Morning music
The overcrowded prisons, the aftermath of the recent protests, and about real criminals released early
There are nuances in the situation, and a few minor objections might be made to that amiable rant, but fundamentally he is right. Even the Guardian admits it: https://www.theguardian.com/society/article/2024/aug/17/fresh-uk-prisons-crisis-as-riots-lead-to-fears-of-overcrowding.
Basically, 1,000+ people have now been arrested following the recent protests and connected minor “riots” (or violent outbreaks) here and there.
Many of those people have been charged, and many of those have been remanded in custody, meaning put into prison until trial (which might be as long as a year or more later, unless fast-tracked). Those who have pleaded guilty so far mostly seem to have been imprisoned anyway.
The fact is that many (probably almost all) of those imprisoned, either pending trial or after having pleaded guilty, are not in any way, even in the lay sense, “dangerous”. Many have no previous convictions, and even those who do (and the sentences of which have been reported after guilty pleas) have convictions mainly for non-violent offences (shoplifting, drugs etc).
What Starmer, Yvette Cooper, and (absurdly) Shabana Mahmood, have done is to release known and active criminals early (many non-white, and after they have completed only 40% of their sentences), in order to free up space which is now being used to incarcerate English people who are, almost all, not active criminals.
Those released early under that scheme will, many of them, re-offend within a fairly short space of time, whereas relatively few of those arrested in the aftermath of the recent protests will re-offend at all, ever, and certainly not in terms of violent disorder. That of course applies even more to those arrested/charged/imprisoned because they merely made comments, justified or otherwise, on social media.
It is beginning to look very much as though Starmer, Yvette Cooper, and the ridiculous Shabana Mahmood (currently posing as “Lord Chancellor” and Secretary of State for Justice) have no idea what they are doing. To me, their over-reaction to the recent minor disorders that took place (by English people— those done by Roma Gypsies in Leeds, and Pakistanis in Birmingham etc, have gone largely unpunished) seems much like that of the Queen of Hearts in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland: “Off with their heads!“
Incidentally, was there ever a “Lord Chancellor” and Justice Secretary less qualified? A moot point after some in recent years, I concede. However, Shabana Mahmood is an absurd choice for the role. She was only at the practising Bar for a few months, if that (after a year of pupillage), and then worked as a salaried gopher in a firm of solicitors, and only for a couple of years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shabana_Mahmood#Early_life_and_career.
Shabana Mahmood’s entire legal career only lasted about 3-4 years.
She was probably appointed to placate the Pakistani Muslim element in the UK.
Pakistanis as such are now about 3% of the population; Muslims as a whole (many of which are also Pakistani but born in the UK) comprise 6% of the UK population now. Both anyway are significant voting blocs, and important in general political terms.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_the_United_Kingdom
Kursk incursion
“Nearly early two weeks after its surprise incursion into Russia, Ukraine finds itself struggling to find a balance between seizing territory across the border in Kursk and losing it at the heart of the eastern front in central Donetsk.
On Friday, Ukraine’s commander-in-chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, claimed advances were being made of up to two miles a day inside Russia, but Moscow’s forces have gained about three miles this month as the Kremlin bets heavily on capturing the hub of Pokrovsk.
In Pokrovsk, meanwhile, officials have stepped up civilian evacuations. Serhiy Dobryak, head of the city military administration, warned that Russian forces had “almost approached” the city and that alarm about its future was growing.
Until a year ago, Pokrovsk was considered safe enough to act as a regional base where journalists and aid workers could stay overnight. Its road and rail connections link the central city of Dnipro with Kramatorsk and Sloviansk. Capturing it would in effect cut the part of Donetsk oblast still in Ukrainian hands in two.
There are persistent rumours that Col Emil Ishkulov, the popular commander of Ukraine’s 80th brigade, now among those involved in the incursion into Kursk, was removed from his position at the end of July because he was opposed to the incursion into Russia – unsure his unit had the strength for the task. At the time, soldiers from the unit issued an unsuccessful public appeal for him to be reinstated.
