Jimmy Savile and the MI5 link.

This week we learnt that Jihadi John is one Mohammed Emwazi a mild mannered computer science graduate from West London. If campaigning group CAGE are to be believed the kind and gentle Emwazi was so freaked out by MI5's efforts to recruit him as an agent that he enlisted with ISIS and started beheading journalists and aid workers. Sounds unlikely but you never can tell with the secret state. We also learnt, thanks to the independent report for the NHS and Department of Health, yet more harrowing details of the extent of Jimmy Savile's sexual predation at Leeds General and Stoke Mandeville. I was just wondering. Wouldn't a slightly odd DJ and TV personality who wormed his way into the higher echelons of British society and became a close friend of Prince Charles and Margaret Thatcher to name but two, wouldn't such a person have needed security clearance? If MI5 knew all about the identity of Jihadi John from day one they probably knew all about the the serial sex offending of the nation's favourite do gooder. Somewhere in the bowels of Thames House there must be a file on Jimmy Savile and I suspect that the bowels of Thames House is where it's going to stay.

Choose life. Not ISIS.

It seems that just about everyone has an opinion on the three East London schoolgirls who it is feared have left home to join ISIS. One of the privileges of youth is having the courage of ones convictions and the history of political movements is the history of young people who disregarded risks and laid their lives on the line for what they believed in. That goes some way to explain the seemingly crazy fascination that  Islamic death cults hold for some kids but for the rest of us the military and ideological adventures of the young are measured by our own political stance. The young militants who went off to fight in Spain in '36 were on the side of the angels or Stalin's "useful idiots" depending on your view of the world. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of young Europeans gave their lives in the resistance movements that fought against Nazi occupation but it was the ability of the Nazi hierarchy to appeal to Germany's youth that swept this dreadful bunch of anti-life gangsters to power in the first place. Just think what they might have achieved with the internet.
Who knows what online resources disaffected (or just old fashioned grumpy and unsure) Muslim kids are tapping into but they should probably take a look at this before  making any life changing decisions.

If God existed it would be necessary to abolish him. Mikhail Bakunin.

What do Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Spain, Germany, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Poland, Portugal and Slovakia have in common?  Well, they are all EU countries where it is against the law to take the piss out of religion; where the law against blasphemy is alive and kicking in the 21st century. Some of the countries on the list come as no surprise while others would appear, on the face of it, to be too progressive for such medieval nonsense. France did away with the law against blasphemy after the revolution but strangely it is still on the statute books of Alsace Moselle as the region retained it's old German law after the re-annexation by France. I would not be surprised to learn that trial by ordeal is still practised in some of the more agricultural parts of Eastern Europe.

Paris marches for Charlie Hebdo.

Perhaps a million people will gather on the streets of Paris today in a show of national unity against the idea that people can be killed for drawing. We can but hope that Europe will not allow itself to be consumed by sectarian violence. But I keep hearing that Islam is a religion of peace. Tell that to the people of Iraq where the death toll stands at 519 so far this year.

God may not be great but sure causes a lot of trouble.

Yet more evidence that religious mentalists while they might be queueing up to be martyred, can't bear to be laughed at. God in his wisdom favours speaking only to those who are mentally ill or who seek political power and sometimes those who hear His voice are tainted with both of these maladies. It's a sad fact of life that mocking the afflicted is at times an essential activity, but as today's events in Paris confirm, it can also be a frighteningly dangerous one.

Some thoughts on torture.

The US Senate's report on CIA torture certainly makes for grim, and at times distressing reading. Of course the Americans don't have a monopoly on the ill treatment, torture and killing of prisoners. The unpleasant truth is that people in positions of power over other human beings frequently behave abominably. It might be comforting to pretend that only people who's religious or political allegiances differ from our own are capable of such barbarity but we know in our hearts that this is not the case. Human beings are capable of great acts of kindness and self-sacrifice but are also prone to acts of unspeakable cruelty. The Standford Prison and Miligram experiments confirmed what even a casual look back at history tells us; there will never be a shortage of torturers.
A free press, an aware and sceptical populace, a strong opposition movement that demands transparency, all these things can help hold in check the thugs of the CIA and ISIS alike. Torture is the logical outcome of power and only constant vigilance can keep us safe. It is frequently claimed that anarchism might sound like a good idea but that human nature will always make it impractical but perhaps it is that very same human nature that makes anarchism so desirable and so necessary.

The worst is yet to come.

