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Posts Tagged 'Mainstream Media'
UKIP's Working Class Voters and the Tory Victories in Labour Heartlands
Robert Ford and Matthew Goodwin in their book Revolt on the Right: Explaining Support For The Radical Right in Britain (Abingdon: Routledge 2014) argue that UKIP's brief appearance as a new political force was due to it developing strong working class support. It articulated the frustration with contemporary politics of the people left behind. These were generally older, less educated workers, marginalised through de-industrialisation and social change, particularly immigration and European integration. They write
UKIP's revolt is a working-class phenomenon. Its support is heavily concentrated among older, blue-collar workers, with little education and few skills; groups who have been 'left-behind' by the economic and social transformation of Britain in recent decades and pushed to the margins as the main parties have converged to the centre ground. UKIP are not a second home for disgruntled Tories in the shires; they are a first home for angry and disaffected working-class Britons of all political backgrounds, who have lost faith in a political system that ceased to represent them long ago.
Support for UKIP does not line up in a straightforward way with traditional notions of 'left' and 'right', but reflects a divide between a political mainstream dominated by a more financially secure and highly educated middle class, and a more insecure and precarious working class, which feels its concerns have been written out of political debate. In a sense, UKIP's rise represents the re-emergence of class conflicts that Tony Blair's New Labour and David Cameron's compassionate Conservatism submerged but never resolved – conflicts that reflect basic differences in the position and prospects of citizens in different walks of life. Before the arrival of UKIP, the marginalisation of these conflicts had already produced historic changes in political behaviour. Blue-collar voters turned their backs on politics en masse, causing a collapse in electoral turn-out to record lows, and fuelling a surge in support for the extreme right BNP, making it briefly the most successful extreme right party in the history of British elections. Since 2004, Farage and his foot soldiers have channelled the same social divisions into a far more impressive electoral rebellion….
(T)he potential for a political insurgency of this kind has existed for a long time. Its seeds lay among groups of voters who struggled with the destabilising and threatening changes brought in by de-industrialisation, globalisation and, later, European integration and mass immigration. These groups always occupied a precarious position on Britain's economic ladder, and now, as their incomes stagnated and their prospects for social mobility receded, they found themselves being left behind.
Many within this left-behind army also grew up before Britain experienced the recent waves of immigration and before the country joined the EU, and their political and social values reflect this. This is a group of voters who are more inclined to believe in an ethnic conception of British national identity, defined by birth and ancestry, and who have vivid memories of a country that once stood independent and proudly apart from Europe. They also came of age in an era where political parties offered competing and sharply contrasting visions of British society, and had strong incentives to listen to, and respect, their traditional supporters. Shaped by these experiences, today these voters look out at a fundamentally different Britain: ethnically and culturally diverse; cosmopolitan; integrated into a transnational, European political network; and dominated by a university-educated and more prosperous middle class that hold a radically different set of values, all of which is embraced and celebrated by those who rule over them. This is not a country that the rebels recognise, nor one they like. (pp. 270-1).
Jeremy Corbyn's supporters believe that the defeat in the recent general election was primarily due to Brexit and Boris Johnson's presentation of the Tories as the party that would 'get Brexit done'. Craig Gent, in his article for Novara Media, 'Learning the Lessons of Labour's Northern Nightmare Will Take Longer Than A Weekend' argues that the northern communities, who turned to the Tories were those which voted for Brexit. He writes
The bare facts are these: Labour's election campaign did not look the same across northern towns as it did on left Twitter. Swathes of towns that said they wanted Brexit in 2016 still want Brexit. Those towns by and large felt patronised by the offer of a second referendum, a policy whose public support has always been inflated by the gaseous outpourings of its most ardent supporters. And two years on from 2017, the novelty of Corbynmania had thoroughly worn off, with his increasingly stage-managed media appearances beginning to rub people up the wrong way.
See: https://novaramedia.com/2019/12/17/learning-the-lessons-of-labours-northern-nightmare-will-take-longer-than-a-weekend/
It's also been argued that working class voters turned to the Tories in the north and midlands because the Leave vote was primarily a rejection of the political establishment, and in those areas, Labour was the political establishment.
Some of the features of UKIP's working class supporters obviously don't fit those, who voted Tory last Thursday. The people voting for Johnson weren't just the over-55s, for example, and so wouldn't have had the glowing memories of Britain before we entered the EU, or EEC as it then was. And it should be remembered that UKIP was never as large or as powerful as its supporters and cheerleaders in the lamestream media presented it. But clearly there are a large chunk of the British electorate, who did feel ignored by Labour's Blairite leadership and shared their elders' impressions of a Britain that was powerful and prosperous outside the EU, and which had been actively harmed by its entry.
But Boris won't do anything for them, except possibly make a few token gestures towards improving conditions for those communities. It will mean hard work, but Labour can win those communities back.
But it means not taking them for granted, as Gent's article states, and building a solid working class base once again through community activism and campaigning.
And not leaving them behind to concentrate on marginals and Tory swing voters, as New Labour did.
Tags:'Revolt on the Right', BNP, Boris Johnson, Conservatives, Craig Gent, De-Industrialisation, General Election, Immigration, Labour Party, Mainstream Media, Matthew Goodwin, Middle Class, New Labour, Nigel Farage, Novara Media, Robert Ford, tony blair, UKIP, Univesities, Working Class
Posted in Education, European Union, Fascism, Industry, LIterature, Politics, Radio, Television, The Press, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »
Sad Ultra-Zionist Actress Claims to Have Left Labour Party Again
The election's on, the Tories are clearly scared of Corbyn, as they're lying and publishing fake news, and almost inevitably, they're trying to revive the old anti-Semitism smears. According to Zelo Street, the Scum's deputy political editor, Matt Dathan, published a piece claiming that 'life-long Labour supporter' Maureen Lipman has left the Labour party. Apparently she's recorded a mock version of her adverts for BT, in which she attacks the Labour leader's economic plans and accuses him of having an 'ology' in extremism. This isn't news. Lipman left the Labour party way back in 2014 when its leader was Ed Miliband. Who was Jewish. She was furious at his backing for a symbolic vote in the Commons recognising Palestine as a state.
Tom London, who is Jewish, tweeted back a reply to Dathan putting him right:
"I remember Maureen Lipman very publicly protesting and leaving the Labour Party when it was led by (the Jewish) Ed Miliband, in protest over his policy on Israel/Palestine. This policy reflected Miliband's absolutely proper concern for Palestinian human rights".
Socialist Voice also reminded people how she had left the Labour party back then under Miliband, who was also himself the victim of anti-Semitic attacks in the Tory press.
And the tweeter Darius Faruz also pointed Lipman's double standards in her attacks on Labour, while she was silent about the greater amount of racism rampant in the Tories:
"Maureen Lipman stays SILENT on the greater levels of antisemitism in the Tory party? Silent on the Conservative party of #Windrush, dog whistle racism … Silent on Johnson's Islamophobia – letterbox / bank robbers, watermelon smiles, picaninnies".
But she had the support of Mike Gapes, Michael Gove, the mainstream media and the Scum. Almost like the latter three were all connected, as another tweeter pointedly observed.
See: https://zelo-street.blogspot.com/2019/11/maureen-lipman-leaves-labour-again.html
There was a time when I liked and admired Maureen Lipman. She's an extremely talented comic actor, and I've enjoyed her performances about another great British actor and comedian, Joyce Grenfell. But here she shows real moral squalor. She left the Labour party when Miliband moved slightly further left than the old Blair and Brown regime. Which means she's quite happy seeing Britain's public services delivering poor service in order to boost the profits of the private companies that own them. She's quite happy to see the NHS, schools and colleges privatised, with students lumbered with crippling debt. With increasing numbers becoming homeless and house prices at unaffordable levels to create a 'generation rent'. With wages so low the majority of people using food banks are actually in work. And a brutal sanctions regime that has seen tens, if not hundreds of thousands of people thrown into despair and poverty, because they've been declared 'fit for work' when they are anything but, or the Jobcentre decided they were going to cut of their jobseeker's allowance on some flimsy excuse.
She's ignored the way Corbyn has stood up for Britain's Jewish community, and has enjoyed the support of many of its members. Like Jewdas, Jewish Voice for Labour, the Jewish Socialist Group and the Haredi community. No, he – and Ed Miliband before him – are terrible anti-Semites because they recognise the Palestinian people's right to their own state. Or want to end the decades-long system of apartheid, land seizures and aggressive expropriation and colonisation in Israel itself. An apartheid which viewed the mizrahim – the indigenous Jews of the region – scarcely human.
She's just another shabby ultra-Zionist, no different than the other fanatics and smear merchants. Zelo Street concluded their article about this sorry episode with
'Maureen Lipman slagging off Labour is old news. And tediously predictable with it.'
Absolutely. And with her absolute lack of any genuine concern for Britain's working people, and skewed hypocritical attitude on racism, I doubt many people miss her in the party either.
