The Sunday Ishmael: 17/12/2023

You'd think, with all his money, that chubby hubby, Doug TummyBellyBarrowman could afford to buy a shirt and jacket combination to cover his straining hairy paunch. But maybe the infamous "advisers" alluded to by Baroness Moan in the Laura Kuenssberg Show this morning suggested he appear on telly looking fat and poor all the better to personify  the couple's chosen victim identity. Those "advisers" presumably were the same ones that instructed the Baroness to lie through her teeth about not having any  personal advantage  from the two massively generous PPE contracts awarded by the government in 2020 - the first contract valued at £80.85 million for the supply of  210 million facemasks, the second  valued at £122 million  for the supply of 25 million surgical gowns. Both contracts were awarded without competitive tenders under the Covid-19 emergency regulations that waived normal requirements. The Baroness told Laura that she phoned Michael Gove and said she could help out. Matt Hancock, au contraire, Minister for Health at the time, described her lobbying as being extraordinarily aggressive and threatening. Despite repeated, emphatic, consistent  and determined denials through their lawyers, turns out that the beneficiary of these contracts, PPE Medpro Ltd., is a company close to the heart and wallet of Chubby Hubby TummyBellyBorrowman. Last month, a representative acting for Barrowman confirmed that half the money required upfront was "provided by the Family Office of Doug Barrowman", part of the Knox firm ultimately controlled by Barrowman which manages his private wealth. The representative also said that Barrowman "was the chairman and leader of the PPE Medpro consortium that supplied the UK government”. And £60 million is the profit that is sitting in the coffers of the Knox Firm - at least, until the Government enquiry and police investigations have concluded and the Covid profiteers have had their unholy profits (or returns on a high risk investment, as Chubby Hubby put it) sequestered by the State.

They can't have done themselves any favours, Mr. and Mrs. Mone- Barrowman, with their stage-managed interview with Laura. Despite their determination to present themselves as innocent victims of something or other,  inadvertent glimpses  into their tortuously complicated financial arrangements were revealed. "It's not my money, its his. If he divorced me or died, I wouldn't have any money, because its his." 
"No, there's no yacht. What Yacht?"  

The one you posted a picture of yourself aboard - the Lady M, For Fuck's Sake.
The Baroness, a creature of Baron Call Me Dave, has form for mendaciousness and dodgy practice. Basically a pushy Weegie, a 15 year old school leaver with no qualifications, Mone, by her own admission, invented qualifications to secure a marketing job with the Labatt brewing company. She was subsequently made redundant. Mone's company, MJM International paid a substantial sum of money into a controversial tax avoidance scheme, criticised by then- Chancellor George Osborne as "morally repugnant". It had to be bad for Bukkake George to find it repugnant. Mone said she had "not done anything wrong" in relation to tax avoidance and that her ex-husband had "dealt with all the finance". Seems both her husbands are a bit nifty with the cash.
What else? Oh, yes,  in 2006 MJM entered the weight loss market, with Mone promoting a weight loss pill called Trim Secrets,  falsely claiming the  product had been proven in clinical trials. However, when questioned further, she said that approximately 60 users had completed a questionnaire but she was unable to produce the results. A spokesman for the British Dietetic Association said "there is no scientific basis or rationale for these products, they are making claims which are unfounded and feeding into public confusion." Could try giving ChubbyHubby the Trim pills.

Anything else? 

• An  incomplete £250 million residential development in Dubai, 

• a bitcoin disaster, 

• milking her baronetcy for publicity purposes whilst hardly ever showing up in the Lords - By early 2022, Mone had made only five speeches in the House of Lords and asked 22 written questions. In December 2022, her spokesperson said she was taking a leave of absence from the House of Lords with immediate effect "in order to clear her name of the allegations  that have been unjustly levelled against her". She had not spoken in a debate since March 2020 and had last voted in April 2022.

