Liz Truss: Supports plan to cut British forces by about 10,000 to possibly go to war?

 

So, where there is danger of having to fight a war in Europe the best solution is to reduce even more the size of the British Armed Forces by about 10,000 troops?

In term of manpower the total number of the British Armed Forces is about 80,000. The Foreign Secretary Liz Truss go to a NATO meeting and support plan to cut down the British Armed Forces. Is this really happening? Is this the logic of a Foreign Secretary who is totally inadequate to be in charge of such a delicate branch of the British government?

When it comes to war or the threat of war, size matters and matters a lot, something Liz Truss seems to ignore. She then speaks to the situation in Asia and talks about the risk posed by China. So, let's be clear. Liz Truss MP talks about the danger of war while at the same time talking about reducing British military capability to deal with war. Does Prime Minister Boris Johnson agree with her judgement? Forget the so called 'Covid parties'. Forget any lies or cover ups. Forget about MP molesting minors or watching porn in the Houses of Parliament. Forget all that. We are talking about the real possibility of war in Europe and in Asia and we have got somebody that has no military acumen representing Britain in NATO and supporting plans to make Britain ever weaker. We all due respect, the question must be asked: was she appointed Foreign Secretary to embarass and weaken Britain? What was the agenda behind her appointment?

Owen Jones: If Labour does not stand up for people, Unions will

 

An article published on The Guardian today catches out attention. The title is pretty suggestive. Is The Guardian seems to indicating that the Labour Party and the trade unions will part company?

Sometime ago, a high ranking Liberal Democrat, Vince Cable, proposed the creation of a new political force that would unite Labour and Liberal Democrat politicians. The talk about cooperation in terms of voting strategies in recent by-elections also suggest that something is cooking.

Vince Cable, like many other Liberal Democrat politicians are closer to the City than they are to the Trade Union Movement, and Keir Starmer seem to have turned farther right than his predecessors. In fact, getting rid of Jeremy Corbyn was part of the strateg, but all might no be what it seems. The Labour Party is split from the very top and The Guardian's suggestion that 'Labour's hostile posture to a newly assertive trade union movement could prove a costly error'. It is not a secret that Trade Union that finance several Labour MPs and that certain guidelines have been adopted in term of withdrawing financial support for those who do not support the Trade Union Movement as much as the Trade Union Movement wants to be supported. Even David Lammy came out saying that 'he does not support strikes'. Labour's stances are a double edged sword that can hurt its aspirations.

The Leadership of the Labour Party knows fairly well that the present troubles are not really caused by economic policies implemented by the Conservative Party. They know that there are geopolitical issues that are accelerating inflation and leading to industrial unrest, unrest that would exist one way or another under a Conservative government or a Labour government, issues that would undermine any administratoion regardless of political orientation.

By-elections are by-elections, won one day and lost the next. Some Conservatives are not happy with a government that they think is 'not Conservative enough'. They might prefer to stick to the old ways, talking about lower taxes, a smaller state, and so forth. Do we favour the use of more fossil fuels or do we favour the environment with less use of fossil fuels? Energy costs are going up and will continue to go up, pushing prices up and leading to an effective devaluation of the Pound. If you can buy less with your Pound, then this is in fact devaluation of the Pound or you can call it also 'a salary reduction'. Nominally, you might have the same number of Pounds, but due to inflation you will only be able to buy less with your money. 

Stoltenberg: Proving over and over again that NATO never was a defensive organisation

 

Jen Stoltenberg proves over and over again that NATO is not a defensive organisation and any statements of such nature amount to mobilisation. In spite of what was said some years ago by Sergei Ivanov about any wars in Europe being fought with conventional forces, the Russian Federation will be forced to launch a preemptive nuclear attack if a massive number of troops were to be deployed in the European theatre.

In war, miscalculations happen and miscalculations by politicians who have little or no acumen in terms of military confrontations are extremely dangerous.

The fact that Lithuania has de facto created a Polish Corridor is a reason to be extremely concerned. Like it happened before - WWI  being an example of a chain reaction after events in Sarajevo - a chain reaction would follow any mobilisation. Jen Stoltenberg should already know that, if NATO is ready to deploy 300,000 troops, sooner than later conscription will have to be implemented to deal with what will follow. In fact, mobilisation itself will be a declaration of war and this will be a lot more than sending weapons to a threatre of war. Germany has promised weapons that it has never delivered. Actual conscription is a completely different matter. Politicians like Olaf Scholz, like Emmanuel Macron and others can visit Ukraine as many times as they wish or organise meetings in Berlin as many times as they wish. Selling a war to the German people or to the French people is a completely different cup of tea.

