Just before Christmas, 2023, a swanky bach in Cook's Beach went up in smoke. It was immediately claimed that some sort of electric vehicle was responsible, with the claim being advanced via social media and repeated in traditional media - albeit in the latter case with caveats that it was hearsay from 'neighbours' and 'eyewitnesses' and had not been established.
Soon after, the local fire service made a public announcement, stating the fire was not started by an EV / PHEV and originated elsewhere in the house, adding the vehicle was not in the garage at the time the fire started and that it was not charging.
In a sane world that might have been the end of it - an official announcement had been made. We don't live in a sane world, however, so instead it was decreed this was simply a part of the cover up, a deliberate lie put out by FENZ to advance the EV agenda.
Because, yes, there are - supposedly - shadowy organization and powers whose purpose is to make people drive electric cars for ... reasons that remain unclear.
A few days after the fire some footage surfaced, filmed by a witness. It was immediately seized upon by the anti-EV voices because it seemed on the surface to contradict the official narrative.
Here's a You Tube wannbe influencer's called Simon's take on it, titled New Zealand (Cooks Beach) Fire: Media claims "EV not to blame":
His main points are that multiple eyewitness described it as being caused by an EV. The media initially reported this but later - mysteriously - changed their story to report the EV was not to blame. FENZ said the fire started elsewhere in the house, yet the garage is ablaze and the rest of the house is intact. And(of course) there is some nefarious attempt to "pull the wool" over our eyes by someone.
(SPOILER: in this case, it is the media.)
So, here is what he has to say. Describing the blaze itself, he says, "The initial media reports indicated that some kind of EV was responsible for the fire" - this is NOT TRUE as we will see. The media reports he cites don't apportion blame - they simply repeat information they have been given. They simply quote unidentified sources saying this is what they (the sources) thought happened; Simon neglects to acknowledge the caveats these media sources often included. He's presenting a false account of the media reports.
He hits us with the extracts from the media reports that he thinks back up the claim that "initial media reports indicated that some kind of EV was responsible for the fire"
A witness told 1News that the initial fire started in the garage where a hybrid car was parked.
Note there are discrepancies - in one case, it is an 'electric car' and in the second it is 'hybrid'; in the first story it is described as charging, and in the latter it is parked. The second report says the fire started in the garage, but the first one only says it started 'while an electric car was parking in the garage,' without explicitly saying where it started.
Eyewitness accounts (and note Newshub does not use the term 'eyewitness') are notoriously unreliable, and here we have complete chos after just two sentences.
Of course, our genial host has already prompted us to think it was the EV charging that ignites the garage, and the media reported this so we overlook these discrepancies.
His third source is the NZ Herald, which simply repeats (with due acknowledgement) what 1 News reported; he also provides some TV news footage, neither of which add anything to the mix, though the TV footage voice over describes the "inferno the locals say was caused by an electric car catching fire while charging in the garage."
So, finally we have a claim that the EV caused the fire - but here the "neighbours" and the "witness" have been downgraded to "locals" - by this stage, we could be getting the thoughts of anyone who was in Cook's Beach at the time and who was willing to talk to a journalist, regardless of whether they saw anything at all. And if I know one thing about people who don't like EVs, it is that they are happy to talk about them and how wicked they are, usually from a stance detached from any sort of direct experience or knowledge.
This is all worth mentioning as it gives the lie to the suggestion the media are not covering negative stories about electric vehicles, a common claim and one which Simon circles back to at the end of his diatribe. Here we have three different mainstream outlets all reporting information that it would have been easy for them - perhaps even journalistically responsible - for them not to report at this stage.
Our host then continues: "All these media outlets are basically saying the same thing - eyewitnesses who were on the scene when the fire started said it was caused by an EV with the fire spreading to the garage."
This statement is untrue. And I am not talking about the quibbles about whether they were describing it as a hybrid or an EV. He has upgraded the "neighbours" and "locals" to "eyewitnesses" who were "on the scene when the fire started"; but only 1 News 1 News used the term 'witness' (and the NZ Herald echoed it in its doppelganger reporting.
So it is untrue to claim - as he does - that "all these media outlets are basically saying the same thing" - only one of them (and its echo) is claiming to be speaking to anyone who could be said to have seen anything.
The other "neighbours" and "locals" don't say how the fire started; only the unidentified TV news coverage directly says their source claims the fire "was caused by an EV". 1 News referred to a "witness" who told them the fire started "in the garage" rather than stating the car started it; News Hub don't even suggest a location for it.
And remember, that TV news coverage only identified its source as "locals" - not dignifying them with the title of "witness" and who may not have seen anything at all. Yet here they are presented as "eyewitnesses who were on the scene when the fire started." Wild, wild surmising and invention from Simon.
That isn't what our host wants to talk about, really. After all, if that was how the story was covered, he would probably be quite happy. But, as he describes it, "But then, two days later, on the 18th of December, the New Zealand Herald put out another article ..." referring to this passage:
Social media posts and a media outlet then reported a witness as saying the fire had been started by an EV (electric vehicle) in the home’s garage.
But Fire and Emergency New Zealand (Fenz) investigator Ed Hopping said that was not the case.
“The investigation is still ongoing... but I’m comfortable to put it out there in the world that the fire wasn’t a result of the battery in the car failing,” Hopping said.
He said the fire started within the home, while the car was parked outside the garage and was not plugged in for charging at the time.
“It’s just important to put out there that hybrid cars... aren’t that vulnerable to fires,” Hopping said.
“And then in this instance, the car wasn’t plugged in and wasn’t inside the garage or the structure.”
Based on Fenz experience so far, he said it isn’t common for fires to be started by electric vehicles in New Zealand.
Simon offers his take on this: "So I'm glad we're getting all the key points of 'the message' out in this article ... I emailed the Fire and Emergency New Zealand media with the following questions: multiple eyewitness reports claim that the fire started in an hybrid vehicle that was parked outside the garage ..."
Again, "multiple eye witnesses" were not mentioned. A single "witness" was referred to and how much the rest may have known or seen is unclear. He is simply wrong here. WRONG.
(AN ASIDE: whatever these people may or may not have seen, they all said the car was INSIDE the garage. "In the garage" is repeated in all the reports - even though they can't decide if it was a hybrid, an EV, or whether it was charging or just parked. Yet hear is Simon blithely proclaims it was outside, immediately nixing the credibility of those "eye witnesses" (or whatever) he is relying on. You can't have it both ways, trusting them when they say the fire was started by a charging car (though only one of them, the "local" says that) and then happily ignoring them when they say the car was in the garage.)
Now we get to the nub of Simon's complaining - that Hopping said battery failure was not involved and the fire started else where in the house. He wants to know how this could have been confirmed "so quickly" (his words).
The obvious implication being this is a BIG LIE and a COVER UP. The possibility FENZ might have spoken to the people who owned the house and car and got information from them seems to have eluded our host. Though I am willing to be all the money in the world if Hopping had said "The investigation isn't complete but it was totally caused by the EV combusting" our host would not be complaining about the speed of that conclusion being made public.
“I can’t comment on the cause, because the investigation is not yet completed, but I can say where it did not start and that was in the garage,” Hopping said.
“The car did not have anything to do with it, and it was parked outside of the garage at the time.”
“It looks like the fire started at the rear of the property. It did not start where the car was.”
Significantly, he tells us to "take mental note of that very carefully because its going to be relevant in a minute."
