A Confidential Letter To One of My Oldest & Dearest Friends, Sir Keith Stürmer - What We Need Is Rebranding – Not so much New Labour as New Tory

If We are Going to Bury Corbyn then We Have to Be Clear About Our Message – 

Not ‘For the Many not the Few’ but 

‘For the Few not the Many’!

Stürmer Kept his Financial Backers Hidden from the Voters

Dear Sir Keith,

I am so looking forward to being readmitted to the Labour Party after 5 long years next February. In just two years under your stewardship it has changed beyond recognition.

I have to be honest with you. You do not know the trauma I suffered when, having been expelled, you were the first person to react, tweeting with your customary brevity just one word ‘good’..

It's one letter after another from Keir these days

So you can imagine my joy when you resumed our correspondence, even if it was only to beg for money.

I always enjoy your emails about your family and especially your Zionist wife, Victoria. I was particularly interested to hear about your old man the toolmaker (even if he did own the factory) to say nothing of your mum the nurse. 

I know Labour’s Corbynite troublemakers and those wrong sorts of Jews have nothing nice to say about you but in my view you are a warm and empathetic, even if a bit stiff at times. I put it down to shyness and possibly an allergy –socialism. You certainly do not deserve the opprobrium that has been aimed at you.

However I hope that doesn’t deter you from doing what is right. Why should the NHS be exempt from the choice agenda and privatisation? Unfortunately Boris has made a hash of it, spending all that money on COVID when we could have used it to buy shiny new missiles.

When all is said and done, if something can’t make a fast buck or two what’s the point in having it? Like you I am a convert to neo-liberalism. Why should people expect to be treated for free just because they are ill? It seems so unfair. Why work if it’s going to be free? Where is the incentive? After all we are all going to die sometime so what does it matter if the proles go first?

Yet another personal letter - who says Sir Keith doesn't empathise?

I know you agree with me but we can’t be seen to be saying these sorts of things aloud or else the louts will shout that we are ‘Red Tories’ when it’s not true. We are Deepest Blue!

If we hand over everything to Virgin Healthcare and that nice Mr Branson then I’m sure the great unwashed won’t mind paying for their GP appointments and X-rays. And they also won’t miss so many appointments if they have to pay for them first!

In fact I’d go further. We could privatise the Police and the Army. Instead of draining all our hard earned taxes we could sell them to the first bidder and fund them through raffles and appeals. ‘Adopt a squaddie’ could be quite a catchy slogan don’t you think?

We could have a BP battalion and a Shell sergeant major. After all, when all is said and done, the role of the armed forces is to defend the interests of British multi-nationals. We could have a G4 police force. Why should the Police be available to any malcontent with a grudge or complaint of racial discrimination? They are there to defend men (and women) of property not those who don’t have a brass farthing to rub together.

I have been thinking long and hard about improving Labour’s election prospects because there’s nothing I want to see more than a Labour version of Boris entering No. 10. We need a political strategy.

I know that this Beergate Affair has blown you off course but I think I’ve found the solution. The Police only began this investigation after it was revealed that that Jezebel, Angela Rayner, was also present. It is obvious what happened and that also explains your beer and curry. After all you normally drink only the finest claret and dine in the best restaurants.

Clearly that Rayner got you by yourself in a room and performed the same trick that she practised on Boris, namely opening and closing her legs. You of course being a highly moral man immediately panicked and rushed out of the room grabbing the nearest drink to calm you down whilst someone plonked a curry in your hands. Far from partying you were doing the exact opposite.

I have also been worrying about the criticism that no one knows what you stand for. It is unfortunate that you still have those 10 Pledges up on your site and I can only advise that you get David Evans to scrub them. Then you can deny that they ever existed, much like the debate on Palestine at Labour Party Conference!

After all you don’t really want to tax the rich even more than they pay at present. As for promoting peace and human rights, how does that square with fulsome support for NATO? Common Ownership made for an embarrassing interview with Andrew Marr.

