Category Archives: society

Alt-Right, Campaign Against AntiSemitism, free speech, Ian Millard, Jewish lobby in UK, Paul Watson, Prison Planet, Reminiscences and Musings, society, Uncategorized

Twittering To The Birds

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It has now been about three months since I was expelled from Twitter. Am I chafing under the restriction? No.

Most Twitter users regard removal from Twitter as akin to being cast into outer darkness, a phenomenon to be feared (if it happens to them), to be protested against (if it happens to those whom they regard as ideological friends), to be laughed at and celebrated (if it happens to those they dislike, hate, or oppose ideologically).

Twitter is in fact a habit akin to having a piece of chocolate with your morning coffee. I used to love posting my views and comments on the affairs of the day, as well as posting favoured music and art. Self-expression. I used to think also that I was, at least in a small way, influencing the national and even international debate. That might have been so, but only to a very limited degree.

My Twitter account had just under 3,000 followers when it was eliminated by the Twitter organization. The absurdity of imagining that you are much influencing society is shown when it is considered that –to take just one example and one which comes into my mind— a mentally-disturbed Jewess whose Twitter account is replete with long complaints about her illnesses, alcohol consumption, problems with the DWP, and those she dislikes politically (including me!), as well as pictures of her dogs and photographs of owls, actually has 500 more Twitter followers than had my account, with its –as I would like to believe, anyway!– intelligent, pithy views and comment on politics, strategy and society. She does follow thousands, though, whereas I followed only a few dozen accounts. The present Prime Minister, Theresa May, has 598,000 Twitter followers, while Jeremy Corbyn has no less than 1.84 million.  To extend the idea to absurdity, take the One Direction pop group: they have 31 million Twitter followers.

A superficial view might be to imagine that someone with many thousands (or, a fortiori, millions) of Twitter followers has huge influence or impact upon society, upon political views etc. A moment’s thought shows that even if that be true, the influence and impact comes out of what the tweeter does offline, certainly off Twitter, not what he or she posts on Twitter. Theresa May’s Twitter influence is a mere adjunct to her position as Prime Minister. As to such as “One Direction”, were they not well known as entertainers, their influence (whatever it may be) would be close to a zero point.

I keep in touch with comment on Twitter, read about this and that, largely out of habit, but am no longer fooled by the idea that those tweeting are influencing many outside their own existing circle (or “echo chamber”). I sometimes look at the tweets of the Jew-Zionist cabal on UK Twitter. The same few dozen idiots, mostly concentrated in parts of North London, still tweeting pretty much what they were tweeting five years ago— to as little effect.

Another example, that of the “Alt-Right”: “Prison Planet” Watson, meaning Paul Joseph Watson https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Joseph_Watson, a young-ish (about 38-y-o) blogger and vlogger (and who does not accept the “alt-Right” label now), tweets to his 904,000 Twitter followers from (as I read somewhere) a basement flat in the Battersea area. Consider that: 904,000 followers, when the Prime Minister of the country only has 598,000… On the other hand, who of the two has more real influence, let alone real political power? That is not even a question.

Another point is that many “celebrity” or would-be celebrity tweeters buy huge numbers of followers, in an attempt to “big up” (in the inelegant phrase of the day) their Twitter profile and so (they hope) their real-world profile. To take one example, not entirely at random: a certain well-known Jew-Zionist solicitor, very vocal about “anti-Semitism” etc, (and who is or was wont to scream imprecations to me and others about how we should die and how he looks forward to our deaths) had about 5,000 Twitter followers when I became aware of the bastard’s existence (around 2012). That follower count increased to about 80,000 within one week! I wonder how much those “followers” cost him and whether the fake total helped him to pose as a hot-shot lawyer and almost a “public figure”? At any rate, he now has about 20,000 “followers”. His fakery does not stand alone, there are many whose “follower count” is hugely inflated, but I seriously doubt the utility of doing things like that.

There is another point. Many Twitter users follow literally thousands of accounts, so the influence of any one account on the follower is likely to be very small.

It might be asked why I am now on GAB if I think that being on Twitter is a waste of time. GAB has only 500,000 users, against Twitter’s 400 million. I am on GAB mainly because it is possible to communicate with others of similar views easily, either publicly or privately (as on Twitter). In addition, I want to support a genuine free-speech platform.

Mao opined (later printed in the “Little Red Books”) that “political power grows out of the barrel of a gun”:

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

That may not be the whole truth, but political power certainly does not grow out of tweets on Twitter.

Further thoughts [22 August 2018]

I just saw that privileged, superannuated schoolgirl-type and politico-social one-trick-pony Caroline Criado-Perez has no less than 46,200 Twitter followers! There are innumerable similar examples on Twitter.

See also: https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2018/04/24/the-rise-and-fall-of-the-pseuds/

 

 

Alt-Right, animal welfare, ethnostate, free speech, historical, historical revisionism, immigration, Jewish lobby in UK, Reminiscences and Musings, society, The Great Replacement, Threefold Social Order, Uncategorized

Where Are The Limits Of Religious Freedom?

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One of the pillars of a future “Threefold Social Order” society will be religious freedom. Such freedom is also said to be a pillar of our existing “Western” model of society.

“We” supposedly all agree with that ideal, meaning of course “we” white Northern Europeans. Of course, once one gets away from Northern Europe and its wider offshoots in North America, Australasia etc, that consensus ends. In the Middle East, much of Africa, South Asia etc, freedom of religion either does not exist, or exists only as a fragile plant.

In Europe, we see that the migration-invasion, and the societal takeover via a high birth rate of, in particular, Muslims, is threatening our fond belief that we have and always will have religious freedom. The pendulum is swinging. Whereas in the Middle Ages, Roman Catholic Christians repressed other religious communities and launched crusades to conquer Muslim lands (a simplification, of course, but let’s leave that aside), today the Muslims are invading Europe, not as armies (as happened several times in the past) but as migrant-invaders (immigrants, “refugees”, “asylum-seekers”, and as babies born in Europe…). If this continues unabated, we can expect to see more attempts to shut down religious freedom for non-Muslims, as shown in this cartoon:

CX9ZsZOWEAAky2e

This process can be seen in the UK. There have in fact been Muslims in the UK for a long time, at least in small numbers. An Islamic centre and cemetery was established on the edge of Woking, Surrey, in the 19thC (it can be seen just before trains enter Woking Station, on the Southern or lefthand side as the train travels from London). However, the political or societal strength has grown in more recent years, along with the numbers.

