British Conservatives soft on Turkish governmental violence

This video is called Turkey police BRUTALITY: Cops ATTACK protesters directly, use gallons of TEAR GAS.

The Dutch Foreign Secretary, Timmermans, will tomorrow visit Turkey.

The opposition parties in the Dutch parliament say that Timmermans then should express concerns in the Netherlands about police violence against Turkish pro-democracy demonstrators to the Turkish government.

They moved this in parliament. However, that proposal was rejected, with 70 opposition votes for it, and 78 votes of the government coalition parties VVD and PvdA against it.

Tomorrow, Timmermans will go to the Turkish-Syrian border, to meet Dutch NATO soldiers there. The Dutch government parties don’t want concerns about human rights in Turkey to interfere with Dutch-Turkish-NATO warmongering in the Syrian-Turkish border region.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Tories blasted for lame response on violence in Turkey

Tuesday 18 June 2013

by Roger Bagley

Labour MPs condemned a Foreign Office minister’s feeble gyrations today over Turkey’s vicious attacks on protesters.

Democracy campaigner John Healey MP accused Minister David Lidington of dishing out “subdued” words to Parliament when he should have expressed “shock.”

Mr Healey complained that Turkish authorities had arrested people for using Twitter, blocked trade union demos with huge police numbers and threatened to use the army against their own citizens.

The minister replied that it was important that human rights were respected. He suggested that some images from Istanbul and Ankara were “disturbing.”

He added lamely: “As friends of Turkey, we hope to see those problems resolved peacefully.”

Mr Lidington also told MPs that “Turkey remains an important foreign policy partner and Nato ally, and we support its continuing reform agenda.”

He argued that Turkey had carried out substantial judicial and democratic reforms over the last 20 years, and it was a very different country compared with previous military rule.

Labour shadow foreign office minister Emma Reynolds complained that “many will be concerned about the generality of the minister’s answers.”

Green MP Caroline Lucas protested at the holding incommunicado of more than 100 civilians arrested at the weekend, including nurses and doctors, amid reports of beatings.

She demanded a public statement from the British government condemning such detentions, and expressing “outrage” at recent events.

From Associated Press:

Last Updated: 13/06/17 6:07 PM ET

Hotel owners who sheltered Turkish protesters ‘cooperated with terror,’ Erdogan says

ISTANBUL — Riot police in Istanbul fired water cannon and tear gas Monday to disperse pockets of protesters on the sidelines of a demonstration called by labour groups who hope to capitalize on weeks of initially small-scale activism to register broader discontent.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said even the owners of luxury hotels near Taksim Square who had provided refuge to protesters fleeing the chaos of the police raid were linked to terrorism.

At least 400 people were arrested Sunday, according to the Istanbul Bar Association, with local news reports saying some journalists had been among them.

One foreign photographer documenting the clashes Saturday night said a police officer had torn his gas mask off him while in a cloud of tear gas, and forced him to clear his memory card of photographs.

Some doctors and nurses who treated protesters were also detained by security forces, according to the legal offices of the Istanbul Chamber of Doctors. Lawyers have been held by the authorities in recent days.

On governmental tear gas: While it’s not too pleasant for people to be in a cloud of the noxious fumes, the effect on animals is much worse, and Turkish animal rights activists say that the results on Istanbul’s cat, dog, and bird population was devastating: here.

Related articles

• Turkish people’s resistance against governmental authoritarianism (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• #Duranadam: ‘Standing man’ protest goes viral as Turkey eyes law to restrict social media (rt.com)
• New form of protest in Turkey: Standing Silently (philosophers-stone.co.uk)
• Taksim Square’s Last Man Standing (rferl.org)
• Protesters March in Turkey Ahead of Planned Strike (voanews.com)
• Turkish police arrest dozens in raids on homes, newspapers (timesofisrael.com)
• Turkey Warns It May Use Army to Quell Protests (voanews.com)

Niall Ferguson, Keynes and homophobia

After the earlier news today about a British Conservative politician arrested as a rape suspect and a Ukip politician’s homophobia, news about another British Conservative’s homophobia.

That British Conservative is controversial historian Niall Ferguson. To some people, better known as the husband of Ayaan Hirsi Ali … err, that is not her real name: of Ayaan Hirsi Magan.

Ms Ali Magan justifies her Islamophobia by the homophobia of some Muslims; basically of all Muslims, according to Ms Ali Magan.

Looking at Ms Ali Magan’s husband now, it seems more than ever that Ms Ali Magan pretends to support LGBTQ rights just as a pretext to attack Muslims.

This video is called Niall Ferguson is really sorry he’s a homophobic bigot.

From the Huffington Post in the USA:

Niall Ferguson: Keynesian Economics Flawed Because Keynes Was Gay, Childless

By Meredith Bennett-Smith

Posted: 05/04/2013 2:48 pm EDT | Updated: 05/04/2013 3:06 pm EDT

Harvard historian Niall Ferguson has apologized for remarks claiming John Maynard Keynes’ theory of economics was doomed to failure because Keynes himself was gay and childless.

