On the morning of October 16, counter-terror police in Glasgow Airport detained journalist, whistleblower, human rights campaigner, and former British diplomat Craig Murray upon his return from Iceland. After grilling him intensively about his political beliefs, officers seized Murray’s phone and laptop.
Murray, a proud Scottish nationalist, flew back to Glasgow after several days in Reykjavik, where he attended a popular Palestine solidarity event, and also met with high-ranking representatives of the Assange Campaign, which raises awareness about the plight of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Once his travel documents were processed at passport control, the officer informed him he would be detained for questioning. They then led him to a small backroom to be grilled by three nameless British counter-terror agents.
Murray told The Grayzone that British police warned him he would be committing a criminal offense and would be prosecuted if he refused to answer questions, answered untruthfully, deliberately withheld information, or refused to provide passcodes for his electronic devices. After his phone and laptop were seized for analysis, the interrogation began.
“First, they grilled me about the private Assange Campaign meeting,” Murray told The Grayzone. “You might think they would ask who was there, but they didn’t,” he said, adding, “my guess is they somehow knew already.”
Instead, “all the questions were financial,” Murray says. According to the former British ambassador, officers wanted to know “whether I get money for my contributions to the Campaign, if I get paid by WikiLeaks, Don’t Extradite Assange, even Julian’s family.”
“The answer each time was ‘no,’” Murray says, explaining: “My sources of income and where my money comes from were of particular interest to the officers.”
The one-time diplomat’s popular personal blog was also of interest to the officers, who reportedly demanded Murray tell them whether anyone else had access to it or could publish content on the platform, and if anyone other than himself authored any of its posts.
Strangely, Murray said he was not asked about a single article published on his website. Equally puzzling, he remarked, were the questions about the Palestine solidarity event he attended.
Officers apparently wanted to know why Murray had attended in the first place — “a strange question to ask of someone attending a protest,” he told The Grayzone. Nonetheless, he made it clear that he had gone because he was friends with one of the speakers, a former Icelandic interior minister.
Police reportedly also demanded details on the content of various speakers’ addresses at the event — information which Murray says he could not offer as he doesn’t speak Icelandic. When asked if he planned to attend any similar pro-Palestine events in Britain, he told them, “probably.”
“The weirdest question was, ‘how do I judge whether to share a platform with someone or not?’” Murray says, adding: “I do so based on who’s organizing the event.”
In this particular case, Murray continued, “it was [the] Palestine Solidarity Committee, so I was confident I was in safe hands.” Still, it struck the former ambassador as a bizarre line of questioning.
“My lawyer has never heard of such a question being asked during interrogations before,” Murray said, adding that “they speculate police have a surveillance photo of me in the proximity of someone they consider a ‘terrorist.’”
“I’ve no idea who that could be,” the outspoken human rights campaigner admitted. But, as he quickly observed: “If you attend a rally where 200,000 people are present, you can’t know who everyone is!”
Murray has since consulted with lawyers, who informed him that according to Section 7 of the 2000 Terrorism Act — the draconian legislation under which he was subjected to the intensive questioning — he would be legally entitled to consult a lawyer if the interrogation lasted longer than an hour.
‘A sledgehammer to crack a nut’
Once the hour of questioning was up, the officers sent him on his way, but failed to return his phone or laptop. “I’m used to the idea of British and American spies having my computers,” Murray said.
On a trip to Germany at the end of 2022, two laptops belonging to Murray were stolen in separate locations. The second laptop happened to have been a locally-bought replacement for the first. He believes the thefts were “probably” carried out by “security services,” an interpretation reinforced by the fact the first laptop was stored in a bag containing a large sum of cash, along with vital heart medicine. The culprits inexplicably ignored the former, while pocketing the latter.
When probed by counter-terror cops about the contents of his laptop, Murray says he openly disclosed that device contained copies of leaked private emails of Stewart McDonald, a hawkish, deep state-connected Scottish National Party.
But “I’m not worried about any content on there,” he explained, so “it’s not a problem they have it.”
“I told the officers I pitied whichever poor bastard has to wade through McDonald’s emails,” he joked.
“Interestingly,” Murray notes, “one of them volunteered in response that the contents of seized digital devices are sifted electronically, rather than an individual going over the whole contents.”
“Presumably, algorithms run by keyword searches do the legwork, and whatever that throws up is studied and shared with different agencies,” he speculates.
Murray’s lawyers are now looking into the stop, with an eye on whether his interrogators told him the truth before his questioning began.
This April, British counter-terror police detained the French publisher and political activist Ernest Moret, who had led large protests in Paris against the neoliberal reforms of President Emmanuel Macron. Moret was detained under the same powers as Murray, then arrested when he refused to hand over passcodes to his electronic devices. He was ultimately held in British custody for almost 24 hours.
In July, a damning report by Britain’s terror legislation watchdog concluded the officers who detained Moret had made “exaggerated and overbearing” threats when they claimed that he would never again be able to travel overseas if he didn’t disclose information, as he’d be listed as a terrorist in international intelligence databases. The report also found police grilled him illegitimately regarding legally privileged conversations he had with his lawyer during the interrogation.
Schedule 7 is “powerful” and “must therefore be exercised with due care,” the reviewer said, before ultimately comparing police’s usage of the legislation to interrogate Moret to “using a sledgehammer to crack a nut”:
“This was an investigation into public order for which counter-terrorism powers were never intended to be used,” the report noted, concluding “the rights of free expression and protest are too important in a democracy to allow individuals to be investigated for potential terrorism merely because they may have been involved in protests that have turned violent.”
But when it comes to carrying out political detentions, the legislation in question is not the only one in British officers’ arsenal.
Absent from the report was any reference to Schedule 3, Section 4 of Britain’s 2019 Counter-Terrorism and Border Act, which was used to authorize the detention of this journalist at London’s Luton Airport this May. The provision grants authorities sweeping powers to delve into the personal and professional affairs of dissidents. According to Murray, British counter-terror cops appear to have approached him using “the same playbook” they employed with me.
Under the 2019 Counter-Terrorism and Border Act, which has been harshly criticized by the UN, an individual can be said to be serving “hostile” foreign powers without even knowing or intending to — or the powers in question being aware they are. This Orwellian precept was reinforced by London’s new National Security Act, which was passed in July 2023.
Anyone who has agitated the British national security state and plans on traveling to the UK may want to be careful what they keep on their devices. As one of Ernest Moret’s interrogators boasted to him, Britain is “the only country where authorities can download and keep information from private devices” forever.
October 18, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Human rights, UK |
Leave a comment
The Iranian Foreign Ministry has announced that the Islamic Republic, as of October 18, will no longer be subject to any restriction with regard to its ballistic missile-related activities and transfers by the United Nations Security Council.
The Ministry said in a statement on Wednesday that the entire restrictions imposed on the Islamic Republic’s ballistic missile-related activities and its associated services and technology have “unconditionally” ended.
The termination came into force on October 18, eight years after the 2015 Iran nuclear deal with major world powers, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
“As of today, 18 October 2023, the last part of unjustly imposed restrictions by the United Nations Security Council on missile-related activities and its associated services and technology to/from Islamic Republic of Iran, including asset freeze and financial restrictions on certain Iranian individuals and entities, terminated unconditionally,” the statement said.
“According to the provisions of 2231 UNSC Resolution, termination of these restrictions, does not require any resolution, statement or any other action in the context of the UNSC and occurred automatically,” it added.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry also said cooperation in all military and defense areas would be carried out, without any restriction, based on the needs and discretion of the Islamic Republic of Iran, within the framework of bilateral contracts with other countries.
