For the last few days, senior Tory politicians have been fulminating over Labour’s betrayal (betrayal, I tell you!) in handing over the Chagos Islands to Mauritius.
For those who don’t know, the Chagos Islands are part of the British Indian Ocean Territory and have been under British control since 1814. Before Mauritius went independent in the 1960s, the country’s government sold the islands to Britain for a tidy sum. However, a different government later claimed the sale was void. In 2010, Mauritius initiated legal proceedings in an effort to gain control of the islands. To this day, there is a strategically important joint US/UK military base on one of them, Diego Garcia.
So what have these senior Tories been saying about the Chagos?
In a piece for the Daily Mail, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson wrote that we have “so pathetically handed them over” because “our country is now run by people who despise the legacy and memory of the British Empire, and who fundamentally want it disposed of”.
In a speech to the House of Commons, Conservative leadership candidate Robert Jenrick bellowed that we gave up control of the islands “so the foreign secretary can feel good about himself at his next north London dinner party”. Jenrick then posed the rhetorical question, “In whose interests does he think he serves: those of the global diplomatic elite, or those of the British people and our national interest?”
On Twitter, former Foreign Secretary James Cleverly declared, “Weak, weak, weak!” This was a particularly absurd thing to say, since negotiations over the islands actually began in 2022 under none other than… James Cleverly. (Numerous commenters were only too happy to point this out in the replies, and his tweet was slapped with an embarrassing Community Note.)
The general thrust of the criticism from senior Tories was that Labour’s decision had been motivated by some kind of left-wing, anti-colonial ideology.
Fast forward to yesterday evening and we find out it was the US behind the decision. As the Telegraph reported, “senior officials from the White House’s National Security Council and State Department told the incoming Labour government that refusing to sign away the islands would jeopardise the “special relationship” with Washington”. It’s unclear how the Telegraph came to know this, but it was presumably through some sort of leak.
Why did the Americans tell Labour to hand over the islands? According to the Telegraph, they feared that “if it was not signed, Mauritius would successfully apply for a binding ruling at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to take control of the islands, effectively shuttering the air base”. This doesn’t make a great deal of sense. My understanding is that the UK could have simply refused to consent to the ICJ’s jurisdiction over the matter, having already ignored the court’s advisory ruling in 2019.
One possibility is that the US made a side deal with Mauritius that involved telling the UK to hand over the islands – perhaps in order to gain influence in the country at the expense of China. This seems to me the most likely explanation for what happened.
Another possibility is that the Telegraph report is false and there was no US pressure at all. This doesn’t seem very likely. On October 3rd, Biden made a statement expressing his strong support for the handover. “I applaud the historic agreement and conclusion of the negotiations between the Republic of Mauritius and the United Kingdom,” he said. Biden’s statement flies in the face of Tory claims that, by giving up control of the islands, we were somehow abandoning our American allies. In fact, we are doing exactly what they wanted.
What’s ironic about the whole incident is that the people who were most outraged by Labour’s decision (people like Boris Johnson) are among the most fervent advocates of Britain’s supposed ‘special relationship’ with the United States. They need to wake up and smell the vassal status.
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Greetings, earthlings
Greetings, Greetings.
Greetings. Live long and prosper.
You too, hp.
Cheers AE.
All the best
Greetings HP. And commiserations (if you’re interested in the football. The way some of these clubs is run is a disgrace).
Yes, very sad. Oh for the likes of another Joe Royle.
Hey, you stole my line! “There’s life Jim, but not as we know it”. There, I feel whole again.
I was about to go into the IDIC, but I thought it might start an online debate.
Nanu Nanu.
Also in the news: the Ukrainian holdout in the steel factory in Mariupol. I wonder whether any SAS or SBS guys are there?
Whatever Boris Johnson went to Kiev for, it wasn’t to go walkabout.
Several Russian generals have been killed in the Ukraine. Odd, that.
If there’s about to be a “Look at these captured SAS personnel” story, you can bet there will be a distraction, or something to “justify”, even retrospectively, their participation in this war – such as the type of false flag attack that the Russian military are saying may be imminent either in Lisichansk (in the LPR) or in Odessa.
If we assume that accounts of children being in the steel factory are accurate, one has to ask why ON EARTH children have been taken to stay in a STEEL FACTORY during WARTIME, when such factories are considered according to the laws of warfare to be “legitimate military targets”. The accusation of “using civilians as a human shield” flies around a lot nowadays. Well here you seem to have a very clear case of that particular war crime.
