Rayner And Cops - Who Wrote The Letter?

For people merely reporting the news, the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog seem very familiar with the claims now being investigated by Greater Manchester Police regarding what Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner may or may not have done wrong. More familiar, it seems, than the Tory MP who made the complaint.

If James Daly didn't write his own letter ...

One has to wade through an awful lot of creepy and obsessive bad faith knocking copy - the thought enters that, had the target been Fawkes fave (yes, it’s her again) Nadine Dorries, she would have already have called her detractors for alleged stalking - to find that the Tory MP concerned was James Daly, who sits for Bury North (until the election, after which he won’t).

The Great Guido, in a superb example of geographical ignorance, describes him as a “local” MP, despite Bury North not only not bordering Ashton-Under-Lyne, Ms Rayner’s constituency, but also being some distance from it. But the Fawkes massive knows rather more about the complaint being made to the unfortunate cops about what Ms Rayner did or did not do.

So much, in fact, that the Fawkes blog dedicated a long-ish and tedious post to the matter last week, telling those not yet asleep that “Most commentators are focusing on the electoral roll aspect”, but “with a 12-month limit for proceedings to commence after the crime was committed - this means that the police probably won’t recommend … that Rayner be prosecuted”.

Shouldn’t that be “allegedly” committed? But do go on. “A perjury charge would also be disproportionate in isolation”. Would it now? Have Staines and his pals been taking legal advice? Carry on. “What then was her motive for pretending publicly on the electoral roll that she lived at her old house? It was almost certainly to avail [sic] of the substantial council house discount”.

Was it now? “By misrepresenting where she was living she could, prima facie, have obtained a financial benefit of £16,975”. They have been taking legal advice, haven’t they? And the conclusion from all of the above?

... then who done it?

“The substantive issue for the police is nothing to do with capital gains tax, or taxes on rental income or any other of the myriad of potential HMRC related issues. This is about gaining a pecuniary advantage by misrepresenting her living arrangements. This is a more serious issue than making false declarations under PPERA, the police will in all likelihood be more interested in following the money”. Well, that’s that, then. Or rather, not when James Daly presented himself for a little light media grilling the other day.

With a little prompting from Labour’s Chris Bryant, Daly duly blustered “The matter is with Greater Manchester Police”. Bryant wasn’t having that. “What do you think she’s done wrong?” Come on James! “I’ve just answered that question”. Oh no he hadn’t. What were the concerns that he’d put to the Police? “The information that [GMP] released to the Times, and I think that those are the broad framing of the matters that they are considering”.

He still wouldn’t, or couldn’t, say what she’s supposed to have done wrong. Beth Rigby intervened. “You wrote to the Police. Did you not put concerns or allegations? Didn’t you write to them about it? Am I misunderstanding … what did you ask them? Why won’t you say?” But he still wouldn’t answer.

“I asked the Police to investigate certain matters that were in the public domain … regarding certain things”. Ms Rigby tried again. “Did you ask them to investigate tax matters … electoral roll issues?”. Then we came close to an admission: “I think there are a number of matters, and I think some of the issues that you’ve raised, are included within that”. He THINKS so.

But he doesn’t want to discuss the matter because there’s a Police investigation. Why? Is anything here sub judice? Maybe he should ask the Fawkes rabble to get him up to speed, as they seem to know more than he does. Meanwhile, another Tory MP - Mark Menzies - is generating headlines for yet more alleged misbehaviour. Not that The Great Guido is telling you.

Did Daly write his own letter? And if he didn’t, who did? I doubt that the Fawkes massive done it. But they may know who did. No pressure, now.

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Liz Truss - Chicken In A Basket

And so it came to pass that, rather than accepting that she has not been the most successful or popular of politicians, Mary Elizabeth Truss, aided and abetted by our free and fearless press, mounted a comeback. This has been so successful that the best her team could do was to secure an appearance on Sun TV, which means the audience would be very small indeed.

Except, of course, for Ms Truss’ fellow right-leaning politicians, and all those hacks and pundits who would watch the broadcast, then tell anyone not yet asleep how wonderful it was. Sending down the softball “questions” and not subjecting Ms Truss to any discernible reality check was the odious flannelled fool Master Harry Cole, still pretending to be a real journalist.

So what is the Truss tonic that would improve the lot of average hard-working taxpayers? Don’t ask. “I think we need to leave the ECHR”. Make the trip to the supermarket a bit cheaper, would it? Put food on the table? Make transport costs more affordable? Over to Master Cole. “With or without a referendum? No more referendums?” None you might lose, he means.

“No more referendums. I agree with you”. How Murdoch collegiate of her. Back came Cole. “But you’d need a massive mandate from the people to do that”. Which more or less kills her ambition stone dead. Who’s going to vote for the Tories if it means her? There was a flicker of realisation before she continued “You would. But it’s not enough just to leave the ECHR”.

Uh-oh. So what else is on her wrecking ball target list? “What else do we need to leave?” asked Cole. Leave? Nah, Liz is talking abolition. “We’ve got to abolish the Supreme Court”. Yeah, rule of law? Phooey! Master Cole cued her up for the follow-up: “Bring it back into the Lords?” She liked that idea. “Yes, bring it back into the Lords”. So abolition is no abolition.

And then came the Oh What A Giveaway moment from Master Cole. “I presume the OBR’s pretty high on your hit list as well”. Not much of an interrogation, is it? Go on Liz! “That’s definitely, although … what the OBR do with their modelling is they actually encourage Governments to have higher immigration”. EH? How the merry fuck do they manage that?

“Because they essentially try and force Governments to trade off tax cuts for immigration rises”. The OBR doesn’t even “try” to force any outcome on Governments. Anyhoo, carry on. “But the other thing, we’ve got to leave the ECHR, abolish the Supreme Court, abolish the Human Rights Act”. Master Cole? “And what, a British bill of rights? The Tories tried to do that”.

It was a simple question, a tap-in from six inches, an open goal. Not for Ms Truss. “I prefer the traditional Bill of Rights”. Which is, or was, what, exactly? “I mean, Britons have been free for many, many years”. Starting to sound like her lobby group handlers didn’t program the Trussbot all that well.

“The idea that Human Rights were only invented in 1997 is a Blair fiction”. It would be a more credible assertion if anyone were making that claim. Then she went totally wacko. “All that he’s invented is rights for people that shouldn’t be in our country”. Liz Truss, folks, who doesn’t understand that Human Rights apply to all humans, the clue being in the name.

Her fortunately brief tenure as Prime Minister was marked by frightening economic ineptitude - cheered on by the right-leaning press - which was heralded as going for growth when all it would have done would have been to line the pockets of the already well-off. She needs to learn the basics of Propensity to Spend versus Propensity to Save, and stop allowing the Tufton Street mafia to fill her empty head with outmoded economic drivel.

