August 2005

Welcome back. I had a great weekend, because I got to spend a couple of days with my daughters, but it ended pretty horribly.

I’m not a political reporter as my regulars will attest, I just write what I feel and of course, my feelings are not always shared by others. I noted with a grin a comment asking me not to swear so much. I found that amusing.

So, what has the Met Chief been saying about the carnival? Or should we call it Operation SaveArse?

Sir Ian said: “The community has been very much behind the Metropolitan Police after the events of 7 and 21 July and I think this is a very good example of that.

“I am really sending out the same message to the terrorists as I have been all along which is that London will endure and prevail and it will continue to endure and prevail.”

(Find the original BBC story here.

Does this weeble moron actually think the people who went to the carnival were there to give the police moral support? And as for the message he claims to have been sending out, there are a couple of things that need to be said.

First, the only message you’ve been sending out Sir Ian, is that you can conduct ritual executions of ordinary citizens with impunity and not only get away with it, but have a large proportion of the populace back you on the principle of “shoot-to-kill-to-protect” in toto. That’s right, a lot of people would gladly be executed by statzpolizei for their liberty. I’ve heard of dying for freedom, but this is ridiculous.

Second, the whole “Blitz spirit” thing is utterly inappropriate. What kind of a city would we have if 7 million people couldn’t function after the death of 50? It’s an insult to the people of Basra, Falluja, Baghdad, Belfast and yes, New York and Tel Aviv, to compare our suffering with theirs. I say this without ruling out the possibility that the same people are responsible for all of the “terrorist incidents” in all of the cities in all cases above. And I say this whilst utterly condeming terrorism of all kinds, but especially the kind executed by the state, and with the masque of hypocrisy stitched onto a two-sided face with multiple forking tongue.

It’s despicable that a liar like Sir Ian can use the jingoism bullshit to try and bolster support for his flagging reign. It’s a shame, because it’s quite possible the guy is essentially decent, but has been dragged into an unholy mess not entirey of his own making. There’s good reason now to suspect that the police weren’t entirely responsible for the cold-blooded execution of Jean Charles de Menezes. In which case, why isn’t there a full public enquiry that looks into the role of all the people involved? Is it possbile that the leaks were deliberate, in order to placate those who were getting a sniff of what might have been the real story? Another smoke-screen on top of a storm of smoke-screens? When there is so little truth, one starts to look at really extreme ideas. Remember Holme’s maxim:

If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how unlikely, must be the truth.

We’d do well to remember that when we are floundering looking for a “reasonable” explanation and none exists.

An IPCC investigation is restricted to investigating the police only. It’s a nice little diversion. The group that executed Jean Charles de Menezes wasn’t entirely police it seems and so the IPCC remit is not broad enough. This will all be lost by the time the results come out, possibly around Christmas when everyone will have long since stopped giving a damn about that poor man’s family and his right to liberty, so disgracefully snatched away. His memory is besmirched by the derisory blood-money offer of £15,000 made by the police and by the fickleness of the public, so quick to reject a fellow Londoner, their loyalty and real Blitz spirit so sadly lacking.

Don’t the values of freedom and accountability mean anything anymore? Don’t our leaders have values? Or have they all become weebles?

“And I am concerned that those in the media and elsewhere who are trying to cynically exploit the aftermath of the bombings to witch-hunt and attack legitimate mainstream Muslims in this country on issues like the Middle East are only helping the terrorists.”

You might be a bit opinionated, daft and inconsistent, but hey, so am I. And when you say things like this Ken, you make me smile.

An 11-month-old baby was treated in hospital after being punched in the face by a youth in a Teesside street.
Yasmin Ali was walking with her baby, Sarah, in a pushchair along Borough Road, Middlesbrough, on Wednesday night when they were approached by a youth.
The youth, who appeared to be drunk or under the influence of drugs, tried to snatch the baby from the pushchair and then punched her twice in the face.
He is described as white, aged 14 to 16, 5ft 7in, thin, with slight stubble and was wearing a grey Adidas tracksuit with white stripes down the sleeves.
Det Con Sonja Whittingham, from Cleveland Police, said: “For some unknown reason he decided he wanted the baby and said it was his baby.

And then another item also today…

Alcohol may soon be sold around the clock at supermarkets under the changes to the UK’s licensing laws which come into force in November.
The big three supermarkets - Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s - have applied for 24-hour licences at a combined total of 435 outlets.

