Tag Archives: trade

Trade minister lies to the UK about ‘pact’ with Texas

Greg Hands: He’s probably wishing he’d kept his lips sealed (or rather, kept his typing fingers to himself).

Tory trade minister Greg Hands wants you to think the UK has signed a trade deal with Texas worth trillions of pounds. It’s a bare-faced lie.

Here’s what he has said, followed by two responses debunking him completely:

The Tory government is currently in freefall after a series of controversies, with MPs calling for a change of leadership.

But it is lies like this that make them unelectable.

Boris Johnson was elected in 2019 to ‘Get Brexit Done’. Why are we still waiting for the benefits?

Cliffhanger: The Leave campaign infamously claimed Brexit would result in a ÂŁ350m a week dividend for the UK. We never received it. Instead, Brexit has shrunk the UK economy by at least 4%, costing a huge amount of working time simply to do the new paperwork it has foisted on us.

Brexit – that was a huge con, wasn’t it?

The Conservatives swept to a landslide victory in December 2019 under the slogan “Get Brexit Done” – and we are still waiting for it to happen.

Instead of the massive boost to the economy that we were promised, along with a bonfire of bureaucratic paperwork, UK importers and exporters have been deluged with such a mountain of new documentation to fill out, simply to get goods across the Channel, that the then-new government has had to “stagger” its implementation and some of it has still not started to affect us.

And Brexit jeopardised the whole Northern Ireland peace process by putting a trade border with the province in the middle of the Irish Sea – an imaginary barrier that will remain there even after the latest attempt to forge agreement over it between the disparate political organisations that have a stake in the matter.

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Brexit was the first subject This Site discussed after the general election and I was justifiably disparaging:

The Tories – not just under Boris Johnson, but going back through Theresa May’s nightmare leadership and right back to David Cameron’s horror show – have used their puppets in the mass media to change it from a debate on our future relationship with the European Union into a divisive standoff, pitting family against family, old against young, cosmopolitan against parochial.

And they succeeded, I think partly because they had dragged the process out so long that people were sick of the whole thing.

Labour’s promise to have a decisive answer within six months was unpalatable compared with Johnson’s lie that he’ll have it all sewn up by the end of January. People want it to be over now.

And I made a prediction that proved to be exactly right – didn’t it? See:

Well, I’ve got news for those people: it won’t be.

Johnson might be promising a vote in Parliament on his Withdrawal Bill on Friday, which will enable to UK to leave the EU on January 31, but of course that’s not the end of the saga. The country’s decoupling will take many years.

How right I was!

But the deal on which MPs will be voting will put us into a “transition” period, with the UK assumed to be clear of the EU by December 31, 2020 – and a top EU official says that won’t happen.

In a leaked recording, Michel Barnier said it would be “unrealistic” to expect a “global negotiation” on trade to be completed within 11 months, meaning that in fact we are likely to leave the EU with no deal.

How right he was!

It will make it possible for Johnson to sell off our remaining national assets. And the nearly 14 million people who voted Conservative on December 12? They’ll be remembered as the patsies who made it possible.

Well, they haven’t all gone – yet.

But the Tories will keep trying. And we know what privatisation brings: corruption, greed and profiteering, a sharp drop in the quality of service, and increasing demand on the public purse to pay for it all.

You can look forward to that under either a returned Tory government under Rishi Sunak or a new New Labour government under Keir Starmer and his Tories-in-red-ties.

That’s why This Site is campaigning for voters to do something different at this year’s general election – and actually engage your brains.

I’ve said it before and I’ll probably repeat it many times:

You simply cannot vote tribally – for the party you think represents you (none of them do; they’re all about enriching their MPs and nothing else) – at the next general election.

Instead – and I cannot stress this strongly enough – if you want your vote to mean anything, you have to actually find out what the candidates in your constituency are planning to do, if they are lucky enough to be elected.

That is what party manifestos are for. Independent candidates also have policy documents and they will all be online for you to find and read.

You need to find and read these policy documents, and then you need to make a dispassionate choice, based on what you have read.

Which of the candidates offers the most policies that fit what you need? And, by that, I mean: who will improve your own life the most?