If somebody were to tell you that the town in which you live is going to be wiped out with a nuclear attack right at the beginning of such a war, would you want to go to war? Angela Merkel terrified many Germans with the possibility of a nuclear accident like the accident at Fukushima. Ordinary people heard about another nuclear accident at Chernobyl. They have have a pretty good idea of what could happen.

Politicians like Jen Stoltenberg and others should have the decency of telling ordinary people about the real consequences of any large scale military confrontation. I suspect that until now politicians keep talking about 'supplying weapons' to avoid telling people that there is the real prospect of a catastrophic war in Europe. The moment they start talking about troops mobilisation is the moment when decisions have already been made to go to war and there will be a point of no return.

 

  

Russia is winning: Sanctions against Russia are hitting hard those who applied sanctions against Russia as inflation destabilizes economies

 

Transport strikes were the most visible indication that things are going south in the United Kingdom. Now there is the threat of other sectors of the economy like health and education going on strike and no sector is safe as the legal system is now being affected and people will have to defend themselves in court, including in serious cases that can lead to lenghty jail sentences.

This is not about Labour or Conservative. Whoever is in power the consequences of the economie going the wrong way due to energy prices and sanctions against the Russian Federation. European countries that rushed to implement punitive measures had little understanding of the dramatic consequences for their economies are now seeing the error of their ways and praying for no more energy cuts.

If inflation is more than 9% and the government in some cases is only willing to give a 3% salary rise, how are workers going to be persuaded to accept what is effectively a wage reduction? But those at work are not the only ones who will suffer. Pensions are somehow pegged to inflation rises and the question is how is this going to be dealt with. If you have got a state pension, you are going to be affected. If you have got a private pension, you are going to be affected. If you pension fund consists of investments in shares the obvious thought is that if the economy performs badly then investment returns will be lower.

Some Conservative politicians are talking about reducing taxation and cutting down or simply getting rid of VAT and there are those who say that green taxes that severely affect prices should be abolished. If the whole issue is so much depending on energy costs then the green agenda will be dead in the water. We have got to use every bit of fossil fuels we can get our hands on in order to lower energy prices. This means using coal and allowing fracking. 

RMT: if blood circulation stops or blood doesn't flow as fast as it should...

 

What do the transport strikes actually mean? 

Transport and communications are the blood of Britain. Without blood circulation the body stops, comes to an end, and this is exactly what is happening right now. After more than 24 months of economic and social activity in lockdown, lack of normal transport is another form of lockdown, but it has even more implications.

For ages, we have heard about protecting the environment by reducing CO2 levels. Well, if people are forced to used their own means of transportation including motor vehicles that consume fossil fuels, will there be more or less CO2? As the number of vehicles on the streets increases, traffic jams increase leading to delays and engines stuck on the streets, going nowhere and producing ever more CO2.

If you say that waiting lists in hospitals are too long, then transport strikes and the direct consequences of transport strikes are going to be ever longer with people having to cancel hospital appointments, delayed medical treatments leading to increase health risks and so forth.

Prices at the shops are rising and will rise even more if transportation costs increase affecting directly distribution of goods across the country.

In conclusion, this is not merely about the jobs and/or salaries of tranport workers. Every single family in the country will be affected by transport strikes in one way or another. The levels of debt are going to go up both in terms of private debt and public debt. Energy must be paid for. Time losses must be paid for and for many the outcome will be lost revenues.

The discusion regarding working conditions and working pensions is reaching the point when working conditions for workers will get worse and everybody will suffer. If the Mayor of London pushed by strikes has to divert funding used to maintain a bus network in the capital city, then working pensions might be protected but bus services will be lost affecting millions of peoples across the capital city. We have already reduced bus services across the capital city and any further reductions of the budget dedicated to bus services will mean loss of services. When future strikes of workers delivering undergound transport services and trains occur, people are going to have even less alternatives to meet their transport needs and the whole city would struggle not to come to a halt.

The London Authority was created to better manage developments in the capital city, added to the authorities that already manage 33 areas of the capital city, being in charge of fundamental projects to improve living conditions in the capital city, but no organisation can function without proper funding and this is what is missing. The added problem is that London is not just a city for Londoners. London is a key element in the economy of the entire country as the Southeast is the region of the United Kingdom that has the most powerful drive in terms of economics. If London comes to a halt, the country will suffer major consequences.

