 4 miles away) and living in the secondary accomodation or elsewhere nearby.

Such a house has the space to host meetings: the photos show the exterior colonnaded entrance to, and the interior of, the ballroom, which was itself larger than the whole of my present humble home…).

t_BallroomEntrance
t_Ballroom1
t_Ballroom2

As suggested above, such rural areas sometimes have businesses available which require staff: garden centres, nurseries, motels, hotels, pubs etc; there might be scope in the nearby villages and towns too. It might not be very long before a thriving hub of social nationalism exists. Suitably-qualified people might get jobs in local schools or local government, even in the police, NHS facilities, or in the fire brigade.

Once the safe zone has progressed that far, it is likely that other land can be bought, other estates or farms. Compare it to a painting-by-numbers set: one by one, the blank bits are filled in.

Naturally, a considerable amount of money is required to start such a project. The hub (estate, farm or at least smallholding) would cost (in Devon or Cornwall) anything from £1M upward, depending partly on the acreage. Agricultural land is valued at present in the range £5,000 to £15,000 an acre, so a house with even 100 acres will probably cost at least a million pounds and quite possibly as much as five millions.

Realistically, several million pounds would be needed to initiate the safe zone project.

However, once operating, the safe zone will thrive. All supporters would “tithe”, as happens commonly in religious organizations etc. If even 100 people are sacrificing a tenth of their (net) income and even if their average income is only £30,000 a year gross (maybe £20,000 net), that still gives the project an annual income of £200,000 at a fairly early stage.

Once more than a few dozen people are involved in the project and resident in its territory, thought can be given to taking over local councils. From there, in electoral terms, the local and regional objective would be to get rid of existing System MPs and replacing them with social national candidates, whether overtly or covertly.

There is more. As the reputation of the safe zone spreads, the trickle of relocators will become a flood. At that point, the safe zone mutates into the germinal ethnostate.

Update, 29 September 2019

https://www.kn-online.de/Nachrichten/Hamburg/Voelkische-Siedler-Die-Bio-Nazis-von-nebenan

Update, 26 July 2020

Saw this… https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/neo-nazis-plot-to-win-over-small-villages-in-germany-through-settlers-10162589.html

Update, 3 May 2021

Diary Blog, 26 April 2021, including a few personal reminiscences
Diary Blog, 26 April 2021, including a few personal reminiscences
Reminiscences and Musings, Stray memories of life at the English Bar, Uncategorized

Paid Bar Pupillages

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There is, currently, discussion yet again at the Bar of England and Wales about whether all sets of chambers should “tax” their members in order to pay pupils (i.e. trainee barristers) a certain minimum during their year of pupillage. The figure mooted has been put by some at £25,000; others put it at £12,000, i.e. about where the present legal “minimum wage” is set. Not all barristers agree. I saw a contrary-leaning article by Jew-Zionist silk Simon Myerson QC. I expect that this is the only issue on which I would ever agree with him (I attach his views at the bottom of this blog post).

I understand that chambers are currently not forced to have pupils, but if they have them they must be paid £12,000 p.a. Apologies if that misrepresents the current position; I have little contact now with affairs at the Bar. [update: see below]

Many who know me or of me may wonder why I am bothering to write about this. After all, I ceased Bar practice in 2008, and was actually disbarred –for political reasons– in 2016, after a pack of malicious Jews cobbled together a complaint to the Bar Standards Board about my socio-political tweets. My answer to such a query would be that I have a view and the time in which to express it. Simply that. I can revisit Memory Lane, too.

The idea that all chambers must fund at least one pupil has superficial appeal to many. Poorer people of merit would be assisted etc. The problem with that is that most young (as most are) Bar pupils are not very poor anyway, and many come from families with considerable incomes and capital. In short, from affluent families. No-one forces chambers to take poor pupils rather than rich ones. In other words, chambers might be forced to pay for pupils who do not even need the money.

When I myself was looking for pupillage in the late 1980s and then early 1990s (interrupted by my going to live in the USA and travelling back and forth in those years), I had handicaps: apart from lack of money, I was, having been born in 1956, about a decade older than most candidates, and (worse) until late 1988 had a beard. That last might seem a small matter, but at least two barristers who interviewed me mentioned it…

I found that, at that time, the Bar was even less well-run than most things in the UK. We (students at the Inns of Court School of Law, at the time the only place where the Bar Finals course was offered) were told by some stuffy blue-stocking administratrix that we should write our applications by hand and preferably in ink, using a fountain pen (though CVs could be typed)! By some miracle, quill pens and parchment had been superseded. Well, I laboured to write maybe a hundred applications (though not with a fountain pen). Most went unanswered. Imagine that… that a letter written in good faith on a quite usual subject (after all, it happens at least annually that people apply to such places) will simply be ignored. Arrogant. Rude.

Of the interviews I had, a few stand out: there was one at a leading commercial set, in which interview I was interviewed by one Christian du Cann and some young woman who was obviously very junior. Du Cann was the son of perhaps the best Bar advocate I ever heard, Richard du Cann QC, who wrote one of the best books on the subject, The Art of the Advocate (highly recommended, by the way, if any Bar students are reading this). Du Cann junior was OK, even pleasant, but the young woman was unpleasant, scornful, contemptuous. Huge chip on shoulder from somewhere. I think that she felt inferior, so abused her half hour of power. Fortunately for her, I have forgotten her name.

Then there was the interview elsewhere, which obviously was not going very well, though in a low-intensity way. One barrister saw me out and made two suggestions: one, never shake hands with another barrister; two, beards are usually unacceptable.