In the 1970s, the Muslim element rarely displayed itself politically. I myself recall that posters on the Underground in 1976 or 1977, advertizing the Libyan-funded film “Mohammed, Messenger of God” were often defaced, always with the same words: “Islam forbids representations”. That vandalism, along with “community” representation to the UK authorities and the film distributors, resulted in the film being renamed “The Message”.

Now, 40 or so years later, times have moved on. Despite the Muslim population of the UK only being between 5% and 6% (officially), there has been a gradual infiltration (I do not say that it has been particularly organized) into mainstream political parties, in areas where Muslim numbers are significant: parts of the North of England, the Midlands, smaller areas within London and elsewhere. The influence of Sharia law and courts has grown; the Church of England has shown itself craven (as indeed it is when confronted by the aggressive Jewish-Zionist element). In some cases, Christians wishing to display their faith, e.g. by wearing crosses etc, have been given the choice of not doing so or being dismissed.

I repeat, officially the Muslim population of the UK stands at little more than 5% (about 5.1%) so far, but a high birth rate may propel that to 10% in the short term and later to…who knows? What will then be its influence and power?

As to the Jews, in numbers they are small, somewhere between 250,000 to 280,000, though there are also very large numbers of part-Jews, many of whom have little or no day to day connection with Jewish religious practices. Their influence and power comes not from crude numbers, but from concentration in and control of key strategic areas: finance, law, politics, mainstream media and, now, large Internet organizations.

Christians and Muslims accept persons of any race into their communities, at least in principle. Both Christians and Muslims have traditionally accepted it as an article of faith that persons of other religions should be “converted”, whereas Jews do not seek converts (though some modern branches do accept small numbers, e.g. after marriage to Jews). Judaism, therefore, has never launched “crusades” or the like. The Jews do not aim to make the world Jewish, only to be the major influencing, controlling and profiting element in or over the world.

The modern Christian world of the post-Enlightenment has, in principle, accepted that people can be Christian, Muslim or Jew (or whatever else) freely. That is easy enough when it comes to beliefs, ideas, even public worship in particular buildings, though (as mentioned above) it took Europe a long time even to accept those aspects. Much of the world does not go that far.

Where things become more difficult is when the religious practice of a community contravenes the law or morality of the society as a whole. Halal slaughter, kosher slaughter, which revolt the sensibilities of thinking non-Muslims and non-Jews. Male and female genital mutilation by Muslims and Jews. The cries (now electrically amplified) of the muezzin from the minaret of the mosque. These are cases where, in my view, the demands of the society to prevent cruelty, the wish of Europeans not to hear constant mosque noise in their neighbourhood must prevail over the practices of both the Jews and the Muslims.

To take an extreme case: there were societies in the past, Aztecs, Incas, even Europeans of ancient Europe, who engaged in ritual sacrifice of humans. Would we accept such practices today just because “it is part of their religion”? I think not.

There have been problems in the recent past in relation to other religions: the Jehovah’s Witnesses, with their unwillingness to save the lives of their children via blood transfusion; the mental and sometimes physical cruelty to children of some small “Christian” sects such as the Plymouth Brethren; the contrived scam that is Scientology (the British government of the 1960s fought a long battle to suppress Scientology, because of its perceived cultic and controlling behaviour). There could be other examples given.

It might be said that even mainstream Christian religions have done very evil things, e.g. the sex scandals in the Roman Catholic Church, though those involved acts not sanctioned or encouraged by the religion as such.

In the end, society, meaning the political element, must draw the line between the zone where religion holds sway and the zone where group or community religious practice must give way before the general secular law which should protect people and animals.

ethnostate, Party Politics, society, Uncategorized

Could A New Party Triumph?

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We are now hearing speculation about part of the UK Labour Party splitting off and forming a new so-called “centrist” party: pro-Israel, pro-Jewish lobby, Blairite. Washed-up ex-Labour MP (still clinging on as “independent” MP for the salary, expenses, pension and gratuity rights, and freebies) John Woodcock made a doomed-to-fail plea for such a party recently.

The fact is that only those expelled from Labour or about to be will join Woodcock. Electoral reality is that Corbyn and his supporters retain and will retain the name “Labour” and all its worldly goods, including name-recognition. True, Labour has in recent decades done some very bad things, such as importing millions of blacks and browns with the deliberate aim of destroying white British (there is no other British) society. However, Labour is still living, electorally, off the hump of the creation of the NHS, and other more positive policies of the increasingly remote past.

In other words, Corbyn and his people will stand at the next general election as “Labour” and will be elected or otherwise on that basis. Even if the rebels can organize themselves into “Labour Centre” or some such in the years or, probably, months before that next general election, few if any will be elected in a contest where huge numbers of voters just look at the label: “Labour”, “Conservative” etc, even though the real or original Labour and Conservative parties disappeared decades ago.

What about some other and completely new party? In France, Macron started “his” own party, En Marche, but Macron is merely a figurehead for ZOG and the New World Order [NWO]. Rothschilds bankrolled Macron. His “pop-up” party was not a grassroots upsurge but as manufactured and marketed as sliced bread. Still, the success of En Marche in getting elected was a pointer to the fading popularity of the old System parties.

In the UK, the same frustration and anger fuelled, first, the BNP in the decade up to 2010 and then, up to 2015, the “nationalism-lite” UKIP. Only the semi-rigged British FPTP electoral system saved Labour and Conservative from a devastating UKIP upsurge. On a proportional voting basis, UKIP would not have had 1 MP in 2015 but, at minimum, 70 MPs. In fact, because voters would know that their UKIP votes were not wasted under a pr voting system, UKIP might well have received twice the number of votes that it actually did (nearly 4 million) and so would have ended up with as many as 150 MPs.

All that is water under the bridge now, but there was a recent opinion poll which indicated (though in other words) that about 38% of UK voters would be willing to vote for a generally nationalist pro-Brexit new party and that 24% would, right now, be willing to vote for an “anti-immigration” and “far right” party. I have always fought the use of the misleading “far right”, “right”, “centre”, “left”, “far left” spectrum terminology, but there it is.

It is clear to me that there is a possibility for a truly social-national party to succeed in the UK and particularly in England (and Wales too, probably). It would have to be set up on a very strict and disciplined basis, with power centralized, though an organizational structure of regions might also work. Anything too “democratic” just lets in the forces of opposition: well-funded Jewish Zionist attacks etc, leading to splits. We have seen that in the National Front, British National Party and UKIP.

The party I envisage must be financially secure through its own members, simply and clearly organized, and ideologically clear. Such a party would, in the chaotic conditions ahead, be able to position itself for a bid at national leadership.

