Russia and China making mischief using Gaza invasion

 A nation led by a Jewish president foments anti-Semitic riots in a neighbouring state. An incredible scenario, one would think, but that is what Russia is expecting us to believe. Putin is clearly exploiting divisions in the US Congress over President Biden's support for both Israel and Ukraine. Mike Johnson, the new hard-line Speaker of the Republican-controlled House of Representatives is seeking to support Israel's military effort separately to the detriment of the Ukraine. Clearly the powerful Jewish lobby in the States would welcome this and any indication that Kyiv is on the side of Hamas would encourage it. Russia has already spread the rumour that NATO weapons sent to Ukraine have finished up in Gaza and the West Bank.

At the same time, China, which has so far affected a neutral stance over both Ukraine and Gaza, sees the latter as a chance to distract the US from her protection of Taiwan and islands in the South China Sea. The latter are claimed by China, a claim not supported by the United Nations. However, as Michael Burleigh explains, China needs some sophisticated diplomacy to maintain good relations with both Israel (whose technical expertise she covets) and the Islamic world (including states which supply oil to China) while exploiting the Gaza conflict.

Gaza delenda est

 The desire for overkill, revenge masquerading as defence, is not new. The Roman empire obliterated Carthage prompted by the orator Cato who would drag the exhortation Ceterum (autem) censeo Carthaginem esse delendam ("Furthermore, I consider that Carthage must be destroyed"), often abbreviated to Carthago delenda est or delenda est Carthago ("Carthage must be destroyed"), into all his speeches. One hears similar sentiments from extremists in the Knesset today.

Benjamin Netanyahu has frequently stated that Hamas will be destroyed as ISIS (Daesh) was in Syria. This always seemed problematic as it is clear that Daesh is still operating, in parts of Africa for instance. Confirmation came from Patrick Cockburn last Saturday:

During the siege of Raqqa by the US-led coalition, the then US defence secretary James Matttis promised a "war of annihilation" against IS, but it turned out that the ones who got annihilated were the civilian population which numbered about 300,000. I was in Raqqa soon after it had been captured and 80 per cent of the city was in ruins. American artillery fired 30,000 shells and its aircraft dropped 10,000 bombs into its close-packed housing. Nobody knew how many died or were buried under the rubble. 

Anyone wanting to find out more about the calamity facing the 2.1 million people in Gaza, who have no means of escape should read a report by Amnesty International called "War of Annihilation: Devastating Toll on Civilians, Raqqa - Syria" that details how "from 6 June to 17 October 2017, the US-led Coalition operation to oust IS from its so-called 'capital' Raqqa killed and injured thousands of  civilians and destroyed much of the city. Homes, private and public buildings and infrastructure were reduced to rubble or damaged beyond repair."

A final telling twist to the story of the siege of Raqqa helps put in perspective the Israeli claim that mass bombing is an unfortunate necessity in order to defeat Hamas. In Raqqa, the bombardment killed great  numbers, but not enough IS fighters to break their resistance. Instead, a deal was done between IS and the US-led coalition along with their mostly Kurdish allies whereby the IS fighters were bussed out of the city to territory they still controlled further south while civilians were left behind in the wreckage of their city. 

Happy birthday, Turkey

 The Republic of Turkey (Türkiye Cumhuriyeti) was proclaimed on this day in 1923.

The people behind GB News

 GB News has been in the news for recruiting former prime minister Boris Johnson on a reported six-figure salary. He may not know or care about the beliefs of his new employers, but those concerned at the amount of fake news put out by the fossil-fuel lobby do, on top of the influence they have within government. 

DeSmog deputy editor Sam Bright reports that cabinet ministers Michael Ghost – sorry, Gove – and Kemi Badenoch will be attending a special Halloween Ball, also known as the launch conference of the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship. 

ARC is the latest project of the Legatum Group, the Dubai-based investment firm that co-owns GB News, a major platform for climate science denial. As DeSmog has reported previously, ARC is packed with climate science deniers and politicians with links to fossil fuel interests, including former Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott, a director of the UK’s main climate science denial group, the Global Warming Policy Foundation. 

With the pumpkin king himself, ARC frontman Jordan Peterson, set to promote the group at the O2 arena in London next week, the dark forces of climate denial are truly descending on the UK – and have their claws firmly in the government. Where’s an exorcist when you need one?

 

Roy Lichtenstein would have been 100 today

Whaam! 

Today is also the 150th anniversary of Joseph Glidden's application for a patent on his improved design for barbed wire, incorporating a double strand which held the barbed spurs firmly in place. 

Belarus test for the Conservative government

 Mark Wallace's article in the i on Tuesday explains how our government should help those Belarussian exiles who are fighting for democracy in their home country. During the Cold War ...

...Back when exiled oppositions and expatriate dissidents from a score of nations took refuge in the West, often in London, such tactics to deny papers and disrupt citizenship were commonplace.

In reply, governments in exile began to issue their own passports, which the West then recognised, denying tyrants a veto over the lives of their critics.

Tsikhanouskaya [the wife of the leader of the opposition who is in detention] intends to do the same, and it can be just as effective. But it needs Western governments to agree to recognise the papers.