I’ve also heard stories of children at Azovstal. This, as you say, is a factory – not a suburb. Children would have had to be taken there; confirming the persistent reports that portions of the Ukrainian armed forces (I’m choosing my words carefully) are indeed using civilians as human shields.
It might well be the reason the Russians have said that they will wait for the surrender; rather than storming it.
Factory may be understating it slightly, I understand it is quite a large complex with underground tunnels. Still with their supplies cut off, there is only so long they can last out there.
The Ukrainians describe it as a metallurgical combine; we’d call it an iron and steel works. It’s enormous, in the Soviet style – complete with bunkers. The Russians are saying that they have two week’s worth of supplies.
It must be hell in there; particularly if you are there against your will. I understand that at least some of those inside have been pleading for permission to surrender.
And I understand some have been deterred from surrendering by being shot by their “comrades”.
I assume the story would be that it is a case of civilians who couldn’t, or wouldn’t get out making a last stand. It is the last area not under Russian control, apparently. There was a story that over 100,000 Ukrainian children have been abducted from the Ukraine and taken to Russia to be brought up as Russians, and are never likely to be heard of again. If this is true, or at least believed to be true, civilians in the region might certainly be expected not to give themselves up to the Russians.
War is a dirty business. No-one comes out of it with clean hands.
Pretending that somehow this is ‘The Devil vs. The Angels’ is crushingly naïve.
Absolutely. War (and history in general) is generally shades of grey (except maybe when told by people trying to push a narrative.
In any case, the wider point is that there is a strong demographic element to this war. I suspect demography, one way and another, is going to be a major driver of events in the coming years.
I think that may be referring to the children, mostly from the DNR and LNR who have been evacuated from the fighting – if I remember correctly, several thousand had needed evacuation before the invasion, because of the Ukrainian attacks on the Donbass in mid-February.
It sounds like it has been spun to sound like an evil Russian plan to steal kids, but the Russian Ministry of Defence are quite open about evacuating civilians from the battlegrounds and publicise the numbers – unlike their adversaries in the Azov battalion, they seem quite proud of getting children out of harm’s way.
If you look at their Telegram channel, they quite often post of having evacuated people, for example, on 16th April, they evacuated 15,387 people from “the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and also from other dangerous areas of the Ukraine in the course of the day”.
Are they somehow different from those who were “abducted” to the West to be brought up there.
There have been lots of stories coming from Ukraine – I treat them all with a healthy dose of scepticism.
That story is extremely unlikely to be true: the Russian government has no need to steal children on such a scale, the annual abortion rate in Russia exceeds half a million, and the logistical resources required would be enormous.
However,
Ah, more Corbynite propaganda against Israel
For the same reason that civilians, including children used to shelter in underground stations during the Blitz, perhaps? They’re further underground than the coal cellar… I imagine if you were in that position and being shelled with heavy artillery, you’d probably find the deepest hole you could find to hide yourself and your kids in too?
Putin’s actions are creating a second Holodomor
Good. Apparently the FDA union boss said this was insulting. What planet are these people on?
The same one as us. But we have lost the ability to hold them to account. When a service is paid from general taxation you need to pay for an associated service to police these activities. This itself is prone to hijacking too.
In sum, we are only seeing a rare glimpse into the normal workings of the public sector. This is their norm. Only the naive think the public sector provide good value.
To hell with the polite notices. They either get their Rs back into the workplace or they are fired.
I think you can combine the approaches. You have a week to get back in. If you are not there a week on Monday don’t come back at all.
What’s the point of leaving a note on an empty desk? The occupant won’t be there to see it…
FDA are lazy know it alls who consider themselves a cut above EVERYBODY.
What’s the point of leaving notes on desk when there is no-one there to read them? Maybe he should tie balloons, they are full of air, a better way to highlight the issue to the people who are in the office. (And who actually might quite enjoy being there with fewer colleagues and actually get on with some work.)
Question is, even if BJ goes, do the Conservative party still have that system where the MPs vote for candidates, and the party members get to vote for the two who get the most votes from the parliamentary party? And if so, is there actually any chance of Mr. (if you’ll forgive the presumption
) Baker becoming leader, however popular he may be with the grassroots?
Leading with some comedy today.
Man With Colossal Brass Balls Leaves Notes On Unoccupied Desks.
Faaaaaark
Our kitties will be remaining carnivore, as nature intended. At what point will these loons say to themselves, ‘I know this is like the next step in our ideology, but its a bit stupid. Maybe we’ve taken this too far.?’