These must be the “freedoms” those pesky “terrorists” like the anti-war people hate so much, right?

This is just the latest, but hopefully, the nadir of what drink and drugs does to people, and what people in this country do when they have drink and drugs. Seemingly reasonable people actually think binge drinking is fun. They should see themselves. If people called binge drinkers “addicts” and “alcoholics”, their proper names, we might be able to start dealing with the problem. What I don’t understand is why this culture is unique to this country. The French certainly don’t feel the need to drink themselves to death. Maybe it’s the weather. It’s been so crap even I’ve thought about getting plastered to get away from it. Perhaps I should just go to France for a weekend. It’d probably piss down there too.

Anyway, this boy, they should catch him and deport him. They should also deport that fucking cunt with his 99 mates who Mr. MangoWala pointed out had beaten up a couple of Pakistani lads. They must have felt as brave as a suicide bomber. Shame those 99 didn’t kill themselves…

Charles Clarke has had a fortnight to come up with this, a list of grounds for deporting people who foment, justify or glorify terrorist violence. I’ve picked out some of the choice ones.

New grounds for deporting and excluding people from the UK - including fostering hatred or, advocating and justifying violence to further beliefs. The powers will cover statements already on record.

These grounds would deport/exclude parliament, the media, the police and of course the BNP, who have been fostering hatred for ages, killed a load of people and seemingly got away with it scot free. As for Tony Blair, well, forget it. He’s going somewhere really nasty. And it ain’t Barbados sunshine.

Agreements with other countries, such as Jordan, to ensure people can be deported to their nations of origin without being tortured or ill-treated

Oh, that’s really humane. Like sending Chilean political dissidents back to Pinochet all those years back. We let him in here remember? And we looked after him and let him leave freely then.

Amend human rights laws, if necessary, to prevent legal obstacles to new deportation rules

Amend human rights laws? So we can become more, or less humane?

Home secretary automatically to consider deporting any foreigner involved in listed extremist bookshops, centres, organisations and websites

So we will consider deporting Jews, Christians, Hindus and oh, no, we can’t deport the BNP. This one is just about pakis, arabs, niggers, basically, people who aren’t white. And for mentioning Jews, I am automatically a Nazi and Freedman and all the other fuckos in media will want me deported too.

Make justifying or glorifying terrorism anywhere an offence

That’s right. Rule out any discussion. End debate. Nobody can discuss what’s wrong. The time for talk is over. This is a declaration of war by our government on free speech. Because by saying “We should get out of Iraq because we’re there illegally and it isn’t our country”, I am justifying terrorism, right?

Automatically refuse asylum to anyone with anything to do with terrorism anywhere

That means George W. Bush and Ariel Sharon will never be able to set foot in this country again. I’m ok with that.

Consult on setting a maximum time limit for extraditions to other countries - Tony Blair has said it was unacceptable that Rashid Ramda, wanted for the Paris Metro bombing 10 years ago, was still in the UK

This is fair enough actually. It’s not like France are going to torture this guy, so if he’s wanted, we’re in the EU, send him over without delay.

Examine calls for police to be able to hold terror suspects for longer before pressing charges

Whoa. You mean like Belmarsh? Accuse anyone of terror and that’s it, you can hold them for as long as you like? What, until the police beat a confession out of you? Because that is what their record is all about. Killing people who are not white in custody and pretending they choked on their own broken ribs or something?

Use more control orders against British terror suspects, who cannot be deported

I’m sure the law-lords will tear anyone a new arsehole trying this one again. In all of this, the law-lords have actually been quite good. And so has Cherie Blair, despite her singing, but oh yes, she’s a QC. Still some decent people in authority you know.

Increase the number of special judges hearing terror cases

As long as they’re not government lackeys. What does “special judges” mean anyway?

HIZB UT TAHRIR
Hizb ut Tahrir or HT is an Islamic splinter group, which is banned in some countries, including Germany
It was established in the Middle East in the 1950s with the aim of creating a single Islamic state ruled by Sharia law
A statement posted after last month’s G8 summit said the “colonialists, especially America and Britain, harbour a hidden hatred against Islam and the Muslims”

A lot of people have got the wrong end of the stick about this group. They make anti-semitic statements, true. They’re naive at times, true. But we allow people like that in this country already, and they’re called the BNP. Some of their views might be offensive, but that’s no reason for us to turn into everything we accuse other more repressive regimes of. If they’re full of shit, let the people judge. Or are the government now saying that people are no longer fit to run their own lives, form their own opinions? I thought so!