And as for the final pledge, ‘Effective opposition to the Tories’, even your worst enemy couldn’t accuse you of that. The common perception is that you are Boris's forensic twin. It is my job to try and change that. But if I am to succeed and get you into No. 10 then we need radical changes.

Of course we all know what you stand for – unrestrained capitalism and rule by the rich for the rich. But the real problem is how to transform that into a winning electoral strategy?

Well I think I’ve cracked it. I had a chat the other day with Mandy Mandelson who was busy at the time trying to get another free ‘loan’ off a rich Zionist in exchange for a few beads. He wasn’t particular enthusiastic at first but I think I won him round.

Old Cor*** (like Lord Voldemort it’s best not to mention him by name for fear of frightening the children), whatever else you can say about him (and I know you have a lot to say!) did have one thing going for him. A catchy slogan – For the Many not the Few – which our Zionist friends changed to For the Many not the Jew!

Your problem is that you find it difficult to wrap up what you stand for in 6 or so words. ‘Building a Police State for the Many’ doesn’t quite cut it with most people. 

So I thought to myself why not reverse old Cor***’s slogan. Instead of  ‘For the Many not the Few’ why not ‘For the Few not the Many’!  Yes I know it doesn’t have the same ring to it at first but it grows on you with time. What we are doing is holding out to the masses the prospect of them also becoming part of the few. They too can become filthy rich and trample on the rest.

And with this slogan we can also say that we are the party of integrity and honesty. After all, from Thatcher to Blair to Cameron and Johnson, all governments have been governments of the rich by the rich and for the rich, transferring loot from the feckless poor to the affluent few (I nearly said the ruling class, sorry). It’s just that they didn’t have the honesty to say out aloud what they were thinking. That’s where we could be different. We won’t hide it!

Please have a think about it because I hate to see good ideas go to waste.

Please don’t get me wrong Keith. I really do appreciate your letters to me asking for some of my hard earned cash. Unfortunately business hasn’t been good lately. But I was thinking. How about you put my name forward to become a peer of the realm?

The Right Honourable Baron Bassam was once my squatting mate. You can read all about him in a pamphlet I produced The Noble Sayings of Lord Bassam

When I came to Brighton I began squatting with Steve, now Lord Bassam of Brighton, who was Labour Chief Whip in the Lords before he got caught out double claiming on his expenses. Unfortunately when Blair made him a Lord he forgot about me. Which is a classic example of anti-Semitism which I know you care very deeply about.

Nonetheless, despite my personal disappointment, I wrote a short biography of Brighton’s new Lord, The Noble Sayings of Lord Bassam of Brighton accompanied by a flattering poster.

Well to cut a long story short, instead of having to survive on a state pension I could pop into the Lords each day and trouser £300+ tax free. I’m sure a few businesses would be only too happy to have Baron Greenstein of Kemptown sit on their board of directors for a small consultancy fee. I was just thinking that if you could see your way to nominating me then I could let you have the odd 50 quid.

I realise however that my donations won’t solve your problem which are systemic. Basically the more people you expel the less money you have. Especially as the buggers keep suing you and the legal bills mount. What to do? I think I have found a solution and wanted you to apply your forensic mind to it.

The Labour Party’s relationship to its members is a contractual one. And furthermore we have the right to change the contract unilaterally at any time. What if we make it a condition of membership that you have to keep paying your subs, even if you are expelled for 5 years? I don’t see why people who have been expelled for the grave crime of not supporting Israel, right or wrong, should profit from those crimes. It will serve them right if they still have to keep paying their subs. In fact we could create a special rate for people who are expelled  (higher of course)!

In fact if we create a special rate for those who resign too it will definitely be in our interest to have as small a membership as possible! As you can see I am a mine of good ideas. This is what is called blue sky thinking. Of course we don’t need to tell members about this until we get to Conference and even then we can slip it in amongst all the other rule changes. I was thinking of making it explicit that anyone who describes themselves as a socialist is automatically barred from standing for public office but I am told they already are!