Do not consider how other people will vote, either in your constituency or the other 649 around the UK. That is not your concern.

It is not for you to worry about which party will get enough votes to actually enact its policies. This will lead you down the usual garden path to voting in a government that won’t do anything at all for the good of the country, like the one we’ve had since 2010.

BE SELFISH. Bizarrely, it might be the only way to get the kind of government that all of us need. It might even help us climb out of the Brexit pit into which Johnson, Cameron and all the other Tory twits dumped us.


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Why is the DUP returning to power-sharing in NI assembly if nothing has changed?

Return to Stormont? Chris Heaton-Harris (left), the Northern Ireland Secretary, seems to have done a deal with DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson.

The Democratic Unionist Party has apparently agreed to resume its power-sharing deal in the Northern Ireland Assembly, even though none of the objections to post-Brexit trade rules over which its members walked out seem to have been addressed.

The DUP quit the Stormont assembly nearly two years ago, in protest at the so-called Northern Ireland Protocol for post-Brexit trade that would put a border between the Province and the rest of the United Kingdom.

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Prime Minister Rishi Sunak proposed a new deal, called the Windsor Framework, last year. This adopted a suggestion from the European Union that ‘Green’ and ‘Red’ lanes be set up at borders.

There would be a ‘Green Lane’ for goods going into NI, and they won’t be checked, while goods going through the province and into the Republic (or the other way, and into the UK) will be subject to customs procedures.

And the DUP didn’t like it – so Stormont remained closed for business.

Now, after talks with NI Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris, DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson has announced that a deal has been reached.

But nothing seems to have changed!

Heaton-Harris has said full details of the deal won’t be available until all-party talks are finalised, and it contains “significant” changes.

However, according to the BBC:

“Not one word of the Northern Ireland Protocol has been altered, and that means Northern Ireland remains under the EU’s customs code, and that means Great Britain continues to be regarded, in law, as a foreign country when it comes to trade.”

He tells gathered reporters: “Under the protocol there are hundreds of EU laws that we do not make and cannot change.”

He points out that those laws which shape NI’s goods economy are “identical” to those that govern the goods economy of the Republic of Ireland.

He says it’s all a “tawdry climbdown by the DUP on their own tests which have not been met” and accuses the party of “accepting foreign law”.

This Writer suspects that the change of heart may be partly to do with one aspect of the ‘Windsor Framework’ deal that Sunak mentioned when he announced it last year.

He said the Northern Ireland Assembly would decide whether the ‘Windsor Framework’ should be supported, in 2024.

This means, I think, that if the DUP wishes to oppose it, there needs to be a functioning Assembly, and if that party continues to refuse to take up its seats there, stopping it from working, then government of Northern Ireland goes back to Westminster, which will support the new deal.

Either way, it seems the DUP is checkmated because the Assembly will probably back it.

So the reasoning may be that it is better to go back to Stormont, debate the deal there and see what can be negotiated than to let the Tory government in Westminster make the decision and be forced to live with it.

But I’m prepared to be wrong.

We’ll find out, when the details are published.


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Have unions put Starmer on the spot over his Gaza ceasefire position?

Keir Starmer and the unions: if he wants to be ‘Britain’s future’, he needs to read the room and accept that he is wrong to support Israel.

Labour’s biggest backers – the trade unions – have issued a stern warning to party leader Keir Starmer over his reluctance to demand an end to Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

Depending on the firmness of their resolve, this could create a serious problem for the Labour leader who has also been urged to expel several MPs for supporting pro-Palestine activism.

Clearly he cannot support the unions without alienating the anti-Palestine mob, and he can’t expel the pro-Palestine MPs without alienating the unions.

Union leaders have told Keir Starmer his position on Gaza risks alienating millions of Britons, telling the Labour leader their members are increasingly angry about his refusal to call for an immediate ceasefire in the Middle East.

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“Several people at the meeting were pretty clear with Starmer,” said one person with knowledge of what happened at the meeting. “They told him, ‘Your position on Gaza is alienating working people, you are out of step with the majority’.”