He then engages in some boilerplate conspiracy waffle: "It's all very tidy isn't it? Nothing to see here folks, please disperse." If you say so, Simon. Though if I was running a cover up, I'd probably have made sure I had an alternate explanation out in the media, rather than just saying what it wasn't. Just get someone to say they left the iron on in the laundry adjacent to the garage, problem solved.
And, finally, we get the reward for all our patience. Simon has a video to show us, "sent to me by one of my viewers" which supposedly exposes the coverup. It is only a few seconds long and shows the garage of the house, the door open and flames pouring out of, with a Mitsubishi Outlander in the process of cooking up nicely.
Simon claims it is "very early on in the fire" and "you can see the only part of the house where smoke is coming from is the section where the car and the garage are. The rest of the house is not involved at all at this point ... as we get closer we can see that the garage itself is on fire. The car which is, I understand, a Mitsubishi Plug In Hybrid, is also on fire and the edges of the garage are on fire and the car. But there's no sign of the rest of the house being involved at this stage. And I don't see any evidence of the fire having started at the rear of the property which is completely out of sight compared to this view ... the main part of the house is not involved yet ... its not even involved. Its only that car and the garage that are on fire right now. So for them to say that it started at the rear just doesn't make sense with the evidence ..."
He also shows us some drone footage of the property blazing away, shortly after the clip.
He is overlooking a couple of pertinent things here, however.
First, of course, the first clip shows the front of the house. We can see the garage is in flames. But we can't see the back of the house. Tellingly, perhaps, the drone footage does show the rear of the house, and there are gouts of flame erupting from the read of the property:
As you can see, the rear of the house is pretty clearly 'involved' as Simon likes to say.
But ... but ... but ... that drone footage is clearly taken from later on, as there are now firefighters fight fire, down on the left (Simon has helpfully drawn a circle round them). Obviously, by this time the fire has spread through out the house, starting in the garage and only later 'involving' the rear of the house.
Possibly. But fires are tricky things - I know because I watched Backdraft obsessively in the 90s and still think it is a top, top film. It isn't uncommon for fires in oxygen poor environments to die down to virtually nothing (this, of course, is how you put them out, if you can only starve the fire of sufficient oxygen) but flare up again when they find sweet, sweet air to breathe. So if the fire had started at the rear of the house, if there wasn't plentiful oxygen, it could well have died down to the point where it wasn't obvious to someone in the street. There aren't ready pathways for smoke to pour out (otherwise, oxygen would be pouring in and the fire would be having a fine old time); the exception to this is the garage, where the door has been fatefully left open, giving the fire oxygen to breath.
(n.b. I am not saying this is what happens; and I repeat my credentials are virtually nil - but I reckon they are as robust as Simon's. And unlike him, when I am engaging in fantastic speculation I am making it pretty obvious this is what I am doing. And I amn't wasting the emergency services time with mendacious communications.)
Simon rounds it all off with a typically mealy-mouthed quasi-caveat, saying he would, of course, be delighted to learn it wasn't actually an EV that caused the fire but he just can't, for the life of him, see how this can fit with the facts he's presented. Someone, he implies, is telling us lies, and "What I really, really hate is having the wool pulled over my eyes by media outlets determined to push a particular message rather than be truthful with the facts."
Wait, what ... media outlets? Dude, they were simply reporting what they were being told. First, by the "neighbours" and "witnesses" and "locals" in Cook's Beach; and then by Fire Emergency New Zealand.
In spite of having emailed FENZ and quoted from their response and regurgitated the information stated in public by a spokesperson for FENZ, Simon is trying to blame the media for what he claims is a misrepresentation? This is outlandishly silly. How can the media dictate what Hopping and FENZ say?
Just go back to the title of Simon's clip for a moment: New Zealand (Cooks Beach) Fire: Media claims "EV not to blame". No, Simon, the media didn't. FENZ said the fire started else where and the car did not cause it. The media simply REPORTED what FENZ said. But claiming FENZ is spread false information is a riskier proposition than making vague, absurd claims about unidentified "media".
I know blaming 'mainstream media' is bread and butter for conspiracy trolls like Simon; but it helps if you can actually point to something bad the media have actually done. Here they have literally just done their job, telling readers and viewers what happened and what people are saying about it, in a fairly even handed way - and I know this because there is plenty of complaining on EV social media sites about how the media mentioned the claims about an EV / hybrid being involved.
So, while I wandering about town on Saturday afternoon, I happened to chance upon a (rather thinly populated) anti-vaccine rally in the Square.
By chance, as I moved closer to see quite what was going on the speaker - a very energetic fellow who seemed unsure what nation - or even hemisphere he was in - asked his audience (about 100 people, I reckon) if the wanted "Socialism or freedom"; to which I could not restrain myself from bellowing "socialism" though I don't think anyone noticed.
I didn't linger, because being around large groups of unvaccinated people in a pandemic is Really Stupid (and both Covid and Stupid as easily caught - as Charlie Mitchell described in Stuff the other day) But I did hear more.
After presenting his audience with the false choice between "socialism" on the one hand and "freedom" on the other the speaker then led his enthused listeners (most of whom would have benefited from New Zealand's milquetoast socialism at many points in their lives) in a vigorous chorus of "The Bill of Rights is ours!" which most of them joined in with cheerfully, though perhaps wondering what the Bill of Rights is, and why they were meant to be excited about it.
A few days ago Hone Harawira described the so-called "Sovereignty Hikoi of Truth" (which seemed to fail to live up to any of the of the words in its name, except perhaps the 'of' part) as being taken over by "Pakehā anti-vaxxers" and this claim seems to be borne out by fulminations of the gentleman in the Square. "Socialism" isn't something most New Zealanders get very worked up about, though I suppose if you are the sort of person who considers Jacinda Ardern a "Pretty little communist" and thinks it would be an clever idea to put that thought on a placard, then there are some.
Which suggests a lot of the intellectual apparatus (sic) of the anti-Vaxx movement is being imported from overseas. This makes sense. New Zealanders don't tend to get passionately upset about sensible medical ideas and the link between the anti-Vaxxers and the evangelical churches is pretty well known - and the curious blend of intolerance, conservativism, libertarianism and fleecing of the congregation propagated by some of those sects is a direct import from the fundamentalist churches in the USA.
But I am curious about the people behind the people gathered in the square. Who thinks it would be a splendid idea to import American or Australian anti-Vax lunacy into Aotearoa and encourage people - generally the people who are highly vulnerable to Covid and likely to be worst hit by it as it seethes past the Pretty Little Communist's half-hearted attempts to stop it?
As a childish aside - if only Ardern had been properly Stalinist and actually made us all stay home and watch Netflix instead of vaccilating and worrying about whether people might be starting to listen to the irrelevance formerly known as Judith Collins. Then we might be back to smirking insufferably at the rest of the world and wondering what all the fuss was about, instead of bracing ourselves for Delta's full onslaught.
And not just who, but why? Anti-Vaxxers are big on conspiracies. They love the idea this is planned - though they disagree what 'this' is - it might be the phoney virus, or the not-phoney virus that has been deliberately unleashed, or the not-phoney virus that wasn't deliberately unleashed but whose emergence is being exploited by the Powers That Be to achieve some nefarious end. From Charlie Mitchell's piece, mentioned earlier, we learn of the anti-Vaxxer fixation with the idea there are Dark Forces behind it all, whatever 'all' might be:
An article, published on the group’s website and authored by the “NZDSOS Steering Committee”, claims the pandemic is ushering in a totalitarian society and refers to “undeniable evidence that the Covid pandemic is in fact a planned criminal operation”. It likens unvaccinated people to victims of 20th-century dictators such as Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Pol Pot.
