Tag Archives: Andy

Would refugee concentration camp petrol bomber be called a terrorist if he wasn’t white?

Flames: a blaze caused by the petrol bomb attack at Dover were doused and nobody was injured.

A researcher from the International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation at King’s College, London, has been looking into the history of the man who petrol-bombed a migrant concentration camp in Dover, then took his own life.

Do you even remember this incident? Rajan Basra reckons you might have forgotten it already. I reported it, briefly, here.

Mr Basra’s Twitter thread is illuminating and I present it unedited and without further comment:

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Why can’t the rest of the elected Labour Party be like Andy Burnham?

Leadership: Andy Burnham.

Greater ManchesterMayor Andy Burnham is leading where Keir Starmer is not.

Here are two interviews in which the long-ago Labour leadership candidate first makes it clear that he thinks rail workers and British Airways staff taking strike action are right to try to protect their incomes in a cost of living crisis…

Then in this clip from an earlier talk, we see Burnham expanding on why he thinks the Boris Johnson government wants to start fights with working people rather than govern for them, and discussing policy that Labour should try to take forward to a general election, as well as supporting the current strike actions.

There’s more leadership in the less than seven minutes of clips here than we have seen from Keir Starmer in more than two years.

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Is this really the ‘skeleton’ in Johnson’s closet that Williamson is being knighted to hide?

‘Keep your mouth shut and there’ll be a knighthood in it for you,’ Johnson could be saying here. But it seems Gavin Williamson couldn’t keep his mouth shut. Did he say anything worth knowing?

The announcement that Boris Johnson was giving double Cabinet failure Gavin Williamson a knighthood has prompted a wave of speculation about what the real reason for it might be.

This Site has already published an article about it. Nobody believes the award is for “services to the public and to politics”.

Now it seems that investigative journalist Carole Cadwalladr may have uncovered at least one reason for it – and it refers to Johnson’s links with Russia.

She has published her evidence in a Twitter thread that you can find here. For brevity, I’ll refer to a summary from Yorkshire Bylines, which states:

Cadwalladr explains as follows:

Williamson was appointed secretary of state for defence on 2 November 2017, shortly after the American Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) revealed it was investigating suspected Russian assets/agents operating in London, some of whom had met with Foreign Office officials, including Boris Johnson, then foreign secretary, and Maltese professor Joseph Mifsud, who had been accused of being the link between Russia and the Trump campaign. Johnson subsequently denied meeting Mifsud, until a photograph emerged.

Cadwalladr had previously been writing about Russian connections to Brexit and the Conservative Party. On 4 November 2017, she reported that the Observer had been told by a British intelligence officer that “The entire city (of London) is a nest of spies … There’s more espionage activity here now than there was even at the height of the cold war”.

She maintains that she subsequently received information that a person “high up in government” rang Richard Tice, founder of the Vote Leave Campaign and director of the Brexit (now Reform) Party, with some information to pass onto his political journalist partner, Isabel Oakeshott.

Oakeshott’s statement was that “I am in no doubt that [Leave.EU campaigners] [Arron] Banks and [Andy] Wigmore have been acting as agents of influence for the Russian state… The material clearly shows that they discussed Brexit and personal enrichment opportunities with senior Russian officials. They met several times with men they knew to be members of Russian intelligence services and passed them sensitive documents. They claim to be patriots, but when the UK and Russia had a political dispute, they publicly and privately supported the Russian position.”

Ms Cadwalladr then tweeted that the “source believed that person who tipped off Tice about Banks’s Russian connections was…drum roll…Gavin Williamson, then sec of defence”.

She explains that there are still areas of this situation that are opaque to the British people, but what we do know is that the FBI’s investigation came to London, that key individuals and organisations were based here, and that one of these individuals was Johnson “knee deep in Russian connections and money”. And indeed, May seems to have responded directly to this information with her ‘we know what you are doing, Russia’ speech.

The article concludes:

Williamson appears to be in possession of information that the prime minister does not want to appear in the press at the time the western world sits aghast with horror at the actions of the Russian state. If he will not answer questions on this point, the question for the British people is clear: do we really want a government that works in this clearly corrupt manner? And if we don’t, what are we going to do about it?

This Writer has not seen the documents that apparently induced Ms Oakeshott to say that Arron Banks and Andy Wigmore were working for Russia.