Already announced were plans to ban the Hizb ut Tahrir and the successor organisation of Al-Muhajiroun - and look at whether the grounds for banning such groups need to be widened

The latter organisation was daft, small, insignificant and banning it was fair enough in my book. The former is a perfectly legit organisation that is actually opposed to violence. They have been woefully misrepresented because they have been naive and silly, but there is a lot more about them than the media have suggested. I wouldn’t necessarily join them, far from it, but I respect their right to speak. That’s what Britain is about, surely?

Review the threshold for gaining British citizenship and establish, with the Muslim community, a commission to advise how to better integrate parts of the community “presently inadequately integrated”

I totally agree with this. I’m sick of the ghettos myself. We’re in England, fucking well make the effort to speak the language.

Create a list of foreign preachers who will be kept out of the UK and consult on creating new powers to close places of worship used to foment extremism

The former is ridiculous. The Americans have done this with their no-fly lists and other such nonsense. They end up excluding children and Ted Kennedy. Now, Tariq Ramadhan was demonised by the British media and is yet one of the most eloquent voices who can help bridge the gap between Islam and the West. The future can be made better by people of his calibre. As for closing places of worship used to forment extremism, who decides this? And perhaps you should close down the BNP?

Charles Clarke, who as part of his job as Home Secretary, decided that the best thing to do in response to the biggest incident the mainland has suffered since World War 2 was to take a holiday, said this today:

“Individuals who seek to create fear, distrust and division in order to stir up terrorist activity will not be tolerated by the government or by our communities”

That’s right. So does that mean that Tony Blair, Sir Ian Blair, all of the media and you, Mr Clarke, will get deported now? I’m hoping it will be to a country where you’ve got a handshake agreement on “no torture” and see how long you last, with dogs biting your balls in some Jordainian or Algerian CIA-run torture chamber.

The four terrorists who killed 56 people in London on July 7 triggered the bombs themselves by pressing a device similar to a button, senior police sources have told the Guardian.

Senior police sources? You’re having a laugh if you expect anyone to believe any shit you ever spout again. How convenient that after a few days of utter buggery at the hands of the hypocritical media, you chuck out this nugget in the hope of some redemption.

Were these the same senior police sources who have twice admitted the bombings were very likely not “suicide bombings”?

Former anti-terrorism squad bomb expert Tony Dedman said: “It could be a positive push switch, where you push it and the bomb explodes, or a dead man’s switch where you push it in and it won’t go off until you release it.”

“Could be”? You mean you don’t know? Of course you don’t. You’re just putting more pictures into the minds of the gullible public. They can deduce their own story from the facts like they did after you lied your way through the weeks that followed your murder of Jean Charles de Menezes.

“There were no mobile phone timers on the seventh,” one source said. “They were manually activated”.

Right, there were no mobile phone timers because in all likelihood, there were no suicide bombers. Remember, unlike any other “Muslim”-”suicide bomber”, no note or video or tape was left and nobody heard “Allahu-Akbar”. Releasing this pathetic nugget still doesn’t address all of the obvious anomalies - like the fact that there are no witnesses who can tell us who blew themselves up. The only statement we have is from that plant who lied about some guy messing with a rucksack when we have shown that story was not credible.

In the failed attacks on July 21, where the bombs were recovered largely intact, the devices were also to be “manually activated”, the sources said.

Well of course they’d say that. They’ll clutch at the thinnest straws to try and link the two events. Funny, the headlines shift from “attempted suicide bombings” to “failed attacks”. Any moron can tell the two events weren’t linked. No doubt the newspapers will pick up on their own stupidity after they’ve milked the story for all they can.

More smoke, mirrors and arse-covering from an organisation that executes people, destroys evidence and lies, lies and lies again.

What is now old news is that London is the most CCTVd city in the world, with millions of camera watching and recording everything we do. Despite our worst fears, not all of these cameras are watched 24/7 by the government. There is no transmission to a central source. Many are dummies, in that they don’t have any film in them. However, many are reporting to centralised authority of one form or another. Sufficient certainly to cover most buses (including the number 30 that was blown up in Tavistock Square) pretty much all of the tube stations and just about every street in central London.

