Normally, I would say that this is too much of a co-incidence to be just due to Putin, but considering his invasion of Ukraine and the incompetence shown in his invasion, I do think that Putin is behind this. The question is what will others who may be on the list to have accidents do about the ever increasing death list.
I watched an interesting documentary on Al Jazeera which has shaken up a hornets nest again.
I had realised this came about from the hashtag on Twitter of #ItsAScam.
Needless to say, I cannot comment on most of the allegations made about another branch of the Labour Party as I have no idea what happened there but the documentary makes no reference to the outcome of a report into one branch. I can comment about how Momentum moved to take over branches as this is what happened in Colchester. At the time this happened, I had not joined Labour, but I knew some of those in the party and in the summer of 2017, the make up of our local party was changed, quite dramatically. The Al Jazeera documentary refers to a slip of paper that had described how to take over Labour Party meetings. Comparisons have been made with Momentum and Militant, the Militant tendency being a face of Labour that was considered unelectable to many people who would not normally vote Labour. There is no reason why people should not band together to put forward candidates and organising to do so is not necessarily a bad thing, but lying about doing so is wrong. It may be that the slip of paper that was included in the dossier was not something spread by Momentum, but it is a lie if someone says that Momentum did not plan to take over branches and reshape Labour to fit what they felt was needed for the nation. Lots of people joined Labour BEFORE Corbyn became leader thanks to membership rule changes which were brought in by Ed Miliband following his election to become Labour leader over his brother. Yes, many of them voted for Corbyn, as was their right, and following his election, even more joined a party that was revitalised and offered a fresh approach to politics.
I am of the view that Corbyn was wrongly held to account for the actions of some of his supporters, an example being accusations that Corbyn was allowing Trotskyist and members of the hard left to infiltrate Labour when he did not change the rules to enable entryism. He has always been clear in his call for Kinder Gentler Politics, a value that I feel should still be present in the party of today and politics overall.
The Labour Purge refers to how in 2015, lots of Labour members were suspended before the election into the challenge into the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn. That was a disgraceful and dark period in the history of the Party, and I do not think that enough action has been taken to find and punish those responsible. I actually had forgotten this occurred, despite one of my good friends being suspended due to this (this was a factor in him leaving the party).
The “die in a hole” words of Ella Rose are inexcusable (which she accepted) though there is a difference between making a comment about someone to making comments to them. The issue of Israel and the support towards one of the few democratic nations in the Middle East is a contentious one and is one which I have addressed before. I have used language which I did not appreciate was antisemitic in the past and too many people view the issues regarding Israel and Palestine as a binary issue ignoring the grey that exists.
It also looks at abuse sent to party members. Let me be clear, making comments about people in private is different to the inexcusable behaviour of sending threats and abuse to someone.
Another part of bias in this report is the reference of Labour members on the right of the party. Labour members can be divided into those towards the centre of the political spectrum and those on the left. When it comes to Conservatives, they are not described as being on the left of the party, but instead are centrists or this on the right. Having been called a Red Tory, describing people like me as being right wing is to ignore our left wing views, just like describing Labour as being on the right when it is still a left wing party.
I am not sure how much damage this will cause before the party conference, the Conservatives can only hope and pray for another Labour civil war.
We had a much needed family meal out today. I did not get to spend much time as a unit yesterday as I had to take my mother home and the kids were in bed when I got back.
I took Leia out for a walk in the morning, this being off to Highwoods which she loved and on getting back started to unwind from the drive yesterday night. After school, we decided to go out for a meal and went to the Crown. They take dogs which was great as Leia joined us. The food was good, but I have to admit, as good as it was, it did not match up to the standard of food in Greece! That however just shows the standards of food at that hotel and does not take away from the quality of the food here.
We all had a great time at the restaurant, though I did break a chair, or rather it broke. That is something I suspect the children will never let me forget!
I am so pleased that the wealthy got something nice in the budget when they so often get overlooked. After all, they must be suffering in the cost of living crisis and deserve the abolition of the highest tax band. Arguments that it is those less well off who keep the economy of the nation running are ‘solved’ by giving most people a tax cut that will be swallowed up by rising prices of food and fuel. Okay, I am being sarcastic.
My fear is that the less money people have, the less they can spend in the economy, which means that the recession we face will be longer and harder. Let alone the job losses as businesses have to deal with less revenue from a cash starved population.
Bankers however will no longer be bound by the wage restraints that the rest of the nation has to abide by. Basically this is a budget by the rich for the rich or at the very least, looks like one.
This morning was sad as it was our last morning in Greece, for now anyway. After our breakfast we headed to the airport and then the flight home. This all was uneventful, but things were to change.
My daughter and my mother appeared to have an argument about Leia. I am not certain what the full details are, but it relates to my mother taking her off the lead in a public place despite being told not to do so. Things escalated and I had to take my mother home today, rather than tomorrow which is what I had planned. I am back now, but I am shattered, this despite napping on the way back up (the drive was risky as I started to doze off twice on the drive). Fortunately I can unwind tomorrow, hopefully.
Also, I will need to check that my daughter and my mother can repair any rift that may have formed between the two, unless things have been sorted already.
Today is our last full day in Greece. It has been a great and relaxing time, though I did take some time out to dial into a work meeting that I could not miss as it had come to a very important part.
We swam, ate and unwound. I was surprised to find out that my mother at home has risked losing Leia on a walk by letting her run off lead. She is not able to run after her and is not aware what Leia is like with foxes, rabbits, squirrels and birds. I hope that the kids will ensure that this does not happen again.
Anyway, time to pack for our trip back tomorrow. I am looking forwards to seeing the kids, even if they are only looking to see their mother.
The UK has had elections using Proportional Representation when we were part of the EEC, later to be the European Union. Due to the results, I not in favour of this.
In 2019, the Brexit party got the highest percentage of votes in the European Elections which meant that Nigel Farage won it, though I will admit with the Lib Dems, centre and left wing parties got over 50% of the vote.. In 2014, Brexit supporting parties won over 50% of the vote (a combination of UKIP, the Conservatives and the DUP equalling 50.5% of the vote, Nigel Farage getting the most votes again this time as part of UKIP. If those elections had been for Head of State, we would have had Nigel Farage in office since 2014, but if for the UK Parliament, that would have meant that he was our Prime Minister since then instead.
In 2009, the Conservatives got the highest vote margin with 27.4% of the vote, UKIP coming second with 16%. Combined with the homophobic DUP (0.6%) and the far right BNP (6.2%), the right wing of UK politics got over 50% of the votes. in 2004, adding up the votes of the Conservatives, UKIP, the Ulster Unionists, the DUP, the BNP and the English Democrats, they come to 48.6% of the vote. The Liberal Democrats got 14.4% of the vote and would have needed to join a much broader coalition to have a chance of getting left wing and centre ground parties over 50%, but with the numbers of parties there, I am not sure that would have been feasible. The possibility of a centre and left wing coalition would have been present in 1999, but that would again depend on the Liberal Democrats, with 11.9% of the vote joining with Labour, and parties, formed due to Labour not being left wing enough also joining it. This is of course assuming that the Liberal Democrats joined such a coalition and did not go it alone or even joining with the Conservatives as they did in 2010.