She also needs to accept the reality - that her time has been and is not coming back. Politically and economically, she is a walking basket case. Blaming migration for failure, and wanting to abolish all those institutions that done her wrong (allegedly) will solve nothing, will help the country not at all. Liz Truss needs to embrace the real world, not chicken out of it.

I give you Mary Elizabeth Truss - the epitome of Chicken In A Basket.

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Rachel Riley In A Spot Of Bother

The shocking scene of a lone male armed with a long blade, selecting a variety of female victims, at the Bondi Junction Westfield centre was bad enough, but worse was to come as a variety of agenda-driven pundits piled on, blaming the carnage on terrorism, which of course had to mean Scary Muslims™. After the pundits came others with their own agendas.

So after Desperate Dan Wootton and flap-mouthed bigot Julia Hartley Dooda came a singularly ill-advised intervention from Countdown numbers person Rachel Riley, who has now deleted the offending Tweet, X, or whatever Muskrat wants us to call it this week, but the Internet never forgets, and so her words can be retrieved for all to see. This, then, is her first take.

“For 6 months now, people have been out on our streets proudly calling for ‘Intifada Revolution’. If you want to know what ‘Globalise the Intifada’ looks like, see the Sydney Mall … 5 victims stabbed to death and 8 transferred to hospital, including a baby, due to one man and a knife … In the second intifada over 1,000 Israelis were murdered in restaurants, on buses and in the streets by suicide bombings, stabbings, stoning, lynching, shooting, rockets. The youngest victim was just 9 hours old … Sydney mall, multiple times over is what they’ve been proudly calling for”. This generated adverse comment.

Not least because the Bondi Junction attacker was not part of any organised campaign; he was a lone agent with a history of mental health episodes and, it appears, a problem with women. Also, Ms Riley appears to depend on her definition of the term “Intifada” being the only one, which it may not be.

In any case, she seems to have stopped and thought, or perhaps someone caused her to stop and think, with the upshot being that deletion, itself coming hard on the heels of an explanation. That brings to mind the cynical but true observation of Ronald Reagan that if you’re explaining, you’re losing.

Anyhoo, cue Ms Riley’s Take Two: “Just to clarify, my intention with this tweet was not to say this attack was caused by any ideation or to link it to Islamic extremism. At the time we did not know who the attacker was, and as such I made no reference”. Ri-i-i-ight. And there is more. Rather a lot more.

“My aim was to highlight the weekly calls for ‘intifada’ being tolerated in London and around the world, which in actuality means violence on our streets. For 6 months now, I have avoided taking the tube, or going with my kids to anywhere near the marches each Saturday, and each week we see the extremist chants on proud display with little outcry”. Do go on.

“Sadly, the type of attack seen in Sydney yesterday is exactly the kind of violence the previous intifada involved and I hope to avoid in future, but in my opinion ignoring the problem won’t make it go away. Attacks on Jews have recently become repackaged as ‘resistance’ in some circles, and we should in one voice condemn all acts of violence, whoever the perpetrators and whoever the victims”. The Bondi Junction attack misinterpreted - again.

And then came the final coda. “I am sorry if this message was misunderstood, that was not my intention”. Is she sorry if the message was not misunderstood? How about just saying sorry, full stop, no get-out clause, no conditional statement? How about stopping and thinking first, not later?

It’s not the most open of debates when Twitter/X/Whatever tells us “Accounts [Rachel Riley] follows or mentioned can reply”. Not just anyone, then. Meanwhile, “For 6 months now, I have avoided taking the tube, or going with my kids to anywhere near the marches each Saturday” means she depends on sources like Harry’s Place, rather than actually being there.

Being there, as in the thousands who make up the Jewish Bloc. On every one of those marches. The marches which result in very few arrests. Instead, she linked, deliberately or otherwise, “Intifada” to a lone man with serious issues rampaging through a shopping mall. Followed by an explanation. Followed by calls for Channel 4 to end her tenure on Countdown.

Stopping and thinking beforehand. It’s always the best way to do things.

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Bondi Junction - Dooda Lies Again

Not just at Shepherd’s Bush: Westfield centres appear all over the place, with one located in the eastern Sydney suburb of Bondi Junction, a place named not for a rail station - though there is one there now - but for a Tramway junction which was part of the Australian city’s extensive network that was finally abandoned in 1962. Now that centre is notorious for something else.

As the BBC has told, “A knife-wielding man who killed six people in a Sydney shopping centre before being shot dead has been identified by Australian police. Joel Cauchi, 40, sent the crowded Westfield Bondi Junction complex into panic on Saturday when he began stabbing people with a long blade. Five women and a man died. Several others, including a baby, were injured”.

Worse, the baby’s mother was one of those killed. But none of this was allowed to distract from the obligatory rush to conclude that the attack had something to do with a group that The Usual Suspects out there on the right love to hate. Someone knifing people? It had to be what Dubya Bush liked to call TRRR. So the person wielding the knife had to be a TRRRST.

Who, then, among the pantheon of bad faith media “personalities” would like to lead off? Enter stage right, or perhaps that should be stage far right, the deeply unpleasant Dan Wootton to whine “If terror can come to Bondi, Australia - with a small baby among those attacked by this savage - then nowhere in the west is safe. Change is needed. When will we wake up?”

But even Desperate Dan stopped short of Going There, of using the M-Word, as in Scary Muslims™. No such compunction for TalkTV’s flap-mouthed bigot Julia Hartley Brewer. “Another day. Another terror attack by another Islamist terrorist. Six dead, others seriously injured, including a baby”.

And, sadly, there was more. “Today, it’s Australia’s turn, the other day it was France’s. It’ll be our turn again next. How long do our Governments think we’re going to put up with this?” However, the New South Wales Police Commissioner told that “she would not describe the stabbings as an ‘act of terror’, reiterating that police believed there was ‘no ideological motivation’”.

So Ms Hartley Dooda had not only come out with another all too predictable slice of flat-out bigotry, she had lied, while accusing politicians, interest groups, and anyone else of whom she wishes to make an example of, yes, you got it, lying. Worse, she left her outburst live throughout yesterday and, apparently, overnight. Worse still, she initially doubled down on her claim, in a Tweet, X, or whatever Muskrat is calling it this week, that is still live.

Off she trilled: “I couldn't care less what colour skin someone has. I DO care about what is inside people's heads. Islamist ideology is the problem, not Muslim people. But you knew that already, didn't you? Keep your head in the sand, I'm sure that will work out well for you”. But Islam, or Islamism, or Islamists, or anything to do with ideology, had nothing to do with it.