Here’s the interesting thing that demands the full rigour of a public enquiry:

If we are speeding and get caught by a camera with film in it, that’s it. We are identified and we pay. Why is it that GATSOs work, Crimewatch works, but that:

1. All of the tapes taken away by the police from Stockwell Station from fully functioning cameras which otherwise have worked to deter muggings and robberies, were returned wiped. It’s hard to wipe tape. It can only be done properly through deliberate action. Ergo, the police wiped the tape. The paper headlines screamed “SHOOT ALL BOMBERS”. Why don’t they now say “PIGS WIPE MURDER TAPES TO SAVE BACON”
2. There is no real investigation into 7/7. The evidence sites (tube stations) are all back in operation. Men have been framed. Trial by media has been posthumously conducted. Where is the footage? Has that all been wiped too? Remember. We have conclusively shown in these blogs (fuck the press, they’re playing catch-up with us bloggers now and look fucking daft with their journalistic strides around their ankle and shit pouring out of their typewriters) that the police have lied, the government has lied and the media has lied. You don’t trust a liar. In court, if a witness is guilty of perjury, their entire testimony is thrown out.
3. Funny how the only real CCTV pictures we have seen has been of the 21/7 pretend bombings where nothing was bombed and nobody was hurt. These people have now been caught. Convenient huh?

Tapes don’t get wiped by themselves. The police wiped the tapes. They are therefore covering something very, very smelly up. The police are not in the habit of such wholesale, flagrant and utterly blatant evidence tampering. Sure they’ve done it before, but never on such a large scale with so many bewildered (frightened?) people seemingly apathetic in the media and the public at large. What the Met have done is probably under orders. I doubt there is a police-wide conspiracy. I do believe that people in power now realise that they can lie with impnity to the public and nobody will give a flying fuck. We have learned a lot from George W. Bush who got re-elected in one of the great American nation’s dumbest decisions.

We are now in grave danger, because we accept that we are being lied to. Our leaders and press know this. It is all a facade. Truth has not just been buried, it has been systematically erased by any number of machiavellian methods.

When the British population wakes up to the fact that it has been had, we are not going to be happy, but what if our slumber is now a coma?

From The Independent this morning:

Meanwhile, it was claimed yesterday that CCTV tapes depicting Mr de Menezes’ last moments were handed out to police but returned blank.

Tube Lines, the company which runs Stockwell station, said it had not been aware of any faults on its cameras on 22 July.

The Mail on Sunday quoted a senior transport union official as saying: ” After the incident, the police took the tapes away. When they brought them back three or four days later, they said, ‘These are no good to us. They’re blank.’”

This whole thing is a cluster-fuck of biblical proportions. Every day the official story changes. Something is seriously, seriously fucked up. The police destroying evidence? What do we call this, Stockwellgate? The “officers” (read “murderers”) are on holiday and won’t report to the IPCC for another week or two, if at all. The results of the enquiry won’t be revealed for another three years. In the meantime, nobody is asking the real questions from 7/7 and most of the country pretends that the minority who are asking, are conspiracy theorists, traitors or just lunatics.

I say the small minority are the ones who are the most British. I say we are more British than the Daily Telegraph. I say we are more British than Tony Blair. I say we are more British than Sir Ian Blair. We hold the values of truth, justice and liberty higher than any of these duplicitous, nefarious, treacherous cunts.

The Met chief, the Home Secretary and the Prime Minister must all tender their resignations immediately. They are destroying our country by appealing to the basest whims of the populace and taking advantage of the loyalty and devotion to the flag of the majority of the country, including the larger Muslim population.

In the old days, heads would roll for far less than this. Think about it:

1. The Prime Minister took us to war over a bunch of lies. Facing (or possible instigating) the biggest challenge to this country since World War 2, he decided against all advice against any public enquiry over the events of July 7th 2005. But he still has a job
2. The Home Secretary took a holiday during the biggest crisis this country has faced since World War 2, and let a knave and a liar like Sir Ian Blair run the show in his absence. But he still has a job
3. The Met Chief lied, lied and lied again about a cold-blooded, public state execution. There is ample evidence for a cover-up. But he still has a job

Where is our decency? Where is our integrity? Where is our sense of fair-play? These, and not the jingoistic and arbitrary set of values proposed by The Telegraph define us. It is frankly, racist of The Telegraph to call the Western world the “Anglosphere”. And the values of decency, integrity and fair-play extend further than to a nation that has no identity right now and is still struggling to define it, but they would be a good start. These are the values that my father taught me represented this country. Ones he was proud of and I was too. And now while many of my peers look at me and my kind with suspicion, I wonder if they notice that we hold these values nearer and dearer than they do. Blind loyalty to a leader and a system is ugly and stupid. Its values we should bind ourselves to, pledge allegiance to.