Given any opportunity to tip the scales in favour of decent people and good causes, and against the enemies of our most precious values, surely we should do so?

Prime minister Johnson was seen by many of us to be in thrall to Russian plutocrats and the finances of the Conservative party too dependent on Russian money funnelled in via a loophole in electoral legislation. Belarus is too all intents and purposes a puppet state of Putin's Russia. It will be a test of how much of a clean break is the Sunak administration with Johnson's and Truss's. One may expect president Biden to do the decent thing.

Argentine electoral stand-off

 There was no clear winner in Argentina's presidential election on Sunday. So there will be a run-off on 19th December between a rabble-rouser and a representative of the Establishment. It is unlikely that either will solve Argentina's problems of corruption and low international standing. The nation with its wealth of natural and mineral resources should be self-sufficient with some agricultural surplus to make life easier. Yet she is one of the IMF's most regular solicitor of loans.

Al-Ahli hospital: please show your working, Mr Sunak

 There was a useful statement by the PM about  the Israel-Gaza war and a debate thereon in the Commons yesterday. While it all too clearly included statements that came from Israeli Defence Force briefings, it did recover some of the ground lost to world opinion in the UK government's early response to the war that we would support Israel without qualification. 

In his statement, he said:

I also want to say a word about the tone of the debate. When things are so delicate, we all have a responsibility to take additional care in the language we use, and to operate on the basis of facts alone. The reaction to the horrific explosion at the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital was a case in point. As I indicated last week, we have taken care to look at all the evidence currently available, and I can now share our assessment with the House. On the basis of the deep knowledge and analysis of our intelligence and weapons experts, the British Government judge that the explosion was likely caused by a missile, or part of one, that was launched from within Gaza towards Israel. The misreporting of that incident had a negative effect in the region, including on a vital US diplomatic effort, and on tensions here at home. We need to learn the lessons and ensure that in future there is no rush to judgment.

There was just a suggestion of the slur that it was the BBC correspondent's initial speculation about the source of the explosion which caused a breakdown in diplomacy. Much as the quality of BBC news reporting is respected around the globe, I hardly think that the King of Jordan and the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia were hanging on to hear what Auntie believed before acting. They would have had their own reports of the explosion from several sources and drawn an immediate obvious, but almost certainly erroneous, conclusion. In any case, the BBC put the record straight and it was other news outlets that persisted in blaming the explosion on an air strike.

I would like to know the basis for the prime minister's confidence that the explosion was caused by a missile fired from somewhere in Gaza. If there was hard intelligence from US surveillance, why not say so? US use of satellites and drones is common knowledge, so there would hardly be any breach of confidentiality. Without that, and in the absence of physical evidence, we are still dealing with probabilities.

Double standards on transport costs

 Economy minister Vaughan Gething was given a hard time over the weekend about an increase in the amount paid to Transport for Wales (TfW) to preserve services and jobs in a post-Covid world. The exact amount is not stated in the Wales Online article, but simple arithmetic suggests it was just north of £42m.

Pre-Covid, the cost of 8km of dual carriageway rose to £321m, over £100m more than the original estimate. Beyond an investigation last year by Hannah Thomas of ITV Wales, I do not recall much of a fuss. Is the Heads-of-the-Valleys dualling not also a "money pit" judged by the standards of the TfW critics?

Don't feel sorry for me ..

... I can do that perfectly well for myself.

 

Conservatives are still misrepresenting the facts

Some would call it "lying", but let us be generous. After all, it has not been quite on the same scale as their previous leader but one. The impression they create is misleading, though, possibly dangerously so in some cases.

They were at it at Welsh Questions yesterday.  In his final reply, Secretary of State David TC Davies accused the Welsh government of a ban on new roads. What has in fact happened is that the criteria for new schemes have been tightened. If a proposal passes four tests which take increasing concerns into account, then the scheme can go ahead. As cyclingUK's Duncan Dollimore puts it:

Increasing road capacity, for so long the stated goal of so many schemes, will no longer be a justification in itself for building a new road; minimising carbon emissions, both from construction and use, will be a key focus.

Earlier, "Top Cat" had asserted that the money spent on reducing the default traffic speed limit from 30 mph would have been better spent on the NHS in Wales. He glossed over the probable reduction in the pressure on Accident & Emergency units as a result of reducing the severity of road accidents, a point that must have been made by Welsh Conservatives in September 2018 when they initiated a debate in Senedd on a motion to "introduce legislation so that a 20mph speed limit becomes the standard speed limit in Welsh residential areas". 

The real downright misstatement came from Dame Andrea Leadsom when she claimed that nobody had voted for the 20 mph limit in Wales. A few minutes perusal of the history would have shown her that not only did two Welsh Conservatives go to speak in favour of the proposal at a special conference in Cardiff, but also the party assented to the setting up of a task force to examine the proposal. The Senedd endorsed the task force's recommendation with an overwhelming majority. Both Labour and Plaid Cymru included a default 20 mph limit in their manifestos for the 2021 Welsh general election. If Tories had second thoughts about the reduction, that was surely the time to make a song and dance about it. 