Starmer’s response to the Israel-Gaza war has been a source of tension between the Labour leader and many of his MPs, councillors and members for weeks.

Last year he gave an interview in which he appeared to suggest Israel was within its rights to withhold water and power from Gaza. Even though he has since rowed back from that position, many of his colleagues and supporters remain angry that he has not done more to show sympathy with the plight of people in Gaza.

The story says Starmer’s spokesperson ignored a request for comment – and this suggests everything we need to know about Starmer’s position.

It seems he’s sticking to his believe that the unions have nowhere else to go but his party, so all the protesting they want to do will not do them any good and he’ll carry on kowtowing to Israel in spite of them.

He’ll probably go ahead and push out those pro-Palestine Action Labour MPs and then turn to the unions and ask: “What are you going to do now?”

It will be a big mistake, though.

The unions might not withdraw their support and/or funding (which is the only power they have over Starmer) because they have proved themselves to be toothless in the past.

But individual union members are a different matter.

Starmer’s complacent belief that voters don’t have anywhere else to go may have a nasty encounter with reality at the forthcoming general election, when workers will be able to choose for themselves who they support.

If that happens, he will only have himself to blame.

Source: Unions tell Starmer of members’ anger over Gaza ceasefire position | Labour | The Guardian


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Trade unionist expelled from Labour Party for supporting Labour political ideas

Expelled: Bernadette Gallagher.

Keir Starmer should slither back out of the Labour Party over this (although we know he won’t):

A higher living – I think ‘troovus’ meant minimum – wage and public ownership of energy firms are good Labour Party policies.

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And supporting the sentiment expressed in a tweet (as they were then known) is not the same as supporting the political organisation that published it.

Starmer has colleagues in the Parliamentary Labour Party who – along with the man himself – habitually say they agree with the policies of other parties. Starmer himself has even publicly agreed with actions of the Tories!

So, in having Bernadette Gallagher expelled, Starmer brands himself a hypocrite, a traitor to his party and a liar (in claiming that she had supported another political party, in violation of Labour rules).

That alone should render him unsuitable for your support in a general election.


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Rishi Sunak is causing yet another conflict-of-interest – CORRUPTION – row

Akshata Murty and her husband, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak: it seems that, days after being forced to apologise for failing to declare that she (and therefore he) will benefit from one policy of the government he leads, he is trying to ensure that they will – corruptly? – benefit from another.

The UK prime minister who came into office promising “integrity, professionalism and accountability” is embroiled in yet another corruption/conflict-of-interest row involving his wife’s father’s multinational corporation, Infosys.

Rishi Sunak is trying to negotiate a free trade deal with India, where Infosys is based, and the allegation is that this will be hugely profitable for Infosys – and therefore, by proxy, for Sunak himself.

People are asking the obvious question:

Note that it is unlikely that the people of the UK will benefit from this free trade deal, according to Jemma Forte; Sunak is negotiating a deal to benefit his family – again.

Remember: Parliament’s Commissioner for Standards has only just stated that Sunak broke the Ministerial Code – “inadvertently” – by failing to declare that a childcare firm in which his wife has shares will benefit from a change in Tory government policy. In the current instance, there can be no such excuse as we have the evidence in advance of the deal.

Infosys is also a multiple offender in terms of preferential treatment from Sunak’s government. After war broke out between Russia and Ukraine, that firm was told to stop operating in Russia or face sanctions like all the other businesses then doing business with that state, but eight months later it was found still to be doing business there, with impunity against the UK’s sanctions regime.

Sunak is expected to attend a G20 summit in India in two weeks – and to discuss the trade deal at a separate, bilateral, meeting with that nation’s prime minister Narendra Modi.

But Keir Starmer’s opposition party (still currently known as Labour, for reasons unknown) has called for Sunak to make an open declaration about his wife’s financial interests in a company that could profit immensely from his involvement in these negotiations.

One expert – Professor Alan Manning of the London School of Economics, according to The Guardian, wants the prime minister to recuse himself from any negotiations.