And so it came to pass that eventually Ms Hartley Dooda relented. “My tweet below was incorrect. The attack in Sydney was not an Islamist terror attack, it was carried out by a man the police have since named as Joel Cauchi who they say had mental health problems not an ideological motive. I doubt that will be much consolation to the families of his victims”. Meaning what?

Meaning she was right really. Plus it doesn’t explain leaving the claim live for so long. Ah, but she had that covered. “Oh, and the reason I didn't retract sooner was simply because I was out and busy all day yesterday enjoying the sunshine with my lovely family and didn't look at Twitter or the news again until this morning. You guys should try that sometime”.

And to that I call bullshit. She was on Twitter, and Tweeting, at 1115 hours. Maybe the being “out and busy all day” didn’t happen until later in the day. Maybe she didn’t see all the news from the Australian authorities stressing that it wasn’t terrorism. Maybe she takes so little interest in actual facts that there is no point taking any notice of her incessant whining.

She’s not objected to the ratio, though. I’ll just leave that one there.

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GB News - Cuts Incoming

For some reason, the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog, usually so keen to report anything and everything happening at Gammon Broadcasting™ News (“Bacon’s News Channel”), have come over all silent on the subject. Their last post mentioning GB News was on the 26th of last month. Cat got your tongue, O Great Guido?

Or maybe not

What the Fawkes folks know all too well, but the rest of us are just beginning to notice, is that GB News is in deep financial trouble - that is, it will be as soon as one or more of its backers ceases to be prepared to see their money sprayed up the wall. Losses in the year to 2023 had grown from 2022’s £30.7 million to a whopping £42.4 million. This year is unlikely to be any better.

On top of that, Paul Marshall, one of those looking on as his money is sprayed up the wall, has apparently decided to join the bidding war for the bundle containing the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph and the increasingly alt-right Spectator magazine. As a result, he is, it seems, about to quit the board of the company that owns the broadcaster.

This from Sky News: “Sir Paul Marshall, the hedge fund tycoon, is preparing to step down from the board of GB News' parent company as he eyes a renewed bid to acquire The Daily Telegraph. Sky News has learned that Sir Paul, the co-founder of Marshall Wace and largest shareholder in the television news channel, is expected to hand over his board seat at All Perspectives to Lord Agnew, chair of the UnHerd Ventures vehicle”.

Do go on. “The potential board changes at All Perspectives come as GB News prepares to make an unspecified number of job cuts as part of a corporate reorganisation. Employees were informed about a round of prospective redundancies at a meeting on Tuesday, according to insiders”.

There was more. “GB News remains heavily loss-making, although it has been gaining momentum with its audience figures in recent months, boosted in particular by the former UKIP leader Nigel Farage's role as a presenter on the channel”. The Mr Thirsty effect. But there was a downside.

“[GB News] has been at loggerheads for months with Ofcom, the media regulator, over its use of prominent politicians as presenters … Ofcom concluded last month that GB News had breached impartiality rules, but that it would not impose sanctions”. Also, “In 2022 … Discovery sold its 25% stake for £8m … implying a 60% reduction in the company's value at the time … Spokespeople for GB News and Sir Paul declined to comment on Thursday”.

So who might be for the chop? Hmmm, that’s an interesting one. Farage they need for brand recognition, as well as his ability to talk well, but lie badly. After economics editor Liam Halligan left, other specialist pundits may follow - those like the low moaning sound of “royal” specialist Angela Levin, and former replacement teaboy to the Great Guido, Tom Harwood.

Maybe some of those Tory MPs, whose presence suggests there is a more serious connection between The Blue Team and GB News, could be for the chop. Or former Tory MPs, like 30p Lee Anderson. After it was revealed by Byline Times - small wonder the likes of The Great Guido hate them - that the Government is spraying taxpayers’ money up the wall on GB News advertising, there may have to be even more cuts if that tap is turned off.

How much taxpayer money? “Despite GB News often platforming racists and conspiracy theorists, and facing record numbers of Ofcom investigations, more than £1 million of UK taxpayer money has been spent on almost 10,500 ads since the channel launched in summer 2021”. That much.

So far, the official stance is to talk up the broadcaster’s prospects. Last December, “Angelos Frangopoulos, GB News' chief executive, said: ‘GB News is in an accelerated growth phase, beating targets across its platforms. We are always evaluating strategic and investment opportunities.’” Very brave words, Minister. Brave but utterly futile. GB News is bust.

They thought they’d won the war when the Murdochs pulled the plug on TalkTV. The reality was that they were next. Just rejoice at that news.

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Guido Fawked - Investigation Hypocrisy

Nothing has put the rank hypocrisy of the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog in sharper focus than their sick and obsessive pursuit of Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner. Today has brought an excellent example of this, as one of their favourites has been caught peddling misinformation bordering on malicious dishonesty.

Behold the judge of standards in public life

Susan Hall, the increasingly desperate Tory candidate for the London Mayoral election next month, has been gratuitously slagging off her Labour opponent, incumbent Sadiq Khan, claiming that Khan is about to implement policies that he is not. The pièce de résistance in Ms Hall’s pantheon of misinformation is the totally false claim that Khan will hit motorists with a pay per mile scheme.

This from the Standard: “In recent days Ms Hall has repeatedly attacked Labour’s Mr Khan for ‘planning a new pay-per-mile tax’, which she calls ‘his Ulez 2.0’ … The mayor has admitted asking TfL to explore the concept, but has promised it will not be pursued, saying: ‘As long as I am mayor, we’re not going to have pay-per-mile’”. Then it got worse.

“Fact-checking campaigners have criticised Conservative mayoral candidate Susan Hall’s campaign as ‘deceptive' for a leaflet saying Sadiq Khan will bring in a pay-per-mile system for drivers … Images of the leaflet, which claims the mayor wants to bring in ‘another tax on drivers’, were published online by Full Fact”. Then it got worse still.

As Adam Bienkov at Byline Times has told, “The Conservative Party has been accused of running a campaign against Sadiq Khan which is based on a ‘barefaced lie’ which will ‘panic’ Londoners into handing over their personal data … Hall’s campaign have sent out leaflets to Londoners which are designed to look exactly like driving penalty notices”. There was more.

Susan Hall - may be celebrating prematurely

The leaflets have a QR code. “Anyone scanning the code will be taken to a website requesting they fill out a ‘petition’ against the new ‘tax’, which then collects their data”. Also, “The Conservative Party is not mentioned at all aside from a small print reference to ‘CCHQ’”. It’s Zac Goldsmith 2.0.

And has sparked an investigation by the ICO: “The Information Commissioner's Office say they are now considering complaints about the Conservative party's Sadiq Khan leaflets”. So, O Great Guido, given the headline “Police Reconsidering Rayner Case After Criticism”, and knowing the legendary Fawkes appetite for consistency and even-handedness, where is the equivalent headline for Ms Hall, following her misleading leaflets?