Then there's the Employment Tribunals:

• Hugh McGinley settled out of court with MJM after making a claim of constructive dismissal. He told a tribunal hearing in 2014: “If staff got on the wrong side of Michelle Mone, their lives would be made hell.”
• Scott Kilday, operations director at MJM International, had his office bugged and Mone  listened to the tapes for signs of disloyalty. He won his case for unfair dismissal in 2014 and was awarded £15,920 in compensation.  Employment judge Shona MacLean said: “The fact a recording device was placed in his office was, in the tribunal’s view, conduct likely to destroy or seriously damage the degree of trust and confidence an employee is entitled to have in his employer.”

• In 2006, Claire Woods was awarded £10,680 in compensation for discrimination against her  on the basis of her pregnancy. 

• Mone's  former office manager Mark Ali lodged his claim with the Employment Tribunal alleging  bullying , harassment, sexual discrimination and failure to pay wages.

But what about the 25 million surgical gowns? Not fit for purpose. Never been worn. Stored away on rather a lot of shelves somewhere.

Just can't fault Baron Call Me Dave's ability to pick a wrong 'un.

What could he have seen in her?

Malapropism Contest

Nobody had a go at this contest, which is a big disappointment, cos I think they are funny. They are both the inadvertent invention of mr ishmael's dyslexic assistant, who was keen on well-known phrases or sayings to add colour to his every-day speech, but inevitably got them tangled up. They entered the lexicography of our family and I've almost forgotten the correct phrases. Anyway,  here are the answers:

It's back to Square Peg One. This is a neat amalgamation of square peg in a round hole and back to square one. The meaning of being a square peg in a round hole is that of a person whose character makes them unsuitable for the job or other position they are in: however, those familiar with pegged furniture know that a square peg in a round hole usually secures a snug fit, as the peg, or wedge, well-soaked prior to insertion by way of a mallet, will, on drying out, hold things together in a most satisfactory way. Meanings often shift in this way. Take "bodger" for example - these days a bodger is  someone who makes a mess of things, whereas a bodger used to be a skilled craftsperson who made chair legs. "Sophisticated" now means "having, revealing, or involving a great deal of worldly experience and knowledge of fashion and culture:"

It used to mean a sly liar - like sophistry

It takes a Cat to Scratch a Mackerel.

This one is sheer delight - the correct phrase is: it takes a sprat to catch a mackerel, the meaning being that you have to sacrifice a little fish to catch a big fish.

Cry God for England, Harry and St. George!

In other matters, turns out Harry was right and Mirror Group Newspapers are a bad lot. He's been awarded £140,600 in damages  after the judgement ruled that several articles were the product of hacking or unlawful information gathering. 

His lawyer read out his triumphant statement, announcing that it was a Great Day For Truth. Careful, Harry - it rather puts one in mind of Jonathon Aitken's sword of truth; and it really didn't end well for him:

"If it falls to me to start a fight to cut out the cancer of bent and twisted journalism in our country with the simple sword of truth and the trusty shield of British fair play, so be it. I am ready for the fight. The fight [is] against falsehood and those who peddle it. My fight begins today. Thank you and good afternoon."
This is why Aitken took up his trusty sword - on 10 April 1995, The Guardian carried a front-page report on Aitken's dealings with leading Saudis. The story was the result of a long investigation carried out by journalists from the newspaper and from Granada Television's World in Action programme. The Guardian also alleged Aitken, when Minister for Defence Procurement, procured prostitutes for Arab businessmen. Granada's World in Action programme repeated the accusation in a television documentary called Jonathan of Arabia.  Aitken  called a press conference at the Conservative Party offices in London, at 5 p.m. that same day denouncing the claims and demanding that the World in Action documentary, which was due to be screened three hours later, withdraw them.  The documentary was transmitted and Aitken sued. The case collapsed in June 1997 (a month after he had lost his seat in the 1997 general election) when The Guardian and Granada produced, via their counsel George Carman QC, evidence countering his claim that his wife, Lolicia Aitken, paid for the hotel stay at the Ritz Hotel in Paris. The evidence consisted of airline vouchers and other documents showing that his wife had, in fact, been in Switzerland at the time when she had allegedly been at the Ritz in Paris. The joint Guardian/Granada investigation indicated an arms deal scam involving Aitken's friend and business partner, the Lebanese businessman Mohammed Said Ayas, a close associate of Prince Mohammed of Saudi Arabia. It was alleged that Aitken had been prepared to have his teenage daughter Victoria lie under oath to support his version of events, had the case continued. Aitken was charged with perjury and perverting the course of justice and, after pleading guilty on 8 June 1999 to both offences, was sentenced to jail for 18 months of which he served almost seven months. 
You've just got to be careful when you take to the law. Here's mr ishmael on the notorious Aitken, in an essay from the latest anthology curated by editor mr verge, Flush Test.