Another interview that was (perhaps on purpose, to put one on one’s mettle) very hostile was with three then fairly well-known people, often in the newspapers: Michael Worsley QC [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/12118332/Michael-Worsley-barrister-obituary.html], who died in 2016; Roy Amlot (later QC) who was often seen prosecuting IRA bombers etc (and, later, defending in huge fraud trials such as Blue Arrow), now 75 and retired from the Bar; a blonde woman smoking like a chimney (I cannot quite recall after more than a quarter-century whether that was Joanna Korner, now QC and a judge, or Ann Curnow QC, now deceased). All in a room got up to look like a cross between a country sitting-room and a study: panelling, soft-ish lighting, leather sofa etc and a couple of desks. In summary, Worsley appeared to be a stuffed shirt (very different from the figure portrayed in the Daily Telegraph obit), Amlot a funereally-serious and hugely self-important little man, and the blonde woman someone whose interview style seemed to rely on ill-bred mockery.

I did have one interview which was almost Kafka-esque. At that time, my mother and brother were both Members at Ascot (my brother also owned a racehorse at the time). One frequently-encountered fellow-member was a woman whose son happened to be a head of chambers in the Temple. The two ladies arranged an interview for me. I was loath to go for interview under such conditions, but went out of politeness.

In those pre-Internet days, it was not always easy to find out what a particular set did in detail. I went thinking that it was a general Common Law set. On my arrival, on a Friday early evening, about 1800, the members were all enjoying glasses of champagne; bottles of Bollinger were everywhere. I was given a glass. Turned out that they did this every Friday at sundown. The head of chambers, obviously talking to me because his mother had asked him to do so, was not very pleasant and asked me what I knew of family law. I replied not much, never having studied it. He said “We only do family…” End of “interview”.

In the end, I went back to the USA, though I did get a pupillage in London in the end, in 1992, unfunded and making the first six months (when you are forbidden to accept fees) a trial of strength.

In my last few years at the practising Bar, I was based in Exeter. The head of those chambers decided that we should take pupils and (a year or two later) also fund them. At least one per year. Everyone would be “taxed” for this. I think that my share was about £50 a month, something like that. I thought that absurd. Those funded were not in real need of money (as I had been when a pupil) and I saw no need for us to have pupils in chambers anyway. I was there to make a living, not to provide the English middle classes with career or CV opportunities. My Head of Chambers disagreed though. He no doubt wanted to keep in with the the Bar Council etc, and I note that he has since then (in recent years) sat as a Recorder in civil cases.

Thus it is that, for once, I find myself in agreement with Myerson QC, whose view is linked hereinbelow:

https://www.legalcheek.com/2012/02/simon-myerson-qc-12k-minimum-pupillage-award-is-fair/

Update (July 2018)

My one-time Head of Chambers has, since I penned the above, been elevated to the Bench as a Circuit Judge, I read somewhere or other. May he temper the law (of which he has an impressive grasp) with not only justice but also mercy…

Update, 23 August 2019

I saw this:

So those fortunate enough to find a pupillage at all (only about 1 in 10) will be paid the above sums per year (or pro rata— many pupils are in two different sets for the two halves of their pupillage year). Nice for them.

My objection to the above is not merely (in fact scarcely at all) that “I had to struggle; they should also struggle”, because in any case most Bar pupils are from relatively affluent (sometimes very wealthy) backgrounds. They do not really need the money.

There is another point: a Bar pupil is almost useless in the first 6 months. Barristers in chambers are therefore not only subsidizing people most of whom do not really require subsidy, but paying out for nothing (unless you regard it as akin to noblesse oblige). A Bar pupil may be helpful in terms of research etc, but the barrister who is pupilmaster has to be pretty sure of the pupil to rely on the results. In other words, the pupillage award is not quasi-pay for work done by the pupil, but a kind of de haut en bas largesse. Oh well, not my problem now!

historical, Reminiscences and Musings, society, Uncategorized

Call No Man Happy Until He is Dead

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It is generally believed that the saying “call no man happy until he is dead”, attributed to Herodotus [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herodotus], was originally uttered by Solon [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solon]. Perhaps. Many believe that the saying dates back only to the 19th Century. At any rate, the saying has stood the test of time. The basis of it certainly has.

How often have we seen the spectacle of the “famous”, the wealthy, the “happy” or those we perhaps imagine should be happy, brought crashing down, often to obscurity as well as ruination? It was ruminating on this that caused me to write today. Some may think (assuming much, as many do) that I am thinking of myself, once a barrister, once living in (at various times) a Little Venice house, a penthouse apartment, a Caribbean villa, a large English country house with 26 bedrooms, but now cast down and living in extremely reduced circumstances, on a limited income etc and having to give thought to what things cost and so on.

I am sorry to disappoint those who hate me (usually without reason). My life has been one of considerable ups and downs, particularly financial. Every one of my luxurious habitations was supported, as by bookends, by relative and occasionally absolute poverty at each end. Such irregularity fosters a philosophical and perhaps stoical and/or fatalistic attitude missing in those who, having always known wealth and entitlement (or who achieved the same from humble origins) find their lives as well as livelihoods swept away by Fate. These are those who jump off buildings, massacre their families before shooting themselves etc. People with my attitude just think “tomorrow is another day”.

If even my thoughts and feelings are not truly me, in the Egoic sense, if my body is not me, then how little is my bank balance me, how little are my cars, former dwellings and (now long gone!) Rolex watches “me”? Scarcely at all; not at all.

A few examples:

  • Terry Ramsden, now completely obscure (and, presumably, broke, or maybe not: you never know with his type) but “famous” in the 1980s, and so wealthy that he could bet £500,000 each-way on his own horse at the 1986 Grand National (it came fourth; Ramsden profited by £1 million).

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2004/apr/03/horseracing.comment3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terry_Ramsden

  • Tara Palmer-Tomkinson, born into a wealthy family and with every possible material advantage. Judging purely from what I saw occasionally on TV, I thought her useless and brainless, but others thought quite highly of her, I am told. It was reported that she died alone, having not seen anyone for days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tara_Palmer-Tomkinson

  • Various national leaders: Gaddafi (killed by a mob of Libyans, who first shoved a pipe up his rear end); the Shah of Iran (deposed and everything he had worked for destroyed; died in exile); Adolf Hitler (shot himself when the forces of East and West, that is to say Sovietism and finance-capitalism, burst into his capital, having battered down by air and land everything he had built); Stalin (died surrounded by sycophantic ghouls who feared and hated him; a ghastly death, dragged down by unseen forces).