Unemployment in the United Kingdom has been falling steadily. Working conditions have improved although there are certainly some areas that need special attention to prevent economic exploitation that generates serious social problems. The slowdown of economic and social activity will mostly affect the most vulnerable in society. Strikes cannot be a long term solution. If the economy suffers, there will be even less funding for transport, more working hours will be lost, and most probably unemployment will start rising again debilitating the country as a whole. 

Zelenskiy:Chronicle of an announced death

 

As the conflict in Ukraine evolves and more mercenaries are captured by advancing Russian troops, Zelenskiy makes an appearance in Glastonbury. To what effect? Is it to movitate more people to join the conflict as mercenaries?

Zelenskiy used to work as a comedian, but has become the protagonist of a tragedy. Comedies have a very good end. Tragedies end pretty badly. 

Despite the propaganda efforts in the so called West talking about the successes of Ukrainian forces, reality tells us that Ukraine is losing in a big way. And what can British civilians do when Britain itself does not have enough military manpower and is not willing to risk triggering World War Three? Does Zelenskiy want to stop the bloodshed? He should go back to the drawing board and fully and honestly implement the conditions of the Minsk Agreement. Can he do that? The longer the conflict lasts, the worst the outcome for Ukraine. The elements of the Azov Batallion that in the end ran away leaving behind their uniforms to escape as civilians are not the answer. Those people should have no part to play in the way Ukraine is governed. He shouldn't go on promoting anti-Russian sentiments that were the reason the conflict started.

 

 Abortion: while everybody talks about geopolitical crisis and economics, an earthquake hits the USA

I don't think that many people were expecting this to happen. It is a bit of a 9/11 moment. The Twin Towers have been hit all over again. Some call it a Constitutional Earthquake. It is thought that terminations will be instantly banned in not less than 13 of the 50 states and that in at least 26 states the will be moves to ban abortion altogether. Anti-abortion demonstrators gathered outside the USA Supreme Court to celebrate the ruling. 

Now, let's look at the list of states that have what is called 'trigger laws' in place: Arkansas, Idado, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.

The USA is changing direction of travel and what happens now in the rest of the Anglo world. It is reported that this evening there will be demonstrations at the USA Embassy in London. According to the ruling, the authority to regulate abortion is returned to the peo-ple and their elected representatives.

Christian Conservatives are turning the clock back. What else is in store to surprise us even more? This could be the beginning of a crusade to bring back a more traditionalist USA, a version of the USA that is closer to the version the Founding Fathers imagined and hope that America could be. Will the American winds reach Europe? Prime Minister Boris Johnson immediately stood up to criticize the move and said that it was a move backwards. Since when America sneezes Britain catches a cold, I don't doubt that traditionalist sector of the British society will soon been invigorated by the ruling of the USA Supreme Court and the debate will be re-ignited in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. What will happen in Hollywood? The movie industry created an image of the USA that people believe to be America itself. Later on, Hollywood openly portrayed a more liberal approach that promoted the acceptability of abortion and homosexuality. Hollywood changed America. Will America now change Hollywood? Looking forward to see how this pans out.

Military realities: Armies cannot be built overnight and speeches based on thin air are not helpful

 

This morning the Conservative Party looks smaller in Parliament having lost two by-elections created by sheer stupidity of two now former Conservative MPs who engaged in activities that led to the conviction of one of them for criminal sexual behaviour and another for impropriety having been forced to accept the fact that he had been watching pornographic videos inside the House of Commons. Not a very uplifting behaviour and nothing to be proud of.

But something else is looking pretty small and this is something to be a lot more concerned about. The size of the British Armed Forces is smaller than the Russian deployments in Ukraine while those in power are engaged in warmongering activities that increase the risk of a major incident triggering yet another European-wide war. As Chinese preparations continue apace, those in charge in the United Kingdom seems oblivious to the fact that there is an obvious issue concerning numbers. It is a bit like the case of a mouse trying to bite an elephant. If the plan is to go to war on Continental Europe or in Asia, Britain has lost the war before the war has even started. The Foreign Secretary seems to live in her own fantasy world and the Defense Secretary is pushing forward plans that will make British Forces even smaller. Britain will end up fighting using toothpicks.