“Behind every regime mentioned, investing in the death camps and gulags and perhaps now vaccines, have been sociopathic banking and corporate interests, as immune to the suffering of others as their chosen frontmen and women,” the article says.
In a post responding to the vaccine mandate for healthcare workers, the group’s Telegram account implied that US President John F Kennedy was assassinated due to his belief in natural immunity, a conspiracy theory so obscure I can’t find it referenced anywhere else. NZDSOS would set up “dream circles” for those affected by the mandate, it said in a since-deleted remark on its website.''
And:
To get to that point required a lying propagandised media, a currency or other economic or societal collapse then centralised control, a persecuted minority blamed for all society's ills and, particularly in the communist regimes, you eliminate religion, control education and inflict regular doses of terror and persecution to keep the citizens obedient,” Shelton says.
That's grand stuff, particularly the bit about Kennedy. I always KNEW it wasn't a cranky social failure exercising his 2nd Amendment Rights in an extreme fashion, or even a Communist stodge controlled by the microchips implanted in him during his sojourn in Russia (does this sound a bit familiar?) Clearly, it was because Kennedy was an anti-Vaxxer. Probably many other people were as well, all martyred by Big Pharma in its quest to sell us pills and magnetise the population.
I often think there is an element of projection or unconscious self-description going on in the screeds of conspiratorially inclined. Like a sort of self-created Rorschach test, the word salads they post revel what is going on inside or behind. Bigger pictures can be glimpsed in the scribblings.
My pet theory is this is nothing to do with Covid, ultimately. There is always a bigger game afoot. And no, this is not saying Covid is not a Very Big Deal. But when the anti-Vaxxers contend that Covid is being exploited by the murky Powers That Be to further some Sinister Agenda, I wonder if there is not some truth in this; only the Powers That Be are quite different from Jacinda / the Chinese / Hilary Clinton / the Feds or whoever the anti-Vaxxers would posit is behind it all. And the goal isn't to turn us all into human fridge magnets but part of a long term strategy to break democracy by alienating people from the system, spreading paranoid ideas about the interventionist state and regulation.
The protesters are 'useful idiots' - a phrase often ascribed to Lenin and suggesting his scornful and cynical manipulation of gullible Western sympathizers (though it isn't at all clear he coined the phrase, used it in the manner usually described. The whole thing may have been a ruse to make those sympathetic to communism feel they were being gulled by the Reds.)
They are being used in an ongoing process of democratic and social sabotage to people whose interests are completely at odds with their own and who don't really give a damn about the Bill of Rights or the freedoms of people in Palmerston North's square.
And who don't really care if these people live or die, as long as they do the important thing, which is stop voting.
If I was to be rallying the Square, I wouldn't be chanting "The Bill of Rights is ours"; I'd be chanting, "This is a deliberate attempt to convince people to disenfranchise themselves, allowing the further consolidation of rightwing ideology; a deliberate and cynical move top persuade people at the bottom of society - who rightly feel they have been neglected and let down - to opt out of protecting their own interests, resulting in the continuing and accelerating demolition of the state apparatus that could be used to help them, the very people whose acquiescence is allowing the rich and the privileged to further arrogate more power and wealth to themselves; and further permitting them to continue to lower tax rates privatise and deregulate, of environmental protection in pursuit of short term profit."
Or maybe I'd just yell "Socialism" again because it is shorter and easier to understand.
Watching National's Health spokesman, Dr Shane Reti, on TVNZ yesterday morning was instructive:
In four minutes, he managed to undermine both his leader and deputy leader - refusing to twist th knife Collins had attempted to plant in Labour, by acknowledging the government was doing "the best they can" and they were confronted with a "hard problem" and referencing a "productive" meeting with Health Minister Chris Hipkins.
If the chap you've got lined up to be Health minister is quietly signalling he doesn't agree with the leader - in the middle of a pandemic - it doesn't give voters many reasons to be enthusiastic for you.
Covid is kinda of a big deal in 2020 and National have blown their chance to actually make the government look shakey on it by being even shakier themselves.
With the polls suggesting National will struggle to reach the 35% threshold Collins has indicated represents 'victory' in her curiously inverted world, perhaps Reti is looking beyond the election, aware that he has a future – either in in politics, academe or medicine – and Collins and Brownlee do not?
He seems to represent a less dangerous future for National and - given there will occasionally have to be National governments - that needs to be encouraged. All the more reason for centrists inclined to (sometimes) support National to vote AGAINST the party this year - to crush the Collins leadership and drive her faction (promoted by Cameron Slater and his allies through dirty tricks and blackmail, as outlined in Dirty Politics) out of the party.
Note the people standing around him, particularly the two dapper chaps in suits with blue ties. Note the chain on the right, attached to the black post. Note the Check Shirt Dude, one arm draped nonchalantly across the chain that so clearly separates him from the graves or memorial.
Now look at the next image:
Corbyn helping lay a wreath, presumably (as the Mail would like us to think) on the grave of a Black September murdering terrorist.
Again, note the people - the two dapper chaps are still there, and they are joined by Pink Tie Guy and a Mystery Woman. Note the chain.
Now look at this image:
Corbyn making a show of joining in the gestures of respect. This is obviously taken very shortly after the first two images and is in the same location - Pink Tie Guy, the Mystery Woman and the two dapper chaps in the suit appear are still there (the first two just visible on the left) and you can still see the chain attached to the black post - or at least the brass coloured clip that attaches it to the post.
Conclusion - these pictures were all taken in one location and over a very short period of time.
Now look at this one, the one that places him, supposedly, at the grave of a Black September killer (never mind the Mail doesn't identify whose grave it is):
Note how the cast has changed. Pink Tie Guy and Mystery Woman have disappeared. The two Dapper Chaps are still there, but one of them appears to have found time to do up his suit jacked - in previous photos it was open, revealing his splendid belly to the world. Also note that Check Shirt Dude is still there, but the chain that was so obviously apparent, right in front of him, has disappeared.
That would suggest this last photo was taken at a different time and in a different part of the cemetery.
So the implication that Corbyn assisted in laying a wreath on the graves of Black September murderers and joined in a prayer at their graves is very shaky indeed. It looks like he laid a wreath - presumably at the memorial for those killed in the 1985 raid as he as always said - joined in the prayer there, then followed others over to see what was happening at the other grave. Again, confirming what he wrote in 2014. A main wreath was laid at the memorial for the victims of 1985, and he was part of that. Other wreaths were laid on other graves and he wasn't part of that.
But there is no evidence he laid a wreath at the Black September graves, or honoured them. Look at his posture in that final photo - hands in pockets, slouched, typical Corbyn. He isn't honouring nothing there. He's probably wondering if his allotment is being well looked after in his absence.
During the election campaign last year a story surfaced briefly about Jermey Corbyn visiting a cemetery in Tunisia and taking part in a ceremony to honour 'Palestinian martyrs'. The controversial aspect was that - buried in the same cemetery were the bodies of some of the terrorists who kidnapped, tortured and murdered Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972.
October 1 is a poignant day in Palestinian history and is commemorated in Tunisia. This year was no exception as a group of us gathered at the hillside cemetery overlooking the villages and walked down to the town and the beautiful blue Mediterranean where in 1986 Israeli jets screamed in to bomb the relocated headquarters of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, causing many deaths.
The offices and buildings were destroyed and once again Palestinians, in exile, became the victims.