Pointing to the provisions of UNSCR 2231, the statement noted, “In accordance with paragraph 3 of Annex B, Iran is no longer ‘called upon’ by the Security Council ‘not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles.”
The Foreign Ministry said the Islamic Republic, by recalling the provisions of the UN charter, in particular article 25 as well as provisions of UNSCR 2231, emphasizes the commitments of all member states to effectuate the termination of the above-mentioned restrictions at the national level.
“Iran expects all States to modify and revise, in the case of existence, any relevant restriction or sanction, according to their domestic legal system,” it added.
The statement underlined that any measure, at the national or regional level, aiming at imposing sanctions or restrictions on defensive engagements and cooperation of the Islamic Republic of Iran, is in contradiction with the termination of restrictions of UNSCR 2231, and that Tehran reserves its right to take appropriate measures to secure its national interests.
“The defense doctrine of the Islamic Republic of Iran has always been on the basis of domestic capabilities and capacities, and deeply rooted in resistance and power of Iranian Nation. Unconventional arms and weapons of mass destruction has no place in the defense doctrine of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” the statement said.
“Moreover, the Islamic Republic of Iran will continue to take necessary measures to strengthen its defense capabilities in order to protect its sovereignty, independence, and territorial integrity against any aggression and to counter the menace of terrorism in the region,” it added.
Stressing that the Iranian military capabilities, including ballistic missiles, are exclusively for self-defense, the statement said, “The Islamic Republic of Iran continues to insist that all sanctions and restrictive measures introduced and applied against Iran, including those imposed under the pretext of its nuclear program, have been baseless, unjust and unlawful.”
Last month, the three European signatories to the JCPOA — the UK, Germany, and France — said they plan not to terminate their anti-Iran sanctions, including ballistic missile bans, arguing that Iran has been in non-compliance with the deal since 2019.
Iran halted some of its JCPOA commitments in 2019, a year after the US unilaterally walked out of the deal and after the EU failed to offer any compensation for the US withdrawal.
Iran said at the time the reduction of its commitments was in accordance with the deal, which allows parties to dishonor commitments should other parties do the same.
October 18, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Wars for Israel | France, Germany, Iran, Sanctions against Iran, UK, United States |
Leave a comment
A Russian-drafted resolution for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza failed to pass at the UN Security Council (UNSC) on 16 October.
China, Russia, Gabon, Mozambique, and the UAE voted in favor of the resolution, while the US, UK, France, and Japan voted against it. Albania, Brazil, Ecuador, Ghana, Malta, and Switzerland all abstained from voting.
The text of the resolution called for an immediate humanitarian truce, the release of prisoners, access to aid, and the safe evacuation of civilians.
Vassily Nebenzia, Russia’s Permanent Representative to the UN, condemned the UNSC failure to pass the resolution and slammed the “selfish intention of the western bloc,” which he said “basically stomped” on international calls for de-escalation and an end to violence.
He added that the resolution was needed to respond to the “unprecedented exacerbation” of the calamity inside the Gaza Strip, where Israel has continued to bomb 2.2 million Palestinians trapped inside and prevent the entry of humanitarian aid.
Washington’s representative, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, denounced the resolution for failing to condemn “Hamas terrorism.”
“By failing to condemn Hamas, Russia is giving cover to a terrorist group that brutalizes innocent civilians. It is outrageous, hypocritical, and indefensible. We cannot allow this Council to unfairly shift the blame to Israel and excuse Hamas for its decades of cruelty,” she said.
The failed resolution came the same day Russian President Vladimir Putin held phone calls with the presidents of Iran, Syria, Egypt, and the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“The Israeli side was in particular informed of the essential points of telephone correspondences that took place today with the leaders of Palestine, Egypt, Iran, and Syria,” the Kremlin said in a statement.
Close to 3,000 Palestinians have been killed and about 10,000 wounded due to Israel’s indiscriminate bombing of civilian infrastructure in the Gaza Strip.
The Rafah crossing with Egypt, the only entry for humanitarian aid to Gaza, has remained shut despite multiple reports of an agreement between Egypt and Israel, which Tel Aviv has denied.
“The process of opening the crossing is a joint Palestinian-Egyptian process, subject to clear working mechanisms, and requires prior coordination, which has not happened until now [due to] lack of coordination, in addition to the intense bombing to which the crossing was subjected by the Israeli occupation forces,” Salama Marouf, director of the media office of the Hamas-led government in Gaza, said on Tuesday.
Israel has bombed the aid route several times over the past few days, including on 16 August.
Any talk of truce “comes in the context of the psychological warfare waged by the Israeli occupation,” Marouf added.
October 17, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | France, Israel, Palestine, Russia, UK, United Nations, United States, Zionism |
Leave a comment
Dr Aseem Malhotra with his father Prof Kailash Chand OBE, who he believes died from a sudden cardiac arrest due to the Pfizer vaccine.
In June, a group of doctors, some of whom are general practitioners (GPs), initiated legal action against the General Medical Council (GMC). The basis of their claim was the GMC’s alleged failure to address misinformation about the Covid vaccines.
The doctors, who prefer anonymity – cowards – delivered a pre-action protocol letter to the GMC, signalling their intent to pursue legal action. Earlier in January, this group had urged the regulator to assess Dr. Aseem Malhotra’s suitability to practice medicine, citing his alleged “prominent dissemination of misinformation regarding Covid-19 mRNA vaccines.”
Dr. Malhotra, a renowned cardiologist, activist, and author, boasts over half a million Twitter followers, with his latest content primarily centering around the safety, or the lack there of, of the Covid vaccines.
Prior to receiving an official denial from the GMC, the doctors contended in an April letter that the regulator should determine if Dr. Malhotra’s professional conduct had been compromised by his alleged “anti-Covid-19 vaccine stance”. They stressed that inaction could jeopardise patient safety and public trust in both the medical field and the GMC.
Professor Trish Greenhalgh, an Oxford University GP, highlighted the GMC’s reluctance to tie perceived “anti-vaccine statements” to direct harm inflicted upon a patient. She emphasised the expansive reach of “misleading statements” in the era of social media, necessitating a reevaluation of the definition of “harm” in this context.
To defray the legal expenses for challenging the GMC, the group embarked on a fundraising campaign, collecting a reported £5,000.
Dr. Malhotra defended his stance, citing a commitment to evolve his position in line with new evidence. He mentioned his own early vaccination with the Pfizer vaccine and efforts to combat vaccine hesitancy, but stressed his belief that the mRNA vaccines present serious risks while noting their approval despite the absence of long-term safety data.
Earlier today, Doctors For Patients UK, the UK Medical Freedom Alliance, and Health Advisory & Recovery Team, issued a press release in response to the Good Law Project.
(It constitutes a bit of an ass-whopping in my opinion so I dare not summarise it. Here it is in its entirety):
Dear Editor
We, the undersigned doctors, and the campaign groups Doctors for Patients UK, UK Medical Freedom Alliance and HART, wish to publicly state our support for Dr Aseem Malhotra, a well-published academic and cardiologist who has been a popular commentator on medical and public health matters in the UK media for many years. We condemn the actions of a group of (mostly anonymous) doctors, supported by the Good Law Project (GLP), in seeking to silence and punish Dr Malhotra for speaking out about his concerns about the safety of Covid-19 vaccines. This is a serious and chilling attack on the freedom of speech of a senior doctor.
Dr Malhotra is the son of the late BMA stalwart and NHS campaigner, Dr Kailash Chand. Following the unexpected death of his father from previously undetectable heart disease, Dr Malhotra made public statements highlighting his concerns that his father’s Covid-19 vaccinations were a causal factor in his death.
