Surely, After The Lies Of Iraq, The Least The British People Are Owed Is Honesty

An Era Of Corruption In High Places.
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country.
Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavour to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the republic is destroyed.
( Abraham Lincoln, 1864 )

A Mystery To Everyone Except Her Friend.
Good to see Esther McVey, who was kicked out by Wirral voters in May, finding not one, but two highly-lucrative jobs.
Not only have her political connections earned her a senior advisor post for an international lobbying firm, she’s also been handed a cushy quango job, Chairman of the British Transport Police Authority, which pays £35.000 for 60 days work, the equivalent of £210,000 a year.
How the former TV presenter, with no known experience of the workings of British Transport Police, landed such a specialist job is a mystery to everyone except her friend, Transport Minister Patrick McLoughlin, who signed it off.
( Brian Reade, 28. 11. 2015 )

Who Won The Bloody War, Anyway?

My parents’ generation used to believe that a devilish con-trick had been played on them by Germany.
They would look with envy on their world-beating productivity, prosperity, living standards, even football teams, sigh, reflect on sickly Britain, and ask: “Who won the bloody war, anyway?”
Although I never bought into it, as the years passed I realised defeat in 1945 had brought Germans one huge slice of luck: Being excluded from permanent membership of the UN’s Security Council, alongside the so-called superpowers of America, Russia, China, France and Britain.
It meant not having to spend billions on defence and a nuclear deterrent.
It meant, unlike us, not feeling obliged to enter every global conflict, living the lie that we were still the policeman of the world, when we were distinctly part-time specials.
( Brian Reade, 28. 11. 2015 )

Tory Dirty Tricks Brigade.

I wish frothing right-whingers would make up their minds because Jeremy Corbyn can’t be both a pacifist and a terrorist ally.
He’s neither.
And the contradictory insults show the Tory dirty tricks brigade doesn’t care what they throw as long as it sticks.
My hunch is Cameron wouldn’t apologise for his “terrorist sympathisers” slur against opponents of bombing Syria since that’s what he really thinks.
Tory HQ is demonising Corbyn, dripping poison in the ears of journalists to do to him what Cameron supposedly did to that pig.
( Brian Reade, 07. 12. 2015 )

The Least The British People Are Owed Is Honesty.

David Cameron, like Tony Blair before him, appears to have an almost messianic desire to lead us into battle.
He says we have to join in the Syrian Civil War because “our allies need us”.
But since when has that alone been a compelling reason?

During Suez, the USA diplomatically opposed Britain and stayed neutral during the Falklands, a war in which France supplied weapons to our Argentine enemy.
France also stayed out of our recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, because they knew at least one was immoral and both were un-winnable.
Russia just does what suits them.

Cameron has tried to morally blackmail MPs into backing him by claiming they’re faced with a stark choice of being the bulldog Churchill or the appeaser Chamberlain.
But what about the pragmatic Harold Wilson who refused Lyndon Johnson’s pleas to send British troops to be slaughtered in Vietnam?
Did our decision to stand on the sidelines then, like the French and Russians in Iraq, diminish our standing?

This rush to take part in one of the most complex civil wars the world has seen, when we’re unsure who our allies and enemies are, we don’t have a clear objective, we can’t rule out a long ground war, we have no plan for the aftermath, we don’t know if our extra bombs will make a positive difference or if they will spawn more jihadists, is fraught with danger.

Surely, after the lies of Iraq, the least the British people are owed is honesty.
We need to be told if joining this war is more about bolstering our national self-esteem than our security.
Because at least then, when we start bringing home our troops in body bags, we’d know why.
( Brian Reade, 28. 11. 2015 )

The Darkness Lifted.
As a show of solidarity with the French, I’d like to remind you of a time when Paris was the scene of heart-bursting joy.
Exactly 25 years ago last night, a rattled Margaret Thatcher stomped down the British Embassy steps in the French capital, shoved the BBC’s John Sergeant out of the way and announced she would fight on after failing to win enough votes to stay Tory leader.
Within two days she was gone.
And the darkness lifted.
Which is why, for me, Paris will always be The City of Light.
( Brian Reade, 21. 11. 2015 )

One Blunder After Another.
ISIS is an ugly phenomenon, but it’s largely the consequence of one blunder after another by the US and its allies in the region, who shouldn’t have been meddling there in the first place.
If ISIS poses a threat to anyone, it is to countries in the region, and they are the appropriate parties to address it.
If the US and its allies want to reduce terror in the region they need to stop participating in it.
( Julian Assange )

State Sponsors Of Islamist Terrorism.

Immediately after 7/7, sporadic reports from the mainstream media revealed links between the British security services and Islamist militants living in London.
Some of these individuals were reportedly working as British agents or informers while being involved in terrorism overseas.
Some were apparently being protected by the British security services while being wanted by foreign governments.