Gaza double-think

At Business Questions yesterday, Leader of the House Penny Mordaunt agreed with Theresa Villiers in a clearly planted question that there was a rush to blame Israel for the hospital tragedy without a sound evidential basis. She went on:

It is also critical that reporters, sometimes stationed in very stressful environments, report facts as facts and that those things that are not facts—things that have not been verified or are lines to take from terrorist organisations—should not be treated as facts. The BBC does focus on these things to a very large degree, but we know that sometimes it does not get things right, as we saw recently with its code of conduct surrounding the Gary Lineker situation. I am sure that it will want to kick the tyres on this and ensure that anyone listening to a BBC outlet is being given the best possible information.

As this blog pointed out yesterday, the BBC was guiltless on the matter and has reported objectively on the al-Ahli explosion. If an early BBC bulletin jumped to the wrong conclusion, this was swiftly corrected. Other news outlets were not so scrupulous. 

Later, Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con) asked a question which shows where his sympathies lie:

It is understandable that, after suffering the worst terrorist atrocity in its history and the largest loss of Jewish life since the holocaust, the state of Israel will now seek to eliminate the threat of Hamas and all the other terrorist organisations. Mr Speaker enabled a statement on Monday and then an urgent question. Rather than a statement, would it not be better for the House to have a debate, in Government time and on a Government motion, so that it can express its support for the state of Israel and we can come to a ready conclusion to send a strong signal? Does the Leader of the House agree that there can be no equivalence between the Hamas terrorists, who kill, maim and torture civilians and try to eliminate as many Jews as they possibly can, and the Israel Defence Forces, which seeks to target terrorists and minimise civilian casualties?

Penny Mordaunt

I think that many Members of this House would want further opportunities to discuss this very important matter, so I suggest to my hon. Friend that he pursues the idea of a debate.

There has been discussion over the last week of proportionality, and the term “collective punishment” has been used on the Floor of the House. It is incredibly important that we recognise that the International Committee of the Red Cross principle of proportionality does not mean an eye for an eye, as some have suggested. That would be perverse. We do not suggest via that very important principle that, if the Israel Defence Forces raided Gaza and beheaded a precise number of infants or burned a precise number of families or raped a precise number of women and girls, that would be okay—of course not. That is not what proportionality means. The principle of proportionality seeks to limit damage caused by military operations by requiring that the effects of the means and methods of warfare must not be disproportionate to the military advantage sought.

What Israel is trying to do is end Hamas, a terror organisation that is a block to peace. The IDF is a trained military force that is subject to the rules of armed conflict and international law. Its soldiers are trained in these ethical matters. Its targeting doctrine and analysis of it is in the public domain and subject to scrutiny.

That ethical training would presumably have been given to the Israeli soldier, the sole source  of the story of the decapitated babies, told to a TV interviewer, an untruth which went half-way round the world before it was exposed and disowned by the Israeli authorities. 

As to lex talionis, America's PBS reports that since the war began 3,478 Palestinians have been killed (Hamas Ministry of Health figures; it is not clear whether the figure includes casualties in the West Bank enclave) and over 1,400 in Israel. Draw your own conclusions.

Print the legend

 If truth is the first casualty of war, then speculation must be its bouncing first-born. When a devastating, lethal fire broke out last Tuesday evening in the Anglican-owned al-Ahli Arab hospital in Gaza City, most leapt to the conclusion that it was the result of an Israeli air strike. After all, Israel had been bombing residential areas of the Gaza strip for days. Israel Defence Force chiefs had ordered the evacuation south of all buildings in the city, including specifically its hospital. Israel's immediate denials were weighed against her record of deceit. Foremost in this was the accusation that Islamist militants had killed the Christian TV journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh, a lie which Israeli leaders maintained until hard evidence emerged that the fatal bullet came from the rifle of an Israeli sniper.

However, BBC Verify was able to piece together evidence, not just from Israeli sources (BBC is rigorous in not basing its reports on single sources), that the fireball was unlikely to have resulted from a bomb drop or missile strike, since there was no significant crater. The colossal fire damage was consistent with the spread of burning rocket propellant augmented by the fuel in cars parked in the hospital grounds. Israel's assertion that a rocket launched from a nearby Palestine Islamic Jihad site had failed seemed plausible. This was backed up by President Biden, relying on evidence from US security services - presumably stills and/or videos from satellite surveillance.

In the face of this uncertainty, Al-Jazeera TV's continued reporting as fact that the hospital disaster was the result of an Israeli air strike is perverse and certainly a fall from its generally high standards of news reporting. (Its online journalism has been more nuanced.) Could this blatant bias be the result of political interference by the Qatari owners of the news organisation? Generally, the Emir has been commendably hands-off. Al-Jazeera was even able to broadcast a documentary on the harsh conditions experienced by expatriates working on the football world cup stadiums - though admittedly it did not receive many airings. Perhaps the explanation is the presence in Doha of Hamas leaders and their personal relationship with the Emir.