Sumy, which has a population of about 250,000, has remained busy and lively in the summer heat, though the noise of explosions from Russian glide bombs in the distance stepped up over last week. Its hospitals, though, have been filling up with frontline casualties, and an appeals for blood donations went out to help treat wounded soldiers a week ago. It took an hour for the need to be met.
The city has also received about 4,000 people fleeing the agricultural villages in the area towards the border in the north, many of whom plan to rent apartments.
In the border zone, six miles from the boundary, meanwhile, only a tiny handful of civilians and little functioning infrastructure remain. One shop with smashed windows was still selling groceries, but most places were boarded up. An aid agency, Global Empowerment Mission, supplies nearly 26,000 food rations every month because market supplies are absent, visiting frontline villages every week to distribute to the remaining population.“
[Guardian]
I recently examined this situation on the blog. My thoughts were that either Putin might push the incursion forces back using conventional military means, or blast the entire area from the air, destroying the Kiev-regime forces (as well as any unfortunate Russian and Ukrainian villagers still trying to live there).
Another possibility, less likely, would be a massive bombardment of either Kharkov or Kiev, using bombers and missiles.
Now, I have come to think that there is a fourth possibility, one which has roots in Russian and Soviet history.
When, as Tolstoy put it, in War and Peace, “the forces of Western Europe invaded Russia” in 1812 (the forces commanded by Napoleon were not all French, though about two-thirds were), the strategy adopted by the Russian leadership under Kutuzov, once he was appointed, was to withdraw and withdraw out of reach, while carrying out some limited flanking attacks and what we might now term “special operations”.
According to the preferred strategy, St. Petersburg, the capital, was protected both by troops and by distance, and so was never threatened by the Grande Armee. Moscow, however, was abandoned and set on fire.
Napoleon’s retreat from Moscow was famously disastrous, his armies all but destroyed by attritional flank attacks, cold, lack of food, and by disease.
Of the initial half million men, only about 100,000 made it back to France or other countries.
“On 24 June 1812 and subsequent days, the initial wave of the multinational Grande Armée crossed the Niemen River, marking the entry from the Duchy of Warsaw into Russia.
Employing extensive forced marches, Napoleon rapidly advanced his army of nearly half a million individuals through Western Russia, encompassing present-day Belarus, in a bid to dismantle the disparate Russian forces led by Barclay de Tolly and Pyotr Bagration totaling approximately 180,000–220,000 soldiers at that juncture.[21][22]
Despite losing half of his men within six weeks due to extreme weather conditions, diseases and scarcity of provisions, Napoleon emerged victorious in the Battle of Smolensk. However, the Russian Army, now commanded by Mikhail Kutuzov, opted for a strategic retreat, employing attrition warfare against Napoleon compelling the invaders to rely on an inadequate supply system, incapable of sustaining their vast army in the field.“
[Wikipedia]
In the German invasion and war of 1941-1945, the Wehrmacht advanced to within sight of central Moscow, but were then held and pushed back. Stalin was unwilling to abandon Moscow, the capital, for reasons of morale and administration.
However, elsewhere in European Russia, the Stavka (high command) allowed the Germans to advance and advance into the apparently limitless space (prostor, in the Russian word), as the German supply lines became elongated and eventually unable to supply enough food and ammunition; this came to a head particularly during the battle for Stalingrad.
Reverting to the Kursk situation in 2024, it can be seen that the operation was designed by Zelensky, against the advice of some of his commanders, as a public relations exercise. The suppliers of arms and vast amounts of Western taxpayers’ money had to be shown that the Kiev-regime forces were not beaten. Those forces achieved surprise, and, at first, considerable success.
The area presently held seems to be less than 1,000 sq. km: https://www.ft.com/content/84c60abe-1eab-4440-8511-c13218c7bbe7. That is rather more than twice the size of the Isle of Wight.