Tags:anti-semitism, Anti-Semitism Smears, Apartheid, Benefit Sanctions, Colleges, Colonialism, Conservatives, Darius Faruz, Ed Miliband, Food Banks, Gordon Brown, Haredi Jews, Homelessness, Jeremy Corbyn, Jewdas, Jewish Voice for Labour, Jews, Jobseekers' Allowance, Jocentres, Labour Party, Land Seizures, Mainstream Media, Matt Dathan, Maureen Lipman, Michael Gove, Mike Gapes, NHS Privatisation, Palestine, Palestinians, Privatisation, Public Services, racism, Schools, the Diabled, The Sun, tony blair, Twitter, Work Capability Tests, Zelo Street
Posted in Arabs, Charity, Comedy, Disability, Economics, Education, Health Service, Industry, Israel, Judaism, Persecution, Politics, Poverty, Radio, Television, The Press, Unemployment, Wages, Welfare Benefits | 3 Comments »
Double Down News Video: Ken Loach Explains Why People Need to Vote Labour
I found this excellent video from the socialist, radical film director Ken Loach. It's from Double Down News, another online news agency that's there to tell the world the truth about the Labour party and Jeremy Corbyn, 'cause the lamestream media won't. Loach is the veteran director who made the films Dirty, Pretty Things, about the low-paid immigrant workers, who do the work we don't want to, and I, Daniel Blake, about a man struggling with the obstructive, deliberately unhelpful bureaucracy of the Tories' benefit system. He's also another person they've tried to smear as an anti-Semite because he made a film a few years ago exposing the brutality of the Israeli state towards the Palestinians. However, Loach is demonstrably very far from anti-Semitic. I believe he made the film with an number of Jewish critics of Israel, and was given a rapturously welcome the other year when he appeared at a meeting of Jewish Voice for Labour. Despite what smear merchants like the Campaign AgainstAnti-Semitism, the Jewish Labour Movement, the Blairites, the Tories and the mendacious press would have you believe, Corbyn's supporters are decent, self-respecting anti-racist people. The many Jews, who support him do so because they are, decent, self-respecting anti-racist people. They are not self-hating, and know that he has done much to support the Jewish community as he people from all racial, ethnic and religious groups in this countries. And so the folks at JVL would very definitely not give their applause to a genuine anti-Semite.
Loach begins the video by saying
The impact of Johnson is like the emperor has no clothes. We can see clearly what is amiss. Get out of Europe fast so that even the small protections that Europe provides in working conditions and the environment disappear, so that he can do deals with people like Trump, where it'll open the door to the big American multinationals to take over our public services. And the biggest issue of all, climate change will be disregarded. If we care about the future for our kids, and grandchildren in my case, then that's suicidal. Why are we destroying the planet? Why? Why do some areas of the country exist with nothing while other areas are overwhelmed with wealth? Why is the world like that? It doesn't need to be like that.
The Labour government of the past failed with its illegal wars, privatisations. We now have a chance with the beginnings of a policy that will regenerate our country, protect the environment, get rid of privatisation in the public services. Why should Richard Branson make a fortune out of the Health Service? It makes no sense. I mean, the questions are so obvious, of course young people will see it. And then they get confused with this fog of stupidity which you see in the press, broadcast every morning, so that politics becomes not the simple answer to simple questions, but becomes some arcane procedure in a tiny part of London by people, who speak a different language. Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell cut through that, that's why they're not allowed to speak. Empathy, solidarity, supporting each other, understanding each other – this is the essence of socialism. We';re naturally good friends, we're naturally neighbours, that's the essence of our political system – it's the opposite of their political system.
The video ends with a statement by Loach about Double Down News, explaining that it's an alternative news service, that doesn't get funding from anyone except what it's given. Even by old farts like him. He appeals to people to give to the organisation, offering them £20.
It's a great video illustrated with some very pertinent images. This includes urban decay contrasted with the wealth of the City of London, Boris Johnson and Rees-Mogg in parliament, the arcane ceremony of the opening of parliament with Black Rod, the warmongers Bush and Blair together, Richard Branson toasting his good fortune, a collage formed by a newspaper photo of Osama bin Laden embracing a newspaper photo of Corbyn and the selection of tabloid front pages smearing the Labour leader. There's also clips of Corbyn meeting ordinary members of the public, embracing a Muslim woman in a burqa, that'll no doubt send Boris' supporters bonkers, and writing messages of condolence to the people of Grenfell Tower.
This is an eloquent talk by one of Britain's most gifted and critically acclaimed film-makers. He's right, and especially about the way the concentration on the arcane ritual of parliament may be putting off young people. It certainly seems to me to be a way of dividing people into a politically-literate class of affluent people, who understand it and its jargon, and the rest of us.
Loach is getting on a bit, but he's still active and his voice needs to be heard. We need to listen to him and organisations like DDN, and not to the lamestream media.
Tags:'Dirty Pretty Things', 'I Daniel Blake', anti-racism, anti-semitism, Anti-Semitism Smears, Boris Johnson, Campaign Against Anti-Semitism, Climate Change, Conservatives, Donald Trump, Double Down News, Immigration, Jeremy Corbyn, Jewish Voice for Labour, Jews, John McDonnell, Ken Loach, Labour Party, London, Mainstream Media, Muslims, NHS, NHS Privatisation, Osama bin Laden, Palestinians, Privatisations, Public Services, racism, Richard Branson, Wars
Posted in America, Democracy, Economics, Environment, European Union, Film, Health Service, Industry, Islam, Israel, Judaism, Persecution, Politics, Poverty, Radio, Socialism, Television, Terrorism, The Press, Working Conditions | 1 Comment »
David Rosenberg's Refutation of Latest Corbyn Anti-Semitism Smears
As I said a few days ago, the Tories must be desperate. They and their allies in the press have fallen back to the old smears of anti-Semitism against Jeremy Corbyn. A Reform Rabbi, Jonathan Romain, wrote an article in last Friday's Times warning its readers not to vote for Labour, because he was afraid of the terrible consequences of a Corbyn-led government for Britain's Jews. And Stephen Pollard, the non-Jewish, goysplaining editor of the Jewish Chronicle, has written an article aimed squarely at gentile Brits, urging us not to vote for Corbyn because ditto.
David Rosenberg of the Jewish Socialist Group has written another excellent reply to the latest round of smears. Rosenberg himself has been the subject of smear attacks and protests by ultra-rightwing Zionists. A few days ago Jonathan Hoffman, a former leader of the Zionist Federation, was doing his usual schtick of marching around screaming about anti-Semitism in protest at a talk Mr Rosenberg was given to the East London Humanists. Whom he also accused of anti-Semitism, because they're militant atheists and are anti-Judaism. Well yes, they are. They are also anti-Christianity, anti-Islam, anti-Hinduism, and anti-religion generally. That does not mean that they stand for the persecution of Jews, or Christians, Muslims, Hindus or anyone else. As for Rosenberg being an anti-Semite himself, his piece, 'Who's Afraid of Jeremy Corbyn', begins with him describing a journey he made as part of a group of sixty people on a four day educational visit to Poland. It was organised by Unite Against Racism and many of the people on it were trade unionists and members of the Labour party. They also ranged from sixth former to older people, including Holocaust survivors, some of whose terrible experiences he briefly describes. Rosenberg was a speaker at the event, but before he did, they were treated to a message by Jeremy Corbyn. It was not electioneering, but a private message, meant for the travelers alone. Rosenberg writes
But just before I spoke, we watched a video message that had been filmed in one of the busiest weeks of Jeremy Corbyn's year. The election had only just been called but he found time to record a message to wish our group well on our visit. This was not electioneering. This was not a social media post to be broadcast by Labour's Press Team for sharing far and wide. It was simply a private, personal, heartfelt message to our group, from someone who has spent their life confronting racism and fascism and posing an alternative to hatred.
"Your visit to Auschwitz," Corbyn told us, "will be a poignant experience. I have been there myself." He described antisemitism as an "evil cult that has to be destroyed in all forms." He recalled a visit he made, in summer this year, "to a small Jewish museum in Romania next to a railway line, where hundreds of thousands of Jews were rounded up in 1944 and deported to their deaths." He closed by calling on us to "unite as people to say we will not tolerate racism in any form in our society, be it antisemitism, be it Islamophobia, be it homophobia or any other kind of discrimination."
Rosenberg goes on to criticise Romain's article, which was part of the media's general evidence-free argument against the Labour party. He also discusses how the Tories have been responsible for deliberately racist policies such as the Hostile Environment policy, and are now led by Boris Johnson and his vile remarks about 'grinning picaninnies' and women in hijabs. He also reminds voters thinking of switching from Labour to the Fib Dems because of the smears of racism just how racist the Lib Dems themselves are. They not only supported Tory austerity policies, which disproportionately affect ethnic minorities, they also supported the Hostile Environment. And they did some extremely racist campaigning themselves in Tower Hamlets. He writes
Some of us with longer memories might recall the role of the Liberal Democrats in Tower Hamlets in the early 1990s where Lib Dem leaflets linked the presence of Black and Asian people with the housing shortages, giving further credibility to the overtly racist BNP who were polling well. Other leaflets distributed by the Lib Dems accused Labour of diverting funds towards the area's Asian communities. In the end the BNP won that seat, and the Lib Dems locally were widely seen as playing a despicable and racist role.
He also attacks the Torygraph article which quotes Conservative chairman James Cleverly that British Jews are preparing to flee Britain if Corbyn gets in. He notes that three years into Corbyn's leadership of the Labour party, fewer Jews than ever are actually leaving for Israel. But he also notes the anti-Semitic undertones of the Torygraph and Jewish Chronicle's article. Both stereotype Jews as rich capitalists. He writes
But the more serious point contained in this suggestion is the not-so-subtle antisemtism of both the Telegraph and Cleverly.
In essence they argue that a Corbyn government will launch a vengeful attack on wealth. Those most committed to private enterprise fear being squeezed by a radical Labour government, and the suggestion seems to be that the Jewish community, often stereotyped as an overwhelmingly rich, business-orientated community, will especially feel that pinch. It is an argument that has been rehearsed by the very right wing Jewish Chronicle editor, Stephen Pollard, who gave space in December 2018 for an appalling article in his paper by Alex Brummer with a headline you might have expected to see in a fascist journal: "The thought of Jeremy Corbyn as PM has Jewish investors running for the hills".
Three months earlier, Pollard himself, had attacked a tweet by Jeremy Corbyn in which Corbyn said that the people who caused the financial crash of 2008 "call me a threat. They're right. Labour is a threat to a damaging and failed system rigged for the few." Pollard tweeted: "This is 'nudge, nudge, you know who I'm talking about don't you? And yes I do. It's appalling" In response I tweeted: "Stephen Pollard and Jeremy Corbyn. One of them seems to think all bankers are Jews. Clue: it is not Jeremy Corbyn."
