The Taliban anthem

Afghanistan will never be the same again. "The escape has made a mockery of the national security forces barely three months before NATO troops are due to hand over control of several parts of the country. Inside help is almost certainly to blame".

COMMENT: "GENIUS" THREAD

This can't possibly be true

The [Wikileaks] files help to explain American anger towards the British authorities, who have been regularly accused of failing to tackle radicalisation in this country. They show how Muslim men travelled to European countries such as France, from where they obtained fake EU passports. They then crossed the channel to take advantage of Britain's generous asylum system.

Extremist preachers radicalised the men at London mosques, showing them videos of atrocities committed against Muslims in Bosnia and Chechnya. According to one document, Finsbury Park mosque was "a key transit facility for the movement of North African and other extremists in London to and from al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan".

All this, of course, we find completely implausible. After all, as we observed five years ago, the police act with perfect impartiality and absolute efficiency. The idea that Britain is a haven for Muslim terrorists, who are attracted by the over-generous benefits, is absurd. In any case, as sure as this happens, our politicians would never allow this to happen. They would stop any abuse immediately.

COMMENT THREAD

Global warming is real

Truly, honestly, Guv! Would I lie to you?

The pic was taken in 1926! The original caption read: "30 degree heat! The Office in the water! A businessman has fled as a result of the intense heat in the water with his secretary and dictated his letters there".

COMMENT THREAD

Oh! The genius of it all!

Just when you thought your admiration for the superb conduct of the military operation in Afghanistan could not get any higher, we learn that the coalition boys and goils are now heavily engaged in a massive new operation – to hunt down nearly 500 Taliban prisoners who have escaped from the main jail in Kandahar.

If we are to believe what we are told – always a bit dodgy, that – the prisoners dug a 1,000ft tunnel, taking five months to do it, and no one actually noticed. Nor did anyone notice anything amiss while the entire political wing of the prison emptied of inmates in an operation lasting four and a half hours, the escapees being ferried off to "secure destinations" by a fleet of cars the Taliban had organised – which no one noticed either.

With such military genius at the helm of coalition operations, it can only be a matter of time before our heroic boys and goils can pat themselves on their backs for a "job well done", jump on a passing Ryanair Jet (following the abolition of the RAF), and come toddling off home for a round of victory parades and street parties – as long as they've done the health 'n' safety training to manage the street closures.

With a bit of luck, they'll be home just in time to take over the prisons here, after the warders have gone on strike, hopefully with slightly better results – although the usual policy now is to open the doors and give the inmates welfare cheques, to save them the trouble of doing any honest digging.

In the meantime, we await news from the Swiss border, as guards have been instructed to be on the lookout for motorcycle riders acting in an unusual fashion.

COMMENT THREAD

Questions on Bristol

In contrast to the lacklustre reporting from The Sunday Times, we are seeing The Independent take the issue seriously.

Kerry McCarthy, the MP for Bristol East, is cited, saying: "What I can't understand is why, if the police wanted to arrest four people, they need dogs and more than 10 riot vans? If you come in with such a show of strength into a peaceful area of Bristol where the majority of people were sitting on the road with bongos and bicycles, of course it's going to spark antagonism.

"It would be interesting to see exactly what intelligence the police were acting upon that required such a fierce response. I have met with the chief constable and voiced my concerns."

Sam Barnard, 21, a student who was in Stokes Croft during the riots, said: "The police handling of the situation was overly aggressive and totally unclear. Police made the case of petrol bombs in a bid to evict the squatters but no one has been charged, and we are yet to see any evidence that petrol bombs even existed."

Predictably, Stephen Pollard in The Daily Telegraph, is pathetic. Long on rhetoric and short on facts, this is the MSM at its worst: idle, vapid and superficial – a total waste of space.

What is interesting here, though, is the gullibility of the readers on the comment thread. Pollard just has to do his "man-in-pub" routine and they all pile in, without the first thought as to whether the underlying premise is correct. One is reminded of the Grand Old Duke of York. How easy it is to march the sheeple up to the top of the hill and down again.

And therein is an illustration of the problem. The riot was only marginally about the Tesco supermarket, but the  narrative is now focused on that issue, to the exclusion of others. Only rarely does one see the slightest trace of scepticism or any attempt to break away from the pre-defined agenda. Thus can the "crowd" be manipulated, coralled, constrained - led down a particualar path and steered clear of territory where thought and analysis is not wanted. 

The exercise demonstrates how it is that politicians can prosper - they lead, they define the agenda and people are only too happy to follow. Far too many of them believe exactly what they are told, without question.They think what they are told to think and do not stray outside their pre-set boundaries.

The sheeple will inherit the earth. They are the masses, the majority, the ones who will lead us via the ballot boxes to the sunlit uplands - or the Tesco superstore. This is deomcracy in action. We should be so proud.

COMMENT: BRISTOL THREAD

A last word

On top of our comments on The Sunday Telegraph piece, Biased BBC has waded into the debate:

I don't want to be churlish, and I am pleased that the Telegraph is finally looking at the rat's nest of establishment money-down-the-drain activity that supports climate change hysteria. But if investigative ace Jason Lewis properly read blogs such as EU Referendum and B-BBC, he'd truly be ahead of the pack. The real scandal here is that the BBC is not only involved in COMplus, but also directly part of a huge related network of climate change activism.

I've taken a little flak for my own comments – which is fair enough – but I do believe there are underlying issues here, so humour me. I've added a comment to the Telegraph site, endorsing Biased BBC, and noting the following:

The activity of the Sunday Telegraph is to be welcomed, but as B-BBC points out, if instead of reinventing the wheel and pretending it owed it, Mr Lewis had looked at the other work, he could have taken the story on further, instead of just offering a weak rehash of the salient issues.