If, as seems possible, fragments of whatever munition initiated the al-Ahli explosion are found and examined by independent experts then the true origin may be determined. Whatever, the outcome, Israel still does not come out of this well. Those hundreds of Palestinians killed or injured in the explosion would not have been taking shelter within the confines of the hospital if they had not already been, or feared they would be, bombed out of their homes by the Israeli Air Force. Nor, to be even-handed, does the body responsible for establishing a rocket launch site within a crowded city.

BBC does not lie, but it does not tell the full story

 I am in good company in complaining that the BBC does not inform or educate to the extent that Reith anticipated. One must except World Service Radio and the News channel's Context, but the main TV news bulletins tend to have a tabloid agenda, reporting only the most dramatic items of foreign news. To be fair, once the current Hamas-Israel war started, BBC News has been even-handed and stuck to its policy of not stating as fact any report which has not been independently verified. Thus it did not fall for the discredited story of the bodies of decapitated babies being found in the wake of the kibbutz attacks, though sadly it briefly took in the US president. 

But the lower-level of violence in the region and the breaches of UN resolutions which have been going on day by day remained unreported. As Patrick Cockburn wrote around Christmas last year:

If a prize was to be awarded for the most important yet least reported story in the media in 2022, it might well go to the news outlets that failed to report on the escalating violence between Israelis and Palestinians, which is now combining with the likely impact of the incoming far-right government in Israel.

As a result, the al-Qassam brigades attack last week came as a surprise to most casual consumers of broadcast news. 

Tell it not in Gath

 I first came across this expression in Charlotte Bronte's "Villette". It was unfamiliar, but the meaning was clear - don't mention something that others may gloat over. ("Tell it not in Gath I believe I was crying" - from memory.) It would have come readily to the pen of a daughter of a minister ordained in the Anglican church. 

The full version is from the book of Samuel. In the Authorised Version:

¹⁹The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places: how are the mighty fallen!
²⁰Tell it not in Gath, publish it not in the streets of Askelon; lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice, lest the daughters of the uncircumcised triumph.

It came back to me when news of the terrible action of the al-Qassam brigades came through last week. Ashkelon, an Israeli town, was one of the targets. However, the verses above remind us that it was in some ways a reversal of history, because, before the imperial expansion under David and Solomon, Gath and Ashkelon were Philistine settlements. Gath was the home of giants like Goliath. Askelon/Ashkelon clearly has a continuous history. Gath does not, but it has been credibly identified with Tell-es-Safi in present-day Israel.

It is a reminder that the first Israel was established by force, as has much of present-day Israel, going beyond the UN-assigned territory. She looks like going the same way, given that the possibility of Israel living in peace with her neighbours has been brought to nothing after years of Likud government. 

Poland votes to return to the light

 In a 74% turnout which puts our recent electoral performances to shame, Polish citizens have voted out of office the Law and Justice party. One trusts that the worst of the reactionary legislation which Law and Justice has been responsible for will be removed and the incoming government will cease to interfere in the appointment of judges. All that would reduce nightmares for the European Commission and enable normal relations, including the flow of support, to resume.

The thorny problems of Ukrainian refugees and that country's agricultural produce may well remain to be solved, but the prospect of restoring full civil rights in Poland puts pressure on Hungary to do the same.

.

Islamophobic government puts us on the wrong side

 Rishi Sunak has announced that Royal Navy vessels and surveillance aircraft are being sent to the eastern Mediterranean to support Israel.

All UK political parties were rightly swift to condemn the wanton killings, going far beyond military targets, of al-Qassam Brigades last Sunday. But both Labour and Conservatives have gone too far in unreservedly aligning themselves with the Netanyahu government.

Sunak has gone further and fallen in behind America in sending in the sort of heavy weaponry intended for deployment against a hostile nation state. Granted. the surveillance aircraft will be of use in fighting terrorism and they have to be based somewhere. However, the rest of the fleet gives the impression of being ready to join in the bombing and shelling of what's left of housing, hospitals and schools in the overcrowded Gaza strip. Hamas is already portraying us as part of the world ranged against Palestinians. 

If the moral argument for standing back from the fray and condemning the violence on both sides carries no weight with this administration, then Sunak and Braverman should consider the electoral implication (as should Starmer). Biden and Blinken want to continue the support of the Jewish lobby in the US, which they fear may swing behind Trump if they appear "soft". (Though one wonders if the ordinary American of Jewish heritage approves of the genocide which Netanyahu appears ready to accelerate.) Other considerations apply here. Observant Judaism is a fraction of its Muslim equivalent and there are many businesses, large and small, which are in Muslim hands. Christians, too, will be appalled at the peril of Gaza's inhabitants - among whom will be many Christians, by the way.

Sunak has, in allying himself with the Democrats in America and the even more Islamophobic Modi in India, lowered the world standing of the United Kingdom, We have created enemies where we need not. They may not present any military danger to these islands, but we may need their votes in the UN. We also have commercial interests abroad which may now be in jeopardy. There are now few situations in which we can be seen as honest brokers.

It is reassuring to see the balanced people-centred comments from Layla Moran, Liberal Democrat shadow minister. She concludes her Huffington Post article:

Liberal Democrats stand in solidarity with the Jewish community - in the UK, in Israel and around the world - who feel fear and grief. We utterly condemn the antisemitic incidents in the UK which have tragically already increased following this awful violence. Israel has, without question, a right in international law to defend its territory and its citizens. We fully support that right. It is vital that it is terrorists who are targeted, not civilians, in line with international humanitarian law.