Despite initially endorsing and promoting the Covid-19 vaccines on ITV’s Good Morning Britain on 5th February 20212 he is now calling for an immediate suspension of the novel mRNA Covid-19 vaccines and a full investigation into their adverse effects, for reasons detailed in the 2-part, peer-reviewed paper he wrote, published in September 2022 in the Journal of Insulin Resistance. This is entirely in line with his duty as a responsible doctor, to protect the British public from the harm which he believes his family have suffered and to uphold the fundamental principle of medical ethics to “First do no harm”.
Dr Malhotra presented his concerns to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Vaccine Damage, on 20th October 2022 at Portcullis House, Westminster. His impassioned call to prioritise patient safety resulted in a group of anonymous doctors reporting him to the General Medical Council (GMC) for ‘high-profile promotion of misinformation about Covid-19 mRNA vaccines’, demanding they investigate his fitness to practice. When the GMC refused to carry out a Fitness to Practice (FtP) investigation, Dr Matt Kneale, a junior doctor in the group, instructed The Good Law Project (GLP) to begin crowdfunding for a legal action against the GMC’s decision, and launched a judicial review against the GMC in the High Court.
Dr Malhotra is a senior cardiologist, a well-established commentator and campaigner on public health issues, and a long-standing advocate for patient safety. His previous campaigns have raised awareness about heart disease, obesity, the harms of sugar, and corruption within the pharmaceutical industry. As an ambassador for the Academy of Medical Royal Colleges, he was the lead author in this joint initiative with the BMJ to tackle the harms of overprescribing and unnecessary medical interventions. It is a mark of Dr Malhotra’s high regard for medical ethics that he felt compelled to speak publicly about his new and growing concerns of a link between Covid-19 vaccines and heart damage, despite initially endorsing the mRNA jabs.
It is deeply unsettling that the GLP, an entity funded primarily by the public, would turn its legal machinery toward silencing an ethical doctor. This is especially troubling given the organisation’s stated commitment to transparency and a better world. Rather than exerting legal force to silence professionals, should they not focus instead on compelling the full release of the Covid-19 vaccine trial data? The absence of such vital information from public and medical scrutiny is not just a lapse; it’s a serious breach of trust and a blow to patient safety.
By contesting the GMC’s decision to support Dr Malhotra’s right to free speech and not to carry out a formal FtP investigation (on the grounds that his statements were not sufficiently egregious to merit action), the legal action supported by the GLP risks undermining the resolve of medical professionals to speak candidly on serious health issues, a move that would have profound consequences for patient safety and the ethical practice of medicine.
The GLP challenge against the GMC decision is misconceived, misguided, and threatens doctors’ individual right to free speech and proper scientific debate on matters relating to protecting the public from dangerous products. It is deeply regrettable in a democratic society that instead of being applauded for his courage in raising the alarm, Dr Malhotra is being persecuted in this way.
Thousands of doctors worldwide and in the United Kingdom11 share Dr Malhotra’s reasonable concerns regarding Covid-19 vaccine safety. Many have spoken out on this issue, including the eminent US cardiologist, Dr Peter McCullough, who called for an immediate withdrawal of these products in a speech made in the EU Parliament on 13 September 2023. The undersigned doctors and organisations are aware of multiple harms associated with the Covid-19 vaccines; among them frontline doctors who have reported vaccine-associated injuries and deaths in their own patients.
The list of signatories and co-signatories is something to behold:
- Dr Ayiesha Malik, MBChB, MRCGP (2014)
- Dr Clare Craig BM BCh, FRCPath
- Dr Elizabeth Evans, MA, MBBS, DRCOG
- Lord Moonie, MBChB, MRCPsych, MFCM, MSc, House of Lords, former Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State 2001-2003, former Consultant in Public Health Medicine
- Professor Angus Dalgleish, MD, FRCP, FRACP, FRCPath, FMedSci, Professor of Oncology, University of London; Principal, Institute for Cancer Vaccines & Immunotherapy
- Professor John A Fairclough, BM BS, BMed Sci, FRCS, FFSEM(UK), Professor Emeritus, Honorary Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon
- Dr Ali Ajaz, MBBS, BSc, MRCPsych, PGCert, Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist
- Dr Victoria Anderson, MBChB, MRCGP (2016), MRCPCH (2013), DRCOG, General Practitioner
- Dr Lucy Apps, MBBS, MRCGP, General Practitioner
- Dr Michael Bazlinton, MBChB, MRCGP, DCH, General Practitioner
- Dr Mark A Bell, MBChB, MRCP(UK), FRCEM, Consultant in Emergency Medicine
- Dr Gill Breese, BSc, MBChB, DTM&H, DFFP, General Practitioner
- Dr Emma Brierly, MBBS, MRCGP, General Practitioner
- Dr Rachel Brown, MBChB, LLM, CFMP, MRCPsych
- Mr John Bunni, MBChB (Hons), Dip Lap Surg, FRCS [ASGBI Medal], Consultant Colorectal and General Surgeon
- Dr Selena Chester, MBBS, Medical Practitioner
- Dr David Cartland, MBChB, BMedSci, General Practitioner
- Mr Ian F Comaish, MA, BM BCh, FRCOphth, FRANZCO, Consultant Ophthalmologist
- Dr Phuoc-Tan Diep, MBChB FRCPath. Consultant Histopathologist
- Dr Jonathan Eastwood, BSc, MBChB, MRCGP, General Practitioner
- Dr Jonathan Engler, MBChB, LLB
- Dr Bob Gill, MBChB, MRCGP, General Practitioner
- Dr Catherine Hatton, MBChB, General Practitioner
- Dr Tony Hinton, MBChB, FRCS, Consultant Surgeon
- Dr Rosamond Jones, MBBS, MD, FRCPCH, retired Consultant Paediatrician
- Dr Tim Kelly, MBBCh, BSc, Hospital Doctor
- Dr Caroline Lapworth, MBChB, General Practitioner
- Dr Theresa Lawrie, MBBCh, PhD, Director, Evidence-Based Medicine Consultancy Ltd, Bath
- Dr Andrew Lees, MB BS, MRCGP, DCH, retired General Practitioner
- Mr Malcolm Loudon, MB ChB, MD, FRCSEd, FRCS (Gen Surg). MIHM, VR, Consultant Surgeon
- Dr Imran Malik, MBBS, MRCP (2006), MRCGP (2007), General Practitioner
- Dr Fiona Martindale, MBChB, MRCGP, General Practitioner
- Dr Janet Menage, MA, MBChB, retired General Practitioner
- Dr Alan Mordue, MBChB, FFPH, retired Consultant in Public Health Medicine & Epidemiology
- Dr Campbell Murdoch, MBChb, General Practitioner and PCN Clinical Director, Somerset
- Dr Greta Mushet, MBChB, MRCPsych, retired Consultant Psychiatrist in Psychotherapy
- Dr Angela Musso, MD, MRCGP, DRCOG, FRACGP, MFPC, General Practitioner
- Dr Sam McBride, BSc (Hons) Medical Microbiology & Immunobiology, MBBCh BAO, MSc in Clinical Gerontology, MRCP(UK), FRCEM, FRCP(Edinburgh), NHS Emergency Medicine & geriatrics
- Mr Ian McDermott, MBBS, MS, FRCS(Orth), Consultant Orthopaedic Surgeon
- Dr Geoffrey Maidment, MBBS, FRCP, retired Consultant Physician
- Dr Fairoz Miller, BSc, MBBCh, MRCP (1999), MRCGP (2016), General Practitioner
- Dr Alistair J Montgomery, MBChB, MRCGP, DRCOG, retired General Practitioner
- Dr Sarah Myhill, MBBS, Dip NM, retired GP, Independent Naturopathic Physician, UKMFA Director of Medical Ethics
- Dr Dean Patterson, Consultant Cardiologist and General Physician, MBChB, FRCP
- Dr Jessica Robinson, Bsc (Hons), MBBS, MRCPsych, MFHom
- Dr Susannah Robinson, MBBS BSc MRCP MRCGP General Practitioner
- Dr Jon Rogers, MB ChB (Bristol), MRCGP (1981), DRCOG (1980), retired General Practitioner
- Mr T. James Royle, MBChB, FRCS, MMedEd, Colorectal and General Surgeon
- Dr Magdalena Stasiak-Horkan, MBBS, DCH, MRCGP (2003-2017), General Practitioner
- Dr Rohaan Seth, BSc, MBChB, MRCGP (2012), retired General Practitioner
- Dr Jannah van der Pol, iBSc, MBBS, MRCGP, General Practitioner
- Dr Helen Westwood, MBChB (Hons), MRCGP, DCH, DRCOG, General Practitioner
- Dr Lucie Wilk, BSc, MD, FRCPC (2013), Consultant Rheumatologist
You can find a full copy of the press release here.
