Emailed in by MBK, a good article in The Spectator about the differences of language used to describe the battles in Aleppo and in Mosul. In Aleppo, the occupiers are rebels being besieged by a dictatorial regime; in Mosul, the occupiers are Islamic terrorists and the town is being liberated by government forces. In fact, the occupiers are in both cases exactly the same kind of IS/Al Qaeda nutcases, and so on.
-------------------------
The stories about George Osborne now being paid out for all the support he gave the banking sector remind me of Tony Blair who did the same thing.
JP Morgan paid him £2 million for services rendered while Prime Minister but apparently he has collected £60 million in total, presumably for services rendered to the armaments industry, Halliburton and the like.
The missing bit is Gordon Brown, who was responsible for the massive bank bail outs. Osborne was only throwing small change at them after that. Does anybody know why the banks aren't now 'hiring him as a consultant' or paying him for 'after dinner speeches'? Or are they, and we just don't know about it?
I can't stand Brown any more than I can stand Blair or Osborne, i.e. not at all, but judged by the standards of the kleptocracy, it still seems a bit incongruous and hence a tad unfair on the Broonster. Or does he have principles?
Wednesday, 14 December 2016
Compare and contrast
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
9 comments:
In fact, the occupiers are in both cases exactly the same kind of IS/Al Qaeda nutcases
That doesn't mean they can't try and pit them against each other does it?
Does anybody know why the banks aren't now 'hiring him as a consultant' or paying him for 'after dinner speeches'?
He was dumb enough to swallow the whole 'end of the world' pitch without asking for anything?
They paid Shriti Vadera or someone else to see it past him?
He genuinely believed the civil servants when they told him they were bailing out average joe labour voter and the bank shareholders were being duly punished (and he didn't even know what a bondholder was, or think to ask about any of that, or thought they were all held by average joe occupational pension)?
Perhaps Brown just likes a big chair, a warm fire, a dram or two and to read a good book of sermons.
I fear that G. Brown's all too obvious mental health issues (as evidenced in almost all his few public appearances since leaving office) have effectively ruled out the main ex-Prime Ministerial money-making avenues. He has nonetheless got work as an adviser to fund managers PIMCO (http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/3cae4d6e-9cfd-11e5-b45d-4812f209f861.html), where, surprise surprise, Ed Balls' brother, Andrew Balls, works (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Balls). Any earnings are to be used to support charitable work, apparently, so he seems to have learned something from his predecessor's egregious conduct.
SL and D, those are possible explanations.
H, thanks, so he only took modest bribes ex posts.
More interested in the Middle East nutcases, among whom you have to include Americans who are stuck in Cold War manic mode that Russians, who also fear Islamic extremists, are still 1920's Bolsheviks best resisted by rolling on the floor and biting the carpet. One aspect of the European project in de Gaulle's time was to form a defensive alliance against American cock virgin "security experts" from weird Bible colleges who were in full control of a huge military establishment . Since the Russians won the war for us, you would have thought we could have made some arrangement with them post-war as Enoch Powell argued at the time.So not only have we gone all our lives without LVT in a royally fucked up economy we have been on the verge of annihilation at all times.
"The stories about George Osborne now being paid out for all the support he gave the banking sector...". The relevant link there (to an Independent article) actually just says Osborne makes loads from after dinner speeches, which is doubtless correct. "Being paid in full" I would interpret as meaning something a bit different: Osbo gets lucrative jobs with banks. No sure house many of those sort of jobs he's managed to get.
Perhaps Brown just likes a big chair, a warm fire, a dram or two and to read a good book of sermons.
And to rob pensions and save the world.
RM "payment for after dinner speeches" is the polite form of bribery payments after the event.
JH, Brown is guilty of many things and more - but this whole "robbing pension funds" is just arrant propaganda nonsense. He is entirely innocent on that charge.
Post a Comment