Jonathan Aitken, the disgraced former Tory cabinet minister who was jailed for perjury, will be rehabilitated into the political frontline tomorrow when he takes charge of a task force on prison reform that will help formulate Conservative policy. the Guardian, Nov 11, 2007 

You don’t imagine, do you, that Aitken knows anything about the real hardship faced by ordinary people who land on the Go To Jail square, who lose their homes and families, come out without a pot to piss in? This is just a way back into the corridors of power and greed. Do you really think that Aitken’s self-publicity about writing letters for cons qualifies him to pronounce on penal reform? (None of them, you know, can write, or tie up their shoe-laces without some bent, corrupt-in-the-blood toff like Aitken extending the hand of phony christian charity, miserable fucking self-aggrandising Godless heathen bastard.) Some poor bastard who’s had a lifetime of kickings from the screws, thrown out time after time with a hundred quid to build a new life and family and home, maybe he might have something useful to say. Upper class penal reformers like The Howard League and the unlamented Home Office sycophants at NACRO have succeeded in keeping the nick much as it was in the days of the Victorian penitentiary, only without the penitence. Another cunt like Aitken poncing a position and a wholly undeserved public voice on the backs of the poor, the lost and the mentally ill who constitute a large part of the jail population will help ensure things stay much as they are. The remedy to the prison crisis is straightforward enough for anyone with the political will. Legalise drugs and cut more than half of crime at a stroke. Even the cops say this is overdue. Employ graduates in the nick - as in the probation and social services - for those who must be incarcerated and whom we really don’t want to reoffend on release. Properly resource the probation service after a decade of it being fucked about by populist clowns like Himmler Straw and the mouthy gabshite Blunkett. Devise meaningful and productive community sentences for lesser offences and do some of this fucking “investment” that the mad cunt Brown blethers about in mental health services. Stop using the nicks as cheap hospitals for disturbed people. 

There. Job done. Remedy from Polish plumber. Perhaps Mr Nit-Picking Fucking Anonymous will forward it to Ian and Duncan Smith’s Independent Think Tank, in which it will, no doubt, promptly fucking drown. Aitken has done his time, and given his breach of trust and his cynical use of his own children, a custodial sentence was quite appropriate. He shouldn’t be further punished but his crimes were so fucking obnoxious, so absolutely inexcusable by hardship or illness or need or disadvantage that he has no business pronouncing or “advising” on public policy. The Rehabilitation of Offenders Act is, as the great Polish playwright says, honoured more in the breach than the observance. Exclusions abound and it is virtually meaningless; it is nigh on impossible for a former convict to have a normal life ever again and this may be, in the scheme of things, understandable and even proper. What is not understandable or proper, however, is Lord Jeffrey Arsehole and the arsonist Lord Mike Watson* of Scotland retaining seats in the legislature, or the lying cunt Aitken being involved, at any level, in something as important as penal reform - and in whatever else he most assuredly hopes it will lead him to, the vile bastard. 

* Baron Watson of Invergowrie was expelled from the Labour Party in 2005 when he was imprisoned for setting fire to the curtains in an Edinburgh hotel’s reception following the Scottish Politician of the Year Awards. (Gotta say it : honest, not invent.) Readmitted to the Party in 2012; made Labour spokesman on Education in the Lords by Jeremy Corbyn in 2015. - (editor verge)

This, and much, much more can be found in the four-volume Call Me Ishmael oeuvre, collected by editor mr verge.