• If demanding decency, integrity and fair-play from my government makes me a traitor, then so be it.
• If asking for the truth instead of blithely ingesting shit on a daily basis from our jingoistic press makes me a conspiracy theorist, then so be it.
• If expecting transparency, accountability and fairness from our police makes me a terrorist, then so be it.

My Chief of Police lied, murdered and was stupid. One out of three means a sacking. By all accounts, he should be hung out to dry.

My Prime Minister lied, lied and lied. His unimpeachable falsehood and immutable hubris have cause the deaths of the finest soldiers in the world as well as my fellow Muslims. Not many people see the soldiers as the victims of an uneccesary war, perhaps more should. They are paid to die, sure, but they are not paid to die for the hubris of a self-serving, imbecilic, glory-seeking cunt who I’m sorry to say, has stained the image of the office occupied by true greats like Churchill and Thatcher who took their positions and the lives of their soldiers, very seriously indeed.

And my Home Secretary? Well, a man who takes a holiday at a time like this is not even worthy of contempt. He’s the motherfucker that needs to get stripped of citizenship and deported. To Antartctica. Naked.

If we can’t expect decency, integrity and fair-play from our leaders, then what kind of a nation have we allowed ourselves to become?

A combination of a heavy cold, some extra time with my wonderful daughters and what felt very much like another mini-stroke last week have conspired to limit my posts recently.

It got me thinking about those macho Lem-Sip adverts that seem so 80s in their outlook. “Yeah, I’m a man, I took one of these Lem-Sip pouches and now I can conquer the world”. In Japan, the culture of working until you quite literally, drop dead, is called karoshi. Closer to home, Sid Watkins, a paediatrician, self-adminstered anaesthetic in an attempt to cope with his 100-hour-a-week workload. This begs the question of course, why was he taking anaesthetic, doesn’t that put you to sleep? Perhaps he should have tried Lemsip Max Strength.

To many of you, the hard work culture is no surprise and you don’t need me to tell you how hard you work. You’re the one reading this from your desk when everyone else has gone home. It’s just an unpleasant fact of life that we work so hard in the UK. We just blithely assume that it’s like this everywhere. It isn’t. Granted, an Indonesian teenager would think we live a relatively easy life. Hard to imagine that people have it tougher than us, right?

I won’t go into the arguments here about why working too hard actually accomplishes nothing. That’s for another day and something I used to go into at great length years ago. What I will say is that all this Lemsip crap drives me nuts. If you’re ill, you’re meant to go to a pharmacist, get some drugs and get on with it. Now I’m all for working hard, been there done that for 20 years. I’m also all for putting work before family when it counts. I did that for 20 years too and it’s just one of the reasons why I’m now divorced. (Though the major factor in that was still that my ex was a …..) I’m also for working through illness. Been there, done that, got the operation scars, brain damage and scarred retinas to prove that too. But there’s a time and place for all that - the 1980s.

So seriously, what next?

“Hey John, you sound shit!”
“Brian, it’s this cancer thing, it’s kind of dragging me down”
“No worries, try this” (Brian, John’s boss, hands him a small sachet, John raises his eyebrows and exclaims)
“Hmmm! Chem-Sip! Restores flagging work drive and burns you out at work before the cancer kills you? Looks great! Says it’s faster than chemo, at curing and killing you! Great!”

Fast forward to another day, John is bald, albino white and has lost half his body-weight, and wears the smile of a skeleton
“How’s that report coming along John?”
“It’s on your desk Brian, thanks to Chem-Sip.” (John taps the box twice to accentuate the “Chem-Sip”)
Cut to Chem-Sip box. End

Taking work too seriously is ridiculous. Life is far too important. Work hard. Be ethical. Pay your dues, but no more. The Work Ethic is noble. But don’t kill yourself. Have you ever tried doing a day of work from beyond the grave?