This "dog-in-the-manger" attitude of The Sunday Telegraph typifies the attitude of the MSM to the alternative media. They are happy for us to link to them, and benefit hugely from the enhanced hit-rate they gain as a result, and they are happy to steal our work. But then to pretend that we do not exist is not only offensive, but stupid.

This is not a zero-sum game. The infosphere is effectively unlimited, but by trying to colonise a tiny corner of it and pretend it is all yours is to cut yourself off and restrict your own opportunities to expand. It is for this reason, probably more than anything, that the MSM is a failing industry. It does not understand the net, and will not listen to the people who do.

The physical and emotional investment we have in the blog is evident for anyone who reads it. I feel passionately about the role of the media and the "new media" in the functioning of democracy, and am convinced that the MSM is no longer pulling its weight.

What the media does (or does not do) is still important. For instance, if the police continue to go off the rails, it will not be the politicians that come to our rescue, but the media – so garbage like this is actually quite worrying.

Hence, when the media is not performing, I believe it is a valid and necessary function of a blog such as ours to point it out. We have enough problems without adding to our list, but if the media continues on its death spiral, we all lose. It may be beyond saving, but it is worth a little effort.

COMMENT: HAIL THE MSM THREAD

Missing a trick?

David Rose, in what is described as a "powerful piece" in the Mail online, lambasts DFID for supporting the growing of jatropha in Indian Madhya Pradesh, with British aid amounting to £45 million. The plant, "a strange, pale-stemmed plant with livid green-and-yellow leaves, native to Central America", is to be used for the production of biodiesel but, after sketching out how unpopular the scheme is with local Adivasi tribespeople, Rose tells us that "DFID now seems to find its sponsorship of jatropha embarrassing".

He cites Michael Anderson, until last year DFID's India head, who had told a Delhi magazine: "We are definitely not pushing for jatropha", claiming that DFID had never been involved in any scheme to encourage it. A DFID official assured Rose that planting of the toxic shrub has been on a very small scale, and that it has only been used to mark boundaries between fields.

Rose then claims that these assertions are not borne out by the facts. Rather, jatropha cultivation has been heavily pushed by DFID's "Madhya Pradesh Rural Livelihoods Project", which, like almost everything DFID does in India, he says, is managed on the ground by a contracted consultancy firm, Reading-based Coffey International Development. In May 2008, a DFID Vision Document said the project had earmarked 2.5 million acres of land in the tribal areas of Madhya Pradesh for jatropha. Another report in 2009 said 63,000 shrubs were already flourishing.

Backing up his assertions, Rose tells us that DFID's own publications offer few clues. Its website lists each project that Britain funds and the sums allotted, but gives no details, he says. So the only way to find out is to go to India and look, not in DFID's air-conditioned New Delhi headquarters, where all but three of its 103 India staff are based, but in the hinterland of crowded cities and the vast countryside.

Rose, however, may be looking in the wrong place. The "Madhya Pradesh Rural Livelihoods Project" is not DFID, but a state government project, supported by DFID. The difference is more than academic, as the project is entirely managed by the state. The state, rather than DFID, provides the details.

Those details are, in fact, quite comprehensive, and although the latest report does refer to jatropha plantings, with just under 63,000 plants financed, this represents a tiny fraction of total agricultural support. Overall, millions of plants have been financed (on a co-funded basis), including 2.3 million bamboo plants and rhizomes, and 1.1 million mulberry bushes.

Thus, the big culprit behind the jatropha hype in India, it would seem, is not DFID, or even the Madhya Pradesh government. More likely, it is our old friend TERI-India, prop. Rajendra Pachauri. In 2006, his Institute signed up with BP for a $9.4 million project , aiming to plant 8,000 hectares in three districts of Andhra Pradesh.

Subsequent to that, however, we learn that TERI is working with the Indian government on a detailed project report for the National Mission on Biodiesel, and claims to have established plantations in Madhya Pradesh, bringing the total jatropha plantations under its management to 0.6 million, possibly with national funding.

This was despite early indications that suggested the crop was being over-hyped. There has since been a progressive realisation that widespread jatropha cultivation is not really feasible. The production model so far proposed is now recognised as not viable.

While many sins can be laid at the door of DFID, therefore, it seems that the problem of jatropha plantations in Madhya Pradesh is not one of them. That seems to be a home-grown disaster, aided and abetted by that man of such very great judgement, Nobel prize winner Rajendra Pachauri. And one should always give the Devil his due.

COMMENT THREAD

This is really funny

The thief Elliot Morley on the BBC website setting out reasons why the current financial crisis offers a unique opportunity for us to clean up our act. The date is 21 October 2008. I guess if he asked to do a guest slot now, he wouldn't get exactly the same response.

COMMENT THREAD

A wilful lie?

The Sunday Times, cowering behind its paywall, does us all a favour by limiting the reach of its distortions. And that is being kind. In its coverage (print edition) of the Bristol riot on Thursday night, it tells us:

A protest against a new Tesco Express outlet in the Stokes Croft area of Bristol erupted into a seven-hour riot as police clashed with 300 demonstrators. Eight officers were injured and tens of thousands of pounds worth of damage was done to the store.

Readers will find that the copy has been produced by Dipesh Gadher, with additional reporting by Claire Hayhurst and Gemma Meredith. So an ethnic and two girlies combine to write something which is completely untrue. This is way beyond distortion, or getting it wrong. The first, all-important sentence is simply not true. It is a lie.

Then we have the clever-dick comment from Rod Liddle, who piggy-backs on the false story and delivers his own dollop under the heading, "Trust me, you idiots, every little Tesco riot doesn't help". Well, we don't trust you ... because your piece is crass. You haven't done your homework and you are talking out of your backside.

The worst of this though, is that the real story is not being told. In as neutral a way as possible, it can be asserted that the police, on the basis of flawed intelligence, grossly over-reacted to a perceived threat, mounting an ill-considered and provocative action which sparked a completely avoidable riot in which a number of people were hurt and much damage was done.

