Current Affairs 2017 General Election

[gonetomorrow]

Rekt

Fallon is a smug smeg.

 

[tsubaki]

And constantly brought up his supposedly 'support' for the IRA, and threw in a few HAMAS references to use as a stick to beat him with. Corbyn never chose the issue of what happened in Manchester, the bombing did that. He would have had to deal with the issue come what may.t

What is obvious is the silence of the Tories about 'solutions' to this. Other than placing troops on the streets, due to a lack of police numbers, the Tories have gone back in their bunker and relied on the media to put the boot in.

Corbyn will need to deal with the Manchester bombing until polling day. The stAirways controlled BBC were setting themselves last night thinking 'we've got him'. Only for Corbyn to stand firm and explain his views clearly and succinctly.

I don't think its the silence that the Tories have over solutions to terrorism that is causing them problems, its that their mis-steps over this are forming part of a wider pattern of mis-steps over everything else.

Take putting troops on the streets for instance, which I am sure they thought was in response to a genuine threat, which was requested by the police (at least in London) and which is something that I am sure they thought people would welcome - it seems on the contrary to be going down terribly and is just reminding everyone of how many police posts she "cut".

Never mind that those cuts aren't that relevant (most of the officer posts lost went as cops retired, it was the police staff who actually got sacked or outsourced) and that very few of them would have actually stopped this (with the possible exception of a hypothetical neighbourhood cop who might have kept hearing Abedi's name crop up and done something about it), the only message that people seem to be hearing is that she cut the emergency services. We all saw a similar phenomena happen with the dementia tax and the absolute panicked response to it from them.

 

[tsubaki]

Rekt

That Michael Fallon is seen, and reported, as an "attack dog" is incredible. He has never had a proper job in his life.

 

[Milkman]

Rekt

Ohhhh that is amazing.

 

[Donald Twain]

Rekt

Once again channel 4 the only ones who are prepared to have a go !

 

[Donald Twain]

The full 10 minutes is worth catching ! What a shower !

 

[Joey66]

Vote for a good local candidate if you have one.

It's a Tory gets in every Time!

 

[gonetomorrow]

Once again channel 4 the only ones who are prepared to have a go !

You're right. I like watching Jon Snow interviewing the politicians. He's heard it all before and they know it!

 

[longers]

pleasantly surprised to see that even DM readers seem in agreement that Corbyn said nothing wrong with regard to foreign policy influencing the current state we are in, 10k comments on the article (written to make corbyn look terrible) and it's still all people sicking up for him.

 

[Socrates]

An interesting article, especially as it was written by a former Telegraph journo:

http://www.middleeasteye.net/column...ued-radical-and-morally-courageous-2036528122

 

[gorgeousgeorgeEFC]

pleasantly surprised to see that even DM readers seem in agreement that Corbyn said nothing wrong with regard to foreign policy influencing the current state we are in, 10k comments on the article (written to make corbyn look terrible) and it's still all people sicking up for him.

I'm not a fan of the Daily Mail (far from it), but to be fair to them they've always been against these crazy foreign wars.

 

[hullefc]

An interesting article, especially as it was written by a former Telegraph journo:

http://www.middleeasteye.net/column...ued-radical-and-morally-courageous-2036528122

You can see why the establishment went out of their way to denigrate Corbyn when he was standing for Labour leader. Lies, lies and innuendos followed him around and the same during this election. He has put the cat amongst the pigeons with his statement yesterday, which is what he has believed all through his times in politics.

This is a very cutting piece from that article,

"This cross-party consensus has been smashed, thanks to Jeremy Corbyn, the current Labour leader. Whatever one thinks of Corbyn's political views (and I disagree with many of them), British democracy owes him a colossal debt of gratitude for restoring genuine political debate to Britain.

And of course his extremely brave and radical decision to break with the foreign policy analysis of Blair and his successors explains why he is viewed with such hatred and contempt across so much of the media and within the Westminster political establishment.

Let's now look at Corbyn's foreign policy in light of the publication this week of the parties' manifestos ahead of the country's 8 June general election.

Contrary to what one reads in the newspapers or hears on television, his manifesto is a well-argued and coherent critique of the foreign policy consensus which has done so much damage over the last quarter of a century.

He is offering a serious alternative to the catastrophic system of cross-party politics that gave the world the Iraq, Afghan and Libyan calamities.