Financial writer Tom Kostigen, the editor at large of Private Wealth and Financial Advisor magazines, reported Ferguson’s comments Friday on the Financial Advisor website:

Harvard Professor and author Niall Ferguson says John Maynard Keynes’ economic philosophy was flawed and he didn’t care about future generations because he was gay and didn’t have children.

Kostigen writes that Ferguson, speaking in front of hundreds of financial advisers and investors at the Tenth Annual Altegris Conference in Carlsbad, Calif., broached the subject in response to a question comparing Keynes’ theories and Edmund Burke‘s.

Burke had many children, Keynes had none, Ferguson reportedly said. And thus, Burke believed in a “social contract” that would endure for generations, while the childless, gay Keynes believed in a philosophy of self-interest.

Ferguson, “says it’s only logical that Keynes would take this selfish worldview because he was an ‘effete’ member of society,” Kostigen wrote. “Apparently, in Ferguson’s world, if you are gay or childless, you cannot care about future generations nor society.”

Kostigen went on to call Ferguson’s comments “gay-bashing,” “intellectually void,” and “vulgar,” saying they put “the full weight of the financial crisis on the gay community and the barren.”

On Twitter, senior editor at InvestmentNews Dan Jamieson confirmed the comments:

Others, including Felix Salmon from Reuters, were quick to condemn them:

In 2012, Ferguson was roundly criticized for an article he wrote for Newsweek on President Barack Obama’s administration. New York Times‘ columnist Paul Krugman called Ferguson’s representation of the Affordable Care Act “unethical,” at the time.

But he isn’t the first to make such comments when it comes to Keynes’ theories, according to Business Insider’s Executive Editor Joe Weisenthal.

“A lot of people have this idea that Keynes didn’t care about the future because of the famous line, ‘in the long run, we’re all dead,’ which people take to mean that the only thing that matters is the short term.”

But that line is taken out of context and the full quote says something entirely different, according to Weisenthal.

“In other words, [Keynes] is slamming economists for being sanguine about near-term troubles, merely because in the long term, stability and equilibrium will return,” Weisenthal writes.

In the New Yorker‘s review of Robert Skidelsky’s biography, “John Maynard Keynes: Fighting for Freedom,” Louis Menand notes that Skidelsky “is wisely inconclusive in assessing the bearing of Keynes’ sexuality on his economic views. Implicit in those views is a rather sharp distinction between public and private life, with private life given a nearly absolute priority.”

Business Insider’s Henry Blodget wrote that this might be the “first time we have heard a respectable academic tie another economist’s beliefs to his or her personal situation rather than his or her research.”

“Saying that Keynes’ economic philosophy was based on him being childless,” Blodget noted, “would be like saying that Ferguson’s own economic philosophy is based on him being rich and famous and therefore not caring about the plight of poor unemployed people.”

In Ferguson’s apology, posted to his website Saturday, he wrote that the comments “were as stupid as they were insensitive:”

Sexualising Keynes: Not just about Niall Ferguson: here.

By Joseph Patrick McCormick:

Less than 24 hours after being sworn in as a member of Italy’s new coalition government, a junior equalities minister has been removed from her post for saying that gay people invite discrimination by “ghettoising” themselves.

Michaela Biancofiore, was relocated to a new position after gay rights groups protested on Friday after Biancofiore, a parliamentarian from former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s centre-right People of Freedom Party, was appointed to the equalities ministry as an undersecretary.

The head of gay rights advocacy group Gaynet, said that she was “known for her statements against the rights of homosexual couples,” and went on to question the “logic” of appointing her to “work for civil rights, including those of homosexuals”.

British Conservative sexual abuse scandal

This video from Britain is called Nigel Evans: Rape Arrest.

After earlier British Conservative party sexual abuse scandals, today from weekly The Observer in Britain:

Tory MP Nigel Evans arrested after sex assault claims by two men

Deputy speaker in House of Commons held and house searched following allegations

Lin Jenkins

Sunday 5 May 2013

MPs from across the political spectrum have expressed shock after the House of Commons deputy speaker and Conservative MP Nigel Evans was arrested on suspicion of rape and sexual assault.

Detectives visited his home in Pendleton, Lancashire, on Saturday morning following allegations made by two men who were in their 20s at the time of the alleged attacks, which are said to have taken place at the property in July 2009 and March 2013.

The house and his car were searched by officers while Evans was held in custody at Preston police station. He was released on police bail until 19 June.

The prime minister, David Cameron, is understood to have been informed about the arrest of the 55-year-old, MP for Ribble Valley since 1992, one of the few Tory strongholds in the north.

…

Evans is openly gay, having come out as homosexual in 2010, the year he was elected to his current post. In the 2010 general election Evans retained his seat with a majority of 14,769 over Labour, with Ukip making a then strong showing in fourth place with 3,496, or 6.7% of the vote.

If the police take further action the Tory party will face the prospect of a potentially difficult byelection. With Ukip support surging, Nigel Farage’s party is bound to see the vacancy as an opportunity to establish a foothold in the House of Commons for the first time.