With a total population of about 65 million people, British Armed Forces are remarkably small, so small that they could only play second fiddle in Afghanistan and in Iraq. The Defense Secretary Ben Wallace MP had some troubles trying to explain in the House of Commons what had actually happened in Afghanistan and the apalling details of the withdrawal from Afghanistan. As it was explained to me, the issue when it comes to recruitment is not lack of potential recruits. Unhealthy habits lead to lack of the minimal requirements in terms of physical and mental fitness required to join the forces. In an attempt to boost the number of recruits able to pass fitness test, the decision was taken to open the field and accept recruits coming from the Commonwealth. As this did not work either, my educated guess is that plans drawn by Ben Wallace MP that include smaller conventional numbers is simply a reflection of what is happening in terms of recruitment. Too many people in Britain are not fit for purpose.

But there is more. On top of the fact that research indicates that in Britain about one in ten teenagers go on to suffer mental health issues - many cases go undetected - new medical conditions appear. One of them is DLD (Development Language Disorder) and youngsters suffering from DLD have difficulties talking and/or understanding. This is a condition that affects initially children and persists into adulthood. The condition can be missed, misdiagnosed or misinterpreted as poor behaviour, poor listening or inattention. About 7.5 percent of children 4-5 years of age suffer from it. Children's ability to learn is impared. It affect reading or writing and is often linked with dislexia. All in all, this means that a vast number of individuals will never be fit for military service for physical reasons, for mental reasons and for both mental and physical reasons reducing the pool of resources in terms military manpower. We are talking about millions of individuals in the UK that face a very uncertain future and the real possibility of not being able to cope by themselves in civilian life let alone military life.

This should also be a reason for concen in terms of National Security when we talk about long term commitments in a theatre of war. 

SO15: Myth and Reality

 

SO15: Myth and Reality

Every night, when we go to bed to gather our energies at the end of a hard day, we are confronted by the harsh reality of who we are. We are vulnerable individuals caught up in the net of our own uncertainties and weaknesses. The adrenaline that kept as going during the day seems to be gone and we are down to our individuality, away from the trials and tribulations, from the challenges that we face, from the doubts and hesitations.

Even the most frightful organisations are no more than a collection of vulnerable individuals very much like ourselves. SO15 has been designated as an anti-terrorism tool, but how much of an anti-terrorism tool any organisation can be without proper information and without the proper tools to analize and to arrive at the right conclusions that will allow it to achieve its aims is a fundamental question. I am no spring chicken. As a child, as a teenager, as a young man, I watched World War Two movies and I usually complained about being born too late to actually have been a protagonist in World War Two. I felt that after World War Two, whatever happened afterwards would have insignificant. Here we are living in times when much of the present day politics is described using as a reference World War Two. When we talk about politics, we used words like Nazi, Fascist, Stalinist, and so forth. It feels like whatever happened 70 or so years ago is still with us and is very much relevant to us.

I look at and listen to youngsters today who are frightfully oblivious to what happen in my young man's years in Latin America, for example. In the movie The Two Popes - Jonathan Pryce plays Pope Francis. Pope Francis tells Pope Benedict played by Anthony Hopkins about the death flights that took place in the River Plate Region. Most people, including SO15, MI5, MI6, would be totally unaware of the methods used in those days that rivalled what was done during World War Two. What were the death flights? Political detainees, after being tortured and drugged, were loaded onto airforce planes, flown over the sea and thrown while still alive into the sea. You can imagine that when their bodies touched the sea the water would have the consistency of concrete. Bones would be crashed and faces disfigured to the point of making them unrecognizable. This and other methods were used during the 1970 and 1980. 

I lived in the River Plate region at that time and I can tell you here and now that there was a lot more than that and, when it comes to terror, what has happened in Britain compared to what happened in Latin America is no more than peanuts. Talking about doing something is nothing. The real issue is doing it and much of what was done and is still being done in Latin America beggars belief because it surpasses in more ways than one what happened in World War Two in terms of levels of perfection of cruelty.

Politics and geopolitics have come together as one, but security services are failing to grasp the extent of the ongoing changes. Today, it is about movements more than political parties, movements that have links across national borders, share resources and for which ordinary political processes like elections are just a means to an end and getting elected representatives might not be the main purpose. Today's security services are about 'Far Right' at a national level and are totally oblivious to the dimensions of what they call Far Right. Anybody without a real political agenda ends up being called Far Right or Extremist or the like. The game has changed but politicians, mass media and commentators have failed to grasp the fact of how much things have changed. I confess that I now rarely read the pages of newspapers like The Independent. So called political commentators don't seem to have a clue of what is really going on. The likes of Tommy Robinson, Jack Renshaw, and others are classified as Far Right, something that they are not in any way, shape or form. Misguided? Perhaps. But the aforementioned could not be Far Right, not in a million years. Terrorists? Really? There has to be a long term ideology. There has to be a plan. There has to be a set of objectives depicting a new reality that they try to create.