In response, it seems the Foreign Office has warned the Labour-chaired business and trade select committee not to visit India to examine the issues around a potential deal. The government department is refusing to help committee members set up meetings with Indian officials and businesspeople.

It seems clear, then, that Sunak has something to hide once again – otherwise, why try to cover up what will happen at the negotiations?

The deal, it seems, will allow Infosys to send teams of its Indian employees to the UK to work on outsourced IT contracts for firms in this country.

Why not employ home-grown expertise and keep the contracts – and all the profits arising from them – in the UK? Or has previous Tory government policy ensured that nobody here has the required expertise any more?

Of course, the controversy will only intensify the debate over MPs having business interests outside the House of Commons, or receiving donations and/or gifts-in-kind from businesses or corporate bosses.

The question here is: who does Rishi Sunak work for – the people of the UK or his wife’s family firm?

The answer seems obvious – with the best interests of the nation he is supposed to lead coming a distant second.

Reform is urgently required – but with so many Parliamentarian snouts firmly in the trough, there seems to be no will to put a stop to the corporate influence that is staining all of us with the filth of corruption. How do we force an end to it?


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Abuse of Roger Waters hits new low with Anne Frank ‘trade mark’ claim

The issue: it seems a group calling itself UK Lawyers for Israel doesn’t like the name of Anne Frank (who was a Jew) being associated with that of Shireen Abu Akley (a Palestinian).

Who would be disrespecting the memory of Anne Frank the most in this situation: Roger Waters for using her name to make an argument against hate, or the Anne Frank Foundation for suing him over an alleged breach of its trade mark?

It’s a hypothetical situation, of course. This Writer hopes nobody at the Anne Frank Foundation would be unreasonable enough to take it that far.

It’s not the Anne Frank Foundation that has even raised the issue, you see. It’s a group here in the UK, called UK Lawyers for Israel.

An article on that organisation’s website states:

Waters used the name Anne Frank to defame Israel by comparing Shireen Abu Akleh with Anne Frank, as shown in photographs posted on Twitter.

Shireen Abu Akleh was an American journalist of Palestinian Arab extraction who was killed in the course of an Israeli military operation in Jenin last year. The Israeli Defence Forces (IDF) have accepted that there is a high possibility that an Israeli soldier fired the bullet that killed her, but deny any intention to kill a non-combatant journalist. Roger Waters’ display was evidently intended to suggest that Abu Akleh, like Anne Frank, was murdered by evil fascists, and that the IDF are like the Nazis (a typical example of antisemitism according to the IHRA definition).

During the concert, Waters also dressed up as an SS officer.

Anne Frank Stichting registered “Anne Frank” as a trademark inter alia in Class 41 for entertainment services in various jurisdictions. Roger Waters’ abuse of the mark seems liable to harm its functions and without due cause to take unfair advantage of its distinctive character and repute and/or to be detrimental to the distinctive character or repute, thereby infringing the rights of the Anne Frank Stichting.

There might also be infringement of personality rights inherited by Anne Frank Stichting in some jurisdictions.

Let me get this straight: an organisation in the UK, of lawyers who support Israel, wants an organisation in the Netherlands to take action against the star of a concert that happened in Germany, because it mentioned in passing a name that the Dutch group has trademarked?

There are several issues here: first, Anne Frank was a person. Reducing her to a trademarked name and then litigating against someone else for using that name would be dehumanising behaviour that, in my opinion, may count as anti-Semitic in itself. I can’t see the Anne Frank Stichtung acting in that way, personally. UKLFI may need to reconsider its own approach also.

What would a lawsuit be about – infringement of a trade mark or defamation of Israel? If the latter, then it is nothing to do with the Anne Frank Stichtung.

The use of her name for entertainment purposes would also be problematic, I think. Was the concert advertised as having anything to do with Anne Frank? Was her name on display throughout the performance, or only for a period amounting to seconds? Is there any reason to believe that people attended the show in question (in Berlin, in mid-May) because of the use of Anne Frank’s name? If not, then it seems unlikely a trade mark infringement suit would have any traction. Mention of her would likely come under the category “fair use”.