But above all we need a rebrand. ‘Labour’ is so passé and 20^th century. Tony Blair was groping in this direction with ‘New Labour’ but I would go one step further. Instead of New Labour why not New Tory? That might appeal to the South in which case we can say good riddance to the Red Wall and leave them to Boris.

Speaking of the Red Wall. I know that Michael Gove of the swivelling eyes is keen on levelling up but we all know that it is a con. Why don’t we come out with levelling down instead? Equality among the poor is after all a form of socialism!!

We could also change the tax system which I’ve always thought to be very unfair. At the moment the more you earn the more tax you pay. And at a higher rate. It creates no incentive to exploit others or become rich. That must change.

How about if we propose that the less you earn the higher the rate of tax and if you earn above a million or so then you don’t have to pay any tax? Yes I know what the objections are but look at the advantages. Instead of paying expensive accountants to find ways of avoiding taxes there would no longer be a need for them since there would be no taxes to pay anyway!

And the poor, being poor, wouldn’t be able to hire accountants. Not that there would be anything to hide. So all that money would come flooding back from the tax havens and everyone would be happy. Except the poor and workshy.

As I say I have lots of ideas for a New Tory Party led by you. And if we adopt the Republican strategy of making it impossible for Blacks and the poor to vote then we won’t have to worry about the electoral consequences!!

And just one final thing. I’ve always found the Red Flag stuck in my throat at party conference. With all your flag waving and patriotism why not Land of Hope and Glory? Far better than all that stuff about traitors flinching and cowards sneering.

We have to put clear blue water not only between old Cor**** and us but between us and Boris too.

Yours truly,

Tony

Brighton & Hove Say ‘Kill the Police Bill’

The Third Demonstration in Brighton in as many weeks sends a loud message to Boris Johnson, Keir Starmer and their Police State Strategy

About 1,500 demonstrators gathered at The Level in Brighton to protest for the third week in succession at the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill which will make it a crime to hold a march which is in any way effective.  If it annoys anyone, which is usually the purpose of the protest then the Police can ban it.

The voice of Sir Keir Starmer, the so-called Leader of the Labour Party has been conspicuous by its absence, which is not surprising since Labour was previously due to abstain on the bill in order to prove how loyal Her Majesty’s Opposition was.  Although Labour is now formally opposed to the Bill the previous illiberal record of Blair and New Labour demonstrates that Labour under Starmer, if it did get into government would not repeal the Act.

The march went from the Level, via the Police Station in John Street, down to the sea front roundabout by the sea life centre where people sat down in the road. It then proceeded via West Street to the Clocktower.  At this point people sat down again blocking all roads in the centre of Brighton.

Speeches were given by innumerable people from the Clocktower. Clearly the Police had been under strict orders not to provoke a confrontation because instead of sending the riot cops in the Police held back. The contrast with the thugs of the Metropolitan Police who attacked demonstrators today and the liars of Bristol Police whose ‘broken bones’ were show to be a tissue of lies. I have to confess that I was extremely surprised at the softly softly tactics of the Police but welcome the decision to allow the demonstrators to control the streets.

This gives the lie to those in the BBC and other media whose message was that the Metropolitan Police had ‘no alternative’ or ‘faced difficult decisions’ when they decided to violently attack a women’s vigil at Clapham Common.

As we know the Police have never faced any such dilemma when refusing to intervene to prevent the country establishment from holding fox hunts despite hunting wild animals being prohibited by law.

The reception from motorists, despite being held up, demonstrated that this law has no support in the country. It is an undemocratic piece of legislation designed to preempt protests to come when COVID ends and the government imposes an austerity programme which will make David Cameron blush.

If there is one criticism it is that too many of the speeches were centred on individual’s identities.  It felt at times as if is was personal politics run riot. There was very little emphasis on state racism and even less on the fact that racism here was born of the British Empire.