Whitehall has been colluding with two sets of Islamist actors which have strong connections with each other.
In the first group are the major state sponsors of Islamist terrorism, the two most important of which are key British allies with whom London has long-standing strategic partnerships, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Foreign policy planners have routinely covertly collaborated with the Saudis and the Pakistanis in their foreign policy, while both states are now seen as key allies in what was until recently described as the War on Terror.
Yet the extent of Riyadh’s and Islamabad’s nurturing of radical Islam around the world dwarfs that of other countries, notably official enemies such as Iran or Syria.

The oil price boom of 1973 propelled Saudi Arabia to a position of global influence, and has been the source of billions of dollars that have flowed to the radical Islamic cause, including terrorist groups, around the world.
A good case can be made that al-Qaida is partly a creature of Britain’s Saudi ally, given the direct links between Saudi intelligence and Bin Laden from the early years of the anti Soviet jihad in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
( Mark Curtis, 16. 11. 2015 )

Two Deaths Went Largely Unnoticed.
The deaths of two peculiarly British characters, Warren Mitchell and Cynthia Payne, understandably went largely unnoticed this week.
One was a left-wing Jew who played a right-wing bigot in a brilliant sitcom.
The other a middle-class lady who ran a brothel where she made judges pay for sex with luncheon vouchers.
Both of them carried off that contradiction with a joyous pizzazz and both remind us why our inherent eccentricities which don’t conform to a strict religious code, and our freedom to express them, should be treasured.
( Brian Reade, 21. 11. 2015 )

He’s An Elitist Snob With A Dangerous Ambition.

Were he Prime Minister, the nation would soon see through the right-wing media spin and realise that Boris Johnson, not Jeremy Corbyn, is the self-obsessed extremist who threatens our security.
Don’t take it from me, but the Palestinian authorities, who this week cut short Bojo’s visit to the West Bank after he dismissed backers of a boycott on Israeli goods as “corduroy-jacketed, snuggle-toothed, lefty academics”.

Palestinian politicians refused to meet him and events were cancelled after London’s mayor was deemed a “security risk”.
Imagine the backlash if that had happened to Corbyn while representing Britain on a Middle East tour.
Naturally, Johnson faced no backlash, his powerful chums playing it down as “Boris being Boris”.

Just as they did when he called Africans “picaninnies”, slammed the minimum wage, claimed apartheid was a “minor tyranny”, promised to give a convicted fraudster the address of a journalist so he could be beaten up, and was sacked as a Tory front-bencher for lying over claims he’d had an affair.

This clown would not be taken seriously as a politician in any country except this, where it’s not what you know but how many fellow on-the-make, upper-class bluffers you know, that counts.
Johnson perfects the populist image of a blond Michael McIntyre spouting a Jeremy Clarkson script tailored to suit whatever gallery he’s playing up to.
But in reality he’s an elitist snob with a dangerous ambition.
( Brian Reade, 14. 11. 2015 )

Scientists claim that middle-aged people with a dark sense of humour who laugh at tragic events have a higher chance of developing early Alzheimer’s.
With Whitehall claiming George Osborne is taking sadistic pleasure in imposing his savage cuts let’s hope the boffins have got this one bang-on.
( Brian Reade, 14. 11. 2015 )

Mr Cameron will be remembered as the prime minister who allowed the rich and, sometimes, corrupt from China, America, Russia and the Middle East to take over our industries and swathes of property.
And who plunged the poorest and most vulnerable into despair.
( Sunday Mirror, 06. 12. 2015 )

The Blairs’ property empire now stretching to seven houses and 27 flats.
How long before he owns more homes in Britain than he bombed in Iraq?
( Brian Reade, 14. 11. 2015 )

David Cameron talked boldly about attacking the head of the ISIS snake, without mentioning that its biggest funders are the Saudi Arabians, whose heads he was bowing and scraping before only last month, as he begged for their funds.
( Brian Reade, 21. 11. 2015 )

Katie Hopkins, the preposterously toxic waste of oxygen, today announced that she thinks I have ‘a crush’ on her.
On the scale of probability, this is right up there with me harbouring a secret desire to emigrate to an Icelandic igloo with Heather Mills.
( Piers Morgan, 04. 01. 2015 )

Timeout for Cadbury when its U.S. owner isn’t paying a Button in British corporation tax on more than £2billion in sales.
The chocolate maker left a bad taste in the mouth when it shut a 400-job factory near Bristol, breaking a promise to keep it open.
Either MPs order the boss to explain or Parliament’s a few peanuts short of the full Picnic.
( Brian Reade, 07. 12. 2015 )