Lancashire police said: “A 55-year-old man from Pendleton in Lancashire has today, Saturday, 4 May 2013, been arrested by Lancashire Constabulary on suspicion of rape and sexual assault. The man will be interviewed at a police station in Lancashire during the course of the day. The offences are alleged to have been committed in Pendleton between July 2009 and March 2013.”

Evans, who earns £102,000 a year as an MP and deputy speaker, was first elected as a councillor, while working in his family’s newsagent business, to West Glamorgan county council in 1985. Five years later he became leader of the Conservative group.

Evans is known as a rightwinger who voted against the minimum wage and is a strong Eurosceptic. Originally from Swansea, he was John Major’s spokesman on Welsh affairs. He held various positions as a parliamentary private secretary in Major’s government including to Tony Baldry in the ministry of agriculture, food and fisheries. In 1999 he was appointed as vice-chairman of the Conservative party, a post he held until 2001.

At the time of his coming out as gay he said he was tired of living a lie and dealing with threats of blackmail from political enemies. He came out at the launch of a parliamentary group set up to help MPs and staff at the Palace of Westminster to be open about their sexuality.

“I could not afford it to be used as leverage against me. I couldn’t take the risk. I don’t want any other MP to face that kind of nastiness again. I am sure there are other gay MPs who would like to be open about their sexuality but are fearful of the consequences. I hope this new group will help them to do so,” he said.

…

In an interview shortly after announcing he was gay he said he regretted supporting section 28, the law introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s government banning the promotion of homosexuality by local authorities in schools.

He said: “I was confused about how to protect youngsters at school. The law did the opposite of what was intended. We shouldn’t have been telling young people that being gay was wrong.”

Asked in a newspaper interview why it had taken him so long to publicly disclose his sexuality, he said: “Growing up in the 60s, it just wasn’t done.

“There were just as many gay politicians as there are now but none of them was out. I realised I was gay when I was about 12 or 13, though at the time I wished I wasn’t. I thought I might just be going through a phase and that it would fade away. I had a girlfriend.

“I suppressed it. In those days you kept it quiet. It was more or less impossible to enter politics – in either party – as an openly gay person. When Margaret Thatcher was asked about homosexuals in the party, she said: ‘Oh, we don’t talk about those sort of things.’ It was all swept under the carpet.”

UKIP Scotland spokesman under fire for saying ‘selfish’ gays want to ‘destroy our society’: here.

Related articles

• Cameron’s British Conservatives Shaken Badly in Local Elections. (greatriversofhope.wordpress.com)
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• British Conservative leader Michael Howard to step down (sridharanraghavan34.wordpress.com)
• Radical Tory response to UKIP urged (bbc.co.uk)

Baroness Thatcher dies, reactions

This video from Britain says about itself:

Apr 8, 2013

Lingering resentment felt by mining communities towards Baroness Thatcher.

Street parties break out as some of those who were most opposed to her policies seek to counter those paying tribute.The death of Baroness Thatcher has been welcomed by critics of the former prime minister – who labelled her “heartless” and claimed she “destroyed” parts of the country.

Street parties broke out in several locations as those who resented her policies and their consequences celebrated the leader who was more devisive than almost any other in recent history.

As tributes to the 87-year-old flooded in from across the globe, widespread condemnation of her legacy – particularly on social media – showed her ability to polarise opinion remained.

Grievances against the former Conservative leader take in her treatment of miners in the 1980s, withdrawal of free milk for school children, her role in the response to the 1989 Hillsborough disaster and the controversial Poll Tax.

Critics also pointed to her description of Nelson Mandela as a “terrorist“, her government’s support for Pol Pot, her actions in the Falklands War and her subsequent backing of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet.

From Firstpost:

Margaret Thatcher milk snatcher? Iron lady still divides in death

by FP Staff Apr 9, 2013

… But while US President Barack Obama spoke for many in the wider world in praising the grocer’s daughter with the eyes as steely as her resolve, the scars of bitter struggles left Britain itself as deeply divided now as under her leadership.

Tuesday’s newspapers told the story: “The Woman Who Saved Britain”, declared the Daily Mail from the right; “The Woman Who Divided A Nation”, headlined the left’s Daily Mirror, which questioned the grand, ceremonial funeral planned for next week. …

“Very few leaders get to change not only the political landscape of their country but of the world. Margaret was such a leader. Her global impact was vast,” said Tony Blair, whose term as Labour prime minister from 1997-2007 he acknowledged owed a debt to the former leader of his Conservative opponents. …

Obama led an outpouring of tributes from the United States: “America has lost a true friend,” he said.

Mourners laid roses, tulips and lilies on the doorstep of her house in Belgravia, one of London’s most exclusive areas. One note said: “The greatest British leader” while another said to “The Iron Lady”, a soubriquet bestowed by a Soviet army newspaper in the 1970s and which Thatcher loved.