The Kiev-regime forces were advancing several miles a day in that Kursk border region, but have probably now almost stopped.
Russian forces far to the south, in the Donbass, are advancing 1-3 miles a day, apparently. The Kiev-regime forces are outmannned and outgunned there, a situation made worse by the use of some experienced Ukrainian troops for the Kursk incursion.
What Putin could do (though it might be politically difficult) would be to do little but just about hold the line in the Kursk region, or even fall back on Kursk city (about 30-40 miles from the present front-line), while pounding the Kiev-regime supply lines and rear echelon areas. The Kiev regime forces do not have the manpower or ammunition etc to advance endlessly. Their tide may already have reached its fullest extent.
In other words, Putin could almost let those Kiev-regime forces in the Kursk region “die on the vine”, in MacArthur’s memorable phrase.
Once those Kiev regime forces are stuck in the Kursk region, or have retreated, or are destroyed, those forces will not be able to be deployed, or re-deployed, on the Donbass front. Even now, it looks as though Russian forces will soon split the Kiev-regime forces there into two. Once that results in further crumbling of the front, startling Russian advances may be seen, either in the next few months or next summer. All of Eastern Ukraine may fall to Russian forces in 2025.
Tweets seen
Put him up against a wall.
“A source told the newspaper [defendant’s immigration] appeal was ongoing when he pushed Mr Potoczek on the tracks and added: ‘It makes you wonder what exactly you have to do to be deported from the UK.‘
Shorsh had 12 convictions for 21 offences including assault, anti-social behaviour and outraging public decency.“
[Daily Mail]
Put him up against a wall.
The Notting Hill Carnival should never have been allowed in the first place, and should be terminated now but will not be, because the Government is afraid of weeks of rioting and looting by blacks if such a step were to be taken.
I attended that carnival once, out of curiosity. In the early or mid 1980s. Absolutely ghastly. Intolerable noise, mostly from horrible amplified “music”. Intolerable crowds. Also, no way of getting out without walking miles. In the end, I walked all the way back to Little Venice.
Another strange Mark Lewis tale
So it seems that the “poor and victimized” Jewish couple, supposedly targeted by an American black comedian, then booed out of an Edinburgh Fringe comedy show by the irritated audience, were none other than Mark Lewis, the egregious self-promoting solicitor, and his wife/partner/carer Mandy Blumenthal. They made a big fuss about emigrating to Israel six years ago. They said that Britain was too “antisemitic” for them to remain here, and so were, in effect, getting out while they could.
A pack of lies. They spend quite a bit of time here, and do not seem to feel any obligation to stay and help Israel in its hour of need.
If those tweets by Reginald D. Hunter are true (accurate), that puts another complexion on the “victimized Jewish couple” story as first published and broadcast recently.
First of all, one has to ask why Lewis and his companion went to such a show in the first place, if the comedian, one Reginald D. Hunter, is known for being “antisemitic” (I have to admit that I had never heard of him at all).
What was their motive even for going there if they were aware of the comedian’s expressed views?
It will be remembered by some that Mandy Blumenthal deliberately tried to book passage, quite many years ago, on a Middle Eastern airline operating out of Heathrow, and made it known that she was Jewish (perhaps using her Israeli passport rather than her UK one). Once refused by the airline, a “typical” fuss was made, both at the airport and in the (((Press))), and the airline quickly stumped up, apparently, quite a few thousand pounds by way of “compensation” (to shut her up).
Is this yet another cynical way to get money, this time out of the comedian, the promoter or the theatre? Was the whole thing contrived in advance, like that airline scam, or not? We do not know, and can only try to draw logical conclusions from what we know.
Incidentally, here is the Times of Israel report about the airline “compensation” scam: https://www.timesofisrael.com/kuwait-air-to-compensate-israeli-for-refusing-to-fly-her-report/. It makes clear that lawyers from “UK Lawyers for Israel” [“UKLFI”] helped Mandy Blumenthal to make her claim, which resulted in her receiving “substantial damages“.
