The New York Times Magazine featured the under-noted must read story. In print, it occupies an entire issue. It is a very  long article and is perhaps best saved and perused over a few days

 

 

Fractured Lands: How the Arab World Came Apart

This is a story unlike any previously published. The product of some 18 months of reporting, it tells the story of the catastrophe that has fractured the Arab world since the invasion of Iraq 13 years ago, leading to the rise of ISIS and the global refugee crisis.

The geography of this catastrophe is broad and its causes are many, but its consequences — war and uncertainty throughout the world — are familiar to us all.  The story gives the reader a visceral sense of how it all unfolded, through the eyes of six characters in Egypt, Libya, Syria, Iraq and Iraqi Kurdistan.

Accompanying the text are 10 portfolios by the photographer Paolo Pellegrin, drawn from his extensive travels across the region over the last 14 years, as well as a landmark virtual-reality experience that embeds the viewer with the Iraqi fighting forces during the 2016 battle to retake Falluja.

It is unprecedented to focus so much energy and attention on a single story,  but what follows is one of the most clear-eyed, powerful and human explanations of what has gone wrong in this region that you will ever read.  By Scott Anderson.  Photographs by Paolo Pellegrin.

“http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/11/magazine/isis-middle-east-arab-spring-fractured-lands.html”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The labour Party in Scotland and its links to an impartial BBC Scotland

The under-noted persons are given mention in this advisory note which questions yet again the oft stated impartiality of the BBC in Scotland.

Former BBC officials: Big Boab Wylie, John Boothman, Michael McGlinchey, Michelle Watt, John Morrison

Frank McAveety: Glasgow City Council

 

 

Bob Wylie

 

 

 

 

 
22 March 1990: Bob Wylie and five other militants face Labour inquiry

Six Glasgow Militant Tendency members face expulsion when they appear before the Labour Party’s constitutional committee in Glasgow on disciplinary charges. They face a variety of charges, including being members of the Trotskyite group, and bringing the party into disrepute.

Those appearing include Bob Wylie, once listed as a member of Militant’s central committee and its Scottish spokesman. Militant newspaper’s former West of Scotland correspondent, he is now a freelance journalist and a member of the Glasgow Central CLP branch.

The others, all members of the Glasgow Pollok branch, are:

Lynn Sheridan, sister of Tommy Sheridan, chairman of the British Anti-Poll Tax Federation.

Kirsteen Walker, former Young Socialist Scottish Labour executive member;

Margaret Dick, Strathclyde regional councillor Margaret Dick (Pollokshields/ Shawlands).

Bill Bill and George McNeillage, activists.

It is believed that another six members of the Pollok branch could face similar charges in coming weeks. Last autumn the NCC expelled six Militants from the Cathcart branch, and a month earlier expelled Mr Sheridan. If all the Glasgow expulsion go through it will be the biggest

purge of Militant Tendency supporters from Labour since Liverpool. While Militant supporters label it a ”witch-hunt,” there are claims that Militant is about to set up a separate political party. Several expelled members are believed to be preparing to stand in the forthcoming regional elections.

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/11936687.Militant_six_face_Labour_inquiry/

Additional information is to be found in: Militant: 2016 edition: Written by Michael Crick (Updated and expanded), Crick explores the origins, organisation and aims of Militant, the secret Trotskyite organisation that operated clandestinely within the Labour Party, edging out adversaries at grass-roots level and recruiting people to its own ranks, which, at its peak in the mid-1980s, swelled to around 8,000 members. Whilst eventually most of its leaders were expelled, it caused damaging rifts within the party and closed the door to Downing Street for almost a generation.

 

 

 

Michael Crick

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
19 May 2003: Indefatigably yours George Galloway and his close friends

George pens a weekly column for the Scottish Mail on Sunday and “two or three” of his five closest friends are journalists. He has spoken to John Boothman, editor of BBC Scotland’s Holyrood Live, every day for 20 years or more. BBC news correspondent Bob Wylie is another

close friend. They, not his fellow MPs, are his political sounding boards. http://www.scotsman.com/lifestyle/indefatigably-yours-1-648573

 

George Galloway

 

 

 
20 May 2016: Ex-BBC Scotland news head John Boothman jumps ship to lobbying firm

The former head of news at BBC Scotland, John Boothman, has taken up a media training role with lobbying firm Charlotte Street Partners.

Boothman, who moved out of his role over an upheld bullying case against him at the BBC, will lead a new media training group at the corporate partnership.

The news division of BBC Scotland had numerous bust-ups during his tenure, including threats of industrial action from staff on the eve of the Scottish independence referendum.

Head Scottish organiser for the National Union of Journalists, Paul Holleran, said there would be “palpable relief” that Boothman had moved on at the time of his departure.

Boothman, a former Labour party student chair, also faced accusations of bias from pro-independence campaigners due to his personal and family links to the Labour party. Investigative group.

https://www.commonspace.scot/articles/8428/ex-bbc-scotland-news-head-jumps-ship-lobbying-firm

 

 

John Boothman

 

 

 

 

 

19 May 2005: George Galloway off to the US Senate’s sub-committee to defend his support of Saddam Hussain – So why did the BBC feel the need to send Wylie with Galloway?

From a Scottish point of view, the most puzzling aspect of George Galloway’s appearance in Washington this week was Bob Wylie. The gangling BBC Scotland reporter was first sighted at Galloway’s side at Dulles airport. Then, after the MP’s performance in front of the US

Senate’s sub-committee, there was Wylie again, popping up to tell us how, in his considered opinion, he thought it had all gone. Which was pretty well, actually. Oh, there may be a few people yet to be impressed by Galloway’s bluster, but on the whole, Wylie gave assurance

Washington was knocked out. The MP for Bethnal Green and Bow had faced down American accusations that he’d profited from Saddam Hussein’s illegal oil deals and, what’s more, he’d denounced the US invasion of Iraq.

Galloway, reported Wylie, was the “Braveheart” on Capitol Hill. Braveheart? Come off it. Even Gorgeous George’s most ardent supporters in Britain would shrink from romanticising him in this way. But not the gushing Wylie. His presence in Washington begs two questions:

1. why did BBC Scotland feel it needed to send its own man when (a) it is currently implementing drastic cost cuts and (b) the BBC’s Washington correspondent, Clive Myrie, was already there and more than up to the job?

2. If BBC Scotland really, really had to send someone, why did it have to be Wylie, whose friendship with Galloway goes back years and who, received an acknowledgement in Galloway’s autobiography? and co-authored with Galloway the book “Downfall:Fall Of Ceaucescus: Ceausescus and the Roumanian Revolution. 23 May 1991. Wylie is not an expert on Iraq or on American politics. And in this case, he was clearly not impartial, and neither was BBC Scotland. Shame on them.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/so-why-did-the-bbc-send-wylie-with-galloway-1-712840

 

 

Frank McAveety

 

 

 

 

24 May 2005: Impartiality in doubt

I was puzzled at the appearance of tjhe BBC Scotland reporter, Bob Wylie, in his role as side-kick to George Galloway in Washington. This latest display of blatant cheer-leading for the Left while masquerading as an impartial commentator comes swiftly in the wake of

accusations concerning “institutional leftism” in the corporation. In a new book, Robin Aitken, a former BBC correspondent, has claimed that systematic political bias “undermines” the BBC’s “solemn pact with the public to present the news impartially”.

When Bob Wylie started reporting for the BBC I knew I had met him before somewhere, but the memory only recently clicked into place. At the height of the miners’ strike, when I was a Labour Party member, he addressed a meeting of the party’s Cumnock branch in a futile

attempt to gather new converts to the bosom of the Militant tendency. James Macmillan, Glasgow.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/impartiality-in-doubt-1-713473

 

Robin Aitken

 

 

 

 

 

 
20 November 2007: BBC Pair (Michael McGlinchey and Michelle Watt) departing for Strathclyde Partnership for Transport Group

BBC Scotland is losing two key members of staff to Strathclyde Partnership for Transport, whose director of communications is himself a former BBC Scotland investigations correspondent.

Communications manager, Michelle Watt, along with assistant editor (online), Michael McGlinchey, have both been recruited by Bob Wylie.

Watt has been appointed media and public affairs at SPT, while McGlinchey becomes SPT’s web manager.

Michelle has worked as the communications manager for BBC Scotland for the last five years. Before that, she worked at a senior level for the BBC in London and in Belfast.

Meanwhile, McGlinchey has been assistant editor at BBC Scotland online for the last eight years. Previously, he was a senior editor in newspapers in London, particularly the Daily Mirror.

http://www.allmediascotland.com/uncategorized/14727/bbc-pair-departing-for-transport-group/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
14 May 2010: SPT director Bob Wylie goes amid shake-up

The man in charge of communications at Scotland’s largest transport authority has left his post before it was due to be cut in a management shake-up.

Mr Wylie had been communications director at SPT since 2006. He joined the organisation from BBC Scotland, where he had worked for 12 years, latterly as investigations correspondent.

His role at SPT was thrust into the headlines after the organisation was engulfed in an expenses scandal earlier this year. (http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/quangos-footie-junket-expenses-branded-1076802) The body’s three most senior staff – chairman, vice chair and chief executive – quit after it emerged officials had run up more than £100,000 in expenses and gone on foreign fact-finding trips. There were also questions about expense claims from officials – including Mr Wylie – in Manchester on the day of the Uefa Cup final in 2008 between Rangers and Zenit St Petersburg.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8682963.stm

 

 

 

 

 

 
14 October 2015: Glasgow City Council leader Frank McAveety hands former BBC and SPT communications director Bob Wylie ‘special adviser’ role

Glasgow City Council leader Frank McAveety has handed a key role in his administration to former Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) communications director Bob Wylie.

Wylie was in charge of the transport quango’s public relations during an expenses scandal in 2010.. He left the post during a subsequent restructuring which also saw SPT’s three most senior staff – chairman, vice chair and chief executive – leave their roles.  It later emerged, in 2010 that officials had run up more than £100,000 in expenses and gone on foreign fact-finding trips.

After leaving SPT, Wylie worked for social enterprise The Wise Group before setting up his own PR firm, Communication Strategies Ltd. The former BBC journalist still has an office at The Wise Group’s premises in Glasgow’s east end and lists the social enterprise’s phone number as the contact on his company’s website.

Speaking this morning, Wylie confirmed that he has been taken on as a “special advisor” to McAveety. He added: “It’s signed, sealed and delivered – I’m just about to walk into the leader’s office now.”

McAveety recently won a vote to succeed Gordon Matheson as head of Glasgow City Council by 24 votes to 19 during a meeting of Labour colleagues in September.

He was previously leader of the council from 1997 to 1999, when he was elected as an MSP for Glasgow Shettleston. He lost the seat to the SNP in 2011 but was again elected a city councillor in 2012.

An SNP source said: “I can’t imagine what Wylie offers McAveety other than controversy and links to past scandals.” A source close to McAveety said: “Everyone has a past. Bob is an operator and I’m sure he’d do a good job.”

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13846416.Glasgow_City_Council_leader_Frank_McAveety_hands_former_SPT_communications_director_Bob_Wylie__special_adviser__role/

 

 

Gordon Matheson

 

 

 

 

 

 

15 April 2016: Glasgow City Council ‘shoring up’ public relations operation as ex-BBC journalist John Morrison bids for contract

Cash-strapped Glasgow City Council could be about to bolster its public relations operation by handing a lucrative contract to an ex-BBC journalist.

Former political correspondent John Morrison is among the consultants contending for the chance to provide “independent analysis” of the local authority’s digital presence.

Last year council leader Frank McAveety handed a well-paid senior special adviser job to another ex-BBC reporter, Bob Wylie, who was previously in charge of public relations at Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) during an expenses scandal.