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

First, Steal A Chicken

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This post is one in the line of reminiscences of my life at the English Bar. More exactly, it is another story of my days of pupillage (“on the job training”) as a newly-minted barrister in 1992-93, still under the control of a “pupilmaster” (though, as explained in other posts, my “pupilmaster” was in fact the same age as me, a consequence of my “rolling stone” or “wander-bird” youth). It tells the story of a fairly minor series of thefts, but at the same time says something about UK and even European society generally.

A timeworn joke says that the first line of an old Hungarian recipe for chicken goulash starts, “First, steal a chicken”…Well, in this story there was no chicken but what there was was an Arab Gypsy woman in East London who was expecting a baby. Well, a baby needs all kinds of things and especially clothing, so the family of that woman– a man, a boy of 14, the pregnant woman, our defendant (an exceptionally beautiful girl aged about 18 who was a cousin of the pregnant woman), and another woman– set out one fine morning to steal the requisites. Their chosen emporium was British Home Stores, Ilford, part of East London.

The aforesaid shopping expedition was initially successful, but came to an abrupt end when the “shoppers” were arrested by police as they were getting into their car, laden with their “acquisitions”. A woman store detective had noticed them and had alerted her colleagues and the police.

It is at this point that the story becomes interesting from the “crime and punishment” point of view. The man arrested was not charged, on the basis that he had not entered the store, not handled the goods and had not admitted knowing anything of the thefts. The 14 year old boy, having admitted acting as a look-out (a pretty poor one, as it turned out), received a police caution. The other women admitted theft in the magistrates’ court and were fined £50 each. So that left our defendant, who was called something like Maroush or Marousha.

Now it transpired that Maroush was also going to be sentenced for being part of a gang which had visited towns in Dorset and Somerset and had stolen quite large amounts from shops by distracting the cashiers while the tills were open (in fact, they could somehow get them open, silently and in seconds, even when the tills were closed). Maroush was a minor player in that game but would be sentenced with several others, they like her having pleaded to those offences, after the conclusion of her shoplifting trial.

Now the point was that theft is an either-way offence and Maroush could have pleaded guilty in the “mags”, in which case she would no doubt have received a £50 fine like the others. Why she had decided to elect Crown Court trial, God knows. We only got her case at the Crown Court stage.

So it was that we all appeared at Snaresbrook Crown Court one day. Snaresbrook is a large rambling building near the end of the Central Line in Essex, and which even then had, I believe, 26 courtrooms (Wikipedia says 20, but that was in 1988; trial was in 1992; it’s pretty big, anyway…). One thing that struck me was when pupilmaster and I were provided (by the Crown Counsel) with a copy of a short Home Office report marked “Restricted”, all about Maroush’s clan origins.

It seems that Maroush came out of a clan of Arab Gypsies who lived (no doubt in poverty and on the margins of Arab society) in pre-WW2 Libya. The Second World War dislocated the states and colonies around the Mediterranean. The clan took the opportunity, after the war finished, somehow to get to Italy. They were eventually granted residency, and some, citizenship. The EEC/EC/EU arrived, with its “free movement” provisions. The clan then moved to somewhere where they could live off the host population more easily– the UK. The Home Office report was fairly direct, which perhaps was why it was “Restricted”: one would not want the British people or Press to see the truth…In fact, the report made it clear that few if any of the 5,000 Arab Gypsies of that clan then living in and around London had remunerative work. They all lived from theft, begging and State benefits.

The trial itself should have taken a day, but in fact took three, to the irritation of the judge. Pupilmaster was usually extremely long-winded, almost absurdly so. In fact, because the trial only ended late on the third day, sentence had to be put off to a fourth, because the other “£50 note trick” defs would be sentenced alongside Maroush. In the event, she was –almost inevitably– convicted of the Ilford shoplifting, and was sentenced to, if memory serves, 22 months’ imprisonment, though most of that was for the Dorset/Somerset offences. Still, she would have been better off pleading to the shoplifting, in the mags. She cried in the dock. I felt sad (I was younger and perhaps more sensitive then).

Not sure why that trial has stuck in my mind: the Home Office report? The youth and beauty of the defendant? The manifest silliness of her decision both to fight the shoplifting charge and, far worse, to do so in the Crown Court? All was put to one side over a few beers in the nearby Spread Eagle pub (if I recall the name aright) not long after. Life went on.

Note:

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

 

Campaign Against AntiSemitism, Jewish lobby in UK, Labour Friends of Israel, MPs, Party Politics, Rishi Sunak, society, Starmer, Uncategorized

To Topple A King

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In chess, the King is rarely attacked directly. The usual method is to remove his guard, the pieces which surround him [see, for example, The Art of the Middle Game by Keres and Kotov, first published 1964]. In politics, the same sometimes happens. The figure attacked is not easily dislodged directly, so is subjected to indirect attack.

The Jew-Zionists want to remove Jeremy Corbyn, mainly because they say that they see his leadership of the Labour Party as facilitating “anti-Semitism” in Labour and beyond. The reality is more that the Zionists have influenced all major System parties in the UK since the late 1940s (and to some extent since the 1930s), and have had a stranglehold over British political life and parties since, at latest, 1989. They have become accustomed to having most MPs as their doormats. They want to, once again, fully control both major System parties.

Corbyn was never expected to win the Labour leadership and only got on the ballot via the “Hand of God”, meaning that MPs who did not support him and did not later vote for him yet nominated him! I still find that extraordinary. He needed 35 nominations and got 35 (36 including his own vote):

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/06/who-nominated-who-2015-labour-leadership-election

Corbyn’s position is unassailable if he stands firm against the almost hysterical Jew-Zionist “claque” noise now being howled at him and Labour. The Labour members and supporters mostly support him. Against him is the Jewish lobby: msm (Press, radio, TV), and the pro-Zionist anti-Corbyn MPs in Labour (maybe as many as 200 out of 258). So the “lobby” tries a different tactic, one that they have tried several times since Corbyn was elected Labour leader: to remove his guard, and then to checkmate him.

Thus we see attempts to rig Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) against Corbyn, to place on it pro-Israel persons, whether those who make a living from being pro-Israel (eg Luke Akehurst) or oddities such as freak Eddie Izzard.

Now “they” have, in poker language, “upped the ante” by prevailing upon quite pro-Jewish John McDonnell, Shadow Chancellor, “suited thug”, ex(?)-IRA supporter and sinister “antifascist” idiot, to pressure Corbyn. McDonnell is ambitious, sees himself as Corbyn’s successor and may want to stab Corbyn in the back. Labour is quite high in the polls. Any early general election (this year or in 2019) might well see Labour as the largest party and at least able to form a minority government. McDonnell may see himself as the next Prime Minister, incredibly.