Many innocent Palestinian civilians have also tragically perished. Our hearts go out to those individuals, and their families, and those in the UK with ties there.

As the first British-Palestinian MP in the House of Commons, I know that many in the Palestinian community are scared, like my family. I and my colleagues are concerned that essential supplies - water, food, electricity - have been cut off to the 2.2 million residents of the Gaza strip.

We echo the calls of the UN Secretary General, that entry of supplies must be facilitated into Gaza - and it’s vital that the UK government makes humanitarian aid available. The Secretary General has stressed the importance of “strict accordance with international humanitarian law”.

I have never been to Gaza myself, but last year I visited an East Jerusalem hospital ward full of prematurely born babies on incubators, babies whose parents were from Gaza. They were taken to be born in East Jerusalem because Gaza does not have the appropriate health infrastructure. But what will happen now in such cases, when civilians cannot leave Gaza, and two hospitals there have already been destroyed?

The people of Israel and Palestine have a right to live free from fear. When I have visited, I have seen for myself their creativity, positivity and enterprise. This needs to be nurtured and allowed to flourish.

Further, the UK and its partners in the international community cannot allow a return to the status quo. If we are intent on helping to bring the violence to an end once and for all, then it is for countries like ours, which has longstanding ties to the region and is deeply implicated in the origins of this conflict, to take a leading role in bringing about lasting peace and a two state solution. It is vital that the UK Government does so at this crucial moment.

Starmer going further than Redwood

 Towards the end of the 1997-2010 New Labour government, a Conservative opposition group headed by John Redwood published a manifesto for abolishing "red tape". 

In his major conference speech this week, Sir Keir Starmer said he planned  to rip through planning red tape to build homes and modern infrastructure. Promising to “bulldoze” his way to a new Britain, he would get “tough” with Labour MPs who stand in the way of his plans. 

Not for the first time, a Labour leader has shown himself to be less liberal than a Tory "right-winger". I do not recall a Conservative leader threatening to discipline a member of his or her party and countermanding a clear signal from their constituents over a housing development. 

Planning powers have been devolved to Wales but one wonders whether a Starmer administration will attempt to claw back legislation in order to impose planning permissions for projects favoured by Westminster.

Labour and business

How far Labour has gone along the path to a relationship with big business was prefigured by Private Eye magazine last month. 

While it's no surprise the Tories are happy to schmooze with Serco, until fairly recently Labour was trashing the firm. In 2021 deputy leader Angela Rayner demanded to know "why Serco and other outsourcing companies are being rewarded for their failure", while shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves condemned services such as Covid Test & Trace "being outsourced to a large private company like Serco, which has a poor track record and know links to the Conservative party".

Serco isn't the only government-friendly company to sense which way the wind is blowing ahead of the next election. Reed In Partnership (the privatisation arm of recruitment firm Reed Group) and consultancy KPMG  have jointly paid for a meeting at the Labour conference to discuss "great government in the 2020s: how will Labour fix our public services?" Reed and KPMG paid the IPPR think-tank to arrange the meeting. While IPPR does have events at the Conservative conference, there's no matching Tory meeting funded by these two firms.

[...]

Meanwhile Northrop Grumman, one of the world's biggest arms manufacturers, also appears to be concentrating its fire on Labour. The US arms giant paid the New Statesman to arrange a Labour fringe meeting on how to safeguard national security post-Ukraine.

The firm does not appear to have arranged a similar meeting at the Tory conference

Further:

Shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves' guarantees in a Sunday Telegraph interview not to raise the higher rate tax band (as her boss Sir Keir Starmer had promised) or to levy wealth taxes (as Reeves had proposed as an alternative to Rishi Sunak's 2021 national insurance "tax on jobs" hike) will have been music to the ears not just of the paper's readers but to the moneybags backers paying the salaries of Reeves' staff as they work out how to fund a future Labour government.

Sir Victor Blank, the former chairman of Lloyds TSB who agreed to the disastrous takeover of HBOS in 2009 to help then prime minister Gordon Brown out of a hole, has been making quarterly donations to Reeves' office for a couple of years, amounting to £175,000 up to March this year (after a long Corbyn-era gap in his giving). As a proven banker, he will doubtless have appreciated Reeves' pitch to Telegraph readers that "I'm very much in favour of wealth creation".

Also generous to the probable next chancellor is Lord (David) Sainsbury, scion of the supermarket family. 

There was confirmation of the trend in the Liverpool Echo's report of the first full day of Labour conference.

Big business is welcome here

We have known this for a while, but Labour wants to be the party of business. Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves has spent a lot of time working to charm the City - and it shows.

Big firms have come to the conference in their droves. Walk around the conference exhibition and you will spot the stalls of huge firms nestled alongside unions and charities.

Barclays, Google and Ineos all have stalls, while Sainsbury's had a Scalextric track that was catching the eye of many people as they walked by. As it looks set to inherit an economy in ill health, the party is happily entertaining private firms.