Honest Not Invent, Vent Stack, Ishmael’s Blues, and the latest, Flush Test (with a nice picture of the late, much lamented, Mr Harris of Lanarkshire taking a piss on a totem pole) are available from Lulu and Amazon. If you buy from Amazon, it would be nice if you could give a review on their website.

Ishmaelites wishing to buy a copy from lulu should follow these steps :

please register an account first, at lulu.com. This is advisable because otherwise paypal seems to think it's ok to charge in dollars, and they then apply their own conversion rate, which might put the price up slightly for a UK buyer. Once the new account is set up, follow one of the links below (to either paperback or hardback) or type "Ishmael’s Blues" into the Lulu Bookstore search box. Click on the “show explicit content” tab, give the age verification box a date of birth such as 1 January 1960, and proceed.

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At checkout, try WELCOME15 in the coupon box, which (for the moment) takes 15% off the price before postage. If this code has expired by the time you reach this point, try a google search for "Lulu.com voucher code" and see what comes up.

With the 15% voucher, PB (including delivery to a UK address) should be £16.84; HB £27.04.

It's the Scottish Budget on Tuesday. Hope they can afford to buy these chaps some underwear.

The Sunday Ishmael: 10/12/2023

 

Woops, he's done it again! Had an Idea. An Idea, moreover, thoroughly approved of by Bill Browder. Who he? He's the CEO and co-founder of Hermitage Capital Management, which was once the largest foreign portfolio investor in Russia. 10 years ago he had $4.5bn under management, and was the largest single foreign investor in Russia. Browder’s primary investment strategy was shareholder rights activism. He took on large Russian companies such as Gazprom, Surgutneftegaz, Unified Energy Systems, and Sidanco.

So what's the Baron's Idea? International support for Ukraine's war with Russia is fading, as the conflict drags into its second year. In the United States a Bill to provide more than $60 billion in lethal aid for Ukraine was blocked by Republican Senators. So; Baron Call Me Dave, Britain's Foreign Secretary, has decided that the £278 billion in Russian bank accounts, frozen as a key part of the international sanctions to punish Russia for its invasion of Ukraine, should now be stolen. In his own words:

“Instead of just freezing that money, let’s take that money, spend it on rebuilding Ukraine and that is, if you like, a down payment on reparations that Russia will one day have to pay for the illegal invasion that they’ve undertaken. I’ve looked at all the arguments and so far, I haven’t seen anything that convinces me this is a bad idea.”

Okay, Baron, how about that for an argument?

I daresay the Baron, before he was a noble gentleman, looked at all the arguments against inserting his privy member into the decapitated head of a pig (allegedly) and didn't see anything that convinced him it was a bad idea. Most of the less privileged classes would have recoiled in horror, saying "you want me to do What? Stick my dong in That? And it's not even cooked?"

Most of us have no problems in grasping the concept that Putin would be pretty hacked-off if Britain steals £278 billion from him and his chums, bearing in mind the fact that Boris Johnson has already made us into The Great Satan with his schoolboyish enthusiasm for joining in with a war that has nothing to do with us and which it is inevitable that Putin will win - me too, he squealed, let me play, too, take their minds off Covid. But of course, Boris is a fellow Bullingdon Boy and he probably looked at all the arguments and didn't find anything to convince him that taking on Russia was a bad idea.

Have you seen the size of the place?

So why is Bill Browder so keen on this Grand Theft Rouble? He's got skin in the game. Basically, he's on the run. In 2013, he was tried in absentia in Russia for tax fraud, convicted and sentenced to imprisonment. Interpol has so far rejected Russian requests to arrest Browder, saying the case was political. He has written a couple of books about his experiences with Putin's Russia:

Freezing Order and Red Notice. In November 2009, lawyer Sergei Magnitsky was beaten to death by eight police officers in a cell in a Moscow prison, having been imprisoned following testifying against Russian officials who were involved in a conspiracy to steal $230 million of taxes through a tax refund scheme. Browder and his team tracked the money as it flowed out of Russia through the Baltics and Cyprus and on to Western Europe and the Americas, through battles with ruthless oligarchs in post-Soviet Union Moscow, to the heart of the Kremlin.