In the way of things, the police are now covering up their own incompetence, and trying to evade the responsibility for their actions, blaming everybody else except themselves. And, instead of reporting this, the great Sunday Times writes a fictional account, missing the point completely.

Mind you, The Daily Mail headline and the opening to its story is just as crass, although it does give you enough detail for you to be able to read between the lines. But that is the MSM for you – when it comes to serious issues, it is completely unreliable. They are taking money under false pretences.

COMMENT: BRISTOL STOKES CROFT THREAD

Hail the MSM

There is a shadowy organisation called Globe International, doncha know. Among its principle (sic) backers are a charity set up by the Swedish multi-millionaire Niklas Zennstrom, founder of the internet phone service Skype, and British-born wealth fund manager Jeremy Grantham, whose personal clients include Dick Cheney and John Kerry.

We now know this because of Jason Lewis, Investigations Editor. And there is real glory for you. I wonder if he gets a special badge. Anyhow, the great Jason Lewis tells us all about it in today's edition of The Sunday Failygraph. How lucky we are to have a real, live "Investigations Editor" on the job.

But for his brilliance and his stunning tenacity, we lowly plebs might have had to make do with the Booker column of 27 Mar 2010. Even worse, to eke out our miserable existence, we might have been driven to The Register on 24 March 2010, or even a lowly blog on the same day.

Fortunately, we don't need to rely on such low-grade, derivative sources. Thanks to the brilliance of MSM editors of the likes of Jason Lewis, our meagre lives our now made whole. How can we possibly express sufficient gratitude to him and his wonderful newspaper for reaching down to tell us a fraction of the story, over a year later?

What would we do without the MSM? How could we survive? We should all kneel down and offer a silent prayer, in recognition of our good fortune.

COMMENT THREAD

Don't know nuffink

There was a court case last week, writes Booker, in a place he is not allowed to name, involving people he is not allowed to identify, dealing with an issue he cannot reveal, with an outcome he does not know, because no one there is allowed to tell him, on pain of imprisonment.

It could have something to do with this, but if Booker said so, he might end up in prison. As to what happened, he can only guess – on the basis of his detailed knowledge of what happened earlier – that the case ended in a way which, had he been able to report it, would have deeply shocked his readers. Had it gone otherwise, he would have been free to report it in detail.

Judicial gagging orders have been much publicised of late, adds Booker, thanks to the determined campaign being waged to expose what is wrong with them by John Hemming MP. But almost all the media attention has focused on the power of the courts to suppress reporting on the alleged sexual activities of footballers.

Less notice has been paid to the real purpose of Hemming's campaign: to expose the much worse scandal of the secrecy surrounding our family courts, and the horrible injustices too often inflicted on innocent parents who are treated like criminals without their voices being allowed to be heard.

It is this that Hemming wishes to see exposed to public view, even though the judges are attempting to gag even MPs, by prohibiting aggrieved constituents revealing details to them. This, of course, is a breach of parliamentary privilege, but one on which the Speaker is curiously reluctant to act.

Meanwhile, journalists like Booker are perilously close to being locked up, the terms of more recent orders even prohibiting him or anyone else even carrying out investigations to find out information which is subject to banning orders. However, there is nothing to stop us providing the judges with an important piece of information: we can knit.

COMMENT: SECRECY THREAD

Serious overkill

So good was the police "intelligence" in Bristol last Thursday that they failed to realise that there were only four people in the house they raided.

The four occupants of "Telepathic Heights" also denied they had been manufacturing Molotov cocktails in the squat. "We had no intention of attacking Tesco whatsoever", said Gavin Houghton, 28. "It was never on the cards – we have nothing to do with the anti-Tesco protest. They're a separate group".

Houghton added: "This is a nice building and it would be suicide if we started throwing petrol bombs off the roof. We would never do that. It's not what we're about".

Nevertheless, it took between 30-40 big brave bobbies, all dressed up in their riot togs to subdue this gang of desperadoes. We are so lucky to have such fine public servants, dedicated to the maintenance of law and order.

COMMENT: BRISTOL STOKES CROFT THREAD

The information hub moves on

Parliament is being urged to intervene in the case of a heavily pregnant woman who was threatened with prison for naming her local council during a public meeting in the House of Commons. And that is from John Hemming MP, now in The Independent today.

"With the judges acting to reduce freedom of speech it becomes even more important to protect freedom of speech in Parliament," he says. "Citizens should be allowed to raise problems with MPs. The names of the local authority and the mother have to remain unspoken because of injunctions. But it is my intention to reveal this using parliamentary privilege when Parliament reconvenes next week. People need to know what is being done in their name. The truth must come out".

But Booker did the story last week and the details have already been revealed. The story is about Vicky Haigh and her abducted 7-year-old daughter, Romany, and her name is all over the internet, including on this blog, doing the job the gutless media doesn't do, and MPs still haven't got around to doing. They're wonderful if you want to feast on the royal wedding, but don't expect serious news ... much less intelligent analysis.

But the thing is that, by and large, people don't really care what is being done in their name. Otherwise there would already have been an uproar. But the really interesting thing is that the media and MPs alike still seem to think they still have control over the flow of information. The police and other authorities make the same mistake. And that is why they continually get it wrong. The information hub has moved on, leaving them stranded – and increasingly irrelevant.

COMMENT: SECRECY THREAD

More reason

... not to buy a Sunday newspaper. Our modern newspaper industry already seems to have lost any sense of proportion on any issue. But even taking that into account, this is going too far. They're all at it – total overkill. We are seriously not interested.  Even Mrs EU Referendum has lost interest.  To be blunt, I don't know anyone outside the media circus that is interested. And we've got a week to go, when the level of coverage is going to get even higher. Their incontinence will destroy it.

Maybe this explains it, though.