That attitude was on show in a fringe event called 'Rebuilding our Industrial Strength'. Speaking on the panel, former Secretary of State Peter Mandelson said that if the party enters government then it will be "private investors on whom we are going to rely" to build the economy.

One can understand that Labour does not want to antagonise big business with whom, let us be realistic, any democratically-elected government has to work. Also, campaign contributions from commerce are welcome jam to add the bread-and-butter of TU funding.

But the British electorate does not want to kick out of government a set of blue Tories merely to replace them with pale pink Tories. Blair-Brown was rightly condemned for unthinkingly taking on the basic Thatcherite philosophy, and they did at least have a trade union heavyweight in the form of John Prescott at the top table. Sir Keir and his colleagues in the Labour leadership currently do not have a similar figure to keep them in touch with Labour's roots. 

The message will no doubt change once funds have been secured, the election date confirmed and the long campaign started in earnest. Any party which aims to overcome the feeling on the doorsteps that "you're all the same" is going to have to work exceedingly hard. One also trusts that Starmer and Reeves have not made any unconditional promises that run counter to a programme of social justice.

Herat earthquake: aid agencies create chink in the Afghanistan blockade

 While we mourn the deaths of nearly a thousand souls in the war in Palestine, more than twice that number have perished as a result of a magnitude 6.3 earthquake in Herat province in Afghanistan. Afghanistan as a nation has suffered from US-promoted sanctions leaving with few of her own resources to alleviate the suffering in Herat. However, non-governmental aid agencies have launched appeals and CNN reports: 

UN Secretary-General António Guterres on Sunday expressed solidarity and called on the international community to “come together and support Afghans impacted by the earthquake – many of whom were already in need before this crisis,” he added.

UN agencies and partners have stepped up support and emergency operations following the earthquake on Saturday – deploying more teams on the ground to join ongoing humanitarian efforts.

“We are coordinating with the de facto authorities to swiftly assess needs and provide emergency assistance,” said spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric.

UNICEF, the UN’s children’s fund, has dispatched 10,000 hygiene kits, 5,000 family kits, 1,500 sets of winter clothes and blankets, 1,000 tarpaulins, and basic household items to ongoing humanitarian efforts.

Teams are also conducting additional assessments on the ground and are providing emergency drugs and tents for overburdened health clinics.

They have sown the wind and are reaping the whirlwind

Hosea 8:7 makes the enigmatic statement, “For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind.” This proverb is known in modern times for its use in military speeches and as a title for a science fiction novel. What did Hosea mean?
The proverb uses an illustration gleaned from the agricultural process of sowing and reaping. A farmer would sow seed. Of course, the type of seed he planted determined the type of plant that would grow and be harvested. This is the principle of duplication. In Hosea 8:7, God says that Israel had planted wind and would harvest a whirlwind. Taking the “wind” to mean something worthless and foolish (see Job 7:7; Proverbs 11:29; and Ecclesiastes 1:14, 17), we can surmise that Israel’s foolishness in the past would result in a veritable storm of consequence. Indeed, in the previous verses, Hosea decries Israel’s idolatry (verses 4-6). Their foolish pursuit of false gods would reap a severe judgment from the Lord. 

[Acknowledgements to "Got Questions"]

Only if you have relied solely on the main BBC and ITV broadcasts for foreign news would you have been surprised by a violent response by Palestinians to increasing, and no doubt calculated, provocations by the extremist government of Israel. From the endorsement of illegal settlement, through the stepping up of seemingly gratuitous capture or killing of young men from Palestinian townships and the remorseless ethnic cleansing of East Jerusalem to the affronts to worshippers at the al-Aqsa mosque (and those instances are just off the top of my head), causes of resentment have been built up. Christians as well as Muslim have been attacked. 

What was a surprise was the savagery of the Hamas response and its grim efficiency, which clearly caught Israeli security services on the hop. There will no doubt be an inquiry, but one possibility is that some of Mossad's informants and agents within the Hamas power structure have been "turned" and have fed back false intelligence about the nature and scale of the militants' response.

The gratuitous killings of Israeli citizens, including young people attending what should have been a joyous music festival, are to be condemned of course. But so too is the typical IDF over-reaction. Palestinians have been killed in both Gaza and the West Bank. Residential areas of Gaza, from which there is no escape, have been, and continue to be, bombed and shelled. There are even reports, as yet unconfirmed, that the IDF is deploying white phosphorus, a war crime for which they were condemned in 2009 following the Gaza War. It is a great concern that official statements from US President Biden and Secretary Of State Blinken have given unconditional support to Israel, without caveats about the nature of Israeli reprisals.

I recommend listening to the informed contribution of former Foreign Office minister Peter Hain to yesterday's Sunday Supplement. It begins 30 minutes in.

News is just coming through that Benny Gantz has agreed to join an Israel government of national unity only if the extremists, prominent among them the convicted criminal Itamar Ben-Gvir, are first removed. One trusts that other more liberal politicians follow his example.