The PLO had relocated after the massacres at Sabra and Shatilla in 1982 when Israeli troops oversaw massacres by Phalangist militias at the huge refugee camps in Lebanon, home to Palestinians driven from their homes in 1948.
After wreaths were laid at the graves of those who died on that day and on the graves of others killed by Mossad agents in Paris in 1991, we moved to the poignant statue in the main avenue of the coastal town of Ben Arous, which was festooned with Palestinian and Tunisian flags.
The story was unearthed in 2017 during the election campaign and repeated with varying degrees of speculation, conjecture and hyperbole. Guido found the bottom of the barrel, pretty quickly, claiming "Corbyn honoured Munich massacre terrorist", a claim which is not borne out by any of the facts presented in the piece that followed. In particular, he attempts to conflate the unidentified persons described as being "killed by Mossad agents in Paris in 1991" with Atef Bseiso, one of the planners of the Munich murders.
Bseiso was killed, possibly by Mossad agents, in Paris. But this happened in 1992, not 1991 and was a single killing, when Corbyn refers to 'others'.
Three members of Black September were killed by Mossad, in 1991, but not in Paris. So it is hard to square Guido's interpretation with what Corbyn reported. As Guido points out, there are no killings attributed to Mossad in 1992 in Paris. So quite who Corbyn was referring to is unclear. According to the Indie, The Times asked Corbyn if he meant Bseiso:
According to The Sunday Times, that was a reference to Atef Bseiso, a PLO agent who was involved in the 1972 attack. Mr Corbyn denied this was the case.
The story went away, quite quickly, and the election went about its business.
Now it has resurfaced. The Mail apparently has obtained pictures and even went as far as to visit the cemetery. The claim the pictures show Corbyn standing at the graves of the Black September murderers:
One picture places Mr Corbyn close to the grave of another terrorist, Atef Bseiso, intelligence chief of the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
Bseiso has also been linked to the Munich atrocity. Another image shows the Labour leader apparently joining in an Islamic prayer while by the graves.
Last night sources close to Mr Corbyn insisted he was at the service in 2014 to commemorate 47 Palestinians killed in an Israeli air strike on a Tunisian PLO base in 1985.
But on a visit to the cemetery this week, the Daily Mail discovered that the monument to the air strike victims is 15 yards from where Mr Corbyn is pictured – and in a different part of the complex.
Instead he was in front of a plaque that lies beside the graves of Black September members.
On first glance, the pictures bear out the Mail's implication (never directly stated) that Corbyn was taking part in a ceremony honouring Bseiso, Salah Khalaf, Fakhri al-Omari and Hayel Abdel-Hamid, who are all buried in that part of the cemetery.
But look more closely.
Here are the pictures:
This image clearly identifies the graves occupied by the Munich murderers. Note the plaque to the right, in front of another, slightly elevated tomb. The occupant of this tomb is not identified by the Mail.
Now, look at the image of the wreath laying. You'll see they are standing right in front of that plaque, which the Mails states is "honours three dead men: Salah Khalaf, who founded Black September; his key aide Fakhri al-Omari; and Hayel Abdel-Hamid, PLO chief of security."
Pretty damning, huh?
But look more closely, and read more carefully. First of all, the Mail slyly admits the plaque lies "lies beside the graves of Black September members," not in front of it; it is not claiming the grave behind the plaque belongs to a Black September member.
And (important bit) the photograph clearly shows the wreath has been placed on the tomb. You can see it in the bottom right corner of the photograph.
When you are placing a wreath at a monument, you do not place it BEHIND the monument. You put it in fron of it. This would clearly indicate they were honouring the person or persons in the grave, not the persons commemorated in the plaque; and the grave they appear to be honouring is not identified as a Black September grave. This is all from the photographs the Mail provided and - crucially - the information they chose to withhold.
Now, if that grave contained the body of some heinous individual, would the Mail would have coyly kept that information to themselves? If they knew who was in it and if that person was a rotter they would have told us.
The Mail state they visited the cemetery to confirm the details of the story. You'd think they wold check who was interred in the grave the group was specifically honouring.
So either they didn't bother to find out (poor journalism, verging on the deliberately dishonest) or the person who was being honoured is someone not too repugnant, and the Mail opted to trick casual readers into thinking the ceremony was honouring the Black September murderers.
Another conflict of interest / undisclosed relationship type thingy is emerging, involving Sean 'Death of Journalism' Hannity and people who got frequent boosts on his show, without Mr Hannity bothering to acknowledge that he had a relationship with them beyond the studio:
For months, Fox News’s Sean Hannity has promoted Henssler Financial and its Principal and Managing Director, Bil Lako. Hannity has featured articles from Lako on his website, and had Lako appear as a special guest on his radio show. Describing Lako as a “good friend”, and his “financial adviser”, Hannity failed to disclose that he stood to financially benefit from promoting Henssler.
Most recently, Lako wrote an analysis piece on Hannity.com criticizing the cost of the Special Counsel, writing,
“The funding is built into the congressional budget, so if you were really wondering, the citizens pick up the tab. That’s right, a political game funded by taxpayer dollars. Shocker!”
Corporate documents and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) records have revealed that Hannity is secretly a co-owner of Henssler Financial’s affiliate, Henssler Capital. His advertisement of the financial advisory firm came as the group sought and received millions of dollars in funding from investors.
Buried within Henssler Financial’s 2018 brochure are a list of its affiliates, including Henssler Property Management and the aforementioned Henssler Capital. It states, “[Henssler Capital] is owned by Dr. Gene, Mr. William G. Lako, Jr., Mr. Christopher E. Reeves, and SPMK II, LLC.”
Hannity’s involvement with Henssler Capital is shielded via his use of a shell company, SPMK II, based in Georgia. Shell companies such as the one managed by Hannity are typically able to keep their beneficiaries secret, however when a company enters into a Limited Partnership, the representative of the company must sign official documentation. In 2007, Hannity certified to the Georgia Secretary of State that he is the Manager of the General Partner SPMK II.
I'm sure Sean will quickly and efficiently respond to this, and clear everything up.
Nope, looks like he's using Twitter to grizzle about how the liberal media are on a witch hunt, fixated with smearing good honest Republicans and decent folk:
Up next we’ll show you the media's new sick and twisted obsession about President Trump. @seanspicer on that and more.
Another example of Mr Hannity's projection / complete lack of self awareness / supreme mastery of irony. Or plain brazen desperation to deflect attention away from his increasingly compromised position.
Hannity declared––and brought up Rush Limbaugh‘s words agreeing––that the media is obsessed with trying to “tear this President down” and they’re going after big supporters like himself because he “challenge[s] their rigid radical left-wing ideology” and “expose[s] the deep state.”
The Fox News host went on to say he’s at least “honest” about who he is and declare, “The media is guilty of every single solitary thing they’ve been accusing me of.”
Someone needs to explain to Sean Hannity what 'projection' means in psychology.
Oh, Sean, I guess this outpouring suggests you know you might be in a little bit of trouble. Still, I guess you've got lots of friends out there, because it isn't like you're a professional rightwing media thug or anything.
"Schadenfreude" is the word we are all groping for.
Very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the Trump campaign - there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!
So the other day, the slightly-better-known-than-me-blogger Guido Fawkes aka Paul Staines aka a big fat Tory FIBBER posted a big fat Tory Fib about this Brexit thing that has happened while I have been Otherwise Engaged.