COMMENT THREAD

The proposition is absurd

We have long passed the point when political commentators in the MSM are seen to offer any value, but there is no shortage of confirmation in today's abysmal piece by Iain Martin in The Daily Mail. Headed, "Was Cameron ever really a Eurosceptic?" – the response required one word: "no". But illustrating the fantasy world of the Westminster bubble, Martin writes:

When in opposition, as he struggled to detoxify his party, he may have infuriated traditionalists worried that he possessed no strong Tory convictions. But on one thing many were agreed: David Cameron was sound on Europe. No, he didn't want to take Britain out of the EU completely, but it looked obvious that any Cameron-led government would follow sensibly Eurosceptic policies. Sadly, it hasn't turned out that way. Indeed, people are asking why his government is so incredibly craven towards Europe.

It is indeed true that no end of Tory Boys – of all ages and sexes – had convinced themselves that Dave "was sound on Europe", but that was nothing more than a collective delusion. At best, one could simply say that there was no evidence that he was a eurosceptic.

On the other hand, there was plenty of good evidence to say that he wasn't. His treatment of the fishing policy was more than adequate evidence. But people didn't see it because they didn't want to see it. They wanted their leader to be a eurosceptic, and the power of their self-delusion carried them through.

If Martin had any inkling of what was really going on, or any understanding, then his piece could have been quite interesting. But, as always, these political commentators are within the bubble, speaking to the bubble. And pathetically, the man can't even see it. After offering a long list of evidence that shrieks the obvious, that Dave is raving euroslime, Martin identifies a coming flash-point and then observes:

Of course, the Prime Minister could easily head off such a crisis. But it would mean him having to rediscover his Eurosceptic soul and instructing Osborne to find a way of stopping Britain having to contribute to these bail-outs. Cameron's next move should then be to begin work on a proper strategy to reclaim other vital areas of British sovereignty surrendered to Brussels. If he was to do this he might even find he could win an election without the help of his Coalition partners.

The man just can't put two and two together. Cameron does not have a "Eurosceptic soul". He never has had one. There is nothing there to "rediscover". The proposition is absurd, almost as absurd as Peter Oborne and his assertions.

COMMENT THREAD

The morning after the day after

As the dust begins to settle on the Bristol riot, what is coming over with crystal clarity is that this was a botched police operation, and that the police are lying about what happened. The absurd Supt Ian Wylie (pictured below) is recorded claiming that the operation was sparked by fears that residents of the "Telepathic Heights" squat were planning to petrol bomb the local Tesco store, the subject of a local dispute.

The store, however, is a red-herring. Police claims are fabrications. Multiple witnesses, whose stories cross-check and make much more sense, attest to this. All claim that there had been an attempt by bailiffs earlier on the Thursday afternoon to evict the squatters from the building – with no warning, despite they having been there eight years.

Predictably, the bailiffs were seen off, leaving residents puzzling as to why the sudden urgency, and some suspicions that it was not unconnected with the Tesco protest, which was being organised from the squat. However, the issue was not left there as, about 9.15 pm the police arrived in force. Although the following day, the petrol bomb excuse was invented, the actual intent was to complete the eviction, with bailiffs accompanying the police.

Jonathan Taphouse a local photographer reports that police arrived in force in the area on a warm, Easter weekend evening, with people drinking in the many bars and cafes along the street. They then blocked off the main Cheltenham Road, preventing people returning to their homes or moving about the area, and faced off the locals in an aggressive manner, maintaining their presence for some hours.

As Taphouse says, "the latent frustration boiled over" and a riot ensued. It was clearly provoked by the clumsy and insensitive police handling of the situation. Some of that is even picked up by The Independent, which cites Taphouse describing some officers as behaving "completely out of control". "It seemed that they didn't understand the politics of the area," he said. "It was only a few who kicked off, and there was no real need for a riot," he added. "Residents were woken up and some joined the protesters. This wasn't inevitable – the actions of the police caused the reaction."

Also cited is Nick Jones, a primary school teacher, who says that a peaceful protest quickly turned ugly: "Between 2.30am and 4.30am there were bottles and rocks thrown. I saw a police officer get hit in the face and go down – he was taken away in an ambulance. People had weapons. They had swords and shields. It turned from 'interesting' to 'scary' very quickly."

Jessie Webb, a barman at The Croft pub, said police were "heavy-handed" towards a crowd which just turned up to watch the arrests. The police caused it [the riot]," he said. "They turned up in large numbers and it attracted a crowd. Then they charged into them."

A 22-year-old, who did not want to be named, said he was hit with a baton despite not being involved in the protest: "I saw them [police] hitting people who were definitely not involved in the violence. They were doing random charges and cracking people indiscriminately."

Gus Hoyt, a Green Party council candidate for Ashley ward which includes the site of the Tesco store, said he had been "terrified" as the violence escalated, adding that the scenes reminded people of the riots in nearby St Pauls in 1980: "People who remember the 1980s can't believe this is happening again."

Taphouse adds that: "Police in riot vans from Wales turned up and it seemed that they didn't understand the politics of the area. Pushing the crowd in towards St Pauls didn't look to be the most intelligent thing to do. Police forcing protesters down nearby streets trying to defuse the scene achieved the opposite, and just ended up agitating the situation. More residents were woken up and alerted to what was going on, and this timed with the local pubs kicking out just added to the masses".

The Guardian is also beginning to piece together some of the story. It has Lewis Clapham, 22, a customer services worker, who says: "I wasn't involved in the protest or the squat. I just happened to be down there and I went up to the police and said I was just passing through, but one of them came and hit me really hard with a baton. I've got bruising all down my side now with massive swelling on my elbow".

Clare Milne, who lives in the neighbourhood, said she had witnessed from her bedroom window an unprovoked attack on a man walking along the street with a woman. "An officer whacked him around the lower back with a baton".

Some of this is corroborated by Bristol East's MP, Kerry McCarthy, who went down to the scene in the early hours of Good Friday after being alerted to the heightening violence, and was herself shoved by police. "The police steamed in and dogs were used," she says. "There were people being roughly treated."

