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News and Comment March 2024

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3 March (Part 2) - All talk

Labour ConservativesSome will assume that politicians are interested in what they think and that is why parties commission opinion polls but in reality they are not interested in what anyone thinks but only in how they might vote. Politicians also kid themselves that what they hear on the doorstep will translate into a vote.

If the Tories called on me and steered the conversation around to the Mayor of London I would happily endorse their view that he is among the most malevolent of individuals to have ever sullied British politics, and when Labour rings the bell to tell me we have been taxed to near penury by Hunt and his predecessors I would go further and say that not a single one of the current crew’s decisions makes any sense at all.

Both parties would go away happy and come the General Election neither will get my vote - nor will that Tice fellow.


Prime MinisterWhich sort of brings me to last Friday afternoon. I was listening to Talk Radio but not paying much attention because probably Vanessa Feltz was on and she has to be the worst radio interviewer there has ever been and the programme cut to Rishi Sunak at his little lectern outside No. 10.

He did not at the time provoke any memorable sound bites in my mind except a very generalised “What a prat!”. It is 2024 Rishi not 2004 when your words may have been a much needed warning. A bit late now. Where have you been since October 7th?

The radio reverted to the studio where I was staggered to hear all the pundits saying what a wonderful speech it was, Sunak’s “best ever” and just maybe it was. It wouldn’t be difficult.

Our unelected Prime Minister is worried about the way militant Islamists are well on the way to taking over country and Parliament (as one of them told me they would almost 30 years ago) but the only threat he can actually name is Nick Griffin, one time Member of the European Parliament waving the flag of the British National Party who is now 65 years old and who has disappeared from public view. Some threat!

But Griffin is apparently still a figurehead of the far right. Who the Hell are they anyway? When did you last see one or many rampaging through the streets of London? (1993 if you are asking.)

I am prepared to believe that Nick Griffin is not a nice man. He is on the record as being a Jew hater (and fined £2,300 for it in 1998) and Mick Barnbrook used to tell me (circa 2011/12) that Griffin was a small time crook who was on the list of politicians he had reported to the police for alleged criminality. 18 of them ended up out of office and in some cases behind bars but despite Mick’s evidence of financial irregularities he was never able to persuade the police to investigate Griffin.

Mick and I postulated that the establishment needed a prominent bogey-man in the public eye to deflect opinion from their own criminality.

So now Sunak singles out Griffin as a bad man who he alleges supports George Galloway MP; who denies ever having any contact with Griffin.

Perhaps Rishi Sunak should investigate Nick Griffin more thoroughly. He was arrested in 2004 for allegedly stirring up racial hatred against Asians for remarks he made in a BBC documentary. Then he claimed the arrest was a stunt by the Labour Government to curry favour among Muslims. Would that ever happen? In his defence Griffin quoted the Quran and a jury acquitted him of all charges. The Great British Public had spoken.

Sunak is suddenly worried about militant Islam as he jolly well should be but the only named bad man is Griffin who said the same thing 20 and more years ago. (Griffin is omitted from the official transcript of the speech, you need to go to Youtube or similar.)

I suppose it explains why Suella Braverman was sacked. She knew what appeasement would lead to.

Fortunately the Talk Radio presenters appear to have come around to my initial point of view. Sunak is a prat. One can’t even say “fine words and no action” because some of his words are not particularly fine.

 

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