The tl/dr version of his post is that people who didn't like Brexit were big fat liars because they had predicted the end of the world would commence the day after the referendum and when this didn't happen (because in the strange world Staines inhabits, the pound hasn't relentlessly tanked) and now the Remoaner fibbers are trying to say that they never actually said that at all and the End of the World would kick off after Britain actually left the EU blah blah blah, and this was all lies, lies I tell you!
He produces DEVASTATING documentary evidence to back up his claim - a report issued by HM Treasury, no less, assuring us Brexit apocalypse would be 'immediate' and he quotes some absolutely DEVASTATING evidence to PROVE beyond a SHADOW OF A DOUBT that ALL REMAINERS are lying deviants who molest hedgehogs. To whit:
This paper focuses on the immediate economic impact of a vote to leave and the two
years that follow. Such a vote would change fundamentally not just the UK’s
relationship with the EU, our largest trading partner, but also our relationship with the
rest of the world. The instability and uncertainty that would trigger is assessed.
The Treasury analysis in this document uses a widely-accepted modelling approach
that looks at the impact of this uncertainty and instability on financial markets,
households and businesses, as our economy transitions to a worse trading
arrangement with the EU.
I am grateful to Professor Sir Charles Bean, one of our country's foremost economists
and a former Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, who has reviewed this analysis
and says that it “provides reasonable estimates of the likely size of the short-term
impact of a vote to leave on the UK economy”.
The analysis in this document comes to a clear central conclusion: a vote to leave
would represent an immediate and profound shock to our economy. That shock would
push our economy into a recession and lead to an increase in unemployment of around
500,000, GDP would be 3.6% smaller, average real wages would be lower, inflation
higher, sterling weaker, house prices would be hit and public borrowing would rise
compared with a vote to remain.
He even draws red oval shapes around some bits of it, a skill I have yet to evolve. But, I mean, why would you need red oval shapes when the evidence is so DEVASTATINGLY PROOFY as that? The Remainers predicted the End Of Times would be IMMEDIATE after a VOTE FOR LEAVE and - well, the GDP figures released the other day show growth of 0.5%. GROWTH.
Only, yeah, Paul Staines is a big fat Tory FIBBER so it will come as no surprise at all to learn that this is just a big ol' FIB.
I mean, he didn't invent it or anything, the paper exists. Though, curiously, Mr Staines doesn't link it on his bloggy-woggy or anything, because that might result in some people stumbling across the truth or something and Ol' Stainy doesn't want THAT.
Because here's the thing. The paper he is quoting is a legit paper released by Her Madge's Gummint and everything. But the bit he's quoting is a bit written by the former Chief Idiot To The Treasury, Mr Gideon "Call Me George" Osborne himself, a man whose occupancy of the office of Chancellor was somewhat akin to a stalker's relationship to romance - he isn't wanted, he doesn't get it, but he won't go away.
So enough of George, because it isn't nice to kick a man while he's down (a lesson that the Tories never learned) and back to Paul Staines.
Like I said, Mr Staines makes a bi deal of the words 'vote to leave' which are prefaced by immediate and OHMIGOD it looks soooooooooo bad, until you actually look at the original report. The bit written by the experts who knew what they were talking about, I mean, not the bit written by the Gidiot in Number 11. Because then you discover that - unfortunately for Stainsey - when grown up economist people (as distinct from moron bloggers) use words like IMMEDIATE they don't mean RIGHT NOW.
If Staines had bothered to read a bit beyond the foreword written by Gideon Osborne he'd have found this out for himself.
'coz if he'd read only as far as PARAGRAPH FRIGGIN' FOUR of the Executive Summary (and who really reads beyond the Executive Summary?) the Stainsinator would have learned that when those clever economicky type people use words like IMMEDIATE they have a bit of a special meaning that is lost on both him and on Gideon:
The analysis in this HM Treasury document quantifies the impact of that adjustment over the immediate period of two years following a vote to leave. Such a vote would trigger a redefinition not only of the UK’s economic relationship with the EU and the rest of the world, but also of much of the UK’s domestic economic policy, regulatory and legislative framework. A vote to leave would cause an immediate and profound economic shock creating instability and uncertainty which would be compounded by the complex and interdependent negotiations that would follow.
"The immediate period of two years," GEDDIT??
So, yeah, what do you make of that, Staines, you big fat Tory FIBBER?
Of course, its not Paul's fault that George Osborne was almost as useless a writer of forewords as he was a Chancellor. But the evidence was all there in black and white and all he had to do was read it and be honest. He massively failed on one of these counts. Because if you look beyond the Wise Words of Gideon's foreword, you'd have to be pretty damn thick not to realise that when the EXPERTS (as distinct from idiot bloggers) used the term immediate they meant a two year time scale.
They even have a section called, "Part 3: Modelling the immediate impact on the public finances of a vote to leave the EU," (page 74) which is examining the impacts through to 2018. Which is two years away. 'Immediate' appears to cover the period from the vote up until exiting, working on the assumption that Cameron stuck to his word and triggered Article 50 pretty much immediately after a referendum.
Which possibley suggests a worrying lack of scientific rigour on the part of the authors, because, you know, Tories and their word ...
But, anyhoo, either oor man Stainsey did not bother to read the report before ranting his branes on the interwebs; or he is a klutz who did not understand what he read; or he is a Big Fat Tory FIBBER who understood it and decided to misrepresent it to the readers of his blog, because, you know, the truth isn't much good if it doesn't advance the Tories.
At least 2,000 men sexually harassed women on New Year’s Eve across Germany, but it will be impossible to track them all down, police said, adding that the attacks have been linked to mass migration.
Police said there were cases involving over 1,200 women, adding that apart from Cologne, sexual harassment was reported in Hamburg, Düsseldorf, Stuttgart and other cities across Germany.
The report from the Federal Office of Criminal Investigations (BKA) was seen by Germany's Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper and broadcasters NDR and WDR.
According to the report, at least 642 crimes of a purely sexual nature were reported in Germany. Plus, police registered 239 other “combined crimes” that involved both sexual assault and theft.
Of the 2,000 alleged attackers, only 120 have been identified so far, according to police reports. Many of the attacks were carried out in large groups.
“We need to assume that many of the perpetrators will not be investigated,” BKA President Holger Münch said, as cited by the paper.
According to police estimates, most of the identified offenders came from North Africa and over a half of the attackers had spent less than a year in Germany.
This actually tells us nothing new.
Of the 2000 attackers, only 120 have actually been identified. The statement that "According to police estimates, most of the identified offenders came from North Africa and over a half of the attackers had spent less than a year in Germany," has to be read with that in mind. "Most of" refers to the 120 identified offenders, not the 'gross' figure of 2000.
The identity of 94% of the perpetrators is simply unknown. They might be white, black, brown, yellow or green.
I don't suppose that will stop the anti-Muslim, anti-refugee making a predictable unpleasant fuss about it, though.
It's been a bit interesting watching the current shit storm in Britain.
It reeks of right-wing desperation. Are they really reduced to trawling through the pre-parliamentary twitter feeds and online wibblings of Labour MPs to find anything that can be spun as dicreditable.
I refer, of course, to the fuss about Naz Shah's comments - made two years ago, before she became an MP - about relocating Israel to the USA as a solution to the Israel-Palestine problem.
In subsequent events, Labour veteran loudmouth Ken Livingstone may finally have gone too far and be forced to retire in disgrace, a sad end to a career in politics that has been amusing, infuriating and only sometimes offensive.
First, Ms Shah. Yeah, she made some thoughtless comments on Twitter. Were they anti-Semitic? I wouldn't have thought so. Just a bit crass, and only anti-Semitic if you are one of these people who conflate Israel with all Jews.