If all Jack Renshaw thought about was about killing one Member of Parliament, where is the ideology? Where is the long term plan? Where are the long term objectives? A Member of Parliament can be replaced by another Member of Parliament who will have the same or similar views. Threatening somebody is a criminal act, but  what would then be achieved? What real change would then be achieved? Absolutely nothing. One individual is replaced by another individual and it is business as usual. People can lament Jo Cox's death or David Amess's death. What did the culprits actually achieve? Absolutely nothing. Did killing or maming people on July 7th 2005 achieve anything? Corpses everywhere. Lives of passers-by lost. What did killing an unarmed Police Officer right in front of the gates of the House of Commons actually achieve? And what about the incident in London Bridge or in Manchester? What about those killed Lee Rigby? Such actions are the actions of deranged individuals very much like the one who went along the high street street in Streatham in South London trying to stab pedestrians achieved nothing.

When politicians, security forces, mass media and members of the public continue to think about such acts as acts of terrorism, they are taking their eyes away from the ball. We have not had real acts of terrorism and if we continue to misuse anti-legislation using anti-terror legislation for political ends we are going to lose everything worth living for. The real danger is hidden and for such danger we are totally unprepared.

When a politician, that could be a Member of the Cabinet, threatens another country - even without knowing that he or she is threatening another country - the danger grows. When the present Foreign Secretary Liz Truss spoke about a 'no fly zone', she obviously was not aware of that imposing a 'no fly zone' was a declaration of war. When she promoted the idea of Britons going to fight in Ukraine, she obviously was not aware of the fact that mercenaries are not protected by the Geneva Convention. Now, those captured in Ukraine face the death penalty.

When General Patrick Sanders speaks about British forces that should be prepared to fight on the continent, what he says goes against what the Defense Secretary Ben Wallace MP is promoting. You don't fight long wars with commando units. So General Patrick Sanders wants Britain to go in one direction and the Defense Secretary is moving Britain in another direction and the two things are totally incompatible. Fighting long wars means more manpower, not less manpower and you need to get used to the fact that there will be a huge number of casualties along the way and you need to accept there would be retaliation and that the British mainland would be targetted. No one cares to explain to the British public the true meaning of what is being talked about. War in Europe will not be like recents wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq.

Instead of compartmentalised actions in terms of national security, Britain will have to think about an integral approach based on the idea that national politics and geopolitics go hand in hand. There are clear examples of how disastrous such compartmentalised actions can be. For many years, the Royal Navy, the Army and the Air Force operated as separate entities. There are tragic examples to show how misguided such actions were. Two British ships sent to Asia to confront Japan were sunk by Japanese torpedo airplanes. The assault against Narvik was yet another example of how foolish such actions were. Without air cover, the Royal Navy was a sitting duck. Integration is the way forward because the next war will be fought both at home and abroad.  

War in Europe is coming: Britain will be at war but mainland Britain will be part of the battlefield

General Sir Patrick Sanders is right in terms of preparing Britain for an unavoidable World War Three

As Lithuania provokes the Russian Federation by using the Polish Corridor factor blocking transport links to Kaliningrad, Britain could be at war sooner than later.

Undoubtedly, London and the main capital cities in Britain will be bombed but military manpower will be needed not just in mainland Europe but also in Britain to deal with the catastrophe that will be the direct consequence of nuclear impacts in the United Kingdom, not forgetting campaigns of sabotage against key targets in the United Kingdom. Police forces will have to be replaced by military forces to maintain order in the United Kingdom.

The map shows the impact of just one nuclear head in London, but let us remember that each missile can carry more than ten nuclear devices so it is worth preparing Britain for the worst.

Politicians and mass media continue playing a war of words that could have disastrous consequences and Britain would be just one of the countries that will be lost in such madness.

Presumably SO15 and other branches of the British Security Services are taking stock of what will undoubtedly happen in the United Kingdom when there is such a war.

Most of the general public is totally oblivious to what is being done on their behalf very much like the inhabitants of Nagasaki and Hiroshima were oblivious to what was going to happen to their cities in 1945. For most people, the dimension of the tragedy is something they couldn't possible understand or believe to be possible. 

People, your lives will be terminated. You are going to die in one of the most horrendous manners ever conceived by Man. This is coming.

