He’s ‘back’, but given his ‘plan’ he might as well have stayed away

 

 

This morning’s news are dominated by one event only: the writer Salman Rushdie was attacked, stabbed and seriously injured at a literature festival in upstate New York. Only two papers broke rank, the ‘i’ telling their readers that the drought ‘will shrink farmers’ food crops’ and the Star had the headline ‘Nice, beavers’ (do not overlook the strategic comma!), with the face of one of those animals gracing the photo. I toldja that I’m becoming addicted to the Star’s front page! Check it all out at the usual place (link).

The attack on Salman Rushdie is certainly abominable, but there are two points to make. Firstly: because this happened in the USA, the perpetrator was arrested and we are told his name: 

“Police confirmed the detention of Hadi Matar, 24, of Fairview, New Jersey, who they believed was acting alone, but said they had not yet established a motive. The alleged assailant’s name is common among Shia Lebanese Muslims.” (paywalled link)

Note that we’re not simply told that ‘a man’ did this, leaving everybody to speculate what sort of ‘man’ this was, unlike here in the UK where naming and even giving the possible religious affiliation of such perp is of course unheard of.

The other point is made – or not made, actually – by Douglas Murray, writing in the DT (paywalled link). Since the Fatwa for Rushdie’s book ‘The Satanic Verses’ was such a long time ago, Murray points out rightly that the attacker probably hasn’t read the book, nor have the ayatollahs. He then states that this attack:

“[…] is not a debate about interpretations of Islam or different schools of Islamic jurisprudence and their attitudes on blasphemy. It is simply an attack on literature by those who fail to understand it. An attack on freedom of speech by people who have no concept of it. An attack of the dogmatists and the literalists on people who believe in free inquiry.  An attack of the closed mind on the open one. Let us not have a repetition of the caviling, caveating and cowardice we saw from some quarters in 1989. No ifs. No buts.  No “on the one hand, on the other”. A British author has been attacked. This time, let his country be fully behind him.” (paywalled link)

Nice appeal, Mr Murray, but for me it’s a weaselly spin. The attack was so obviously related to islam that there is no way this can be brushed aside. Perhaps Mr Murray might like to ask himself if the ‘cancel culture’ which has infested our cultural lives isn’t also influenced by yon religion which ‘cancels’ music, destroys statues and forbids literature in their countries. When any critique of said religion is brushed aside as ‘islamophobic’ then surely this is an attack on Free Speech for all of us, not just some writers. So why be coy, Mr Murray?

And so to an ‘event’ which has gone down like a lead balloon: Keir Starmer’s re-entry into politics. He was away on holidays, see – the first one in three years. So now he’s in Edinburgh and was asked about inflation and all that jazz. Well, our Westminster MSM did mention this event last night (here, and paywalled here) but buried it already this morning, except for The Times, writing: “Keir Starmer denies Labour has gone missing on cost of living” (link, paywalled). The author isn’t impressed by the paucity of this ‘announcement’, padding his article with a lengthy reference to Gord’s proposal to ‘temporarily re-nationalise’ energy firms. 

Labour’s earth-shattering plan to deal with inflation which Starmer mentioned as ‘proof’ that ‘Labour was working …’ is absolutely a-ma-zing, dahlinks:

“Labour has unveiled plans to stop energy firms charging families who have to use pre-payment meters more for their electricity. The party said it would reimburse providers for the money they would lose using a beefed up windfall tax at a cost of £113 million. Sir Keir said the policy would help four million of the lowest earning households and was only “part of our energy package to tackle the cost of living crisis”. But the announcement, which analysis showed would save families just £84 a year based on current prices, flopped with some Left-wing MPs.” (paywalled link)

It looks as if Labour is having a ‘MeToo’ moment, mentioning windfall taxes because the Tory wannabe PMs are talking about it. However, their proposal for using that extra money is ridiculous. This is not a hand-out but a meagre  bandaid, only for the Labour clientele of ‘Teh Poor’. Keep this in mind when pondering if a Labour regime might not be bearable after all. Keep in mind how Labour fiefdoms are run – London, anyone? Keep in mind that since Starmer was elected the Labour Party has been incapable of producing any policies of their own. And yes – they were and are absent in the debate on inflation.

Remember the rail strikes which are still going on, without the expected moans in the Westminster MSM? Well, there’s a hugely important interview in the ‘New Statesman’ with the boss of the RMT, Mick Lynch (link). This is hot stuff! For example, he’s scathing about the current Labour shadow cabinet (my emphasis):

“Working-class people cannot relate to [Labour’s front bench],” he said, in part because they have “never actually worked in any of these industries. They come out of PR and law, communications, finance or whatever. They’ve never worked in a factory or in a supply centre… They’re not saying anything about anything. In fact, they could be another version of the Conservative Party.” (link)

Blimey! He’s spot on. Isn’t it surpassingly strange that our MSM are so busily overlooking the state of Labour front bench and Parliamentary Party, in their zeal to heave Mr S into No 10? Perhaps they do this because it doesn’t matter to them if blue-green or watermelons are in government? There’s more, on Brexit:

“Starmer and Lynch also differ on Brexit. Lynch and the RMT supported leaving. Why? “Because the European Union has privatisation embedded in its constitution,” he said. “I don’t like the idea that you give your sovereignty and democracy away to a load of bureaucrats and bankers.” Lynch said that Corbyn’s putative programme of nationalisation would not have been legal had Britain remained in the EU. “The free movement of labour I don’t think helps anyone,” he continued, “because it means the countries that people are coming from have lost some of their most able people… and it didn’t help the labour market in Britain,” he said. “But people don’t argue that – they argue that they can’t get olives, or they’ve got a long queue to get to Tuscany.” (link)

Crikey! That’s again spot on! We remember, do we not, the shenanigans of Remain Labour in the HoC in 2018 and 2019 … a certain Mr Hilary Benn springs to mind. Mr Lynch also doesn’t micne words when asked about the EU and their meddling in the Ukraine, nor does he accept ‘teh narrative’ about China. The closing paragraphs are pure gold (my emphasis):

“Lynch’s views hark back to a time when Labour politicians such as Tony Benn and Michael Foot wanted to strengthen the unions and restrain Western power abroad. Labour, he said, should return to “what used to be called Old Labour: you believed in some fairly traditional values, communitarian values, but you also weren’t ashamed of being patriotic because I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that”. Instead, Mick Lynch thinks Starmer’s Labour has a “veneer of not caring”, and it falls to the unions to identify with working-class politics. If the unions do that, Lynch believes Labour’s leadership will follow.” (link)

Wow – just wow! Mind you, I don’t believe for a moment that the Labour leadership will follow the trade unions, or rather Mr Lynch. Note though that he doesn’t say what should be obvious to all of us: Blair destroyed ‘traditional Old Labour’ and went on to destroy our country.

I leave you with news that, thanks to drought, crops might fail, not just this autumn but also next year (paywalled link, link paywalled). How is whoever sits in No 10 going to deal with this, which will surely increase inflation? The bosses of the ‘water industry’ have raked in eye watering bonuses. – will they be next for ‘windfall taxes’? Will the bosses of Agribusiness be accused? They, after all. have destroyed the English landscape thanks to industrialising agriculture. That old landscape might well have coped better in this drought. 

Enjoy the ‘hot weekend’ as best you can – it’ll soon be all over and we’ll get Met Office ‘amber’ and ‘red’ warnings because there will be rain …



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