He was on the Laura Kuenssberg Show this morning, opining that Britain and the US must win their proxy war against Russia, or Russia would next attack Estonia, a NATO ally. Which would require NATO to officially, rather than surreptitiously, join in and thus kick off World War Three. Given his particular experience of the ruthlessness of Putin's Russia, you'd think he would urge caution and not cheer on Baron Dave-I've considered-all-the-arguments..

Here's a few thoughts from mr ishmael about the Baron and his Good Ideas:

"There is no doubt in my mind about HamFace’s undergrad deviance; end, as they say, of story. I imagine at bedtimes poor Mrs Cormorant is compelled to dress herself from head to foot in suede and utter ecstatic oinks, the whole grisly charade applauded by a quartet of masturbating Old Etonians. Sadly, Cameron, a catastrophically over-promoted airhead, himself starting to pout and mince and play to the gallery of reptiles, combing his hair this way and that, dragooning bloated self-satisfied geriatrics to his cause, adds to the national woe; he is good, as we say in Scotland, for fuck-all; his strategy is Hang On Sloopy, Sloopy Hang On. While the country slides into a sea of shit, David MustaphaWar Cameron, seeks a Thatcher Falklands moment to divert attention from his stupefying, hand-waving, shirt-sleeve, shit-brain, good-for-fuck-all and increasingly bad-tempered maladroitness, before pissed-off British citizens take to the streets burning the useless prat in effigy and with any luck in person, rightly blaming him for EU-led treachery, for inflation, rocketing fuel prices, unemployment, repossessions, the gerryman-dering of boundaries, the rigging of the constitution, the wholly unmandated destruction and privatisation of public services and the shameless, self-interested kowtowing to the financial terrorists who got us all into this shit, all over the fucking world."

...........................................................

The Scottish Sunday Show, compered by the manly Martin Geissler, led this morning on the rejection by the Court of Session of the appeal by the Scottish Government against the UK Government’s Section 35 order imposed to put a stop to the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. The legislation harmed women's rights and was the result of a poor policy process, insincere consultations, partisan lobbying by Stonewall and the Equality Network and evasive debates. The Scottish Government was given legal technical advice to the effect that the legislation was unlawful and that the UK Government would step in. Of course, that's fighting talk to the SNP and so the Bill to allow gender self-identification was passed by a majority. The rest followed, as night follows day, and the Court of Session has vindicated the UK Government's decision to stop the legislation in its tracks. Rather than allowing for a period of reflection and acceptance, the SNP has dressed this up as an attack on devolution itself and is considering how it can go about overturning the legal decision.

A bit like Shifty Sunak's legislation to work around the Supreme Court's judgement against the expensive plan to send a handful of illegal migrants to Rwanda For Fuck's Sake.

Dear Jonathon Sumption, a former Supreme Court Judge, said Shifty Sunak's plan was "profoundly discreditable. If the courts are told [by an Act of Parliament] that they've got to pretend that Rwanda is safe, whether it is or not, then that will work domestically, but it won't work internationally. It will still be a breach of the government's international law obligations. It will be a breach of the refugee treaty. It will be a breach of the rules of customary international law which the government has been promoting and saying covers this obligation for some years." He reckons that Shifty Sunak's proposed legislation, over which Chubby Jenrick

has resigned his post as Immigration Minister, not because it is diabolical but because it is insufficiently rigorous, will not make it through the House of Lords because it is shite. He didn't say that, of course - he's very careful with his worms words - he said:

"It would be constitutionally a completely extraordinary thing to do, to effectively overrule a decision on the facts, on the evidence, by the highest court in the land."