Corbyn himself is prone to offering the Jews weasel words. That is because his risible old-style socialist worldview (including belief in the “holocaust” narrative fakery, “antifascism”, “The Battle of Cable Street” semi-history, “!No Pasaran” etc) is a huge part of the ideological baggage that he cannot jettison. Cognitive dissonance etc.  He should, ideally, just stand up to the Jewish lobby and appeal to the wider public, but in fact is now –again– cringing before the Jewish Zionists and “apologizing” to the bastards even as they try to get him removed! I see that as partly a tactic, however. If Corbyn retreats like the tide before the attacks, seems to give in at least verbally, then the Jews have nothing to press against. Judo? Sun-Tzu?

I never thought much of Corbyn, who had a very poor academic background, no real work background, no profession, as well as derivative and quite dull ideas. However, he is somehow likeable, and is a recognizable English type, the radical socialistic/anarchistic, cap-wearing Labourite of the last century, to be found in local Labour parties, on allotments, at steam fairs and heritage railway stations. More importantly, for me, Corbyn is not actually in the pocket of the Jewish Zionists, and (trump card) is laying the ground for social nationalism by just being there and being attacked by the Zionist cabal(s). If Corbyn can hang on in there as Labour leader, he stands a good chance of becoming Prime Minister within a year, even if only as head of a minority government.

Corbyn-Labour can lay the ground for social-nationalism. Many of his own supporters are, albeit unwittingly, halfway there. That is why the enemy are trying to topple him. I hope that they fail.

Update, 2 January 2024

Well, 5-6 years on, much water has passed under bridge. As we now know, the mendacious snake-oil salesman and (in reality, though not usually openly, and as “controlled opposition”) Israel mouthpiece, Nigel Farage, stabbed in the back his own supporters and candidates (and even, in effect, stole their money) by standing down the Brexit Party candidates at the 2019 General Election, thus gifting dozens of seats, maybe even 100 seats, to the Conservative Party. That is part of why the Con Party “won” that election.

The other reason why the Con Party “won” (though scarcely at all increasing its vote-percentage) was because Labour’s vote-percentage fell by, if I recall aright, about 8 points. The 4 years of ceaseless “Corbyn is a terrorist” propaganda had had its effect on the electorate.

2017 Labour voters voted with their feet in 2019; huge numbers abstained, some voted for the Con Party or elsewhere.

So here we are. The Israel-lobby in Labour grabbed power after Corbyn resigned. They selected dull-as-ditchwater Starmer (pro-Israel, Labour Friends of Israel member, Jewish lawyer wife, children being brought up as if fully-Jewish) as leader.

MPs and others who are anti-Israel etc have been purged; even Corbyn himself. It now looks as if Starmer-Labour will win the 2024 GE handsomely, but purely by default, because the Government of little Indian money-juggler Sunak is so incredibly useless..

Alt-Right, Campaign Against AntiSemitism, Defence, free speech, historical revisionism, Jewish lobby in UK, MPs, Party Politics, Russia and Russian relations, society, Uncategorized

The Latest Turn of the Screw

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Today, a collection of System MPs in a Select Committee of the House of Commons decided that the Internet in the UK is too free, despite the increasing censorship seen (I myself having fairly recently been expelled from Twitter). They want new laws to force the platforms such as Twitter, Facebook etc to somehow prevent “fake news” and the “wrong” kind of opinions being seen or heard. They are animated by the election of Donald Trump and by the Leave vote in the EU Referendum which occurred in the UK. Oh, and they want to stop “interference by foreign countries” in UK politics…

I can see why one Californian film mogul referred to a similar delegation of British MPs that he met (about 20 or so years ago) as “yawningly dull Little Englanders”. These MPs seem to think that they can pass laws in their little Parliament of fools which will control the Internet. In reality, the USA will not pass such laws, most of them anyway, because of a thing called the US Constitution. The EU might, in its little Parliaments or in its completely undemocratic Brussels version, or by Commission decree, pass such laws, but I doubt it.

As for “foreign interference”, they mean Russia, mainly, but not a word is said about the pervading and continuing Israeli interference in UK politics. Only one documentary (on Channel 4, about 8 years ago) examined the Jewish Israel lobby in the UK. Al Jazeera TV did another recently, only for paid Israel drones in Westminster to laugh it off.

We do not have a “fake news problem” (unless is meant by that the msm). We have another problem, which might be called a “Zionists in the woodwork” problem.

The System MPs would love the Internet to be (even more) muzzled. They love it when honest people cannot put forward social-national views. They are mostly now enemies of the British people.

Notes

basic income, ethnostate, historical, Reminiscences and Musings, Russia and Russian relations, society, Uncategorized

What Do People Need?

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On rereading Andrei Amalrik’s Involuntary Journey To Siberia of 1970, all sorts of impressions were received, most not at all new: the lack of freedom in the Soviet Union, the Kafka-esque Soviet legal system, the primitive life lived by Russian kolkozhniki (collective farm inhabitants) in Siberia etc.

However, at the end of the book, the author’s sentence for being a “social parasite” (5 years internal exile –2.5 years of which to be hard labour on a collective farm or elsewhere–) is quashed on appeal, Amalrik returns to Moscow with the wife whom he in fact married in Moscow and during his exile (because he was allowed compassionate leave from the collective farm or kolkhoz to visit his unwell father). He applies to the housing people in his district and, after some difficulty when he has to share with others, is given a flat with a decent bathroom and telephone.

Now, we are often told and quite rightly that Soviet people generally lived poorly, had to share, in many cases, their accommodation by living in communal flats or kommunalki (usually large flats expropriated from affluent persons during and after the Revolution of 1917 and the subsequent Civil War, though in fact some such shared apartments pre-dated Bolshevism), sharing kitchens and bathrooms etc and given, at best,one room per person (it was usually worked out, in theory, at so many square metres per person or family).

All of the above is true, but when one looks at the situation in 2018 Britain, many are not much better off, and some are worse off. Would a prisoner released from incarceration in the UK be given a flat, even a small one? The most he could expect would be B&B accommodation of a markedly poor sort, and to be put on a local authority waiting list, probably behind a horde of “refugees”, “asylum-seekers” and other riff-raff.

In fact, look at how many British people with full-time jobs live! Many in shared houses and flats, or in bedsit rooms. No better off than Soviet citizens! How many “hardworking” (the label of the past few years) people are living in not very nice shared accommodation in the UK, living off pot noodles and the like?