It emerged in 2010 that officials had clawed back more than £100,000 and gone on foreign fact-finding trips. Mr Wylie later handed back expenses racked up during a junket to Manchester on the day Rangers played in the 2008 UEFA Cup final.

Sources claim the council’s public relations programme has been “floundering” recently and Mr McAveety is thought to be keen to “shore up” the operation.

A council spokesman confirmed that the local authority is “conducting a review of council communications, with special reference to developing digital communications”.

Mr Morrison, who runs a Glasgow-based public relations company, said: “They’ve spoken to me but there is nothing agreed.” He later issued a statement which said: “Morrison Media Strategies is a communications and media training company. We have discussions with  companies and organisations every day. We don’t talk about them.”

http://www.barrheadnews.com/news/14430793.Glasgow_City_Council__shoring_up__public_relations_operation_as_ex_BBC_journalist_bids_for_contract/

 

 

 

Morrison Media Strategies

John Morrison is the owner of Morrison Media Strategies a leading PR, Public Affairs and Media Training company. Previously John was Chief Political Correspondent, Europe Correspondent and BBC Network News Scotland correspondent. Morrison Media Strategies is a PR and lobbying company based in Glasgow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

30 June 2016: Dugdale off to the USA attending an indoctrination course – But her deputy Alex Rowley is not fit to lead the party in her absence

Dugdale’s attendance on the US State Department’s International Visitor Leadership Program this month may also create a headache for her party, with relations between the two at a low ebb insiders are speculating about who will lead the party when she is abroad.

It is understood Dugdale will remain in charge while she is away and a rota for Shadow Cabinet members will be in place to provide day-to-day cover.

A senior Scottish Tory source said: “It’s no surprise Scottish Labour is responding to the upheaval at Westminster with added chaos of its own. Scottish Labour needs to get a grip, not descend into further turmoil over its internal splits.”

An SNP spokesperson said: “At a time of national crisis, with the UK economy in turmoil following the EU referendum result, political parties have a duty and a responsibility to step up to the mark, show some leadership, and work to find a way forward. It is shameful that both the Tory UK government and the Labour opposition have instead chosen to abdicate their responsibilities. They have no plan and rather than uniting to come up with one they are indulging in infighting and naval gazing at the expense of the country.”

http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14594955.Scottish_Labour_at_war__Relations_between_Dugdale_and_her_deputy_have__completely_broken_down_/?ref=ar

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Usa’s indoctrination programme

The International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) is the U.S. Department of State’s premier professional exchange program. Through short-term visits to the United States, current and emerging foreign leaders in a variety of fields experience this country first-hand and cultivate lasting relationships with their American counterparts. Professional meetings reflect the participants’ professional interests and support the foreign policy goals of the United States.

This is the same direction taken by Blair, Brown and others in New Labour before taking up the reins of government. Blair, etc. left the UK unilateral anti-nuclear and returned pro-nuclear. Howzat!!!

https://eca.state.gov/ivlp

 

 

 

 

 

 

Paul van Buitenen says nothing has changed

 

Neil Kinnock insisted reforms were on track

 

 

 

 

27 August 2002: Brussels whistleblower quits in despair

A European official whose whistle-blowing revelations sparked the resignation of the entire European Commission has quit, after declaring that nothing has changed.

Paul van Buitenen says he is returning to his native Netherlands because the pressure in Brussels became too great to bear. In 1999, he went public with details of corruption, cronyism and abuse of power in the commission. The entire team of 20 commissioners, headed by then president Jacques Santer, resigned in a symbolic gesture to demonstrate their commitment to cleaning up the commission’s act. But Mr Van Buitenen says that, three years on, it is business as usual. “Despite everything, I can’t see any change in Brussels,” he said.

The clean-up operation has been headed by the UK’s Neil Kinnock, administration commissioner and a commission vice-president. But as long ago as March 2000 Mr Van Buitenen cast doubt on whether the reforms would achieve anything. “(Mr Kinnock) has drawn up a nice reform plan which looks right but he does not tackle the people who committed the irregularities,” he said at the time. “They have been confirmed in their jobs or even promoted.”

Confidence in the commission’s inner purging was knocked again earlier this year, when another whistleblower, chief accountant Marta Andreasen, was forced from her job. She had tried to highlight problems in the commission’s budget, which she insisted was running out of control amid “shambolic” control systems. She was removed from her post after refusing to sign off last year’s accounts. She told the BBC this month that the computer system on which the transactions were processed was “incoherent, insecure and allows no audit trail.” The lack of security, she warned, “gives big room for fraud” – and makes tracking it almost impossible.

Mr Van Buitenen, an assistant auditor at the time of his revelations, told the UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper that the treatment of Ms Andreasen was the last straw for him. He says he was similarly ostracised after making his own stand, being moved to a lower position in Luxembourg on half his original salary. He has worked for the commission since 1990.

Mr Kinnock’s office has insisted that progress is being made on tackling fraud.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/2219114.stm

 

 

 

 

 

 

A message on a floral tribute to Jo Cox, near Leeds, England, June 17.

 

“A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear.”  –  Marcus Tullius Cicero

 

 

Imam and Bradford Council Respect councillor Alyas Karmani

 

 

 

13 July 2013: Bradford Imam Alyas Karmani drafts sermon to condemn grooming

Bradford Imams are spearheading national condemnation of sex grooming by Muslim men by issuing a special sermon to be read in mosques across Britain this month. The hard-hitting Islamic message, called a Khutba, has already been sent to 50 local Imams to be delivered during Friday prayers on June 28. It forcefully demands all men obey strict Koranic teaching on respectful behaviour to women and children and behave with the highest morality.

Muhammad Mustaqueem Shah, general secretary of Bradford Imams’ Forum, said the sermon was being sent to religious leaders across the country. “The target is to have it read out in a minimum of 500 mosques,” said Mr Shah.

Drafted by Imam and Bradford council Respect councillor Alyas Karmani, the title of the sermon is Tackling Street Grooming in the UK and it begins with the following sacred verse from the Koran: “Verily Allah enjoins justice and excellence, giving assistance and support to your family. “And forbids sexual indecency, wickedness and oppression of others – He admonishes you that you may take heed.”

Mr Shah said this was a key teaching. “This is very relevant to the issue, powerful and to the point,” he said. The sermon continues: “Allah commands us to undertake all matters to the highest standard of excellence. “As Muslims we are commanded to be just, fair and shun evil, wrongdoing and all forms of indecent and immoral behaviour. “Failure to remember and act on this results in the society that we are part of declining in social and moral terms. “Addressing every man today, I will speak to you of sexual grooming. “There has been a lot in the news recently about men of Pakistani and South Asian background in Derby, Rochdale, Telford, Oxford and West Yorkshire who have been convicted of this evil and wicked crime. “Unfortunately there are many such cases pending and this will mean the issue will continue to be in the headlines for some time to come.

“These incidents have been extremely evil and have included:

* Kidnapping

* Trafficking of children as young as 11 for sexual purposes

* Intoxication

* Getting 12-year-old girls to take heroin

* Physical assaults and sexual assaults on boys.

“These actions are reprehensible and we condemn those involved and support the victims who are innocent children. Islam is a religion of mercy and compassion and places a strong obligation on safeguarding and protecting the weak and vulnerable from abuse particularly women and children.”

http://www.thetelegraphandargus.co.uk/news/10480398.Bradford_Imam_Alyas_Karmani_drafts_sermon_to_condemn_grooming/?ref=mr

 

 

 

 

14 June 2013: Imam Alyas Karmani stands up for hope, while Hope not Hate betray their principles

Even worse than a deliberate absence of condemnation for groups which seek to spread hate is their failure to highlight the efforts of Imam Alyas Karmani in Bradford to combat the grooming of young girls by Muslim men, something which is widely recognised as a problem.

Imam Karmani – who is also a Respect Councillor – has issued a Khutba to be read in Mosques during Friday prayers on the 28th June and which is intended to drive home to worshippers that such actions are not acceptable in the eyes of Islam. His goal is that it should be read in more than 500 mosques across the UK.

For those of us who feel that Imams should play a more visible role in combatting the rise of Islamic extremism, Imam Karmani’s initiative is to be welcomed, and is perhaps a sign that moderate Islam is capable of rising to the challenge.

What is more puzzling is Hope not Hate’s failure to even mention his initiative. What is the point of calling your organisation ‘Hope not Hate’ if all you are interested in is the ‘Hate’, and only certain types of hate at that?

The key to their silence is Karmani’s ‘Respect’ affiliation. In Bradford, Labour are seeing support haemorrhage in two directions – to UKIP on the right, and to Respect on the left, as evidenced by George Galloway’s election as MP.

Because of this, Karmani’s initiative will fail to gain the support of Hope not Hate. Not because it is not worthwhile. Not because it is wrong. But because the Imam represents the ‘Respect’ Party and not Labour, and to push his initiative would be to admit that Labour – like Hope not Hate – has no answers, and indeed caused many of the problems

By failing to promote initiatives such as Karmani’s, Hope not Hate – who have access to a considerable audience – are helping to create the impression that there is no action within the Muslim community to tackle these problems.

Their silence allows the EDL and the BNP to condemn Islam as something to be feared, because Hope not Hate is too mired in party political allegiances to shout from the rooftops the message of hope contained within Karmani’s initiative.

They would rather allow their silence to act as a recruiting sergeant for the far right than stand up and proclaim what should be their core message – Hope, not Hate.

This is an issue which cuts to the heart of the problems of Islamic extremism, and one which is beyond the nonsense of partisan politics. Karmani – whatever his political allegiance is tackling a problem, all good people should embrace his message. Good ideas should be embraced whatever their political or religious source. Common sense is common sense.

So the message to Nick Lowles and his Hope not Hate comrades. Shame on you, for betraying your core principles. Shame on your silence which allows hate to grow and lies to spread unchecked. And shame on your shoddy attempts to put your own personal allegiances ahead of an initiative which will clearly aid better relations between communities.

Your blinkered attitude and political partisanship makes you no better than those you claim to oppose. For many years, you attacked the BNP, and ran with the slogan ‘Not in my name’, only for us to find the tables are now turned, and an increasing barrier to harmonious relations between communities is not the BNP and the EDL, but Hope not Hate and your refusal to back initiatives like Karmani’s. If you must continue with such wilful blindness, be aware you do so on your own and not in my name.

http://nopenothope.blogspot.co.uk/2013/06/imam-alyas-karmani-stands-up-for-hope.html

 

 

Nick Lowles – owner of Hope not Hate
who sanctioned VAT fraud

 

Ruth Smeeth – Hope not Hate
Educational Ltd’s general
secretary: did she know of
VAT fraud?

 

 

 

31 January 2013: Hope not Hate and the £70k VAT fraud

Senior Hope not Hate staff face having their collars felt as research indicates they misused the VAT exemption certificate for their charitable arm – Hope not Hate Educational Ltd – to evade VAT on services relating to their anti-UKIP political campaigning.

An in-depth report see: “http://itmaynotbeillegalbut.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/charity-evades-70k-in-vat-on-political.html” suggests that campaigning work carried out in the 2010 General Election by political strategy company Blue State Digital was invoiced without VAT being included. On publicly available invoices this amounts to a little over £12,000 they fraudulently evaded, but as Blue State Digital still work for Hope not Hate, this could amount to a total of over £ 70,000 over the past 4 years.