Mark Lewis is —quelle surprise— a member, indeed perhaps even a leading member, of UKLFI, as well as the notorious “Campaign Against Antisemitism” [“CAA”], both of which have been involved in attacking me over recent years (since 2014): see, eg, https://ianrobertmillard.org/2017/07/13/when-i-was-a-victim-of-a-malicious-zionist-complaint/ and https://ianrobertmillard.org/2017/07/09/the-slide-of-the-english-bar-and-uk-society-continues-and-accelerates/.
Reading about what the comedian said on stage, it seems that he recognized the “anonymous” Jewish couple of the Press stories, and that that is why he said that he had been “waiting” for Lewis, assuming that it was Lewis, to turn up:
“During the furore, Hunter, 55, appeared to double down on his initial joke, telling the couple: “I’ve been waiting for you all summer, where the f*** you been?” [Jewish Chronicle]. https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/israeli-couple-hounded-out-of-reginald-d-hunter-fringe-show-as-he-makes-jokes-about-jews-g6dtt4ip.
Lewis has been in considerable legal trouble recently: see https://ianrobertmillard.org/2024/07/26/diary-blog-26-july-2024-including-the-latest-news-about-the-unprofessional-behaviour-of-mark-lewis-lawyer/.
As for his previous history, the blog post below covers, or has links about, Lewis’s previous and rather inglorious activities: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/01/11/update-re-mark-lewis-lawyer-questions-are-raised/.
That’s even before one considers the way in which he treated his ex-wife, one-time low-level TV face, and radio voice (now washed-up and over the hill), Caroline Feraday. I have little time for her anyway, so let’s leave that aside for now (she joined with Lewis in abusing me very unpleasantly on Twitter, about 12 years ago, so she deserved to suffer once she married him, in my view).
As for that Daily Mail scribbler who claims to have “tracked down” the “Jewish couple”, that is none other than Sabrina Miller, who was at the centre of the contrived storm around anti-Zionist academic Dr. David Miller [https://x.com/Tracking_Power] formerly of Bristol University, who was sacked but later won at an employment tribunal: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/02/05/bristol-university-professor-discrimination-anti-zionist/; and https://www.gbnews.com/news/anti-zionist-professor-wins-landmark-case-against-unfair-dismissal-video.
Sabrina Miller, when a vociferous Jewish girl student at Bristol, found time to defend Jewish-lobby-puppet and then-MP, Ian Austin, who had tweeted that bestiality pornography and other similar material should be decriminalized. Now she is a “journalist” with the Daily Mail.
The Mail might not have the best reputation, but it really should draw the line at contrived “stories” such as this Edinburgh Fringe scam.
Looks to me as though the audience recognized Lewis specifically, and were loudly disapproving for that reason.
As for the comedian, the promoter (if any), and the theatre, they should resist any contrived legal claim that “any” ambulance-chaser might make…
More tweets seen
This all makes me feel that “a certain person” was right (about “them”)…
Lewis must be desperate to invent a case…
The Daily Mail should sack Sabrina Miller. Jews always demand sackings for far less default, so what is good for the goose, etc…
As I surmised.
(((Typical)))
Looks like the pair will not be getting a pay-off this time…
Looks as if I guessed correctly…
What does Starmer think those imprisoned protesters, tweeters, Facebook posters feel about the UK government of traitors now? Happy? Angry? Determined?
God help John Betjeman, were he still alive. “Come, friendly German bombers, and drop your bombs on Slough“… he would probably be arrested by the “Anti-Terror Command” or other poundshop UK Stasi police, and/or imprisoned for years.
Almost anything now published or spoken by msm scribblers and talking heads can be discounted. If they ever cross the line into uncomfortable and “unapproved” reality, they soon lose those lucrative jobs— and they know it.
All in the Donbass, where Russian forces are now steadily advancing at a rate of up to 3 miles per day.
Russia cannot lose this war and will not lose this war.
Late music