 

Lithuania and Polish Corridor Moment: Lithuania wants to be invaded

 

On September 1st, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. For several years, the issue had been the Polish Corridor created by the Versailles Treaty isolating Germany from a vast chunk of East Prussia including Danzig and Memel. 

Now, Lithuania might be about to make a tragic mistake by blocking access to Kaliningrad from the Russian mainland thus giving the Russian Federation a reason to take matters farther.

Cutting off rail links to Kaliningrad might be seen as a declaration of war, the ultimate provocation, that could signal the end of Lithuania as a country. Have Lithuanian leaders their heads in the right place? Provoking a powerful neighbour might not be the best action to undertake and especially when logistically any support is a world away if things go south and things might go south in a matter of days if not hours if the blockade is implemented and maintained.

Lots of money for war, but thousands of people in the UK are left without legal support in court

Democracy and Justice? What Democracy and Justice?

What is happening in Britain is absolutely shambolic. While politicians and mass media are focused on geopolitical nonsense, people in the UK are suffering and suffering ever more and not just because of rising interest rates and rising living costs, waiting lists in health services and almost impossible access to decent housing.

Ministry of Justice has announced that is cutting funding court support service for thousands of people who have to attend court sessions without legal representation and forced to represent themselves. Since legal aid cuts were introduced in 2013 the number of those who cannot afford to pay for a lawyer has skyroketted. By the end of June 2022, a service that has offices in 20 civil and family courts across England and Wales will be left without funding.

It is one of several charities working with unrepresented people in court whose funding is in doubt after the government ended its litigants in person strategy earlier this year. They have been told there will be grants they can apply for in future but given no idea of how much these will be, or what the timescales are.

Left with a £400,000 shortfall in its budget, Support Through Court is about to launch an urgent appeal for funds, without which it faces the prospect of redundancies and the closure of some of its offices.

Eileen Pereira, the chief executive of the charity, said: “Every day hundreds of people who can’t access legal aid walk into court buildings in need of support and guidance and this is only set to rise as the cost of living increases. Without the funding we’ve received for eight years, we’re facing the real possibility of closing the doors on the support we provide to these people.

“To end up closing any of our services would have a devastating impact, not just on the clients we support but on the whole court system.”

Legal aid was taken away in most civil cases and almost all private family law in 2013. Since then, the proportion of private family law hearings where both parties have a lawyer has almost halved to one in five.

In some family hearings it is not uncommon that just one of the litigants is assisted by a solicitor and this happens in 42% of all cases heard in courts across England and Wales. This creates all kinds of injustices as it generates an uneven playing field when it comes to disputes regarding access to childrena and separation of finances. 

While 81% of all those bringing civil claims – such as companies chasing debts – have lawyers, only 44% of those defending them are represented.

The Law Society of England and Wales President, I Stephanie Boyce, said: “Cuts to legal aid have left more and more people having to represent themselves in court as litigants in person. What they most need is legal advice and representation, but Support Through Court provides practical and emotional support that can help them through stressful court hearings. It would be another blow to people trying to navigate the justice system if state funding were removed for this important service.”

The funding shortfall faced by specialist legal and advice support services is £17.5m for 2022-23, according to data collected by the Community Justice Fund.

Look at the numbers. How much money is being diverted to foreign countries and how much money is being withdrawn from critically important services in the United Kingdom. 

A Ministry of Justice spokesperson said: “We want access to early legal support to be available to those who need it most and charities will soon be able to bid for new grant funding so even more people can benefit from their services.”

But the fundamental question is how it is possible that people in England and Wales are forced to attend court hearings without legal support simply because they cannot afford legal support and this goes to the core of the very definition of a justice system in the United Kingdom as a whole. Democracy? What Democracy? 

 

Today was TUC, next week RMT and in the coming weeks it will be education and NHS

 

Today, it was the TUC. Next week it will be RMT and in the coming weeks it will be education and NHS. All started with sanctions against the Russian Federation and following actions that led not only to higher energy prices, but also to suspension of supplies that are turning Europe into a battlefield. This is not just about Ukraine. This is about Europe and about how Europe can withstand the stupidity of the United States of America under a pretty incompetent President Biden that keeps falling and falling and not just in political terms. A sudden physical fall could put an end to his presidency and this opens a whole new can of worms.

In Germany, the survival of the ruling coalition is being questioned as Chancellor Olaf Sholz finds against between a rock and a hard place. In Britain, the ruling Conservative Party is struggling to keep some kind of composture. In the following days several by-elections will put the Conservative Party once again to the test after a series of devious sexual behaviour that led to resignations surrounded by scandals including a conviction of a Member of Parliament accused of molesting a minor.