And there is no readily-apparent connection between the claims about them and any Russian influence on Johnson.

But there is enough here to justify an investigation into whether these named people were connected with – or influenced by – Russian agents (or were agents of Russia themselves).

What does Williamson know? And does it in fact relate to Boris Johnson?

What about Banks and Wigmore? Are the allegations correct? If not, then why were lies released to a journalist, and what made her believe them? If so, then it is important for their involvement to be revealed, along with the names of anybody they know to be part of this apparent web of intrigue.

Did Russia hijack the UK’s referendum on membership of the EU in order to weaken this country and Europe?

And if Boris Johnson is one of those involved, it is vital that we know the facts.

Because – if true – then this is potentially treason.

Source: The Russia connection: defying gravity, reality … and treason?

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#AndyBurnham hammers Tory hypocrisy

Andy Burnham: he’s Mayor of Greater Manchester and he knows the reasons for every political policy being enacted there.

Here’s a great clip highlighting the Conservative government’s hypocrisy towards local government.

It’s from last Thursday’s (February 17) edition of the BBC’s Question Time. The issue here is Clean Air Zones (CAZs) but could be applied to any number of local policies, as Mr Burnham rightly states in the video.

Have a look, and a listen:

So the Conservative government imposed a requirement for local authorities to improve air quality – but it did not supply the necessary funding, and it has been campaigning against the measures that have been introduced under the conditions it created.

Rank hypocrisy. It stinks.

With local elections coming up in May, we should be asking questions about these policies.

Do you have a local issue that upsets you – in which you think conditions imposed by the authorities are unfair?

Do you know which authorities imposed those conditions? Were they brought in by local councillors or imposed by a central government that made extravagant demands but provided no help?

If so, you’ll know that the one thing you don’t need at local government level is a lot of Conservative councillors who will make matters worse.

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Shadow employment minister quits because Starmer wanted him to oppose a fair minimum wage

Andy McDonald: more integrity than Keir Starmer. It’s not saying much, mind – Richard Nixon had more integrity than Starmer and he was so bent he needed an assistant to screw him into his trousers every morning.

What could be more embarrassing for Labour leader Keir Starmer than saying on TV that Labour would not re-nationalise key utilities, only to see the party make re-nationalising key utilities its policy on the same day?

How about his shadow Employment Secretary quitting because Starmer wanted him to speak against a plan to increase the minimum wage to a fair level?

That’s what happened at #LabourConference2021 on September 27.

In brief, Starmer ordered McDonald to argue against a £15 minimum wage and statutory sick pay at the same rate as the living wage – so McDonald quit.

In his resignation letter he made it clear that this was the last straw – implying that he had been running out of patience with Starmer for many months.

Let’s face it, the part of his letter when he said

After 18 months of your leadership, our movement is more divided than ever and the pledges that you made to the membership are not being honoured. This is just the latest of many

makes this plain.

Starmer’s own stance over minimum pay is clear. He thinks £15 is too much.

Right?

Oh, then why did he himself campaign for a £15 floor when he was trying to get Labour members to elect him as leader?

See for yourself:

Footage from this picket was indeed used for Starmer’s leadership bid:

“It will be the norm if we have a Labour government,” he said.

Liar!

It’s sickening to have this utter pondslime dragging a once-great pillar of socialism into disgrace.

Where is the “no confidence” vote?

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Denial of ‘surge’ vaccination suggests Tory Covid-19 response is now politically biased

Mealy-mouthed: Jenrick said he was following scientific advice by denying “surge” vaccinations to Greater Manchester. But isn’t it more accurate to say he is starving a Labour-voting area of the help it needs?

Would they have said “no” if Greater Manchester had a Conservative mayor?

That is the question that should be on everybody’s lips after Tory minister (and he’s as corrupt as they come) Robert Jenrick rejected GM mayor Andy Burnham’s call for “surge” vaccinations in his metropolitan area, where there has been a significant increase in Covid-19 cases.

Jenrick said: “We are going to stick with the advice we have received from the JCVI, our advisers, which say that it is better to continue to work down the age categories on a national basis, rather than adopt a regional or geographical approach.

“Their advice has served us well so far as a country, they have got the big calls right since the start of the vaccine rollout.”

Oh really?

In that case, why are Covid-19 cases on the increase in the UK yet again, boosted by the rise of a variant that probably would not have had nearly as large an effect if vaccination doses had been delivered on the timescale advised by the manufacturers?

For example, The Writer had the first Astrazeneca jab on April 4 and – according to the government – should receive the second dose between eight and 12 weeks later. I’m now in the middle of the 10th week since that injection and haven’t heard a whisper about a second inoculation.

Burnham’s call has won approval from the public:

And Jenrick’s dismissal of Burnham is being treated as political favouritism:

Others have suggested that the Tories simply don’t care about the North (ex-Red Wall Tory voters please take note).

In a rational society, when there is a pandemic infection with a vaccine available, inoculations would be concentrated in areas with increased cases of the disease.

But we don’t live in a rational society. We live in one that is run by Tories.

They do not understand or care about Covid-19 and its effects on the stock (which is what they call you).

They are simply going through the motions in order to appear to be acting competently.

And if they can use a fatal disease to reduce support for their main political rivals, then they are low enough to do that.

Source: Ministers reject Burnham demand for surge vaccination in Greater Manchester – LabourList

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#BristolRiot – after police retract serious injury claims, will Ian Austin please give back his peerage? [WARNING: VIDEO OF EXTREME POLICE VIOLENCE]

Bristol riot: there seem to be a huge number of images showing the police attacking members of the public – and none at all of police being on the receiving end. Just why were they on the streets with their batons, their dogs and their horses?

Isn’t it curious that, days after making a big song and dance about police suffering broken bones and a punctured lung at the Bristol riot (that they may have caused), the claims were retracted days later?

Avon and Somerset Chief Constable Andy Marsh admitted in a press conference that no officer of his had suffered a punctured lung.

And the force’s publicity department admitted that neither of the officers taken to hospital actually turned out to have broken bones.

The damage had been done, though – the public outraged at this apparent thuggery by people who had congregated in Bristol to protest against police mistreatment of women.

How will the police take back this:

Or this:

Or this:

Or – especially – this?

And, having consideration of all the above, shouldn’t Lord Ian Austin reconsider his position in public life, hand back his peerage, and go home to spend more time with his prejudices?

Just look at the state of this:

Austin, formerly a Labour MP, was ennobled by Boris Johnson to sit as a non-affiliated peer after he quit the party as led by Jeremy Corbyn, claiming that it had a “culture of extremism, anti-Semitism and intolerance”.

Strange. He seems to be both extreme and intolerant. If Labour under Corbyn really had been like that, he should have fitted right in.

Current evidence shows the police inflicting extreme violence on people – many of whom were sitting down and/or offering no resistance, while suffering very few injuries themselves (and how many were self-inflicted or accidental?).

Austin has indicated that he supports this brand of extreme violent activity against people who are defenceless.

That is unacceptable in a public representative.

Ah, but we live in an unaccountable dictatorship, don’t we? He’ll ignore all his critics and continue with his offensive ways.

Source: Police retract claims that officers suffered broken bones at Bristol protest

Pub ban for curfew-backing MP: he says it’s political but they say he ‘killed us’

Don’t shed any tears for Warrington South MP Andy Carter, who has been banned from 30 pubs, clubs and bars in his town after voting in a 10pm curfew for them.

He has retaliated to the ban by the local Pubwatch scheme, saying it had been used for political aims that brought it “into disrepute”.

But this is nonsense. His own colleague Victoria Atkins, minister for safeguarding, said in 2019 that “Pubwatch enables licensees to take collective action against troublemakers”, and what could make more trouble for local pubs than a Parliamentary decision that one local Pubwatch member said “absolutely killed us”?

He said people were angry and Mr Carter had shown “no support for the hospitality industry at a time when we need as much as we can get”.

Carter’s own claim that the hospitality industry had enjoyed a huge amount of government help is risible as he mentioned Eat Out to Help Out, Rishi Sunak’s scheme that has been proved to have accelerated the second wave of Covid-19.

Sunak has refused to rule out bringing the scheme back.

Who will take him up on it, I wonder?

Source: Lifetime pub ban for Warrington MP who backed 10pm curfew – BBC News

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Tories announce lavish new support scheme for businesses – after snubbing Manchester with a pittance

Stung: Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham.

Tory chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced a new support package for English areas under Tier 2 Covid-19 restrictions in a move that seems time to snub Greater Manchester.

The north-west English area had been under Tier 2 restrictions until earlier this week, when Sunak’s government forced it into Tier 3 with a financial support package that has been vilified as punitive and unfair.

Now the BBC is reporting:

Rishi Sunak announced big changes to the Job Support Scheme (JSS) – set to replace furlough in November.

Businesses in tier two areas, particularly in the hospitality sector, had complained that they would be better off if they were under tier three restrictions.

Sunak delivered his announcement in the House of Commons:

Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham was unimpressed – and even that usually-staunch supporter of the Tories, the BBC’s Laura Kuennsberg, had to agree that he made a fair point:

Burnham expanded on this in a TV interview:

Anthony Browne, the Tory MP appearing on the day’s edition of the BBC’s Politics Live, tried to justify the timing of the announcement:

If it takes time to evolve a policy change like that which Sunak announced in Parliament, then that means it would certainly have been under discussion when the talks with Burnham were taking place.

So it also follows that the Conservatives holding those discussions – like Robert Jenrick, who spewed such a lot of nonsense about it earlier in the week – deliberately failed to mention it to Burnham.

Why?

The only reason that I can see would be to corruptly engineer a financial disadvantage for the Labour-voting people of Greater Manchester.

Once again, it seems, the Conservatives are using the Covid-19 crisis for their own selfish political gain.

How utterly despicable.

I am glad to see that the £2,100 per month grant is retrospective and may be backdated to August 2.

I hope hospitality businesses in Greater Manchester use it to take as much as they can from Sunak and his twisted government.

Source: New government Covid scheme to pay up to half of wages – BBC News

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The UK’s shame: How did we end up calling for CHILDREN to be DROWNED?

Tom Watson: No wonder he looks depressed – he’s talking to one of LBC’s famous bigoted right-wing listeners.

What is the matter with us?

Back in the day, everyone I knew used to be tolerant, if not downright friendly, to people from other cultures. It’s what made us great – the ability to see the best in others and adopt it for ourselves.

Then something changed. A gang of liars slithered into Downing Street, Whitehall and Westminster and started spreading lies and divisive talk – about people who were unemployed, or sick, or disabled… or foreign.

Suddenly we’re all at each other’s throats; queuing up to run everybody else down.

And we end up lowering ourselves to this, as heard on LBC:

“Tom Watson told a caller that his views leaves him “worried for the future of humanity” after he said children migrants attempting to reach the UK should drown.

“Andy told the Labour MP that a “large portion of the country is in poverty” and that there should be “no more”.

“But when Tom asked about the English Channel, his response was shocking.

“”You’ve got a boat load of kids sinking in the English Channel, what would you do with them?” Tom asked.

“Andy responded: “I’d let them sink.”

“”So you would let children drown in the English Channel?”

“”Yep.”

“”How many?”

“”As many as it takes to stop them,” Andy replied.”

Here’s the exchange:

Some might say this is only what we should expect from people who call in to LBC, and there is truth in that.

But I think there is a more deeply-ingrained malaise.

There is no reason for anybody to wish death on people who are simply trying to escape hatred and persecution. The fault lies with the governments of their own countries.

But we can’t just pin the fault for callers like Andy on the Tory government. I reckon he has held his racist – because that’s what they are – views for a long time; the Tories just made him think it’s all right to voice them.

He was right that there’s a lot of poverty in the UK – but that is because a very small number of very rich people are keeping all the money for themselves.

They control the means of production, the supply of goods, the cost of goods, and the amount of pay given to employees. And by hiding their vast profits in offshore tax haven bank accounts, they avoid paying taxes that could support state systems such as the NHS and benefits.

And that gives the Tory government an excuse to say there isn’t enough cash to make these systems viable.

There’s plenty of cash. It’s just being kept from us, that’s all.

So the immediate cause of the problems raised by Andy is the Tory government.

But the cause of his bigotry needs to be rooted out. Somebody filled this man’s head with poison, and the only way to drain it out of him is education and persuasion. He needs to learn, not only that his belief is wrong, but why it’s wrong.

Shamefully for the nation, he’s not the only one.

I’m not often in agreement with Tom Watson; in the Labour Party, it seems to me that he has caused more problems than he has solved.

But I am in complete agreement with his fear for the future of humanity – if bigotry like Andy’s isn’t countered.

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