Questions Of The Day (Politics)

[Mick Harper]

In the wake of the local election débâcle, everyone and his dog (often dogs) is questioning Rishi Sunak's future. This is ridiculous. Nobody in the Tory Party wants to get rid of him, though some of them are hankering noisily for Trussian tax cuts.

The person whose future everybody is questioning is Keir Starmer's, the entire Labour party wants rid of him. Including Keir Starmer who has been quietly consulting the Appointments Committee about how long he would have to wait before he could have his old job back, deciding not to prosecute people because of the colour of their skin. (Not really, I made that up.)

[Mick Harper]

Those rascally republicans at Anfield sang God Save The Queen.

[Mick Harper]

Fascinating day-after-the-Coronation reactions today (as seen by Channel 4 News).

1. The protests against it were the news. Not just leading the news but filling most of the forty-minutes. This is pretty extraordinary when you consider the ratio of protesters to non-protesters.

2. None of the protests were anything to do with the Coronation. If it had been sponsored by BP or if Charles was an eminent anti-greenie, then maybe the save-the-planet ensemble would have had a justification for their presence. As it was, they were just piggy-backing on it (which is fine too but they can't complain if they are treated as opportunist scumbags who should be strung up along the Mall as an example to others). The actual anti-coronation folk were left in peace to wave their placards in the traditional way, as stipulated by Magna Carta.

3. Did the police overreact? Of course they did, that's what we pay them for. Egregiously? Well, the problem here (and will be for evermore) is that protesters have found ways of bringing life to an interminable halt and when it's an event in which a single marble thrown under a horse's hoof or a single protester supergluing herself to a manhole cover can bring several thousand million people worldwide to an interminable halt, I'd give the fuzz powers to detain a few people for a few hours.

But watch it. We're watching you.

[Mick Harper]

The jury was in for Trump vs A N Other and it was... er... not guilty but... er... five million dollars to the plaintiff. In the reporting of the case the following terms were used interchangeably: sexual misconduct, sexual abuse, sexual assault and rape. Since Trump was not present in court and even in America you're expected to be in court if you're charged with either sexual assault or rape, be ye ever so mighty, we can safely conclude this was a money-making exercise rather than a justice-seeking one. Since A N Other was a writer, I'm all for that.

Being a writer, I can tell you exactly what happened. A struggling wordsmith encountered a famous billionaire in a departmental store. They had a bit of nookie on account of that's what star-struck young women often do and it might not hurt on the writing side either. It prolly went further than she ideally would have wanted on account of billionaires tending to be bulldozing arseholes who know, at worst, they might have to spend a few million dollars squaring it.

[Mick Harper]

I thought it a bid odd that President Putin, when handing out encomiums at the parade commemorating victory over Germany, didn't mention Ukraine, shoulder to shoulder with Russia in that mighty achievement.

[Grant]

When this rape was said to have happened, E Jean Carroll was 51.
Trump is three years older.

I suppose if you hate Trump as much as the average Democrat does, you can believe he is a rapist, but would he really stoop so low as to rape a woman of that age? It's against his own conception of himself as a super stud.

Also Carroll has form in making dubious allegations. A media executive called Les Moonves was accused of sexually assaulting his staff. She then remembered he touched her up in a lift after she interviewed him. She was in her late fifties by then.

Two cases here, both very similar. Wealthy and famous men accused of various sexual assaults. Carroll then "remembers" that they had assaulted her too - and profits from it by writing about it.

As usual, the truth is boring.

[Mick Harper]

I would say it is even more boring. She's quite well-preserved even now so in my judgment Moonves probably did 'touch her up a bit in a lift', just as Trump probably did 'touch her up a bit in a fitting room at Sachs-Coburg'. It is the degree of consent and whether such (relative) trivialities are worth reviving years later and costing the perpetrators so dear, that is at issue.

[Wile E. Coyote]

[Mick Harper]

The Russians may be implicated in the most important world event due to take place in the next few days, the Turkish presidential election. There appears to be a decisive majority against Erdogan but with three opponents he may squeak through on a split vote and (as happened last time) a coupla million phoney ballots stuffed in ballot boxes.

Now one of the opponents has withdrawn, thus increasing the chances of Erdogan being toppled, citing a smear campaign launched over the blogger sphere implicating him in various -- it would seem, accurately recorded -- embarrassing situations. This is hardly likely to have been the work of the usual suspects (Erdogan) and the candidate has blamed the Russians, though they are quite chummy with Erdogan.

The real problem -- I predict, Al-Jazeera was silent on the point -- is that having the name of a candidate not running on the list, not to mention that postal votes have already been cast, will allow Erdogan to declare an unfavourable outcome null and void. The Electoral Court is firmly on his side -- it was they who announced at the last minute that ballot papers need not have an authenticating mark which resulted in the favourable outcome last time. And which led EU observers to reject that election as being invalid. Not that that had the slightest effect on man or beast. Not least themselves.

So it may have been Erdogan all along.

[Mick Harper]

By the way, AE recommends voting for Erdogan. Repeated experience of these things demonstrates conclusively that it is better to allow strong men to depart by senility, death or military coup than via popular uprisings (of which the ballot box is but one example) while they are still relatively hale-and-hearty.

[Mick Harper]

(More) Rum Goings-on in South Africa

The Americans have upbraided the South Africans for sending arms to Russia [pic of ship provided] despite being officially non-aligned on the Ukraine War. Or, looking at it in another way, they are a member of BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa). Ramaphosa stalled, requesting specific intelligence on the matter from the US, who declined to provide it on the not unreasonable grounds that it might go straight off to the Russians.

"Besides, Ramphs, you must know if you're selling arms to Russia or not."
"Not necessarily. You know what I'm like. You know what South Africa's like."
"So what are you intending to do about it?"
"I'm going to appoint a committee to look into it."
"Gee thanks, Mr President."
"No sweat, Mr President."

[Wile E. Coyote]

I doubt the South Africans are sending arms to Russia. It's the other way round.

[Mick Harper]

The latest Sudan ceasefire is eerily familiar. To universal praise and relief, the two sides have entered into talks in, and thanks to the good offices of, Saudi Arabia. After several rounds of tortured sit-downs, the combatants have agreed not to target civilians, not to impede those trying to get out, allowing people to do a bit of shopping and so forth.

In other words exactly what they've been doing all along except that in the chaotic conditions that prevail in Sudan it is not always possible to guarantee that word will reach local commanders in each and every particular. It's what we military-cum-political experts call 'a civil war'.

[Mick Harper]

A critical moment

Channel 4 News, a staunch supporter of strikers, announced the RMT had brought the rail network to a standstill, using the formula, "Here we go again." The reporter, standing in front of the obligatory backdrop of a deserted King's Cross station, started to explain the strike in detail for the first time. Making it quite clear that it was no longer about money, no longer about guardless trains, but about whether bargaining was to be national or local in future.

In other words whether the RMT could use its network muscle to win national increases for each franchise's workforce, whether justified or not. Without that the RMT is just another union, the railwaymen just another bunch of workers.

But that's not important. It is Channel 4 News deserting a sinking ship that's the big news. It now only remains to see whether the RMT reads the runes correctly and makes a quick settlement or is determined to provoke the government into passing draconian anti-union legislation. With the Arthur Scargill-lite Mick Lynch calling the shots, my money's on the latter.

[Mick Harper]

We soon got an eye-witness account as to the the reality of the Sudan 'peace deal'. Our man in Khartoum told us she had just witnessed a Government airstrike on a crowded area of the city fairly close to the Rebel stonghold and them replying with artillery rounds in the general direction of... since they couldn't hit the planes... she could not say.