I think too of others, people I have known personally. For example, in my own class and/or year at school, there have been a variety of outcomes (to date: that is one race still not at the finishing post).

One boy became a police officer, at least one an Army officer; a third became a helicopter pilot, later Captain of the Queen’s Helicopter Flight and, later still, the personal pilot of King Hussein of Jordan (he must always have had the makings of a royal servant, having had at school the nickname “Crawler”…). I suppose several boys became office bods, accountants etc. One unacademic but amusing fellow became a banker in Switzerland, of all things; another one, actually part-(francophone)-Swiss, became a structural engineer with his own firm in Paris. Another became, eventually, a chartered surveyor who has written a series of property-conversion manuals. Several no doubt inherited their families’ businesses. A number became BBC producers etc. Some did time in prison (all for GBH, oddly: was it something in the water?) or so I heard. In fact, that last sentence is wrong, because I did read in the Daily Telegraph about one boy (an Organ Scholar, if I recall aright, who used to play the massive school organ), who became a music teacher and (hence the interest of the Press) when in his thirties was convicted of sexually assaulting one of his piano pupils.

Life is always surprising. Who knows where my next port of call will be?

Afterword [19 July 2018]

In fairness to the school I last attended,

https://www.rbcs.org.uk/

it has, since the 1970s, become rather more organized in sending its charges on their way. In fact, reading “Old Blues’ News” [https://www.rbcs.org.uk/old-blues-association/] and the other newsletters they put out about activities and careers etc is alone enough to make one fatigued, so active and driven seem the sharp-elbowed middle classes reported upon. The ranks of former pupils are now replete with quite well-known and even famous people to add to the commanders of ships and heads of economic enterprises: actors and actresses, TV people, film people, and the odd “celebrity” who is “famous” enough to be known even to me (I suppose that those “Old Blues” would include TV presenter Jeremy Kyle and MP Alok Sharma).

Alison Chabloz, Alt-Right, Campaign Against AntiSemitism, Carl Benjamin, Colin Robertson, Count Dankula, David Icke, free speech, historical revisionism, Ian Millard, immigration, Jewish lobby in UK, Jez Turner, London Forum, Mark Meechan, Millennial Woes, Nick Griffin, Party Politics, Paul Watson, Prison Planet, Reminiscences and Musings, Sargon of Akkad, society, The Great Replacement, Tommy Robinson, Uncategorized

The Leadership Principle v. the Attitude of the Prima Donna

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Nick Griffin

I suppose that most people reading this will have heard of Nick Griffin, formerly of the British National Party. For the benefit of those who have not, this is what Wikipedia says about him:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Griffin

I have never met Nick Griffin, I have never spoken with him. My view of him is, in a nutshell, that he did very well with the BNP to make a large part of a silk purse out of what was mostly a sow’s ear. He made the BNP at least half-credible (up to 2009). He and Andrew Brons got elected as BNP MEPs. He has courage. He has intelligence, too.

On the more doubtful side, Griffin was naive enough to think that he had been invited onto BBC Question Time because the BNP had all but broken through into the magic circle of “major parties” and was being treated as such; instead, he was ambushed and trashed in a totally planned way. All those who took part in that ambush are enemies of the people. That finished the BNP.

As to what Griffin writes, I agree with much of it and in particular with much of his recent attack on the corrupted “Alt-Right” and other [what some call] “kosher nationalists”.

Griffin has reposted one or two of my tweets (though I am now expelled from Twitter) and GAB posts. I must have retweeted or reposted a couple of dozen of his.

I think that Griffin is basically right to say that the purely political fight, in the manner of the BNP, UKIP etc in the UK (he says throughout Western Europe) is now not possible. He has a point. Encroaching State/ZOG repression, Jewish Zionist influence and control, the ever-increasing hordes (armies?) of blacks and browns in the urban areas. Still, God works in mysterious ways…

Mark Collett

I had not heard of Mark Collett until this year, or possibly, peripherally, 2017. He once worked with Nick Griffin and was tried –and re-tried– (and acquitted) with him:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Collett

I have read The Fall of Western Man, Collett’s book. I agreed with almost all of it, though I was slightly underwhelmed. I do not think that Adolf Hitler, Alfred Rosenberg or Oswald Spengler have much to worry about.

I have from time to time reposted and (prior to my expulsion) retweeted Collett’s comments online. He, however, has (as far as I know) never reposted any of mine.

Leadership

Nick Griffin led the BNP; Collett led part of the BNP (the “youth wing”) and, obviously, wants to be seen as a nationalist leadership figure generally. Both men do seem to take the view that they must cultivate a slightly aloof persona in order to achieve their purposes. I have no quarrel with that, so long as the attempt does not look silly. At present (again, as far as I know) they are both generals without troops, and the fact that they both have about 35,000 Twitter followers means almost nothing. I myself, not a leader of or even a member of any party or group, had 3,000. I wonder how many of my 3,000 Twitter followers would follow me into battle– or even to a meeting in a pub? Not too many, anyway.

My point is that a political leader must of course have the aura of leadership, of slight mystery, of slight aloofness (as ever, we look to Hitler), but that must be based on the real, not merely or only that which is the result of cultivation.

Kameradschaft

In the past year or two we have seen numerous social nationalists persecuted by Zionist Jewry. I myself was disbarred in 2016, then questioned by the police in 2017, at the instigation of connected packs of Zionist Jews. Others have to date suffered more: satirical singer-songwriter Alison Chabloz; Jez Turner of the London Forum. Turner is right now sitting in Wandsworth Prison and will not be released until Autumn.

I have seen no word of support from either Nick Griffin or Mark Collett for any one of the above-named people.