McCarthy, who is a shadow Treasury minister, added: "I question why the police op was carried out in an area where a lot of people were out drinking. It didn't seem to be a particularly sensible time to carry out an eviction of a squat that has been there for a long time". And there it is - the local knowledge which gainsays the police alibi. This was a police-supported eviction, badly-timed and botched.

Thus does Taphouse conclude: "I can't help but feel that with better timing, and being more sensitive to local culture the night’s events could have gone very differently".

Our own local commentators will attest that the area has a history of inept policing, and the current mood is caught by the Independent newspaper, which talks of anger within Britain's protest and anarchist movements "mounting", alongside a willingness by some to fight police given the opportunity, after police in London were accused of aggression in dealing with anti-cuts demonstrators last month.

The real problem, though, is that – like the politicians – the police are in the land of the fairies. Avon and Somerset Police continue to maintain that its officers' actions had been "fully justified", and are sticking to their story that the discovery of petrol bombs necessitated the arrest of four "offenders", who represented "a very real threat".

Thus, we are not even in the territory of "lessons learned". Having provoked a full-blown riot, the police are not even aware that they have done anything wrong. So we get plod-in-chief Chief Constable Colin Port visiting the site to condemn "the attack on Tesco and other businesses", when only the Tesco store was damaged. He then says: "It's outrageous, completely out of order and will not be tolerated by the people of Bristol or the police".

This is conveyed to us by the local newspaper, but what Mr Port probably does not realise – and the ridiculous Mr Wylie certainly does not – is that he doesn't have control of the message any more, and we no longer have to rely on local newspaper pap. A combination of bloggers, forums, local and national newspapers, all accessible through the internet, gives us a much wider picture than he probably had.

This also enables us to see through the frankly absurd headlines, with The Daily Express probably qualifying for the most crassly-written account so far. Then, God help us, they have that buffoon Patrick Mercer writing an "analysis". This is classic EVM. The man doesn't have the first idea what he's talking about.

Contrary to the Express fiction, what we see as "outrageous" is the serial incompetence of the police, their lying, their cover-ups, their arrogance and stupidity, all too often combined with abuse of power. Tied in with previous experience of the breed, this strips away any sympathy or support. I don't think these people quite realise how much the environment has changed.

Some photos by: Jonathan Taphouse.

COMMENT: BRISTOL STOKES CROFT THREAD

Not wanted

Despite having declared its willingness to supply troops to Libya, the UN has declined the offer, saying that the presence of ground forces could prejudice the safety of aid workers, who could be linked to the soldiers. So there you are ... the EU can't even give its army away.

COMMENT: LIBYA THREAD

Cashing in the carbon

A couple of days ago, we wrote about Teesside Power Station owned by International Power, which was being partially mothballed, reducing capacity from 1,875 megawatt (MW) to a mere 45MW from 1 April. But the idea of this company closing down the bulk of its operation, in order then to purchase nuclear energy from France seemed to us to be more than a little bizarre.

Needless to say, we should have guessed that there was another agenda at work. As with the Corus steel works milking the system, it seems that International Power is one of the companies which will be sharing a bonanza of £100m in free carbon allowances, that it will not need to use because of its plant closedown, as its CO2 emission will drop dramatically.

Amongst other beneficiaries are Centrica, and Scottish & Southern Energy. Despite ceasing to produce electricity from some of their plants, the energy companies still receive the carbon credits which they can trade on international markets – giving substantial windfalls.

Centrica has put four plants – Barry, Brigg, Peterborough and Kings Lynn – into "preservation mode", which means they are not producing but ready to be switched on. Scottish and Southern Energy stopped generating at its Fife plant on 31 March.

DECC confirms that an installation which permanently closes retains the full allocation for the year in which it closed down. For temporary and partial closure the installation carries on as normal. There are no adjustments to its allocation. Ready customers for these credits might be the airline industry, with Lufthansa just about to start trading in CO2 permits, as the EU emissions trading scheme starts to apply to commercial flying.

Soon enough, we will be seeing fare hikes to pay for this absurdity, but customers will doubtless be comforted by the thought that they are increasing the profits of firms such as International Power, which has put 100 men on the dole to gain its extra credits. Clearly, the benefits of the EU just keep multiplying. Why on earth would we ever want to leave?

COMMENT THREAD

Happy Birthday to us

Today is our birthday and we're seven years old ... that much older, that much wiser and ten times uglier. We've put up with seven years of lies and betrayal, promised a referendum on what was the EU's constitutional treaty and which became the Lisbon treaty. Blair promised us a referendum. Brown resiled. Cameron then promised us a referendum. He resiled. All the weasel words in the world will not change that. And nothing will change our view of politicians that did so.

This, then, at a very precocious seven years old, is a blog built on hope and expectation - but sustained by lies and our hatred, yes hatred, of the politicians who uttered them. Having been set up to fight a referendum, we did not expect still to be round to see our seventh birthday, but we are still here and will remain as a vocal reminder to those who lie to us, and cheat us of our rights and democracy.

That is not a happy note for a blog on what should be a happy occasion. These, though, are not happy times. But, as long as we do not outlive our usefulness, we'll do our best to spread some misery to our political enemies and lighten the load for our friends. And we'll look forward to celebrating our eighth.

COMMENT THREAD

Thick ... or what?

Rioters in Bristol have caused severe damage to a Tesco convenience store, following a botched operation, in which police now claim they were acting to prevent a petrol bombing of the store.



Despite a local witness writing that the trouble was sparked by a heavy-handed police action following an  operation to evict a long-term squat, Avon and Somerset Constabulary are spinning like mad. Supt Ian Wylie claims: "There have been several significant incidents in this building during the past few days, which have caused serious concerns to police and local residents".