In this time, Hope not Hate have received over £150,000 from the Department for Communities and Local Government towards their charitable aims. The question must now be what will Hope not Hate’s financial backers think of such tax avoidance? The Daily Mirror wrote 3 months ago that “Tax avoidance is now running at £35billion a year – £3billion more than when Labour was in power….Because think how many nurses, police officers and teachers could be employed with that £35billion. Think how many vital services could have been saved from the cuts and how many jobs protected.” http://nopenothope.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/hope-not-hate-and-70k-vat-fraud.html

 

 

 

 

 

5 June 2014 Hope not Hate: Dodgy Accounts Filed

At last the latest set of accounts that purport to set out the organisations financial position have been published. After a quick examination it is obvious that things just don’t add up. Read for yourself as they raise more questions than they answer and someone needs to investigate the organisation. http://hopenothateexposed.blogspot.co.uk/

 

 

Sally Green likes to racially abuse white people

 
7 July 2014: Hope not Hate: Hope not Hate’s 0fficial Photographer Arrested For Racism!

Hope not Hate’s official photographer, Sally Green was arrested for racism and criminal damage (she was arrested after screaming at an Irish person to ‘ Piss off back to Ireland) outside a Britain First meeting held in Wigan.

Green who also uses the alias, Brenda Wright on Facebook to troll young persons Facebook accounts was working under the direct orders of, Nick Lowles who believes it’s OK to racially abuse and attack people so long as they’re white. http://hopenothateexposed.blogspot.co.uk/

 

 

 

 

 

 

18 July 2014: Hope not Hate: Hope not Hate’s Violent Supporters Wanted By Police!

Two violent Hope not Hate supporters who played an active role in a violent street brawl during a Saint George’s celebration held by March for England are being sought by police. The two thugs are being sort after attacking a pub where a few English men who dared to celebrate Saint George were enjoying a quite drink.

So far a 17-year-old boy, a 47-year-old man and a 32-year-old man, all from Brighton, and a 46-year-old man from Henfield have now been arrested on suspicion of violent disorder and bailed until September 11. All have links to Hope not Hate. http://hopenothateexposed.blogspot.co.uk/

 

 

victim said she suffered dozens of attacks at the hands of a gang over five years after being groomed from the age of 11.

 

 

 
27 August 2014: The responsibility for the grooming crisis lies within the culture “Hope not Hate” has infected the Labour Party

‘Shining a light on abuse’ is a disgraceful apologia issued by Hope not Hate following the publication of a report on child abuse in Rotherham. (1)

As an exercise in obfuscation and blame passing it is truly New Labour in its scope, which is only to be expected from an organisation so heavily supported by the New Labour faithful.

Hope not Hate’s interest in the issue was politically motivated and solely an attempt to counter BNP propaganda: the type of involvement which Hope not Hate advocated and which was deeply entrenched within the Labour Party – turning a blind eye and hoping the problem went away on its own – ensured the continued ability of these grooming gangs to operate.

Desperate attempts to play down their culpability have lead to major re-writes of sections of their blogs and websites as history is re-arranged to make their own actions seem less supportive of those who engaged in child grooming. Fortunately the heavily amended pages are available off-line, meaning articles are not entirely lost to posterity:

Time and again, Hope not Hate ignored some of the most unpleasant aspects of extremist Islam as they try to persuade us that there is nothing to worry about. Misogyny and homophobia have been ignored as they take aim time and again at any who would dare to raise the fundamental incompatibility between a secular western democracy and fundamentalist Islam.

By refusing to shine a light on crimes which they are supposed to expose Hope not Hate have revealed their fundamental hypocrisy: it could be argued that they are in some respects even complicit for promoting an attitude and a culture within the Labour Party which actively prevented such issues from being dealt with. Hope not Hate are shamed by their silence which allows hate to grow and lies to spread unchecked.

It’s blinkered attitude and political partisanship makes it no better than those it claims to oppose. Hope Not Hate’s moral ambiguity has permeated the Labour Party to such an extent that it has failed in its duty towards not just children, but whole populations of a significant number of Metropolitan areas which it controls. The fault is theirs.

http://nopenothope.blogspot.co.uk/2014/08/the-responsibility-for-grooming-crisis.html

 

Rotherham, South Yorkshire, where 1,400 girls were abused by Asian gangs over 16 years.

 

(1) 5 February 2015: Rotherham child abuse: The background to the scandal

A report commissioned in the wake of revelations that “at least” 1,400 children were sexually exploited in Rotherham has branded the local authority “not fit for purpose” and left it facing takeover by government commissioners. How did it reach this point?

The issue of child sex abuse in Rotherham first came to light in November 2010 when five men from the town’s Asian community were jailed for sexual offences against underage girls. But suspicions were already growing that the scale of the town’s problem was far more widespread.

Andrew Norfolk, a journalist on The Times newspaper, later published an investigation which revealed a confidential 2010 police report had warned thousands of such crimes were being committed in South Yorkshire each year by networks of Asian men.

“The Rotherham police exposed, arrested and broke up an evil gang of internal traffickers who were sent to prison,” he said. “But it is clear the internal trafficking of barely pubescent girls is much more widespread.”

In October 2012, the council, South Yorkshire Police and other agencies set up a Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) team to investigate the issues raised in the report, although South Yorkshire Police denied it had been reluctant to tackle child sexual abuse or that “ethnic origin had been a factor” in its decisions.

Rotherham was not the only community in the North and the Midlands to have uncovered such abuse. There have also been arrests or prosecutions of groups of men in 11 towns and cities, including Oldham, Rochdale and Derby.

In the other cases, overwhelmingly, they were men of Pakistani origin and we need to understand why this has been happening,” said Mr Norfolk. He described a previous report into gang exploitation as a “missed opportunity” because of its failure to look at the proportion of men of Pakistani origin committing such offences.

Yet, despite the concerns, in 2012 no further prosecutions for child sex exploitation took place in Rotherham. However, the council did say “improved public awareness” had helped it identify more young girls at risk of sexual exploitation in the town.

In January 2013, the town once again fell under the scrutiny of MPs. This time it was the borough council which appeared before the Home Affairs Select Committee to answer questions about the lack of prosecutions.

Mr Vaz said the council had not done enough since the 2010 prosecutions. “In Lancashire there were 100 prosecutions the year before last, in South Yorkshire there were no prosecutions,” he said. “We’re talking about hundreds of victims, of vulnerable young girls, who have not been protected because, at the end of the day, what people are looking for are prosecutions.”

In August 2013, the council’s deputy leader stepped down over claims he knew about a relationship between a girl in care and a suspected child abuser.  “http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-23820054”

In July 2014 the town’s Labour Party mayor Barry Dodson quit over separate claims he sexually abused a 13-year-old girl in 1987. He did not comment on the claims. “http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-28319557”

Following the publication of the Jay Report, South Yorkshire Police said up to 29 people had been charged with child sexual exploitation offences in Rotherham. However, the force said it was unable to say how many had been convicted. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-28934963

 

 

Sarah: 11: Nobody listened

 

 

Jack Straw Blew the Whistle in 2011 but the judge said he was wrong

Speaking in 2011 after the jailing of two of the men, former Home Secretary Jack Straw suggested some men of Pakistani origin saw white girls as “easy meat”. The judge in the case said the race of the victims and their abusers was “coincidental”.

Professor Alexis Jay led the inquiry that found at least 1,400 children in the South Yorkshire town were sexually exploited by criminal gangs of men who were predominantly of Pakistani origin between 1997 and 2013. at least 16,500 were said to be at high risk over the course of a year.

21 November 2012: Rotherham sex abuse: More girls at risk. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-20423789

1 November 2013: Alexis Jay will lead child abuse failings probe at Rotherham. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-24771229

26 August 2014: Rotherham child exploitation report. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/28939475

26 August 2014: Rotherham child abuse scandal: 1,400 children exploited, report finds. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-28939089

26 August 2014: Rotherham child sexual exploitation report: At a glance. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28942986

27 August 2014: British Pakistani states: Abuse ‘brushed under the carpet’. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28958907

27 August 2014. Reaction in Rotherham to abuse inquiry findings.  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28960738

27 August 2014: Rotherham child abuse: Cases in, Oxford, Derby, Rochdale, Oldham, Telford, Peterborough, Keighley other towns. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28953549

29 August 2014: Rotherham abuse victim: ‘I was raped once a week, every week’ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28949188

5 February 2015: Rotherham abuse victims tell their stories. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-28971058

29 March 2015: Rotherham abuse scandal: Key dates. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-28955170

 

Five Rotherham men were convicted for sexual offences against girls in 2010

 

 

Inquiry launched into how much Tony Blair’s government knew about the Rotherham abuse scandal.

 

 

 

31 August 2014: Rotherham Abuse Scandal: How Much Did Labour Government Know?

A House of Commons committee is to investigate whether Tony Blair’s government knew about the Rotherham child abuse scandal, as far back as 2001.

The Independent on Sunday reported an inquiry will happen after it emerged a researcher at the Home Office was conducting an investigation in 2002 into trafficking and underage prostitution by Muslim gangs in Rotherham.

But her work was shelved by the Labour-run council when she attempted to blow the whistle.

Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Select Committee, told the Sunday paper he would ask the home secretary, Theresa May, to what extent the Home Office knew at the time.

“We would be very keen to get from the Home Office a full and frank response to the research that was commissioned in 2002. This is an essential part of the jigsaw to determine why the council failed to act, and whether the Home Office could have done more to ensure that it did act,” he said.

“We want to see every piece of information the Home Office holds on this, and I will be writing to the Home Secretary to ask that the databases are searched to see what files it holds on this horrific behaviour in Rotherham.”

The researcher’s investigation came at the time the former Labour government wanted to pacify relations with the Muslim communities following the race riots of 2001.

Tensions within the cabinet were also boiling over when former foreign office minister  and local MP Denis MacShane was nearly sacked by his boss, foreign secretary, Jack Straw, after calling on Muslims in the UK to choose between the “British way or the way of the terrorists”.

Ironically, MacShane was disciplined following protests which were led by one of the politicians now at the centre of the sex abuse scandal in Rotherham, the paper added.

Professor Alexis Jay’s report revealed that more than 1,400 young girls were groomed by gangs, mainly consisting of men of Pakistani heritage, between 1997 and 2013.

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/rotherham-abuse-scandal-how-much-did-labour-government-know-1463361

 

 

Former UK PM Gordon Brown Backed Hope Not Hate

 

 

 

28 July 2015: Hard Left Campaigners in Hope not hate Lied About Islam vs West ‘Civil War’ Claim

Groups like Hope Not Hate are incredibly sinister and dangerous for quite a few reasons. So utterly convinced are they that their totalitarian vision of the world is what’s best for all of us, they do not do not question the morality of activities they undertake.

Their sole consideration is how on much damage they can inflict on to those who disagree with them. Disagreeing with a leftist vision for the world is an unpardonable sin, as anti-Islamist, communist activist Maryam Namazie knows well.

Some extreme left groups, like Hope Not Hate, pretend to care about Islamists and to condemn them. They also believe they are owed congratulations for this. It is easy to condemn beheadings, but until there is condemnation for a woman’s testimony being worth half that of a man’s, or recognition of the nature of the awful Muslim Brotherhood, the position of these groups cannot be taken even remotely seriously.

Hope Not Hate has called for the Mohammed cartoon exhibit to be banned. Its members believe that only political campaigning they approve of should get the light of day.

Extreme leftists despise democracy and routinely interrupt the democratic process. They cannot allow dissenting voices to be heard (just in case people might agree) so instead of facing up to the points raised, or the facts stated, they attack speakers and intimidate people in to not listening.

It must be understood that the extreme left in Britain represents a real threat to political freedom. They have defined the parameters of speech and a have a tied-and-tested weapon against all those who dares to dispute them.

The best way to deal with groups like Hope Not Hate is to make sure they have no bearing on our decisions whatsoever. In the face of their lies, there is only one thing that to be done – carry on.