Regardless of what the leaders of the main political parties might claim to the contrary, when it come to austerity and cuts in public spending, the worst is yet to come. UK, and the South East in particular, will continue to be a magnet for every money launderer and property speculating wide-boy from Moscow to Kuala Lumpur but increased poverty and homelessness will be the counterpoint to obscene levels of wealth. The gap between rich and poor will widen, as will the holes in the welfare safety net. Politicians can be divided between those who genuinely care but don't have a clue about what to actually do and those who understand the problems only too well but  are concerned only about keeping a lid on dissent. Not that there is really much dissent to keep a lid on. People make choices. They can get out on the streets or keep their heads down, retreat into the family and hope for the best. For the moment we seem to have chosen the second option and our leaders can sleep sound in their beds. Now where did I put that Old Moore's Almanack?

On snobs and bigots.

"………..Snobs and bigots. Of the two I think that snobs are the worst beacause a bigot can change. I know that because I was once one myself. But as far as I am aware there is no known cure for snobbery."
                                                                                                                 
                                                                                           Speaker John Bercow.

"In left-wing circles it is always felt that there is something slightly disgraceful in being an Englishman and that it is a duty to snigger at every English institution from horse racing to suet puddings. It is a strange fact, but unquestionably true, that almost any English intellectual would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during God Save The King than of stealing from a poor box."
                                                                                                                       
                                                                                             George Orwell.

                                                                                                                    

Puppy sandwich anyone?

I don't find it at all difficult to understand why a Northampton based sandwich making concern are recruiting staff from Hungary despite the town having almost 8,000  unemployed. The company are looking for an energetic, compliant workforce who will do 12 hour shifts in freezing temperatures and be happy with the minimum wage; and Eastern Europe is full of such poor souls. There seems little chance of the situation changing because there is little chance of seeing once again the kind of confident, organised working class that was the bane of the Daily Mail before the curse of the Thatcher Dynasty descended on the nation. I understand perfectly capital's fondness for Hungarian sandwich makers but what I do find difficult to get my head round is the apparent need for this country to import puppies from abroad. I know that we have a skill shortage but surely we can breed our own dogs. Can it really be cheaper to import puppies when the only labour involved is the bitch's? I thought that I understood globalisation but clearly I have some way to go. So much to learn - so little time.

Kicking off on bonfire night.

Last night's Guy Fawkes Anonymous demo in central London seems to have been a lively outing and with such revolutionary glitterati as Russell Brand and Vivienne Westwood in attendance it's no surprise that it captured a lot of media attention. Meanwhile over on the other side of town the weekly Class War "poor doors" picket of One Commercial Street started out as a good humoured affair with plenty of drumming, dancing, a few fireworks and the ritual burning of a Boris Johnson guy. The guy had all but burn out when the Fire Brigade arrived to cheers and applause. Having assessed the situation the firefighters (They rescue people not banks you know) wandered off and returned with a bucket of water to douse what remained of the flames before departing to more loud applause. Big smiles all round. No sooner had the real public servants and genuine emergency service turned their backs when the cops turned nasty and  arrested Jane Nicholl. Quite what the charming grandmother's crime was is not at all clear. Dancing and smiling a lot possibly. Pictures here.
One thing seems clear. What's left of a radical current here in the UK might be beaten but it sure ain't going to lie down.

Deep cover and other deceptions.

A new HMIC report reveals that there are now no less than 1200 undercover cops operating in this country but that these wannabee players of The Great Game are headed up by senior officers who are woefully lacking in knowledge and expertise. Moles led by donkeys I suppose. We can only hope that at least some of these operatives are doing something useful other than spying on peaceniks and getting their leg over at every opportunity. Truth be told I have always been fascinated by those who are capable of leading a double life. Burgess, Maclean, Philby and the rest. How did they hold it all together? The fiction of John le Carre remains a favourite of mine for the same reason.

 I suppose in a way there is little difference between the undercover cops who are deceiving their lovers and those men that we occasionally hear about who manage to keep two families hidden from each other, sometimes for years. Well, apart from the fact that the cops are doing it at taxpayers expense.
A few years ago some of us had gatecrashed the media village on St Stephen's Green opposite Parliament. Eventually we must have tired of baiting politicians and my mate Rik and I decamped to the Red Lion. We were followed by a somewhat the worse for wear and clearly disturbed bloke who, recognising Rik as a kindly soul, had attached himself. On the way to the pub our new friend repeatedly asked if we thought he was an undercover cop. Once in the boozer he downed the pint that Rik had bought him and wandered off to the Gents that was conveniently close to our table. On his return our friend hovered hopefully next to Rik and said, " But how do you know that I'm not an undercover policeman."
" 'Cos you've still got your trousers round yer ankles" replied Rik. "Now pull 'em up before you get us all chucked out".
Deep cover or what?

A plague on both of these plagues.