Currently working on a new exposè concerning the coordinated attempt to tarnish “conspiracist” celebrities. It is, however, proving to be more time-consuming than I originally expected. I should have it up in the next few days.
October 16, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, UK |
Leave a comment
Headmaster Mike Fairclough was the darling of primary school education after creating an unorthodox forest school in a council estate in Eastbourne, East Sussex. Alongside the usual lessons, from 2004 Mr Fairclough provided an extraordinarily rich rural curriculum that you would never expect in a state school. He leased 120 acres of marshland opposite West Rise school, the site of a former Bronze Age settlement. The children learned how to build fires and how to whittle wood with knives to make arrows. They learned fly fishing, how to skin rabbits and pluck pigeons. They tended beehives, sheep and even water buffalo.
Mr Fairclough won the admiration of his peers, and in 2015, the Times Educational Supplement ‘Primary School of the Year’ award. Dame Judith Hackitt, chairman of the Health & Safety Executive, said more school head teachers should be following Fairclough’s example. The underperforming school’s Ofsted rose from ‘Satisfactory’ to ‘Good’ and for 19 years, West Rise thrived. The number of pupils doubled from 179 to 360, as did the number of staff from 30 to 60.
Mr Fairclough enjoyed a good relationship with his staff and his local authority East Sussex County Council but resigned last month after a witch hunt using anti-terrorism legislation left him feeling a broken man. In his resignation letter he said: ‘I feel that I have been discriminated against, harassed, and bullied for exercising my right to lawful free speech and for expressing my philosophical belief in the importance of critical thinking, free speech, and safeguarding children.
‘As a headteacher, I have had a legal duty to safeguard children against harm. My professional field of expertise is child development and education. I have publicly shared my opinion that lockdowns harm children, that I disagree with masking children, and that I feel that the risks from the Covid vaccines for children outweigh any possible benefits. It has therefore been entirely reasonable and relevant for me to express my lawful opinions on these matters in the interest of safeguarding children against harm.’ Other heads agreed privately but 50-year-old Mr Fairclough, a father of four, was the only headteacher of 20,000 in the UK to say so publicly.
‘I first started to lose heart during the pandemic,’ he said. ‘The fear of Covid trumped learning, so children weren’t sitting next to each other and couldn’t share resources. Some schools were having children learning outside in the cold, so they weren’t able to concentrate, and it felt like adults’ fear of dying, which was irrational because we were told early that we were at minimal risk of dying of Covid, meant they were using children in their care as human shields. That made me think that the Department for Education weren’t really bothered about kids at all.’
His lawful response put him under scrutiny at the highest levels. Mr Fairclough found out through freedom of information (FOI) that he had been monitored by the government’s Counter-Disinformation Unit (CDU) and their Department for Counter Extremism, although he was cleared of any wrongdoing by East Sussex County Council.
Some people objected to his negative views on vaccinating children against Covid, opinions expressed outside the school setting, on social media and in podcasts. They fell into four main points, all of which are hard to challenge:
· Healthy children were at low risk of serious illness from Covid. (Office of National Statistics figures show that just six under-tens died between January 2020 and May 2021. They do not say whether the children had underlying health problems. For context, around 1,000 children die on the roads each year.)
· Covid vaccines posed known and very serious risks. (Potentially fatal myocarditis, and pericarditis, inflammation of the heart, are known risks.)
· A child can still catch Covid and spread Covid when vaccinated. (Covid vaccinations were not recommended by the Joint Committee on Vaccination (JCVI) for under-16s, a decision overridden by the chief medical officers in England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.)
· There was no long-term safety data, trials do not finish until this year, and the potential risks outweighed any benefit.
Mr Fairclough said: ‘I tried to communicate with parents who were undecided in a way that didn’t make me sound like I’m mad. I do think there are some in the freedom movement who say things in a way that doesn’t endear themselves to people with a different view.’
In the end 89.4 per cent of five to 11-year-olds remained unvaccinated although the numbers are hard to find and are not reported by the BBC.
So, who complained about this popular and effective headmaster? The first investigation was launched in June 2021. It was made by a group of retired NHS workers on Twitter (now X) whose mission it was to find anyone in education who appeared to be antivax and anti-lockdown. Mr Fairclough does not know who made the second complaint but the third was made by a concerned group of parents and teachers. ‘No parent came to me,’ Mr Fairclough said. ‘I have an open-door policy and they know they can talk to me at any time. I don’t know exactly which staff complained, but I have my suspicions. There was a small group within the school who did not agree with me although most were aligned with my thinking.’
It was December 1 2022 when the third complaint arrived, reported under the Prevent duty, the government initiative that requires all education providers to safeguard learners from extremist ideologies. Mr Fairclough was also reported to the DfE’s Counter-Extremism Division and was being framed as an extremist and potential terrorist, an intimidating move by the local council that left Mr Fairclough traumatised. He was signed off suffering with stress. He said: ‘I found sleeping difficult. I kept dreaming about what was happening and woke up thinking about it. I’m not a terrorist, all I was doing was discussing the alterative narrative.’
We know utopia does not exist and Mr Fairclough had his run-ins. ‘It wasn’t that I never fell out with parents. Say for example they felt like a teacher hadn’t dealt with a bullying issue, then of course they would come in and kick off and I’d have to look into the matter. But what surprised me with the resignation is that even parents that I’d had that kind of fractious relationship with have actually contacted me personally to say, “we’re really gutted that you’re not here any more”. That surprised me. I thought at least one would say good riddance.’
His absence has sent the school into freefall. An Ofsted report carried out in July, seven months after he was signed off, saw West Rise downgraded from ‘Good’ to ‘Requires Improvement’.
Our education system is increasingly focused on learning by rote rather than teaching critical thinking, a skill Mr Fairclough thinks is essential. He said: ‘Education is highly political under the Conservative government, it’s all about acquisition of knowledge to be retained and regurgitated for a memory test on the other side.’
His unusual approach had the full support of parents, the Health and Safety Executive, Ofsted and the media. Some of his pupils gained places at the local agricultural college and now run their own herds in the Sussex South Downs. A number entered media in film, art, and drama, mainly thanks to his ‘Room 13’, where children could go and have complete creative autonomy.
He is not sure what comes next, but he is sure of one thing: advocating for children cost him his much-loved career in our inverted world. He said: ‘Critical thinking and lawful free speech are not dangerous; they go hand in hand in safeguarding children. Open debate on important matters is the bedrock of any democratic society and no one should be pursued for speaking out.’