When people become newly involved in political campaigning, particularly any kind involving Islam, they often do so with apprehension. Many are afraid of violence, or of being labelled a “racist” and therefore ostracised, and they invariably fear losing their jobs.

This fear is partly caused by deceitful, and particularly nasty attacks from people and groups on the extreme left. The left’s attacks on its opponents can be venomous. It’s important to note that rarely do leftists trouble themselves with political discussion of issues actually raised, nor does it often concern itself about whether or not the ammunition it will use for its attack contain any truth.

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/07/28/hard-left-campaigners-lied-about-islam-vs-west-civil-war-claim/

 

 

 

 

December 17, 2015: Hate not hope

For many years the Jewish Chronicle was a supporter of Hope Not Hate, an organisation that had admirable aims. But it has now lost its claim to be taken seriously. Last year it started targeting UKIP as if it was no different to the EDL or BNP. But its latest offering on supposed Islamophobes is not merely shoddy – it is dangerous.

Including those who criticise aspects of Islam, or even Islamism, even when some of those critics are practising Muslims, is libellous, ignorant and deeply counter-productive. It also effectively places them on a hit list for jihadis to target.

And including the likes of Melanie Phillips on the basis that she is a vocal defender of Israel is deeply disturbing. Hope Not Hate is now, it seems, engaged itself in the politics of hatred – by smear. http://www.thejc.com/node/151419

 

Durnan blocks the poster truck

 

 

 
16 June 2016: Exposed: Anti-Farage Remain Protest Linked To EU Bankers And EU Funded Trades Unions

A co-ordinated attempt to disrupt UKIP’s poster campaign launch today is linked to a former European Union (EU) banker, EU-funded trades unions, and the Wall Street hedge fund-backed hard-left group Hope Not Hate, Breitbart London can exclusively reveal.

Activists continued their relentless pursuit of UKIP leader Nige Farage on the campaign trail by boxing in the UKIP poster bus with two digital advert vans with large screens reading: “Don’t wake up with Nigel next Friday”, and, “Right on the ball Lord Farage, Minister For Health.”

They also blocked the view of photographers with signs reading: “United Kingdom, Not Divided Kingdom!” The signs were home made to portray the protest as grass roots driven – yet it was anything but.

In small text below the signs was their legally-mandated campaign imprint: “Promoted by Laurence Durnan on behalf of Best For Our Future Limited”.

‘Best For Our Future’ was registered as a private, limited company on May 5th 2016 at a mysterious shell address’ used by firms wishing to hide their true whereabouts.

Among the company’s ten listed directors is Cormac Hollingsworth, an economic policy consultant who has worked for the European Investment Bank, blogs for Left Foot Forward, and is listed online as a Chair of Trustees at the hard-left group Hope Not Hate.

He describes himself as an “expert adviser on financial markets, with a unique breadth of expertise and relationships that spans capital markets, regulation and policy”, and has worked numerous big European Banks and a globalist think tank.

Laurence Durnan, also a director, was recently the editor of the Political Scrapbook website, bankrolled by EU-funded, hard-left trades unions.“Blogging is great fun anyway, but I would say our contributors are ultimately driven to make life difficult for the right”, Mr. Durnan has said of the website he set up.

Speaking to Breitbart London’s Editor in Chief this morning Mr. Durnan said: “I read your publication every day. It’s a wonderful organ. Especially your stuff”. When asked who funded the protest this morning, he refused to declare it, but said that all spending would be registered with the Electoral Commission as required by law.

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/06/16/exposed-anti-farage-remain-protest-linked-eu-bankers-eu-funded-trades-unions/

 

 

 

 

 

 

Funding The White Helmets

the organisation is funded through the UK Government’s £1bn Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF)

They are used as:

1. A means of supporting and lending credibility to opposition structures within Syria.
2.  An supposedly impartial organisation that corroborates UK government accusations against the Russian and Syrian states.

The 2017 Annual Report provides revealing details:

Click to access conflict-stability-security-fund-annual-report-2016-2017.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Jo Cox Memorial Fund Supports

Wow – a million pounds has been raised in Jo’s honour in just three days thanks to you all. She would be so proud.

The scale and speed of the public response to this fund has been overwhelming and deeply gratifying to all of us. It shows how powerfully Jo’s story has moved so many.

A huge, huge thank you to every single one of you who has given so generously and been in touch with so many kind messages. As you can imagine it may take us some time to get back to you all but we are reading everything and extend our heartfelt thanks.

Heartfelt thanks again to each of you. We are truly showing the world that we have more in common than divides us.

we are raising funds to support causes closest to her heart, chosen by her family:

The Royal Voluntary Service, to support volunteers helping combat loneliness in Jo’s constituency, Batley and Spen in West Yorkshire.

HOPE not hate, who seek to challenge and defeat the politics of hate and extremism within local communities across Britain.

The White Helmets: volunteer search and rescue workers in Syria. Unarmed and neutral, these heroes have saved more than 51,000 lives from under the rubble and bring hope to the region.  https://www.gofundme.com/jocox

 

 

 

 

 

21 June 2016: WHO ARE SYRIA’S WHITE HELMETS?

Who are the White Helmets? This is a question that everyone should be asking themselves.

A hideous murder of a rising star in UK politics, Jo Cox, MP has just sent shock waves across the world. Within hours of her death, a special fund was established in her name to raise money for 3 causes. One of those causes is the Syrian White Helmets.

Are we seeing a cynical and obscene exploitation of Jo Cox’s murder to revive the flagging credibility of a US State Department & UK Foreign Office asset on the ground in Syria, created and sustained as first responders for the US and NATO Al Nusra/Al Qaeda forces?

 

UK defence minister Hammond with members of the white helmets.

 

 

If this is the case, and I fear it is, the depravity of our government, the US government, the state led media and associated Syria Campaign support groups have reached a new level of perversion of Humanity. The White Helmets have been demonstrated to be a primarily US and NATO funded organisation embedded in Al Nusra and ISIS held areas exclusively.

This is an alleged “non-governmental” organisation, the definition of an NGO, that thus far has received funding from at least three major NATO governments, including $23 million from the US Government and $29 million (£19.7 million) from the UK Government, $4.5 million (€4 million) from the Dutch Government. In addition, it receives material assistance and training funded and run by a variety of other EU Nations.

A request has been put into the EU Secretary General to provide all correspondence relating to the funding and training of the White Helmets. By law this information must be made transparent and available to the public.

There has been a concerted campaign by a range of investigative journalists to expose the true roots of these Syria Civil Defence operatives, known as the White Helmets.  The most damning statement, however, did not come from us, but from their funders and backers in the US State Department who attempted to explain the US deportation of the prominent White Helmet leader, Raed Saleh, from Dulles airport on the 18th April 2016.

“It was unclear whether Mr. Saleh’s name might have shown up on a database, fed by a variety of intelligence and security agencies and intended to guard against the prospect of terrorism suspects slipping into the country.” ~ New York Times

Mark Toner, State Department spokesperson:

“And any individual – again, I’m broadening my language here for specific reasons, but any individual in any group suspected of ties or relations with extremist groups or that we had believed to be a security threat to the United States, we would act accordingly. But that does not, by extension, mean we condemn or would cut off ties to the group for which that individual works for.”

 

 

UK defence minister Hammond with members of the white helmets

 

The White Helmets are perhaps being demonstrated to be the most crucial component of the US and NATO shadow state building inside Syria.  Led by the US and UK this group is essential to the propaganda stream that facilitates the continued media and political campaign against the elected Syrian government and permits the US and NATO to justify their regime of crippling economic and humanitarian sanctions against the Syrian people.

If this latest mechanised ‘NGO’ blueprint is successful then we could see it being re-deployed as key to future neo-colonialist projects. The White Helmets are a direct intra-venus line into the terrorist enclaves within Syria, acting as a conduit for information, equipment and medical support to maintain the US NATO forces.

Is this the future of warfare, is this the “swarming” outlined in a 2000 report produced by the RAND Corporation and entitled: Swarming and the Future of Conflict.

“The emergence of a military doctrine based on swarming pods and clusters requires that defense policymakers develop new approaches to connectivity and control and achieve a new balance between the two. Far more than traditional approaches to battle, swarming clearly depends upon robust information flows. Securing these flows, therefore, can be seen as a necessary condition for successful swarming.”

Is this why we are seeing what is, in effect, crowd funding for  proxy war? Do we really want to look back and be “judged by history” for enabling conflict and state terrorism, violating international law and invading sovereign nations.  Are we prepared to accept the consequences of such actions, consequences that should be taken by our governments alone but are now being diffused outwards to the general public.  Is this an attempt by our government to disassociate themselves from their criminal actions?

To condense our research on the Syria White Helmets, we have collated all relevant articles and interviews below.  We condemn wholeheartedly any senseless murder but we recommend that there is serious public and political re-evauluation of the morality of funding a US NATO organisation established to further “regime change” objectives in Syria.

Mass murder is being committed across Syria and the region by US and NATO proxy terrorist militants. Funding the White Helmets will serve to prolong the suffering and bloodshed of the Syrian people.

 

 

 

UK Column: White Helmets, Humanitarians or Executioners?

“Vanessa Beeley speaks to Mike Robinson of UK Column about recent executions of Syrian Arab Army soldiers celebrated by White Helmet operatives.” Watch:

Hands Off Syria: The Syria White Helmets Exposed as US UK Agents Embedded with Al Nusra and ISIS

 

 

“Speaking to Mnar Muhawesh on ‘Behind the Headline,’ investigative journalist Vanessa Beeley pulls back the curtain on the anti-Assad ‘freedom fighters’ and ‘moderate rebels,’ revealing a carefully calibrated propaganda campaign to drive US intervention in the war-torn country.” Watch:

 

 

 

Video made by Hands Off Syria in Sydney Australia based upon the research of Vanessa Beeley on the White Helmets. Watch:

 

 

 

Mint Press: US Propaganda War in Syria: Report Ties White Helmets to US Intervention

“White Helmets primary function is propaganda” reported an independent journalist, who tied the group to George Soros and the controversial advocacy group Avaaz.”

Change.org Petition: Do NOT give 2016 Nobel Peace Prize to Syria White Helmets

This petition has currently garnered 1370 signatures. The White Helmets have received over $ 40 million in funding from the US Government [USAID] and the UK Foreign Office despite their claims of being “fiercely independent and accepts no money from governments, corporations or anyone directly involved in the Syrian conflict.”

Sputnik: Soros Sponsored NGO in Syria Aims at Ousting Assad not Saving Civilians

“One of the largest humanitarian organizations operating in war-torn Syria – the White Helmets – has been accused of being an anti-government propaganda arm that encourages direct foreign intervention.”

21st Century Wire: Syria’s White Helmets, War by Way of Deception Part 1

This piece examines the role of the Syria Civil Defence aka,’The White Helmets’ currently operating in Syria and take a closer look at their financial sources and mainstream media partners in order to better determine if they are indeed “neutral” as media moguls proclaim these “humanitarians” to be.

21st Century Wire: Part II. Syria’s White Helmets, “Moderate” Executioners

The NGO hydra has no more powerful or influential serpentine head in Syria than the Syria Civil Defence aka The White Helmets who, according to their leader and creator, James Le Mesurier, hold greater sway than even ISIS or Al Nusra confabs over the Syrian communities. This article explores the White Helmet involvement in terrorist executions of civilians particularly in Aleppo.