I left at 4 pm and it would appear that after I left the demonstration resumed to the Level via the Police Station.

For a running report from the local paper go to here

Even the Tory Press are turning against the Downing Street Clown and his Criminally Negligent Government

Let’s hope that the Idiots of the North who voted for Boris Johnson are happy that they have now gained control of their lives whilst all around lose theirs

It is difficult to understand how anyone, let alone working class people, could seriously believe that the NHS would be safe in the hands of an Old Etonian and Bullingdon boy. The collapse of the Red Wall in the last election is a testimony to the depoliticisation of much of the working class.

As 569 more people lose their lives in Britain to Coronavirus, the Idiots of the North should be pleased that we have now become sufficiently independent to reject taking part in a collective European bid for ventilators. The official excuse  was that the government ‘lost’ an email but anyone buying that really should write a letter to Santa Claus.

Today we are paying the price for 10 years of austerity. Just 2,000 NHS staff, out of half a million, have been tested for COVID-19.  The Health Secretary, Matt Hancock, promises that 100,000 will be tested per day by the end of the month. By then there may be another 15,000-20,000 dead.  Even if this is achieved, which is by no means certain given the history of broken promises, it will mean that it would take one and a half years to test everybody.

The key statistic is the number of intensive or critical care beds.  Britain has just 6.6 per 100,000 people compared to 29.2 for Germany and 34.7 for the United States.

The situation for hospital beds is even worse. The number of beds per 1000 people today is 2.54 in the UK, 35^th out of 41 countries.  Since 2013 the number has steadily declined from 2.76 to 2.54.  Compare this to Germany with 8 beds per 1000.

Or to put it in perspective the number of hospital beds in the UK has declined since 2000. In 2000, there were over 241,000 beds in the UK, by 2017 this figure was approximately 167,600. This means over this sixteen-year period there were over 70 thousand fewer hospital beds in the UK. The decline did not start in 2010 but in 2000 under New Labour. Indeed the steepest decline was under Tony Blair and Gordon Brown for those who believe austerity began with the Tory/Liberal coalition. 

But even the worm turns eventually. Yesterday’s Times ‘Cornavirus testing plans in chaos’ and even more surprisingly The Telegraph, which is virtually the Tory party’s in-house magazine, ran a front page ‘Health officials ignored offers of coronavirus testing help as anger mounts at Government's failure to ramp up capacity’ which disclosed that 

Some of the Idiots of the North at Grimsby Fish Market Who Believed that Johnson was 'one of us'

‘officials have repeatedly ignored offers of help from many of the country’s leading scientific institutions. Meanwhile, senior health sources warned that the moment for this country to launch a successful mass community testing programme may already have been lost.’

Britain’s 3,000 deaths is testimony to how the NHS has been run down for the past 20 years, under New Labour and the Tories/Lib Dems. All those people, and the thousands of deaths to come will have been in vain if, at the end of the crisis, we go back to more austerity and more cuts.

And yet we are committed to spending 2% of Gross Domestic Product on the armed forces, defending us against a non-existent threat.

All the signs are that there is a determined effort to keep politics out of the Coronavirus crisis, as if COVID-19 was an act of god and as if the utter shambles of the government’s response is also just a natural disaster.

Johnson’s bonhomie and clownish behaviour are no longer funny when people cannot even see off their loved ones, when funerals can only be attended by a maximum of 10 people with no wake afterwards. The Tories lied when they told us that all they were making was 'efficiency' savings. What they were doing was cutting into the bone whilst at the same time spending hundreds of millions of pounds on 'competition managers' and other useless bureaucrats whose sole task was creating a false 'internal market' in the NHS so that Johnson's pals could make a killing out of lower wages and poor standards.

The state of the NHS is a tribute to a political ideology that prefers tax cuts for the rich to more hospital beds and ventilators. 