But you know the answer: of Ms Hall’s deliberate attempt to smear her way to the Mayoralty, there is nothing. Nil. Nix. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero. Not a sausage. Bugger all. But there is a crude attempt to smear SNP leader Humza Yousuf using the old Guilt By Association ploy, or to be more specific, the old Guilt By Claiming He Is His Brother In Law’s Keeper ploy.

And there are two more instalments this morning of Staines’ continuing sad obsession with Ms Rayner, bringing back memories of the right-wing media pile-on against Keir Starmer over what was called Beer And Currygate in a failed attempt to make it sound like a story. And when Starmer was cleared of any wrongdoing, The Usual Suspects inferred He Done It Anyway.

So it will be the same for Ms Rayner. So will the Fawkes hypocrisy.

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The Right’s Sick Rayner Obsession

One senses immediately whether a politician is genuine, unselfish, enthusiastic, an asset to their party, someone who can persuade others to stand in their corner, who empathises readily not only with voters, but their whole family group. Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner is one such. It is why she is now the target of some seriously obsessive behaviour.

Evening all

Ms Rayner is the one who must step in if Keir Starmer were to become indisposed. Unlike her party leader, who all too often looks a little stiff, too upright, visibly ill at ease with some lines of questioning, she is a natural. The thought has no doubt entered with the right that Labour’s poll numbers would improve under her leadership, if such a thing were possible.

Right now, the Tories are looking at a General Election thrashing; if Ms Rayner were in charge, they would be looking at a Canada-style wipeout. Hence the attempts to pull her down a peg or two, many of which have come from the inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker, where the disciples of the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre have leapt from gutter to sewer.

First came the claim that Ms Rayner was wont to do a Basic Instinct-style flashing of now disgraced former alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson. The Mail has suggested she owned up to having done this. But this was a vicious and malicious pack of lies; she had done no such thing. Even the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog showed this wasn’t possible. But now The Great Guido is also smearing.

Maybe someone has goaded Staines, telling him the hard truth that he is not as influential as he thinks he is, that he is no longer strong, if he ever was in the first place. Maybe the Fawkes massive wants to show that they still have what it takes to bring someone down. But here a credibility problem enters.

As Tory MP Michael “Wiggy” Fabricant told last Thursday, “On the 13th March 2024, I posted on X a comment on a Guido article which claimed that Dale Vince, a Labour Party donor, is a supporter of Hamas, a proscribed terrorist organisation. This post referenced an article published by the website GuidoFawkes which included an edited clip of an interview with Dale Vince that had been taken out of context”. Ah, Fawkes and context. Do go on.

“The full clip of the interview makes it very clear that Dale does not support Hamas or its actions on October 7th last year. I am very pleased to hear this. Accordingly, I have now deleted that tweet, apologise[d] to Dale, and hope this now sets the record very clear”. Folks might not believe Staines.

But the Mail titles are still smearing, hence today’s Mail on Sunday thundering “MoS unearths photos taken by Labour’s deputy [leader] that expose truth about house row … IN HER OWN TWEETS … THE PROOF RAYNER HAS BEEN LYING”. Mail titles using words like “truth” and “proof”, then calling “liar” on someone else? Another credibility problem. But not for one Mail hack.

The MoS’ not even slightly celebrated blues artiste Whinging Dan Hodges was more than prepared to bat for his supper. “We now know Angela Rayner lied [no independent citation]. So what happened to Keir Starmer's fine words about honesty and integrity” he told, once more missing the question mark.

Dan Neidle told Desperate Dan “Your statement here is not correct. Married couples have one main residence for CGT purposes. Whether *she* lived in Vicarage Road during the marriage isn’t terribly relevant to the tax”. What say Hodges? “She says the second property was her ‘home’”. Neidle was unmoved. “Doesn’t change the tax”. Another observer was also unmoved.

“A photo on Facebook hardly proves that one way or the other”. Which is the MoS’ clincher. And another onlooker mused “Question Dan Hodges needs to answer is why he started another thread on this after being told by Dan Neidle that he was wrong on the law”. Hodges had sniffed “Question Angela Rayner needs to answer is if she does have advice saying everything was in the rules, why did she continue to lie about where she was actually living”.

The Mail on Sunday is not the law. Nor is The Great Guido. And maybe they should sort out their sick obsession. We see you, Tory errand boys.

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Israel Out Of Excuses - And Friends

Time was when the state of Israel, its security agencies and forces, its representatives, and its advocates got a free pass from most in the UK. It was the only democracy in a region with so many hostile neighbours. Its explanations were routinely accepted, its lapses tolerated: the other lot, after all, were those ghastly brown people, and they didn’t really count.

The involvement of the Israelis in the Suez farrago did not sully their good name. Lifting Adolf Eichmann from his South American hideaway? Well, that was a Nazi, and he had it coming. Even when Mordechai Vanunu was lifted in Rome and whisked off to Israel, that too was tolerated. Little fuss was made when perhaps the Italians might have been justified kicking off about it.

Not any more. Not when we can see what the IDF is getting up to not only in Gaza, but also in the West Bank and southern Lebanon. When Mark Regev rocks up to the nearest TV studio and does his panicked schtick about the baddies wanting to drive his country into the sea, when Tzipi Hotoveli slouches in her seat and sneers “Blame Hamas”, little mustard is cut.

It is no longer plausible to play the “self-defence” card when Israel is not only armed to the teeth with modern weaponry, including the nuclear kind, but is seen to have been freely loosing off that weaponry in the general direction of anything that moves in the West Bank and Gaza. Hence the country’s social media cheerleaders getting more and more hysterical of late.

Any question as to whether it is justifiable to cut off power and water to Gaza, an act which almost certainly represents collective punishment and therefore equates to a war crime, is met with howling “anti-Semitism” accusations. Those objecting to the wiping out of Gaza’s health system are instantly smeared as “Jew haters”. There is no peaceable disagreement.

At first, our leaders stood four-square behind Binyamin Netanyahu and his fellow gangsters. But then something happened: the protests at the mass slaughter, the forced starvation, the gratuitous killing of aid workers, the increasingly desperate excuses from the IDF and their cheerleaders, became greater. Those marching numbered in their hundreds of thousands.

Attempts from unappealing and unpleasant politicians like Suella Braverman, who called the overwhelmingly peaceful protests “hate marches”, had no effect, perhaps because those marches, especially in London, contained a sizeable Jewish contingent, which was enthusiastically applauded by their fellow protesters. There was no “Jew hatred”. Just peaceful protest.