To go off at a tangent, this “hardworking” thing has become a joke: for example, school students all deserve (increasingly meaningless) “A” “grades” in exams because “they have all worked so hard”. Doesn’t matter if they are thick as two short planks and know only force-fed “facts” (often incorrect, as in the case of “holocaust” “history” etc). They are “hardworking” and so are the “deserving” academic poor. They therefore “deserve” to attend a “uni” where they will also “work hard” to “achieve” an almost meaningless “degree” (an equally-meaningless “First”, in half the cases) before –for many–getting a minimum wage (or not much better) job…

The above thoughts should impel us to think about what people need in a basic way, about what should, arguably, be the State-provided or guaranteed minimum.

Ideally, everyone should live in a decent house or flat, free of worries, with pleasant neighbours if any, while doing work which benefits society. That of course is a counsel of perfection, but that fact should not stop us from aiming at a higher and better form of living for all citizens.

For me, everyone should at least have a home, preferably one where there is reasonable space, reasonable peace, reasonable access to green gardens or wider Nature. Living space should be regarded as a human right, not as a way for buy to let parasites to make profits from the need of others. Everyone should have access to telephone and Internet. Everyone should have access to cheap or free public transport, at least in the local area and arguably within a 20-mile radius of home. Everyone should have (up to a determined cap) free water, electricity, heating. Beyond that, everyone should also have a “basic income”, even if only (in today’s money) £20 a week.

We can move to a society where the basics are provided. When people have the basics, they can work to get more, or to improve aspects of society in other ways.

Notes

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

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

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

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Involuntary-Journey-Siberia-Andrei-Amalrik/dp/0156453932#customerReviews

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=dp_byline_sr_book_1?ie=UTF8&text=Andrei+Amalrik&search-alias=books-uk&field-author=Andrei+Amalrik&sort=relevancerank

 

 

basic income, Defence, environment, ethnostate, Party Politics, Reminiscences and Musings, Russia and Russian relations, society, Uncategorized

Leadership, Dictatorship and The Need For Effective Government

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Dix5gSdWkAAinaz

A woman journalist or opinion-writer of whom I had not previously heard, one Clare Foges, has suggested in an article in The Times that the leaders of the UK and Western Europe might learn from political “strongmen” (she cites an eclectic mixture: Trump, Erdogan, Putin, Duterte).

About the Writer

Having not previously heard of the writer, I did a quick Internet search. The surname suggests a Jewish origin, and someone of the same name posted this online in 2000:

https://www.ancestry.co.uk/boards/localities.ceeurope.austria.Prov.vienna/167.588/mb.ashx.

It seems that Clare Foges wrote speeches for David Cameron-Levita and others prior to the 2010 election and immediately after it. She has also written at least one book for small children.

Having now read a little about her, I should say that she seems to have some intelligence, though perhaps not enough, or not enough knowledge, for the matters she discusses in print. Her understanding of society and politics seems shallow. She gave an interview to the Evening Standard in 2015. In it, she proposes, inter alia, better pay (!) for MPs, who “give up well-paid careers” etc. Ha ha! She really should take a look at the collection of misfits, also-rans and chancers who comprise many (not all, admittedly) of the more recent MPs!

https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/clare-foges-the-woman-who-put-words-in-david-camerons-mouth-10437029.html.

Indeed, in 2017 she herself wanted to become an MP, for the fairly safe Conservative seat of the Isle of Wight, but withdrew after having been shortlisted:

https://www.conservativehome.com/parliament/2017/05/exclusive-foges-joins-fox-in-withdrawing-from-isle-of-wight-selection.html.

In fact, the then-incumbent MP had hardly “given up a well-paid career”, having been a geography teacher in comprehensive schools for most of his life:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Turner_(politician)#Early_life_and_career

and that MP (also an expenses freeloader…) then “stepped down” after having “become a laughing stock” by reason of his quasi-matrimonial situation:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/11334299/MP-battling-to-save-seat-in-toxic-Tory-rebellion-after-fiancee-moves-in-with-his-aide.html.

In short, my provisional view is that the writer of the article is, at 37 or 38, someone who for whatever reason has fallen between the cracks, who might have become something in the political realm, even perhaps an MP (and after all, her background as pr/”comms” “intern”, sometime children’s book writer, “Conservative” speechwriter, amateur poetess and (?) professional scribbler on politico-social issues is no worse than that of many “Conservative” or “Labour” MPs, and better than some) but has not.

The Issues Raised

What are we to make of this article suggesting that the UK needs leadership informed by “strongmen”? Duterte is the Philippines leader who has presided over a campaign of extra-judicial killing of drug gangsters etc. Erdogan is the political-Muslim Turkish dictator (by any other name) who is dismantling the legacy of Kemal Ataturk. Putin and Trump are too well-known to need any introduction even to those who take little interest in politics.

The main issue, surely, is that government must govern. It must be effective. Ideally, there will be checks and balances: law, due process, civil rights, property rights (within reason); however, in the end, a useless government has no right to exist.

Political leaders (including dictators) emerge for reasons. In broad brush terms, Putin emerged because Russia under Yeltsin had become a chaotic mess. Pensioners and other poor people were starving or dying from cold or lack of food, by the million. Public sector workers were being paid almost nothing. Jew carpetbaggers had flocked to Russia like a cloud of locusts (or vultures) and were stealing and cheating everything, pretty much. “Russian” Jew “oligarchs” ruled from “behind the throne” and had tricked their way into “ownership” of vast oilfields, diamond and gold mines, heavy industries. Putin began to claw back some of that. Pensioners who had been getting (USD) $5 a month under Yeltsin, now (2018) get $400. People are at least paid for work. Chechen and other gangsters have been stamped on and many killed or imprisoned. Russia has flourished compared to the 1990s.

Erdogan is someone for whom I myself have little sympathy, not least because I value the legacy of Kemal Ataturk. However, Erdogan has improved the lot of the poor, we read, while the economy has improved under his rule.

Trump likewise seems an egregious person generally, and even more egregious as a leader of a government and as a head of state. However, his rise (fuelled by his own huge fortune, of course) was not based on nothing. Many people in the USA are living in poverty. I read that 40% of Americans now require US governmental foodstamps! Many jobs (as, increasingly, in the UK and elsewhere) are “McJobs”, precarious and badly-paid. The drug epidemic is out of control. Illegal immigration had run wild since the 1980s. Whether Trump can deal with these problems and others,  with the “separation of powers” American system, is doubtful, but the dispossessed and marginalized, among others, voted for him to try.