But when I read this drivel, stereotyping the Jewish community as capitalists, I think of the many Jews I know well who work in the health service and caring professions who will be boosted by the prospect of a Labour government that is committed to funding their sectors rather than selling them off. I think of the struggling Jewish single parents and pensioners I know, and unemployed Jews, who have every reason to welcome a Corbyn-led government that would boost welfare payments rather than cut them, and would undertake other serious anti-poverty measures. I think of Jews I know who are users of mental health services, whose provision has been cut to the bone by the Tories. I think of elderly Jewish acquaintances living in the East End for whom repairs to their council housing and a well resourced health service are very high on their agendas. These people need a Labour government to be returned on December 12th as much as as their non-Jewish counterparts.
Absolutely. I've met Jews, who've despised the Tories for what they've done to the Health Service because they've, or their parents, have worked in it.
He also gives more news that you won't find in the lamestream media. Apparently here are two new initiatives by British Jewish young people to tackle the Tories. One is Vashti Media, which states that it is a 'microphone for the Jewish Left', and another is 'Jews Against Boris'.
He also discusses a talk the group were given by a Polish socialist and anti-fascist, who talked about the current political situation in his country and the mobilisation of anti-Fascists to combat the recent nationalist marches through Warsaw. His article concludes by commenting on the way the Fascist and Nationalist right in Poland and eastern Europe are being supported by right-wing forces across the continent, including Britain's Tories.
As we sat in a cab driving to the airport on Monday, we passed a wall graffitied with a crossed out Star of David in a circle. The populist right and far right in Poland, and other countries central and eastern Europe, have been drawing support from right wingers in Western Europe including Britain's Tory Party. Those elements in Britain that are leading the false charge against Jeremy Corbyn, as if he were some sort of threat to Jews in Britain, need to stop playing dangerous factional political games and face up to where the threats are really coming from.
https://rebellion602.wordpress.com/2019/11/06/whos-afraid-of-jeremy-corbyn/
As Rosenberg and other, genuine anti-Fascist activists both Jewish and gentile have made clear, Jeremy Corbyn is not an anti-Semite. Since he's been leader of the Labour party, the level of anti-Semitism has been at the lowest its ever been for years. Anti-Semitism, like racism generally, is always strongest on the right. And that means the very same Tories, who are trying to smear Corbyn as a Jew-hater.
Tags:'Jews Against Boris', 'The Telegraph', Alex Brummer, anti-racism, anti-semitism, Anti-Semitism Smears, Asians, Auschwitz, Blacks, BNP, Boris Johnson, Business, Capitalists, Christianity, Conservatives, Council Housing, David Rosenberg, East End, East London Humanists, Financial Crash, Hinduism, Hindus, Homophobia, Housing, Islamophobia, Jewish Chronicle, Jewish Socialist Group, Jews, Jonathan Romain, Labour Party, Lib-Dems, Mainstream Media, Museums, Muslims, Pensioners, Rabbis, racism, Religion, Single Parents, Stephen Pollard, the Rich, Tower Hamlets, Unite Against Racism, Vashti Media, Warsaw, Zionist Federation
Posted in Atheism, Banks, Education, Fascism, Health Service, Industry, Islam, Israel, Judaism, Mental Illness, Nazis, Persecution, Poland, Politics, Poverty, Radio, Romania, Socialism, Television, The Press, Trade Unions, Unemployment, Welfare Benefits | 1 Comment »
EL4JC Video Showing Just How Impartial the Beeb Isn't
Mike over on Vox Political has reproduced a series of tweets showing a video produced by EL4JC. This is a graph showing the cumulative proportion of left, right and centre guests on various Beeb news and politics programmes. The columns in the graph increase as the figures for each day and programme is added to the sound of Greig's 'In the Hall of the Mountain King' from the Peer Gynt suite. This ends by showing how massively biased the Beeb is in its selection of guests. Here's a shot of the last image.
As you can see, the Beeb is massively biased in favour of the Right. Those guests, who are not from the Right are drawn far more from the Centre than the Left. One of those, who retweeted the image, Julie Houghton, commented
this is appalling. Retweet everyone and share. Sick of seeing right wing nutters having such a biased platform. Handed to them on a plate by the BBC & don't get me fucking started on right wing lying newspapers, distorting the truth. Something has to change.
Yes, it does. And this analysis of Beeb bias won't surprise anyone – not on the Left at least. Barry and Saville Kushner in their book, Who Needs the Cuts, tell how the Beeb on its news programmes always featured people supporting austerity to the exclusion of trade unionists, Labour politicos and protesters arguing otherwise. When these dissenting voices were allowed on, they were quickly silenced, or in some cases actually shouted down by the presenters. The media research departments at Glasgow, Edinburgh and Cardiff universities have also produced reports into Beeb political bias. They concluded that the Beeb is far more likely to have speaking on their programmes Conservatives and spokesmen from the City than Labour politicians and trade unionists.
But why this massive bias now? Mike also reproduces this image, containing a tweet from a former BBC newsman, Marcus Moore, and a graphic about the career of Sarah Sands, now editor of the Radio 4 Today programme.
Moore's statement that this all follows Cameron's decision to appoint John Browne, formerly of BP, to the government department responsible for recruiting management and senior executives from private business to reformed government departments also deserves comment. I don't doubt that Moore's absolutely correct in that the ultimate responsibility for all this lies with Cameron. But Tony Blair was also keen to have the BBC parrot lines spouted by New Labour. And the appointment of private business people to the heads of government departments was not only a New Labour corporatist policy, but also that of the Nazis in their promotion of private industry. Not that the Beeb wasn't biased in favour of the Tories long before that.
So where should people go for proper information?
Mike suggests that people would be better served taking it from social media, and the independent sources that so terrify the establishment media. So much so that there are now groups like Stop Funding Fake News, who adopt a spurious concern to prevent people getting their news from extremist sources. By which they mean websites like The Canary, which supports Jeremy Corbyn, but is not 'extremist' nor does it retail false information. The establishment claim that people taking their information from online sites like The Canary is not only fueling extremism, it is also destroying the ideological consensus built by people all reading and watching the same newspapers and news programmes. In other words, they're afraid that people are moving away from them and their influence is being undermined by their online competitors.
The lamestream media are all pushing, to a greater or lesser degree, the same Thatcherite policies that have done so much damage to our country, and have destroyed so many lives – of the unemployed, the poor, and the disabled. It deserves nothing but our contempt, and people are far better advised looking at excellent left-wing blogs and sites like The Canary, The Skwawkbox, Novara Media, Evolve Politics, Vox Political, Zelo Street, Another Angry Voice, the Disability News Service and so on.
But Mike's piece also concludes with a tweet from Mike Smart, warning people only to take their anger out on Beeb news programmes. Otherwise they will play into the hands of the right-wing and corporate shills wishing to privatise the Beeb altogether.
Tags:'The Telegraph', 'Today', 'Who Needs the Cuts', Alison Fuller Pedley, Andy Coulson, Another Angry Voice, Austerity, Barry Kushner, BBC, Bias, BP, Cardiff University, City of London, Conservatives, Corporatism, Craig Oliver, Daily Mail, David Cameron, David Clementi, Disability News Service, Edinburgh University, EL4JC, Evening Standard, Evolve Politics, Glasgow University, Greig, James Harding, Jeremy Corbyn, John Browne, Julie Houghton, Labour Party, London, Mainstream Media, Marcus Moore, Margaret Thatcher, Mentorn Media, Mike Smart, News, Novara Media, Oil Industry, Peer Gynt Suite, Private Enterprise, Privatisation, Question Time, Radio 4, Robbie Gibb, Rona Fairhead, Sarah Sands, Saville Kushner, Social Media, Stop Funding Fake News, The Canary, the Disabled, the Poor, the Skwawkbox, Vox Political, Zelo Street
Posted in Banks, Democracy, Disability, Economics, Education, Industry, LIterature, Music, OIl, Politics, Poverty, Radio, Scotland, Television, The Press, Trade Unions, Unemployment, Wales | 1 Comment »
Private Eye Cheers Defunding Campaign Against the Canary
I've blogged many times before about Private Eye's hatred of Jeremy Corbyn and their poisonous support for the anti-Semitism smear campaign against Labour. One of those pushing it in the Eye is 'Ratbiter', revealed by Tony Greenstein a little while ago to be the pseudonym of Groaniad/Absurder hack Nick Cohen. Cohen, who isn't actually Jewish despite his name, is clearly one of those miffed that Labour has elected someone who's actually going to do something for Britain's working people, and isn't prepare to ignore or support crimes committed by the British establishment's favourite colonialist state in the Middle East. He's the author of a piece, 'Faking Hell…' in this fortnight's issue of the satirical rag for 18th-31st October 2019, praising the Stop Funding Fake News organisation for their campaign to stop advertisers using those social media sites they consider to be outlets for fake news. Cohen's article starts by praising the site for doing what he believes Google should be doing in preventing firms advertising with extremist web sites. He starts off by describing how those on the extreme right have had their advertising revenues hit, as firms like Sky, Macmillan Cancer Care, Which?, the World Wide Fund for Nature, Manchester United, Chelsea, Ted Baker, Experian and Ebay have requested Google to take down their advertising on Breitbart, Westmonster, and TR, the site of the notorious islamophobe and jailbird Tommy Robinson. Thanks to their campaign, Robinson's site has lost 70 per cent of its income. Which might stop some of his jaunts abroad for a little while. But almost inevitable, the article goes on to attack The Canary. This has been a particular bete noir of the Eye for some time. They really don't seem able to stand the idea that there are any social media sites supporting Corbyn, not least because they're also a rival to the lamestream media. Which also includes Private Eye. Describing SFFN's attacks on The Canary and its effects, Cohen says
While far-right sites target Muslim immigrants, far-left sites target Jews. "The Canary", the campaign tells its followers and advertisers, "regularly publishes fake news and attempts to justify anti-Semitism". it also feeds the conspiracy theories of the far left. One hideous example came when the campaign discovered that Unicef, which tends to the victims of the Syrian and Venezuelan regimes, was advertising on the Canary, which has denied the humanitarian crisis in Venezuela and pretended that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad did not use chemical weapons against Syrian civilians in Douma. In August, the Canary cut its staff from 25 to seven. Perhaps inevitably, it blamed "political Zionists" targeting advertisers.