Who would have believed that doctors now have to choose who will live and who will die?  Who will benefit most from a ventilator and who is least likely to benefit?

Any working class person who voted for the Tories last December, because the Mail and the Express told them that Corbyn was their enemy and the Old Etonian was their friend can have no complaints if they succumb as a result of the crisis in the NHS.  

But Labour too bears a great deal of the blame for not dealing decisively with those who portrayed it as ‘anti-Semitic’ and hostile to Jews.  The failure of Corbyn, McDonnell and their acolytes to rebut these smears is seen in the pathetically weak candidature of Rebecca Long Bailey.

Boris Johnson’s trademark has been that of a buffoonish character, which has helped to disguise his far-Right and racist views. Anyone who is poor who believes that Johnson is ‘on our side’ really does need a lobotomy.

Johnson is a believer in eugenics, the ‘science’ that social attributes like intelligence, wealth, personal success are inherited and part of one’s genetic make-up. It was no accident that he hired Andrew Sabisky, an open believer in eugenics and the racial sciences, as an adviser. This and the previous Tory government has had a habit of appointing racists

Toby Young and his admirer

There was Toby Young who wrote an article for the Spectator which talked of ‘progressive eugenics’, in addition to plain homophobia and misogyny.  He said of Michael Gove’s desire to bring back O levels that if he is serious about this then

‘the government will have to repeal the Equalities Act because any exam that isn’t ‘accessible’ to a functionally illiterate troglodyte with a mental age of six will be judged to be ‘elitist’ and therefore forbidden by Harman’s Law.”

This didn’t prevent Johnson criticising the “ridiculous outcry” at calls for his dismissal, saying Young would “bring independence, rigour and caustic wit” to the OfS. We also had the late and unlamented fascist Roger Scruton, former editor of the Monday Club's Salisbury Review, who the government was forced to sack, after a series of racist outbursts.

Johnson’s book 72 Virgins was a tribute to the racism that percolates in Tory and Brexit circles. It made reference to 'Islamic headcases' and 'Islamic nutcases'. Arabs were noted to have 'hook noses' (an old anti-Semitic caricature) and 'slanty eyes'; a mixed-race Briton is called 'coffee-coloured'; and use of the term 'pikeys' and 'half-caste'."^[6] 

Johnson described Barlow, believed to be himself, having a jaunty vaudeville act beneath which there are no real core ideals, values or beliefs." Which is probably a fair description of himself.

The book also depicted Jews as "controlling the media" and being able to "fiddle" elections. Strangely enough the Board of Deputies wasn’t interested in its anti-Semitism but that might be because the ‘anti-Semitism’ smear campaign was never about anti-Semitism but anti-Zionism.

Eugenics used to be all the fashion and the Nazis took it one step further by exterminating the disabled in the belief that the ‘race’ would grow more healthy.

This Saturday will, unless there is an upset, demonstrate that the Labour Party has moved to the Right and Keir Starmer, who has all the charisma of a dead pony, will assume the leadership.  No one should assume that as he purges the left, that Labour will assume power at the next election. The decline of social democracy throughout Europe is a phenomenon that isn’t confined to Britain.

Meanwhile for the Idiots of the North who still believe in Brexit, despite the cost of not co-operating with Europe over the current crisis, they have the prospect of coming under Trump’s thumb. After all, having gained control now of our affairs we could even emulate the US health care system where not only do 20 million people  have no insurance but the majority of American people are underinsured, which means that even if the insurer pays some health bills, you are expected to pay the rest.  

It is this, more than anything, which is responsible for the fact that more people go bankrupt because of an inability to pay medical bills than anything else.

The Guardian reported that one out of every six Americans has an unpaid medical bill on their credit report, amounting to $81bn in debt nationwide, while about one in 12 Americans went without any medical insurance throughout 2018. Even as many Americans struggle to afford health insurance coverage in the first place, those that have it are not insulated from facing massive debt due to medical bills

And we should be under no doubt that if you are a free marketeer then the NHS is anathema, based as it is on the good old socialist principle of ‘from each according to their ability to each according to their needs.’