The massive police operation started around 9pm in the Bristol Stokes Croft area. Officers in riot gear and full length shields - many of them from out of town - backed up by horses, vans and the police helicopter, forced their way into the squat and evicted the occupants. The operation was very heavy-handed and no explanations were offered for the action. And despite this, it was still relatively quiet in the area by around 10pm.

Wylie, who obviously isn't very, drools out more officialese, telling us: "The safety of the public is paramount in a situation of this kind and we took the decision to carry out a robust and swift operation, following intelligence received about the criminal intentions of those who were occupying the building".



He then goes on to say: "Following the operation, it is unfortunate a small minority gathered and began attacking officers with bottles and other items". The propaganda BS continues, and watchable on video.

What triggered the riot, however, was police with riot shields blocking off a major local junction, preventing residents getting to their own homes. A large crowd gathered, with the police facing off local people. After more than an hour of this provocative and aggressive action, elements of the crowd finally reacted and started throwing stones and bottles. A witness stated that it was almost as though the police, many of them from Wales, were looking for trouble.

By 2 am the police had achieved their apparent aim, assuming that they had any, by uniting the entire community of the area against them.



Contrary to Wylie's report, and other police claims. the BBC report makes it clear it wasn't a "small minority". It was nearly 300 people, says The Guardian. Having provoked universal hostility, the police were forced to retreat. The Tesco store - the very one the police operation had supposedly been set up to protect - had its front trashed. A police car was badly damaged.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of this, Mr Plod is telling lies. He is also stupid enough to think we will be taken in by them. But there is now such a thing as YouTube, multiple independent photo-albums, such as here and here, and a large number of independent reports, allowing us to see what has been going on and form our own opinion. From an independent blogger, we get this quote:

I was dismayed by the council and police reaction to a sustained peaceful protest that has existed against Tesco for over two years. Until this week Stokes Croft was the last remaining major high street in the West of England inhabited exclusively by independent establishments. Tesco moved in despite universal local disapproval in an area already surrounded by dozens of Tesco stores. Despite the palpable disquiet protests have been entirely peaceful. This was not a volatile situation until police moved in to the area in full riot dress with no explanation for kettling Stokes Croft except "health and safety" and "something to do with Tescos".

As police entered "Telepathic Heights" rumour spread that more raids on houses were intended. As this was not an unlikely story due to recent dawn raids on protesters houses and confiscation of computers and books over the last (xmas) exam period the community barricaded the remaining entrances to Stokes Croft and the police responded by charging the barricades, apparently for no other reason than for a fight. This action alone provoked violence from the famously diverse, educated, peaceful, loving and pacifist community of Stokes Croft.

It is very easy to come on, po-faced and say there is no excuse for violence. But, in fact, when the plod have lost it, and are quite obviously lying through their teeth – and we know this is the case in too many situations - then violence is an eminently reasonable response.



This is what the politicians and the plods are going to have to learn. They have been taking the mick for so long that people just don't give a damn any more. Where you would have once seen concern and anger about disorder, you will now seen amusement at the discomfort of the authorities, and only marginally concealed sympathy for the rioters.

However, the Stokes Croft is an area infested with a high proportion of pseudo-Marxist "eco hippies" and anarcho-hippies, not the sort of people we would not naturally support. But the authorities seem to have inflamed the situation - intentionally or otherwise, it is difficult to ascertain - giving planning permission to a Tesco shop bang in the centre of the area. A vocal element of the community have quite clearly expressed their opposition, although the real locals, as opposed to the eco-Nazis, are probably quite in favour.

On top of the eco-warriors, backing onto the area is St Pauls, known for its social deprivation and high unemployment, where "social mobility" is a skate board. It is well endowed with nihilist scrotes who are always ready and willing to trash the occasional plod-mobile, alongside pampered, middle-class students, who seem happy to join in the fun.

But there seems to have been some anticipation here, and a quite deliberate confrontational approach. The plods have been largely caught out, not helped out by their lack of intelligence. Having drafted in Welsh police for their pre-planned operation, they were not bright enough to realise that their behaviour might provoke a hostile response. Its all the fault of those nasty people who didn't disperse when we asked them to, says Wylie - nothing to do with the cack-handed and aggressive tactics of the police.

The interesting thing is that we don't have a dog in this race, especially as the bleeding-heart Guardianistas are also doing their own spinning. Who cares wins? The best outcome, it seems, would be elements in the locality, their Guardian supporters, and the police thugs beating each other senseless. However, a lot of quite innocent people seem to have been caught in the police action, and suffered needlessly.

As for the eco-mob faction, many of their members have been afloat on a raft of public money. Furthermore, up to press, the council turned a blind eye to what has become "squat central", a lawless ghetto for anarchists and benefits farmers, especially after the area has been blighted by development falures. Now the money is beginning to run out, the eco-mob is getting arsey. One weeps for the poor dears, as they take it out on over-paid public "servants".

Either way, though, this has only started. The real lesson for the plods and pols is that, for all their armoured cars, and their big brave men (and goils) with their riot shields and body armour, there are more of us than there are of them ... a lot more. Politicians are known for their strange alliances of opposites. Similar sorts of alliances in real life are possible, when there is a common enemy - and the politicians and police are "it", especially if - as seems to be the case - they are going out of their way to be provocative, and thereby uniting disparate elements within communities.

The sooner the establishment starts paying attention to that singular fact, the easier it is going to be for them. In the final analysis, while they can cause a lot of grief and hardship, they cannot prevail.

Still photos: Jonathan Taphouse.

COMMENT: BRISTOL STOKES CROFT THREAD

Returning the compliment

The snivelling Clegg comes back from the comfort and security of his £300,000 armoured car and personal guards to launch a thinly veiled attack on that nice Mr Scumeron, branding opponents of AV as "dinosaurs".