My friend from the Baltic states told me how in Soviet times people used to feed the cats whatever the humans were eating (i.e. an omniverous diet) and as long as they had this from being a kitten, they would be perfectly happy with it, and indeed live for many years. They told of a dog that lived for well over 20 years before the modern custom of feeding pets processed pet food.
I remember a story too about a dog in a James Herriot book that got mostly chips… still, it probably wouldn’t be very sensible to feed cats or dogs an entirely vegan diet (or humans – I hear “veggan” (vegan apart from eggs from your own hens) is increasing in popularity though).
I confess, I find most vegans nowadays to be terribly shallow, not like the pasty skinned, emaciated vegans of old, who would rather die than e.g. wear leather.
Many of them are just VINO’s, vegans in name only, cramming highly processed ‘burger-like’ down themselves rather than minced beef and a little seasoning. Still, its ‘healthy’, and of course fits in with the whole ‘everyone’s going to starve in 20 years time’ nonsense. Look at people in the streets in most countries you can name. Anyone look like they’re starving..?
Not yet…
Exactly. Fatness is our problem. Which is primarily sugar, processed foods, hydrogenated vegetable oils and lack of exercise.
But fixing that is boring and doesn’t come with smugness attached.
Except they want to normalize obesity and disguise it as a problem by using the whole “Body positivity” movement. Anti-fatness is based on anti-blackness apparently now. You need to watch this short vid. Shawn Baker calling out more dysfunctional loons; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rIOhvXQPCIQ&t=23s
“vegans of old, who would rather die than e.g. wear leather.”
There’s a rather nice story in one of the papers this morning of a vegan activist, who has an interesting sideline selling leather handbags online.
Absolutely. If they say ‘Vegan’, look at the shoes…
And ask them if they checked the contents of their tattooists ink bottles…
Hard to avoid everything that’s a byproduct of animals. Wonder if you can get vegan fireworks or glue…? https://www.treehugger.com/everyday-products-you-didnt-know-had-animal-ingredients-4858750
My wife lived in Moscow and in 1998, after the economic crisis, cat food wasn’t available for a bit, so they tried to feed it smetana (sour cream). The cat wasn’t impressed. It ate enough to keep it alive, though.
Left to itself our labrador would subsist entirely on long grass and fox poo. Our old one on one occasion ignored a juicy dead rabbit in favour of some hazel masts lying around.
Dogs are nature’s waste disposal operatives, if there’s a nutrient in it they’ll scoff it. Mine liked cat poo when it was a pup, apparently there’s enzymes in it that they need. I guess they used to clean up around human encampments before we invented waste disposal methods.
Cats need raw foods like mice. Ours take half a dozen a day each. They are expert dissectionists, leaving the unpalatable parts like the bowel. Brains get eaten first, nice and fatty. All the official pet foods just seem to be fibre waste from cereal production, ash and a sprinkling of essential nutrients.
Half a dozen mice a day? Each??? Do you live off grid or something? LOL I don’t know many places that have that many rodents handy on the regular.
Yep, I live in a very rural area. If I am working outside, I can see the cats hunting and eating, I was quite surprised when I saw how many they caught over the course of a day. And most of their hunting is in the night or early morning when the mice are active, so it may be more. You can see mouse tracks into long dead grass, if you know what to look for, mice are everywhere, the cats can hear them and smell them. No idea how many calories a cat needs a day, maybe a few hundred, can probably figure it out from a cat food box, and I reckon a mouse might be around 40 calories, they weigh less than an egg.
It’s why we need roaming moggies, not house bound ones, they do a terrific job in rodent control, you just don’t see it unless you are looking. Too many mice are a menace if they get into animal feed sacks in barns, ie unlimited food, you get over run in a few weeks without half a dozen cats on patrol. Towns and cities are full of rodents. Probably got worse since the do gooders did away with unowned cats and rubbish disposal has been made so difficult. What is worse, roving moggies or complex chemical poisons in the environment?
They say that in London you are never more than 6 feet from a rat….
Yes my cat is a good mouser. She’s too generous though as she brings them home! Our neighbour over the back keeps chickens and the mice are attracted by the chicken feed and the neighbourhood cats are attracted there by the mice. I suppose it’s a win-win situation really. I used to try and save the mice, while she was tormenting and playing with them, but one bit my daughter so now I don’t so much, though I go out with cat treats to try and distract her. It’s not the most humane ending to the poor critter’s life and I’m a sap like that.