But, in a mark of lingering anger at a woman who explained her belief in private endeavour by declaring “there is no such thing as society”, someone also left a bottle of milk; to many Britons, for scrapping free milk for schoolchildren as education minister in 1971, she remained “Maggie Thatcher, Milk Snatcher”.

The woman who tore Britain apart: here.

From the Irish Times:

Mrs Thatcher’s death was a “great day” for coal miners, David Hopper, general secretary of the Durham Miners’ Association said. The ex-miner, who turned 70 today, spent all of his working life at Wearmouth Colliery. He said: “It looks like one of the best birthdays I have ever had. “There’s no sympathy from me for what she did to our community. She destroyed our community, our villages and our people.”

From Reuters:

The abiding domestic images of her premiership will remain those of conflict: huge police confrontations with mass ranks of coalminers whose year-long strike failed to save their pits and communities; Thatcher riding a tank in a white headscarf; and flames rising above Trafalgar Square in the riots over the deeply unpopular “poll tax” which contributed to her downfall.

“I found her to be confrontational, dogmatic, abrasive, she attacked people in her own country and didn’t listen to people in her own party,” recalled Caspar Joseph, 51, a history teacher in Manchester. “She was destructive, nihilistic.

“I will be raising a glass. I have some 1992 Dom Perignon which I have been saving for either the birth of my first grandchild or the death of Margaret Thatcher … but actually I might drink some Argentinian wine – her attitude was contemptible over the Falklands.”

Some opponents said on social media that they would hold a party to celebrate her death while a website set up to ask if Thatcher was dead had received 180,000 likes by midday and was updated with a large block-capital “Yes.

To those who opposed her she was blunt to a degree.

“The lady’s not for turning”, she once informed members of her own Conservative Party who were urging her to moderate her policies. In power, she faced plotting inside her party from those who thought she was unreasonably divisive.

Margaret Thatcher’s death greeted with street parties in Brixton and Glasgow: here.

Hundreds gather in Glasgow, Liverpool and Brixton to ‘celebrate’ death of Margaret Thatcher: here.

Some responses by artists and performers to Margaret Thatcher, who died yesterday. here.

The dictate that one ‘not speak ill of the dead’ is (at best) appropriate for private individuals, not influential public figures: here.

MARGARET Thatcher was ignored by the bourgeoisie for 23 years after she was put out of office by the Tory leadership in 1990. This was when her disastrous attempt to bring in a Poll Tax started a revolt on the scale of the original 1381 insurrection. She has now been rediscovered after her death by the same ruling class that dumped her: here.

Left MPs will boycott an emergency parliamentary session for Margaret Thatcher tomorrow, branding it a “waste of taxpayers’ money”: here.

Related articles

• Miner: Thatcher death ‘a great day’ The death of Baroness Thatcher was a “great day” for coal miners, David Hopper, general secretary of the Durham Miners’ Association has said. (belfasttelegraph.co.uk)

Margaret Thatcher dies, reactions

This video from the USA is called Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013)- Tariq Ali on Late British PM’s Legacy.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

A nasty piece of work

Monday 08 April 2013

David Cameron’s announcement that Margaret Thatcher will receive a ceremonial funeral with military honours at St Paul’s Cathedral should surprise no-one.

Thatcher’s political career was dedicated to the same class interests of big business and society’s wealthy elite championed by Cameron and his conservative coalition.

She never faltered in her determination to ride roughshod over working people, their organisations and the public services on which they depended to make the rich richer still.

Her easy recourse to tears when her idiot playboy son lost himself in the Sahara during a car race or when she was knifed by her Tory Party MPs in the wake of the poll tax debacle was at odds with her failure to shed a drop for her millions of victims.

—-

Thatcher was exultant when Argentinian conscripts were needlessly sent to a watery grave aboard the Belgrano, as she was when Irish republicans abandoned hunger strikes in the grisly realisation that there was no limit to her willingness to see countless more die.

But it was her attitude to Britain’s organised working class, describing its members as the “enemy within,” that marked her out as a nasty piece of work, even compared with other Tory prime ministers.

Her single-minded readiness to mobilise all the resources of the state, egged on by the Tory lynch-mob media, contrasted with the inability of labour movement leaders to understand what they were facing.

Thatcher’s government was able to confront train drivers, print workers, seafarers and miners in their turn and to defeat them.

While TUC leaders vowed to remain law-abiding, the police, justifiably dubbed “Thatcher’s bootboys,” were given free rein to run riot on picket lines, infringe people’s free movement and other rights to smash the trade union movement.

She stood alongside apartheid President PW Botha in his obdurate rejection of democracy in South Africa, terming Nelson Mandela a “communist terrorist.”

On Mandela’s release, his courtesy visit to Thatcher, complete with photographs of a broad-beaming Mandela alongside his sour-faced host, summed up what fellow “communist terrorist” and later Constitutional Court judge Albie Sachs called the “soft vengeance of a freedom fighter.”

That soft vengeance is not yet available to Thatcher’s victims in Britain because there has been no political turning of the tide.

New Labour refused to repeal the Tories’ vicious anti-union laws or to return privatised assets to public ownership.