Leadership demands fealty and loyalty: the leader demands both fealty and loyalty from his troops. However, loyalty works both ways. The leader must give more than he receives. Those who would be first must be the servant of all. The duty of those who would lead social nationalism is to support all social nationalists who remain true.

Afterword

In the short time (about 5 hours) since the above was published, I have been made aware that in fact both Mark Collett and Nick Griffin have expressed support (on Twitter and GAB) on at least two occasions for Alison Chabloz, though not (as far as I know, to date) for Jez Turner. Anyone knowing differently is welcome to comment in the Comments section below.

Reminiscences and Musings, society, Stray memories of life at the English Bar, Uncategorized

A Day Out in Cambridge

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Introduction

This is another vignette from my time at the Bar, specifically from my first six months (of a year, split up into two segments, in 1992 and 1993, with six months sojourn in New Jersey and New York in between) as a Bar pupil, which is a trainee barrister. I have, in a previous blog post, introduced the slightly comical figure of “the pupilmaster”, the anxious little Mauritian Indian barrister who was supposedly supervising me (we were the same age, 35). This account tells the tale of our day out in the university town of Cambridge.

Town and Gown

I had been to Cambridge a couple of times before. The first time was when I was about 25, with my then girlfriend. She was 32, a graduate of Cambridge University, and had contemporaries who were establishing themselves in academia and elsewhere. We stayed for a day or so with a couple who still lived in Cambridge; one of that couple was having his PhD thesis published as a book, and worked at the famous Scott Polar Research Institute.

My second visit to Cambridge, a decade later, was again University-connected, this time invited, by a friend at the Bar doing a Master’s degree, to Queen’s College, to the annual dinner of something called the E Society, a society which existed only to give its annual dinner; a club reminiscent of that written about by G.K. Chesterton in The Queer Feet [http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/QueeStep920.shtml].

That dinner took place in the richly-panelled rooms of the Dean of the College, a pleasant though cunning-seeming host and fellow (or should that be Fellow?), who later became briefly famous in the tabloid Press for two things: firstly, fulminating against “guests” of undergraduates (i.e. girlfriends/boyfriends) staying overnight in College; secondly, having a young woman actually living with him! (I believe that, by tradition, his office was reserved for bachelors living alone). The dinner was for about a dozen and was black-tie.

I also remember the dinner for other reasons: the Wagnerian-themed menu (“Valkyries on Horseback” etc); also the administrative slip when my “vegetarian request” (put in by the person who had invited me) turned out to have been lost in action. I was then ceremoniously served by the butler with a couple of poached eggs on toast! OK for me, but a hard-core veggie or vegan would have had a fit. I also recall the shock with which a fellow guest received my account of a TV programme I had seen about Filipino “psychic surgeons”. Turned out that he was the Something-or-Other Professor of Cardiac Surgery (and was unamused)!

Cambridge Crown Court

I saw Cambridge Crown Court on TV news recently. A horrible building which might be described as “public loo meets nuclear bunker” (with a nod to the Guggenheim in New York, in my opinion Frank Lloyd Wright’s least-successful conception).

https://courttribunalfinder.service.gov.uk/courts/cambridge-crown-court

However, in 1992 Cambridge Crown Court was still held in the ancient-seeming Guildhall (in fact built only in 1939).

It soon became clear that Cambridge was a little behind London in attitude. In London, when someone on bail “surrendered to custody” on day of trial, the “surrender” was nominal: he checked in with the Usher and his name was ticked off a list. In Cambridge, the defendant checked in and, despite having been on bail for months, was shoved into a cell! So it was that pupilmaster and I, having robed, found ourselves witness to an argument between two court guards and our defendant, who had arrived not long beforehand and had been roughly pushed into a cell with an injunction to “get your arse in there”… Having pacified the ongoing argument, we settled down (well, stood there– no furniture) to hear the defendant’s story already read in the brief.

According to the defendant (who was of “gypsy”, i.e. Irish tinker or, in today’s politically-correct terminology, “traveller” origin), he had been invited to travel with his friend (co-defendant) to Cambridge, far from their homes in Shepherd’s Bush, West London, in order to see a used car which the friend wanted to buy. While walking in the centre of Cambridge, he encountered a person described by him as “a hippy”, who had offered him a cigarette. Well, that cigarette “must have been drugs”, said the defendant, because when he regained consciousness he was in the back of a car which was being chased by a police car. He had been unable to understand why the police car, blue lights flashing and sirens sounding, was trying to chase the car in which he was now a passenger. The chase ended and, despite his having tried to explain himself, he had been arrested. Unlikely that he had ever read Kafka’s The Trial, but his surprise echoed that of Josef K.

The police account, which formed the case for the prosecution, was different. In their view, a car had been stolen by the co-defendant and defendant, had been sighted and chased and our defendant had exited the car on a bend and rolled under a parked car. His attempt to hide had been brought to a swift conclusion by a police dog.

This depressing and hopeless case might have caused pupilmaster to think a little unclearly. Never very punctual [see https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/06/19/home-and-away-or-neighbours/], pupilmaster was in danger of yet again irritating a judge by appearing late in Court (a massive discourtesy if the judge has already taken his seat). He poo-poohed my warning about this, saying, “Don’t worry– I know a short-cut into this court; it’s up those stairs. I’ve been here before”, indicating a dark stairway not far away. The defendant was bid au revoir for the moment, and we ascended the stairs.

In the words of Victorian novels, “imagine my surprise” when, instead of emerging outside the courtroom, we found ourselves in the dock! Worse, the judge was seated, looking livid, and the court was packed to such an extent that it reminded me of the famous courtroom scene in the old black and white film of A Tale of Two Cities. This was not good. Pupilmaster hissed at me to find the (hidden) catch so that we could exit the dock and take our proper place. After some fumbling, this was done. The judge, quite the Judge Jeffreys type, had turned that odd red-purple colour which might be called Judicial Livid, and which I myself may have triggered a couple of times in succeeding years. Not good.