It was interesting watching how this story was reported.
The Mail's first few paragraphs is a masterclass in disingenuous reporting, making it sound like she did it recently, while in her role as an MP:
A Labour MP today has resigned as an aide to John McDonnell after sharing a graphic on social media that appeared to say Israel should be 'relocated' to America.
Bradford West MP Naz Shah shared an image that showed an outline of Israel superimposed on to a map of the USA.
The headline on the image said: 'Solution for Israel-Palestine Conflict - Relocate Israel into United States.'
Note 'A Labour MP today has resigned as an aide to John McDonnell after sharing a graphic' - yeah, almost 2 years afterwards she shared it, and a year after becoming an MP. And 'Bradford West MP Naz Shah shared an image' - the Bradford MP Naz Shah did nothing of the kind, Naz Shah, did, before she became the MP for Bradford West.
Clever, though disheartening stuff.
Whereas Shah's action was not clever, and also disheartening.
Ken Livingstone's intervention is more problematic. In fact, he should be banished from the party and should be sacked and thrown in the Thames. Not because of what he said, as much as the stupidity of opening his mouth and turning an annoyance into a crisis. Government looking useless and divided, the first polls showing Labour in the lead, a bit of a hint of Corbyn starting to impinge on the public consciousness as something more than a bizarre situationist prank, and then Livingstone goes and shoots his mouth off.
He's actually managed to make things much worse for Shah. Her silliness - two years ago, before parliament - would have been forgotten and after an 'investigation' and a stern talking to she could have been re-admitted. But Livingstone - who should know better, given he's been around for a colossally long time and presumably knows a few things about the right wing media works - should have anticipated what would happen if he started shooting his mouth off.
Now there will be far more swivel eyed attention paid to Shah's case, and it is possible she won't be back in at.
A Labour councillor has been suspended from the party over anti-Semitic comments on her Twitter account.
A message on Luton councillor Aysegul Gurbuz's Twitter feed claimed Hitler was the "greatest man in history".
Another tweet on Ms Gurbaz's account suggested Iran could develop a nuclear weapon to "wipe Israel off the map".
Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn said anyone who makes anti-Semitic remarks is "auto-excluded from the party" pending an inquiry.
Note that this story is dated the 10th of April, well before the Mail et al became hypocritically excited about anti-Semitism. But Corbyn's position is quite clear. Anti-Semitism is not tolerated. Suspension pending investigation.
Yet still the right wing of his party - more interested in destablizing him, still afflicted by the deranged idea that he can be overthrown, are trying to stir up trouble and make out that he is dithering and is not trying to address the problem.
A Tory MP who voted to bomb Syria was criticised today after she doctored an email from a constituent so it read like a death threat.
Lucy Allan, 51, published a genuine email from a voter who branded her 'an empty shell of a human being' and 'detached from reality' but added the words 'unless you die' and put it on Facebook.
Sender Adam Watling, 27, who was writing as Rusty Shackleford, claims she deliberately added the final three words to make it appear as though he had sent a death threat.
Mrs Allan has since deleted the Facebook post, claiming that the three extra words were from another email and the post was an 'illustration' of the unpleasant comments she had received.
Cameron should resign. How can he persist in office when he leads a party of evil hearted lie-mongers? He must take responsibility and show that honour has not been completely extirpated from the Conservative Party. After Shappsgate, Clarkegate and now UnlessyouDiegate, it is clearly impossible for his to remain in office. Resign! Resign!
Seriously, what is happening in the Conservative Party? they've allowed grand Shapps, a serial spiv and liar, to retain in office until a couple of weeks ago; the party seems to be riddled with corruption, bullying, blackmail and vice; and now 'poetic licence' is being used as an excuse for making stuff up about people.
The whole party seems to be sick. Perhaps they need to actually seize the opportunity Jeremy Corbyn proffers with his talk of a 'new politics'; but David Cameron's recent return to red-faced yelling and bluster suggests otherwise. The culture of bullying, threatening and shouting down arguments starts at the top.
The Independent Press Standards Organisation has slammed the Telegraph as vile liars and distorters of truth (whodathunkit?) and forced them to RETRACT, CORRECT and GROVEL in apologetic apoplexy before the feet of the People's Darling, Jeremy Corbyn:
The Independent Press Standards Organisation has upheld a complaint from Ivan Lewis, the shadow Northern Ireland secretary, about a 15 August story headlined “Labour grandees round on ‘antisemite’ Corbyn’”.
The story claimed Lewis had attacked Corbyn’s “antisemitic rhetoric”, saying the party must have “zero tolerance” for such views.
It later cited an article the MP had written for Labour List stating “Some of his stated political views are a cause for serious concern. At the very least he has shown very poor judgment in expressing support for and failing to speak out against people who have engaged not in legitimate criticism of Israeli governments but in antisemitic rhetoric.
“It saddens me to have to say to some on the left of British politics that anti-racism means zero tolerance of antisemitism, no ifs, and no buts. I have said the same about Islamaphobia and other forms of racism to a minority of my constituents who make unacceptable statements.”
Lewis lodged a complaint that the Daily Telegraph had misrepresented those comments, and he had not accused Corbyn of antisemitism.
Echoes of the Zinoviev letter, anyone?
Not sure a 'correction' is enough.
Burning an editor or two at the stake might be sufficient, as we leftists are not vindictive or cruel.
Of course, this is being met with howls of gless rom the right, who are portraying Corbyn as some species of dinosaur that has emerged into the sunlight of the modern world, blinking confusedly and roaring ghastly doctrines of ages past.
Many are claiming (I suspect mendaciously) that they have coughed up the three quid to register as Labour Party supporters with the intention of voting for Corbyn to sabotage Labour's chances in 2020.
(If any are really doing this, they are naive - the knives would be out for Corbyn long before that if he was not succeeding - and the Tories might find themselves confronting the sort of candidate they are trying to block just now. ALso, frankily, if I wanted to sabotage Labour, I'd vote for Andy Burnham - a bit slow, tainted with Blairism, the man rejected in 2010 in favour of Ed Miliband, short ... the opportunities Burnham affords are endless!)
Corbyn would likely appreciate his position in a way Blair did not. He would understand he is at odds with his party. After all, he has been for his entire political career. That's why a Corbyn lead party would not be 1983 all over again.
The Blairites would know they can't stage another SDP style spilt - the example of what has happened to the Lib Dems will warn them off that. Corbyn, if he is smart (and no-one thinks he's stupid, for all some think he's wrong-headed) will run a party based on consensus and finding common ground, rather than imposing the leadership's diktat.
(Though bear in mind 1983 saw the Conservative vote decline, and the combined Labour-SDP vote topped 50%. And Thatcher's 42% of the vote in 1983 seems like a fantasy figure to Cameron and his cabal of unappealing oiks.)
He would not immediately impose collectivism, the nationalisation of corner shops and underwear sharing on the nation. He would have to seek a consensus between the competing ideologies in Labour, which the right wing of the party never had to do after it seized control of the party in the 90s.
It would be a return to a 'first among equals' style of leadership, rather than centrally controlled by a tight clique obsessed with imposing its will on the party.
He wouldn't be able to purge the right, the way Blair purged the left. He'd need to find accommodation and common interest. While a lot of people in Labour disapprove of his opinions, most seem to like the man - so he might well be able to forge such an alliance.