So politicians began to move towards calls for a ceasefire, though in the case of Keir Starmer and the rest of the shadow cabinet, this progress came agonisingly slowly. And still the ceasefire calls contained get-out clauses, giving the Israelis sufficient nods and winks to carry on the indiscriminate slaughter. But this week the mood has changed, perhaps decisively.

When it was Palestinians being killed, there was a collective “meh”. But the killing of seven aid workers in a deliberate and targeted drone strike, including three Britons, that was different. The IDF and its apologists claimed this was a terrible mistake: they would learn from the incident. But it was not a mistake, and they will learn nothing. The aid workers were killed deliberately.

Why? Simples. This would frighten aid organisations and stop the aid reaching beleaguered Palestinians. Starvation would be made worse; more would die. The aid organisations were indeed duly frightened off, and this time, the Israeli excuses received little more than ridicule. Worse for the IDF and its apologists, the abusive denunciation of critics is not working.

Showing empathy for the Palestinians is not anti-Semitism. Recoiling in horror at the mass slaughter is not Jew hatred. Willing an end to starvation and a lack of basic healthcare is not an attempt to drive Israel into the sea. And now, at long, long last, too late for tens of thousands already dead, the US President has begun to lean on Netanyahu. He needs to lean a lot harder.

The USA, and other Governments, know they have the power to end the slaughter. They need to use it. Their people will not judge inaction kindly.

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Mail Scone Hypocrisy EXPOSED

The National Trust, that most British of institutions, has for the past two years been under sustained attack from a dubious convocation of bad faith actors: the Tufton Street brigade, the right-leaning part of our free and fearless press, and overlapping both of these, a group calling itself Restore Trust, which is trying to get its placemen elected to the NT on the flimsiest of pretexts.

What the f***'s this got to do with me, c***?!?!?

Having accused the NT of “rewriting history” (another pack of lies), these vested interests then failed to get their people elected to the NT, and so then whined about the body being “undemocratic”. Yes, democracy is undemocratic. Most of the wacko propaganda has been invented by the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph. But not all of it.

So it was that the Daily Mail, claiming an “exclusive” for its non-revelation, declared earlier this week “National Trust secretly makes all its scones vegan - while critics condemn 'woke' use of vegetable-based spread instead of butter”, once again deliberately misusing the word “woke”. There was no secret, but there was another attempt to associate “vegan” with “bad”.

Anyhoo, do go on. “They are the much-loved staple enjoyed with jam and cream at its tearooms across the country … But the National Trust is now risking the ire of diners after admitting its scones have gone vegan - and that they 'may taste different to the traditional version’”. Big intercoursing deal.

Sadly, there was more. “Critics have condemned the use of a vegetable-based spread instead of butter in the baking as a 'virtue-signalling betrayal', in what looks like yet another woke row involving the charity”. A row about people being “alert to injustice within society, especially racism”? What does that have to do with scones? It doesn’t. But the Mail was not finished. Yet.

“Campaign group Restore Trust, which wants to rid the charity of its 'divisive ideologies' and 'activism', slammed the move … Chairman Cornelia van der Poll said: 'It is unfortunate that the National Trust can't even get scones right, let alone bigger issues such as properly looking after the properties in its care.’”. Restore Trust, having lost twice as NT members saw them coming, inventing “ideology” the Trust doesn’t have, and “activism” it doesn’t do.

(c) Kate Whitaker

Only after the Mail tells its readers what to think does it also tell “Last night, a spokesman for the trust said: 'Our cafes serve millions of customers a year and we work hard to accommodate dietary needs and allergies. Our scones are made with vegetable-based spread. This means our iconic plain and fruit scones can be enjoyed by those with dairy allergies and vegans.’”

What it has not told is that there is no secret, and that the Mail has been caught trying to play both sides of the field (again). Celia Richardson, the NT’s communications director, responded to the “secret” dishonesty by reminding us “National Trust scones have been made without butter for many years and we publish all our recipes”. More crap Mail propaganda, then.

And it got worse as she told yesterday “Stand by for the National Trust's Coleen Rooney moment. It's a Wagatha Christie-style discovery, but for scones, and it's big”. Big, y’know, big. BIG! And, just to really upset the Mail, she pronounces it “s-con” - not “s-cone”. So what’s the reveal?

“Yesterday the Daily Mail claimed [the National Trust] has 'secretly' stopped using butter in its scones in a 'virtue-signalling betrayal' of heritage. It now transpires the very same Daily Mail glowingly published our scone recipe in 2018 MADE WITH MARGARINE!!!” Under the headline “National pleasure: Fruit scones”, the Mail had gushed “Celebrate the great British tradition of afternoon tea by serving up some of the truly scrumptious recipes from a new book by the National Trust”. Could it get worse for the Dacre doggies?

It certainly could. “National Trust tearooms around the country are proud of their scones. Serve simply with good strawberry jam and generous spoonfuls of clotted cream for the perfect afternoon tea”. And there was the recipe. No butter. But 115 grams of soft margarine. Gushed over by the Mail.

No secrets, and bang to rights again. The inmates of the Northcliffe House bunker are full of crap. But you knew that already.

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Carole Malone Easter Ban ISN’T

Another public holiday of Christian tradition, another lame attempt by bad faith actors in and around our free and fearless press to talk well, but lie badly, about how the Rotten Lefties™, Scary Muslims™, and of course the hated BBC, are somehow “Cancelling Christianity”. Yes, Easter is being systematically wiped out! Except that this is total horseshit.

Carole Malone

At the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph, Christopher “No” Hope told that “BBC ‘abandons Christianity’ after dropping traditional Easter service broadcast”, only for someone on Twitter, X, or whatever Muskrat’s calling it this week, to add “The BBC is showing on its main channel a full Easter service from Canterbury Cathedral on Easter Sunday”.

But the idiot who wants people to call him “Chopper” (is he a fan of young peoples’ cycles from days gone by?) has served up a mere Hors d’Oeuvres for a rather more pungent Entrée brought forth by the appallingly batshit Carole Malone over at the Daily Brexit, still called the Express, where someone calling themselves a journalist has done very little journalism.

Teased from the Express’ front page as “Why are we forever apologising for wishing Happy Easter”, and with the Dan Hodges-inspired absent question mark, the supporting article bears very little resemblance to reality, to which seasoned Malone observers may shrug and reply “no change there, then”.

Off she goes: “I still 100 per cent believe in, and live by, the principles of my religion. But what I see is that Christian traditions - like Easter - are being wrapped up and sold as ‘all-inclusive events’ [no citation], with the Christianity part phased out because it’s somehow become an irrelevance, or worse, an embarrassment [no citation]. There’s no respect for Christianity any more [no citation]”. Would Madam care to stop generalising and lie more specifically?