We do not need another "tsar"

 The message from today's session of the Labour Party rally in Liverpool is that, in government, Rachel Reeves would appoint an "anti-corruption commissioner". The aim is to recover the billions funnelled by the Johnson administration to dubious recipients of grants and contracts in the wake of the Covid-19 epidemic. 

This is tackling the problem from the wrong end. The mechanism for recovering this money is already in place and has actually started operating. However, it is scandalously under-staffed and under-resourced. One can draw the obvious conclusion from the lack of political will on the part of successive Tory prime ministers and chancellors to do more than the bare minimum to implement the pledge in the King's Speech to recover tax-payers' money. Labour is still too scared of Daily Mail headlines to admit that there is a need to recruit or reassign civil servants to the Revenue.

Party conference

Party conferences are vulgar, expensive circuses. That is the view of Yasmin Alibhai-Brown in a recent i article. Her early experience as a young reporter at Conservative conference may have primed her misgivings. She recalls having her bottom pinched and being subject to racial sneers. She was better treated at Labour and Lib Dems conferences, but found some prejudice on the part of fellow-scribes. She admits to having fallen under the spell of Nick Clegg (too many of us, even insiders were, it must be admitted) to the extent of co-authoring a paper on diversity with him. Reading between the lines, she felt as if she had been used by him, discarded when no longer needed. Join the club - it was no reason to lump Lib Dems in with the rest. 

For I am glad to say that debate still takes place at our conference while the major parties affairs are now mere rallies. Tim Bell, the Albert Speer of the Thatcher Conservative party, started the process. Mind you, the Conservatives had more reason than most at the time to remove debate from conference once the TV cameras moved in. Racist and class views were freely expressed and, while they may not have carried the day, they were prevalent enough to be embarrassing. For a long time Labour held out. Once procedural wrangles were sorted out and debates got under way, they were usually genuine and thought-provoking. A general air of disorganisation hung over proceedings, though.

I must admit that I could not summon up the enthusiasm to join Liberal Democrat conference, even on-line. (It has been a long time since I have been able to afford to spend three days in a pricey English resort.) The pre-manifesto was, I thought, a good basis for campaigning but did not detail what made the party distinctive. I feared an atmosphere of triumphalism. There were also rugby union world cup matches to watch,

I did, however, this week start to watch the YouTube videos of proceedings and was agreeably surprised. The triumphalism over so many English council wards won was there all right, but limited to the first day and evening, The debates were back to pre-pandemic levels and it was good to see so many new, articulate, activists on the platform. We also have a new star in the form of Eastbourne's Josh Babarinde. He reminded me of my first sight of Tim Farron at the Brighton conference after he had won his Westmoreland and Lonsdale seat from the Conservatives, when he chaired a fringe meeting (on local enterprises if I recall correctly) alongside Julia Goldsworthy (a sad loss to the Commons in 2015).

The two men are different in so many ways. The out gay of African ancestry in sunny Eastbourne contrasts with the epitome of heterosexuality from generally-less-than-sunny Blackburn. However they both have stage presence, connect with audiences and can tell a good story. Babarinde has a better-than-even chance of lighting up the  Commons after next year's general election. One to watch.

Nor has Farron lost his touch. He was instrumental in amending housing policy (did I mention that the party still has genuine debates?) and he introduced the motion on food and farming. Prospective Brecon MP also figured in this debate. It is worth watching at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rEtVwB81gAs 

There is a bonus on that video, about 2hrs 23m in. Kira Rudyk of the Ukrainian parliament, a member of a sister party to the Liberal Democrats, gave a speech which moved conference to a standing ovation. 

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Trees and a minister felled in vain

Acknowledgements to
Private Eye 

 House of Commons Hansard reminds us that HS2 was originally put before the Commons by Labour shortly before the general election of 2010. It was however supported by opposition parties. Typical was this contribution by Norman Baker, shadow Liberal Democrat minister for the brief he was later to assume in government:

I thank the Minister [Sadiq Khan, now mayor of London] for today’s welcome statement. Britain has trailed behind Europe for a long time on high speed rail. I also very much welcome the fact that something for which we have been calling for years—long before the Conservatives, while they were still winning the cold war—has finally been brought forward by the Government. Can the Minister confirm that the Government’s high speed rail scheme will provide extra capacity for the railways, enable modal shift from air, and help economic development in the regions? Will he also confirm that it will be very popular, as I think it will be, given the enormous response to the Javelin trains in the south-east?

I acknowledge the cross-party attempts by the Secretary of State to involve all parties in the House in a constructive dialogue on the issue and to make it a national project. I thank the Minister for the access I have had to HS2 and for the private briefing the Secretary of State gave me a few weeks ago, which for some reason the Conservatives apparently rejected. Does the Minister agree that we are talking about a matter of national importance that requires consensus in the House, and that all parties ought to approach it in that way? Does he therefore share my concern at the Conservatives’ attempt to create a kind of synthetic candy-floss row, rather than trying to move forward in a sensible, constructive way? They appear to be putting short-term politics before the long-term interests of the country, which brings into question their commitment to high speed rail.