The connection with Shireen Abu Akleh would also need to be scrutinised. Were the two names projected as described by UKLFI, one immediately after the other, or were they separated by other names? If they were separated, then how is Israel defamed? Whether they were or not, what other names were also projected? What were the reasons those names were also used? Is it reasonable to suggest that the names were projected for entertainment purposes, or to make an argument, and in that case, what is the argument supporting – hate, or peace?

If UKLFI is arguing that Roger Waters wrongly equates the death of Anne Frank with that of Shireen Abu Akleh (perhaps claiming that he was saying both were caused by invading oppressors), then the circumstances of Shireen Abu Akleh’s death would have to be explored. Jenin is a city in Palestine; what were Israel Defence Forces doing there if not invading from another country? What were their activities there intended to convey to the inhabitants, if not oppression? What reason did they have for using projectile weapons in a space where non-combatant civilians might be harmed, if not fatal harm? Can it be proved that criticism of the Israeli government and military for carrying out the “operation” and causing the harm that it did is unfounded? If it cannot, than how can Israel be defamed by what Roger Waters has said about this incident?

When in the concert did Roger Waters state that the Israeli Defence Forces are “evil fascists”?

When did he say the IDF are “like Nazis”?

And – in the context in which mention of Anne Frank and Shireen Abu Akleh were mentioned – is it unreasonable to have made such a comparison? Was there a correlation between the behaviour of the Nazis towards Anne Frank and that of the IDF towards Shireen Abu Akleh?

Does UKLFI really want that tested in court, considering the likely consequences if a judge rules that it is reasonable to compare the behaviour of the Nazis and IDF and find it similar?

Worse for UKLFI is the claim that “Waters also dressed up as an SS officer”, which is not true and undermines UKLFI’s credibility.

Finally, Roger Waters’s lawyers will have been all over this. If any court action did ensue, I expect they would squash it in short order.

Add it all together and This Writer thinks it would be very difficult to make an argument in support of a lawsuit – whether for trade mark infringement or defamation (and I know a thing or two about defamation).

Finally, this is a worthwhile point, also:

Fair point? Note also that the Twitter user above does not speak for Roger Waters and their opinions must be treated as their own.

Ultimately, This Writer’s opinion is that the claims made by UKLFI are unlikely to be able to stop Roger Waters behaving as he has, may do nothing to improve the standing of Israel, and may actually harm the name of Anne Frank.

Am I right?


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Islington North Labour – and others – react to Labour NEC’s Jeremy Corbyn decision

Jeremy Corbyn: we should forgive him if he takes a moment of quiet pride in the support he has received from his fellow Islington North Labour members, constituents, trade unionists, and both party members and voters across the UK.

There will be voices that support the Labour NEC decision to bar Jeremy Corbyn from seeking re-election as a party candidate in Islington North – but it seems clear that they are in the minority.

And they’re also irrelevant when one considers the response from the only group that really matters: Islington North Constituency Labour Party.

It seems the CLP is planning to select Mr Corbyn anyway, no matter what Keir Starmer’s NEC lapdogs say.

You can understand why, from this clip of reactions to Mr Corbyn’s suspension from the Parliamentary Labour Party, back in 2020:

Did you mark the comment that the constituency is “Corbyn country”?

It seems this is one place where the person has eclipsed the party, and won’t be easily unseated by a drone parachuted in by Head Office.

That’s not the limit of the Labour leadership’s troubles, though:

And what are the people in Unite doing..?

If Starmer manages to foil Islington North’s apparent plan to select Mr Corbyn anyway, people are already lining up to help him seek election as an independent:

I live a little way away and transport would be difficult, but I’d love to do a bit with the Absolute Boy.

And it goes on. It seems people are resigning from CLP executives…

Looking at the resignation letter above, it seems the treatment of Mr Corbyn isn’t the only bone of contention with the party leadership and there may be much that is being kept from us (unlike during the years when he was leader, and the right-wing media insisted on examining every piece of rubbish in the bins, looking for scandal).

If this snowballs, Keir Starmer will only have himself to blame – but don’t expect to hear about it from the right-wing media that support him!


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As the DUP digs in its heels, is Northern Ireland facing hard times?