She certainly would. “We’re not allowed to call Christmas Christmas in case it offends other religions”. Bullshit. Jesus of Nazareth is an important prophet to Muslims, for instance. But do go on. “Nativity plays are renamed ‘winter celebrations’”. This refers to a hearsay claim from 2014 by “Parents on Netmums”. The BBC report of the unsubstantiated claims can be read HERE.

And, sadly, there is more. “Why the hell are we forever apologising for [Christmas and Easter] and trying to dress them up as something else?” We’re not. Have another go. “This week, we’ve seen stories about shops calling Easter eggs ‘gesture eggs’ to be ‘inclusive’”. The Beeb report hasn’t got a photo of that. And the “to be ‘inclusive’” is just another false assumption.

Worse for Ms Malone, not that she’ll take any notice of it, was Snopes taking the claim “In March 2024, the British candy manufacturer Cadbury renamed its chocolate Easter eggs ‘gesture eggs’” and declaring it FALSE. And her claim “We have Iceland replacing the crosses on Hot Cross Buns with a tick” is a flat-out lie: no replacement has taken place. Then it gets worse.

“It’s no wonder church congregations are dwindling if children aren’t being taught about Christian traditions. I’m guessing there are children who believe Easter is just about holidays and chocolate eggs”. She said it! Chocolate Eggs! Instead of Easter Eggs! But seriously, she knows what the problem is.

Yes, it’s Scary Muslims™! “The point about the Islamic faith is that its followers are fervent. They protect it. They refuse to have it disrespected. But Christians aren’t doing any of that any more, because they’ve been made to feel Christianity is a ‘white’ outmoded institution [no citation], which is maybe why it’s being systematically phased out”. That’s a straight-A Fuck Right Off. No-one, but no-one, is systematically or otherwise phasing out Christianity.

Anyhoo, do we get a rousing peroration? Er, “I said at the start I don’t go to church every Sunday but I am a Christian and I demand the right to have my religion respected along with everyone else’s, and I resent those meddlers who think it’s OK to phase out or tamper with my beliefs”. But no-one is tampering with her beliefs. So this article didn’t need to be written.

Except to scare her target audience by lying. And that’s not good enough.

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Portugal’s Farage Plays And Loses

As I mentioned earlier this month, the latest snap election for Portugal’s parliament threw up a messy outcome, with the largest grouping, the centre-right Democratic Alliance, managing just 80 seats, way short of the 116 simple majority needed in the 230-seat Assembly of the Republic. First task for its leader, Luís Montenegro, was to get an Assembly President elected.

Nothing sticks to Nigel Farage ...

For those in the UK, think Speaker of the House as an equivalent to Assembly President. Montenegro nominated José Pedro Aguiar-Branco; there was a vote; only 89 for; the nomination failed. Enter André Ventura, leader of the newly emboldened far right party Chega, to explain that it was nothing to do with him, honest. Except it was something to do with him.

Montenegro had ruled out working with Chega, on the not unreasonable grounds that Ventura was a fascist. But, by Ventura’s own admission, he and the AD leader had reached an “understanding”. So why had only 89 deputados voted for Aguiar-Branco? Ventura summoned his inner Nigel Farage to explain that he did not take responsibility for the mess.

Realising that allowing The Fash to make mischief ran the risk of collapsing the Government and bringing on yet more instability, it seems that Pedro Nuno Santos, leader of the centre-left PS, spied an opportunity, and there were discussions between him and Montenegro. The PS would back Aguiar-Branco. But - and this was a very big but - there would be a quid pro quo.

And that would be a scenario not unfamiliar to politics watchers in Ireland: the AD nominee would be Assembly President for no more than two years of the nominally four-year Parliament. After that, the PS would nominate someone who would then take over. This agreement would then enable the PS, with their 78 deputados, to support Aguiar-Branco. End of problem.

Until the next problem, which will be the need for AD to get its budget passed. This, it should be remembered, is what finally did for the last centre-right Government in Portugal, a coalition mainly of the PSD (Montenegro’s party) then under the leadership of Pedro Passos Coelho, in 2015. Except this time there is no viable alternative majority waiting in the wings.

... André Ventura wants a bit of that, too

There is only the spectre of The Fash under Ventura, with their 50 deputados, and unable to appreciate that being in opposition does not merely mean voting everything down. Montenegro now realises, if he did not before, that he needs Nuno Santos in order to stay in power, and will have to give up a series of concessions to the PS in order to keep them sweet.

Which is not lost on Ventura, who has had difficulty coming to terms with the reality of politics. As with his inability to take responsibility for anything, the spirit of Farage was present as he talked the talk in the realisation that he had played the game and lost. Here’s some of his pearls of wisdom.

“I don't mind humiliating or degrading myself in the search for political stability. I don't mind giving an image of even some humiliation, even some demotion, if it means that I'm working towards stability”. Working towards stability is not what he and his pals were doing. But he did accuse Montenegro of being “arrogant and even childish”. He’s a victim!

He’s also ranted “today, Luís Montenegro chose his travel partner and it is with him that he will have to complete this trip … We are not here to be hidden from the country or to be ignored … The PSD prefers a left-wing solution to a right-wing solution. You are free to do so, but from now on everyone follows their own path and Chega will lead the opposition in Portugal, because it is the third party and the only one that is outside this pseudo-agreement made between PSD and PS”. It’s not fair!

What the PSD, as part of AD, prefers is not to collapse the Government on the say-so of a self-promoting fascist, someone who has called for “a new dictatorship” and wants to proclaim the Fourth Republic, which is more or less the same thing. Portugal’s Government is about more than André Ventura.

Like Farage, he won’t take responsibility. Like Donald Trump, he’s a victim. Meanwhile, Nuno Santos will bale out Montenegro, extracting concessions as he goes. The Fash will merely bluster. Politics is the art of the possible, again.

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Net Zero - Tories Lying AGAIN

The desperation of The Blue Team, as a General Election looms ever closer and the polls get ever worse, has now extended to flat-out lying about their main opposition. This has necessitated quoting the lobby groups in and around Tufton Street as if they were reliable sources, and not yet more highly partisan bad faith actors. Today has brought an excellent example.

Just after 0800 this morning, the Conservatives feed on Twitter, X, or whatever Muskrat is calling it this week, declared “Labour’s green pledge costs over 4X MORE than they previously admitted, according to new reports. Energy experts this morning say Labour’s flagship policy is now ‘infeasible’". And how many “new reports” was that, then? Er, just the one, actually.

Could we have a source for that? Here is where the balloon of remaining Tory credibility was instantly deflated. The “source” was an article on the website of the Daily Brexit, still called the Express. And the article did not contain a citation, or link to the “report” quoted. But it did tell readers “Energy experts unveil 'true' £116bn cost of Labour's 'infeasible' 2030 net zero plan”.