Let no one be in any doubt that if Johnson and his fellow Brexiteers, such as Rees Mogg, could get their way then they would move to an insurance model.  Instead they have decided to privatise the NHS by stealth.  New Labour and Starmer, because the two are interchangeable, support private involvement in the NHS.

Meanwhile, under this shambolic government thousands are going to die for lack of NHS staff, lack of equipment and lack of testing.

You have been warned and it is up to us to ensure that after this crisis we say NEVER AGAIN to those who say there isn't enough money for a decent NHS.

Tony Greenstein

The MANCHESTER Bombing is the Price We Have Paid for Iraq and Libya

Trump and May Support Saudi Arabia’s Bombing of Civilians in Yemen and then Complain about Terrorism

When it comes to hypocrisy no-one can outdo the British press. Virtually the whole of the British press, with the exception of the Daily Mirror, supported Britain’s invasion of Iraq.  An invasion that killed up to 1 million civilians.

Today the US and Britain support, with all the modern weaponry that Saudi  money can buy, the murderous war of destruction in Yemen.  One in 3 Saudi air raids hits civilian sites.  Over 10,000 civilians have been murdered in circumstances no less tragic than what happened in Manchester.  Theresa May and Donald Trump, no less than Obama and Cameron before them, literally have blood on their hands, together of course with the Sun which then has the gall to talk about terrorism and ‘our way of life’. One in three Saudi air raids on Yemen hit civilian sites, data shows

Saudi Attack on Yemeni School

There were no terrorist groups in Iraq before the invasion.  There were no weapons of mass destruction either.  The only thing Iraq possessed was an abundance of oil and it was this that the United States was determined to lay its hands on.

The terrible aftermath of Manchester is a consequence of Blair, Cameron and May's war policy

After the invasion in 2003 Al-Qaeda in Iraq grew in leaps and bounds.  A few years later they changed their name to ISIS.  Thus began the growth of this monstrous death cult.  ISIS was a product of the bloody war that the United States and Blair’s New Labour imposed on Iraq.  Nor was it accidental.  When the Americans ran into heavy armed resistance in Iraq they did what all imperial powers do, they played the divide and rule card.  The US and Britain deliberately sowed the seeds of division between Sunni and Shi’ite Muslims in order to shore up their own positions. 

The Scum Always Had a Problem with the Truth

Donald Trump today is still doing this.  He went a few days ago to Saudi Arabia to condemn the Iranian terror axis in the Middle East!  ISIS, Al Qaeda and the other Jihadi groups in Syria and Iraq are 100% Salafist Sunni groups.  Hezbollah, the main Shi’ite guerrilla group in the Lebanon, which is allied with Iran, has never exploded bombs in Western cities. Nor has Hamas, which is Sunni.  Both condemned Al Qaeda for its Charlie Hebdo murder yet they are called 'terrorists'  because they fight or have fought the terrorist regime in Tel Aviv.  

The SCUM has the gall to accuse Corbyn and McDonnell of having blood on their hands

The western press deliberately conflates organisations which fight a guerrilla war against Israel with organisations that butcher and murder anyone who doesn’t subscribe to their definition of the Islamic faith.

Was it any wonder that the Scum supported Tony Bliar?  That's what the Labour Right wants again

In reality ISIS are not motivated by Islam.  It is a flag of convenience.  Much fun was made of ISIS recruits in this country who bought Islam for Dummies before setting out on their Jihad.  Those who murdered and maimed in Brussels and France, almost without exception, were petty criminals who drank and led anything but a pious Islamic way of life.  Being a Muslim was a way of dignifying their alienation.