Stormont: still locked as the DUP’s representatives dig in their heels over post-Brexit trade.

Rishi Sunak has managed to avoid humiliation in the vote on the ‘Stormont Brake’ aspect of his ‘Windsor Framework’ deal with the EU over trade in Northern Ireland. Instead the shame was hung on the Democratic Unionists and Tories in the European Research Group faction.

MPs voted by 515 to 29 to support the deal agreed by Rishi Sunak.

But the defeat means the DUP has vowed to continue its boycott of the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont – with possibly serious consequences for the province.

Spokespeople for the other Northern Irish political parties have begged the DUP to come back, according to the BBC:

Sinn FĂ©in vice-president Michelle O’Neill said the DUP had to “stop their boycott” of Stormont so that executive ministers could take control of the budget.

Ministers had to be in post to make the case to the Treasury for extra funding for Northern Ireland, Ms O’Neill added.

“This budget is about to cause catastrophic damage to public services,” she said.

“So the DUP need to get around the table with the rest of us, make politics work.”

Alliance Party MP Stephen Farry said Northern Ireland was “bleeding at present”, with problems piling up and public services in real crisis.

He said his party had asked the UK government to consider providing a financial package and it appeared “the door is open to that”.

“This will require the parties in Northern Ireland to work together and to make a very persuasive case… to the Treasury,” he said.

“So it reinforces the impetus on the DUP to join the rest of us in ensuring we have proper governance here.”

Ulster Unionist assembly member Robbie Butler said the level of budget cuts “on that cliff edge at the moment actually is quite alarming”.

He urged the DUP to accept the “difficulties” with the Windsor Framework and “put the people of Northern Ireland first”.

Social Democratic and Labour Party leader Colum Eastwood said the DUP had to accept that it could not get everything it wanted from the new Brexit deal.

“We have a huge opportunity with this [deal] to trade into both [UK and EU] markets unencumbered,” said the Foyle MP.

“People in Britain would give their right arm to have that opportunity.”

But DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said the ‘Windsor Framework’ would not deliver the long-term stability and prosperity that Northern Ireland needs.

Adding insult to injury, he adopted the rhetoric of Labour’s Keir Starmer, saying there was “an element of the sticking plaster” about Rishi Sunak’s new deal with the European Union, and it would not work.

He went on to say he is “not a quitter” and will continue trying to get the deal changed – a tall order, considering the joint UK-EU body that is overseeing Brexit will meet o ratify the legal changes brought about by the Windsor Framework – tomorrow (Friday, March 24, 2023).

Northern Ireland Secretary Chris Heaton-Harris has met the five main Stormont parties at Hillsborough to discuss the new Brexit deal as well as Northern Ireland’s public finances, which he said were not in a good state.

He said he would have to set Northern Ireland’s budget for the coming year within the next few weeks if the executive was not up and running soon – and there would be some “tough decisions” if that happened.

It seems a very thinly-veiled threat, not just to the DUP but to all of the Northern Irish politicians: “get back to normal or suffer”.

But nobody in NI will be in any doubt about where responsibility will lie if the Tories in Westminster penalise them with Budget restrictions, and there may be knock-on consequences at the ballot box.

Is the DUP really willing to court electoral wipeout for the sake of what many see as not just a lost cause, but also a pointless one?


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The DUP may have solved its ‘Windsor Framework’ dilemma – by passing the buck

The Democratic Unionist Party in Northern Ireland found itself facing a thorny problem after Rishi Sunak announced his new ‘Windsor Framework’ deal for trade between Northern Ireland, Great Britain and the European Union.

That party had been using the lack of a hard-Brexit-supporting agreement on trade as an excuse not to take its seats in the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont, after elections that made Sinn Fein the largest party group there.

But Sunak’s deal has been welcomed almost universally, leaving the DUP with very little wiggle-room.

It left party leaders scrabbling for time in which to find a face-saving way forward.

Now it seems they have found it: pass the buck onto a specially-created committee, act according to its recommendations and – if anything goes wrong – use it as a scapegoat.

Here’s Maximilien Robespierre with the details:


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