The Missing Leaders

Clare Foges cited Trump, Putin etc, but not the controversial leaders of the 20th Century: Stalin, Hitler, Mussolini, Mao etc. They all took harsh measures but also did a huge amount that was positive. Hitler in particular saved Germany from degradation, removed Jew exploiters from the economy, the professions, the mass media; built autobahns (the first in the world); created air and airship travel routes; vastly improved animal welfare; planned new and better cities and national parks; put Germany to work and (for the first time) gave workers rights such as decent breaks at work, Baltic and other holidays in Germany, and also foreign holidays including cruises. Decent homes were built on a huge scale.

3396AD3500000578-3561575-Hitler_had_lived_in_Munich_just_before_World_War_I_and_remained_-a-1_1461778976380.jpg

an-automobile-on-the-sweeping-curves-everett

Chancellery2DietrichEckartBuhneVW3

Britain could do worse than follow Hitler’s lead, introducing some updated and English/British form of social nationalism.

Stalin was far harsher as a leader and as an individual than Hitler or Mussolini, though Mao might be considered far worse (but of course he was non-European). Stalin however (like Hitler) was put back domestically by war. Stalin did recreate the industrial sector, which was booming before the First World War but which Bolshevism all but wiped out as a thriving economic sector. Stalin’s major mistake (apart from his cruelties and brutalities etc) was to allow the agricultural sector to be ruined via Collectivization, the legacy of which is only now being very slowly erased.

Mussolini did a huge amount for Italy. His posturing on balconies etc is what people now think of when his name is mentioned, but he eliminated the Mafia (until the Americans caused its revival after 1943, releasing the imprisoned leaders and followers), started to get rid of the terrible urban slums (unfortunately more were created as a result of the Anglo-American invasion of 1943); Mussolini also created an advanced scientific and industrial sector, mainly in the North. Famously, he also greatly improved the railways, and “made the trains run on time” (both truth and metaphor). Now, the wartime propaganda of the Western Allies and Stalin is all that most people outside Italy know– Mussolini as clown. Ironic that a real clown (the leader of the Five Star Movement) is now a major political figure in Italy!

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

Britain 2018

The UK has been pretty much left to rot since 2010. The Blair government, though repressive and in the pocket of the Jewish-Zionist lobby, tried to modernize infrastructure generally. New buildings were constructed: hospitals, libraries, schools. Credit where due.

The David Cameron-Levita-Schlumberger government of idiots was not only the most pro-Jewish/Zionist government Britain has ever had, (until Theresa May became Prime Minister), but also the least-effective of modern times (again, until that of Theresa May?). It not only failed to do anything new and decent, but also failed to maintain that which already existed, in every sector, from libraries and schools to the air force and navy.

The lesson surely is that government must be effective. If it is not, the State stands in peril. The people eventually demand action. They are beginning to demand it now.

The article by Clare Foges is, it seems to me, a sign of the times, or a straw in the wind. The political times in Britain are a changin’…

Notes

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/profiles/3tMvnMp3DFW3z99Zvc7WC3T/clare-foges

https://www.standard.co.uk/lifestyle/london-life/clare-foges-the-woman-who-put-words-in-david-camerons-mouth-10437029.html

A critical article from the New Statesman:

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/elections/2018/07/sorry-clare-foges-dictatorship-isn-t-just-character-flaw-it-s-crime

Another critique of her views:

https://www.property118.com/clare-foges-anti-landlord-the-times/comment-page-4/

She was desperate to become an MP but no-one wanted her:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-politics/11436355/Sir-Malcolm-Rifkind-resigns-Kensingtons-next-MP-might-be-this-woman.html

Another Clare Foges article. She seems to be very much of her time, meaning 2010-2015, as in this Cameroonesque piece of sort-of social Darwinism. I think that Clare Foges can be written off as a serious commentator.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/put-feckless-patients-at-the-back-of-nhs-queue-5hnlqqstg

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2267901/Clare-Foges-The-raven-haired-poet-ice-cream-seller-wrote-PMs-big-speech.html

Further thoughts, 6 December 2018

According to the Daily Mail, Clare Foges is “a devout Christian”. She may still be of part-Jewish ancestry (see above). My other query about the “devout Christian” bit is how does a “devout Christian” want to put IVF couples ahead of people needing NHS treatment for serious conditions just because they drink, smoke etc? Is that “Christian”? Even evil Iain Dunce Duncan Smith is said to be “devoutly Christian”…Yeah, right!

In the end, I suppose that it scarcely matters whether Clare Foges is this or that…and I just noticed that her Daily Mail bio was written by the egregious Andrew Pierce, so we can probably discount it…

Incredibly, she is appointed OBE!

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/labour-blocks-david-cameron-speechwriter-claire-foges-from-joining-party-to-oust-jeremy-corbyn_uk_58d90195e4b03787d35a3d08?guccounter=1&guce_referrer_us=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvLnVrLw&guce_referrer_cs=Y57ohgKaElO9EWmxBHKC1w

Looking at her photos and her behaviour, I think that she is probably at least partly-Jewish.

Her Twitter comments (read the thread):

https://twitter.com/ClareFoges/status/985813260824989696

She has not tweeted since April 2018.

She writes in The Times, but also as freelance pr person…

http://www.finelinelondon.com/

She has certainly written columns in The Times [of London] several times, but is not on that newspaper’s list of its 29 “key” columnists. I have just taken a look on the Internet, and not seen anything online written by her as Times columnist in the past months (since August 2018), though her Linked-In profile avers that she is still a Times columnist. I did see a piece from November 2018 published in The Sun “newspaper”.

https://uk.linkedin.com/in/clare-foges-906a4676

Update, 9 November 2020

I have just seen that Clare Foges has been writing a column for The Times about once per week in recent months. I had not noticed, never now reading that newspaper (does anyone?I suppose some still do).

basic income, Defence, ethnostate, Party Politics, Russia and Russian relations, society, Uncategorized

How Can There Be International Large-Scale Politico-Social Change by 2022?

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I have been re-reading Involuntary Journey to Siberia, by Andrei Amalrik [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrei_Amalrik], a Soviet dissident better known for his short book Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984? (both works were published illegally outside the Soviet Union in 1970, a fact which resulted in a 5-year sentence of hard labour and then internal exile in Kolyma).

Leaving aside the fact that the slowly increasing repression of free speech and free political activity in the UK of 2018 is mirroring (albeit in slightly milder form) that of the Soviet Union of 1970, it occurred to me –not for the first time– how hard it is to predict, accurately, sudden or large-scale socio-political and socio-economic change.