The toppling of the Canary is "the strongest evidence yet that the clickbait business model can be defeated", the campaign said. Combine it with changes to Facebook's algorithms to reduce the prominence of media businesses, and fake news in the UK is taking a hit.
Let's go through and critique this pile of driveling hogwash.
Firstly, the Canary isn't a 'far left' site. As I understand it, it supports Jeremy Corbyn. Corbyn's programme of nationalisation, the restoration of the NHS, welfare state, worker's rights and trade unions, isn't extreme left, except in the addled brains of convinced Thatcherites. It's actually a return to the social democratic consensus, which was actually the centre left before the appearance of Thatcher and her campaign of privatisation, deregulation and the destruction of the welfare state and the decimation of working class organisations.
Secondly, it doesn't promote anti-Semitism. What it has done is attack, rebut and refute the anti-Semitism smears against the Labour party and specifically Corbyn's and his supporters. And these are very much politically motivated. It comes from the Blairites, who are determined to cling to power whatever the cost, the British political and media establishment, which is simply terrified of anyone giving back any power to working people, and the Israel lobby. And a large part of it comes from the Israel lobby. Tony Greenstein, Jackie Walker, Asa Winstanley of the Electronic Intifada, and the Jewish American academic and critic of Israel, Norman Finkelstein, have described at length how Israel and its supporters have been smearing any and all critics of Israel as anti-Semites since the 1980s, even when they are anything but Jew-haters, as in the case of those above. It's their only defence against the justifiable criticism and condemnation of Israel's government for its crimes against the Palestinians. It's hasbara, the Hebrew term for Israeli civilian propaganda. The campaign against Israel's critics, including Corbyn, is run by a special department of the Israeli state. This is why one of those smeared as an anti-Semite is Cyril Chilson. Mr Chilson is the son of a Russian Red Army pilot and a holocaust survivor. He's Israeli, and served in the IDF and then an intelligence unit producing such propaganda. It's because of his work for the Israeli military that he recognised the attacks on Corbyn and his supporters for what it was, and denounced it. And as result, this man, the son of people whose resistance and survival of Nazism was truly heroic, has been smeared as a Jew-hater. Disgusting.
Thirdly, the Anglo-American media have been producing fake news about Venezuela and Syria. Some of the footage of refugees supposedly fleeing persecution by Maduro's regime was faked. Independent experts analysing the footage and evidence of the chemical weapons attack at Douma have come to the conclusion that this was also faked. Assad is a monster, who has killed and tortured in order to maintain power, and he does oppress his country's Sunni Muslim population. But it doesn't look like he was responsible for that atrocity. That lies instead with the 'freedom fighters' – ahem- which we're supporting. You know, groups connected with ISIS and what evolved from the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda. But the neocons have been pushing for the overthrow of the Syrian regime since the 1990s, because Assad is a Shi'a, like the Iranian regime, although of a much more radical branch of that faith. He's therefore allied to Iran, which the Americans also want to overthrow. See the pieces produced by the Jimmy Dore Show about this.
Cohen in his attack on the Canary for rightly rejecting the received view of these events is therefore parroting Neocon propaganda.
Zelo Street has written extensively about Stop Funding Fake News, exposing how it attacks decent left-wing social media sites, while at the same time remaining very shadowy itself. No-one knows who runs it, as their identities and connections are very much hidden. The Sage of Crewe has therefore advised companies not to be influenced by their misinformation and pronouncements, until they themselves become much more transparent.
And then there's Private Eye's hypocrisy for printing this drivel.
Ian Hislop, the magazine's editor, appeared on Radio 4 a few years ago in a piece about satire down the centuries, explaining that what his magazine attacked was humbug, double standards. Private Eye is one of the few mainstream magazines that tries to bring the public the news behind the news, exposing double-dealing, lies and hypocrisy in the press, the government and industry. But publishing this attack on the Canary is very hypocritical, consisting as it does of nothing but lies and propaganda.
The Defunding of Arab Satirists Al-Hudood
And it's especially hypocritical as a few pages before Cohen's wretched piece, there's a little article in the magazine's 'Street of Shame' column, 'Joke Now, Pay Later', about how the Arabic satirical website, Al-Hudood, was experiencing a funding crisis. Metro Bank has told them it will no longer act as their bank, and they have not been able to find anyone else to do so. There has been no explanation from the banks for this refusal to deal with them.
This seems to be the same tactics Stop Funding Fake News are taking with the Canary and other left-wing bloggers and vloggers: try to take them down through preventing people from supporting them financially. Perhaps whichever oppressive regime or organisation has leant on the banks to withdraw their support for al-Hudood also considers that they're 'fake news' and a dangerous, extremist organisation.
Private Eye does much good in its exposure of some of the underhand dealings in Britain and around the world. But this attack on the Canary is, like their attacks on Corbyn and his supporters, just pure hypocritical establishment lies.
Tags:Advertising, Al-Hudood, al-Qaeda, anti-semitism, Anti-Semitism Smears, Asa Winstanley, Bashar al-Assad, Breitbart, Chelsea, Colonialism, Conspiracy Theories, Cyril Chilson, Douma, Ebay, Experian, Google+, Holocaust, Holocaust Survivors, Ian HIslop, IDF, Immigration, Intelligence Agencies, ISIS, Islamophobia, Jackie Walker, Jeremy Corbyn, Jews, Jimmy Dore Show, Macmillan Cancer Care, Mainstream Media, Manchester United, Margaret Thatcher, Metro Bank, Middle East, Muslims, Neocons, NHS, Nick Cohen, Norman Finkelstein, Palestinians, Poison Gas, Private Eye, Propaganda, Radio 4, Red Army, Shi'a, Sky, Stop Funding Fake News, Sunni, Ted Baker, The Canary, The Electronic Intifada, The Guardian, The Observer, Tommy Robinson, Tony Greenstein, TR, Welfare State, Westmonster, Which?, Workers' Rights, Working Class, World Wide Fund for Nature, Zelo Street
Posted in Arabs, Banks, Comedy, Democracy, Economics, Education, Health Service, Industry, Islam, Israel, Judaism, Nazis, Persecution, Politics, Radio, Russia, Socialism, Syria, Terrorism, The Press, Trade Unions, Venezuela, Welfare Benefits, Working Conditions | 5 Comments »
The 'I' on Labour's Manifesto Policies
Thursday's edition of the I, for 10th October 2019, carried an article by Nigel outlining Labour's election promises. The article 'What will be in the Labour Party election manifesto', stated that 'Jeremy Corbyn aims to target areas for radical change'. These were itemised and described as follows
The plicy issue likely to be at the heart of the election campaign. One in office, Labour would spend three months negotiating a new Brexit deal with Brussels to enable Britain to remain in customs union with the European Union and be closely aligned to the European single market.
It would then organise a referendum within six months, offering voters a choice between Labour's deal and remaining in the EU. Labour would hold a special conference to decide which side it would endorse in the referendum.
Labour says its tax-raising plans would only affect give per cent of taxpayers. It is currently committed to increase income tax rates to 45 per cent for salaries over £80,000 and to 50 per cent for salaries over £123,000.
Cuts to corporation tax would be reversed and the rate would be fixed at around 26 per cent.
Labour is pledging to spend £250bn on upgrading the UK's transport, energy and broadband infrastructure. Another £250bn of capital would be provided for businesses and co-ops to "breathe new life into every community".
Labour would bring the railways, Royal Mail, the water companies and the National Grid into public ownership so "essential services we all rely on are run by and for the public, not for profit."
Workers of all kinds would be legally entitled to a UK-wide minimum wage of £10 an hour. LOabour says the move will make the average 16- and 17-year-old in employment more than £2,500 a year better off.
Free Personal Care
A new National Care Service would help elderly people in England with daily tasks such as getting out of bed, bathing, washing and preparing meals in their own homes and residential care, and provide better training for carers. The £16bn annual cost would come out of general taxation.
Prescription charges would be abolished in England. They are already free in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.
More than 80 per cent of English prescriptions are already issued free of charge, but in other cases patients pay £9 per item.
Boost Doctor Numbers
The number of GP trainees in England would rise by 50 per cent to tackle a recruitment crisis. Labour says it would mean an extra 27 million GP appointments per year.
Scrap Tuition Fees
One of the party's most popular policies at the last election, Labour is committed to scrapping university tuition fees in England and Wales, which currently stand at a maximum of £9,250 a year.
It would also cancel existing student debt, which the party says has reached "unsustainable" levels.
End Rough Sleeping
Labour would end rough sleeping in five years by allocating thousands of extra homes to people with a history of living on the streets.
Outlaw Fracking/ Increase Renewables
Fracking would be banned "once and for all", with Labour putting its emphasis on developing clean and renewable energy.
The party wants 60 per cent of UK energy from zero-carbon or renewable sources by 2030 and would build 37 state-owned offshore windfarms. it is pledging to create hundreds of thousands of jobs in a Green Industrial Revolution.
Scrap Ofsted
The schools inspectorate, which the party claims causes higher workload and stress for teachers, would be abolished and replaced with a two-stage inspection regime.