The barrister for the co-defendant was there and all we now awaited was the putting-up of the defendants. It was at this point that it turned out that the co-defendant had exercized his non-existent right not to turn up for his trial. As a result, the trial collapsed, the defendant was bailed again and a warrant was issued for the arrest of the co-defendant.

So it was that another day in the pursuit of Justice ended.

Reminiscences and Musings, society, Stray memories of life at the English Bar, Uncategorized

Home and Away, or Neighbours?

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Prologue on the Stage [with apologies to Goethe’s Faust]

At the belated age of 35, in early 1992, I embarked upon a Bar pupillage (which, for anyone reading outside England and Wales, means being a trainee-barrister for a year broken up into 2 6-month parts). The system was archaic. Having acquired a law degree and completed the 1-year Bar Finals course, and having passed all exams, you were expected, as a “pupil”,  to trail around after a barrister (“pupil-master”) from whom you were expected to learn not so much the law as the practical procedure and habitude of the Bar and the courts.

The pupilmaster was the same age as me (a source of many a joke from him) and was a Mauritian of Indian descent, by name Raj N., whose father had been Minister of Justice, I believe, back home. At short notice, the pupillage had been set up by a friend of mine who shall be nameless (now that I am apparently “notorious” as a “far right” “extremist”– if you believe the “Lugenpresse” aka msm liars). I had to take what I could get. Having said that, Raj N. was basically a very decent little chap and we became quite friendly. His practice was an odd mixture: partly civil law with quite a few High Court judicial reviews; the rest, Crown Court criminal trials ranging from armed robbery to blackmail and almost everything else.

The first six months were unpaid (in those days, but not so now, when most if not all pupils are subsidized); not even unavoidable expenses such as travel were covered. The only expense that could be relied upon, if the pupilmaster were decent, would be a supply of drinks at the Cittie of York pub in Holborn or at Daly’s wine bar in Fleet Street (in Rumpole of the Bailey, “Pomeroy’s”), at the time called something else, a change which the Bar did not accept (and the Bar won that one, because I noticed recently that Daly’s is now called Daly’s again…).

I had come back from the USA to do the pupillage and had very little money. I got by, God knows how…I may have forgotten to pay my Underground fares at times, and one day, en route to Wood Green Crown Court in North London, I noticed, while ascending the escalator at Bound’s Green Underground Station, where –ticket-inspectors permitting–the pupilmaster usually picked me up, if our case was in North-East London or beyond, that the soles of my expensive handmade shoes were starting to part company with the uppers. I was not allowed to do my own cases (initially, “rubbish” cast off from barristers in my Chambers) and so make any money at all until I was in the second six-month period of pupillage. It was hard. Steps had to be taken. They were. However, that would be another story in itself.

One thing that made the first six months of pupillage bearable was the degree to which the pupilmaster got himself into amusing pickles, often in Court. Here is but one example.

The One Where Home and Away was the Alibi

So to that Rumpolian staple, Inner London Crown Court, situate halfway between London Bridge and Elephant and Castle. A rather grim old setting for many a case of serious and often “heavy” crime. In this case, serious rather than heavy. In legal terms, robbery; in lay terms, a mugging. The primary facts were that, on the ghastly North Peckham Estate in South London, a young man was hit in the face and money stolen. What distinguished this case from the many was that the victim had actually met and been introduced to the alleged robber some months prior to the robbery, a fact that (presumably) the defendant had forgotten, but (unfortunately for the defendant) the victim had not. There had been an identity parade, what the Americans call a line-up. The robber had been picked out.

Now, on the facts as stated above, you might think that the best course would be for the defendant to hold his hands up, plead to it and hope that his Counsel might mitigate the sentence. In any case, the Court is supposed to knock a third off for a guilty plea, though that is of course notional, because the guidelines for judges have latitude built in. In this case the defendant insisted on pleading Not Guilty. So there we were: an alleged robber whose victim knew him personally or at least had met him, and had identified him. What did the robber have to say?

The defendant was a rather large West Indian, a former amateur boxer of about 30, with a considerable criminal record for theft, robbery, drug misuse and so on. His alibi was that he not only was he not guilty and not at or near the scene of the crime but that he could not have done the crime, because every single day, without fail, he and his girlfriend (also West Indian) and her sister sat down at (I think it was, about) 5 pm to watch the Australian soap, Home and Away. Needless to say, such an alibi was thin, even with a supporting witness (the girlfriend). He thought, God knows why, that he had a good chance of getting off. In the meantime, he was being held in custody at “high security” Belmarsh Prison.

The first day of trial was absurd, with the perenially-late pupilmaster being told off not once but twice for tardiness. On the second occasion, after lunch, the plump-faced but not unattractive lady judge also waved her beringed fingers in front of her (the middle finger housing a massive rock that looked like it belonged in the V & A) and had taken the trouble to procure a printed copy of a page which she pointedly invited the pupilmaster to “peruse at your leisure, Mr. N.” It turned out to be the responsibilities of Counsel not to waste court time and the power of the judge to recommend that his (Legal Aid) fees be docked accordingly.

When the Defence opened on the second day, it turned out that the judge required that both sides should agree on when Home and Away was screened. Much quiet amusement from public gallery and jury box, but the judge and all Counsel had no idea of the timings. Judging from looks and smiles, the jury already knew the timings. Prosecution Counsel, a jolly fat little man, acquired copies of Radio Times and TV Times. These were perused. At that point, it was discovered that Home and Away was screened twice on every weekday afternoon, once at 5-something and, before that, at 2-something. These were, apparently, identical episodes, so it would have been possible for the defendant to see the first showing and still be free to mug the victim.