Mr Fairclough is not giving up on free speech and is crowdfunding to take his former employer to court. You can donate here.
He hopes his future will include writing more books like Wild Thing, which is about how embracing childhood traits into adulthood can lead to happiness. He recently started a Substack which you can see here.
October 16, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, UK |
Leave a comment
International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) has today issued UK Labour leader Keir Starmer, Shadow Attorney General for England and Wales Emily Thornberry and Shadow Defence Secretary David Lammy with a notice of intention to prosecute UK politicians for their role in aiding and abetting Israel’s perpetration of war crimes.
The news follows Saturday’s reports that ICJP issued Prime Minister Rishi Sunak with a stark warning that UK government officials could be individually liable for their role in aiding and abetting Israeli war crimes based on their public statements of unequivocal support of Israel, the ICJP said in a statement.
This comes as Scotland Yard’s War Crimes Unit has opened calls for evidence relating to war crimes in the region and could lead to senior politicians being prosecuted for war crimes by Scotland Yard. Individuals could also be prosecuted by the International Criminal Court (ICC).
Last week, both Keir Starmer, leader of the opposition, and Thornberry spoke out in defence of Israel’s withholding of food, water and electricity to Gaza. They justified this collective punishment based on ‘Israel’s right to defend itself’.
“Both politicians are human rights lawyers and should be well aware that this argument does not justify collective punishment, which is illegal under international law,” the ICJP said in its statement. ICJP sent a private letter to the Shadow Attorney General last week, urging Labour Party politicians to comply with international law or action would be taken, and now a notice to prosecute has been issued.
“Lammy has also been issued with the notice that Labour politicians could be liable, in his capacity as Shadow Foreign Secretary.”
As well as the total siege on Gaza, Israel has also issued a directive to 1.1 million people in Gaza to immediately leave their homes in northern Gaza and move south. This order will result in mass forced displacement which may amount to both a war crime and a crime against humanity.
“Now that there is clear evidence that war crimes and crimes against humanity have been carried out, and politicians have been formally notified of this, continuation of such support and assistance would mean that any politicians, including senior members of the opposition, could be complicit in the commission of such crimes. This complicity, formally known as ‘aiding and abetting’ war crimes, may mean that UK politicians are held individually criminally liable for breaking international law,” the statement added.
ICJP demands that the Labour Party leadership and UK politicians call for an immediate ceasefire, an end to Israel’s illegal siege and evacuation order for north Gaza, condemn Israel’s war crimes and crimes against humanity. “They should then press the government into immediate action to do the same.”
October 16, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Gaza, Human rights, Israel, Palestine, UK, Zionism |
Leave a comment
As Western politicians line up to cheer on Israel as it starves Gaza’s civilians and plunges them into darkness to soften them up before the coming Israeli ground invasion, it is important to understand how we reached this point – and what it portends for the future.
More than a decade ago, Israel started to understand that its occupation of Gaza through siege could be to its advantage. It began transforming the tiny coastal enclave from an albatross around its neck into a valuable portfolio in the trading game of international power politics.
The first benefit for Israel, and its Western allies, is more discussed than the second.
The tiny strip of land hugging the eastern Mediterranean coast was turned into a mix of testing ground and shop window.
Israel could use Gaza to develop all sorts of new technologies and strategies associated with the homeland security industries burgeoning across the West, as officials there grew increasingly worried about domestic unrest, sometimes referred to as populism.
The siege of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians, imposed by Israel in 2007 following the election of Hamas to rule the enclave, allowed for all sorts of experiments.
How could the population best be contained? What restrictions could be placed on their diet and lifestyle? How were networks of informers and collaborators to be recruited from afar? What effect did the population’s entrapment and repeated bombardment have on social and political relations?
And ultimately how were Gaza’s inhabitants to be kept subjugated and an uprising prevented?
The answers to those questions were made available to Western allies through Israel’s shopping portal. Items available included interception rocket systems, electronic sensors, surveillance systems, drones, facial recognition, automated gun towers, and much more. All tested in real-life situations in Gaza.
Israel’s standing took a severe dent from the fact that Palestinians managed to bypass this infrastructure of confinement last weekend – at least for a few days – with a rusty bulldozer, some hang-gliders and a sense of nothing-to-lose.
Which is part of the reason why Israel now needs to go back into Gaza with ground troops to show it still has the means to keep the Palestinians crushed.
Collective punishment
Which brings us to the second purpose served by Gaza.
As Western states have grown increasingly unnerved by signs of popular unrest at home, they have started to think more carefully about how to sidestep the restrictions placed on them by international law.
The term refers to a body of laws that were formalised in the aftermath of the second world war, when both sides treated civilians on the other side of the battle lines as little more than pawns on a chessboard.
The aim of those drafting international law was to make it unconscionable for there to be a repeat of Nazi atrocities in Europe, as well as other crimes such as Britain’s fire bombing of German cities like Dresden or the United States’ dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
One of the fundamentals of international law – at the heart of the Geneva Conventions – is a prohibition on collective punishment: that is, retaliating against the enemy’s civilian population, making them pay the price for the acts of their leaders and armies.
Very obviously, Gaza is about as flagrant a violation of this prohibition as can be found. Even in “quiet” times, its inhabitants – one million of them children – are denied the most basic freedoms, such as the right to movement; access to proper health care because medicines and equipment cannot be brought in; access to drinkable water; and the use of electricity for much of the day because Israel keeps bombing Gaza’s power station.
Israel has never made any bones of the fact that it is punishing the people of Gaza for being ruled by Hamas, which rejects Israel’s right to have dispossessed the Palestinians of their homeland in 1948 and imprisoned them in overcrowded ghettos like Gaza.
What Israel is doing to Gaza is the very definition of collective punishment. It is a war crime: 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks of every year, for 16 years.
And yet no one in the so-called international community seems to have noticed.
Rules of war rewritten
But the trickiest legal situation – for Israel and the West – is when Israel bombs Gaza, as it is doing now, or sends in soldiers, as it soon will do.
Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu highlighted the problem when he told the people of Gaza: “Leave now”. But, as he and Western leaders know, Gaza’s inhabitants have nowhere to go, nowhere to escape the bombs. So any Israeli attack is, by definition, on the civilian population too. It is the modern equivalent of the Dresden fire bombings.
Israel has been working on strategies to overcome this difficulty since its first major bombardment of Gaza in late 2008, after the siege was introduced.
A unit in its attorney general’s office was charged with finding ways to rewrite the rules of war in Israel’s favour.
At the time, the unit was concerned that Israel would be criticised for blowing up a police graduation ceremony in Gaza, killing many young cadets. Police are civilians in international law, not soldiers, and therefore not a legitimate target. Israeli lawyers were also worried that Israel had destroyed government offices, the infrastructure of Gaza’s civilian administration.
Israel’s concerns seem quaint now – a sign of how far it has already shifted the dial on international law. For some time, anyone connected with Hamas, however tangentially, is considered a legitimate target, not just by Israel but by every Western government.
Western officials have joined Israel in treating Hamas as simply a terrorist organisation, ignoring that it is also a government with people doing humdrum tasks like making sure bins are collected and schools kept open.
Or as Orna Ben-Naftali, a law faculty dean, told the Haaretz newspaper back in 2009: “A situation is created in which the majority of the adult men in Gaza and the majority of the buildings can be treated as legitimate targets. The law has actually been stood on its head.”
Back at that time, David Reisner, who had previously headed the unit, explained Israel’s philosophy to Haaretz: “What we are seeing now is a revision of international law. If you do something for long enough, the world will accept it.