A Four-Day Working Week
Labour would cut the average working week to 32 hours within ten years, but with no loss of pay. It would end the opt-out from the European Working Time Directive, which lets firms sidestep EU rules on limiting hours to 48 a week. Zero hours contracts would be banned.
Overturn Union Legislation
Margaret Thatcher's union legislation would be scrapped as a priority, and moves begun towards collective bargaining in different sectors of the economy.
Reverse Legal Aid Cut
Labour would expand legal aid as a priority with help focussed on housing cases and family law.
These are all policies that this country desperately needs, and so you can expect the Tories, the Lib Dems and the lamestream media, not to mention the Thatcherite entryists in the Labour Party itself, to scream 'extremism!' and do everything they can to stop them.
And you can trust that the party is absolutely serious about honouring these promises. Unlike David Cameron, Tweezer and Boris Johnson, all of whose promises about restoring the health service and reversing cuts, bringing down the deficit and ending austerity, have proven and will prove to be nothing but hollow lies.
Tags:Boris Johnson, Brexit, Brexit Referendum, Broadband, Conservatives, Corporation Tax, Cuts, David Cameron, doctors, Fracking, General Elections, Homelessness, Infrastructure, Labour Party, Legal Aid, Lib-Dems, Mainstream Media, Margaret Thatcher, Minimum Wage, National Care Service, National Grid, Nationalisation, Northern Ireland, Ofsted, Prescriptions, Renewable Energy, Royal Mail, Schools, Student Debt, Tax, The Elderly, Theresa May, Transport, Tuition Fees, Wind Farms, Workers' Rights, Working Week
Posted in Economics, Education, Electricity, England, Environment, European Union, Gas, Industry, Ireland, Justice, Medicine, OIl, Politics, Radio, Scotland, Television, The Press, Trade Unions, Wages, Wales, Water, Working Conditions | 2 Comments »
Ian Hislop Presents Beeb Programme on Fake News
According to this week's Radio Times, Private Eye's editor, Ian Hislop, is going to present a programme tomorrow at 9.00 pm on BBC 4 on fake news. The programme's titled 'Ian Hislop's Fake News: A True Story'. The blurb for it on page 75 of the Radio Times runs
The concept of "fake news" may seem like a recent, politically motivated invention, but Ian Hislop takes a long view and finds that fake news was found to be profitable long before the uncertain times of internet trolls and echo chambers. He recounts the story of the 1835 New York Sun "scoops", which told its readers there was evidence of flying man-bats on the Moon. He also learns how fake news caused a real war between America and Spain.
An additional article about the programme, written by the Radio Times' editor, Alison Graham, on page 73, runs
Ian Hislop looks sceptically at Christopher Blair, an unapologetic purveyor of fake news, or rather, made-up nonsense that's simply designed, claims Blair, to provoke the American alt-right into a frothing frenzy. It's all done,m he says, in the name of satire.
Of course, Hislop knows a thing or two about satire, and he is unconvinced, worrying that sending such pap into the universe means even sensible people doubt the truth of real and actual news stories.
In a jolly, occasionally serious history of fake news, which of course didn't begin with Donald Trump, Hislop goes back to 1835 and an American newspaper's pile of piffle about telescopes trained on the Moon spotting herds of bison and "flying man-bats". It was a sensation as crowds thronged the street outside the paper's offices, demanding more. Thus an important lesson was learnt: fake news sells.
The Origin of the Press in 17th Century Wars of Religion
The 1835 Moon hoax is notorious. It was based on Britain sending a real astronomer to oversee the construction of a telescope and astronomical observations in South Africa. The editor of the New York Sun used this as the occasion to run a spectacular story about this astronomer having discovered, through his telescope, life on the Moon. But fake news also long predates that incident as well. The ultimate origin of the news media lies in the 17th century and the 30 Years' War in Germany and British Civil War. The first newspapers were written to inform merchants around Europe about evens in Germany, during a conflict which ended with 1/5 of the population dead of starvation. During the British Civil War supporters of both sides wrote news sheets not just to inform people of events, but also as propaganda. And some of it was very definitely fake news. This was a deeply religious age, and the wars were religious conflicts between Roman Catholics and Protestants in Germany, and the monarchy and Anglican church on one side against parliament and the Puritans and other, more radical Protestant groups on the other. Visions, omens and miracles were widely publicised, as it was believed that these showed God's anger or favour towards the different factions. And some of these look very, very much like fake news. Such as the supposed encounter by a British ship out in the English channel with a merman, bearing a scroll in his hand. This fishy fellow told the astonished sailors that he was heading up the Thames to present the scroll to Crown and parliament in order to get them to desist. Or something like it. Whatever happened, it all seems very dubious to me, and looks very much as though the story ultimately had its origins in a tavern somewhere, written by the kind of hack, who used to write for the Scum and the Sport. Back in 1983 the Scum ran a story in which a medium supposedly contacted the spirits of dead British heroes and heroines to see which politicians they backed. Boadicea, apparently, gave her support to Maggie Thatcher and the warriors of Goose Green. While the Sport told us all how a B52 bomber had supposedly been found on the Moon.
The Sport and the Weekly World News
The Sport always struck me as an attempt to imitate the American Weekly World News and other tabloid newspapers. It was the Weekly World News that gave the world very obviously fake stories about aliens giving their vote to Bill Clinton and interviews with a man, who claimed his mother was the yeti. Quite. This all looked like harmless fun, a bit of sensationalism that despite academic fears, no-one ever really believed. But there are allegations that there was a much more serious, even sinister side to this. According to former tabloid reporter in his book about this side of the press, Grossed-Out Surgeon Vomits Inside Patient, the American intelligence agencies were planting false stories in them as deliberate disinformation.
The British State and Official Fake News
And it isn't just the tabloid press that published disinformation and black propaganda on behalf of the government. Over here, the IRD – a department of the British secret state – used to plant fake stories in the newspapers as part of a propaganda battle with the Communist bloc. They also concocted fake stories to destabilise the IRA and other Republican groups in Northern Ireland, and to smear the Labour party as having connections with Communism or Irish nationalist terrorism. Indeed the amount of lies put out by the IRA and other terror groups and the British government was so bad, that academics trying to make sense of what was going on in Ulster stated that they had no idea what was going on. And we've seen a resurgence of the British government's black propaganda against Corbyn and the Labour party with the tweets and fake news sent out across social media by the Institute for Statecraft, which has extensive links with British intelligence and the cyberwarfare section of the SAS.
BBC's and Private Eye's Lies about Labour Anti-Semitism
It is also richly hypocritical of the Beeb, and Ian Hislop, to produce a programme on fake news too, because of the role they have both played in promoting fake news against the Labour party. The BBC news team are incapable of opening their mouths about the Labour party without lying. This has become so bad and egregious that there is now a group appealing for funding to produce their own film refuting the lies about anti-Semitism in the Labour party put out in a recent, much criticised edition of Panorama. see, for example, Mike's article at https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/10/03/leading-labour-figure-joins-documentary-to-counter-biased-bbc-panorama/
And Private Eye have been exactly the same in this regard. There is much excellent material in it, but it has shown itself as frantic as the rest of the lamestream press in denouncing Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters as anti-Semites, simply because they are critical of Israel, or have pointed out that those who are, are historically correct. As Mike did when he wrote a piece stating that Ken Livingstone was right about Hitler initially supporting Zionism. That was the piece that got Mike attacked as an anti-Semite, and libeled as such in a series of articles in the press. These also claimed that he was a Holocaust denier. They were all flat-out lies, and the newspapers retracted them after Mike complained to IPSO. Nevertheless, Private Eye and the rest of the press are still pushing their lies about Corbyn and the Labour party, just as Mike, and others like him, like Jackie Walker, are still receiving foul abuse from ignorant fanatics.
And the Beeb's history of right-wing lies doesn't stop there. There's also the infamous case where they put the footage of the police attack on the Miners during the Miners' Strike the wrong was round. It was reversed, so it appeared to show the miners attacking the police. And I've no doubt there are many, many other incidents like this.
BBC Trying to Regain Loss Credibility with this Programme?
It'll be interesting to see if the programme has anything to say about these incidents. But I'm not holding my breath. This looks very much like the Beeb tackling this subject partly as a way of trying to burnish its own squalid image. The BBC and the rest of the lamestream media are rapidly losing credibility in a digital age, when you can go on the Net and find out what's really been said and done. Along with real fake news, it has to be said. This is frightening them, as the younger generation are turning away from the Beeb's news output altogether. The Beeb is also frightened by the fact that they are increasingly unable to shape consensus opinion, and express this in statements that claim that as a society we are in danger of becoming more fragmented as people stick to the media niches they like, which may be very different from everyone else's. Cut through this verbiage about fears about a more ideological fragmented society, and the real fear is that of the Beeb's management and news hierarchy that they are no longer as credible or as influential as they were, and thus are increasingly irrelevant. As shown by the fact that BoJob has tried to make the internet work for him by circumventing the Beeb and holding some kind of 'people's Prime Minister's Questions' on the Net.
The Beeb has rightly become notorious for its fake news against the left, and this programme looks like an attempt by the Corporation to try to reclaim some of its loss credibility. By presenting a programme on fake news, it tries to show that it doesn't do anything of the sort itself. And you can trust it, because the editor of Private Eye, which did prick the establishment, is presenting it. But Private Eye was set up by people, who were very much part of the establishment. John Wells was the headmaster at Eton, for example. And Ian Hislop is very much part of the same, privately educated, Oxbridge set.
It will therefore be very interesting to see if the programme has anything to say about the Corporation's role in peddling fake news. But I very much doubt it will.