He will of course be vilified in the right wing press. But he's pretty used to that. The problem for the right is that the things they will attack him for are actually solid principles. People will recognise that. And, bluntly, some of the things he'll be attacked for may backfore spectacularly on the Mail and Sun. I imagine he could deal with the Sinn Fein supporter smear simply and directly: "What I advocated in 1984 was policy in 1994. Because of those ten years of intransigence, while mainstream politics caught up, about 850 people were killed. That isn't something to be proud of."
We like principles, even when we don't agree with them. The reason people came to loathe Blair was the perception of hypocrisy - the equivocation on his faith, the wealth, the influence peddling and money worship.
That said, it still seems unlikely he will win. Support for the three neo-Blairite candidates will coalesce as the field of candidates narrows down. And he'll be offered the Deputy Leadership of the party as a sop to the left, as Blair did with John Prescott.
Hopefully, Corbyn would tell them what to do with their sop.
It has been brought to my attention that the all powerful, many tentacled Doom Hydra of the Left has - rather than claiming complete eternal power - decided to make kids toys politically correct
Why the hive-minded hordes of left-wing attack drones (of which hordes I am a proud member in good standing) have decided to do this, rather than seizing the levers of power and sending our enemies to the guillotine is not made clear; but I am sure our leaders know what they are doing. The battle for the future starts now, and it seems the battlefield will be the appearance of little toy cars.
Obviously, our opponents will not expect this and will swiftly be outflanked by this deft thrust, a daring assault comparable to Lee's march to Gettysburg. And we all know how that ended.
An appropriate comparison, for I am thinking about what can only be called Evilracistflaggate, the huge fuss that has blown up around the use of the 'Confederate' flag, following the horrid events in South Carolina. 'Confederate' in inverted commas used because flag we commonly think of as the Confederate flag - the Starry Cross - was never the flag of the Confederacy. It was used by General Lee's Army of North Virginia, but the design most of us recognise as the 'confederate flag' is just a detail from the second and third flags adopted by the Confederacy. The second one had a big white bit as well as the 'starry cross' and the third one had a red stripe.
(One wonders if things might have gone better for the Confederates if they had spent less time worrying about the best bit of cloth to die under, and more about winning wars. Probably not.)
The Starry Cross, it seems, has suddenly become as socially unacceptable as anti-Semitism and owning people. Totally reliable and unbiased sites like kotaku.com assure us that America is losing its mind in a rush to remove the flag from absolutely everything, ever, even things it might actually be appropriately displayed on:
Today, Apple decided to start yanking games that use the Confederate flag in any way (via TouchArcade). For example, you can now no longer buy the strategy iOS games Civil War: 1862, Civil War: 1863, Civil War: 1864, and Civil War: Gettysburg, which, as you might guess, use the Confederate flag because they’re video games about the Civil War.
Meanwhile. it seems, the evil liberals and PC leftists (is there any other kind?) are busy trying to take toys from children and re-write pop culture history by deleting the Starry Cross from General Lee - no, not the real general Lee, things haven't got that bad yet - but the car in The Dukes of Hazard:
Warner Bros, which owns the licensing rights to the 80s series, announced Wednesday it will no longer manufacture miniature replicas of the souped-up 1969 Dodge Charger, which featured a giant Confederate battle flag painted on the roof.
‘Warner Bros.
Consumer Products has one licensee producing die-cast replicas and vehicle model kits featuring the General Lee with the confederate flag on its roof — as it was seen in the TV series,’ the company told Vulture. ‘We have elected to cease the licensing of these product categories.’
The snag here is that neither Apple nor Warner Bros are actually far left revolutionary communist-gay rights-environmentalist-PC-feminNAZI collectives that the howling madpots of the right seem to think.
They ARE capitalist enterprises intent on making a profit. If they decide to drop or change a product, its down to their desire to protect their brand and maximise their profits. The forces driving these decisions are profit related, and nothing to do with 'the left' or some supposed politically correct agenda. If you want to blame anything, blame market forces, which are all about shifting product and profit. I guess there is no profit to be made from sanity and accuracy.
Which tells you everything you need to know about capitalism.
(For what it is worth, I'd agree the Apple decision to remove the Confederate flag from civil war computer games IF it would have been correct to show it there (i.e. for Lee's army) is barmy. But I think it often gets used inaccurately, as a symbol many of us associate with the Confederacy. I doubt many people would recognise the first flag of the Confederacy, the historical 'Stars and Bars' and the other two would only be recognisable because they contain the 'Starry Cross' as a element. So changing it might actually just be making things a bit more accurate and correcting the assumption that the 'Starry Cross' was the flag of the Confederacy. Surely we're all in favour of historical accuracy?)
And it seems that the vile liberal-communists aren't just intent on banning cars and pixels, but films a well. Truly, first they came for the General Lee, then they came for Scarlett and Rhett:
When it comes to the Left, it is always only a matter of time before they show their fascist colors. We’re seeing it all over the place in a media frenzy that began with a cause I agree with (removing Confederate Flags from state capitols) into what is now a full-blown mob waging a bullying witch hunt to completely memory-hole the flag.
Wednesday, the thing that you believe could never happen, did happen: a New York film critic has called for the banning of The Greatest Movie Ever Made.
In just three days, the left’s mob mentality took us from removing the Rebel Flag from a state capitol to banning “Gone with the Wind.”
Only, of course, it is not as simple as Breitbart would like to make out.
The critic in question, Lou Lumenick, is not actually calling for Gone With The Wind to be banned. He is simply wondering if audiences should pay more attention to the racism and slavery that underpins the movie, rather than venerating it as a quaint and charming piece of romantic melodrama.
Of course, the howling hate mob of the right - the true enemies of rationality, sanity and reason - deliberately misrepresent this, because truth is poison to them. The tragedy of South Carolina has prompted some people to wake up to the hatefulness of some of the things too often taken for granted. That's progress. The right doesn't like progress and stirs up a vicious cauldron of lies about it, blaming everything on this cabal of leftist witches and demons; witches and demons who seem to be all-powerful, but mysteriously interested only in using this power to achieve petty ends. No flags on cars - that'll teach the Right!
A part of me wonders if this is a deliberate ploy to move the debate away from where it really should be - the easy availability of guns - onto something (anything) else. Because flags, sanity and honesty are far less important to the right than every racist lunatic being able to get his hands on a firearm.
Over on the Standard, the rather pretentiously named mickeysavage highlights the National Party's favourite unicorn - the balanced budget that appears to be eternally receding before us, always just slipping through our fingers:
John Key and National have placed a huge amount of political capital in returning the country’s books to surplus. Back in 2008 they campaigned heavily on how Labour was going to deliver “a decade of deficits” and it really was the slogan de jour. According to them Labour’s mismanagement of the economy as the cause of the global financial crisis and not the pure unadulterated greed of a bunch of merchant bankers like Key seeking never ending wealth.
He then provides a list of quotations that illustrate his point very nicely. Back in 2011 we were assured surplus would be achieved in three years. That would mean 2014. But in 2014, we were told “The Government is focused on returning to surplus," and earlier this year, we were promised that “The Government is working towards a surplus and repaying debt,” both of which would rather suggest we had not got there yet.
This from the party, remember, who warned us about the risks of electing Labour in 2008 would lead to a 'decade of deficits.' Nice sound bite, John. It might also do as a summation of your contribution to New Zealand.
Those of us with litereary pretensions might feel this is all a bit reminiscent of the final lines of The Great Gatsby:
And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby’s wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter - to-morrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther. . . . And one fine morning -
So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.
It should be remembered that Gatsby was a gangster who ended up dead in his swimming pool, and the narrator, Nick Carraway, a naive fool who couldn't see which he for what he was.