That is the nearest the sniveller will get to anything like an actual "attack", and while it may be directed at his coalition partner, it also catches tens of millions of voters. One does wonder about this modern-day habit of politicians insulting their electorates, but it seems very much in vogue.

What is surprising, though, is that some of them seem rather surprised and hurt when we return the compliments.

COMMENT THREAD

It won't

What a vain, posturing fool. He has had an interview with the hand wavers and burbles: "The idea that when we're making difficult decisions at home, cuts in government departments, freezing people's salaries in the public sector, the idea that Brussels should be immune is completely for the birds". He then adds: "It's not going to happen. It must be stopped".

This is a load of horse manure. As always, a deal will be done. That nice Mr Scumeron will drop his trousers and bend over, and then pretend he enjoys the experience. Mr Oborne will continue to tell us that Dave is a eurosceptic, and things will continue as before. Until we put a stop to it.

COMMENT: EU MONEY THREAD

Carbon footprint

"The Prince of Wales is to fly to the United States for an official trip in a jet paid for by a wealthy American businessman who is expected to be a guest at the royal wedding. It is believed to be the first time that the Prince has taken up an offer of free transport while on official business".

He really is a hypocritical scrunge.

COMMENT THREAD

Pulling wings off flies

Criticising Peter Oborne these days is rather like pulling wings off flies – after you have given them a dose of fly-spray and waited until they have quietened down. It is so easy that there is no sport in it. But when the man calls himself a "chief political commentator" and writes such unutterable tosh that it makes your eyes water, he only has himself to blame.

This man is now suggesting that the Labour hierarchy have suddenly developed a dose of euroscepticism, but the man isn't even professional enough to call a spade a digging implement. You can neither trust nor respect anyone who awards himself the title of "political commentator" who then starts referring to a politician as "anti-European". It is so amateur as to defy description.

The piece as a whole, though, reveals an incoherence which is quite staggering in its breadth. It posits that, for the last twenty years, there has been a split in British politics over "Europe", with the Conservatives characterised as a "eurosceptic" party. But, with Labour veering towards an "anti-European" position, the "consequences for British politics are profound".

For the past 20 years, Oborne asserts, "the Conservatives have been the only major Eurosceptic party in Britain". This, he says, "meant they felt so isolated that they were afraid to speak out – the main reason why David Cameron has gone out of his way to close down Europe as a subject of debate".

Yet, as we remarked in an earlier piece, when it comes to promoting the march of European political integration, the Conservatives are in the premier league. It was Ted Heath, a Tory (theoretically), who took us in (after the ground-breaking by Macmillan), it was the darling Thatcher who led the "yes" campaign for the Tories in the 1975 referendum, and it was she that agreed the Single European Act.

Then, of course, it was little Johnny Major, Thatcher's protégé, who negotiated the Maastricht Treaty (aka Treaty of the European Union) – and wrecked the Conservative Party getting it through the Commons. Now the heir to Heath, the fabulous Mr Cameron, refuses us a referendum on the Lisbon treaty and gives us AV instead. This is the man who, on 9 March in the House of Commons, told Peter Bone, "I think that we are better off inside the EU but making changes to it, in the way that we are setting out" (pictured).

Not in a million years, not in any way, degree or fashion, could the Conservative Party in general or Mr Cameron in particular, be considered eurosceptic. Yet, in defiance of reality, ignoring evidence and experience, Mr Oborne insists to the contrary. His paradigm must prevail because that is what he wants it to be. That is the narrative with which he is familiar and with which he is comfortable.

But that is also the measure of the Daily Telegraph these days ... facile, amateur and ill-informed. More alarmingly, it is locked in a bubble of unreality which has completely departed from the truth. And I've heard tell that there are some people in very interesting positions who you would least expect to support such a line, but who would agree completely.

When the history of this period comes to be written – if there is an honest scribe to do it – one of the features will almost certainly be the collapse of the media as an intelligent or even influential political force. And Peter Oborne – another writer speaking to the bubble, lost in his own private fantasy – will be cited as a prime example.

COMMENT THREAD

MPs should make the law?

We are so pleased he hear from that nice Mr Scumeron, who has said that he is "concerned" about the spread of super-injunctions which prevent the media from identifying public figures. He says he is "uneasy" that a privacy law is being developed by judges rather than MPs.

Could we also suggest that he extends his concern to the way law is made in Brussels, by the EU, instead of MPs, and by the European Court of Human Rights, and the European Court of Justice. Or is this just a case of leaping on a bandwagon, in the hope that the plebs don't notice the inconsistencies in his position?

COMMENT THREAD

Pay up or else

Your masters have spoken.

COMMENT: EU MONEY THREAD

Poolside gossip

Thousands of people are fleeing heavy fighting in Libya's western mountains region, close to the Tunisian border, as government forces seek to crush a rebellion that has been largely overshadowed by the siege of Misrata, reports The Guardian.

According to UNHCR, about 11,000 refugees from the area have crossed into Tunisia in the past ten days, mainly from the city of Nalut. "They are fleeing because of shelling and intensified fighting between government and opposition forces," Firas Kayal of the UNHCR claimed. "The whole western mountains region has been under siege for two months now."

This we were dimly aware of. We learned some time ago that there were too few coalition aircraft to cover the terrain, so all sorts of things were happening outside their reach. I suppose if the boys and goils can tear themselves away from their swimming pools, they might pop over and have a look.

Better still, that nice Mr Scumeron might do the decent thing and pull out, and recognising that we do not have the resources or the political will to do anything, and that our (partial) presence is simply making things worse.

COMMENT: LIBYA THREAD

Klepturition 4

We do not blame the Ethiopians – it is the fool politicians who set up the system and allow it to continue. And benefits in Tower Hamlets alone have cost the taxpayer a mammoth £223 million in just one year. Please remember, there is no natural limit to how much money public bodies can waste. They will continue doing this until we stop them.