Which is more frightening, ISIS or Ebola? Both are wreaking havoc in the areas that are subject to their  contagion and thousands of innocent lives are at threat from one or the other. ISIS seem strangely medieval in their beliefs and practises but probably no more so than the alarmingly pre-enlightenment response to ebola in some quarters;  i.e. pull up the drawbridge. Very many health professionals are risking their lives to contain ebola and care for the infected. We can but acknowledge their courage and commitment but in West Africa they struggle to work in a creakingly inadequate  health system.
There was probably little that "The West" could have done to prevent the outbreak of ebola but the outbreak of  heavily armed jihadist militias could certainly have been at least hampered by simply not meddling in far away countries of which we know little. Probably the best bet at this late stage would be to leave the Middle East to sort itself out militarily while offering as much humanitarian aid as possible. The money saved on bombing missions would be better spent improving African health care systems. It's about time that we learnt that "globalisation" is not just about the free movement of capital but the free movement of everything. In a global economy an injury to one truly is an injury to all.

Justifying budgets down the nick.

The families of Jean Charles de Menezes, Ricky Reel, Stephen Lawrence and Cherry Groce are among those who were spied on by undercover cops. All the families were involved in campaigns to get some form of justice and all were seen as potential sources of embarrassment to the Met. The official police line is that covert operations were necessary, not to discredit family campaigns but to keep tabs on "violent extremists" who had infiltrated the campaigns. There is a long, and not always dishonourable history of revolutionary left groups getting involved in justice campaigns. Sometimes the motivation is just genuinely wanting to help, at others it is to satisfy a need for some form of "activity". Frequently, it has to be admitted, the motivation is more manipulative and may revolve around recruiting new members and selling more newspapers. Rarely is anything very dark going on and certainly nothing that might threaten public safety as the police love to claim. So why do the cops go to such lengths to mount these undercover operations? Partly of course there is a desire to find something with which to discredit the campaigners thus tainting any evidence that they might have against the police. But there is another motive. Particular departments in the police, like those in any other large bureaucratic organisation, have an overriding need to justify budgets. If you can't justify your budget your days are numbered and of course the greater your budget the more your power within the organisation. It is for this that grieving families have been infiltrated and spied on.

If you don't laugh you will surely cry.

Victims of psychopath dictators, the worst excesses of religious maniacs or the inept interventions of over armed and under informed western powers, there seems no end to the misery endured by the the people of the Middle East. One incident that would have been laughable had the consequences not been so tragic, was the massive scam pulled off by multi-millionaire con-man James McCormack. This so called "British businessman" sold £40 million of completely useless bogus "bomb detectors" to the Iraqi authorities and thousands of innocent people lost their lives as the result of undetected explosives being waved through checkpoints. When McCormack was exposed and sent down for  ten years we might have thought that we had heard the last of a piece of kit that had been the rounds of the murky world of pseudo science for some time and had been sold as a golf ball finder prior to being a bomb detector. Unfortunately the very same piece of junk has resurfaced once again, this time being marketed by the ever entrepreneurial Egyptian Army as, of all things, a cure for AIDS and hepatitis C. Interesting but disturbing article here.  First as tragedy - then as farce.

Hague misses opportunity on sex education.

The Global Summit To End Sexual Violence In Conflict being co-hosted by Angelina Jolie and William Hague has as one of it's major aims the breaking of the taboo about discussing rape in time of war. So far we have mainly heard about rape as a weapon of war and little about the far more widespread incidence of rape as a spoil of war but a recent Amnesty International report would suggest that the summit has the balance right. In the two decades following the end of WW 2 there was considerable exposure of widespread Soviet violation of German women in the final weeks of the war. It takes nothing away from the suffering of those women to say that the issue became another stick with which to beat the Russians during the Cold War years. Much less was made of the rapes inflicted by British and American troops as they advanced across France and Germany. Last weekend we heard a great deal about the heroes of D Day and quite rightly so. The men who stormed the beaches of Normandy were heroes all right and we owe them a great deal. But some of those heroes went on to rape French and German women. The hard truth is that armies, and especially victorious armies, commit rape and sometimes on a frightening scale. It seems to me that nothing will change until we arrive at a very much better understanding of male/female power relations and part of that has to be the education of boys about what a wholesome, even handed relationship with girls is all about. For this reason, and this must be the first time in my life when I want to be generous to the man, I was disappointed when William Hague during a Channel 4 interview last night, refused to be drawn on the subject of compulsory sex education with specific reference to consent. Sex education is far too important an issue to be sidelined by the internal squabbles of the Tory Party and Hague missed an opportunity to nail his colours to the mast.

Suffer the little children.

The true nature of the beast.