I'll charitably assume John Key and Bill English are more like Nick than Gatsby; I'm sure they believe, really believe, in the green light as well, and they believe that if we just cut a little further, reduce a little more, we'll catch it at last. Their green light is the surplus, and if it is eluding us now it just means more austerity, until finally, one fine morning ...
The annoying thing (or tragic, if it directly affects you) is that this was all fore-warned. Even I managed to see ho Bungling Bill's ideologically driven austerity drive would be self defeating, all the way back in 2009 when Bll English delivered his first budget (here, here and here).
It isn't just in New Zealand that the right win lie continually about their own economic confidence. In Britain, George Osborne has signally failed to deliver on any of his annual promises to eliminate the deficit. Yet he feels we should listen to him when he promises us that he'll boost NHS funding by £8 billion - by 2020. And (sotto voce) if the NHS can find 'efficiencies' (that means nurses and doctors and operations and things like that - trivial and unimportant things in a modern health service). Cast your mind back, dear reader, to the Emergency Budget of 2010, when Osborne told us:
In order to place our fiscal credibility beyond doubt, this mandate will be supplemented by a fixed target for debt, which in this Parliament is to ensure that debt is falling as a share of GDP by 2015-16. I can confirm that, on the basis of the measures to be announced in this Budget, the judgement of the Office for Budget Responsibility published today, is that we are on track to meet these goals. Indeed, I can tell the House that because we have taken a cautious approach, we are set to meet them one year earlier - in 2014-15. Or to put it another way, we are on track to have debt falling and a balanced structural current budget by the end of this Parliament.
Debt, you will note, is not falling. Britain's public debt has, in fact, exceeded 90% - the level we were warned would have a catastrophic impact on growth. At least it would, the Tory argument would go, if Labour were in power.
Meanwhile, the sane argument goes that it would have a catastrophic impact on growth if Reinhart and Rogoff could get their sums right.
Nor has Britain achieved "a balanced structural current budget". The deficit is still running at 5.8% as of 2013-14. That is nowhere near a balanced budget. It is, however, pretty much where Labour's Alaistair Darling wanted it to be at this stage - while Osborne wanted to eliminate the structural deficit in a single term, Darling sought to halve it (Well, to be pedantic - halve the overall deficit and reduce the structural deficit by 2/3rds). And Darling's goal has almost been accomplished, almost by accident, in spite of the Conservative mania for growth stangling austerity.
And, insanely, the coalition boast about this. They even make posters about it:
"The deficit halved." Not quite the same as "a balanced structural current budget by the end of this Parliament".
And elsewhere, as Paul Krugman points out, the right proffer the same nonsense, time after time:
The 90 percent claim was cited as the decisive argument for austerity by figures ranging from Paul Ryan, the former vice-presidential candidate who chairs the House budget committee, to Olli Rehn, the top economic official at the European Commission, to the editorial board of The Washington Post. So the revelation that the supposed 90 percent threshold was an artifact of programming mistakes, data omissions, and peculiar statistical techniques suddenly made a remarkable number of prominent people look foolish.
The real mystery, however, was why Reinhart-Rogoff was ever taken seriously, let alone canonized, in the first place. Right from the beginning, critics raised strong concerns about the paper’s methodology and conclusions, concerns that should have been enough to give everyone pause.
Moreover, Reinhart-Rogoff was actually the second example of a paper seized on as decisive evidence in favor of austerity economics, only to fall apart on careful scrutiny. Much the same thing happened, albeit less spectacularly, after austerians became infatuated with a paper by Alberto Alesina and Silvia Ardagna purporting to show that slashing government spending would have little adverse impact on economic growth and might even be expansionary.
And, worryingly, what the right sell, the public seems to buy. I suppose austerity must tap into some self-flagellating instinct in people, the need to be punished for revelling in luxury. And of course, it is handy when the politicians are quick to point out that it will be Other People who endure the worst of it.
Astonishingly, with this seems to be the only argument they can offer. There's nothing beyond the "Reduce spending" mantra. Keynes, it seemed, never existed in their world - though he's been around so long he surely counts as some sort of a conservative by now.
Which is the real issue here. The Conservative party - and its analogues in other parts of the world - has been colonised by people who are fundamentally anti-Conservative, and whose intent is a complete neo-liberal reformation. Some people rather dimly follow their mantra because they are bamboozled by the arguments - I put Bill English in this category. Others understand it more fully and recognise it as the desired goal. Their green light is not a balanced budget, but the effective eradication of the state. And so they lie, consciously, wittingly, saying things they know are untrue and making promises they know are impossible. Because like fanatics everywhere, they know it is the end, not the means, that is important. They aren't interested in conservation versus reform - the point of argument between conservatives and progressives - but in destruction. Their bible is Atlas Shrugged, the story of how people with an overwhelming sense of mission and justification destroyed the world for the rest of us.
And as a reward for reading lll that, here's one of the best songs ever written on the subject of green lights:
The formal mandate we set is that the structural current deficit should be in balance in the final year of the five-year forecast period, which is 2015-16 in this budget.
And:
In order to place our fiscal credibility beyond doubt, this mandate will be supplemented by a fixed target for debt, which in this parliament is to ensure that debt is falling as a share of GDP by 2015-16.
Of course, Osborne can argue he can meet the first target, because it isn't actually a promise to eliminate the structural deficit in five years; it's just a promise to forecast the structural deficit will be eliminated in five years from the date of the forecast. Basically, he's promising to say that the deficit will be eliminated five years from when-ever he happens to make a forecast.
Which isn't quite the same thing as actually getting rid of it, eh, George? It's always jam tomorrow, if only we work harder and suffer gladly today.
In the real world, not the fantasy land five years from now Osborne wants us to inhabit, things are not looking good for this most optimistic of chancellors:
After seven months of the 2014-15 financial year, borrowing is more than 6% higher than it was in the same period of 2013-14, despite being slightly lower this October than last.
Whoops! Things are not going quite as scripted. At the time of the budget, George Osborne was expecting the deficit to decline by 12% this year, to a little over £85bn.
Meanwhile, as he manfully fails to make the deficit disappear by the power of positive thought, the debt continues to build up, faster than the sluggish recover can eat it away. Currently, public debt is running at 90.6% of GDP.
GDP, in fairness, is growing. Even George Osborne can not keep the economy in permanent recession, though he certainly tried his best. Fortunately, other countries are doing okay, so pulling Britain up; also, by running a deficit, Osborne has probably, unintentionally, helped stimulate the economy.
Basically, the British economy is doing okay-ish because we're the only country unlucky enough to have George Osborne and because he's too useless to manage to inflict his own insane dreams upon the nation properly.
So Britain may manage to shrink the debt mountain by growing the economy - as GDP increases, so debt will be reduced as a share of GDP. So having increased debt to over 90% of GDP - the level we were assured (by the Tories) would send the economy into some sort of death spiral - Osborne could claim some feeble vindication by reducing the debt from 90.6% of GDP to 90.5%.
But even that's looking dicey, with the global economy wobbling and the British Chnacellor tryig his best to destroy the British economy by choking off domestic demand.
They lied about the deficit.
They lied about immigration.
They lied about being "all in this together."
They lied about being the greenest government ever.
They lied, and lied, and will carry on lying.
And their self serving allies in the media will continue to try to distract and bamboozle the voters with SHOCKING news about Ed Miliband eating a sandwich. Or some Labour shadow minister taking a photograph of a house.