Back to Scotland - Section 35 of the Scotland Act 1998 is a legal provision that allows the Secretary of State for Scotland to veto a bill passed by the Scottish Parliament. The veto can only be used if the bill is incompatible with international obligations, defence, or national security. The veto is considered a matter of last resort. Shows how incredibly seriously the impact of this gender self-identification Bill on the three other nations within the United Kingdom would have been. The Bill included these provisions:

• The age limit for applications to be cut from 18 to 16
• The requirements for medical reports, including a gender dysphoria diagnosis, will be dropped
• The period applicants are required to live in their acquired gender will be reduced from two years to three months (and, after an amendment to the legislation was accepted by ministers, to six months for 16 and 17-year-olds)
• The addition of a three month "reflection period" before a gender recognition certificate is issue
• Applications will be handled by the Registrar General for Scotland instead of the UK panel

Ellie Gomersall is a strong supporter of the legislation, which she says would make her life easier and more dignified. The impact on the wider UK would be that, once Scotland granted a Gender Recognition Certificate, that person would be legally entitled to be treated as being a member of the chosen gender wherever they travelled or lived. We have already rehearsed in these pages the effect of this on the rights and safety of biological women. Here's one of them:

Needham, fourth from the left.

Football player, Francesca Needham, 30, was said to have left her opponents 'terrified' to play against her after Needham broke another player's knee while blocking a shot, citing "safety concerns". Needham is a big, strong transwoman who was born a man.

Speaking up for the dignity of the Scottish Government on the Martin Geissler Show was Ellie Gomersall, a distressingly ugly transwoman who is, by her own admission, leading an undignified life.

We're not going to hold his/her ugliness against him/her. God knows there's enough formidably ugly biological females around. And I have no doubt that his/her undignified life is a matter of deep distress. (S)he says "I think ultimately the only person who can really describe my own identity, my own gender is me," explaining his/her inability to change his/her birth certificate because (s)he has been unable to acquire a gender recognition certificate - because (s)he has been unable to obtain an initial appointment, let alone a diagnosis of gender dysphoria or the required medical reports, at Glasgow's Sandyford gender identity clinic, one of four facilities run by NHS Scotland. So (s)he wants the law changed. Sounds like there's a great many trans people in Scotland if the four clinics are so over-run that Ellie couldn't get an appointment in five years. It's only a small country, remember. Population of 5,463,300 in 2019. No, its not the ugliness or undignified life. It's the fact that this person has made a career out of gender issues, first in the National Union of Students, then in the Young Greens. Grievance Politics.

Wot's on Telly

Dr. Who, with David Tennant. Very stylish, very funny, incredibly gay, written by Russell T. Davies, so it's grooming of the nation stuff. The budget seems to have run to helicopters and explosions. No more shaky scenery.

mr ishmael: "Across the board, many adults are Woganised, infantilised, unable to bear their own silences, unable to entertain, comfort, amuse or stimulate themselves, millions addicted to the children's programme, Dr Who, pretending to watch it because it is challenging, philosophical, science fictional, tackling difficult issues, when all they are doing is lusting after whichever character

is the current Dr's current jailbait cyber-minx,

IS he gonna fuck her?

Kleptocrats robbing and raping us, angry millions on the move in our direction, ice-caps melting and we lose ourselves in spells and wands and wizards; in Time lords and Daleks; in retreaded galactic wars of empire.

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Malapropism Contest

It takes a Cat to Scratch a Mackerel.

It's back to Square Peg One.

.......................................................................................

More extreme political satire can be found in the four-volume Call Me Ishmael oeuvre, the work of editor mr verge.

Honest Not Invent, Vent Stack, Ishmael’s Blues, and the latest, Flush Test (with a nice picture of the late, much lamented, Mr Harris of Lanarkshire taking a piss on a totem pole) are available from Lulu and Amazon. If you buy from Amazon, it would be nice if you could give a review on their website.

Ishmaelites wishing to buy a copy from lulu should follow these steps :

please register an account first, at lulu.com. This is advisable because otherwise paypal seems to think it's ok to charge in dollars, and they then apply their own conversion rate, which might put the price up slightly for a UK buyer. Once the new account is set up, follow one of the links below (to either paperback or hardback) or type "Ishmael’s Blues" into the Lulu Bookstore search box. Click on the “show explicit content” tab, give the age verification box a date of birth such as 1 January 1960, and proceed.