Lest we forget - the Sun attacked the one party leader, the late Charlie Kennedy, who opposed the Iraq War - under Nick Clegg the Lib-Dems became the pro-war party

Not content with what it had done in Iraq, Cameron and Clegg also decided to intervene in the Libyan civil war.  Despite Britain’s previously close relations with the Ghadaffi regime, we decided to repay old scores and support the Islamic opposition to his regime.  The consequences were predictable.  Once again Al-Qaeda, ISIS and various Jihadist groups thrived. Ghadaffi had warned of just such an outcome but we decided on another ‘humanitarian’ bombing campaign.

Germans reading the Nazi equivalent of The Sun - Der  Sturmer was also a semi-pornographic paper

The Sun Has the Blood of Manchester and 1 million dead Iraqis on Its Hands

On Tuesday the Sun came out with a headline accusing Jeremy Corbyn of having blood on his hands.  The irony is that it is the Sun which is covered in the blood of the innocents.

As the headlines displayed here should remind people, the Sun was the chief cheerleader for the illegal war in Iraq.  In Nazi Germany the editor of the Nazi newspaper, Der Sturmer, which did most to support Hitler’s wars of aggression and the attacks on the Jews, one Julius Streicher, was hanged at Nuremburg in 1946 for crimes against humanity.  Instead of being feted by Prime Ministers, Rupert Murdoch should also be treated as a war criminal.

The Sun’s reference was not to Manchester but Corbyn’s previous support of Sinn Fein and the Republican movement.  It is to be hoped that Corbyn does not duck the challenge.  Jeremy Corbyn did indeed support the fight of the Catholic people of Northern Ireland for justice and a United Ireland.

The Sun of course never acknowledges its own mistakes - it assumes that its readers are idiots (probably true!) and have no memory

People forget that up to the imposition of Direct Rule in 1972, Northern Ireland had been a Protestant supremacist police state (much like Israel and South Africa).  If you were a Catholic you couldn’t get a job in the civil service or decent housing.  Discrimination was institutionalised in a state which the former Prime Minister, Lord Brookeborough described as a Protestant state, which it was.  Northern Ireland was created in 1921 after the all-Ireland elections in 1918 had produced a Sinn Fein majority.  This was unacceptable to the Tories allies amongst the Unionists who threatened to use force to reverse the results of the election.  Thus began Ireland’s war of independence.

When in 1969 the Catholics launched a civil rights movement they were viciously attacked by the B-Specials and Protestant supremacists at the Battle of Burntollet.  It was the ‘spark that lit the prairie fire’ i.e. the Troubles.  The Catholic ghetto of the Bogside in Derry was attacked in a two day battle by the RUC and B-Specials (a paramilitary police force).  A civil rights march in Derry was attacked by the RUC.  This was the beginning of ‘The Troubles’.  To those who want a greater understanding than that provided by the Sun then The Troubles in Derry article provides a starter.  It was only when Britain accepted that the North of Ireland could no longer be a Protestant supremacist state that a peace accord was possible.

Lest we forget - the Sun invited people to cut out their dartboard filled with anti-war targets

The IRA fought a war with the British.  Undoubtedly they, like the British Army, killed many innocent civilians.  That is always the consequence of war.  Britain and the US call it 'collateral damage'.  However the IRA killed far fewer civilians than the British army in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere.  

21 years ago the IRA exploded a massive 1500 Kg bomb in Manchester city centre.   It devastated the heart of Manchester yet not one person was killed.  The reason?  They gave a 90 minute warning.  On occasions elsewhere, not least Birmingham, when warnings went astray or weren’t heeded, people did get killed, however the IRA never deliberately murdered civilians.  Protestant paramilitary groups like the UDA and UVF, which the British Army and its secretive Forces Research Unit infiltrated with agents, deliberately targeted Catholic civilians.

That is one of the major differences between the IRA bombing campaign and that of ISIS and the US military.  The latter two don't give warnings when they bomb people.

