Last night – at the insistence of the SNP – the House Of Commons held a six-hour emergency debate in the wake of the UK’s unquestionably illegal bombing of Syria at the weekend, under the supposed justification of a chemical attack that may well not have happened at all, far less have been the responsibility of the unfortunate country’s murderous dictator Bashar al-Assad.
(Loony left-wing conspiracy theorists casting doubt on Assad’s responsibility for what happened – or didn’t happen – in Douma include, er, Major General Jonathan Shaw, the former head of the UK’s special forces, and Admiral Lord West, the former First Sea Lord under Tony Blair and Minister For Security And Counter-Terrorism in Gordon Brown’s government.)
The debate concluded with a token vote, not on whether the bombing was right or wrong but which merely asserted whether Parliament had “considered” the subject. (ie voting that it had NOT done so would have made a statement that the Prime Minister acted improperly by committing UK forces to a conflict without obtaining MPs’ assent.)
Faced with the opportunity to issue a symbolic public rebuke to the government for bypassing Parliament on a matter of war and breaking international law, the radical socialist opposition Labour Party of Jeremy Corbyn… abstained.
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Tags: the abstainers
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comment, uk politics, world
A large and imposing statue built in 1974 still stands today on Clyde Street in Glasgow. It depicts a woman called Dolores Ibarruri, known as “La Pasionaria”, who was one of the heroes of the anti-fascist resistance in Spain in the 1930s.
The statue was funded by “the British Labour Movement”, but Conservative councillors in the city protested angrily when it was erected and vowed to tear it down if they ever controlled the council (which cynical readers might consider an empty threat).
How times change. Read the rest of this entry →
Tags: hypocrisy
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analysis, europe, idiots, scottish politics, world
What you’re missing:
That’s a single year’s profits. For a bit of perspective, it’s about four times the Scottish Government’s entire annual budget. Thank goodness we’ve had Westminster to manage our resources for us all this time, eh?
Category
comment, world
We thought it might be worth going through this in a bit more detail.
The phrase “out of control” is in quote marks in the Herald’s front-page headline, leading readers to believe someone has said it, but who? Let’s investigate.
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Tags: flat-out lies
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investigation, media, scottish politics, world
The past week saw the return to the public eye of the former Independent columnist Johann Hari, who vanished in disgrace a few years ago in a plagiarism scandal over claiming to have done things that he hadn’t.
It also saw the return of ubiquitous Scottish politics scribe David Torrance from a trip to San Francisco, the details of which he shared at stultifying length with the unfortunate readers of The Scottish Review.
Or at least, what he SAID were the details of where he SAID he’d been.
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Tags: and finally
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comment, idiots, media, world
Now remember, small oil-rich countries bordering the North Sea, there’s just no way you can thrive on your own.
After all, would this guy lie to you? He’s from the fair and unbiased media!
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Tags: from the archivestoo wee too poor too stupid
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comment, history, media, scottish politics, world
An alert reader this weekend linked us to a 1963 speech by the famed American civil rights and racial equality campaigner Malcolm X.
We’d never heard of it before, which is probably to our shame, but as we read it we were overcome by an inexplicable sense of incredible familiarity.
We present it to you below for your interest, without further comment or editing, but we’ve included a few pictures just to break up the block of text.
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culture, history, scottish politics, world