His manifesto pledges to "commit to working through the UN" and to "end support for unilateral aggressive wars of intervention".

We have been waiting to hear a mainstream British politician say this for years, and at last Corbyn (supported by his capable foreign affairs spokesperson Emily Thornberry) has spoken out against the pattern of illegal intervention favoured by the United States and its allies.

Needless to say, the British media (and in particular the BBC, which has a constitutional duty to ensure fair play during general elections) has practically ignored Corbyn's foreign policy manifesto.

Corbyn has also had the moral courage to highlight the predicament of the Chagos Islanders, supporting their right to "return to their homelands".

Corbyn bravely but correctly compares the British betrayal of the Chagossians – deprived of their Indian Ocean home as a result of a squalid deal between Britain and the US in the 1960s – with our national loyalty to the Falkland Islands, the South Atlantic territory that Britain sent a taskforce to recapture following an Argentinian invasion in 1982.

The Conservatives' manifesto contains no specific foreign policy pledges and no mention of Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Palestine or the Middle East at all

Corbyn is also brave on the Middle East. He promises to implement the will of parliament in a famous vote three years ago and recognise the state of Palestine.

I met a British ambassador to an Arab state several months after that parliamentary vote (to his credit, supported by then-Labour leader Ed Miliband).

The ambassador told me of his disgust that Cameron had not lifted a finger to implement the will of the British parliament.

Indeed, so he said, the matter had not even been raised when Middle Eastern and North African envoys met for one of their regular summits in the aftermath of the vote. That shows how total is the contempt felt by the British foreign policy establishment for parliamentary democracy.

Arguably even more brave, Corbyn will demand "comprehensive, independent, UN-led investigations into alleged violations of international humanitarian law in Yemen, including air strikes by the Saudi-led coalition".

• Made in Britain, tested on Yemenis: The reality of working for the bombmakers

Corbyn will also "suspend any further arms sales for use in the conflict until that investigation is concluded".

The Labour position here is admirable. Under Cameron, and now Theresa May, Britain has thrown its weight behind the Saudi bombing campaign.

I am afraid that Michael Fallon, who has proved a lightweight defence secretary, recently said that the murderous Saudi bombing raids have been carried out in "self-defence".

A man searches for victims under the rubble of houses after a Saudi-led coalition air strike on Yemen's Houthi-held Saada province in September 2016 (AFP)
This comment was frankly obscene, and Fallon owes an apology to the thousands of Yemeni families who have been bereaved as a result of Saudi attacks.

I am afraid his approach is sadly typical of the series of misstatements and lies emanating from the British government over this terrible Yemen business.

Once again, well done to Corbyn for confronting the May government’s cynical and callous approach to Saudi Arabia and Yemen".

A very significant test for any UK government is their approach to what the Saudi's are doing in the Middle East past and present. It will also be a test for Corbyn if he gets elected. No UK government can continue to turn a blind eye to the economic, social and political aims of the Saudis. Corbyn has been very brave with his speech yesterday and should be applauded for attempting to raise some of the issues concerning what is happening in the Middle East. As night follows day he will be vilified by sections of the media.

 

[Clint Planet]

 

[gonetomorrow]

View attachment 37189

He wants a slap on his fat face.

 

[tsubaki]

An interesting article, especially as it was written by a former Telegraph journo:

http://www.middleeasteye.net/column...ued-radical-and-morally-courageous-2036528122

Oborne has ratcheted it up even more this morning. This, amazingly, is in today's Daily Mail:

PETER OBORNE: Why MI6 must share the blame for the jihadis in our midst

Traditionally, among Britain’s intelligence services, there was a clear hierarchy.

MI6, otherwise known as the Secret Intelligence Service, was foremost. Its staff — mostly privately educated and considered charismatic yet smooth operators, were rated much higher than their socially inferior counterparts in MI5, the domestic intelligence service.

This categorisation was, of course, an over-simplification, and, thankfully, much has changed in the 25 years since I first began working as a political journalist at Westminster.

Inevitably, this week’s terrorist massacre in Manchester has put the spotlight on the work of both MI6 and MI5 in their role to protect the British people from those who wish to do us harm and who want to destroy our way of life.

Indeed, it is hard to praise too highly the work of MI5 in trying to keep the country safe — particularly in the face of the current threat from Islamist terrorists.

But, on the other hand, I am deeply worried about the performance of MI6.

