A UK Socialist's blog

Comment on Labour party anti-semitism allegations

I am not and have never been a Labour party member.
Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party are repeatedly accused of anti-Semitism. Many people recognise that these accusations are directed at Corbyn and the Labour party because Corbyn has traditionally shown sympathy to the Palestinian cause. These accusers will not be satisfied until Corbyn is deposed as leader.
The Labour party cannot accept anti-Semitism being conflated with anti-Zionism. Zionism and the Zionist project is a political ideology and movement. To conflate anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism would mean that discussions of Zionism and Israel would be censored.
About Israel-Palestine
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NHS privatisation and Virgin

NHS sign

NHS privatisation soars as private companies win 70% of clinical contracts in England

30 December 2017

NHS spending on care provided by private companies has jumped by £700m to £3.1bn with non-NHS firms winning almost 70 per cent of tendered contracts in England last year.

Private care providers were awarded 267 out of a total of 386 contracts made available in 2016-17, including the seven highest value opportunities, worth £2.4bn.

Richard Branson’s Virgin Care scooped a record £1bn worth of contracts last year, meaning the company now has over 400 separate NHS contracts, making it the dominant private provider in the NHS market.

The extent of Virgin Care’s portfolio has angered campaigners, as the company pays no tax in the UK, and its parent company is registered in the British Virgin Islands – a tax haven.

Virgin Care also sued six NHS commissioning care groups (CCGs) last year after it failed to win an £82m care contract, losing out to an NHS provider and two social enterprises.

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Parasitic capitalism is killing the NHS

Private companies are sucking the lifeblood out of the health service, writes Kane Shaw.

…

 

Continue ReadingNHS privatisation and Virgin

Warning to landlord reads "Intruders may get killed"

My landlord is a total asshole. I’ve changed the lock to keep him out but I had to leave builders here Thursday. My ‘personal’ disappeared last night and I have suspected him of coming in at 3 or 4am previously. I am not going to restrain myself if I find anyone uninvited in my bedroom at that time.

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Craig Murray is the authoritative source on UK complicity in rendition and torture

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/

Theresa May specifically and deliberately ruled out the Committee from questioning any official who might be placed at risk of criminal proceedings – see para 11 of the report. The determination of the government to protect those who were complicit in torture tells us much more about their future intentions than any fake apology.

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It is worth reflecting that the Tory government has acted time and time again to protect New Labour’s Tony Blair, David Miliband, Jack Straw and Gordon Brown from any punishment for their complicity in torture, and indeed to limit the information on it available to the public. The truth is that the Tories and New Labour (which includes the vast majority of current Labour MPs) are all a part of the same elite interest group, and when under pressure they stick together as a class against the people.

Despite being hamstrung by government, the Committee managed through exhaustive research of classified documents to pull together evidence of British involvement in extraordinary rendition and mistreatment of detainees on a massive scale. The Committee found 596 individual documented incidents of the security services obtaining “intelligence” from detainee interrogations involving torture or severe mistreatment, ranging from 2 incidents of direct involvement, “13 to 15” of actually being in the room, through those where the US or other authorities admitted to the torture, to those where the detainee told the officer they had been tortured. They found three instances where the UK had paid for rendition flights.

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Continue ReadingCraig Murray is the authoritative source on UK complicity in rendition and torture

Intending to start properly blogging again

But, come on can’t you do it?

 

*

Edit: There was a thing, no?

A thing about … political assassinations, the assassination of a totally innocent bystander …

Is that acceptable to you?

Are you willing to let that pass?

The trouble for me of course is that he was killed instead of killing me. Is it acceptable to murder a totally unaware, unsuspecting bystander (like e.g. you, your partner, your mum or dad, your kids, depending on their name)

Jean Charles de-Menezes

He was selected to be assassinated because of his name.

So they kill a particular person to send that particular message. You can’t avoid that because it’s the message.

Surname is DeMenezes.

 

It was an evil era. Politicians of that era behaved with a contempt for the law and should be held to account.

 

You have to show that you’re different.

Go deep.

1 shot in the shoulder,

3 missed,

7 in the head

 

later: It was a foreign gang

Continue ReadingIntending to start properly blogging again