“The whole of international law is now based on the notion that an act that is forbidden today becomes permissible if executed by enough countries.”
Israel’s meddling to change international law goes back many decades.
Referring to Israel’s attack on Iraq’s fledgling nuclear reactor in 1981, an act of war condemned by the UN Security Council, Reisner said: “The atmosphere was that Israel had committed a crime. Today everyone says it was preventive self-defence. International law progresses through violations.”
He added that his team had travelled to the US four times in 2001 to persuade US officials of Israel’s ever-more flexible interpretation of international law towards subjugating Palestinians.
“Had it not been for those four planes, I am not sure we would have been able to develop the thesis of the war against terrorism on the present scale,” he said.
Those redefinitions of the rules of war proved invaluable when the US chose to invade and occupy Afghanistan and Iraq.
‘Human animals’
In recent years, Israel has continued to “evolve” international law. It has introduced the concept of “prior warning” – sometimes giving a few minutes’ notice of a building or neighbourhood’s destruction. Vulnerable civilians still in the area, like the elderly, children and the disabled, are then recast as legitimate targets for failing to leave in time.
And it is using the current assault on Gaza to change the rules still further.
The 2009 Haaretz article includes references by law officials to Yoav Gallant, who was then the military commander in charge of Gaza. He was described as a “wild man”, a “cowboy” with no time for legal niceties.
Gallant is now defence minister and the man responsible for instituting this week a “complete siege” of Gaza: “No electricity, no food, no water, no fuel – everything is closed.” In language that blurred any distinction between Hamas and Gaza’s civilians, he described Palestinians as “human animals”.
That takes collective punishment into a whole different realm. In terms of international law, it skirts into the territory of genocide, both rhetorically and substantively.
But the dial has shifted so completely that even centrist Western politicians are cheering Israel on – often not even calling for “restraint” or “proportionality”, the weasel terms they usually use to obscure their support for law breaking.
Britain has been leading the way in helping Israel to rewrite the rulebook on international law.
Listen to Keir Starmer, the leader of the Labour opposition and the man almost certain to be Britain’s next prime minister. This week he supported the “complete siege” of Gaza, a crime against humanity, refashioning it as Israel’s “right to defend itself”.
Starmer has not failed to grasp the legal implications of Israel’s actions, even if he seems personally immune to the moral implications. He is trained as a human rights lawyer.
His approach even appears to be taking aback journalists not known for being sympathetic to the Palestinian case. When asked by Kay Burley of Sky News if he had any sympathy for the civilians in Gaza being treated like “human animals”, Starmer could not find a single thing to say in support.
Instead, he deflected to an outright deception: blaming Hamas for sabotaging a “peace process” that Israel both practically and declaratively buried years ago.
Confirming that the Labour party now condones war crimes by Israel, his shadow attorney general, Emily Thornberry, has been sticking to the same script. On BBC’s Newsnight, she evaded questions about whether cutting off power and supplies to Gaza is in line with international law.
It is no coincidence that Starmer’s position contrasts so dramatically with that of his predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn. The latter was driven out of office by a sustained campaign of antisemitism smears fomented by Israel’s most fervent supporters in the UK.
Starmer does not dare to be seen on the wrong side of this issue. And that is exactly the outcome Israeli officials wanted and expected.
Israeli flag on No 10
Starmer is, of course, far from alone. Grant Shapps, Britain’s defence secretary, has also expressed trenchant support for Israel’s policy of starving two million Palestinians in Gaza.
Rishi Sunak, the UK prime minister, has emblazoned the Israeli flag on the front of his official residence, 10 Downing Street, apparently unconcerned at how he is giving visual form to what would normally be considered an antisemitic trope: that Israel controls the UK’s foreign policy.
Starmer, not wishing to be outdone, has called for Wembley stadium’s arch to be adorned with the colours of the Israeli flag.
“The media is playing its part, dependably as ever“
However much this schoolboy cheerleading of Israel is sold as an act of solidarity following Hamas’ slaughter of Israeli civilians at the weekend, the subtext is unmistakeable: Britain has Israel’s back as it starts its retributive campaign of war crimes in Gaza.
That is also the purpose of home secretary Suella Braverman’s advice to the police to treat the waving of Palestinian flags and chants for Palestine’s liberation at protests in support of Gaza as criminal acts.
The media is playing its part, dependably as ever. A Channel 4 TV crew pursued Corbyn through London’s streets this week, demanding he “condemn” Hamas. They insinuated through the framing of those demands that anything less fulsome – such as Corbyn’s additional concerns for the welfare of Gaza’s civilians – was confirmation of the former Labour leader’s antisemitism.
The clear implication from politicians and the establishment media is that any support for Palestinian rights, any demurral from Israel’s “unquestionable right” to commit war crimes, equates to antisemitism.
Europe’s hypocrisy
This double approach, of cheering on genocidal Israeli policies towards Gaza while stifling any dissent, or characterising it as antisemitism, is not confined to the UK.
Across Europe, from the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, to the Eiffel Tower in Paris and the Bulgarian parliament, official buildings have been lit up with the Israeli flag.
Europe’s top official, Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, celebrated the Israeli flag smothering the EU parliament this week.
She has repeatedly stated that “Europe stands with Israel”, even as Israeli war crimes start to mount.
The Israeli air force boasted on Thursday it had dropped some 6,000 bombs on Gaza. At the same time, human rights groups reported Israel was firing the incendiary chemical weapon white phosphorus into Gaza, a war crime when used in urban areas. And Defence for Children International noted that more than 500 Palestinian children had been killed so far by Israeli bombs.
It was left to Francesca Albanese, the UN’s special rapporteur on the occupied territories, to point out that Von Der Leyen was applying the principles of international law entirely inconsistently.
Almost exactly a year ago, the European Commission president denounced Russia’s strikes on civilian infrastructure in Ukraine as war crimes. “Cutting off men, women, children of water, electricity and heating with winter coming – these are acts of pure terror,” she wrote. “And we have to call it as such.”
Albanese noted Von der Leyen had said nothing equivalent about Israel’s even worse attacks on Palestinian infrastructure.
Sending in the heavies
Meanwhile, France has already started breaking up and banning demonstrations against the bombing of Gaza. Its justice minister has echoed Braverman in suggesting solidarity with Palestinians risks offending Jewish communities and should be treated as “hate speech”.
Naturally, Washington is unwavering in its support for whatever Israel decides to do to Gaza, as secretary of state Anthony Blinken made clear during his visit this week.
President Joe Biden has promised weapons and funding, and sent in the military equivalent of “the heavies” to make sure no one disturbs Israel as it carries out those war crimes. An aircraft carrier has been dispatched to the region to ensure quiet from Israel’s neighbours as the ground invasion is launched.
Even those officials whose chief role is to promote international law, such as Antonio Gutteres, secretary general of the UN, have started to move with the shifting ground.
Like most Western officials, he has emphasised Gaza’s “humanitarian needs” above the rules of war Israel is obliged to honour.
This is Israel’s success. The language of international law that should apply to Gaza – of rules and norms Israel must obey – has given way to, at best, the principles of humanitarianism: acts of international charity to patch up the suffering of those whose rights are being systematically trampled on, and those whose lives are being obliterated.
Western officials are more than happy with the direction of travel. Not just for Israel’s sake but for their own too. Because one day in the future, their own populations may be as much trouble to them as Palestinians in Gaza are to Israel right now.
Supporting Israel’s right to defend itself is their downpayment.