Will the Minister acknowledge that funding is a difficult issue, given the current state of the public finances? Will he consider the suggestion put forward by my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Dr Cable), the Lib Dem shadow Chancellor—the construction of a national infrastructure bank, perhaps using pension funds, which will help to guarantee stability in the funding for such major national projects? Does the Minister also agree that it is important when such projects are under way that there should be no cuts in existing rail budgets that are designed to promote the network in other ways for passengers? Will he give an undertaking—as my party will, and as all parties should—that other rail budgets will not be raided to pay for high speed rail?

I congratulate HS2 on producing a route that, I think, minimises environmental damage while maximising the usefulness of the line. Obviously the route is a matter for consultation, but what we have now is a useful start for consultation purposes. Can the Minister also confirm that there is a long-term commitment to get to Scotland, and not simply with high speed trains on conventional lines but with a high speed network? Does he have any idea when that will feature in the time scale of the current project?

Dame Cheryl Gillan (extracted
from a Western Mail photo)

Not all Conservative MPs were delighted with the route proposed. David Lidington and Cheryl Gillan, representing constituencies which were to be seriously affected by the construction, were prominent in a Westminster Hall debate of 23rd March 2010.

David Lidington, introducing the debate, said: 

I believe that the route that the Government have said they prefer will seriously and irreparably damage the quality of my constituents' lives and the landscape of the Chiltern hills. Two aspects of the proposed route caused me particular dismay once I began to inspect the details. First, the plan for a viaduct to carry the railway around the western perimeter of Aylesbury, coming at the nearest point just 70 metres from people's homes, looks certain to cause massive damage to the quality of life of many hundreds of my constituents.

Secondly, I share the sense of outrage expressed to me in letters, e-mails and conversations with constituents since the Secretary of State's announcement on 11 March that the Government plan to route the line through the Chilterns area of outstanding natural beauty-landscape that successive Governments, whether Labour or Conservative, have designated as of exceptional national importance.

Mrs Gillan (as she was then) asked:

I endorse all the comments of my hon. Friend Mr. Lidington. We can see the level of interest in the debate by the presence of my hon. and learned Friend Mr. Grieve and my hon. Friend Mr. Goodman, who are sitting alongside us, but who are precluded from speaking because of the brevity of the debate.

I have a few simple questions for the Minister. First, no environmental impact assessment has been published. I had a meeting with his boss, Lord Adonis, the other day and I was told that he had no intention of publishing an impact assessment before the general election. How can that be right? When can we expect to see the impact assessment for the Chilterns?

Though both parties denied it, Cheryl Gillan's opposition to HS2 was widely reported as being the reason for David Cameron terminating her cabinet career as Welsh Secretary under the coalition government. The lack of transparency highlighted by both MPs was to continue, though millions would be wasted on various forms of PR.

Now the fourth prime minister after Cameron has decided that HS2 should be truncated. It is now to be not much more than a quick way to get from West London to Birmingham Airport. 

On the face of it, there is good news for Wales in that part of the £36bn which is to be recovered from the HS2 budget is to fund electrification of the main railway line in North Wales. However, as opposition spokesmen have pointed out, Wales is still owed at least £1bn as a consequence of the London-Birmingham section of HS2 being clearly an England-only project. Also, necessary though North Wales electrification is, there is still unfinished business in the electrification of the Great Western main line west of Cardiff, cut by Chris Grayling. 

There will also be quiet rejoicing by the fossil-fuel lobby as the £36bn which was all to be spent on a major electrification scheme will be redistributed to transport schemes generally, so that buses and road construction will benefit in addition to some rail improvements.

Conference exhibitors

 It is always easy to find out from the Web who has stands in the |Liberal Democrat conference exhibition space. Labour and Conservative party rallies have proved more tricky this year, but DeSmog comes to our aid:

A number of oil and gas firms have been announced as the hosts of stands and events at this year’s Conservative Party conference. 

The conference, which is being held from 1 to 4 October in Manchester, will play host to the likes of BP, British Gas’ parent company Centrica, petrochemical giant Valero, and Drax – the UK’s largest CO2 emitter. 

Events hosted by the companies will cover a range of energy and climate issues, and will feature senior Conservative MPs and ministers.

A range of influential right-wing organisations will co-host the panels. They include the Spectator magazine and groups based in and around Westminster’s Tufton Street, home to a network of opaquely funded, free market think tanks with a history of criticising climate action and pushing for more fossil fuel exploration.

This news comes as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak this week announced several delays to the government’s net zero policies. Sunak announced on Wednesday that a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel vehicles will be pushed back from 2030 to 2035, while he also watered down schemes to phase out gas boilers and scrapped new energy efficiency regulations on rented homes. 

Dozens of organisations will be running stalls at the Tory conference, including a number of fossil fuel firms and major polluters. These include oil giant BP, petrochemical manufacturer INEOS, and Drax, which operates the UK’s single most polluting power station and has actively attempted to influence government energy policy in its favour. 

"Blue" hydrogen is also well represented: 

A “Hydrogen Zone” stand which “showcases what the hydrogen economy could deliver for the UK by 2030” will also exhibit projects from a number of gas extraction and distribution companies including RWE, Centrica, Cadent, Northern Gas Networks, National Gas, SGN, and Wales and West Utilities.