Link for Hardcover : https://tinyurl.com/je7nddfr

Link for Paperback : https://tinyurl.com/3jurrzux

https://www.lulu.com/shop/ishmael-smith/flush-test/paperback/product-9yjvn7.html?q=Flush+Test&page=1&pageSize=4

At checkout, try WELCOME15 in the coupon box, which (for the moment) takes 15% off the price before postage. If this code has expired by the time you reach this point, try a google search for "Lulu.com voucher code" and see what comes up.

With the 15% voucher, PB (including delivery to a UK address) should be £16.84; HB £27.04.

Lest We Forget: Another Bead Baster

 On the previous thread, mr inmate reminded us about Glenys-Six-Pensions. So, not wanting to let the occasion pass without an essay from mr ishmael to serve as obituary, I had a little dig around in the archive. Here we go:  

EUROPE, A PENSIONER SPEAKS 22/2 2016

Well, I'd just like to say to the working people of Britain, as a working man myself, yes, going to university and studying the very difficult subject of industrial relations is work, too, as is lecturing part-time for a charity, which I did for a couple of years, at least, before becoming a tireless Labour MP and working myself almost into an early grave, these past fifty years, on behalf of other people, what we call ord-in-erry people; and as a stalwart, yes and tireless, totally tireless and indefatigable champion of working people, for all of my tireless working life, and even now, in retirement, I am still tirelessly and totally,  with no thought for myself, toiling  relentlessly and without pause, daily, in the House of Lords, on behalf of working people, of whom I am, let's face it, one at heart, and have never  denied my working classness, mine and the wife's, Baroness Kinnock's. And do you know what, well, I'll tell you a story about my Baroness Glenys, 

but before I do I should mention that she's the first, the very first one,  the originator, if you will, the pioneeress, as it were, the very singular and uniquely first in a thousand, ten thousand, a hundred, a hundred thousand generations of  her family to, after, after, mind, giving singular and unique and unprecedented and unrivalled service to the peoples of Europe, to  sit in the House of Lords, doing a proper job, ministering for Africa - on which, I would just mention, Lady Glenys, having read all the H Rider Haggard books,  is a world expert, King Solomon's Ring, she knows them all - for my old mate, Gordon Brown, at a salary wholly and completely and utterly apposite and appropriate and entirely consistent with her training as a primary school teacher, of a hundred thousand pounds a year, whether she stayed for work or not, yes, yes, just had to turn up and sign-in, yes  rather like her attendance allowance at the European parliament.  But no, we're both very busy people, working our fingers to the bone on behalf of ord-in-erry people, it's only right and proper and decent and consistent with the highest standards of fair play and decency that people like myself and  Lady Kinnock  are properly rewarded, no, no, whether we do any actual, measurable, physical work is entirely and completely, utterly and unequivocally, wholly irrelevant, it's the possibility, y'see,  of our presence which needs to be justly rewarded.  

You know when I was lecturing for the WEA, before I fully  entered selfless and wholly tireless public service, I often used to tell my students about the parable of the Labourer being worth his hire, and, let's face it, since I am Labour personified, the man who invented New Labour, isn't it only right and fair and decent that I be showered with taxpayers' money? 

And after all, on two occasions I should have been prime minister, if only the electorate hadn't got things so cataclysmically, woefully, abysmally, disastrously and apocalyptically wrong, and so I should, in a fair world, be drawing two prime minister's pensions and, and be the first so-o-o-shul-ist Knight of the Garter 
 

But I was saying about Lady Kinnock, y'know, when we go back to the constituency, which is at least once every five years or so - yes, on expenses, naturally, it is work, 'snot as though we like those people - Lady Kinnock has no side to her at all.  Oh, she let's those clapped-out old miners' wives and widows curtsy to her, fair enough, but it makes them happy, see, and no harm in poor people  hoping that  their betters, in this case, Lady Kinnock and myself, might shed a little stardust on them.  But what I love about Lady Kinnock is that when some chronically ill, wheezy old bloke, some mug who's voted Labour all his life, and has nothing to show for it, bows to her and calls her M'lady, do you know what she says, she says, no need for all that, amongst old friends, 

why don't you just call me Madam?