October 15, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | European Union, France, Gaza, Hamas, Human rights, Israel, Keir Starmer, Palestine, UK, Zionism |
Leave a comment
It’s all a big ‘conspiracy theory’ that by 2050 we shall be living in mud and grass huts, eating a meat-free diet and giving up most forms of personal transport. Maybe we might not believe it if global elites stopped writing copious reports detailing all these lifestyle changes, which are said to be needed to move to Net Zero. The latest such report comes from the United Nations, which sets out a collectivist global vision of primary building materials consisting of mud bricks, bamboo and forest “detritus”.
According to the UN, the world needs to move to “regenerative material practices” using “ethically produced” low carbon earth and bio-based building materials. Examples include mud bricks, timber, bamboo and agricultural and forest detritus. The report harks back to the middle of the last century when the vast majority of cultures built large buildings and cities out of indigenous earthen, stone and bio-based materials, including timber, cane, thatch and bamboo. Contrasting modern concrete, steel and glass buildings, it observes that “massive mud buildings have been maintained for centuries with their structures intact”.
The UN’s recently published report, ‘Building Materials and the Climate: Constructing a New Future,’ draws on a wide variety of international authors. Heavily involved are Yale University and the Global Alliance for Buildings and Construction, the latter operation drawing financial support from the green activist Laudes Foundation and the British Government. The report is one of a number that have appeared recently that have started to lay out the hard changes that will need to be made in less than 30 years if 80% of the world energy produced by fossil fuel is banned under Net Zero. The construction sector is said to account for 37% of human-caused emissions of gases such as carbon dioxide. Making progress on reducing this will require drastic measures with the report stating that materials such as concrete, steel and aluminium will be used only when “absolutely necessary”.
War on modern building materials has also been declared by U.K. FIRES, an academic collaboration funded with a £5 million state grant. It has called for a ruthless purge of traditional building supplies, to be replaced with materials such as “rammed earth”. In other reports, U.K. FIRES promotes a world with no flying and shipping by 2050, drastic cuts in home heating and bans on beef and lamb consumption. As we have noted in the Daily Sceptic, U.K. FIRES bases its recommendations on the brutal, and many would argue honest reality of Net Zero. It does not assume that technological processes still to be perfected, or even invented, will somehow lead to minimal disturbance in comfortable industrialised lifestyles.
The latest UN report, along with U.K. FIRES, gives a valuable insight into the fantasy thinking surrounding the belief that oil and gas can be removed from industrial society. Clever people can often be very stupid, especially when group-think takes hold and ‘high status’ opinions – in this case surrounding environmentalism – are required to join the club. Net Zero mandates the dismantling of modern industrial society and the discarding of many of the essentials of modern comfortable living. Using flawed, unproven science, these high-status elites have convinced themselves that the climate is collapsing. Those who know their religious history observe doomsday cults emerging in every era, demanding sins should be purged, and human pleasures placed on strict, supervised ration.
It will hardly be a surprise that the UN buildings report is riven with demands for legislative action and the use of other people’s money to enforce its crackpot schemes. Government “incentives, awareness campaigns and legal and regulatory frameworks” are said to have been effective in previous recycling schemes. “Recycling systems for building materials tend to require similar kinds of support across countries,” the report states. It need hardly be noted that “far more investment” is required for measures that ensure cooperation across sectors and borders. Due to the complexity of what is being proposed, “regulation and synergistic enforcement is required across all phases of the building life cycle, from extraction through to end-of-use.”
Needless to say, when re-ordering the lifestyles of eight billion people around the world, it is important to tackle gender bias wherever it is found – in this case, “formal and informal building sectors.” Gender bias is said to be prevalent across the building trade and in emerging economies. Government programmes (quelle surprise) and policies are needed to expand women’s access to new technologies, marketing information and training to sustain their participation on the ground, the report states.
The biggest muddle however arises from the use of sustainable materials, most of which are grown in the ground. That would be the planned agriculture sector that another elite body is busy arguing should be cut back for re-wilding, another group of elite idiots arguing for nitrogen fertiliser to be banned leading to a 50% reduction in crop growth, another bunch of bright sparks demanding more land for bio-fuels and plant-based diets… to be continued.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
October 14, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Timeless or most popular | Human rights, UK, United Nations |
Leave a comment
Well well well
Suddenly out of nowhere the population and politicians of Wales are shocked that a 20mph speed limit has been imposed across much of the country.
In fact it has been in the making for many years, since at least 2010, when the UN’s little-known Economic Commission in Europe (UNECE) held a workshop to ‘raise awareness about the important challenges that climate change impacts and adaptation requirements present for international transport networks . . . The workshop highlighted that while transport is responsible for greenhouse gas emissions it is, at the same time, heavily affected by the impacts of climate change. This workshop demonstrated the urgent need to prepare appropriate policy actions.’
In Wales it has been discussed since at least 2020 with a survey of 1,002 people which has been used to justify the policy.
The report begins: ‘The Welsh Government plans to introduce legislation in 2023 which will reduce the speed limit from 30 mph to 20 mph in residential communities across Wales.’
In July 2021 a public consultation was launched. Just over 6,000 responses were received, with 47 per cent in favour of reducing the speed limit and 53 per cent against it. Feedback from a number of organisations in Wales was submitted, with 22 out of the 25 supporting the proposed reduction in speed limit. Notice the big difference in attitude between the response from individuals and the organisations? What were these organisations? What were the responses for and against given by individuals? We don’t know.
The legislation was voted through in the Welsh Assembly/Senedd in July 2022. A Welsh Government press release trumpeted: ‘Wales becomes the first UK nation to make the move – helping to save lives, develop safer communities, improve the quality of life and encourage more people to make more sustainable and active travel choices.’ https://www.gov.wales/uk-first-welsh-senedd-gives-green-light-20mph-legislation
So were the politicians who now oppose the legislation asleep? Absent? Not paying attention? Not interested? Happy with it until the recent furore and uproar kicked off? My guess is the latter.
But there is more to it than simply the Welsh Assembly/Senedd introducing the policy. The question to ask is ‘Why are Wales and many other countries introducing a policy being pushed by the UN’s World Health Organization backed by various NGOs?’
Yes, the very same WHO trying to push through the pandemic treaties and the very same NGOs behind a lot of the turmoil in recent years. Here is the WHO’s low speed campaign launch.
To be able to see the bigger picture and not the Wales-centric small picture here is a link that show the web between the UNECE (United Nations Economic Council in Europe), the EU and the UK.
There are many, many more documents on the same lines. They explain HS2, SMART motorways, ANPR cameras everywhere, 20 mph speed limits and road pricing, which is mentioned frequently. Like many other policies – 15-minute cities, low traffic neighbourhoods, low emission zones, electric vehicles, renewable energy, man-made global climate change, Covid, to name a few – it’s all one big circle of politicians, civil servants, activists and the media all quoting each other.
Everything seems to be an integral part of the sustainable development and Great Reset agendas.
Surprised?
I’m not any more now I can see the Big Picture and where it leads.
It’s like one big Gordian Knot of intertwined policies that are designed to ensnare and enslave us while proclaiming it will enhance our physical and mental wellbeing, make us safer, happier, healthier and so on and on and on.
Alexander the Great solved his Gordian Knot dilemma – he chopped it in half with a sword. Time for us to do something similar to all these intertwined polices getting closer.
My substack posts on the subjects are here, here and here.
October 14, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Human rights, UK |
Leave a comment
There’s some more footage of the Luton fire, which gives a much clearer idea of just how big and explosive it was:
https://twitter.com/BabylonBulletin/status/1711879370741067949
https://twitter.com/FanHubHatter/status/1712043494598902266
https://twitter.com/omario_omari/status/1711865889295937959
https://twitter.com/CHSandhu886/status/1711875340614644195
It has been claimed by the Fire Service that the fire started on a Range Rover diesel, but experts are dismissive of this.