Tags:'Grossed Up Surgeon Vomits Inside Patient', 30 Years' War, Aliens, Alison Graham, Alt Right, Anglican Church, anti-semitism, Anti-Semitism Smears, BBC, BBC 4, Bill Clinton, Boadicea, Boris Johnson, British Civil War, Cambridge University, Christopher Blair, Cyberwarfare, Donald Trump, Eton, Falklands War, Holocaust, Holocaust Denial, Ian HIslop, Institute for Statecraft, Intelligence Agencies, Internet, IPSO, IRA, IRD, Jackie Walker, Jeremy Corbyn, Jim Hogshire, John Wells, Ken Livingstone, Labour Party, Libel, Mainstream Media, Margaret Thatcher, Mediums, Mike Sivier, Miracles, Monarchy, New York Sun, Northern Ireland, Oxford University, Panorama, Parliament, Private Eye, Private Schools, Propaganda, Protestantism, Radio Times, SAS, Ships, the Moon, Vox Political, Weekly World News, Yeti, Zionism
Posted in America, Astronomy, Coal, communism, Crime, Fascism, Film, Germany, History, Industry, Ireland, Israel, Judaism, Justice, LIterature, Nazis, Persecution, Politics, Radio, Roman Catholicism, Science, Television, Terrorism, The Press, Trade Unions | Leave a Comment »
Establishment Media Bias and the Cheltenham Literary Festival
Someone really ought to do a study of the way the big literary festivals – Haye-on-Wye, Cheltenham and the others – select the books and media celebs they want to push and the way they try to manipulate public opinion towards the establishment consensus. Because, believe me, it is there.
In a couple of weeks' time, right at the beginning of October, it'll be the Cheltenham Literary Festival. As it's booklet of coming events tells you, it's been proudly going for 70 years. I think it was set up, or given a great deal of assistance when it was set up, by Alan Hancock, who owned a secondhand bookshop on Cheltenham's Promenade. It was a fascinating place, where you could acquire some really fascinating, valuable academic books cheaply. But it had the same internal layout as the fictional setting of the 1990's Channel 4 comedy, Black Books, but without Dylan Moran, Bill Bailey or Tamsin Grieg.
The festival's overall literary stance is, very roughly, broadsheet papers + BBC, especially Radio 4. It pretty much shows what's captured the attention of the newspaper literary pages and the BBC news team, several of whom naturally have books coming out, and who are appearing. In past years I've seen John Simpson, Simon Hoggart, Quentin Letts, Giles Brandreth and John Humphreys talk or appear on panels. This year they've got, amongst others, Emily Maitlis and Humphrey's again.
Much of the Festival's content is innocuous enough, even praiseworthy from a left-wing perspective. For example, there are a number of authors talking about their books about empowering women and ethnic minorities. These include Yomi Adegoke and Elizabeth Uviebinene talking about their book, Slay in Your Lane: The Black Girl Bible, which is what it says: a guide for Black girls. Other topics and books discussed are on how empowered Black men are, and various feminist works about how gynaecological problems should be discussed openly, and the changing nature of the female muse. Rather than being passive creatures, modern muses are active, liberated women conquering business, sports, the arts and science. There's also a piece on the future of masculinity, titled 'Will Boys Still Be Boys', which asks what will happen to boys now that the idea that there is a natural realm of masculinity, such as superiority and aggression, has been disproved. The concern with ethnic minority authors has always been there, or at least since the 1990s. Then, and in the early part of this century, a frequent theme of the Festival was 'crossing continents', which gave a platform to prominent literary authors from outside Europe and the West. It also gave space to Black and Asian literature from the UK. I can remember too, how one of the events staged at the Festival was a celebration of Black British poetry, much of it in Caribbean Patois.
The Festival also caters for more popular tastes. In the past it had speaking the Fantasy author, Terry Pratchett, along with the approved, heavyweight literary types. It has events for children's books, and this year features such media celebrities as Francis Rossi from Status Quo and Paul Merton. So, something for everyone, or so it seems.
But nevertheless, the Establishment bias is there, especially as so many of the speakers, like Maitlis and Humphreys, are drawn from the mainstream media. Back in the 1990s the Festival was sponsored by the Independent. Now it's sponsored by the Times, the Murdoch rag whose sister paper, the Sunset Times, has spent so much time smearing Corbyn and his supporters as Communist infiltrators or vicious anti-Semites. Maitlis and Humphreys are BBC news team, and so, almost by definition, they're Conservative propagandists. Especially as Humphreys is retiring, and has given interviews and written pieces for the Heil. Any chance of hearing something from the Cheltenham Festival about the current political situation that doesn't conform to what the Establishment wants you to hear, or is prepared to tolerate? Answers on a postcard, please. Here's a couple of examples. One of the topics under discussion is 'Populism'. I don't know what they're planning to include in it, but from previous discussions of this in the media, I'm prepared to bet that they'll talk about Trump, possibly Boris Johnson, the rise of extreme right-wing movements in Europe and elsewhere in the world, like Marine Le Pen former Front National in France, the AfD in Germany, Orban and so on in Hungary, Bolsonaro in Brazil and the Five Star Movement in Italy. All of whom are definitely populists. But they'll also probably include Corbyn and Momentum, because Corbyn is genuinely left-wing, challenges the Thatcherite neoliberal consensus and will empower the masses. All of which threatens the Establishment. There are also individual politicians speaking this year, but the only one I found from the Left was Jess Philips. Who isn't remotely left-wing in the traditional sense, though she is an outspoken feminist.
The other topic is about what should be done with Putin. Now let's not delude ourselves, Putin is a corrupt thug, and under him Russia has become once again a very autocratic state. Political and religious dissidents, including journalists, are being attacked, jailed and in some cases murdered. Among the religious groups he's decided are a threat to Mother Russia are the Jehovah's Witnesses. I'm not a member of the denomination, and find their doorstep campaigning as irritating as everyone else. But they are certainly not a dangerous cult or terrorist organisation. And they have stood up to tyrants. They were persecuted by the Nazis during the Third Reich, with their members imprisoned in the concentration camps, including a 17 year old boy, because they wouldn't accept Hitler as a secular messiah. For which I respect for them. The Arkhiplut has enriched himself, and rewarded his cronies with company directorships, while assassinating the oligarchs, who haven't toed his line. And I still remember the genocidal butchery he unleashed in Chechnya nearly two decades ago, because they had the temerity to break away.
But geopolitically, I don't regard Putin as a military threat. In terms of foreign policy it seems that Putin is interested solely in preserving the safety of his country from western encirclement. Hence the invasion of the Ukraine to protect the Russian minority there. If he really wanted to conquer the country, rather than the Donbass, his tanks would be in Kiev by now. I've blogged before about how Gorbachev was promised by the West that in return for allowing the former eastern European satellites to break away from the USSR, they would remain neutral and not become members of NATO. That's been violated. They've all become members, and there are NATO military bases now on Russia's doorstep. The Maidan Revolution of 2012 which overthrew the previous, pro-Russian president of Ukraine was stage managed by the American state department and the National Endowment for Democracy under Hillary Clinton and Victoria Nuland. There's evidence that the antagonism against Putin's regime comes from western multinationals, who feel aggrieved at not being able to seize Russian companies as promised by Putin's predecessor, the corrupt, drunken buffoon Boris Yeltsin. Putin also seems to be quite genuine in his belief in a multipolar world, in which his country, as well as others like China, are also superpowers. But the Americans are interested only in maintaining their position as the world's only superpower through 'full spectrum dominance': that is, absolute military superiority. The US' military budget supersedes both the Russian and that of the four other major global countries combined. Arguably, Russia ain't the global threat. America and NATO are.
Festivals like that of Cheltenham are important. They're business arrangements, of course. They exist to sell books. But they also encourage literacy, and allow the public to come face to face with the people, who inform and entertain them through the written word. Although here the books' pages of Private Eye complained years ago that the Festival and others like it gave more space to celebrities from television, sport, music and other areas, rather than people, whose primary living was from writing. But the information we are given is shaped by the media – by the papers and broadcasters, who give the public the news, and the publishers, who decide which books on which subjects to publish. And then there's the bias of the individual festivals themselves. And in the case of Cheltenham, it is very establishment. It's liberal in terms of feminism and multiculturalism, but other conservative, and increasing Conservative, in others. It's through events like Cheltenham that the media tries to create and support the establishment consensus.
But that consensus is rightly breaking down, as increasingly more people become aware that it is only creating mass poverty. The Establishment's refusal to tolerate other, competing opinions – their demonisation of Corbyn and his supporters as Communists, Trotskyites and Nazis, for example – is leading to further alienation and disaffection. Working people don't find their voices and concerns reflected in the media. Which is why they're turning to the online alternatives. But Festivals like Cheltenham carry on promoting the same establishment agenda, with the odd voice from the opposition, just like the Beeb's Question Time. And this is going to change any time soon, not with lyingt rags like the Times sponsoring it.
Tags:'Black Books', 'Momentum', 'Slay in Your Lane: The Black Girl Bible', 'The Independent', Adolf Hitler, Alan Hancock, Alternative Fuer Deutschland, Anti-Semitism Smears, Asians, BBC, Bias, Bill Bailey, Blacks, Bookshops, Boris Johnson, Boris Yeltsin, Business, Channel 4, Chechnya, Cheltenham, Cheltenham Literature Festival, Concentration Camps, Conservatives, Daily Mail, Dylan Moran, Elizabeth Uviebinene, Emily Maitlis, Feminism, Five Star Movement, Francis Rossi, Front National, Genocide, Giles Brandreth, Hillary Clinton, Javier Bolsonaro, Jehovah's Witnesses, Jeremy Corbyn, Jess Philips, John Humphreys, John Simpson, Kiev, Maidan Revolution, Mainstream Media, Margaret Thatcher, Marine Le Pen, Masculinity, Men, Mikhail Gorbachev, Multiculturalism, NATO, Neoliberalism, News, oligarchs, Patois, Paul Merton, Poetry, Populism, Quentin Letts, Question Time, Radio 4, Simon Hoggart, Status Quo, Sunday Times, Tamsin Grieg, The Times, Trotskyites, Victor Orban, Victoria Nuland, Vladimir Putin, Women, Yomi Adegoke
Posted in America, Brazil, Caribbean, China, Comedy, communism, Crime, Democracy, Economics, England, Fascism, France, Germany, History, Hungary, Industry, Italy, Judaism, LIterature, Medicine, Music, Nazis, Politics, Popular Music, Radio, Science, Sport, Television, Terrorism, The Press, Ukraine | 2 Comments »
Secular Talk on Media Lies and Push for War with Iran after Saudi Attacks
I don't share Secular Talk's religious views. I'm neither a secularist nor an atheist, but when host Kyle Kulinski talks about politics, I believe he's correct. In this video from the 16th September 2019, he talks about the attacks on Saudi Arabia's oil fields, and predicts the media's and American government's response.