The Bank of England, once again, raised the basic interest rate as a reflection of what has just happened in the USA where the Federal Reserve put up the basic interest rate to curb inflation that the Federal Reseve itself contributed to create by printing vast amounts of currency. The British Treasury is exhausted and with every 'adjustment' British public debt and British private debt keep rising and rising.

The Summer of Discontent could be followed by the Winter of Discontent when the impact of energy prices will be hitting the country a lot harder. Just accross the Channel, Germany is preparing a list of 'priorities' and big companies likes Bayer and ThyssenKrupp are talking louder and louder. The German economy is a castle built with dominoes and heads of industry are talking about 'castrophic consequences with inflation levels never seen before'. We know exactly what this means. With Europe's biggest economies faltering, political consequences will follow.

Britain: Gun Ho mentality is making a bad situation worse

The crise in Eastern Europe is set to carry on and on and on, increasing the chances of an even worse conflict to occur. Those in charge of dealing with the situation are visibly acting out of their depth and without any real understanding of the consequences of what they are doing.

Mass media are blissfully ignorant in terms of what is involved and keep the propaganda machine alive with a series of headlines that apart from being absolutely pathetic and often misguiding tend to create hatred and animosity.

In the meantime, the range of issues that continue to erode the foundations of the European Union keeps growing. It is just a matter of time when issues related to refugees generate political upheaval in the host countries. Just days ago, Lech Walesa stated that Poland and Hungary should leave the European Union since both countries are losing out because of their membership of the European Union. There are obvious disparities and differences in terms of aims within the European Union. France and Germany have their own approach to the crisis in Eastern Europe with regards to the stances of other EU countries. Unity is in very short supply and the cracks are becoming ever more visible.

While USA and others use Ukraine in a proxy war against the Russian Federation, they know full well that given the cost of a direct confrontation they would not want such direct confrontation. In the meantime, they all agree that China is a much greater threat and China is closely following events in Europe while it prepares itself to recover Chinese territories in Asia. China is no longer the retiscent China of the past. China is more than willing to engage in military conflict and incursions close to Japan and to Australia are much more than posturing. After the shambolic end of military operations in Afghanistan, there is little appetite for what would be a massive military conflict that will involve both Europe and Asia.

In Britain, what is the state of British military capabilities? Britain struggled in Iraq and struggled in Afghanistan being limited now to skirmishes across the Middle East. Britain does not have the manpower it would need for an all-out war that would very likely include the British mainland. It would take 15 minutes for a nuclear missile launched from Kaliningrad to reach London. There has been some research about the impact of a nuclear strike in London, but we must assume that should there be an all-out war all the main British cities will be targetted as a well as military installations, communications, energy production and distribution and we could not discount that there will be acts of sabotage within the United Kingdom.

Liz Truss is wrong about British mercenaries

The British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss MP should be respectfully reminded of the fact that British mercenaries or any other mercenaries participating in a military conflict are not protected by international agreements designed to protect regular soldiers when they are captured.

She has made public statements regarding the situation of British mercenaries caught up in Ukraine and sentenced to death that contradict international agreements. She is wrong and perhaps she does not have proper advisers to tell her that she is wrong. This is becoming a national embarrassment.

She was initially wrong when she encouraged British citizens to join the fighting in Ukraine and she is wrong now when she talks about prisoners of war. Mercenaries are not regular combattants and therefore when captured they expose themselves to be executed and they were lucky to have survived so long and luck to have faced trial. They could have been executed on the stop with no questions answered because they Geneva Convention does not protect them.

A former British military commander and now Member of Parliament speaking candidly about Liz Truss and her role as Foreign Secretary clearly stated his views and said 'she is lightweight'. Lighweight is another way of saying she is not competent as Foreign Secretary and there are clear examples showing that she is not competent. As a politician she is prone to making colourful statements that are not supported by facts.

I do believe that Ben Wallace MP, presently Defense Secretary, would be a much better choice as Foreign Secretary and especially when dealing with military matters and there are no doubts whatsoever that the conflict in Ukraine is both a political issue and a military issue.

Labour Party talks about honesty? Let's look at the percentages

 Prime Minister Boris Johnson was first elected with more than 50% of support and now has got more than 60% of support. The Labour Party says that Boris Johnson should resign because of lack of support. Well, let's look at the numbers. With what percentage did Keir Starmer get elected Labour Party Leader?