21st Century Wire: Humanitarian Propaganda War Against Syria – Led by Avaaz and the White Helmets

“The White Helmets in their haste to point the finger of blame at Moscow, managed to tweet about Russia’s air strikes several hours before the Russian Parliament actually authorized the use of the Air Force in Syria.” ~ Sott.net

UK Column: Syria White Helmets

“Mike Robinson speaks to Vanessa Beeley about the so-called NGO, the White Helmets. Are they really the humanitarian first responder organisation they claim to be?” Watch:

 

 

 

Eva Bartlett: Human Rights Front Groups Warring on Syria

This page will continue to expand as more so-called “Human Rights” groups are outed for propagating anti-Syria war rhetoric and false allegations against the Syrian government and Syrian Arab Army.  As it is, the list of players is quite extensive.  Below, I’ll list the known HR front people and groups (many, if not most, with links to the US State Department and criminals like George Soros).

Ron Paul Institute: Syria the Propaganda Ring

We have demonstrated that the White Helmets are an integral part of the propaganda vanguard that ensures obscurantism of fact and propagation of Human Rights fiction that elicits the well-intentioned and self righteous response from a very cleverly duped public. A priority for these NGOs is to keep pushing the No Fly Zone scenario which has already been seen to have disastrous implications for innocent civilians in Libya, for example.

 

We will add to the above articles and interviews as they become available.  Vanessa Beeley has just completed a speaking tour of the UK and Iran during which she highlighted the role of the NGO complex in general and the White Helmets in particular as a new breed of predatory humanitarianism being unleashed against target nations. Videos of her talks will be published as soon as they become available from the AV7 conference and Frome Stop War.

 

Author Vanessa Beeley is a contributor to 21WIRE, and since 2011, she has spent most of her time in the Middle East reporting on events there – as a independent researcher, writer, photographer and peace activist. She is also a member of the Steering Committee of the Syria Solidarity Movement, and a volunteer with the Global Campaign to Return to Palestine. See more of her work at her blog The Wall Will Fall.

http://21stcenturywire.com/2016/06/21/who-are-the-syria-white-helmets/

https://ingaza.wordpress.com/syria/human-rights-front-groups-humanitarian-interventionalists-warring-on-syria/

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The large village of Birstall – where the 41-year-old was killed – played host to Prime Minister David Cameron and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn on Friday who paid a special tribute to Mrs Cox

 

 

An opinion

In the aftermath of the cruel murder of the labour MP Jo Fox just about every aspect of the UK media presentation was and continues to be focused on the event to the exclusion of any other newsworthy headline. Almost all politicians and political hacks, in support of the “remain” campaign are guilty of cruelly apotheosizing an unfortunate young woman for political gain.

The truth has many faces and it is to the shame of a significant section of the political elite favouring “remain” that they concentrated their efforts on the version which supported their agenda. Manipulation of the minds of the UK electorate through the unfettered use of emotional blackmail is wrong. The Referendum deserves to be decided upon the impact of the political arguments advanced by both sides. The judgement of individuals before voting should be focused on the answer to a single question. “Are you happy with the way the UK is being run within the EU or are you persuaded by the “Brexit” campaign that there is a better way”?

In justification of the foregoing I am adding supporting information that has surfaced very recently.

 

Conservative peer Baroness Sayeeda Warsi and Labour MP Naz Shah attended a vigil in Batley

 

17 June 2016: Jo Cox MP death: Police probe right-wing links to MP’s killing

Police investigating the killing of MP Jo Cox have said they are prioritizing inquiries into the suspect’s possible links to right-wing extremism. Mrs Cox, 41, was shot and stabbed outside her constituency surgery in West Yorkshire on Thursday. A 52-year-old man has been arrested. The BBC understands Nazi regalia was recovered at suspect Tommy Mair’s home.

David Cameron and Jeremy Corbyn have described the killing as an “attack on democracy”.

West Yorkshire Police’s temporary Chief Constable Dee Collins said the force was also pursuing the suspect’s link to mental health services. She said the man arrested, named locally as Mr Mair, had been examined by two specialist medical practitioners and deemed fit for detention and interview and said detectives were continuing to question him.

Mr Corbyn said he had asked for Parliament to be recalled to enable politicians to pay tribute to the Labour MP “on behalf of everybody in this country who values democracy… free from the kind of brutality that Jo suffered”. He added: “Jo was an exceptional, wonderful, very talented woman, taken from us in her early 40s when she had so much to give and so much of her life ahead of her. “It’s a tragedy beyond tragedy what happened yesterday. “In her memory, we will not allow those people that spread hatred and poison to divide our society, we will strengthen our democracy, strengthen our free speech.”

Mr Cameron said: “Where we see hatred, where we find division, where we see intolerance we must drive it out of our politics and out of our public life and out of our communities. “If we truly want to honour Jo, then what we should do is recognize that her values – service, community, tolerance – the values she lived by and worked by, those are the values that we need to redouble in our national life in the months and years to come.”

Commons Speaker Mr Bercow described Mrs Cox as an “outstanding” MP. “I think everybody is united in grief, in horror and in an overpowering respect for somebody who we came to know, whose talents we admired, whose passion we observed on a daily basis,” he said.

 

 

 

 

 

The leader of the Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron, said she was “inspiring to listen to”, adding: “A young family has lost a mum and a wife, a community has lost a great MP and Parliament has lost an authentic and passionate voice.”

On Friday, hundreds of people, including Conservative peer Baroness Sayeeda Warsi and Bradford West Labour MP Naz Shah, attended a vigil at the Indian Muslim Welfare Society’s Al-Hikmah Centre in Batley.

Vigils, including those in Leeds and in Parliament Square, have also been held in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberavon. The Labour Party in Northern Ireland said a vigil will be held in Belfast on Sunday.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-36560895

 

 

 

 

19 June 2016: The truth about the late Jo Cox MP

I’ve always believed that one should not speak ill of the dead – and especially someone so brutally murdered as was Jo Cox MP on Thursday. But when that dead person is being deified out of all proportion– rather as Princess Diana was after her death – by a mainstream media hand-in-glove with a prime minister who is desperate to create false hysteria in order to sway the most important decision of our generation – our vote in the EU referendum – then something has to be said, and it is this:

We’re being told what a truly, extraordinarily wonderful person Jo Cox was, because her life was devoted to helping refugees. I’m sure she was a very sweet person – her face shows that. But how wise and truly aware was she? Today, with her body barely cold, her husband Brendan Cox is tweeting out a “Go Fund Me” link to his wife’s ‘favourite causes’ and one of those is the “White Helmets.”

 

The PR ‘human face’ of The White Helmets

 

 

The “White Helmets” is not a charity, and neither are they ‘the good guys’ despite their white helmets. The “White Helmets” is the military propaganda arm of the Allies attempt at regime change by destabilizing Syria – and this is exactly what is causing the refugee component of Europe’s migrant crisis in the first place.

The “White Helmets” also does not need our hard-earned cash. It is well-funded by George Soros’s organizations, the UK, the US and the Syrian opposition Party in its work, which is mainly with the rebel group Jabat al-Nusra, the infamous al-Qaeda affiliate.

The “White Helmets” are represented PR-wise by “Purpose” whose co-founder Jeremy Heimans also helped to create “Avaaz.” “Avaaz” is a global “pro-democracy” group which has been accused of furthering the US/EU agenda in the Middle East and elsewhere. It is also “Avaaz” that it encouraging, on social media, a sort of hands-around-the-world show of sympathy for Jo Cox today.

The unvarnished truth is that what we had in Jo Cox, at the very least and to put it charitably, is someone who was so busy paving the road with good intentions that she didn’t look up to see that they were leading to Hell.

The Hell was only 11 miles from her own constituency, where white children were falling victim to a large Muslim paedophile ring (1)– their presence in Halifax no doubt largely due to liberal and unrealistic sentiments like Jo’s, and others associated with NGOs like the “White Helmets.” The National media and press failed to report the story.

Added to that, tens of thousands of children have gone missing in Europe because of woolly-minded liberal NGOs encouraging mass migration and open borders, according to UNICEF. And then there is the phenomenon of Taharrush, public mass gang raping of European women by Muslim men.

 

Assisting Bob Geldorf and his flotilla. Jo Cox, her children and husband disrupt “Brexit” fishermen’s protest at the Houses of Parliament the day before her murder.

 

 

 

An Undemocratic elite – Brendan Cox

While there is every sympathy in the world for someone left to bring up two children on his own, it would be remiss not to point out that he has had a rocky career in the development field.

He was forced to resign from the charity “Save the Children fund” only 6 months ago, in November 2015 after several women accused him of behaving inappropriately with female members of staff. He denied the allegations, but left anyway. An acutely embarrassing incident no doubt, for a wife who was the “equalities and discrimination advisor” for a Labour Women’s Network.

He has since been jetting around Europe for the “World Economic Forum” examining ways to combat the growing “populist opposition” to the “refugee” population transfer programme. Among his findings are that the vote for nationalist parties is not important and that European populations are still willing to take in far more refugees.

Now there are calls from a few over-sentimental types in Parliament for Cox to be ‘shoed-in’ to his wife’s safe Labour Batley seat. This would be totally undemocratic – according to the laws of this land. There has to be a by-election – but these people who benefit from the EU NGO gravy train have no respect for the democratic process or for what the rank and file, working class Brits think. They are tearing to shreds all our rights – and then they wonder why we don’t like them, and want to vote them out on Thursday.

https://theholisticworks.com/2016/06/19/the-truth-about-the-late-jo-cox-mp-and-her-husband-brendan/

 

 

 

 

 

As Morgoth’s Review brilliantly put it in The Jo Cox Murder and the Liberal Elite:

“The liberal classes, media and political, have an agenda which is objectively false and they will vilify and attack anyone who disagrees and attempts to push a counter narrative.

“The liberal classes are truly detested by a massive number of British people and they, the liberals, are unable to understand why …

“…The problem we face is that the liberal establishment are not just seen to be living in merely an ivory tower or bubble, but in a dark and sinister castle. The decrees and morality which they foist down onto the general population are not ‘humanitarian’ or in any sense morally justifiable; it is ill conceived lunacy at best, genocidal at worst.”

The Halifax Muslim child rape gang was just one of many now operating across the Labour heartlands of northern England that are, largely, being ignored or covered up by social services workers, police and politicians. At the Leeds trial, only 13 of the men were convicted, despite more than one hundred being arrested.

Bleeding hearts like Jo often don’t realize that it is their do-gooding actions which create far worse problems if the consequences are not properly thought through.

Was Jo silent on the children being abused because of the number of Muslims in her constituency? Or was her cognitive dissonance somehow connected to the political aims of one of her ‘favourite causes’, the White Helmets?

Whatever the reason, we need to prise off the white knuckled grasp of this unelected, EU-funded, do-gooding, unrealistic liberal elite from the helm of the ship of state, before they steer us into a whirlpool from which we will never escape. There’s only one way – we must vote Leave on Thursday.

http://nwioqeqkdf.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-jo-cox-murder-liberal-elite.html

 

 

 

(1) 16 June 2016: More than 150 years jail for 13 men who sexually abused vulnerable Halifax schoolgirl

In Halifax, 11 miles from Cox’s constituency, a vulnerable underage girl had been left to fend for herself at the age of thirteen after her mother died. The child ended up being preyed on by 100 Muslim males who plied her with alcohol and drugs. The girl nominally in council care was then passed from house to house and from town to town as far away as Manchester and London. The girl described being filmed by Muslims on a mobile phone while being orally raped. She contracted an STD. Some of the rapists were identified from CCTV which had been seized from the hotels she could remember, while others were caught because of DNA from stains on her clothing. The police said afterwords that the girl, one of two victims, had shown “immense courage and bravery in reporting these matters to the police and providing evidence.”

At the Leeds trial, only 15 of an excess of 100 men originally arrested were convicted. Many dozens of culprits walked free. It was a lurid and horrific story but such hearings are so common these days, they have become wearily familiar.