In the event, the sole Defence witness, the girlfriend (the defendant did not give evidence) scarcely came up to proof. Prosecution Counsel’s killer question asked whether, if she and defendant watched the first showing on any particular day, they would sit down again 3 hours later and watch it all over again. Her angry “YES!” carried little weight. The jury took little time to convict. When it was all over and the Prosecution Counsel was leaving, he jovially remarked to us, “well, I’m off home, home to watch Home and Away!”, to which the family and girlfriend of the defendant, having heard the remark, addressed a few choice epithets before scurrying off.

When we saw the defendant in the cells below (they are always below…), he was happy enough, despite the pretty stiff 5-year sentence that he had received about an hour before (the pupilmaster liked to give convicted defendants time to cool down…). Defendant’s formerly vice-like handshake was limp, explained by his “Ah’m OK, man. I can do a 5 on my ‘ead. Ah’ve just ‘ad a smoke, ani-way”…Where he got the stuff (cannabis) from, God knows. Better not enquired after.

So there we have it. Justice a la mode. Followed by a drink at a convenient hostelry.

[this little remembrance forms part of an occasional series on the absurdities of Bar practice as it was for me between 1992 and 2008]

 

 

historical, Party Politics, Reminiscences and Musings, Uncategorized

Fake News, Fake History and Fake Memories: the UK in the 1970s etc

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The Story

“I went to school on the train endless strikes waiting on cold platforms for hours. Then returned home to a house with power cuts no heating hot food it was a nightmare for at least 10 years“— who can guess on what the lady I quote was, in a semi-literate fashion, commenting? The Second World War? Surely not: that only lasted for 6 years. The Siege of Leningrad? No, that lasted for a shorter period yet— 2 years, 4 months. What, then? In fact the lady in question was commenting, in the online Daily Mail, on the UK railways and, in the wider sense, on the UK generally in the 1970s.

Well, it certainly sounds like it was awful. The problem with that, though, is that it is in fact not true. The trains in England (where I lived; Wales and Scotland were similar) were not subject to “endless” strikes (though there were certainly far more than is now the case) and the station platforms were no colder than they are now. What about “power cuts”, “no heating [or] hot food”?

The Reality

The “Three Day Week” only lasted for 3 months (January-March 1974) and only commercial users of electricity were cut off or required to cease using electrical power. Most domestic users were unaffected. Newspaper printing, supermarkets and hospitals were also exempt. In other words, if the lady quoted at top is not simply making up her story of hardship (or failing to remember accurately), the reasons must lie elsewhere. Maybe her parents failed to pay their electricity bill! Only joking…In fact, two years before that, there had been announced (on 16 February 1972) a rolling programme of area outages (including domestic users) but peace broke out 2-3 days later (midday on 19 February 1972) so, again, few domestic users were affected, though a minority had seen limited outages earlier, in early February.

There was, also, the “Winter of Discontent”, which occurred in the winter of 1978-79, but in fact (in its acute phase) was only effective in January and early February 1979. In reality, we are talking about weeks rather than months. Neither domestic nor commercial users of electricity lost power; gas and coal users were likewise unaffected.

So there we have it: the lady commenting on these matters at top seems to be a victim of selective amnesia when she regards a decade of her childhood as having been an awful ten years without rail travel, heating, lighting etc. The “decade” in question turns out to have been affected for about 2-4 months out of 120…

In fact, the amnesiac lady is not alone. Time and again we read about how the UK spent much of the 1970s in the dark, in the cold, without public transport, without food, rubbish uncollected and dead bodies unburied. It’s nonsense, but many really believe it, even those who were there, which is worrying…I should add that I myself was there, having been born in 1956; by the way, those “dead bodies unburied” did exist briefly (for a few days) in the winter of 1978-79, but only in two or three small areas of Liverpool and Manchester. Less noxious rubbish did pile up, but not for very long and not everywhere.

This fake history, that the 1970s were a decade of “socialist” chaos and dislocation, is quite entrenched now. This canard has wings! The various “Conservative” newspapers in the UK repeat it as an article of faith.

Other Fake Memories

No, I am not going to blog, here anyway, about the “holocaust” scammers and delusionals. I want to focus on a few other things. One persistent idea (which I have even seen said and written by journalists and TV talking heads older than me) is that Britain had no decent food until about 20 years ago! It’s just nonsense! Another is that life was harder for people in the 1960s, 1970s, 1980s than it now is. More nonsense. In, say, the 1970s, people mostly had secure jobs, which paid enough to live on; there were no such things as foodbanks; social security was far better overall, the disabled and unemployed were not bullied by DWP jobsworths; the mass immigration which is making the UK (especially parts of England) into a human zoo had not really begun to snowball; workers had fixed hours, which included decent lunch breaks of 1 hour (often interpreted generously); there was no such thing (for most employees) as being on call after hours, in the evenings or on weekends and holidays. In addition, it was far easier (for anyone qualified) to access higher education.

Conclusion

There is a wave of unreality around. I have a –perhaps idiosyncratic– theory that the various kinds of lies or lying fake “facts” that people are often now expected to believe (“holocaust” fakery, the idea that races and peoples are all somehow “equal”, the idea that National Socialism was “evil” etc) have affected the general sense of truth in society, so that many cannot detect lies, and indeed often lie to themselves as well as others about recent history and even about their own experiences.

Notes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-Day_Week

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/16/newsid_2757000/2757099.stm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_of_Discontent

 

Conservative Friends of Israel, ethnostate, free speech, historical, historical revisionism, Ian Millard, Jewish lobby in UK, Jez Turner, London Forum, Reminiscences and Musings, Russia and Russian relations, Uncategorized

Reply to David Dimbleby

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I have just now watched a BBC TV show, Putin’s Russia with David Dimbleby. In the programme, Dimbleby goes around Moscow interviewing a variety of people and asking their opinion of V.V. Putin. He started off by interviewing a lady who has had, I think, 10 children, thus ensuring her a medal, significant State financial benefits and a title which is different from but in essence the same as the old Stalin-era one, Mother Heroine of the Soviet Union. Fairly predictable opening gambit.

