Lies Exist in a Vacuum

At the weekend an acquaintance of mine posited that Vladimir Putin would never have dared undertake the Ukraine invasion if Donald Trump was still in the White House. 

 

My response to this preposterously naïve statement was very simple. 

 

The election of Trump in the US, support for Brexit in the UK, the election of Boris Johnson as UK PM and other ridiculous acts of political self-harm all proved to Putin that ANYTHING – no matter how outrageous or distasteful – can be easily accepted in this day and age. 

 

In essence Putin felt unimpeded due to the West’s decline into post-truth and he saw that he could leverage the very same tools to legitimise his savage actions – Trump, Johnson and Brexit were all proof positive that everything is tolerable with spin.

 

As the whole bloody affair plays out it has become abundantly clear that the Russian population must be totally firewalled from the real world to inure them from reality. This job has been done remarkably efficiently with all dissenting voices swept up into police custody as soon as they appear. Support for the war on the Russian street is solid. 

 

There is no “cause and effect” in the traditional sense of events evolving. Instead, the Russian media audience is fed “effect and cause” from the point of view that actions are justified by post-event, post-truth vindications chosen from a lengthy but predictable playbook. 

 

Interviewed by Piers Morgan on 26 April on the new right-wing TalkTV station, Johnson asserted that, “Given the massive Russian backing for what he is doing, given the apparent obliviousness of the Russian media about what is really happening in Ukraine, the paradox is that Putin has far more political space to back down, to withdraw.” Really?

 

Johnson seems to be wholly detached from the reality that the Russian audience does not see any genuineness whatsoever. What Putin does or does not do is occurring in an information vacuum with convenient propaganda. We can foretell a 2022 version of the 1991 Iraqi “Mother of All Battles” where truth is utterly divorced from reality and we have a new player from the 2003 invasion of Iraq in the personage of Dmitry Peskov as a modern-day Comical Ali. Diverting Dmitry perhaps as a spokesmouth for Vile Vlad? 

 

When push comes to shove, poor outcomes in the military and foreign policy spheres – as in every other sphere – are ignored or airbrushed. There is no paradoxical “political space” to act in as, by necessity, it does not exist. 

 

Putin will dare to do whatever Putin decides to dare to do as he operates outside the rules and beyond the influence of any idiot in the White House or any buffoon in No. 10.

Keeping the Faith

This morning on BBC Radio 4’s “Today” Andy Burnham was being interviewed on NHS issues. At the end of the piece Sarah Montague asked him if Labour were not due an apology to Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP for the manner in which the party had used the “leaked memo” as a mode of attack. Fundamentally his reply when broken down into its key aspects was:

1. No.
2. If any apology is due it’s from The Telegraph.
3. We responded in good faith.
4. Anyway, it’s an election campaign.

I was particularly struck by his repeated use of the “it’s an election campaign” line of justification and that exact quote, “we responded in good faith,” is just about as hypocritical as it gets when it is now known that Labour was briefed on the Telegraph piece before it was released.

So by Andy’s logic it is OK to smear someone and continue to do so even when the basis has been wholly discredited; the only apology is ever due by the the originator of a smear and not by those who would wilfully continue to parrot it days after that discrediting as they are not responsible; you can repeat ANYTHING that you hear “in good faith”; all is fair in an election campaign.

So that’s Labour’s election campaign modus operandi firmly established then.

I have to admit that up until this morning’s interview I regarded Andy Turnham as one of the more decent of Labour's leading lights and I told someone exactly that only a couple of days ago. More fool me...

But let’s return to what politicians do in the name of good faith. US President Martin Van Buren declared, “The United States have fulfilled in good faith all their treaty stipulations with the Indian tribes,” so whatever Andy Burnham might consider an apt definition is not a new corruption of civility.

What are little boys made of?

What are little boys made of?
What are little boys made of?
Slugs and snails and puppy dogs' tails,
That's what little boys are made of.

What are little girls made of?
What are little girls made of?
Sugar and spice and all things nice,
That's what little girls are made of.

What are No voters made of?
What are No voters made of?
Austerity,
Zero hour contracts,
Part-time jobs,
Food banks,
EVPs,
Benefit cuts,
Exorbitant utility prices,
Highest petrol prices in the EU,
20% VAT,
The Bedroom Tax,
The democratic deficit in Scotland of an unelected Tory government,
David Cameron hiding polls that tell the truth,
Child poverty reaching heights not seen since the Victorian age,
Standard Life coming out with the same crap they came out with in 1979 to scare people,
A Chancellor who lies through his teeth at every turn,
The natural resources of Scotland being used to make billionaires in London,
Tax avoidance schemes made to benefit the big corporations being let off with billions of tax so Tories can sit on their boards,
Inheritance tax threshold frozen as it was only a Tory campaign promise to raise it after all,
The likelihood of another coalition government but this time between the unelected UKIP and the unelected Tories in Scotland,
Pensioners freezing their butts off in winter because Westminster doesn't care,
The Royal Mail being sold to the Chancellor's buddies for a fraction of its true value with 85 % of MSPs opposing it in Scotland,
Nuclear weapons based less than 20 miles from our largest city,
That's what No voters are made of.

Split Personalities AKA the Politics of Deceit

For me the critical thing to emerge from the referendum preamble is the entirely schizophrenic nature of the so-called major political parties – how they represent themselves to a UK-wide audience and then how they offer a completely altered image in Scotland.

The Conservative Party really doesn’t try very hard at all in Scotland as they know that the less said the less collateral damage caused. They realise that popping up north of the border is counter-productive and David Cameron himself is running scared when it comes to the matter of debate with Alex Salmond. “But it’s a matter for the people of Scotland” smiles Cameron refusing to be drawn into the debate but then spreading bad faith wherever he ventures and denigrating the Yes campaign at every turn.