Nevertheless you would think this would be a issue that would enrage a feminist-minded, morally crusading MP. But no, instead of fighting to defend the White girl victims of Muslim rape gangs, female Labour MPs have preferred to defend the Muslim community and deflect any criticism. Or, like Jo Cox, they have chosen to ignore it completely. In her maiden speech, Jo Cox said that her community had been “deeply enhanced by immigration” but presumably child rape was not what she had in mind.

A judge passed jail sentences totalling more than 150 years on 13 men convicted of the horrific sexual abuse of a vulnerable schoolgirl from Halifax. Four other men have yet to be sentenced for sex offenses in the case.

The girl was raped and abused between the ages of 13 and 15. One of the men sentenced for offenses against her was also jailed for a sexual assault on another girl.

West Yorkshire Police, said: “This was the largest and longest running investigation into child sexual exploitation in Calderdale. “At the centre of the complex inquiry were two young vulnerable victims who were preyed upon by men for their own sexual gratification. We would like to praise them for their courage in coming forward and firstly disclosing the offenses, then bravely giving evidence. We hope the outcome of these trials will enable them to start to put this trauma behind them and reassure any other potential victims that we will treat them with the utmost sensitivity and take positive actions against the perpetrators.
The guilty and their sentences

Aftab Hussain, 37, of Halifax, who pleaded guilty in September last year to two offenses of sexual activity with a child, was sentenced to six years imprisonment.

Haaris Ahmed, 32, of Halifax, was found guilty of two counts sexual activity with a child and with the supply of Class B drugs. He was sentenced to 12 and a half years imprisonment.

Taukeer Butt, 31, of Halifax, was found guilty of four counts of sexual activity with a child. He was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment.

Azeem Subhani, 25, of Halifax, was found guilty of two counts of sexual activity with a child. He was sentenced to nine years imprisonment.

Tahir Mahmood. 43, of Halifax, was found guilty of two counts of sexual activity with a child and sexual assault. He was sentenced to 11 years imprisonment.

Mohammed Ali Ahmed, 43, of Halifax, was found guilty of one count of sexual activity with a child. He was sentenced to six and a half years imprisonment.

Talib Saddiq, 31, of Halifax, was found guilty of two counts of sexual activity with a child, and was sentenced to nine years imprisonment.

Amaar Ali Ditta, 27, of Halifax, was found guilty of two counts of sexual activity with a child. He was sentenced to nine years imprisonment.

Sikander Malik, 31, of Halifax, was found guilty of sexual activity with a child. He was sentenced to six years imprisonment.

Haider Ali, 41, of Halifax, was found guilty of sexual activity with a child and causing a person to engage in sexual activity. He was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment.

Mohammed Ramzan, 35, of Bradford, was found guilty of rape, and was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment.

Khalid Zaman, 38, of Bradford, was found guilty of two counts of rape and supplying Class B drugs and was sentenced to 17 and a half years in jail.

Hedar Ali, 36, of Bradford, was found guilty of two counts of rape and two counts of trafficking for sexual exploitation. He was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment.

http://www.batleynews.co.uk/news/local/more-than-150-years-jail-for-13-men-who-sexually-abused-vulnerable-halifax-schoolgirl-1-7968693

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

(2). Soros-funded ‘White Helmets’ NGO caught faking ‘civilian casualties of Russian airstrikes’ in Syria

The Soros   sponsored “White Helmets,” one of the largest NGOs operating on the territory of Syria, is busy with cooking up lies instead of protecting the human rights of the Syrian people.

The “White Helmets,” a controversial quasi-humanitarian organization, is playing dirty in Syria: the NGO has been spotted fabricating “evidence” of Russia’s “disastrous” involvement in Syria.

an interesting thing occurred in Australia, a US ally, on their national TV channel, the ABC.  In a rather surprising fashion they openly mocked US claims. ABC started their news piece by mentioning the US has flown 7,000 sorties against ISIS (at a cost of $4b) during which the Islamic State has expanded their territory ten fold!

That was the initial mock, but it then added a piece on the White Helmets calming a girl in a hospital as she is sobbing, or trying to – the camera continues rolling, she lifts up her head and asks in Arabic “is this good?”.  It seems Australia deviated a bit from the US&UK narrative. Once the so called White Helmets got caught, Twitter exploded. The deceit was obvious. For so long they have enjoyed the fruits of their marketing campaign depicting them as selfless heroes, saviours of humanity, impartial protectors of kittens and Syrians in equal measure.  Unarmed, neutral, demi-saints climbing the “Mount Everest of war zones”.  It’s all BS.

The organization has published a photo on its Twitter account, depicting a bleeding girl claiming that the poor child was injured together with a number of civilians during the Russian air strike launched on September 30.

Russia strike in Homs today. 33 civilians killed including 3 children and 1 @Syria Civil Def volunteer.

“Russia strike in Homs today. 33 civilians killed including 3 children and 1 @SyriaCivilDef volunteer,” pic.twitter.com/5aYYSrwv2d— The White Helmets (@SyriaCivilDef) September 30, 2015

“White Helmets” use a Sept 25th photo to document Russia Sept 30th strikes against ISIS and AQ. #BestPractices pic.twitter.com/hpAyVVu0E1— U.S. Dept. of Fear (@FearDept) September 30, 2015

However, the false claim was immediately exposed: Twitter users discovered that the photo of the wounded girl was actually taken on September 25, 2015, five days ago.

The White Helmets in their haste to point the finger of blame at Moscow, managed to tweet about Russia’s air strikes days before the Russian Parliament actually authorized the use of the Air Force in Syria.

Investigative journalist and peace activist Vanessa Beeley pointed out that the “White Helmets” (formerly called the Syria Civil Defense) was not created by Syrians and certainly does not operate in Syria’s interests.

Funded by the UK, US and the Syrian Opposition Party, the controversial organization works mainly with the rebel group Jabat al-Nusra, the infamous al-Qaeda affiliate. She said: “White Helmets demonizes the Assad government and encourages direct foreign intervention.” :

https://www.sott.net/article/302997-Soros-funded-White-Helmets-NGO-caught-faking-civilian-casualties-of-Russian-airstrikes-in-Syria

http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/28178/53/

https://winstonclose.me/2016/06/11/fake-heroes-syrian-women-condemn-usaid-funded-white-helmets-in-syria-by-prof-tim-anderson/?iframe=true&preview=true

https://www.sott.net/article/318008-The-White-Helmets-A-rescue-and-assist-organization-for-terrorists

 

 

Jo Cox representing Oxfam in Dafur

 

2007 – 2009: Jo took up employment with Oxfam as Head of Humanitarian Campaigning all over the World, operating out of New York.

Oxfam – A Charity in Disgrace

The Oxfam sex scandal exposed sexual abuse and exploitation of vulnerable people by staff of the  charity in Haiti, after an earthquake ripped the country apart.

A  hallowed Oxfam abused the public cynically abusing its motto “ending poverty” to muster  funding and support.  As a charity, it claimed that representing all that is good in society it would do no harm to it which is the reason it has fallen so far from grace in the minds of the public.

 

 

20 June 2016: The selective compassion of Jo Cox

Jo Cox wanted to make the world a better place and it was a cause for which she was willing to travel halfway across the globe. Whether consoling rape victims in Darfur or bombed out villagers in Afghanistan, it seemed the jet-setting international aid worker was rarely far from the action.

Lately it had been the struggle of Syrian war refugees to get to the West that touched her heart, and their plight was a subject she returned to again and again after becoming a Member of Parliament.

It seemed there was no victims anywhere she could not empathize with. Except, perhaps, with one striking omission.

And that would be the white child rape victims of Muslim grooming gangs in her own back yard.

For her West Yorkshire constituency is near the epicentre of the Muslim child rape epidemic that has been sweeping the Labour heartlands of northern England, largely ignored or covered up by social services workers, police and politicians.

For it is a striking omission that of all the subjects she enjoyed sounding off on, this world-famous crisis affecting the poorest whites on her doorstep was not one of them.

One cannot help wonder if this shrewd silence was connected to the fact that her lavishly paid MPs job in the constituency of Batley and Spen largely depended on the support of the local Muslim community.

Co-incidentally, just as Jo Cox was shot and stabbed to death outside her constituency office in Birstall last Thursday, sentencing was about to take place at Leeds Crown Court after a long trial involving a horrific case of Muslim child exploitation.(1)

 

 

 

(1): 8 February 2016: ‘It takes two to tango’

As 12 Asian men were jailed for 143 years for gang-raping a 13-year-old white girl a local Muslim councillor admitted some in his community were of the view that “it takes two to tango” and still think SHE was partly to blame.

What an utterly unbelievable statement, it just reveals the prevalence of the underlying attitude.

The point to take here is that the men involved don’t believe they are doing any wrong and that the girl deserved it.

Whichever way you spin it this is a deeply entrenched cultural attitude.

These men and there has been case after case after case of similar abuse have never targeted Asian girls.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3437252/Twelve-men-repeatedly-gang-raped-abused-vulnerable-teenage-schoolgirl-saw-utterly-worthless-jailed-total-140-YEARS.html

 

 

 

17 Feb 2018: Jo Cox’s Husband Forced to Resign From Her Charities After he Finally Confesses to Inappropriate Behavior Amid New Allegation That He Drunkenly Grabbed a Woman By the Throat

The husband of murdered Labour MP Jo Cox last night sensationally admitted to being a sex pest – and quit two charities he set up in her name.

His confession came as shocking new details surfaced of a second sexual assault he allegedly committed.

The accusation relates to his time with Save The Children in the year before his wife was killed by a far-right fanatic during the 2016 Brexit referendum campaign.

It is claimed that Mr Cox drunkenly harassed a female employee at the charity in London, forcing her against a wall outside a bar, holding her by the throat and telling her: ‘I want to f*** you.’

The incident led to him being forced to leave the charity in 2015. Save The Children’s chief executive Justin Forsyth, a close friend of Mr Cox and former aide to Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown, resigned four months later.

For the record: prior to working for Save the Children Brendan Cox had been a senior advisor to then Prime Minister Gordon Brown. He had in fact been part of the prime minister’s inner circle and as such was part of the Whitehall elite.

 

Astonishingly, one month after Mr Cox left the charity, a senior female US Government official told police Mr Cox had carried out a similar alleged assault on her at Harvard University in America – as this newspaper revealed last week. The woman was unaware of the Save The Children incident at the time.

In another development, it emerged yesterday that Mr Forsyth was also the subject of a complaint by a female employee.

It related to an ‘inappropriate comment’ he allegedly made. The complaint was investigated and said to have been resolved ‘by consensus’.

Insiders insist Mr Forsyth’s subsequent departure from the charity had nothing to do with the complaint against him, nor the handling of the Cox scandal.

Mr Forsyth was then appointed deputy executive director of Unicef in New York, a post he still holds.

A Save The Children source said: ‘Brendan and Justin were a formidable double act. But they were too big for their boots.’

The disclosures will fuel the current controversy over charity sex scandals and cover-ups.

Full details here: (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5404241/Jo-Coxs-husband-admits-sex-pest-resigns.html)

 

 

21 Feb 2018: Rotherhams 1510 Victims

The number of victims of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham is now thought to be 1510, the National Crime Agency has said.

NCA officer Paul Williamson said his 144 strong team is working with more than 260 victims and had identified 110 “designated suspects.” (the mirror)

 

 

24 Feb 2018: Child Grooming Gangs Acted With Arrogant persistence in Newcastle and North East England

A serious case review found that despite local knowledge and reports sexual predators in the North East were not investigated until 2014 after Northumbria Police were forced to act after a child told her social worker she  was being sexually abused.