The giveaway that veganism is posturing is in the proselytizing. If you switch to a new diet for personal health reasons you tend to just get on with it. Broadcasting it implies something else.
Veganism is life on hard mode. It is clearly not healthy. Throw in a dollop of climate alarmism and you have the beginnings of a (for now) socially acceptable cult most people don’t have the discipline to maintain providing automatic smugness.
Veganism helps the lost feel the hardship of life is worth it. Their empty void is temporarily ignored while they Tut Tut at all that meat and of course the damage to the planet. The forthcoming economic collapse will sort it all out.
My local vegan neighbour also enjoys wild swimming throughout the year. When I enquired whether she uses a wet suit she snorted that she goes in in just her knickers.
And yet YT is full of videos of vegans who’ve gone back to eating meat due to health issues. Especially the raw vegans. It even f*cks up their teeth so god knows what it’s doing internally. Yes a “socially acceptable cult” sums it up nicely.
I follow a keto/low carb way of eating and nobody notices. Well, apart from if I go overboard with the cauli…
I’ve noticed the prematurely aged, toothless vegans too. Best evidence it is more a cult than a lifestyle. That gaunt, haunted look they seem to have while they cram a turnip through an industrial strength juicer and try to look authentic when they force it down. Tastes great with some turmeric and spinach!
I’m fully keto myself. I’m convinced much of what we see around us.l, from depression to succumbing to covid (or colds and flus as it really was) are a result of longterm low level inflammation. With the opposite being true, the uninflamed are healthier.
Agreed. It’s bad enough that they lace wet cat food with pineapple, goji berries and everything in between. I even have to dodge the tomato and carrot-laden cheaper stuff in the supermarkets. They’re wanting our obligate carnivores diabetic and ill with completely inappropriate ingredients.
Yes, when I cat sat for someone a few years ago I was shocked to discover what its cat food ( big bags of pellets ) largely consisted of; masses of vegetable fats and hydrolysed vegetable proteins, a tiny percentage of fish or meat ( and probably the so-called “recovered” stuff from industrial meat processing ), plus vitamin and mineral supplements. Horrible stuff. It smelled rancid too, of overheated vegetable oils.
The poor animal. And anyone who feeds their cat exclusively dry food is basically guilty of neglect and animal abuse. Just a look at the ingredients label would be a clear indication as to why. Even the ones that proudly announce they’re free from cereal need to add rice or something in order to get the consistency and shelf-life required. Cats on a dry diet are very prone to urinary problems and kidney disease is not uncommon, diabetes too obviously, due to addition of carbs. It never used to be this hard but now you have to scrutinize labels carefully before you buy.
When we cat-sit for our son it turns its nose up at salmon and fillet steak and prefers the dried food. It is however thriving. His dog, though, does love sausages.
I have never seen cats in our garden stalking a cabbage.
me neither
Everything I’ve learnt in the last two years suggests to me that all vaccines should be avoided.
On the subject of Mariupol a quick search on the internet produced this which seems as good as any other reason for Russian action.
https://groupegaullistesceaux.wordpress.com/2022/04/12/a-secret-nato-bioweapon-laboratory-in-the-underground-of-mariupol/
“Sajid Javid inquiry into gender treatment for children”
Seems a bit rich for a minister who has allowed vaccination of children, against all advice.
Javid is incidental. A temporary character as they all are.
The real scandal is we have let a tiny group of loudmouths (admittedly well funded) to erode one of the main planks of our society, namely the protection of children. The fact this is not immediately and comprehensively condemned is telling. I don’t know anyone, including gays, who approve of pandering to transgender nonsense with kids.
I’d also propose we pay more attention to the cultural origins of people like Javid. All verboten these days of course. But he is Pakistani. In Pakistan children are not treated well. Even here in the UK there is something of a silent scandal known to social care workers about how Pakistani Muslims treat their own disabled kids, a growing issue because of first cousin marriages in their culture. Lots of anecdotes from Bradford about inbred kids with difficulties shut away from sight, and worse.
I know some will find that racist. But I think it is high time we had it out with them. Some people don’t belong here. And if true, why the fuck are they running our health ministry?
Is there any connection between having the Sunaks, Khans, Patels, Zahawis, Javids, etc. in power, and Britain turning into the sort of third world places they’ve originated from? You get what you order!
Good point. And the cartoon sums it up rather well.