—-

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown adopted her government policies wholesale, paving the way, as Ken Livingstone says, to today’s housing, banking and benefits crises. Their first promise at the 1997 election, which remained unbroken, was to leave taxation of the rich at the pampered level bequeathed by Thatcher’s ministers.

Blair used to phone her for advice and calls her a “towering political figure,” while Brown invited her to Chequers and Downing Street during his brief and unmemorable stint there.

Her stature appears majestic only in comparison with the easily bullied Lilliputians in her Cabinets and the new Labour mountebanks who followed in her footsteps.

Thatcher’s famous dictum that there is no such thing as society is contradicted by her funeral arrangements, which will be covered by the public purse rather than her family’s extensive wealth.

Just as her admirers remain committed to emulating her divisive policies, working people should be equally determined to reverse her and new Labour’s neoliberal agenda and chart a more progressive course.

South Africans give mixed response to Margaret Thatcher death. Condolences but also criticism of British former PM who once dismissed ANC as ‘a typical terrorist organisation’: here.

Margaret Thatcher: the artists loved to hate her: here.

Thatcher destroyed the heavy industries and the people who rebuilt post-war Britain. She took their jobs, their pride and their sense of self. There will be no state funeral in their memory: here.

Crowd ‘celebrates’ Thatcher death: here.

Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams launched a scathing attack on former British prime minister Margaret Thatcher today. Mr Adams pilloried the deceased baroness for her “shameful role” in Northern Ireland: here.

British human rights activist Peter Thatchell reacted:

In 1988, the Thatcher government legislated Britain’s first new anti-gay law in 100 years: Section 28. At the 1987 Conservative party conference she mocked people who defended the right to be gay, insinuating that there was no such right.

“During her rule, arrests and convictions for consenting same-sex behaviour rocketed, as did queer bashing violence and murder. Gay men were widely demonised and scapegoated for the AIDS pandemic and Thatcher did nothing to challenge this vilification.

Obituary: Thatcher 1925-2013: here.

Related articles

• Margaret Thatcher: feminist icon? (newstatesman.com)
• Margaret Thatcher Dead; Never Got To Meet Her Idol, Sarah Palin (wonkette.com)

General anti-government strike in Britain?

From daily News Line in Britain:

Friday, 5 April 2013

TUC to discuss general strike – At April 24 meeting

THERE was consternation yesterday when a leaked Unite document revealed that a union report going before the TUC General Council on April 24 is calling for a 24-hour political general strike against the coalition.

The Tories took fright as the news broke that the Unite union is pressing for a 24-hour general strike in an ‘explicitly political’ protest against austerity measures.

Tory Party chairman Grant Shapps said: ‘Labour’s single biggest union paymaster is threatening British businesses and hardworking people with mass strikes.

‘Ed Miliband must refuse to take a single penny more of his union paymaster’s cash until (Unite general secretary) Len McCluskey withdraws Unite’s threat to sabotage our economy.’

The Labour Party was unable to give News Line a response to Shapps’ tirade.

In a document submitted to the Trades Union Congress, Unite, which has 1.4 million members, says ‘such action is desirable’.

No strike date has yet been suggested.

Legal advice received by Unite suggests a general strike could be legal under human rights legislation if it were called as part of a political, rather than a trade dispute.

But the union warns that ‘it would be rash to assume’ that UK courts would take the same view.

Nevertheless, the Unite report believes a general strike ‘would be a landmark in our movement’s recovery of its morale, strength and capacity to play a leading part in a society crying out for credible and honourable leadership’.

The TUC last September voted for a motion from the POA prison officers to ‘consider the practicalities’ of holding a general strike. The TUC has received submissions on the subject from all the major unions.

POA general secretary Steve Gillan told News Line: ‘I would like it to be a consensus in support, an internal decision of the General Council.

‘We would, ourselves, not want it to be a trade dispute but a political dispute to show there is an alternative to austerity.’

A PCS spokesman told News Line: ‘We support the calls for a general strike. Industrial action is a union’s best weapon and we are, naturally, most effective when we work together.’

An RMT spokesman told News Line: ‘I can’t say how Bob Crow will vote on the General Council. We have always supported a general strike. We support unity and solidarity across the working class in the face of the attacks from this ConDem government. That includes building for a general strike.’

No one at Unite was available to comment on the leaked report yesterday.

Asked about the general strike call, a Unison spokesperson told News Line: ‘That’s something that’s come from Unite, we’ve had the press phoning us about it.

‘Our NEC discussed the general strike issue at its February meeting.

‘We believe a general strike is a tactic not a strategy and must be considered as part of a wider strategy to defeat the attack on our members, our pay, our jobs, our communities and our economy.

‘Unison in principle believes that a general strike can only be the culmination, rather than the beginning, of a serious campaign across the whole union movement, involving both the public and private sectors and wider community.’

A GMB spokesman said: ‘We haven’t taken a decision. We’re consulting our members on the TUC motion. Our National Executive will then decide.’