To break the case the Northumbria police gave £10,000 to a convicted paedophile  who gave evidence in court against the 18-strong Pakistani-Bangladeshi grooming gang who were found guilty of numerous offenses against 22 girls and sentenced to long prison terms.

It is projected that an estimated 700 plus children (girls), aged between 11-25 have been sexually abused and prostituted, for a number of years by organized groups of men, some illegal immigrants and refugees, all of Islamic faith aged between 14-70. Investigations are continuing. (The Mirror)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Revealed: How the world gets rich – from privatising British public services – Exclusive: ‘Scandal’ of UK citizens’ millions that go to foreign state-owned public services

Foreign governments are making hundreds of millions of pounds a year running British public services. Swathes of Britain’s energy, transport and utility networks are run by companies owned by other European governments – meaning foreign exchequers reap the dividends while UK customers struggle with increasing fares and bills.

In the past two years alone, overseas taxpayers have taken dividends totalling nearly £1bn from companies which make their profits from UK households and passengers, boosting the position of those who argue that the railways should be opened up to publicly owned UK operators, or even renationalised.

An analysis of companies’ financial filings for the last financial year shows that currently 20 national train lines are run or owned by foreign state-owned or controlled companies. Only last month, the ScotRail franchise was offloaded to the Netherlands’ state-owned Abellio.

A respected rail industry analyst, said: “It is a completely daft situation where state-run companies in foreign countries can bid for our rail services but UK ones can’t. It is specifically banned by law for the likes of Transport for London, or Directly Operated Railways to bid for UK rail contracts.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

While privatisation was meant to bring the business acumen of the corporate sector into public utilities, increasingly it has allowed foreign governments and their state-owned operators to make vast profits out of the UK. Meanwhile, British firms have almost no presence in overseas utilities markets and, since the takeover of Arriva by Germany’s state-owned Deutsche Bahn, only a small share of global public transport. As a result, vast amounts of British citizens’ bills and fares leave the country in the form of dividends to taxpayers in continental Europe, funding their schools and hospitals.

Foreign taxpayer-owned transport companies received £102m in dividends from UK train fares during the past two years. That figure is dwarfed by the £900m sent back to foreign governments from British household energy bills. These came from dividends taken out of the UK by EDF, majority-owned by the French state, and the industrial energy supplier GDF Suez, part-owned by France.

Other foreign energy players are also taking huge dividends from UK electricity bills but are remitting them to private investors. For instance, Scottish Power’s Spanish owners Iberdrola took a £600m payment. With consumers paying an average of £410 more a year for energy compared with a decade ago, The Independent’s findings shine new light on the motivations of foreign energy suppliers.

In the rail and bus industry, German and French taxpayers are the biggest players, with German state-owned Deutsche Bahn and French state-owned Keolis running large chunks of the networks. But Hong Kong also owns UK rail and bus operators, while taxpayer funds in Singapore, China and Qatar are big investors in the Heathrow Express rail route.

Critics of recent governments say they have been ideologically opposed to state ownership in a way the European firms who run British infrastructure are not. They cite how the East Coast Main Line rail route was handed back to the taxpayer in 2009 by National Express because the company could not make enough money from the contract. Since then, it has been run as a “Directly Operated Railway” and performed well and with a healthy surplus to the taxpayer. However, the Government has decided to sell it to the private sector again, with French government-controlled Keolis and Eurostar among the bidders.

Labour has pledged to overturn rules which ban state-owned British entities from competing with private firms for rail franchises. But the party is coming under pressure from unions to commit to full renationalisation. The anti-privatisation group We Own It described The findings as a “scandal”, adding: “If energy was run publicly, we could use these profits to reduce the bills we all pay and boost green investment.”

 

 

 

A Department of Energy and Climate Change spokesperson said: “We want an energy market that works for consumers.” EDF said: “Dividends paid by EDF Energy to our parent company should be set against the £17.5bn that has been invested in the UK, and the £1.2bn it invested last year alone in its existing nuclear and coal stations, new generation capacity, gas storage and in its customer supply business.”

Arriva pointed out that it had retained its operational independence although it was now owned by Deutsche Bahn and said it had invested €750m (£599m) in the business in the past two years. However, accounts showed its British arm, Arriva UK Transport Limited, paid a £15m dividend to its parent company.

The Independent also examined water companies but, while they are mostly owned by private equity firms with controversial tax avoidance strategies, only one, Yorkshire Water, is state-owned, being 26 per cent owned by the Singapore government’s sovereign wealth fund. Last year Yorkshire Water’s holding company Saltaire did not pay a dividend.

Going Dutch: Scotland picks Abellio

Last month the Scottish Government stripped Aberdeen-based First-Group of the contract to operate the £2.5bn ScotRail franchise – and handed it to Abellio, an offshoot of the state-owned Dutch national railways. The decision was criticised by unions, who warned it would mean Scottish taxpayers effectively subsidising rail passengers in Holland. “Scotland could have taken control of its own railways,” said Mick Cash, the general secretary of the RMT union at the time. “Instead profits will be sucked out of the system to underpin investment and fares in Holland.”

But the Scottish Government defended the plans, saying Abellio was simply offering a better deal to both passengers and the taxpayer. It highlighted the company’s plans for reduced fares for jobseekers, a commitment to a living wage for staff, as well as more trains and £5 fares between any two Scottish cities. The deal emphasised the global nature of public service provision today – while First-Group lost out to a Dutch company, it too is international and runs America’s culturally iconic Greyhound buses.

 

 

 

 

 

 
Foreign firms running our services

Transport

State-owned foreign company: Abellio
Owned/controlled by: Holland
Dividend withdrawn in last two years: £20m
Runs: Greater Anglia, Northern, Scotrail (just granted), Merseyrail, Bus services across London and the UK

State-owned foreign company: Keolis UK
Owned/controlled by: France
Dividend withdrawn in last two years: £37.9m
Runs (part or fully): Docklands Light Railway, Gatwick Express, London Midland, Southern, South Eastern, Thameslink Gt Northern, TransPennine

State-owned foreign company: Arriva UK Trains
Owned by: Germany
Dividend withdrawn in last two years: £15m
Runs (part or fully): Chiltern, Cross Country, Grand Central, London Overground, Wales & Borders

State-owned foreign company: MTR
Owned by: Hong Kong
Dividend withdrawn in last two years: £7m (estimate)
Runs part of: London Overground

State-owned foreign company: SNCF
Owned/controlled by: France
Dividend withdrawn in last two years: £19.8m
Runs part of: Eurostar

State-owned foreign company: SNCB
Owned by: Belgium
Dividend withdrawn in last two years: £1.8m
Runs part of: Eurostar

Energy

EDF, France: £616.2m

GDF Suez, France: £25.6m
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/revealed-how-the-world-gets-rich-from-privatising-british-public-services-9874048.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

7 May 2013: The Jewish Contribution to the European Integration Project – Centre for the Study of European Politics and Society – Ben-Gurion University of the Negev

 
An annual workshop

Convened by the “Centre for the Study of European Politics and Society and the Department of Politics and Government” (CSEPS). It’s purpose is to examine and discuss the Jewish contribution to the on-going European integration project.

 

 

 

Attending:

Dr. Sharon Pardo, Director Centre for the Study of European Politics and Society, Jean Monnet National Centre of Excellence at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.

Dr. Hubertusvon Morr, Ambassador (ret), Lecturer in International Law and Political Science, Bonn University.

Mr. Franco Burgio, Programme Coordinator European Commission, Brussels.

Mr. Michael Mertes, Director Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung, Israel.

Ambassador Alvaro Albacete, Envoy of the Spanish Government for Relations with the Jewish Community and Jewish Organisations.

Dr. Dov Maimon, Jewish People Policy Institute, Israel.

Mr. Andras Baneth, Co-founder European Training Academy, Belgium.

 

 

 
Extract from the opening address

The Jew has always been deemed to have competing loyalties and affiliations, being a member of a religion, an ethnic group, and even at one point a ‘race’. To the extent, therefore, that the European integration project is creating a similar crisis at the heart of European citizenry, today all Europeans are, in some metaphorical sense, Jews.

Interestingly enough, this metaphorical sense is not lost on EU leadership, who often speak of the need to learn from the history of European Jews and draw on European Jewry as a model for emulation within the EU.

As Romano Prodi, former President of the European Commission and former Italian Prime Minister has put it: “I believe we can learn a lot from the history of the Jews of Europe. In many ways they are the first, the oldest Europeans… We, the new Europeans, are just starting to learn the complex art of living with multiple allegiances – allegiance to our home town, to our own region, to our home country, and now to the European Union. The Jews have been forced to master this art since antiquity. They were both Jewish and Italian, or Jewish and French, Jewish and Spanish, Jewish and Polish, Jewish and German. Proud of their ties with Jewish communities throughout the continent and equally proud of their bonds with their own country.”

In fact, the EU leadership views European Jewry as somehow the constitutive minority of the Union, despite or rather precisely because the most patently historical link between the European project and European Jewry is the Second World War.

After all, the EU was born out of the atrocities of the past as an effort to reconcile the religious, cultural and linguistic differences of Europe.

Moreover, to the extent that religious tensions continue to affect the European space, the EU leaders expect the Jewish communities to take a central role in improving and promoting inter-religious and inter-community  relations in the EU.

In practical terms, this means an expectation that European Jewish communities work to improve their relations with the Muslim communities in all EU Member States, and that Jews living in the EU Member States broaden their struggle against anti-Semitism to include other categories of racial and religious discrimination, including of course Islamophobia.

Another expectation that the EU has from its Jewish communities regards Israel. The EU views the Jewish communities as a broker that brings it closer to Israel, or in ther words, as a bridge between the EU and Israel. EU leadership expects the Jewish communities to assist the EU institutions in cementing the ties with Israel.

 

 

Gaining a better understanding of just what is on-going in the European Community see: http://www.kas.de/wf/doc/kas_36349-1522-1-30.pdf?131211155732

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is anyone analysing the outcome of the marginals in the 2016 Scottish election?

It is imperative the SNP learn from the strategic error of relying on a blanket, “one message fits all approach” when the electorate of a number of marginal constituencies were clearly in need of a local approach, (which was duly delivered by opportunist Unionist politicians.)

Many opinion polls published prior to the election gave indication of an SNP whitewash of all other Parties, but the under noted candidates confounded predictions by winning their seats in Holyrood.

My take on events of 5 May 2016 is detailed below. Please feel free to add comment so that I might improve the analysis before forwarding it to SNP management for consideration.

 

 

Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson won Edinburgh Central from the SNP

 

 
Edinburgh Central – Ruth Davidson – Tory

Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson won the Edinburgh Central seat from the SNP. Davidson, who had previously been elected to Holyrood through the list, beat SNP candidate Alison Dickie by 610 votes. She received 10,399 votes, an increase of 15% from 2011 when the Conservatives came fourth.

What happened?

* The electorate in Edinburgh Central is notorious for its illogical voting patterns. Since 1999 it has returned Labour, SNP and most recently Tory MSP’s.
* Davidson ran a very personal campaign, capitalising on her high-profile media presence, suppressing the Tory brand in her campaign leaflets.
* Davidson’s primary strategy was to attack Labour. Their campaign headline “Ruth Davidson for a strong opposition” portraying Kezia Dugdale as a weak and ineffectual leader worked a treat. Many labour voters switched their allegiance to the Tory party.
* The SNP majority was defending a wafer thin 237 majority and was a ripe target for any strategic voting and there was a lot of it in the constituency.