He believes that, although the Houthi rebels in Yemen have claimed responsibility, Trump and the media, and even the Democrats, will claim that the strikes are solely the responsibility of Iran. And they will not supply any context for the attacks. Like actually telling them it's in response to the Saudi war against them. Saudi Arabia attacked Yemen after the Houthis overthrew the Sunni Muslim government and installed a Shi'a regime. Saudi Arabia is Wahhabi, and militantly anti-Shi'a. They responded by invading and waging a genocidal war. They have deliberately targeted schools, hospitals and mosques. Thanks to them, the country is gripped by a famine and cholera epidemic. One has affected 85,000, the other perhaps a million. But despite the fact that the Houthis have claimed responsibility, all the lamestream news channels, Kulinski predicts, will claim that the strikes were unprovoked. And those lying news agencies include the Beeb.
He also notes that some in the Iranian regime have also claimed responsibility for the attacks and celebrated them. He doesn't deny that it is entirely possible that the Iranians did give the Yemenis weapons and assistance. But the media, he claims, and Trump's government will claim that the Iranians are solely responsible and a demand a war with Iran. Netanyahu wants a war with Iran. Saudi Arabia wants a war with Iran. Trump's adviser, John Bolton, wants war with Iran. Even though he's now gone, it looks like he'll get his wish. The Democrats have said they'll back a war with Iran. And Trump will want a war with Iran, because he doesn't want to look weak. He's said previously that Saudi Arabia should fight its own wars and that they were responsible for 9/11, but this won't matter after these attacks. Kulinski concludes that we are the closest to war with Iran as we have ever been, but he doesn't trust any of the actors to deescalate.
I don't know if he's right about the mainstream media not providing any context for this or not. I've been avoiding the mainstream news recently because I don't trust them to report anything objectively. It could be that they have provided some context. But there are powerful forces at work demanding that we go in and attack Iran. Iran's been on the Neocons' list of countries, whose governments they want overthrown since 1995. I don't know what'll happen in Israel, because of the way the elections resulted in a tie between Netanyahu's murderous coalition and their equally nationalistic rivals. But Netanyahu and the Israeli right have also pushed for war with Iran, because Iran backs the Palestinians and wants to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth. And America backs Israel, despite opposition from pro-Palestinian groups, including a sizable and growing number of Jewish Americans.
An Iranian gent, Reza Cage, left this comment pleading for peace on the YouTube page for this video. Here it is.
I am an Iranian living in Tehran, this terrifies me. For you guys it'a not big deal because your families and children will be safe not our.. most iranian just want peace we are not that different from you.. Edit: thank you my brothers and sisters for your support, I am overwhelmed by your (mostly) kind messages it gives me a tiny bit of hope in this time of chaos.I know our government in Iran is not good they are a minority with guns and weapons controlling a country mostly youth who are pro west and liberal to stay in power. That being said everything was peaceful under the nuclear agreement even American navy members were captured and immediately released this Trump has ruined this and our already right wing government has become aggressive. I want change in our country but it must happen from the inside not through war and killing this will only make majority of youth on your side despise you because no doubt their lives will be ruined.
His thanks to the other commenters for their replies is due to them having posted something like 355 replies when last I looked, mostly supporting him. And I don't doubt that Agha Cage is right. There are right-wing hawks in the Iranian government, who'd love to push the country even further to the right by engaging in a war with America and the West. And of course, if we did invade, most of the Iranian young people would hate us. Because however much they hate their government, they, like everyone else, loves their country. The late Corinne Souza, whose father was an Iraqi dissident, said pretty much the same about our invasion of her father's country. Before we invaded, there were Iraqis willing to work with us to bring down Saddam Hussein's regime. But this stopped after we invaded, because we were the aggressors. And it'll happen again if we invade Iran, along with all the other horrors we've seen in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East.
I've made it very clear that I have little time or sympathy for the Iranian government. They are oppressive theocrats, impoverishing their people and plundering their country to enrich themselves. But the Islamic revolution which installed the current regime came about because we oppressed and exploited them. We overthrew the last of the Qajar shahs in the early 20th century and installed the Pahlavis as the Qajars couldn't repay the loans we'd given them to modernise the country. When Mossadeq nationalised the Iranian oil industry in the 1950s, we arranged a coup to overthrow him as Prime Minister. This led to the Shah's 'White Revolution' in which the monarchy seized absolute power, ruling through torture and fear. I've met Iranians over here, whose friends vanished, thanks to the Shah's murderous secret police. Florence, one of the great commenters on this blog, was active in the British protests in the 1970s against Britain's support for murderous Fascistic tyrants like the Shah. If we join the Americans in an invasion of Iran, it won't be to liberate the Iranian people. It'll just be like the Gulf War over again – done so that the Saudis can seize their oil reserves, the Neocons can remove another enemy of Israel, and western multinationals can loot the country and its state enterprises.
We got no business sending our courageous young women and men to lose life and limb in the Middle East again, murdering people who've never invaded us, simply to make the likes of Boris, Trump and the Bush family even more obscene amounts of money.
Tags:'Secular Talk', 9/ 11, Binyamin Netanyahu, Boris Johnson, Corinne Souza, Coups, Democrat Party, Disease, Donald Trump, Elections, Famine, Florence, Genocide, George W. Bush, Gulf War, Imperialism, Islamic Revolution, Kyle Kulinski, Loans, Mainstream Media, Middle East, Mosques, Mossadeq, Multinationals, Nationalisation, Nationalism, Neocons, Oil Fields, Oil Industry, Pahlavi Shahs, Qajar Shahs, Reza Cage, Saddam Hussein, Schools, Shi'a, Sunnis, Wahhabism, War
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Our skin is our largest organ, so it's important that we look after it. Your skin accounts for 15 per cent of your bodyweight and renews itself every 28 days. Although diet isn't the main culprit to poor skin, eating a balanced diet is beneficial to your overall health, including your skin.
Don't forget that drinking plenty of water is essential to maintaining good skin health, and to keeping hydrated throughout the day. Two litres is the recommended daily amount of water, and all tissues, cells and organs need it to function well.


Air duct cleaning is an essential job which should be treated with the respect it deserves. As an owner or other high-ranking member of staff, you're responsible for the health and general well-being of your workers. When air ducts aren't cleaned properly, the air supply which flows through them can become dangerous to breathe in. This is a motivating factor for having a cleaning where you work.
A visual inspection will indicate overall cleanliness, but you'll probably have to look a bit further than that. Though most companies only call in cleaners when visible dust is present, what about those hidden areas? Ducts should be fully cleaned, especially when you're paying for a full service. Leftover dirt needs to be removed because it can shrink the passageway of your HVAC. This means your system must work harder to fulfill basic functions, which reduces efficiency and can contribute to higher bills.
My Allergies Are Acting Up!
Harmful dust and contaminants can cause problems among employees, especially those who are sensitive to breathing issues. Though there's no certainty dust will cause health complications, it can aggravate certain individuals. It is your responsibility as an employer to look after the well-being of your staff, and creating a clean environment will help staff be more productive.
Mold can grow anywhere, but especially in damp, hot environments. During colder months, the heat is on more often, and this can become a breeding ground for mold, bacteria, and fungi. Summer is equally as challenging, when natural heat and moisture can lead to unwanted findings. If mold and mildew build up, it's definitely time to get a cleaner in.
Are There Dust Particles Floating Around?
If your workplace is constantly filling up with dust, have you ever considered the source of the problem? Dirt from your air ducts can resurface on office equipment, creating regular mess which requires cleaning. With regular air duct cleaning, your office environment will stay fresh for longer, and most importantly, those pesky dust particles will be gone.
We hope you have found this article informative, and are now capable of making well-informed decisions on route to finding the perfect cleaner. If you have any questions, please contact our experts and we'll get back to you.


If Princess Jasmine is your favorite Disney Princess, you are a determined person. You have strong values and always stand for what you believe in. You are independent and not easily changed by people around you, even when they try hard to do it. The free spirit in you will not let anyone stand in your way. That is also applicable for your true love. You will not easily fall in love unless it is for the right person. You love freedom, but you are loyal. Perhaps some people do not see this, but you are very smart and intelligent.


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Obituary of Willis Clifton Kinsman
Please share a memory of Willis to include in a keepsake book for family and friends.
At the age of 94, Willis Clifton Kinsman passed away at Mountain Lea Lodge on October 23, 2021.
Born in Welsford, Kings County, he was the son of Arthur and Gladys Kinsman. Willis is predeceased by his wife Francis. He is survived by his daughters, Elizabeth (Betty) Stewart (Robert) of London, Ontario and Lynn Winter (Ken) of Bridgetown as well as his sister Margaret Bentley of Ottawa. He was "Grampy" to Brent, Nicole, Erica, Mark, Adam and Jessica as well as Great Grampy to Cohen, Shay, Paige and Amelia. He is also survived by his stepchildren Robert and Shirley Demurs.
Willis graduated from Horton Academy. He was employed as Secretary-Treasurer for Acadian Distillers, in Bridgetown for many years. After leaving Acadian Distillers, he was employed with Aerovox Canada Limited in Amherst and later retired as Controller for Genu Products Limited in Pubnico.