For instance, AA technical expert Greg Carter said the most common cause of car fires is an electrical fault with the 12-volt battery system. But he added that diesel is “much less flammable” than petrol and in a car it takes “intense pressure or sustained flame” to ignite diesel.
Regardless of the initial cause, it is difficult to see how the fire could have spread so rapidly without EVs being involved. According to Andy Hopkinson of the Bedfordshire Fire Service, within ten minutes, the fire had already spread across a “large number of vehicles and a number of floors”.
Can anyone honestly remember such a fire in a multi-storey car park before?
We should not regard it as a coincidence that Sydney Airport had its own electric car fire in its car park just a month ago:
9news.com
We’ll have to wait for the facts to emerge in due course to find out what caused the fire in the first place.
But the explosions reported, the collapse of the floor and the speed at which the fire spread certainly raise the suspicion that one or more EVs were involved.
Even if not, we do know that a car park full of EVs, which will be the case in a few short years time, would be lethal in the event of a fire.
Just imagine an underground car park beneath a block of flats.
Until the full facts emerge, EVs should be banned immediately from all multi-storey car parks.
October 14, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Timeless or most popular, Video | UK |
Leave a comment
Simple questions, requiring simple answers
As proposed in a previous HART article, state-funded behavioural scientists – via their application of often-covert ‘nudge’ techniques – fulfil a crucial role in imposing the will of a global elite upon ordinary people. Whether it is confining us to our homes, encouraging the ingestion of insects, imposing digital IDs or restricting our opportunities to travel, the nudgers promote the compliance of the masses by a variety of means, including their stealthy harnessing of fear, shaming and peer pressure.
And behavioural scientists are now a prominent occupational grouping within the government infrastructure. The ‘Government Communications Service’ employs more than 7,000 ‘professional communicators’ across the UK, and incorporates a ‘Behavioural Science Team’ (based in the Cabinet Office) with a central goal of embedding behavioural science expertise across the Government Communication profession’. During the covid event, the Cabinet Office granted the Behavioural Insight Team (the original ‘Nudge Unit’) a £4-million contract to furnish the government with ‘frictionless access to behavioural insights to match central priorities’. Recent Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to the Cabinet Office and the Department of Energy Security & Net Zero asking how many behavioural scientists they currently employed were both refused on the grounds that it would take too long to compute the information. Ironically, it seems that taxpayers are generously funding their own manipulation.
A prominent UK behavioural scientist recently acknowledged the impact this intense nudging campaign has had on the British people. In a 2023 interview for the Telegraph, Professor David Halpern (the Founding Director of the Behavioural Insight Team, aka the UK’s Nudge Unit) observed that people are now ‘drilled’ and rightly calibrated to accept further restrictions; ‘once you’ve practised something’ (lockdowns, mask wearing) ‘you can switch it back on … you’ve got the beginnings of a habit loop … we’ve practised the drill’.
HART believes that the general public has a right to be informed about the nature, scale, and intensity of state-sponsored nudging, not least so that they can be furnished with the opportunity to express their opinions about the appropriateness and acceptability of this form of top-down persuasion. Yet, to date, there has been a stark reluctance for any of the behavioural scientists within the government infrastructure to admit responsibility for promoting the fear-inflating messaging witnessed throughout the covid event. Given this lack of transparency in regard to the details of the ongoing behavioural science operation, HART would like to ask the state-employed nudgers the following questions:
1. Do you perceive yourselves as advisors or enablers? Is your primary goal to provide expert guidance to ministers and civil servants, or to maximise the compliance of the masses with Government edicts?
2. Did you conduct your own independent evidence reviews before promoting the implementation of top-down restrictions such as lockdowns and community masking, or do you presume that all recommendations emanating from national and global public health bodies are for the ‘greater good’?
3. Do you recognise the ethical concerns arising from the Government’s deployment of nudges upon their own citizens? How much time do you devote to discussing the morality of using often-covert, distress-inducing methods of persuasion upon ordinary people?
4. If, as you claim, you have never endorsed the use of fear-inflation as a means of promoting compliance, why did you all remain silent throughout the covid event while our Government was ‘scaring the pants’ off us all?
5. Do you recognise, and allow for, the fact that your own ideological biases will be colouring your judgements & actions?
By answering these questions, and thereby filling in some of the information gaps surrounding the Government’s ubiquitous use of nudging, lay people will be better placed to make an informed choice as to whether they want their taxes spent on this often-clandestine activity.
We look forward to receiving responses from the behavioural scientists concerned.
October 12, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Deception | Human rights, UK |
Leave a comment
As a brand new war-narrative unfolds, there’s already efforts underway to parlay the conflict into tighter controls on free speech and freedom of expression, both in person and on the internet.
The headlines have been filled with nothing but Israel and Hamas since the “surprise attack” on Saturday, with the predictable back and forth of historical grievances and accusations of racism, punctuated by unsubstantiated claims of atrocities.
“Atrocity Propaganda” is nothing new. It is the opening salvo of every war as state combatants try to win the public to their side.
For example, the totally unsubstantiated claim that Hamas “threw forty Jewish babies out of their cribs and beheaded them”, which was doing the rounds yesterday. As far as atrocity propaganda goes the claim is startling in its unoriginality (Nayirah anyone?)
There’s a lot of that right now, lurid claims of graphic and pointless violence directed against the innocent, most of which survives just long enough to cause some outrage before being “debunked” or walked-back.
Part of that is the general “fog of war”, heightened by the advent of social media. When a lot of people can talk a lot more is said (good and bad).
But there’s another interpretation: That fake war stories are being intentionally seeded onto social media and then “debunked” to discredit platforms and appear to justify digital censorship.
Within the past twenty-four hours Reuters, NBC, YahooNews, The Guardian and the AP have run stories criticising the proliferation of “fake war news” on social media. Al Jazeera joined in too.
Almost all of those accusations have been directed solely at Twitter/X – increasingly the media’s anti-free speech strawman.
Governments have not been quiet on the issue either, with the European Union reportedly “warning” Elon Musk there would be “penalties” for the spread of war-related “misinformation” on his platform.
It’s not just “misinformation” either, but also “hate”. In an unusually subtle headline, NBCNews warns of the “increasingly fraught nature of online speech”. USA Today is more on the nose, claiming “online hate” is “surging”.
Oh, and there are the “unregulated” sites to worry about, where terrorists allegedly upload violent videos, at least so the New York Times says:
“Hamas Seeds Violent Videos on Sites With Little Moderation”
It’s not hard to see where this leads.
And while “misinformation” is used to justify social media censorship, “safety” is used to justify shutting down freedom of assembly.
In the UK and US pro-Palestinian rallies were met with calls for the police to get involved, citing laws that outlaw the public support of “listed terrorist organizations”.
UK Home Secretary Suella Braverman has told the police that waving a Palestinian flag could be considered a crime. Metropolitan police are engaging in “reassurance patrols”.
In France the police are already more directly involved, shutting down a pro-Palestine demonstration.
… and people applauded.
Many of them the same voices who railed against tyranny in defending the Canadian truckers or anti-lockdown protests. It is disheartening to see.
In short, the “war” is four days old and is already being used to suppress dissent on the streets and argue against free-speech on the internet.
However the war narrative evolves over there, over here it’s just more of the same.
October 11, 2023
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Solidarity and Activism | France, UK, United States, Zionism |
Leave a comment
Aletho News 