And there is the warning sign, the hint that this may not actually be true: the use of quote marks to do the heavy lifting. Even the supporting article doesn’t make sense: “The money required is more than double the funds required under a net zero by 2035 scenario, modelling by Aurora Energy Research for think tank Policy Exchange has said”. TUFTON STREET ALERT! Do go on.

“Iain Mansfield, director of research at Policy Exchange, said: ‘To decarbonise the power grid by 2030 is simply not feasible. Given the state of the public finances it is hard to see how any Government could find the additional £93 billion required ‘ but even if the money were made available, it is simply not possible to build new renewable generation at the pace required’”.

But that assumes all the funding in the Labour proposal will be provided out of taxpayer funds, which it will not. Even the idea that the name Aurora Energy Research makes the Policy Exchange stance credible is rendered useless when we read “The paper’s author, Thomas Cabot, research fellow at Policy Exchange”. ONE OF THEIR OWN RESEARCH FELLOWS WROTE IT.

How much credibility does Policy Exchange have in the bank? Very little, sadly - ever since Tim Leunig’s wacko assertion that cities in the north of England, like Liverpool, had failed, and therefore their inhabitants should all move to London. Another fact not helping its credibility is that one of the group that founded Policy Exchange was Michael “Oiky” Gove.

Nor is this snippet from Policy Exchange’s Wiki entry: “Transparify's report ‘How Transparent are Think Tanks about Who Funds Them 2016?’ rated them as 'highly opaque,' one of 'a handful of think tanks that refuse to reveal even the identities of their donors’ … In 2022 it was revealed that the organisation is partially funded by ExxonMobil”.

Worse, and a sure sign that the Tories really, really want this hokum to be true, at 1100 hours came the perpetually thirsty Paul Staines and his rabble at the Guido Fawkes blog to tell anyone not yet asleep “Labour’s bonkers £116 Billion Black Hole … LABOUR’S BLACK HOLE JUST GOT BIGGER”.

It did? How so? “Analysis by Aurora Energy Research has found that Starmer’s pledge to decarbonise Britain’s electricity grid by 2030 will cost £116 billion over the next 11 years. More than double the cost of the government’s current target of 2035 … The report concluded that even if Labour scraped the funds together, the policy is still ‘unfeasible’ due to the supply chain constraints, skills shortages and lead times”. There was more.

“No one believes going green is possible by 2030, though Starmer will bankrupt us trying. As Bim Afolami said, ‘Labour’s unfunded spending commitments just got bigger’”. No citation. Not even for the quote from Afolami. No mention of Policy Exchange. So much for the provisional wing of CCHQ and its dubiously talented convocation of lame propagandists.

Thus the true level of Tory desperation. It still won’t move the poll numbers.

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Harry Lawsuit NAMES Murdoch, CEO

At first, we were told that phone hacking was the work of “one rogue reporter”, then, after it was revealed to have happened on an industrial scale, that our free and fearless press had cleaned up its act and no longer hacked phones, or used the services of those who practiced The Dark Arts. But these claims, too, were untrue. We were also told that editors didn’t know.

And nor did bosses. But this farrago was soon exposed, with hacking, blagging, improper use of data, improper access to Police and medical records, other forms of surveillance, burglary, bribery and bugging carrying on through and beyond the time of the Leveson Inquiry, indeed, to this day. It was, and remains, a Wild West Show carrying the highest of risks.

Not least the risk that some of those targeted by the press might have sufficient resources to take said press to the cleaners, and that sufficient numbers of those who know what was going on move from poacher to gamekeeper, bringing expert knowledge to the service of those taking legal action. All of this, yesterday, came together at the High Court.

As so often, press reports are restricted to the Guardian and Press Gazette, plus Byline Times from the new and independent media. So what’s PG got to report? “The publisher of the defunct News of the World ‘gave false evidence’ to police about how the hard drive of its then-chief executive Rebekah Brooks went missing as it faced allegations of phone hacking, the High Court has been told”. And that’s just for starters. Who’s bringing the lawsuit?

“News Group Newspapers (NGN) is being sued by Prince Harry and several other individuals over allegations of unlawful information-gathering, including the use of private investigators”. Why do they all hate Haz so much? Do you think that the lawsuits and press hatred are in some way connected?

Do go on. “Lawyers for the individuals have claimed that a computer hard drive belonging to Rebekah Brooks, NGN’s former chief executive now in the same role at News UK, went missing in May 2011 and that NGN gave false evidence to the police to ‘explain away’ its disappearance”. Hmmm.

“In his written arguments, David Sherborne, representing Harry and the other people bringing claims, said it had already been alleged that the hard drive of Brooks’ computer was ‘sequestered and/or destroyed deliberately in order to conceal her and others’ knowledge of wrongdoing at NGN’”. Also, “The hearing was told there are 45 separate claims against NGN, including from Harry, film-maker Guy Ritchie, actor Hugh Grant, and Baroness Lawrence”.

It was the Byline Investigates feed that let us know just how tasty it was getting: “Prince Harry's lawyer has just referred to a document called the 'PI Annex' which is long list of private investigators - the vast majority allegedly unlawful - who were tasked by Rupert Murdoch's papers”.

Then, rather a lot of people were named. “The current Editor of The Sun Victoria Newton has just been named in Prince Harry's High Court case for allegedly unlawful information gathering” … “The current CEO of News UK Rebekah Brooks has just been named in court for alleged unlawful information gathering and covering it up”. Anyone else?

“Rupert Murdoch - and a long list of his executives - have been named for allegedly being 'dishonest' - an allegation which his company objects to” … “[Will] Lewis - who serves as the publisher and chief executive officer of The Washington Post - has just been named in court for allegedly covering up phone hacking for his former employer Rupert Murdoch”. Well, well.

There was more. “The News International execs were seeking approval from Rupert Murdoch, according to Sherborne, to pursue concealment and destruction of evidence and a deliberate strategy to thwart the police investigation … David Sherborne, for the claimants, has told the court that News International bosses allegedly set-out to disrupt MPs who were calling for an investigation into the phone hacking scandal”. The hearing continues.

And don’t forget, the Mail will be next. Why d’you think they hate Harry, again?

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Mail Editors - You’re Sick, Get Help

Not for the first time, today has brought the disturbing sight of a national newspaper indulging in the kind of creepy obsession that, were it coming from an individual with no power or influence, might already have resulted in a visit from the law enforcement agencies, together with the direct suggestion that the individual concerned occupy their time in some other way.

To no surprise at all, the newspaper (for some value of newspaper, given what it splashes on its front page today has Sweet Fanny Adams to do with the major anxieties of the people) is the Rothermere Daily Mail. And, also unsurprisingly, the subjects of the Mail’s creepy obsession are the Duke and Duchess of Sussex. Which illustrates the press’ Royal dichotomy.