Willis was a member of the West Nova Scotia Regimental Band before transferring to the Royal Canadian Army Pay Corp. He received the Canadian Forces Declaration as a Civil Defense Communications Officer.
Willis was an active Ham Radio Operator from 1951 with call number VEIXY. While living in Bridgetown, he was a charter member and president of the Bridgetown Lions Club, member and past President of the Board of Trade, as well as a Member of the Bridgetown Curling Club and Eden Golf Course.
Willis had a keen interest in the restoration of antique and special interest cars. His pride and joy was his 1940 Ford Convertible. He became an honorary member of the Roaring 20's Antique Auto Club in Yarmouth and a member of the Annapolis Valley Cruisers Car Club.
The family would like to thank the staff of Mountain Lea Lodge for the wonderful care they provided him.
Cremation has taken place and there will be an interment at a later date. Memorial donations may be made to a charity of one's choice.
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Facebook avoids handling toxic information in Vietnam
Global social media platforms, especially Facebook, have persistently ignored prevention of toxic information being spread among Vietnamese users, a top information official said.
Luu Dinh Phuc, head of the Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information under the Ministry of Communications and Information, said international social networks have committed to the ministry in preventing the spread of toxic information and removing it.
However, "several foreign companies providing services in Vietnam still avoid preventing toxic information in Vietnam, especially Facebook," he told a seminar reviewing activities in the information field in the first six months held Thursday in Ho Chi Minh City.
"The act of spreading fake and toxic news mostly occurs on social media platforms, especially international ones.
"Part of the reasons is because users are still treating those platforms as a virtual world that has no impacts on real life and therefore, they have made statements and spread unverified information without thinking about the consequences," Phuc said.
He said fake news on platforms that connect billions of people around the world today like Facebook, YouTube, and TikTok will immediately have thousands of shares and comments with millions of views.
If the information spread around is not identified by the competent authority as fake news, many people still think it may be real and continue to spread it, exponentially causing confusion in the community, he added.
However, due to "differences in opinion and legal environment, the handling of fake and toxic information on those social networks has remained slow and incomplete."
Existing technology solutions do not allow the ministry to separate violating content from the platforms for handling, banning the entire site instead.
Meanwhile, people have become more and more reliant on foreign social media platforms but Vietnam has yet to develop competitive services to keep up with the demand, Phuc said.
The Information Ministry said it will continue to strengthen measures to make Facebook, Google and TikTok follow Vietnamese rules and have solutions to prevent the spread of fake news on those platforms.
The Authority of Broadcasting and Electronic Information has signed agreements with information-communications departments in Hanoi, HCMC, Da Nang, Hai Phong, Can Tho, Vietnam's five centrally-managed cities, and Dong Nai Province, an industrial hub bordering HCMC, on cooperating to handle fake news on social media.
These are the six localities with the most reports on fake and toxic news.
According to Germany-based data portal Statista, Facebook's user base in Vietnam amounted to approximately 65.56 million users last year.
It predicted that the number of social media users in Vietnam would rise from 72.29 million in 2022 to 81.63 million in 2027.
By Khuong Nha – VnExpress.net – June 30, 2022
Vietnam drafts decree to enforce cybersecurity law on foreign advertising services Vietnam's public diplomacy and the peril of mixed messages Vietnam introduces nationwide code of conduct for social media Vietnam to tighten grip on social media livestream activity Censorship fears grow in Vietnam as cybersecurity law looms
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Vietnam warily weighs a China base in Cambodia
25,000 overseas Vietnamese deported for law violations since 2018


Taylor's Dream Boundless Playground located in Fort Wayne's Kreager Park is filled with fun activities for all children to enjoy. This truly inclusive playground allows all children to benefit from the rewards of unstructured play. The Alpha Pod welcomes children aged two to five years old and provides opportunities for solitary play, group play, or parallel play. The Beta Pod welcomes children aged two to twelve years and provides a themed play area that stimulates all of the senses. This pod features a fossilized T-Rex skeleton to explore and an electronic play system that delivers an excellent workout during its games. Lastly, the Gamma Pod, for two to twelve-year-olds, encourages role-play, movement and socialization.


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Principal Partner of Manchester United
A message from Kohler...
It's all about the Club, the fans and the most popular sport on the planet. We, at Kohler, couldn't be more excited about our partnership with one of the most legendary football clubs of all time and, you, their legions of passionate fans.
As global leaders, our organisations have a lot in common. Both Kohler and Manchester United have a storied history with rich traditions. We share an unwavering dedication to excellence. And approach every challenge head on, never quitting, while inspiring people the world over.
As a company with a global presence, Kohler makes sustainability and stewardship a top priority. And we believe in promoting a culture of equality and inclusion with a mission of making the world a better place — just like Manchester United. Kohler also fosters excellence by manufacturing innovative, high quality kitchen and bath products that make everyday moments more beautiful and convenient. While Kohler Power Group delivers reliable, cutting edge engines, generators and uninterruptible power supplies you can trust.
We're extremely proud to be a Principal Partner of the legendary men's team and women's team. And we look forward to the successes, both on and off the pitch, that lie ahead.
Learn more at KOHLERUNITED.COM


The discovery that your Toyota vehicle needs a service is not one that is taken lightly. We understand that our West Simsbury, Hartford, Bristol, Newington, and Manchester customers have important things to do, and sometimes it takes a lot of effort to make the call and schedule an appointment, but we want you to know that your brakes are something you should never ignore.
When it comes to having your brakes, rotors, or pads serviced, it's best to act fast to avoid catastrophe. In the age of the latest and greatest safety technology, your brakes tend to fall by the wayside, forgotten and unappreciated. That is until you notice signs of a problem. When your brakes need to be taken care of we recommend acting immediately to ensure the most important safety feature your vehicle stays in top condition.
Here are the most common signs that your brakes are in need of attention, so don't hesitate to contact our service team when these present themselves, or when you notice that the time has come to replace your brake system.
Don't lament in the realization that your brakes need to be serviced, because with help from our parts and service specials there could be an offer that saves you money. Contact us today when you find the offer that makes the most sense, or to set up an appointment to have your brakes serviced. If you haven't planned ahead for this service, get in touch with our team to see what we can do to offer you the fastest resolution to this problem as possible.


With daylight hours at their peak now that summer is here, there's more time to run and more time to read about running! Below is our own list (again, highly subjective) of some great summer reading. These are in no particular order from fact to fiction, adventure to strategy. As always, your mileage my vary!
Running through the Wall (Neal Jamison and Don Allison) - Thoughtful, candid stories from a broad spectrum of trail runners. Stan Jensen's chapter hooked me on ultras before I'd ever run one.
Running with the Buffaloes (Chris Lear) - Captivating look at the season of an elite Division 1 cross country team. The unique view into the teamwork aspect of running creates quite a page turner.
Once a Runner (John L. Parker) - Classic novel that gets to the essence of giving running everything you've got. Should come with the warning label 'Do not try this at home'.
The Perfect Mile (Neal Bascomb) - Historical perspective built around three runners and the chase for the first sub-4 minute mile. Heartbreaking and triumphant stories of exactly what it takes to reach new milestone performances, and why they are so enduring.
Your Performing Edge (Jo Ann Dahlkoetter) - How to approach racing and training with a broad set of mental tools...from turning a great day into an epic memory to turning a nightmare into a learning (or laughing) moment.
Called Again (Jennifer Pharr Davis) - Trail adventure with great insight into why and how you might want to go longer and farther. Includes valuable lessons on the mental gymnastics and physical logistics of crewing and pacing.
The Tevis Cup: To Finish is to Win (Marnye Langer) - There was a horse ride for quite a while before there was an endurance run. The story behind the Tevis Cup and the Western States Trail illuminates why it is such a special place to run.
Iron Will (Mike Plant) - Dangerously motivating tale of the origin and first 10 years of Ironman. Even if you never consider a triathlon, the epic stories of triathlon's pioneers will leave you wondering how much you're capable of....and how to find out.
Marathon Woman (Kathrine Switzer) - Inspirational story on many levels. To me, the most compelling thread is of someone who falls in love with running and uses the confidence earned and the lessons gained to enlighten others and encourage them to do the same.


What makes our private Scottish tours different from our scheduled tours?
Our bespoke tours of Scotland will be customized exclusively for you. We will aim to create something very special for you, fulfilling your desires and showing you the very best Scotland has to offer. With our expertise and your wishes in mind, we will create a tour appealing to you and your group of friends or family. Whether you wish to travel at a slow or busy pace, we will be able to take care of your precise needs.
Working with us and with our help, you get to choose every aspect of your Scottish tour.
Below are some examples of tours you can take some inspiration from.
Is there a remote part of the Highlands you've always wanted to see? Have you always wanted to do a tour of Scotland's most iconic sights but don't know where to start in planning it? Are you too busy to arrange the trip of a lifetime?
We are expert at taking your glimmer of an idea and building it into a unique private bus tour just for you. Simply tell us what you would like to see, and we will plan our route, book accommodation, schedule breaks and viewpoints, and take all the hassle out of building your unforgettable tour of Scotland.
You needn't even have a firm idea of the places you would like to visit. What are your interests? Photography? Geology? Wildlife? Outlander? We can create a themed tour that's inspired by your interests, rather than by the classic tourist spots.
Once we've created your tour and we are on the road, you and your party will have our bus and driver to yourself – so there is plenty of scope for spontaneity. If you love that view that's passing your window, we'll stop the bus for photos or a stroll. Don't worry too much about the itinerary – we'll look after that to ensure everything runs smoothly.
We know Scotland intimately, and can help you discover it in just the way you want to. Phone us or write to us and tell us your idea for a tour. Just an idea – that's all we need.