 

See my posts:

https://caltonjock.com/2016/04/28/breaking-news-former-scottish-tory-party-chairman-and-ruth-davidsons-mentor-andrew-fulton-works-for-team-putin-and-a-mobbed-up-russian-lawyer/

https://caltonjock.com/2016/04/06/scottish-tory-party-ruth-davidsons-rhetoric-is-insincere-and-asinine-serving-only-to-obscure-the-truth-that-the-party-is-a-busted-flush/
https://caltonjock.com/2015/08/04/mundell-determined-to-lead-the-tories-in-scotland-ruth-davidsons-jacket-is-hanging-on-a-shoogly-peg/

https://caltonjock.com/2014/09/27/for-those-that-voted-tory-on-5-may-2016-remember-this-ruth-davidson-castigates-lazy-scottish-electorate-for-living-off-handouts-from-westminster-this-is-what-she-really-thinks-of-her-fellow-scot/

https://caltonjock.com/2016/03/20/ruth-the-golden-child-davidson-farming-subsidies-liars-and-figures/

https://caltonjock.com/2016/04/30/ignore-the-duplicitous-public-face-of-davidson-and-her-newborn-tory-party-the-are-still-as-toxic-as-ever-and-a-danger-to-scottish-society/

https://caltonjock.com/2016/04/04/scots-need-to-exercise-caution-ultra-right-wing-scottish-tory-party-youth-take-leading-role-under-davidson/

https://caltonjock.com/2016/03/30/thieves-afflicted-with-foot-mouth-an-interpretaion-of-the-scottish-conservative-party-name-there-is-no-escape-from-the-truth/

https://caltonjock.com/2016/03/22/farming-subsidies-ruth-the-golden-child-a-timely-message-from-waiting-in-the-wings-boris/

https://caltonjock.com/2016/03/17/scottish-tories-a-party-of-political-eunuchs-managed-by-mundell-and-davidson-left-in-place-by-cameron-to-watch-over-rebellious-scots-part-3/

https://caltonjock.com/2016/03/16/scottish-tories-a-party-of-political-eunuchs-managed-by-mundell-and-davidson-left-in-place-by-cameron-to-watch-over-rebellious-scots-part-2/

https://caltonjock.com/2016/03/16/scottish-tories-a-party-of-political-eunuchs-managed-by-mundell-and-davidson-left-in-place-by-cameron-to-watch-over-rebellious-scots-part-1-2/

https://caltonjock.com/2015/06/14/scottish-tories-a-party-of-political-eunuchs-managed-by-mundell-and-davidson-left-in-place-by-cameron-to-watch-over-rebellious-scots-part-1/

https://caltonjock.com/2016/04/03/tory-party-sleaze-scottish-conservative-future-deciding-the-politics-of-the-party-in-scotland-they-never-change-part-1/

 

John Lamont

 

 
Ettrick, Roxburgh and Berwickshire – John Lamont – Tory

* His campaign was all about himself. Scant mention of the Tory party

See my post:

https://caltonjock.com/2016/04/25/the-most-expensive-msp-in-holyrood-john-lamont-re-elected-in-ettrick-roxburgh-berwickshire-how-the-hell-did-he-do-it/

 

Aberdeenshire West was won by Alexander Burnett (Scottish Conservatives)

 

 

 

Aberdeenshire West – Alexander Burnett – Tory

*The SNP lost the seat to Alexander Burnett (Tory) who was elected after the Tory party’s share of the vote surged 17%. But why the surge?

 

Daddy’s boy Oliver Mundell with Ruth

 

 

Dumfriesshire – Oliver Mundell – Tory

The son of Scottish Secretary David Mundell, won the Dumfriesshire seat, with 13,536 votes.

Twenty-six-year-old Mr Mundell spoke of helping to deliver leaflets for his father at the age of just eight.

He claimed (lied) he had joined the the Scottish Conservatives in 2012 after being inspired by the leadership of Ruth Davidson.

The SNP candidate Joan McAlpine came second with 12,306 votes.

Mundell said that during his hard-fought campaign, the message he was getting from local people was that Dumfries and Galloway is the “forgotten part of Scotland.

That’s what I want to change. “All I want to do is make sure the people in this region get the representation I think they’ve been lacking over the last few years.”

https://caltonjock.com/2015/10/12/oliver-mundell-the-man-who-would-be-king-with-more-than-a-little-help-from-his-dad-make-it-on-my-own-not-a-chance-mucker/

 

 

Jackson Carlaw with friend and fellow Unionist Jackie Baillie

 

 

 

Eastwood – Jackson Carlaw – Tory

Deputy Party Leader Carlaw, joined the party in 1978. A car salesman he tried and failed on three occasions to win the Eastwood constituency seat, in 2003, 2007 and 2011, before finally succeeding in 2016.

A list MSP from 2007 representing the West of Scotland for the past nine years, he stood for the party’s leadership when Annabel Goldie resigned in 2011, losing out to Ruth Davidson.

He was appointed as Davidson’s deputy and went on earn a reputation as one of the Tories’ strongest performers at the Scottish Parliament.

As expected, Ken Macintosh (Labour) lost the seat. But to the Tory canadidate not SNP

 

 

 

 

 

 

East Lothian – Iain Gray – Labour

This was a seat that should have been won by the SNP.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dumbarton – Jackie Baillie Labour

How in hell did she manage to hold onto the constituency with 109 votes?

* She played the “local” card with distinction. A local I spoke to said “she is a pain in the neck and useless as an MSP but she does a deal of good work for the community.

* She milked the threatened closure of the local hospital at every opportunity.

* She turned her back of Labour when given the choice of supporting the “No Trident” Party policy or siding with a small part of the electorate dependent on “Trident” for their living.

See my posts:

https://caltonjock.com/2016/05/15/jackie-baillie-a-liar-should-have-a-memory-like-an-elephant-but-she-forgot-about-her-anti-trident-statement-when-she-supported-trident-replacement-with-the-intention-of-deceiving-the-dumbarton-ele/

https://caltonjock.com/2016/01/29/labour-voters-decide-labour-party-in-scotland-is-finished-get-the-message-jackie-baillie/

https://caltonjock.com/2015/06/24/is-jackie-baillie-self-crowned-queen-of-dunbartonshire-about-to-be-dethroned-by-a-scots-electorate-who-finally-recognise-her-for-the-chancer-that-she-is/

https://caltonjock.com/2014/09/16/jackie-ballie-labour-msp-consummate-liar-exposed/

 

 

Lib Dem leader Willie Rennie was smiling after winning Fife North East from the SNP but his party ended the night being pushed into fifth place by the Greens

 

 
North East Fife – Willie Rennie Lib/Dem

Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie took the Fife North East seat from the SNP..

The politician, who had secured his 2011 seat through the list vote, beat SNP candidate rival Roderick Campbell by 3,465 votes.

Rennie received 14,928 votes, an increase of 15% from 2011.

He said: “It feels fantastic to have won North East Fife back for the Liberal Democrats. A big majority of 3,000 against a Nationalist tide.”

He added: “It’s a tremendous result for the Liberal Democrats in North East Fife.”

In his victory speech, he said it had been a “positive, uplifting campaign” and added: “I’ve had the time of my life in this campaign.”

 

How did he do it?

* He wrapped himself in the glory of the retiring Ming Campbell who held the constituency for many a year.

* The constituency is very largely rural with a significant farming community. Sustained attacks by the Tory and Lib/Dem on the SNP government over the distribution of the Common Market subsidies had an effect.

* Rennie enjoyed blanket positive coverage throughout the campaign by a compliant Unionist media. Being photo-bombed by a pair of amorous pigs enhanced his image as a fun seeking but serious politician.

* He was happy to accept the role of underdog. Acting the goat whenever the situation presented itself. Clearly copying the tactics of Boris Johnson. See his facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/WillieRennieLibDem/

* St Andrews University and it’s feeder schools is a known hotbed of Unionist support. Many students are English.

* The constituency has a large, (older ) voter base and is relatively prosperous in comparison with the South of Fife.

* Rennie is a local boy, born and schooled (Cupar) in the area.

.

See my posts:

https://caltonjock.com/2015/11/17/willie-rennie-a-confidence-trickster-who-clings-to-public-office-like-a-chit-chat-on-a-wall/

https://caltonjock.com/2015/10/04/thinking-of-voting-libdem-catch-up-on-willie-rennies-appalling-record-in-public-office-first-chances-are-your-vote-will-go-to-the-snp/

https://caltonjock.com/2015/05/16/willie-rennie-man-of-many-failings-driven-by-hatred-but-seeking-only-to-do-good-things-for-himself/

https://caltonjock.com/2014/08/31/wee-willie-rennie-whit-a-toastie/

https://caltonjock.com/2015/07/14/willie-off-with-his-head-rennie-and-his-double-standards-time-to-resign-willie/

 

 

 

 

 
Edinburgh West – Alex Cole-Hamilton – Lib/Dem

* Known for his Charity work Alex Cole-Hamilton has stood for the Lib Dems in this seat a number of times.

* His team anticipated ongoing investigation and negative publicity around sitting MP Michelle Thomson (who had resigned the SNP party whip) would assist his campaign.

* He said an “old-fashioned campaign” won Edinburgh Western for the Lib Dem.

* He went on to say that the Lib Dem had ran a massive campaign over the last year, knocking on upwards of 25,000 doors since the 2015 general election.

* He freely admitted it was an old-fashioned way of campaigning – but it had worked a treat and they noticed a shift away from the SNP over the winter.

* In his closing statement he said “We will build fortresses in these constituencies and we will defend them to the hilt.”

* The constituency had previously, (for many years) been a Lib/Dem stronghold in both Holyrood and Westminster.

* Even the 2015 SNP landslide only achieved a 6% swing from the sitting Lib Dem MP.

* The SNP candidate did not reside in the constituency and his Lib/Dem opponents made an issue of it to the detriment of Tony Giugliano

 

 

 

 

 
The Northern Isles

Willie Rennie always boasted the party would be safe in the Northern Isles. Even when factoring in the unwelcome adverse publicity of Orkney and Shetland MP Alistair Carmichael who badly damaged the party’s image when he denied but admitted in court that he had conduct an unfounded smear campaign against Nicola Sturgeon.

See my posts:

https://caltonjock.com/2016/04/10/httpscaltonjock-com20160409the-three-isles-western-isles-orkney-and-shetland-and-british-protected-semi-autonomous-british-overseas-status-scotland-to-be-stripped-of-the-islands-before-any-futu/

https://caltonjock.com/2016/04/09/the-three-isles-western-isles-orkney-and-shetland-and-british-protected-semi-autonomous-british-overseas-status-scotland-to-be-stripped-of-the-islands-before-any-future-independence-referendum-part1/

 

The first result of the night was declared in Kirkwall, where Liam McArthur of the Liberal Democrats held his Orkney seat

 

 

Orkney – Liam McArthur – Lib/Dem

Enjoying a substantial personal following from a relatively small electorate McArthur was re-elected with 67% of the vote, a 31.6% surge.

The Liberal Democrats have held the constituency since the Scottish Parliament was formed in 1999.

The turnout was up by 12.3% from 49.7% in 2011 to 62%.

 

Gentleman farmer Tavish Scott

 

 

 

Shetland – Tavish Scott – Lib/Dem

Scott held the Shetland Islands seat with a 67.4% share, an increase of 19.9%.

* His campaign centred on his absolute commitment to always put Shetland’s needs, (schools, health, transport and local jobs) ahead of Party doctrine.

See my posts:

https://caltonjock.com/2016/04/08/is-tavish-scott-a-numpty-gentleman-farmer-wants-to-be-a-lord-like-his-daddy/

https://caltonjock.com/2015/04/02/people-of-influence-whom-you-hardly-know-tavish-scott-not-so-liberal-msp-and-his-bbc-political-journalist-wife-take-liberties-with-the-public/