Related articles

• Britain’s biggest unions put weight behind plan for general strike (independent.co.uk)
• Pressure mounts for TUC fightback (morningstaronline.co.uk)
• Unions ask 3million workers to walk out in protest at austerity measures in first general strike since 1926 (thisismoney.co.uk)
• Greek police anti-farmer violence (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Anti-strike activities went on all over Britain (morningstaronline.co.uk)
• Irish workers demonstrate against austerity (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• General strike wasn’t the only thing on north-west agenda (morningstaronline.co.uk)
• TUC accuses Labour Institutions of shirking responsibility (modernghana.com)

British government imposes more taxes on poor people

This cartoon from Britain is about the Conservative government’s new bedroom tax, which threatens to make many people homeless.

From daily News Line in Britain:

Friday, 29 March 2013

Council Tax imposed on poor!

1.9 MILLION people who pay no Council Tax in the poorest households in England will pay an average of £140 a year tax from next week because of benefit changes coming into force, anti-poverty think-tank the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) warned yesterday.

The report, written by the New Policy Institute (NPI) for the Foundation, also found that 2.4 million low-income families face an average rise in their Council Tax bills of £138 also from 1st April.

Council Tax Benefit is being replaced by a new system of Council Tax Support, and responsibility for it is being moved from central government to councils.

At the same time, the total central government funding for the benefit is being cut by ten per cent. Each council in England has had to decide whether to further financially penalise residents.

The JRF report found that 232 local authorities had devised schemes that would demand Council Tax from everyone regardless of income, while 58 will retain current levels of support for families.

Most are to increase bills for low-income families.

It warned that abolishing Council Tax Benefit would leave 150,000 families paying on average £300 more a year.

Chris Goulden, Head of Poverty at the Foundation, said: ‘Some of the country’s poorest families must find £140 extra from their strained household budgets to pay Council Tax for the first time.

‘Making up the shortfall will be beyond most, with working hours under pressure and benefits falling behind inflation.

‘This tax hike will push people into poverty or cause more hardship for already very poor households, taking money from families who had little to start with.’

Sabrina Bushe, researcher at NPI, said: ‘From Monday, two million households that were previously deemed too poor to pay Council Tax will find hefty bills landing on their doormats.

‘Hitting only the poorest and most vulnerable, this tax increase, which won’t raise much more money than it costs, is both unjust and unwise.’

The Local Government Association, which represents councils in England and Wales, has warned that there will be an increase in those unwilling or unable to pay the tax.

• The Treasury has written to government departments warning ministers they will have to cut up to ten per cent of their budgets for the year 2015/16.

Ministers are preparing for the spending review to be held on 26 June.

This follows the announcement by Chancellor Osborne in last week’s Budget speech that he wants to cut another £11.5bn from public spending.

See also here.

Related articles

• Poorest ‘face council tax rise’ (bbc.co.uk)
• Council tax changes will ‘push more people into poverty’ (leftfootforward.org)
• UK News: ‘Millions’ facing council tax hike (walesonline.co.uk)

Disgraced Conservative Liam Fox helps Bahrain dictatorship

This video, by the Voice of America, is called Jailed Bahrain Doctor Tells VOA of Abuse, ‘Mental Torture’.

In 2011, British Conservative Liam Fox resigned in disgrace as “Defence” War Secretary because of his Adam Werritty corruption scandal.

Now, he is back in the news.

From daily The Independent in Britain:

Liam Fox faces questions over pro-regime Bahrain summit

Ruling family have held on to power in the face of two years of protests inspired by the Arab Spring

Andy McSmith

Thursday 28 March 2013

Liam Fox, the former Defence Secretary, will this weekend be one of the chief guests at a conference designed to rally Western opinion to the side of the Bahrain government in its struggle against street protests and civil rights demonstrations.

Mr Fox is the only Briton on the list of “key people” attending the Bahrain International Symposium. Other guests include prominent American neoconservatives, such as John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the UN.

The symposium’s stated mission is to “examine institutional developments and political reforms in Bahrain (and) the challenges of empowering diverse coalitions for democratic transition and stability.”

Bahrain’s ruling family have held on to power in the face of two years of protests inspired by the Arab Spring. Mr Fox could not be contacted yesterday to answer questions about whether his presence at the symposium indicated his support for the Bahrani government in its struggle with the demonstrators. More than 60 people have died during two years of protests. On Tuesday, it was reported that 13 civil rights demonstrators had been sentenced to 10 years in prison.

The Bahrain government has shown itself to be sensitive to Western opinion, and anxious to portray its government as a constitutional monarchy tolerant of religious minorities and seeking a peaceful transition to democracy. But critics say the Sunni royal family has no intention of surrendering power.

The two-day conference is sponsored by Bahrain University and by the Washington-based Bahrain American Council, which was set up in 2011 by a PR firm, Policy Impact Communications, to promote trade between the US and Bahrain and to convince opinion leaders in the West that Bahrain has a stable regime on the path to reform.