Back in the late 60's and early 70's I became very influenced by the writings of the Situationists and I suppose that to an extent I still am. I struggled with the writings of Debord and Vaneigem and had frequently no clue as to many of the other theoreticians that they referred to but I was none the less captivated by the stuff. From May '68 in was downhill all the way for the SI but how could they have known that their theory of recuperation would in turn be recouped by generations of shit for brains middle-class art students working "The Situationists" into their dreary dissertations? For all of their failings the Sits were on the money about many things and not least the utter futility of the old hierarchical left. Also central to the ideas of Debord, Vaneigem and the rest was the notion that, in the developed world at least, the struggle was no longer about material inequality but rather the total alienation of daily life and the drudgery of work - commute - TV. It was claimed that capitalism could feed the masses and  provide us with all the labour saving gizmos but would never be able to mask the fundamentally hierarchical nature of the system; it was always going to be us versus the bosses. We might all be well fed but an authentic life was not possible within capitalist society. All of this is true of course. Today more people than ever spend their working lives isolated in an open plan office staring at a computer screen. The working day has been extended with workers starting earlier and staying on into the early evening. But this increase in the alienating nature of work has also gone hand in hand, not with any levelling of material wealth but with an increase in inequality that the Situationists could never have foreseen.
This years Sunday Times Rich List spells it out in harrowing detail. The Richest 1% of UK population own as much as the poorest 55%.  The richest 1000 individuals own the equivalent of one third of UK GDP and that same 1000 have seen their wealth increase by 15.4 % during the past twelve months. The rich are getting richer. Our poor dear Queen increased her share of the cake by £10 million last year but that's nothing compared to that diamond geezer and geezerete Jamie and Jooles Oliver who amassed a further  £90 during the same time. The top 64 people in UK own between them £255 billion. The same amount is shared between the poorest 30% of our population. And all of this in a country where for the first time in my memory the distribution of food parcels to the needy is a commonplace.
But if the Situationists got it wrong about distributive trends they were right about one thing. The solution, as always, lies not with some new re-alignment of left grouplets or placing any trust in the pre-election pledges of politicians. The solution is on the streets.

Time to take another look at zero hours?

Many years ago Solidarity published a pamphlet simply entitled "The Lump" that attempted to take an unbiased look at the building trade work practise of the same name. I don't remember all of the arguments and never having been employed in the building game am not best qualified to comment but I do know that simply challenging the knee jerk lefty response to casual employment was enough to bring down a cascade of shit onto the head of the author. Perhaps it's time to take a similar look at zero hours contracts especially in view of the latest announcement that JSA claimants may lose benefits if they refuse zero hours employment. There is no doubting that zero hours contracts suit employers and the very fact that it tends to be the most vulnerable workers  in the least organised and worst paid industries that end up with such contract should set alarm bells ringing. But casual work does suit some people and it seems to me, and yes I have done a lot of casual work as it goes, that the trick is to get the best possible deal out of it. All I'm saying is that lefty knee jerk reactions are frequently wrong and that a hard look at the facts, no matter how uncomfortable, is always the best way.

Bung it on expenses. Again.

When the MP's expenses scandal broke five years ago most ordinary people were justifiably outraged. All those second home scams and everything from thatched duck houses to Remembrance Day wreaths being bunged on expenses. Nice work if you can get it. Truth is of course, we should never expect the people at the top of the greasy pole to be anything other than corrupt. There will be honourable exceptions but by and large the people at the top are lining their own pockets. Otherwise, what would be the point? From the Mafia to the Supreme Soviet to the British Establishment, it's always the same old same old - snouts in the trough. But recent criticism of Nigel Farage's MEP allowances has drawn attention to the kind of dosh that is swilling around Brussels and we can expect anti-EU activists to mount a serious attack on Brussels corruption over the next few months. They will not be short of ammunition.

MH 370. A field day for conspiracy theorists.

Despite a determined hi-tec SAR operation it seems increasingly unlikely that the wreckage of missing Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 will now be located, much less recovered. Of course the friends and relatives of the two hundred and thirty nine persons on board the missing aircraft want some concrete information about the fate of their loved ones, some closure. But the world is an uncertain place and many are the thousands who are "missing in action" or "missing presumed dead". It would be a kindness to help the bereaved come to terms with this possibility rather than feeding them false hope. The historical Chinese/Malay antipathy is not helping but far more malign are the combined forces of the world conspiracy theorist and pseudo-scientists who are waiting in the background to peddle their nonsense to the grieving. You mark my words. It's only a matter of time before we get the first talk of 370 and it's passengers being held in a North Korean/Freemason/Lizard detention camp deep in the Indo-China jungle.