“Royal Special One”, at the top of the page, tells “The image the world has been waiting to see: smiling Kate out walking with William”. Is it really Kate? It’s a bit of a blurry image. Still, on to “Royal Special Two”, with the Mail capitals out, meaning this is something telling readers what to think. “HARRY AND MEGHAN ARE DOWNGRADED BY PALACE”. Eh?

The alleged story, under the by-line of Rebecca English, who is claimed to be the paper’s “Royal Editor”, goes on “HARRY and Meghan were ‘downgraded’ on the official Buckingham Palace website last night … Despite acrimoniously stepping down [false premise] as senior working royals in January 2020, full profiles of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex separately had remained up alongside of the rest of the Royal Family until this morning”. Do go on.

“Tonight those pictures and biographies briefly vanished completely. Within half an hour they were replaced with a significantly smaller, joint biography at the very bottom of the page - below the Duke of York … The Sussexes' entry now reads that they have stepped back as working royals, with just a couple of short paragraphs on each of them”. Which tells us what, exactly?

It tells us that the Mail, under the less than benign leadership of its editor-in-chief, the legendarily foul mouthed Paul Dacre, not only considers the Royal pecking order more important than anything else, but that the paper has someone poring over even a small change to the Buck House website.

Stop f***ing making it about me, c***

And then comes another false premise: “Despite growing public anger at the Sussexes' continued inclusion, Buckingham Palace has always side-stepped questions about why their details remained online”. Growing public anger? Isn’t the Mail getting confused here? “Public anger”, growing or otherwise, is not the same as Dacre getting radged at Haz suing the paper.

So the first discovery of the alleged “downgrade” may have been made elsewhere. But only the Mail has made it, and a blurry image of Wills and Kate, which is already arousing suspicion as to its authenticity, into a story covering the front page to the exclusion of any actual news.

It even puts former Screws and Daily Mirror editor Piers Morgan, who arguably allowed his obsession with the Duchess of Sussex to get him the sack from ITV Good Morning Britain, in the shade. A couple who had an entry on a website still have an entry on that website, but the entry is now smaller than the one they had before. That beats cost of living crises, war in Ukraine, tens of thousands blown to bits in Gaza, and of course climate change.

Because the Mail titles are still prepared to give a hearing to those who deny that it’s happening. But not when they have their Sussex obsession to parade, while screaming to the world that they have no sense of self-awareness and reminding us at every turn of their iron rule “if our targets refuse to deal with us, then we will deal with them”.

That lack of self-awareness means no mention of broken infrastructure, not even a front page item defending the Government the Mail has been cheering on for the past fourteen years, or anything about all those refugees crossing the channel in small boats. Nothing on potholes, food banks, crumbling schools, the NHS on its back, and a population increasingly skint.

But the whole front page given over to a blurry Royal snap, and another obsessive attack on a couple who won’t be reading it. Sick indeed.

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Tory Extremism Farce EXPOSED

Cost of living crisis, an underperforming economy, energy bills still far too high, water firms pumping raw sewage into rivers and out into the sea, councils going bust across the country, a health service in constant crisis, life expectancy falling, the well-off becoming more well off while the poor become poorer, all topped with a generous dose of rampant corruption.

The Elmer Fudd of the Tory Party is back

That is what the Tories have bequeathed the UK: small wonder their poll ratings see them on a path to losing the next General Election so badly that they may well win fewer than 100 seats. Maybe fewer than 50 seats. So what would The Blue Team like to put forward in order to provide a little momentary interest? They would like to talk about Extremism. Seriously.

And so it came to pass that Minister Still Desperately Trying To Look Relevant And Failing Miserably Michael “Oiky” Gove brought forth A New Definition Of Extremism. We only had the last one from 2011, but the new one has been touted as “Narrower and more precise”. Go on then, let’s see the wording.

Extremism is “the promotion or advancement of an ideology based on violence, hatred or intolerance, that aims to: 1. negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others; or 2. undermine, overturn or replace the UK's system of liberal parliamentary democracy and democratic rights; or 3. intentionally create a permissive environment for others to achieve the results in (1) or (2)”. But then a problem entered.

Its name was Hester. Frank Hester. Who he? As the BBC has told, “Electoral Commission records show Mr Hester has donated more than £10m to the Conservative Party in the past year - including gifting Mr Sunak a £16,000 helicopter journey”. He also “allegedly said veteran MP Diane Abbott made him ‘want to hate all black women’ and should ‘be shot’”. There was more.

“The tech boss apologised for making ‘rude’ comments about the former-Labour MP but said his remarks ‘had nothing to do with her gender nor colour of skin’”. Not much, they didn’t. And it got worse. “The prime minster called the comments ‘racist’ and ‘wrong’ but argues Mr Hester's apology should be accepted”. Sunak declined to give the dosh back. Then it got worse still.

Yes, “on Thursday, news website Tortoise Media reported that the Conservatives were ‘sitting on’ an extra £5m cash donation from Mr Hester that had yet to be declared - taking the total to over £15m”. Just sitting on five million notes. As you do. So there we apparently have an individual pushing hatred and intolerance, which could lead to violence. So has he been nicked?

As if. Hester’s alleged outburst also, arguably, undermines UK democracy, especially if Sunak thinks it’s OK to keep the money. Had he been poor and black, he’d already be in custody and facing a handful down the Scrubs. Worse, Gove then gave a get out of jail free card to Paul Marshall.

Who he? This from Adam Bienkov of Byline Times: “Michael Gove asked if GB News funder and Tory donor Paul Marshall, who liked and shared multiple far-right, Islamophobic, homophobic, conspiracy theory posts, is an extremist. Gove says he ‘deplores’ this ‘attack’ on Marshall, who he describes as a ‘distinguished philanthropist’”. For some value of “distinguished”.

But Gove is going after a raft of organisations advocating for Muslims. This from the Guardian: “A draft version of Gove’s ministerial statement, which has been seen by the Guardian, names several prominent Muslim groups, including MEND (Muslim Engagement and Development), CAGE, Friends of Al Aqsa, 5Pillars and the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) as ‘divisive forces within Muslim communities’”. So says the author of Celsius 7/7.

Meanwhile, Hester is quoted by the Guardian. “Addressing a number of staff members on a crowded balcony for the meeting at the TPP headquarters, overlooking the railway line in Horsforth, Leeds, Hester asked if there was ‘no room for the Indians, then?’ He then said: ‘Climb on the roof, like on the roof of the train there maybe?’”. Laugh? I thought I’d never start.

Extremism: dumping on Scary Muslims™ while accepting millions from nailed-on, er, extremists. The Tories are the pits. But you knew that already.

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