Dimbleby interviewed a number of dissidents: Yevgenia Albats, a fairly obvious Jewess and anti-Putin journalist; then another woman, who was arrested for 5 minutes, then released without charge, for going to the Duma (Parliament) with a satirical cardboard cutout of a pro-Putin politician accused informally of sexual offences. Hardly Stalinist repression: the same could happen in the UK. Finally, he interviewed an anti-Putin think-tank personage, who says that, while there probably was government interference in the recent Russian Presidential election, Putin would have won anyway. The dissident political figurehead Navalny was mentioned by Dimbleby. Navalny’s poll ratings have usually been well below 20% and his electoral showing as Presidential candidate was about 1%.

On the pro-Putin side, Dimbleby interviewed a smoothly duplicitous Russian Orthodox prelate who would not have been out of place in the Roman Catholic Curia c.1600. It should come as no surprise that the Russian Orthodox Church supports the Russian state. After all, the slogan of late-Tsarist official Pobedonostsev was Orthodoxy, Autocracy, Nationality [Православие, самодержавие, народность]. The Russian Orthodox Church Church (that is, the small part not repressed during the Jewish-dominated years of the Revolution, Civil War, 1920s New Economic Policy and 1930s Stalinism) supported Stalin –or pretended to– during the 1940s, though ignorant peasant Khrushchev again repressed the Church during the late 1950s, the “Thaw”, a period otherwise thought of as “liberal”.

Dimbleby also visited a class of children being taught weapons handling and maintenance, mixed with some patriotism and religion, an ironic twist on non-urban America. Dimbleby went on to talk with others: one ultra-nationalist whose interview was short and not-so-sweet; a group of young people, all Putin supporters. However, his most telling interview was with an Englishman working for RT, who was comfortable with his job and role.

It was pretty irritating to see Dimbleby, mouthpiece of the BBC, which is itself a mouthpiece for the UK Government and (like the UK government) riddled with Jew-Zionists, criticize lack of journalistic and individual liberty in Russia. He himself was party to the planned ambush of (arguably, naive) Nick Griffin on BBC TV Question Time, which (again, arguably) finished off the BNP, until then on a roll. Dimbleby was scathing about what happens in Russia to those who say the “wrong” things. Perhaps he missed the several recent criminal trials in the UK of anti-Zionist dissidents such as Jez Turner of The London Forum (sentenced to 1 year’s imprisonment for making a speech partly about Jews), or Alison Chabloz, convicted of singing satirical songs about the “holocaust” scam and the Jewish fraudsters who make money out of it. Ironically, Alison Chabloz is in court in London tomorrow, for sentence. The last two people named have also had their Youtube channels taken down. Alison Chabloz has also (like me) been expelled from Twitter. “Long live freedom”…

Anyone who was in Russia or the Russophone area in the 1990s (I was: a week in Moscow in 1993, a year in Almaty, Kazakhstan, in 1996-97) knows that, at that time, Russia was a wreck of a state, looted by (mainly) Jews. People starved by the million, especially the elderly. Yeltsin was a corrupt puppet. Putin may not be the perfect philosopher-king, and he does have both personal and ideological flaws, but his rule was and still is necessary.

Postscript

Dimbleby also criticized the lack of an independent judiciary in Russia. I was unable to compare that to the English system, in particular to the Alison Chabloz case, in which the defendant, a satirical singer-songwriter persecuted by the Jewish-Zionist lobby, was in court for –in effect– singing songs, because the matter was still before the court. Now that she has been sentenced, I can mention the fact that, at first, she was before the Chief Magistrate for London, one Emma Arbuthnot. The latter is married to a Conservative Party MP who, like 80% of such, is a member of Conservative Friends of Israel; the couple have been on all-expenses-paid trips to Israel. Alison Chabloz, via her lawyers, objected to Mrs Arbuthnot presiding, and she recused herself (stepped down from the case). Arguably better than Russia, but not much.

Alison Chabloz, Alt-Right, animal welfare, David Icke, Defence, free speech, historical revisionism, Ian Millard, immigration, Jewish lobby in UK, Jez Turner, Nick Griffin, Party Politics, Reminiscences and Musings, society, The Great Replacement, Tommy Robinson, Uncategorized

One Man’s “Extremism” is Another Man’s Struggle for Liberty and Justice

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I had occasion to visit a small NHS facility recently. It was a lovely, quiet unit, with only about a dozen or so patients, those patients living, prior to discharge, in several large “bays” and a few individual rooms. The unit was surrounded by flower gardens with small flowering trees and a few classical statues. Beyond that (out of sight) was a very small town (little more than a village) and the countryside of Southern England. If you have to go to a hospital, you could do worse. So why am I blogging about this?

While waiting to go in to see the patient in question, I perused the literature rack by the nursing station. One leaflet caught my eye. I have it before me as I write. Under the NHS logo and the name of the NHS foundation trust running the unit at the strategic level, the title:

PREVENT

[the words contained within a shield device; with two hands –dark blue and light blue (the old KGB colour..ironic) and perhaps (?) representing white and non-white– clasped]. The leaflet was then sub-headed:

Preventing vulnerable people from being drawn into terrorism

Inside the leaflet:

What is Prevent? Prevent is part of the government’s counter terrorism strategy; aiming to prevent people of all ages from being radicalised and drawn into terrorism.

The leaflet continues:

What kind of extremism does Prevent aim to deal with? It aims to deal with all forms of extremism; for example far right extremism, animal rights extremism and religious extremism.

So we see that “terrorism” has already been conflated with or replaced by “extremism”, an even less easily-defined idea. Moreover, we see that Islamist terrorism, the only kind actually posing even a slight threat to public order in the UK, is not mentioned by name (no doubt that would be called “Islamophobic”…) and only coyly implied, sub nom “religious extremism”. No doubt the Jewish Zionist fanatics, who go in their hundreds to be trained by the Israelis in Israel, are not considered “extremists”, “terrorists” etc. No, they just go to an alien society to be trained in the use of weapons and in the techniques of killing with bare hands (oh, and of course, how to “bring down” British MPs thought not to be pro-Israel or pro-Jew…).