COMMENT: KLEPTURITION THREAD

Grooming

I thought I might get a little flak for my last piece on the murder of Captain Head. Lisa Head, it will be recalled, was engaged in disposing of an IED in an alleyway frequently used by Afghans and British troops. After rendering it safe, she was severely injured while dealing with a second bomb. After being evacuated to Queen Elizabeth NHS Hospital in Birmingham, she died.

There is a safe and effective way of doing what Lisa was doing, I suggested – more so when it appears that she might have been deliberately targeted. There is all sorts of different kit and different strategies that could be used, which do not put ATOs at risk. We should be using them. Anything else is not bravery. It's not clever, and it's certainly not anything to be proud about. It's suicide.

In response, to my piece, however, I got this e-mail:

Absolutely Goddamned F*****g Right. Thank you for saying it. Say it loud and say it often. These kids are seduced by gold braid and fantasy notions of what it means to be brave. It is the grooming and ultimate abuse of those too young to have figured out what is real and what is someone else's illusion. Often delusion.

What really does get up my nose though is the acreage of eulogies, finishing off with Secretary of State for Defence, this time Dr Liam Fox, who has his MoD civil servants copy and paste the following:

I was deeply saddened to learn of the death of Captain Lisa Head of 11 EOD Regiment RLC. She was mortally wounded while attempting to make safe an IED to protect her military colleagues and the local civilian population. We owe a great debt of gratitude for her bravery and her commitment in her professional role, and for the sacrifice she has made to defend our national security. I send my deepest condolences to Captain Head's family and loved-ones at this sad time.

This is cant, pure, unadulterated cant. And at PMQs next week, Scumeron will stand up and offer his condolences – and then move on to play his tawdry little word games. There is no need for these kids to die, especially our brightest and best. Scumeron and his chums could stop it, but they won't. Fox is too thick even to understand what is needed, and the military brass are too busy climbing up each-others' backsides even to care.

COMMENT: SUICIDE THREAD

They can't cope with it

With the proposed increase in the EU budget very much in evidence, it is interesting to see the typical Tory tribalist response. Instead of accepting that this is classic EU territory, endorsed by that nice Mr Scumeron, we have Tim Montgomerie trying to paint this in party political colours, claiming that "because the last Labour government signed away our veto on budgetary matters, it's possible we won't be able to stop all of the increase".

Well, that goes back to the Nice Treaty, adopted in December 2000, but it is part of the main EU treaty - namely Article 314 - that the Conservatives have now adopted. No Parliament can bind another, we are told, so if the Tories don't like it, they can always change it. If they haven't sought to do that, there is no point in blaming Labour.

But it has got so bad now that the Tories can't even survive without telling themselves little boogy tales to boost their morale. They simply can't cope with the idea that, when it comes to promoting the march of European political integration, the Conservatives are in the premier league. It was Ted Heath, a Tory (theoretically), who took us in (after the ground-breaking by Macmillan), it was the darling Thatcher who led the "yes" campaign for the Tories in the 1975 referendum, and it was she that agreed the Single European Act.

Then, of course, it was little Johnny Major, Thatcher's protégé, who negotiated the Maastricht Treaty (aka Treaty of the European Union) – and wrecked the Conservative Party getting it through the Commons. Now the heir to Heath, the fabulous Mr Scumeron, refuses us a referendum on the Lisbon treaty and gives us AV instead. But the little Tory tribalists ignore all that. When they get things they don't like, they blame Labour.

Hilariously, as The Boiling Frog points out, the Tory Home piece is accompanied by a splat showing light bulbs (pictured) presumably to demonstrate "bright ideas" in a forthcoming Tory conference. However they look suspiciously like the traditional incandescent light bulbs, which are banned by ... the EU. The irony appears to be lost on them, says TBF.

COMMENT: EU MONEY THREAD

It guessed

Sometimes, you could almost believe Google is human (click pic to enlarge).

COMMENT THREAD

Blowing our minds

With this happening, we're possibly going to have to rethink our rhetoric on electricity generation. The story is that around 100 workers have been looking down the nose at redundancy as Teesside Power Station (pictured) drastically scales back production "in the wake of cheap energy imports".

We are talking here of a 1,875 megawatt (MW) plant - the largest combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) station in Europe – which supplies up to three percent of the entire power needs of England, Scotland and Wales. However, capacity was cut to just 45MW from 1 April - effectively signalling a partial mothballing of the plant.

The owner, International Power, which owns and runs the facility is saying that this is a temporary reduction that will result in operating cost savings. It is, they say, "reflective of the weak market conditions in the UK". The plant will still be able to ramp up production if the market improves but, for the moment, it says, "demand for home-grown electricity has been hit by cheaper foreign imports".

The imports, one assumes, are from the Kermits – which would be hugely entertaining. To have us shut down a gas plant to buy nuclear from France is such an irony.

However, on the other hand, coal has taken such a beating over the winter that the eleven coal- and oil-fired power plants covered by the EU's large combustion plant directive in the UK hit more than half their quota of hours by the end of February,.

The plants have run for a total of 97,218 hours between January 2008 and February 2011, equivalent to 51.17 percent of their quota. The programme still has nearly five years to run but LCPD forces eight UK coal-fired units to close after 20,000 hours and three oil-fired plants to close after 10,000 hours of operation, or by December 31, 2015, whichever comes first. At this rate, the entire estate could be closing down up to two years early.

We may have a short-term glut in hand – but the near future looks distinctly shaky. Crunch time could well come by 2013. And little Scumeron could be in the driving seat, having to face the music. We can then all share his pain!

COMMENT THREAD

Suicide by bomb disposal

We should not be sending nice little girlies down blind alleys to clear bombs. It doesn't matter how good you are ... keep trying to defuse IEDs long enough and you die. There is, of course, a safe and effective way of doing it. That's what we should be doing. Anything else is not bravery. It's not clever, and it's certainly not anything to be proud about. It's suicide.

COMMENT THREAD