Tag Archives: Lembit Opik

Diary Blog, 23 June 2024

Morning music

My blog, my freedom of expression

Many readers will be aware that I was put on trial in November 2023 for having supposedly published 5 “grossly offensive” items on this blog; 5 items within 5 pages (5 days’ posts). 5 blog posts out of, at the time, about 1,700. I was sentenced in March 2024.

The background of that is known to some but not all readers. I therefore offer the following blog pages as explanation (obviously, I cannot republish or link to the 5 blog posts which were determined by the Court to have been, or to have contained material, “grossly offensive“, so here are 5 others).

I should add that, while 5 blog posts were determined, in the magistrates’ court, to have contained “grossly offensive” material (in fact, in my opinion, largely innocuous comments and cartoons), the material in question was tiny in amount, about 2% of each blog post, if that. In fact, only a few sentences allegedly written by me were specifically mentioned in the judgment.

As previously mentioned on the blog, I am perforce far more diplomatic now on the blog than I was a few years ago, but how sad it is that this country that, arguably more than any other bar the USA, championed free speech for so long, should fall victim to this kind of sub-“Stasi“, poundshop KGB-ism, with the Clown Prosecution Service and police falling over themselves to placate the Israel lobby.

See also: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2018/05/30/one-mans-extremism-is-another-mans-struggle-for-liberty-and-justice/

Election thoughts

Labour leader Keir Flip-flop (Starmer) is the personification of the Norman Wisdom character, the clueless teaboy or whatever, who suddenly wins the lottery (or, in those 1950s days, the football pools). Starmer is about to become an “elected” dictator, despite most people despising, disliking or distrusting him.

Look, though, at what the Conservative Party now is. We are told that, if they survive the election, the leading contenders for the leadership position will probably be Kemi Badenoch (Nigerian), Priti Patel (East African Asian, and Israeli agent), James Cleverly (half-caste West Indian/British), and Suella Braverman (Mauritian Indian). All members of Conservative Friends of Israel, too.

Need one even comment?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/22/red-wall-tory-support-boris-johnson-south-yorkshire-labour

We are told, also, that the polls say that 20% of eligible voters have not even decided whether they will vote at all, and are also undecided as to which way they might cast their votes if they do vote. Do we take it that many of those will simply abstain? Will they vote simply as protest? Uncertain.

It could just be that those “undecideds” will vote, will want to vote as protest, and so will mostly vote Reform UK. Were that to happen, it really would put the cat among the pigeons.

The fact is that the Conservatives are in deep trouble anyway, that the mere existence of Reform UK has deepened that existing trouble, and that, even at a nationwide 15%-19% (as per recent polls), Reform UK, while perhaps only getting a few seats, would spell doom for the Conservative Party. Which is why the msm is now going crazy trying to demonize Farage and his latest party.

If Reform UK actually scores above 20%, then game on. If the existing ~18% is boosted by another 5 or 10 points, then UK politics will have received a meteorite hit, and will never be the same again. Were Reform UK to get 28% of the national vote, that might mean 80-90 Commons seats, and Reform UK would be the official Opposition.

That may seem impossible or crazy, and it may not happen, but the exciting thing is that it actually could happen. You cannot compare Reform UK in 2024 to Brexit Party in 2019, or UKIP in 2015.

This time, the Cons are going to go down really badly. More importantly, there is a perception this time that to vote Reform UK is not a mere protest vote, but a protest vote that really could accomplish something concrete— the utter destruction of the Conservative Party for a start.

I do not know whether Reform UK will manage to get beyond its present 15%-19% range, and/or get as high as 28%, but it just might.

Talking point

Tweets seen

Britain has not had anything approaching such a statesman for a very very long time.

Not that I approve of everything Putin has done within Russia itself, and Russian society still does not have an ideology capable of consigning to the past Western finance-capitalism, the mainly Jewish (but also Russian-criminal) “bandit capitalism” of the past 30+ years, and the former harsh Marxist-Leninist ethos, out of which the “bandit capitalism” emerged.

Still, as a transitional but very significant political power-holder, Putin must be supported as far as necessary, as a bulwark against various poisonous and contending elements in the world.

Fewer“, not “less“!

True all the same.

The policy is working so well as a deterrent that, even in the past couple of days, about 2,000 more migrant-invaders have entered the UK via the English Channel, ferried in by the RNLI and Border Farce.

All the System parties talk about “smuggling gangs”, but the smugglers could, in principle, be dealt with easily enough by special forces undercover. Dealt with. Just dealt with. The necessity is to deter or stop the migrant-invaders themselves, to close down the “small boats” cross-Channel route, and to protect both our borders and the future of our people.

Not a very impressive candidate anyway: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Williams_(British_politician). 39 years old. His only non-political job was as a director of Cardiff Bus, a municipal bus service company owned by Cardiff Council; Williams was a councillor and on the relevant Council committee at the time. What a boondoggle.

Williams has been an MP since 2015, but lost his previous seat to Labour in 2017 and was then elected for another constituency in 2019. That constituency has now been abolished, and redrawn into the new constituency of  Montgomeryshire and Glyndŵr.

On the previous boundaries, the area was quite solidly LibDem until 2010, when the egregious Lembit Opik managed to ruin his political career by making plainly freeloading expenses claims and by playing around with young Romanian pop singers called the Cheeky Girls: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lembit_%C3%96pik.

While one might have expected Williams to continue the run of Conservative Party successes in the now-redrawn seat, the plunging popularity of the party, combined with Williams having tried to make an illicit profit by betting on the election date while obviously having inside information, may make him unelectable. We shall see.

The new constituency is being contested by Con, Lab, LibDem, Green, Plaid Cymru and, perhaps most interestingly, Reform UK.

Obviously, I have no idea how Reform UK will perform, and it may be that the LibDems have the best chance of getting rid of Williams, but if (a big if, as they say), Reform were to take half of the otherwise Con vote, then either Reform or the LibDems might succeed.

On the wider point, had something like this betting scandal occurred in, say, 1994, or 1984, let alone 1974 or 1964, the person implicated would have been expected to step down either as candidate or, later, as MP (if re-elected). The slide in integrity and honour in British politics is palpable. The bastard seems to be intent on riding it out, and hoping to get away with it.

Crowdfunder

A reminder that my modest crowdfunder (to help pay the costs imposed on me after my free speech trial) is still running: https://www.givesendgo.com/GC14J.

Late tweets seen

Ha ha! Anna Soubry, the notorious former “MP for Plymouth and Angostura” (she briefly threatened me online with a libel suit when I first tweeted that humorous description of her, many years ago, the silly creature), talks about Farage being “a gob shite“!

I can well understand why Anna Soubry has no mirrors around her, but she ought to take a good look at herself some time…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broxtowe_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_2010s.

Ha. Yes, that is what is happening. A million migrant-invaders a year? Putin’s fault. Housing crisis? Putin’s fault. Nothing working properly any more in the UK? Putin’s fault.

If the “occupied” UK TV, radio, and newspapers disappeared tomorrow, the air would be cleaner.

Even 8 years ago, I was saying that “Brexit is more than Brexit“. Now, I say that people voting Reform UK are doing so for reasons far beyond, far far wider, than a limited wish to have Farage and his party get a few MPs.

Apocalyptic. God help anyone under that.

Our animal friends.

At what point will “they” have had enough blood?

Late music

[Troy Caperton, Winter Fenceline]