It was also the case that the IRA and Sinn Fein had and continue to have massive support in the Catholic ghettos of Northern Ireland.  The fact that the majority group amongst Catholics in Northern Ireland is Sinn Fein not the SDLP is proof of that.  ISIS by contrast has to terrorise the inhabitants of the areas it controls.

In the article below, Patrick Coburn exposes the hypocrisy of the British political establishment and Theresa May.  Saudi Arabia's Wahabist regime and Qatar have sponsored, armed and funded ISIS, Al-Qaeda and a host of Jihadist groups in Syria and Libya.  The regime in Saudi Arabia, under King Ibn Saud, was armed and funded by the British in the wake of the first world war.  We have continued, with the United States, to support them ever since, for the simple reason that this most austere and barbaric version of Islam is ideal to keep the population of Saudi Arabia cowed.  What better way of legitimising repression and coercion than religion?  For us to condemn the head choppers of ISIS when we support the head choppers of Saudi Arabia is the kind of hypocrisy for British imperialism was long renowned.

Tony Greenstein

Manchester attack: It is pious and inaccurate to say Salman Abedi's actions had 'nothing to do with Islam'

• Patrick Cockburn  Thursday 25 May 2017 

In the wake of the massacre in Manchester, people rightly warn against blaming the entire Muslim community in Britain and the world. Certainly one of the aims of those who carry out such atrocities is to provoke the communal punishment of all Muslims, thereby alienating a portion of them who will then become open to recruitment by Isis and al-Qaeda clones.

This approach of not blaming Muslims in general but targeting “radicalisation” or simply “evil” may appear sensible and moderate, but in practice it makes the motivation of the killers in Manchester or the Bataclan theatre in Paris in 2015 appear vaguer and less identifiable than it really is. Such generalities have the unfortunate effect of preventing people pointing an accusing finger at the variant of Islam which certainly is responsible for preparing the soil for the beliefs and actions likely to have inspired the suicide bomber Salman Abedi.

The ultimate inspiration for such people is Wahhabism, the puritanical, fanatical and regressive type of Islam dominant in Saudi Arabia, whose ideology is close to that of al-Qaeda and Isis. This is an exclusive creed, intolerant of all who disagree with it such as secular liberals, members of other Muslim communities such as the Shia or women resisting their chattel-like status.

A further sign of the Salafi-jihadi impact is the choice of targets: the attacks on the Bataclan theatre in Paris in 2015, a gay night club in Florida in 2016 and the Manchester Arena this week have one thing in common. They were all frequented by young people enjoying entertainment and a lifestyle which made them an Isis or al-Qaeda target. But these are also events where the mixing of men and women or the very presence of gay people is denounced by puritan Wahhabis and Salafi jihadis alike. They both live in a cultural environment in which the demonisation of such people and activities is the norm, though their response may differ.

The culpability of Western governments for terrorist attacks on their own citizens is glaring but is seldom even referred to. Leaders want to have a political and commercial alliance with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf oil states. They have never held them to account for supporting a repressive and sectarian ideology which is likely to have inspired Salman Abedi. Details of his motivation may be lacking, but the target of his attack and the method of his death is classic al-Qaeda and Isis in its mode of operating.

The reason these two demonic organisations were able to survive and expand despite the billions – perhaps trillions – of dollars spent on “the war on terror” after 9/11 is that those responsible for stopping them deliberately missed the target and have gone on doing so. After 9/11, President Bush portrayed Iraq not Saudi Arabia as the enemy; in a re-run of history President Trump is ludicrously accusing Iran of being the source of most terrorism in the Middle East. This is the real 9/11 conspiracy, beloved of crackpots worldwide, but there is nothing secret about the deliberate blindness of British and American governments to the source of the beliefs that has inspired the massacres of which Manchester is only the latest – and certainly not the last – horrible example.

The attack on Manchester Arena – and those on the Bataclan and the Pulse nightclub before it – can trace their roots to the Wahhabism of Saudi Arabia. The UK and US governments just won’t admit it.