Last summer, the Bahrain American Council paid out £13,900 to fly Dan Burton, a Republican congressman from Indiana, and his wife to Bahrain. Mr Burton, who will join Mr Fox at the symposium, praised the “statesman-like” conduct of Bahrain’s King and urged the US media to “project Bahrain’s true image”. Organisations taking part in the conference include the American Enterprise Institute, which lobbied for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank associated with Ronald Reagan.

Mr Fox was seen as a cheerleader leader for [the] Tory right and potentially as a future prime minister until he was forced to resign in 2011 over his friendship with Adam Werritty.

See also here.

The Arab kingdom of Bahrain has not lacked British visitors this month. The Foreign Office minister, Alistair Burt is just back, members of the Commons Foreign Affairs committee have just arrived, and the former Defence Secretary Liam Fox will be there over the Easter weekend. His office say that he is there to discuss defence matters, including the basing of the British fleet off Bahrain, with the Foreign Office’s support: here.

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• Bahrain regime tortures again (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Bahrain dictatorship bans Guy Fawkes masks (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Bahrain dictatorship, resistance continue (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Bahrain dictatorship’s British computer spyware (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• American students’ solidarity against Bahrain dictatorship (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• British army insults fallen soldiers for Bahrain dictatorship’s bribe (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Congressman Busted For Taking Paid Trips To Bahrain Is Returning To Bahrain (eyeoncelebs.com)
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British bedroom tax makes people homeless

This music video from Ireland is called Lough Sheelin Eviction, by the Wolfe Tones.

The song tells about one of many similar tragedies in nineteenth-century Ireland.

The Wikipedia article about the lake Lough Sheelin writes about it:

Lough Sheelin (from Irish: Loch Síodh Linn meaning “lake of the fairy pool”) is a limestone freshwater lough (lake) in Ireland located in County Westmeath, County Meath and County Cavan near the villages of Finnea (also spelled Finea) and Mountnugent and the town of Granard, (County Longford).

The lake is naturally populated by brown trouts whose native stocks had depleted in recent years, hence the Central Fisheries Board stocking with farm reared the lake for the pleasure of anglers.^[1] Trout stocks are estimated to be over 100,000.

It is also the setting of the song “Lough Sheelin Eviction”, made popular by The Wolfe Tones. The lyrics tell the sad, but unfortunately, too typical story of a family being evicted from their home by an unforgiving & merciless landlord. Absentee landlords were common in Ireland and for many landlords the main interest was income rather than the conditions of their tenants. Many landlords realized that they could get a higher income by turning their properties to pasture than to continue with the old practice of collecting rents from tenant farmers. Evictions were the most common way of getting rid of unwanted tenants. In the song the woman, Eileen, dies in the cold and the man is forced to flee his native land in order to find a new home.

It seems that the British government now wants to bring back the horrors of nineteenth century Ireland to twenty-first century Britain.

From daily News Line in Britain:

Wednesday, 27 March 2013

Stop ‘bedroom tax’ evictions

The Bedroom Tax will lead to massive rises in rent arrears and homelessness, hitting the poorest people the hardest, Margaret Hodge, Chairwoman of the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee (PAC) of MPs said yesterday.

The tax comes in on 1st April next week, hitting housing benefit (HB) for tenants deemed to have spare bedrooms, who will have a 14 per cent cut for those with one extra room, and 25 per cent for those with two or more.

The bedroom tax will see affected tenants lose an average of £14 a week, while the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) expects 660,000 tenants will be affected by the cut. It is certain to lead to mass evictions.

Committee chair, Labour MP Margaret Hodge, said: ‘Even small reductions in housing benefit can have a severe impact on the finances of the poorest people.’

Sarah Newton, of Dingle Combat Bedroom Tax, told News Line that the evictions would have to be stopped.

‘The first thing that springs to mind is that communities will defend themselves out of necessity. They have nowhere to downsize to.

‘Single households are being multiply hit with removals of benefits. There are people who are already affected because they are disabled who are now being affected by the bedroom tax and they can’t afford it.

‘Coupled with the absense of adequate social housing to downsize to, communities will have to defend themselves, it’s not a question of should they, it’s one of necessity. They are between a rock and a hard place.

‘The Labour Party needs to take responsibility and take action, their handling nauseates me.

‘Labour brought in a bedroom tax for private tenants and they have no plans to abolish the bedroom tax if they get back into power, so any noise they are now making against the bedroom tax is empty, absolutely empty.

‘I think there should have been general strikes for the last three years. Calling a march once a year is an empty gesture.

‘The bedroom tax is happening in the context that, for the first time in my life at the age of 42, I am comfortable in using a phrase like class war.

‘This is class war, an out and out attack on the most vulnerable in society. Services, jobs and homes are all being cut to ribbons.’

The PAC also warned that when Universal Credit comes into force, paying benefit to the claimant rather than the landlord, it will result in a sharp rise in evictions.

Hodge said: ‘Experience from the past suggests that stopping direct payments to social landlords will simply lead to an increase in arrears and evictions.’

See also here.

More than five million families in England face the choice of putting food on the table or keeping a roof over their heads, housing charity Shelter warned today: here.