Since the Labour Party says that more than 60 per cent is not enought to be leader of the Conservative Party, should Keir Starmer resign as leader of the Labour Party? Look at the numbers. Keir Starmer got 41.5%.

There was a time when the BBC used to provide accurate information. Not anymore and for a very long time the BBC has failed to do due diligence. If the BBC had done its homework, it would have discovered that existing data is against the argument used by the Opposition and would have avoided the usual distortion in its new broadcasting output that has degraded the BBC. Bias is one thing. Sheer stupidity is quite another.

Going Underground: not just numbers, but actual families

 

We are used to hear about layoffs, so used to hear about layoffs that layoffs happen all the time and we are none the wiser about how they happen or even where they happen. What is even more odd is that we are not even aware of the real repercussions of the fact that people being laid off. We are not really aware of what is going Underground, under the ground of numbers and percentages we are being flooded with.

I guess that when you enter a bank branch - of the few that remain open compared to the numbers we had just a few years ago, or when you enter a local supermarket, you don't think about how many people have simply vanished from workplaces having been replaced by automation. You might think about how difficult it is to get a job or about how little people are being paid with salaries that will never allow them to climb the housing ladder, but you don't make the connection between automation and rising dispossesion. Somebody might talk about isolation, depression, anxiety, and so forth, but we seldom see the link between employment and many of the social illnesses, mental illnesses and physical illnesses. 

Most of us build our present and think about our futures taking into account how much we earn doing what we are doing. You make plans and suddenly you get the news that you no longer have a job. You no longer have what it takes to support yourself, to pay your bills, to save for that ever elusive future that you might never have.

Like an economics teacher of mine said 'don't forget that all those numbers, those figures, those percentages, those equations and formulae are real people'. 

The Men in Grey suits decide the fate of the Conservative Government and of the country as a whole without a General Election

Margaret Thatcher was never defeated in a General Election. She was defeated by the men in grey suits, a group of people from within her own Conservative Party.

This evening the fate of Prime Minister Boris Johnson is not been decided by the British Electorate and it is not been decided by a win of the Opposition Labour Party.

Between 1800 and 2000 this evening, a major decision will be made that could turn the Conservative Party upside down not just by replacing the present Prime Minister but also the present Cabinet and all it stands for.This is the closest we have got to a General Election because the decision made this evening will affect every aspect of politics and even geopolitics and therefore we could be jumping into the unknown.

There are several sides within the Conservative Party and up to the time when we know who will be in charge of the British government everyting will be in the air. 

Gemany's Day X is here to stay

Germany's Day X is here to stay

Everybody was making contingency plans for Day X, the day when gas supplies coming from the Russian Federation were going to cut off and such day arrived when the Russian Federation responding to those who were threatening the Russian Federation with the suspension of gas imports decided to do the deed itself and leave Germany and other countries without gas and this was bound to happen.

Western Germany - we continue talking about Western Germany because the hopes brought by the Fall of the Berlin Wall in terms of economic leveling of East Germany with West Germany were quickly wiped out - is suffering the consequences. More than ever before, Germany will have to rely on coal thus defeating plans presumably designed to protect the environment and CO2 levels. But there is more than that because one German company in particular was using Russian gas to produce battery cases for electric cars and even making train clutch systems. Of course the company representative chose to remain anonymous because he did not want to be seen as supporting the Russian Federation. Having said that, the prospect for the said Germany company is closure leading to unemployment. Let us remember than 55% per cent of the gas used in Germany was coming from the Russian Federation. The damage done to the Germany economy and the erosion of German political stability might not be a price worth paying.

What is coming is a chain reaction in a country in which companies big and small are interlinked. This is the domino effect. Bayer, Basf and Thyssenkrupp are vulnerable and practically every area of industrial activity will be damaged including construction material, pesticides, synthetics, packaging, disinfectants, the producion of drugs for medical use such as antibiotics, vaccines and cancer drugs. Nickel and aluminium come to a great extent from the Russian Federation.

And what happens to hospitals, emergency services and medical manufacturers despite the fact that they will be treated as priorities. Companies are being forced to demonstrate that they deserve to be treated as priorities and those involved in glass manufacturing are an example of what could happen. If production comes to a halt, the nature of the production process will mean that machines could be terminally damaged when liquids settle inside the machines.

If supply chains collapse, already affected by the paralysis generated by lockdown measures during the Covid pandemic, the outcome will be bankruptcies and mass unemployment. Some talk about a recession that will be worse than any of the recessions Germany has faced until now. Do you know what this means?