The Daily Telegraph and the Conservative Party represent the right flank of the British ruling class.
The Guardian and the Labour Party represent the liberal flank of the British ruling class.
One of the British establishment’s biggest propaganda coups is convincing the population that the UK is a democracy — and they can receive a diversity of perspectives from the mass media. One of main reasons for this success is large parts of the left push same fiction.
When a genuine progressive won an overwhelming mandate to lead Labour in 2015, both parties and their house journals came together to see off the threat to their shared interests.
The hold of the establishment media and the two-party system must be broken before real progress can be made in Britain. Problem is nearly all Britain’s “top table” leftists are invested in the very institutions that need to be discarded, so the conversation doesn’t start.
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The biggest security threat Britain and the world faces is climate change but the so-called “security services” barely mention it.
Why? Well, every head of MI6 since 1999 has joined a fossil fuel company after leaving the agency, making millions of £s in the process. Thread.
Sir Richard Dearlove, head of MI6 from 1999-2004, joined Texas-based oil company Kosmos Energy in 2012. From 2013-2019, Dearlove earned more than £2-million in fees from the company, having attended an average of 12 meetings a year.
Sir John Scarlett, head of MI6 from 2004-09, became chair of the Strategic Advisory Council of Norwegian company Statoil (now Equinor) in 2011. Scarlett’s name doesn’t appear in the company’s annual reports or its website and it’s not known how much he’s been paid in this role.
Interesting facet of the new revelations about the UK government campaign to get Assange out of embassy was how it chimed with an apparent campaign by the Guardian which ran from May to November 2018, culminating with the now infamous front-page Manafort / Assange story.
In his diaries, Alan Duncan says the Ecuadorian government were concerned in mid-2018 about the "domestic reaction" in Ecuador to rescinding Assange's asylum and that this was delaying them taking the final decision.
In May 2018, the Guardian began an apparent campaign with 10 articles on “Operation Hotel”, Ecuador’s Assange embassy operation. Authored by 3 Guardian - and 2 Ecuadorian - journalists, the main article was based on “documents seen by the Guardian” and anonymous “sources”.
* Prime minister Theresa May was told in March 2018 to ‘butter up’ Ecuador’s president in order to get Assange out of the embassy.
* Later in that year, May’s government spent £20,000 to bring Ecuadorian officials and defence minister to UK. dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-0…
* British foreign minister arranged Daily Mail hit piece on Assange days after his eviction from embassy
* Same minister gave Ecuador’s president Lenín Moreno a porcelain plate from Buckingham Palace gift shop to ‘say thank you’ for handing over Assange dailymaverick.co.za/article/2021-0…
There's a history of British judiciary using Belmarsh as a means to punish people on behalf of intelligence.
In late 1990s, MI6 whistleblower Richard Tomlinson (no previous criminal record) was remanded in Belmarsh as a Category A prisoner, despite not releasing any secret info.
The punishment was meant to force him into pleading guilty. It worked.
When it was announced his trial would be held in a High Court, meaning he would be held on remand for up to two years, longer than likely sentence, he pleaded guilty to breaking the Official Secrets Act.
At Tomlinson's trial, chief prosecution witness was John Scarlett, later MI6 chief.
In 2016, Scarlett appointed Lord Arbuthnot a director of his consultancy, SC Strategy.
Lord Arbuthnot's wife is Lady Arbuthnot, the chief mag who ruled against Assange in 2018 + Baraitser's boss
23 January 2019: Executive director of Bellingcat says the group hasn't received funding from UK Foreign Office (FCO).
20 December 2018: FCO "procurement card" pays Bellingcat £1,800 for "consulting, management, and public relations".
In response to FOI request asking for any research on Syria which makes reference to Bellingcat, the FCO says it "can neither confirm or deny" the info exists and that "to give statement of reasons for this would involve the disclosure of info which would itself be exempt info."
In response to FOI, the FCO says it "does not hold information" about any "financial agreements" between Bellingcat and Open Information Partnership (OIP).
1 of OIP's 4 "partners" is Bellingcat. 1 of its "members" is NATO Strategic Comms.
.@declassifiedUK has now published 7 investigations into legal irregularities and conflicts of interest in the Assange US extradition case. Thread.
(Number 8 is coming this week)
1. Julian Assange’s judge and her husband’s links to the British military establishment exposed by WikiLeaks dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-1…
2. The son of Julian Assange’s judge is linked to an anti-data leak company created by the UK intelligence establishment dailymaverick.co.za/article/2019-1…