It's good to go into a journopuke-free environment for a while. For most of my life, I spent long periods abroad and so had a 'before' and 'after' perspective when I returned to Britain. Living here for any length of time, it's rather like being the proverbial frog in the water being brought gradually to the boil - something that would have scalded you at the beginning becomes the uncommented ambience of daily life by the end.
The loss of Laws, one of the very few politicians with a track record of success in the real world, is a heavy blow to the coalition and to the nation. So very, very strange that his fall came about because he used public money to paint the doors of the closet he chose to inhabit - wholly unnecessarily, given that his sexual orientation was no secret to those who knew him, and the great British public does not give a damn.
The honours farce is another source of wonderment. Who the hell values these silly titles anymore? And why? The House of Turds needs to be flushed away, and if logic is any guide - which in Britain is a mighty big 'if' - the Tories will accommodate the Lib Dems' desire for proportional representation by instituting it for a new upper house. Maybe save money by making the Euro MPs double up and do something useful in exchange for having their snouts in the biggest, slimiest trough of all.
And, finally, with reference to the Israelis' cocking up the interception of the ferry-boat full of terrorist enablers, wouldn't it have been nice if Hague had said 'nobody in the Middle East gives a shit what the British government has to say about anything, so from now on I'm not going to add my ha'porth of pointless commentary to a situation that is as intractable as it is tragic for all concerned.'
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Amongst the oft-repeated British comments on Israel's 'barbaric' 'commando raid on an 'aid flotilla' full of 'innocent unarmed civilians' one of the aspects which has predictably gone unnoticed is how the Turkish NGO closely linked to their government enlisted all these distinguished sympathizers on an expedition to break the blockade of Gaza - even if it meant endangering their lives when the Turkish crew and/or other 'peace activists'attacked the Israeli soldiers the minute they hit the deck - what I would take to be a highly premeditated move. This strikes me as reprehensible. The more peaceful activists appear to have been used as a screen for the more violent members who were anxious to provoke an armed Israeli response.
ReplyDeleteIt's hardly a novelty for insurgents to employ 'useful fools' as crowd cover. Nor is it remarkable that the British press reflects the institutional cowardice of Whitehall, since that is where it gets all its news. Only surprised that the Israelis did not simply disable the ship, as they have done before.
ReplyDeleteFurther to the motivation behind Turkey's obvious collusion with the Marmara provocation and with Israel's cooperation in helping them to blow it up into a media carnival, it strikes me that the considerable embarrassment to the US may well have been the principal aim of both other nations. There is a mid-term election coming up in November in the US and the Israelis don't like Obama much while the Turks would like to disconnect the Americans from their constant complaisance with Israel's policies.
ReplyDeleteNetanyahu is already on record as having embarrassed the White House twice recently, once with the ill-timed settlement start just as Joe Biden arrived and the other the bombing of a Syrian facility in the Bekaa valley just when the Turkish head, Erdogan, was conducting very delicate negotiations between Syria and Israel.
So far as I can see, after all the media howling is over, Turkey is the only winner of this round of hysterical propaganda.