Come on Mogwai don’t encourage him.
Is Kim Jong-Johnson Asian? Or Michael Gove?
No I agree, absolutely. I’d also sound bloody racist to many people if I mentioned my observations from trips to certain areas in London where I’ve literally been the only white person on a busy high street. So I feel for the old people who’ve lived in these ares for decades and seen the changes, so dramatic that they are now the ‘non-ethnic minority’ in their home towns, people speaking foreign languages all around them, nothing familiar left.
People are allowed to notice these changes and not like them without being labelled “racist” or “xenophobic”. A certain degree of immigration and change is acceptable but feeling like a stranger in a town you’ve lived in your whole life is not going to feel pleasant for most people.
What I’d like is a comparison to the British being evicted from what was then India, because we were colonising foreigners. And compare to our own situation.
In 1947 it was obvious we had not become Indian. That was not in dispute by anyone.
Those who work closely with Asians, including third generation ones, will be aware of what racial and cultural differences look like, even if you both have similar accents.
Kipling was born in Bombay and spoke Punjabi like a native but no one thinks he was Indian.
In other news: the Rothermere press in the form of the Mail on Sunday has accused Angela Rayner, deputy leader of Her Majesty’s Opposition, of distracting Tory prime minister Boris Johnson by crossing and uncrossing her legs at him in the House of Commons. According to the said newspaper, Tories are complaining that she “goads” him and puts him “off his stride” by deploying tactics taken from Sharon Stone’s character in the film “Basic Instinct”.
Angela Rayner seems to really wind the Tories up for some reason.
Go for it, Angela!
All she needs to do is to wait until the last Prime Minister’s Questions before the next general election and then reprise the unforgettable move played in 2013 against the then Serbian prime minister Ivica Dacic by interviewer Branka Knezevic.
If they really want to put him off they should get Diane Abbott to do it.
I couldn’t find a link to the longer video from 2013, but it is even more hilarious than that clip, because you see prime minister Dacic enter the building “like a boss”, demonstrate to the shaven-headed security guys that he’s more “alpha” than they are, and then you see him almost collapse into a sweating shivering heap when a pretty woman – whom you see earlier preparing for the event in a matter-of-fact way – gives him a flash. She flashes, and he folds. It’s a classic.
Yes, go for it, Corbynite hag
Is it just me or is Steve Baker that rarest of things a credible Tory MP?
I take that back.
I just looked at the linked Telegraph article and he is posing doing the ‘hidden hand’ symbol thus communicating to his Masonic brothers that he is on their team.
Message to Daniel Hanna: Kim Jong-Johnson should be ousted for imposing lockdown, he did it for show, he did it three times and only a backbench rebellion prevented a fourth.
Being a great fat communist fraud is grounds for his dismissal.
““It is clear that a section of society needs to be in a cult of ‘the current thing’,” writes Romy Cerratti in the Conservative Woman. “Emergencies give one immediate purpose and justification of one’s existence””
Ayn Rand wrote about this, ‘The ethics of emergencies’. It’s altruism put into practice.
French presidential election, 2nd round, Macron vs Le Pen
(2nd-round results for these three overseas departments in 2022 were leaked this afternoon to a Belgian newspaper; results for 2017 were taken from Wikipedia, and ditto for 1st round 2022):
Martinique:
2017: Macron 78%, Le Pen 22%;
2022 first round: Mélenchon 53%, Macron 16%, Le Pen 13%
2022: Macron 39%, Le Pen 61%
Guadeloupe:
2017: Macron 75%, Le Pen 25%
2022 first round: Mélenchon 56%, Le Pen 18%, Macron 13%
2022: Macron 30%, Le Pen 70%
Guiana:
2017: Macron 65%, Le Pen 35%
2022 first round: Melenchon 51%, Le Pen 18%, Macron 14%
2022: Macron 39%, Le Pen 61%
Someone could perhaps check that I’ve got these figures right, because they seem so remarkable. I don’t know about Guiana, but Martinique and Guadeloupe have been two of the most resistant territories in the entire world, resistant against Covid-themed oppression.
Those figures are fascinating: what a lesson for the French Left.
““Sir Anthony Blair’s call for 70% of young people to go to university,””
My first day at uni, back in 1980, the pep talk from the VC included the phrase “You are among the top 2% of the country”
Now, a mere 42 years later, it would appear that Sir Richard Cranium-Blair thinks that somehow, the majority of people are now qualified and suited for a university education