Who are these “extremists” in pole position in the Prevent leaflet? Ah, yes, the “far right” (also left undefined, presumably social nationalists, those who hate mass immigration and the trashing of the UK by certain groups and types) as well as those who hate the cruelties inflicted on the animal kingdom by some humans and by human society; but let us now return to the leaflet:

What are some of the possible signs of radicalisation?

  • you may notice changes in the person’s behaviour or mood;
  • the person’s appearance may change and they may spend excess [sic] time on the internet;
  • the person may start to express extreme political or radical views;
  • the person may become withdrawn or have a change in their circle of friends.

So now we have travelled from “terrorism” and even “extremism” to people who have or may have merely “radical” points of view about, say, the disastrous effect that mass immigration has had on the UK, or about the exploitation and cultural contamination carried out by Jew-Zionists, or even about animal welfare.

The leaflet then asks what the reader might do should he or she actually suspect that another person has changed lifestyle or perhaps have acquired “radical” views:

  • NOTICE: Be aware of an individual’s vulnerability to radicalisation, any change in behaviour or ideology. An ideology is a set of beliefs an individual may have. [this section of the leaflet also contains the iconic alien-looking “all-seeing eye” motif…]
  • CHECK: If possible and appropriate check out any concerns with the individual…your line manager and the [NHS] safeguarding team. [this section of the leaflet contains a motif of a magnifying glass with a little humanoid figure inside the lens…]
  • SHARE: You need to share your concerns with the [NHS] safeguarding team. They can advise you on any relevant partner agencies who will need to be contacted. [note “will need to be contacted” not “may need”…presumably police, MI5 etc].

The leaflet then goes on to list telephone numbers and internet contact details, before ending with these dystopian remarks, which would not have been out of place in an early 1970s BBC Play For Today, or perhaps George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four:

What happens to my referral? [“my referral”, note, not “my denunciation”, “my informing”, my accusation” etc…]. Prevent referrals are shared with the MASH (multi-agency safeguarding hub) or [name of city] SPA (single point of access) depending on where the individual lives. Referrals are then screened for acceptance in to the channel process.

What is channel?

Channel is a multi-agency process whereby professionals and partner agencies can share resources and expertise. The aim of channel is to work with the individual to reduce risk. If your referral is accepted into the channel process you may also be asked to attend the channel meetings to share relevant information as part of effective multi-agency working.

I have sometimes been accused of being, inter alia, a “grammar Nazi”, and am, of course, (also) appalled by the poor English displayed in the leaflet. I have no idea by whom the leaflet was written. Perhaps the Home Office and MI5 are now less likely to recruit graduates from Oxford or Cambridge, or perhaps the near-illiteracy shown is just a function of the UK’s sliding educational standards. The main impression given, though, is that of a police state operation which would be recognizable to an official of Stalin’s Russia or any similar society. The saving grace is probably that it is not (though I am guessing) very efficient.

Indeed, shorn of the millennial “nudge”-government, fake “sharing caring” and armchair psychology nonsense, the leaflet could be seen simply as a method of recruiting agents…

Finally, think about where this leaflet was found– not in a prison, a government office, nor even in a university library, but in a normal NHS clinical environment in the heart of the South of England…

Notes:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nineteen_Eighty-Four

Addendum, 25 January 2019

https://www.grimsbytelegraph.co.uk/news/grimsby-news/humberside-police-transgender-twitter-thinking-2466084

Addendum, 4 February 2019

http://www.salisburyreview.com/articles/going-to-prison-for-having-the-wrong-thoughts/

scan25

Update, 2 September 2019

So there we are: once the chistka starts, it takes on a life of its own…

Party Politics, Reminiscences and Musings, society, Uncategorized

Social Media and Political Influence

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I was recently “suspended” (in reality, probably expelled) from Twitter. The “usual suspects” (Jew-Zionist provocateurs) were to blame, but that is another story (and the guilty will be suitably punished in due course, no doubt). This event has led me to reassess whether Twitter is even useful for someone from a political-influence standpoint.

At first, it seems to be a non-question: of course Twitter spreads influence. After all, most MPs have a Twitter account, along with Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. However, those Twitter accounts (and the myriad showbusiness ones with millions of Twitter “followers”) are only followed and (sometimes) read because the people running the accounts are of note in the “real world” outside Twitter.

I acquired my Twitter account in 2010 but only started to tweet regularly in 2011 or 2012. My follower count increased steadily from zero to, at peak, just under 3,000, falling back at time of “suspension” to about 2,800. What struck me in the last months was that my follower count had plateaued, oscillating between 2,700 and 2,800. I began to suspect that my total of followers was being artificially limited. Others, with far more followers, have started to tweet, as did I until my expulsion, along the same lines. Anne Marie Waters for one.

Another Twitter tactic has been stealth censorship, sub nom “shadowbanning”, both of tweets and replies. I found (by accident) time and again, that Twitter had not notified me of replies, often supportive ones. The Jew-Zionist fix is well and truly in, and not only on Twitter; Facebook is said to be worse. When the UK Government (ZOG) talks about working with Internet platforms to reduce “extremism”, this is what they mean– censorship and banning.

One consequence of spending time tweeting is that you are not doing something offline or elsewhere online. Thus we see much tweeting, Facebook posting etc by social-nationalists, the “Alt-Right” and others, but less and less real political activity. That does affect System parties too, but less so, because they already have organizations, MPs, MEPs etc.

My conclusion from all this is that, while tweeting etc is useful in terms of raising consciousness and bridging gulfs, it cannot be a substitute for real-world political, social and military action.

Update, 4 March 2019

Twitter is censoring many others now, especially people with any real political influence. Tommy Robinson got bumped off the site. Many others have suffered the same fate. A recent example: