Tag Archives: Paul

Is the NatWest/Nigel Farage row another enormous scam to profit the super-rich?

Nigel Farage: why is the loss of his bank account a scandal and not the removal of many accounts belonging to Muslims? Is it because super-rich people can profit from it – including his GB News boss?

Why have we seen such a media outpouring of sympathy for Nigel Farage over the closure of his Coutts & Co bank account when the same thing has been happening to Muslims since the turn of the century and they’ve had no coverage?

Is it because Sir Paul Marshall, owner of Farage’s employer GB News, runs a hedge fund that took out a “short” position on Coutts’ owner NatWest’s stock – bet that the bank’s market price would fall? Stock has now fallen by £850 million and Marshall’s hedge fund – Marshall Wace – has made a fortune.

And is the Tory government also preparing to sell its 40 per cent shareholding in NatWest and an incident that artificially lowers the price would mean any of their friends and donors who bought those shares would be able to make a very fast profit when they rise after the scandal is over?

That would be very corrupt, wouldn’t it?

Here’s what has been happening over at GB News:

In its reportThe London Economic adds that “it’s only a snip of the billions under management at the firm and is likely to have been computer driven” – but how do we know that?

It seems clear that Sir Paul Marshall has been in a position both to know in advance about the situation with Farage’s bank account, to use it to give the bank bad publicity and engineer a share price collapse, and to profit from that collapse via his hedge fund.

That would be insider trading, which is illegal. Anyone convicted of it faces unlimited fines and/or up to 10 years’ imprisonment.

It depends on when Farage’s account was closed, when news reports of the closure appeared, and whether GB News was among the first to report it (it doesn’t even have to be the first). Did Farage mention it to his boss?

Next:

This makes sense as the Tory government has ‘form’ in this regard; it sold shares in Lloyds Bank at a loss in 2017.

Finally, and possibly damningly: perhaps the biggest reason this whole affair smells worse than a pile of Haddock that have been dead for four weeks is that the media have known about people having their bank accounts closed for no reason since some time around the turn of the century.

That well-respected (and then right-wing) reporter Peter Oborne spent years trying to get UK news outlets to report on the plight of innocent Muslims whose accounts were closed in this way, to no avail.

I’ll let him explain:

So we have a situation that has been ongoing for two decades or more, of which reporters, editors and bosses in the mass media are well aware; it becomes a public scandal only when a high-profile political figure who is now a presenter on a news channel is disadvantaged by it – allowing the owner of that channel to make millions of pounds from it; and it lowers the share price of a commercial organisation in which the UK government has shares, leading to speculation that those shares will be sold to make a profit for people who are already very rich.

Are you prepared to shrug and say it all seems perfectly innocent to you? Or would you like an investigation of what may be considered fraud under UK insider trading laws?


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Labour’s mistreatment of Jamie Driscoll has backfired massively

Dumped: Jamie Driscoll.

It’s the thinnest excuse possible and everybody knows it: Keir Starmer wants self-confessed “last Corbynite in power”, Jamie Driscoll, out of his job as a metropolitan mayor, and he’s using a joint appearance with film director Ken Loach as the reason.

Mr Loach has already been expelled from the Labour Party, although nobody seems to know the reason, and Starmer’s mob is saying that Mr Driscoll having appeared at an event that the great British director also attended is enough reason to exclude him from candidate shortlists.

Mr Driscoll – rightly – reckons that’s a crock. He doesn’t even mention it in his article commenting on his achievements and the way his party is letting the people of northeast England down:

He states:

Labour struggles to convince the electorate it can handle the economy.  You’d think I was exactly the success story the Labour Party would want to shout about.  So when they barred me from standing as North East Mayor, it shocked people from across the political spectrum.  I’ve had literally thousands of messages of support.

I identify as a socialist.  Sometimes that puts me on a collision course with the Party leadership in London.

My first duty is to the people who elected me as their mayor.  The Labour members here, in our region, chose me to represent them last time.  They should have that choice again.  It’s called democracy.  Union leaders, MPs, and other Mayors are making my case, and asking for the decision to be reversed.

There’s a lack of trust in politics.  Second homes.  Second jobs.  Cash for questions.  Not me.  £0 expenses claims.  I pay for my own phone.  I gave up my car and use my bike or public transport so I see what everyone else has to deal with.

Politics needs to change.  We need a new direction.  Power must reside in the North East, and in every region of Britain.  Not in Westminster and Party HQs.  I have a vision of a Britain that’s run in the interests of the people who do the work.  And I believe we can get there.

Say what you like about Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham; she’s on the right side of this argument:

“Nodding heads” are exactly the kind of people Keir Starmer wants in all positions representing the Labour Party. It seems clear that the only people he wants to have any power at all are those who are completely subservient to him.

What of Ken Loach?

Well, we’ve established that he was expelled from the Labour Party for reasons that have never been disclosed. Anti-Semitism has been alleged but no accusation has ever stuck.

Still, right-wing lickspittles like Luke Akehurst are using association with Mr Loach as their reason for wanting rid of Mr Driscoll, as you can see below.

By that token, though, Keir Starmer should also be out of a job at the next election:

Right?

But when Mr Driscoll appeared on the BBC’s Newsnight, Labour sent a party drone from Sussex to undermine him with insults about David Brent (the Office idiot) and falsehoods about party rules.

And what happened? Mr Driscoll ran rings around Paul Richards, who made a fool of himself:

The clip has been sent around Twitter by a few commenters, and their observations speak for themselves. Here‘s Alistair Greaves: “Honestly, @MayorJD gives these ghouls far much more politeness than they deserve. Not sure why the #biasedbbc let Paul Richards have the last word though, and while they can argue “no-one is bigger or better than the party or the rules” JAMIE DRISCOLL HASN’T BROKEN ANY RULES.”

How about MsAlfieB here? “Was the BoD demand that Labour suspend anyone sharing a platform with an expelled member written into the rules? If so that’s really shocking Surely a mayor works for all in his city, not for the Labour party. Labour Party rules can’t be imposed on public servants doing their job.”

(The “BoD” would be the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which is not a Labour-affiliated organisation. But Starmer seems to have allied with it in his purge of left-wing party members.)

Also during that Newsnight appearance, Richards tried to justify the blocking of Mr Driscoll as a candidate by claiming he does not meet the criteria (again: because Mr Driscoll had appeared at an event where Ken Loach – who has not done anything quantifiably wrong – also appeared).

Here’s what happened when interviewer Victoria Derbyshire countered with a list of Mr Discoll’s actual achievements as North Tyne Mayor:

Incidentally…

Now, those are just the opinions of people who inhabit Twitter; the social media equivalent of the man or woman on the Clapham omnibus.

Perhaps you’d prefer the view of a mass media columnist?

The commentary is damning:

Keir Starmer said in January he wanted to “take back control” for local communities. The Labour leader wants them to have more say over jobs, transport, energy, climate change, housing, culture, childcare and finance. He wants to liberate what is now recognised as the most centralised state in Europe. So why, now, has the Labour leader decided that the people of the North of Tyne area will not be permitted to reselect their current mayor, Jamie Driscoll, to stand for Labour at the next election? Why did he agree in March that his predecessor as leader, Jeremy Corbyn, should not be reselected as MP for Islington North?

Whatever the perceived misdeeds of these two politicians, surely these are matters for their respective communities to decide on. Come to that, I notice in the past few weeks that, despite his devolution speech, Starmer wants no devolution of power over council tax rises, local housing decisions or the siting of wind turbines, among other things. Nor will he tolerate any nonsense from Scottish people about “taking back control” of Scotland.

Even before he finds himself in Downing Street, Starmer cannot bring himself to respect the local diversity that has long been Labour’s strength. He cannot allow his party to let the people of the north-east choose who it is they want to lead them. It is a very bad start.

The condemnation seems universal; everyone who doesn’t have an interest in opposing Mr Driscoll seems to be supporting him.

That means two things:

Firstly, the old lies about anti-Semitism aren’t going to work any more.

Secondly, it doesn’t matter who else is on Labour’s shortlist for the new North East Mayor job; if Jamie Driscoll isn’t on it, Labour won’t have a hope of winning the election.

Will Keir Starmer learn his lesson from this?

Probably not, sadly.

In fact, he’ll probably take revenge by setting his sights on two other metropolitan mayors who have supported Mr Driscoll – Steve Rotherham and Andy Burnham.

And that would be an even worse mistake.


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Comedians raise awareness of sewage dumping at Lake Windermere protest

Paul Whitehouse, Lee Mack and Steve Coogan at Lake Windermere: the water won’t be magically cleaned just because they joined a protest – that is up to the rest of us.

This Site would like to add its praise to that already heaped on household-name comedians Steve Coogan, Lee Mack and Paul Whitehouse (plus any others who haven’t been named by national media) for raising awareness of sewage pollution.

They joined a protest against United Utilities’ pollution of Lake Windermere, giving it a mass-media boost that put the message onto TV screens across the UK.

And they said – well, hear it for yourself. Here are Messrs Coogan and Mack on ITV’s Good Morning Britain:

And here’s Lee Mack on Channel 4 News. I include the tweet by Feargal Sharkey because the former pop musician turned environmental campaigner has himself done invaluable work in publicising this scandal:

One well-publicised protest won’t clean up our waterways overnight.

As you can tell from the clips, United Utilities doesn’t really care. It’s happy giving £300 million to shareholders this year, while devoting just one-fifteenth as much to cleaning up its act. That’s the wrong way around, but it is the way chosen by the UK’s right-wing governments since 1989 – both Tory and Labour, who privatised our water and sewage services and kept them that way.

If you care about the country you live in, you need to kick up a fuss about this. Complain to your water company – demand a refund! And get on to your MP about it too.

Sewage dumping brings disease. The creek near Environment Secretary Therese Coffey’s own constituency home is full of e.Coli – but she couldn’t care less. You have to make her care.

Are you going to follow the example of Coogan, Mack, Whitehouse and the others? They can’t do it by themselves.


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Out of touch Tory Dominic Raab can’t get Paul O’Grady’s name right

UK Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab showed he was so out-of-touch he couldn’t even get late comedian Paul O’Grady’s name right – while paying tribute to him during Prime Minister’s Questions.

He compounded the offence by adding an unnecessary attack on ‘woke’ comedy:


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Watch this ‘honest Brexit advert’

Here’s some hindsighted genius from Larry and Paul.

They say they “wish this was the commercial that Leave.EU released back in 2016 – it’s altogether more honest than the #Brexit ad they ran”.

Who can deny that – considering the factual accuracy of the information in the advert?

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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An appeal on behalf of former Cabinet members [SATIRE – VIDEO]

It’s nearly the weekend and time for something to cheer us all up.

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Now the Tories are blaming the results of their nightmare mini-budget on the social media

Watch this:

So there you have it: it’s all the fault of the social media.

I’m glad we’ve cleared that up.

Of course, he doesn’t mean mass-market sites like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok or whatever, so they won’t be getting taxed properly, even now – he means sites like Vox Political, with our tiny (in comparison) audiences.

I never knew we were so influential.

Or do you think – is there a teeny, tiny, ever-so-slight, possibility that he might be mistaken?

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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Michael Gove appoints apparent racist to advise on ‘levelling-up’ plan

Paul Collier: does his appointment make Michael Gove’s ‘Levelling Up’ project racist?

Is this an admission that Boris Johnson’s Tory government intends to treat non-white citizens as second-class (or worse)?

It seems so.

Michael Gove, Secretary of State for Levelling Up (as if that title means anything), has appointed Paul Collier to advise him on his plan for the nation.

The development economist at Oxford University is infamous for having claimed that immigration has made indigenous British people a “minority” in London.

He also said nobody born in the UK but with even one parent who was an immigrant should consider themselves indigenous, and that people born of immigrants who had been here longer may only call themselves indigenous if they have integrated into society.

And this is the man Gove wants to advise on the 12 points of his “Levelling Up” plan, including schemes to improve everything from pay, jobs, research and development spending and transport connectivity in struggling areas, to “restoring local pride”.

Does this mean the only people who’ll receive “Levelling Up” help are those who can trace their ancestry back to Alfred the Great? I think even the Queen might have a problem with that.

It certainly seems geared to exclude large numbers of the population on the basis of race.

And this would fit with the Johnson government’s fascism, as it would identify ethnic minorities as enemies who may deprive areas of “Levelling Up” funding, in a bid to unify Collier’s “indigenous” people against them.

Source: Professor who suggested non-white Britons not ‘indigenous’ to advise Gove on levelling-up plan

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Tory councillor coughs up after Corbyn wreath libel

The last laugh: Jeremy Corbyn has won “substantial” damages from the Tory who tweeted a derogatory image about him. He is donating the money to charity.

I don’t think I have to say too much about this. Everybody else already has!

Including – at highly-satisfying length – the culprit:

Here’s Jeremy Corbyn’s side of it.

Others have already noted – and I’d like to add my voice to theirs – that Mr Corbyn only sued because Nickerson’s tweet disrespected those who were affected by the Liverpool Women’s Hospital bomb and the threat it posed to possible victims including new mothers and their babies.

The following tweet also matches my own feelings:

Nickerson himself has asked for his message to be retweeted, so please do.

Let’s remember that fellow Tory Ben Bradley’s apology to Mr Corbyn became one of the most retweeted tweets ever (if I recall correctly). Here it is now:

And while it is too late for Mr Corbyn to take action over the matter mentioned below, and I doubt that he would have anyway because it seems clear that he’s not bothered about the names people call him, in the light of the subject’s lawsuit against me I can’t help but sympathise with the sentiment:

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

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Tory government bid to put their man in charge of Ofcom fails

Paul Dacre: the government destroyed any pretence of impartiality to shoehorn him into Ofcom, but he has given up on it anyway.

Oh dear. How sad (for the Tories). Never mind!

Here’s the story:

The article makes it clear that the Tory government had tried to rig the appointment system after Dacre was rejected first time around:

After failing in his first attempt when an interview panel decided the former editor of the Daily Mail did not fulfil the required criteria, ministers then cleared the way for him to be given another shot.

The panel had deemed him “not appointable”. Now let’s find out how he described his rejection:

He said he had been judged inappropriate to head Ofcom the first time because his “strong convictions” were not compatible with the role.

That would be true enough – Ofcom needs to be impartial so any bias should indeed rule any candidate out of taking the chair.

Dacre – formerly the editor of the Daily Mail – couldn’t resist taking a swipe at the civil service as he announced his withdrawal in The Times:

Dacre described the process of civil service recruitment as an “infelicitous dalliance with the blob”, and suggested it was Whitehall workers rather than politicians “who really run this country”.

No, it’s definitely Tory politicians who have corrupted public life. Ofcom is a prime example; they corrupted the selection process in Dacre’s favour – but you notice he didn’t have anything to say about that!

“The civil service will control (and leak) everything; the process could take a year in which your life will be put on hold; and if you are possessed of an independent mind and are unassociated with the liberal/left, you will have more chance of winning the lottery than getting the job.”

In a final attack on the civil service, Dacre said he was taking up “an exciting new job” in the private sector that “struggles to create the wealth to pay for all those senior civil servants working from home so they can spend more time exercising on their Peloton bikes and polishing their political correctness”.

And good riddance to him. It will be interesting to find out who ends up employing him, and to look up their tax details to ensure they aren’t operating from a tax haven and cheating the Treasury.

The government will now face the task of cleaning up the appointment process that it shamelessly compromised in its bid to shoehorn Dacre in. According to The Guardian,

Concerns were raised about the transparency of the recruitment process.

When the Guardian revealed a lobbyist at a company with close connections to the Conservative party was picked to help select which candidates should be approved, Dacre announced he would not proceed with an application again despite being urged to “by many senior members of the government”.

The government had spent more than a year trying to ease Dacre’s application for the job. After he failed the first interview process the government spent the summer trying to find people willing to sit on a fresh interview panel for the job, with many individuals reluctant to put their name to the process. The job description was also rewritten to favour a more confrontational candidate, in another move seen as favouring Dacre.

The government now has just 10 days to find another preferred candidate, with applications due by 29 November.

Do any of you fancy it?

Strangely, the Guardian article doesn’t provide a link to an online application form, and all the gov.uk web pages concerning Ofcom chairmanship applications are out of date.

It’s as if they only want to take applications from the people they choose, don’t you think?

Have YOU donated to my crowdfunding appeal, raising funds to fight false libel claims by TV celebrities who should know better? These court cases cost a lot of money so every penny will help ensure that wealth doesn’t beat justice.

https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/mike-sivier-libel-fight/


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