When I read Will the Soviet Union Survive Until 1984?, which was in or about 1980 (the year Amalrik himself died, a result of his own careless driving in Spain), I thought that the thesis was possible but would take far longer, probably 20 years longer. I thought that there would be a gradual collapse. I was wrong; so was Amalrik, but only by 5 years –in reality– or by 7 years (formally). Sovietism and all other forms of old-style socialism across the world died in 1989 in real terms, though in official terms the Soviet Union coughed to a halt only in 1991. This was perhaps appropriate: the Soviet Union was established formally only in 1922, though everyone thinks of it in terms of its having been established de facto in 1917.

It should now be added that all the “experts”, “Sovietologists”, “Kremlinologists”, Foreign Office bods, SIS bods, journalistic scribblers etc (all the ones I ever heard of, anyway) laughed at Amalrik and his book. The “East-West” Cold War set-up seemed set in stone. The Soviet Union was a granite monolith. They had been brought up in it or on it, most of them, most having been born in the 1930s and 1940s: nothing would happen suddenly. They were wrong. A combination of factors brought about not only the swift collapse of Soviet power, as well as the Soviet “empire” worldwide and particularly in Europe, but also that of all forms of ordinary old-style socialism, from the CPSU through to the pre-Kinnock/Blair UK Labour Party.

Lenin thought that the revolution in Russia was upon him in 1905; he discounted the real upheaval in 1917 and very nearly missed the boat. Hitler also thought that his time had come in 1923; when it did arrive, in 1932-33, he was uncertain at times about it.

I happen to believe now that we are in a current of (about, approximately) 33-year history. 1923, 1956, 1989, 2022. If I am right, the year 2022 will bring about another huge change in economics, politics, society, the world order generally. Think of how, say, China has changed since 1989. Russia too. Even the UK has changed hugely since 1989. The finance-capitalist “reforms” under Mrs. Thatcher had not started to affect most people outside the formerly industrialized North of England, South Wales etc. The mercantilism and commercialization that has happened since 1989 has changed the UK profoundly, in most respects in a not-good way, though there have been positive changes as well.

In brief, and without pretending to be comprehensive, one can say that, in the UK since 1989, the professions have largely become businesses, that the State has, at least in part, abandoned many who need help, that the UK (especially England) has largely become a non-white society, that the Jew-Zionist influence over mass media, politics and other areas of life has become pervasive and destructive, that there has been a general coarsening of thought, of cultural life, of behaviour.

UK politics has, since 1989, gone through the changes outlined above with the following results

  • Labour has had a quarter of a century of what amounts to control by New World Order/Zionist Occupation Government NWO/ZOG types: Kinnock, Blair, Brown, before collapsing under Ed Miliband; its MPs are still mostly of that type and Jeremy Corbyn is finding it hard to completely defeat the Jew-Zionist/Israel-First lobby within his own party. The Old Labour members and MPs still exist, but only just. Few now have ever done industrial work; many have never done non-political work at all, unless one includes management consultancy, public relations, “comms”, “organizing” what remains of trade unions, pseudo-academia etc.
  • The Conservative Party is now almost devoid of real members. The average age of members is somewhere around 70 if not 75. The membership figures are now kept secret, but it seems that a party which once had 4 MILLION members (in the 1950s) now has about 20,000. A Potemkin village with no-one living there. A mirage.
  • Other parties are even worse off. The LibDems have surely had their day except as a tactical vote for discontented voters trapped in “safe seats” occupied by parties they do not like. The graphics explain it.C3l1gk9XAAMHAwF

C64bh5XW0AIWYgy.jpg

  • UKIP was the populist answer to the gulf between governed and governing. However, the totally unjust voting system defeated it (in any case, UKIP had few answers to Britain’s real problems, was pro-ZOG/NWO, and by the time it deflated after 2014, even had non-white candidates! Some called it “kosher nationalism”). UKIP’s 2015 result said it all: 3.8 MILLION votes, 1 MP (former Conservative Douglas Carswell, an entryist, in my view).
  • Real British nationalism of a more social national type has hit rock bottom. The BNP failed in 2010 and collapsed in 2015. There are now only a handful of parties of general “nationalist” type, all of which are jokes, only one of which (Britain First) has more than 500 members.
  • The people are divided into a minority of wealthy and/or affluent who have doubled or tripled their capital over even the past decade, and the rest, many of whom are paying through the nose for poor rented places in which to live, who make rubbish money from jobs which (like their rented homes) are without security; their votes mean almost nothing, their views mean less, and they are just disposable labour units in an unfair society.

It Could Happen

An opinion poll has just been published saying that 24% of UK voters would vote for an “extremist” “far right”, “anti-Islam” and anti-mass immigration party. 38% want a real Brexit and would vote for any new party promising it (credibly, presumably). Leaving the tendentious wording aside, there we have it! The prize is right in front of us!

It could happen that

  • Brexit either happens on WTO terms, or fails to happen, causing massive discontent;
  • Russia and NATO get into actual conflict in Eastern Europe;
  • Corbyn becomes Prime Minister but with no majority; or
  • Some Conservative Party idiot-MP becomes a weak PM; and
  • The people are pushed beyond endurance on real pay, rents etc.
  • Mass immigration is not stopped or even increases.
  • Zionist exploiters are exposed even more than they have been.

In those circumstances, a credible and very radical social national party can take power and start to clear away the rubbish. 2022 and thereafter. Then we can see across Europe removal of the migration-invaders, removal of finance-capitalist parasites, a better society in Europe (inc. UK) with decent work, pay, Basic Income, animal welfare etc.

The prize is before us! 

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

Judge Not, Lest Ye Be Judged…

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This blog post has been triggered by my happening to have seen a couple of minor news items while idly browsing the Internet. The first reported that my old head of chambers –shall we call him M.B.?– from when I practised as a barrister in Exeter (2002-2007), has been elevated to the Bench as a Circuit Judge and is now styled His Honour Judge M.B.

The other news item was that the old (dating from 1905) Tower Bridge Magistrates’ Court and police station have been turned into “a luxury boutique hotel”. Sign of the times.

These reports have led me to muse on some of my own experiences with the judicial classes.

M.B. will probably make an effective judge. An erudite civil lawyer, I met him when I decided to stop being an employed lawyer (a situation I was in, intermittently, from 1996 through to 2002) and re-start Bar practice in England. I had been living and/or working overseas for much of those six or seven years, and in London, where at one time I was the leaseholder of property in Gray’s Inn (I lived at that time at Higher Denham, Buckinghamshire, from where I travelled in by rail from Denham Golf Club halt to Marylebone, a short journey lasting about 20 minutes).