Britain: HUNDREDS of thousands of welfare claimants are being denied support by the social services, and are being referred to foodbanks by Job Centre staff if they don’t have enough cash to buy food: here.

Related articles

• Wales News: Bedroom tax sting for kidney patient with dialysis machine in spare room (walesonline.co.uk)
• SNP vows to defy Westminster over ‘bedroom tax’ (thescottishsun.co.uk)
• Five things David Cameron doesn’t want you to know about the Bedroom Tax (leftfootforward.org)
• Protests across country reject Tory bedroom tax (socialistworker.co.uk)
• Councils told to use legal loophole in a bid to help tenants avoid bedroom tax (dailyrecord.co.uk)
• Bedroom tax protests grow (morningstaronline.co.uk)
• Bedroom tax: why you should march against this heartless, pointless ‘reform’ | Polly Toynbee (guardian.co.uk)
• ‘I’d rather go to jail than pay bedroom tax’ – husband carer’s desperation over controversial welfare cut (dailyrecord.co.uk)
• No Evictions for Bedroom Tax (bellacaledonia.org.uk)
• Tommy Sheridan: I went to jail over the poll tax and I’m prepared to do the same over bedroom tax (dailyrecord.co.uk)

British Conservative weapons for al-Qaeda in Syria

This Voice of America video is called AL QAEDA JOINS JIHAD IN SYRIA.

From daily News Line in Britain:

Thursday, 14 March 2013

Cameron wants to intervene in Syria!

AT the same time as Foreign Secretary Hague has been insisting publicly that the UK will not supply arms and ammunition to their Syrian surrogates, the UK has been seeking to end the EU veto over direct arms supplies to the Syrian jihadists.

Now PM Cameron has spoken up to openly reveal the real UK policy. This is that the UK will veto the continuation of the EU’s no-arms policy for Syria in May when it comes up for a vote.

Cameron said that since the UK is ‘still an independent country’ … Britain would go it alone in supplying the missiles, artillery and tanks that the jihadists are demanding.

Questioned by the House of Commons Liaison Committee, made up of senior MPs, Cameron said: ‘I hope that we can persuade our European partners, if and when a further change becomes necessary, and that they will agree with us.

‘But if we can’t, then it’s not out of the question we might have to do things in our own way. It’s possible.’

He added the UK was ‘still an independent country’ and ‘we can have an independent foreign policy’.

Cameron for good measure alluded to his alliance with the jihadists saying, ‘It’s worth standing back and asking “Why are we doing this?” It seems that if we want to help bring about a transition in Syria, we have to work with opposition groups.’

For good measure he continued: ‘It may be that doing nothing will see the level of jihadism get worse.’

Cameron is consciously supporting the same jihadist trends that killed the US ambassador in Benghazi and British workers in Algeria! Because of his policy, Brits cannot set foot in North Africa or the Middle East.

In fact, it is not only the Saudis and Qataris who have been sending arms, ammunition and fighters to Syria to tear down the Assad regime as part of the US plan for attacking Iran.

Croatian newspapers have been full of the news that thousands of tonnes of arms have been sent from Croatia and other Balkan states to Syria in an operation organised by the US, assisted by the UK.

Now Cameron wants to go all the way and send British arms and ammunition and no doubt, after that, British troops in a desperate effort to kill Assad.

This is what is being prepared in a number of ways. One of them is the visit of Prince Charles and his wife to a Jordanian refugee camp to weep over the fate of refugees that the British government has created with its policies, and intends to continue with.

Madeleine Albright, the US Secretary of State in the period leading up to the war with Iraq, regarded the killing of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children with vicious UN sanctions as a price worth paying for creating a situation where the US-UK could carry out regime change in Iraq and murder Saddam.

The same is true of the UK government today. Its jihadist allies are destroying Syria and making masses of refugees. Cameron and Hague consider that the sufferings of the refugees are also a price worth paying if it helps to get rid of Assad. This is why they are proposing to step up the war with direct intervention, creating many more refugees, as the US-UK did in Iraq.

The UK trade unions must warn Cameron that they will not tolerate UK intervention into Syria and will stop it and bring down the government with a general strike.

Our enemy is at home. The same ruling class that is smashing Syria is seeking to smash the NHS and the Welfare State.

At least 50 French citizens ‘waging jihad in Syria’: here.

Britain and France seek end to arms embargo on Syria: here.

Call to War: German-Language Video Promotes ‘Jihad’ in Syria: here.

Dutch VVD party supports al-Qaeda: here.

Related articles

• Syria Creates Wave Of British Jihadists (independent.co.uk)
• British Conservatives help al-Qaeda (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Russia warns on arming Syria rebels (bbc.co.uk)
• UK could defy ban and arm Syria (smh.com.au)
• Syria: Britain could go it alone in arming rebels (cpnagasaki.wordpress.com)
• International War Crime: US, British-Backed Weapons Airlift From Croatia to Terrorists in Syria (21stcenturywire.com)
• UK to send armoured vehicles to Syrian opposition (updatednews.ca)