The organisation’s roots go back to the early 1900s when the government was increasingly concerned about the threat to the British Empire posed by Germany.

Its first chief, Sir Mansfield Cumming, was known as ‘C’ because of the letter he used for initialling documents.

More recently, MI6 was led during the Blair years by Sir Richard Dearlove and his successor, Sir John Scarlett.

Notoriously, Scarlett compiled the dossier on Saddam Hussein’s so-called ‘weapons of mass destruction’ — which, though subsequently proved to be false, gave Blair the justification he wanted to persuade MPs that Britain should invade Iraq.

Under Scarlett, MI6 failed in its duty to warn the Government of the potential pitfalls of its foreign policy actions.

For his part, previously, Dearlove had been disgracefully suborned by Blair.

He let his and MI6’s independence be fatally compromised and allowed his organisation to become a propaganda tool for the Labour PM’s clique of war-mongerers.

Britain and the West have paid a huge price for the calamitous misjudgments of Scarlett and Dearlove.

The two spy agency bosses were both singled out for withering criticism in the Chilcot Report which investigated the circumstances of the run-up to the war and highlighted a litany of flawed information that MI6 had supplied.

Significantly, the then head of MI5, Eliza Manningham-Buller, said the invasion of Iraq had substantially increased the terror threat to the UK.

I believe that MI6 has failed to learn the lessons from this debacle. Above all, it has made very serious mistakes that have endangered this country’s security.

Often with the connivance of MI6, during the early years of the Syrian War, hundreds of British citizens were allowed to travel abroad to join jihadist organisations.

The reason MI6 certainly approved such involvement was because spy chiefs had taken it upon themselves to meddle in the internal affairs of Middle East countries.

In the case of Syria, they wanted to get as much help as possible in their mission to topple the Syrian president Bashir al-Assad.

There was a similar policy towards Libya. British citizens — it has been reported this week that among them was the father of the Manchester suicide-bomber — were undoubtedly encouraged to travel to the north African country to fight in the civil war there to get rid of Gaddafi.

Indeed, research by the Middle East Eye website has revealed the extent to which the British authorities, I believe with the encouragement of MI6, released terror suspects in this country from control orders which had previously been imposed on them in order to restrain their movements and stop them from using the internet.

Duly, these people were free to join terror groups in the Middle East and North Africa — organisations with links to Al Qaeda and other terror outfits.

Of course, as well as being enemies of al-Assad and Gaddafi, these groups were also enemies of the West.

So, while MI5 officers were working day and night to prevent Islamist terrorists inflicting carnage on British streets, MI6 officers were complicit in creating a generation of British-born jihadis who are prepared to do anything, and kill anyone — even young children — in their efforts to destroy this country.

This brings us directly to the Manchester suicide-bomber.

Along with his father and brother, Salman Abedi fought as a 16-year-old in the Libyan civil war. There have been reports, too, that he received military training in Syria.

There is every reason to speculate that his evil handiwork at the Manchester Arena on Monday night was in part a direct consequence of MI6’s meddling.

The organisation is open to the charge that it placed what it perceived to be British foreign policy objectives ahead of the safety of British citizens.

Meanwhile, others in government have serious questions to answer. For example, on whose advice was it that the Home Office lifted the control orders on suspected jihadists?

And why were repeated warnings about Abedi to the police via an anti-terrorist hotline ignored?

The official reason is that MI5 has been woefully overstretched, having to deal with managing 500 investigations into suspected terrorists, involving as many as 23,000 ‘subjects of interest’.

What is certainly true is that the police and MI5 have not been helped by the rogue activities of some of their foreign intelligence partners in MI6.

It is worth pointing out that I’m not the only one perturbed by such behaviour within MI6, which has traditionally been licensed by the government to break the law and carry out illicit acts, on the assumption that it always acts in the British national interest.

Former MI6 officer Alastair Crooke, who worked for the service for 30 years and who has vast experience in the Middle East and Afghanistan, is concerned that some of its operators are not working in the national interest.

He told me: ‘It is not right that, on one hand, domestic police services are straining every sinew to protect our societies by fighting terrorism, while, on the other hand, elements in our and America’s security services have been arming and training jihadists and colluding in terrorism.’

The worry — and it is a profound one — is that if Britain’s two intelligence agencies are working at cross purposes, we will never be able to make our streets safe from terrorists.