I was in Kazakhstan for a year (1996-97) and after that also lived in or made shorter visits to a number of other countries: Egypt (where I lived for a while in Aswan, on a remote Red Sea beach under canvas, in a flat in Alexandria and in the desert oasis of Siwa); Turkey (I drove UK-Turkey-UK in 2001, which was quite an adventure at times: France, Italy, Greece, Turkey, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Austria, Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium, a 4-month trip); the USA (based in Charleston, South Carolina, but I also stayed for a while in Tampa, Florida); Qatar; Liechtenstein; the Channel Islands, the Eastern Caribbean (several islands); the Cayman Islands, Minorca, Czech Republic, Northern Cyprus etc.

I remember one member of my future chambers remarking at my interview that my CV read in parts like that of James Bond. I had to point out that any resemblance between me and James Bond was purely co-incidental and very implausible (and not only because I have never belonged to any secret service!).

Still, I joined that set and in general found it OK, though at first it (and so I) had very little work. I had taken on the lease of one of the largest country houses in North Cornwall and liked the relaxed lifestyle of the Cornwall/Devon upstream Tamar River area.

As to M.B., not long after I joined the set, M.B. and I won a multi-day action in contract and trust together (though appearing for different people) at Plymouth County Court. After that, we did appear on opposite sides a couple of times during my 5 years in chambers, but he lost out despite being (arguably) a better advocate and (unarguably) a better lawyer than me.

I may as well add that, despite what some Jewish individuals claimed after I was disbarred in 2016 (about 8 years after I had left chambers and ceased Bar practice!), M.B. and the other fellow members of chambers (with one, possibly two exceptions: see below) did not want me to leave chambers, whether for political or any other reasons. Indeed, M.B. wanted me to stay on despite my having decided to resign.

In fact, I was commuting on a weekly or 2-weekly basis across the Channel to Finistere, where my wife and cats were living. This resulted in financial strain, in that I was only available for half the time, was paying out large amounts for ferries (return trip with car, luxury cabin too, about £300 return, every week or so…), hotels in the UK for 10-20 nights per month.

Putting the seal on it all, I was starting to have “discussions” with the Revenue (which only ended in 2012).

My only misgivings about M.B. as a judge would be that, firstly, he tends to stick with black-letter law; in my view, he is unwilling to bend the law to fit the justice of the case. Whether that is a strength or a weakness is a matter for debate.

Secondly, when I decided to leave chambers, I quite liked the idea of remaining as a door tenant [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Door_tenant] and M.B. said that that would not be a problem and implied (indeed expressed, though in some other words) that it would be nodded through, but that the correct form would be for me to resign my tenancy first and then apply for door tenancy, though approval would “in my case” be automatic.

However, when it came to it, a couple of new tenants (I believe) cut up rough because one was married to some kind of Indian and was very hostile to (what he assumed were) my political views; I think (guessing) that a recent ex-pupil (a humourless bespectacled woman with an invisible sign round her neck saying “Politically-Correct Virtue-Signalling Christian”) may also have blackballed me.

In the event, the door tenancy would have been a waste of time because the Revenue was on my back at a cross-Channel distance. Still, that made me think that M.B. was not necessarily reliable, a thought that had occurred previously once or twice.

Now to another judge of sorts. Tower Bridge Magistrates’ Court, long before it was (quite recently) turned into a luxury boutique hotel, was for some years often presided over by one Jacqueline “Jackie” Comyns, a notoriously despotic “stipendiary magistrate” (the rank now renamed “District Judge Criminal”). Her reputation was fearsome.

I only appeared once in front of this gargoyle: I was “briefed” at 11 am to appear at 12! That was in 1993. I read the brief on the way to court. The defendant had refused to get off a defective bus and had then assaulted the conductor and gone on to smash the side window of a police car. She was pleading guilty.

At court, the case came on minutes after my arrival. The magistrate interrupted my mitigation to ask some petty question about the defendant. I did not know the answer, having not had time for a brief conference.

Instead of simply asking the defendant for the information, this ghastly frustrated prize bitch, sitting on her seat of petty power, told me venomously that Counsel had to be properly prepared when appearing in her court, and told me to go ask the defendant! I did, the pitying or amused eyes of dozens of police, court staff, members of the public on me as I traversed the unusually large courtroom and extracted the information.

I was told that that magistrate was going to be elevated to the Circuit bench in Essex, but that turned out to be wrong, because I see from the Internet that she was still dispensing justice from Thames Mags (on the other, i.e. North, side of the river from Tower Bridge Mags) as recently as 2013, the year that she retired (aged 70).

The problem of “judge-itis” (the tendency to be a despot sitting on the pedestal of power) is worse, usually, the further down the pecking order you go. It is rarely found in the higher courts.

At one time (1993-1995) I appeared on a frequent basis, at least once weekly, in the High Court. If I had a problem, it was never because the judge was reprising am-dram Nero or Caligula.

In the County Courts, the problem is occasionally encountered. HH Judge Overend, the presiding civil judge for Devon and Cornwall until 2006, was often a horrible despot when seated (at Plymouth County Court, usually), but in his case his bullying manner, and apparent tendency to make up his mind before you had finished —or even started— speaking, was mitigated by fairness and compassion for those suffering (so long as they were not Counsel!).

The barristers of the South West used to describe bruising encounters with that judge as one having been “Overended”…I have to say that on the odd occasion when he saw me outside court, he did always nod affably and even briefly smiled at times.

The magistrates’ courts are often the zoos where the wildest judicial animals roam their constricted territories. I once saw a stipendiary magistrate in London refuse bail to a defendant who was in court on a stretcher and on a drip !

Other judges have the opposite tendency, a pretty fatal one for a judge, a difficulty in deciding anything, especially if it would involve penalizing (eg imprisoning) those who break court orders. Judges whose Bar practice was entirely in civil work tend to fall victim to this; at least, that was my experience.

I have to say that I only found a few judges who were completely impossible. One was not a judge proper, i.e. the lady who presided over Tower Bridge Mags; another was one whose name escapes me now, but who sat at Uxbridge County Court 25 years ago. His connection with justice was, as far as I could see, purely formal. A horrible man. The many others, particularly on the High Court bench, might not always have seen eye to eye with me on the law or facts, but were almost always courteous in manner and impressive in their grasp.

Notes