The Russian news agency Itar-Tass reported on December 31^st that "Great Britain is extremely interested in the support of Russia, as holder of the G8 presidency, in two vital areas in 2014: the Afghan pull-out and the Scottish independence referendum." The Russian journalist added that although the referendum might "look like a UK domestic matter", it had, according to his UK Government source, the potential to "send shockwaves across the whole of Europe". The Sunday Herald published an article about this on January 12^th. This story has been attacked by BT supporters as unsubstantiated but the BBC News website referenced the story on January 19^th and there has been no official denial from London. Taking into account many other reports of UK diplomats being tasked to drum up support for the Union abroad to the detriment of the Yes campaign then we have to consider that Itar-Tass is accurate – David Cameron is more inclined to connive off the record on Scotland with Vladimir Putin than he is to debate on the record with Alex Salmond.

But of course it is Alex Salmond's conduct that is microscopically examined and condemned by all and sundry. The Unionist bloc smile and say of the Itar-Tass report, "It didn't happen..."

Shocking!

The LibDems posture with an amazing degree of arrogance on the Scottish stage which is pretty amusing for a party that will, in all likelihood, finish 5^th in Scotland in the May Euros. Danny Alexander pretends to be an economic colossus when in reality he might have just, possibly, been an adequate Scottish Secretary. He was promoted way beyond his pay grade very early in the life of the ConDem government. He seems to be an affable enough chap but let’s not mistake geniality for competence.

Michael Moore has been seen off with Alistair Carmichael now as the third Scottish Secretary of this government and on the basis that you can only stretch a limited number of MPs in so many directions he would seem to be the last one for the time being. That’s fine. He’s a gift. Bob Smith's a genuinely nice bloke but he's recently had to face up to health issues so I doubt that there will be any role for him.

But as a party they pretend to still be relevant in Scotland when that ship has long since sailed. In the UK context they are fumbling from one mess to the next but in Scotland they are this bullish group, not discernible in any way, shape or form, from their Tory sugar daddies.

However the Tories and their coalition pets are a mere appetizer on this menu of political schizophrenia.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Labour Party.

Ed Miliband and his acolytes pitch themselves to England as a progressive liberal party of the centre but in truth they are barely discernible from the Conservatives. The so-called Bedroom Tax, a staggering assault on the poorest in society, was not opposed by Labour and, in fact, many Labour MPs did not even turn up for the vote at Westminster. This is the party that promises to follow the Conservative line on benefit caps. This is the party that will now not rule out an in-out referendum on EU membership because the Tories have promised to have one. This is the party that pledges to continue George Osborne’s austerity rout.

Move north and cross the border into Scotland and we have the same Ed Miliband telling the party faithful that Labour will outflank the SNP as the true party of social democracy. Make up your mind Ed. Are you going to punish the most vulnerable in society or are you going to be their saviour? Or are you really going to offer this split personality model of Labour and hope that nobody notices? The tame media have never been too quick to pounce on Labour’s inherent hypocrisies so the party might believe that they can get off with this one for a while.

At the end of April Alex Massie writing in The Spectator described Miliband as some sort of PG Wodehouse composite character and arrived at the conclusion that he is, “Clever enough in a droopy kind of way but, ultimately, a gawd-help-us kind of fellow.”

A couple of gawd-help-us kind of fellows

Ed, we’ve noticed.

Massie continues, “I dare say Miliband’s belief that Scottish independence would be a bad idea – for Scotland and the rest of the United Kingdom – is sincere. That this belief is in his own narrow, strategic, sectarian interest is beside the point. And, sure, we all know that Labour-minded voters in western and central Scotland are a vital constituency in the referendum campaign.

“But I rather approve of Miliband’s simpering, no, thunderous warning that an independent Scotland might be the kind of rogue state in which taxes were cut. I’d like to believe in it a little more than I do. Time – and hard learning – might bring us to that point but not before an awful lot of expensive mistakes had been made.”

Massie goes on to point out that, “Miliband’s position is spectacularly incoherent.”

What Ed fails to highlight is that the specific tax cuts being considered are in the corporate realm – to make business more competitive and to help create jobs. Does anyone in Luxembourg or Ireland or Estonia agree that lowering corporate tax rates is somehow defining of a rogue state? If that would be the definition then Estonia is the rogue state to end all rogue states with 0% Corporate Tax! To quote dear Margaret Curran, “Drivel!”

Ed, we’ve noticed.

Labour claims to be the party that offers answers to all the ills of the UK. The ills that have been heaped on the country by cruel, uncaring governments. But in the past half century there has been coalition government for 4 years, Tory rule for 22 and Labour themselves have had the longest run at power with 24 years in charge. Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Alastair Darling trashed the economy. That’s the same Alastair Darling that leads Better Together, that’s the same Gordon Brown who last week came north to preach on pensions. Are we so stupid as to be duped by these people? Again? The same people who claim to have all the answers in Opposition have held the reins of power for the longest period of anyone in the last half century and have spectacularly failed to deliver... anything!

Ed, we’ve noticed.

This is the party that at a local government level is delighted to form coalitions with the Conservatives just to keep the SNP out.

Ed, we’ve noticed.

Spot the difference - answers on a postcard please

The schizophrenia within the Labour Party is tilting towards certifiable insanity.

The level of deceit from Labour is abject and utterly craven.

Let me affirm here and now. We are not that stupid. We have noticed.

The parties of Westminster have blurred into differing shades of the same basic colour. There is nothing to define them as any one being different from the other. Yet in Scotland they claim an entirely different reality. Enough.