This pair of smug, thieving  cunts, Thicko Neil and Brassneck Glenys Kinnock, despite never having done a day's work - well, maybe she did a bit of teaching but mostly she was just barging into the Windbag's limelight - have amassed six public sector pensions, the largest by far of which come from  Europe, where the baggage distinguished herself amongst all the other thieves, by going through the revolving door of the European parliament, signing-in for her daily allowance, dashing out through the door, hailing a taxi to an EasyJet plane  back to London and claiming for a first-class BA flight allowance, and then repeating the whole thing ad infinitum. It was all, like slavery, legal at the time, and Glenys Crow always insisted that she had done nothing wrong, even though she's a rotten despicable bastard. It was Lady Kinnock's excess which caused the rules to be changed, (see below) perhaps her only accidental achievement in a lifetime of cheap hustling.
The standard monthly payment for all MEPs is 7,957 euros (£6,537). It is roughly on a par with a British MP's salary, but when the pound is weak, MEPs earn more than MPs.
MEPs also get a flat-rate monthly allowance of 4,299 euros to cover office expenses, such as office rent, phone bills and computer equipment.
In addition, MEPs can claim for travel related to their official duties in Brussels and Strasbourg. In the past they could claim for an expensive flexible economy class flight even if they flew low-fare. But under the new rules they have to submit their ticket (which can be business class on air, or first class on rail) and will be reimbursed for what they paid.
A separate annual travel allowance - 4,243 euros maximum - covers official trips to other destinations. And they can claim for up to 24 return journeys in their home country.
MEPs also get a daily subsistence allowance - now 304 euros - for attendance at parliamentary sessions. It is intended to cover things like hotel bills and meals.
And they are entitled to reimbursement of two-thirds of their medical expenses.
The Kinnocks' earnings for his ten-year stint as a Commissioner - during which none of the accounts were signed-off and her fifteen years as MEP, both jobs scandalously tawdry NewLabour sinecures are below:
 

• A total of £775,000 in wages for Lady Kinnock and £1.85 million for her husband, adding up to £2,625,000.
• Allowances for Lady Kinnock’s staff and office costs of £2.9million.
• A £64,564 ‘entertainment allowance’ for Lord Kinnock.
• A total of five publicly-funded pensions, worth £4.4million, allowing them to retire on £183,000 a year.
• A housing allowance that allowed them both to claim accommodation costs although, as a married couple, they lived in the same house in the Belgian capital between 1995 and 2004.

In addition to these sums the Kinnocks, as peers, can collect three hundred pounds a day for lunching and dining haute cuisine  at massively subsidised prices in the House of Lords as well as using the palace of Westminster as their registered business address, like they all do.

From Open Europe.

Destinations of the “fact-finding missions” are often suspiciously glamorous, involving places like the Caribbean, America and Australia, although less prosperous countries such as Rwanda have also hosted them as election monitors. Open Europe’s Lorraine Mullally said: “Never mind the gravy train, the European Parliament is more like the gravy plane. MEPs are flying around the globe clocking up thousands of miles on dubious ‘fact-finding’ trips to luxurious locations.”

I remember nearly pissing  the bed, one morning, listening to Lady Glenys, in some election monitoring junket in Africa, lecturing Today listeners about what she would and would not tolerate in Africa,  the very minimum I would agree to is blah-bla-blah, like anyone in the whole world gave a flying fuck about the thick, greedy doxy. 

Mrs Kinnock’s league-topping travel for her last five years cost more than £51,000 and the miles flown totalled nearly 127,500.
The ginger gabshite himself is equally distinguished . 
 In his ten-year stint as EU Commissioner, the organisation's accounts - accounts of our money - were never signed-off, never approved as being true and accurate,  and Kinnock, like the fucking Stalinist he is, harassed and persecuted the whistle blower who made this fact known.
 Neil Kinnock stood accused last night of trying to cover up a multi-billion pound scandal at the heart of the European Union.
The European Commission's former chief accountant claimed the ex-Labour leader - who is Britain's senior EC commissioner - tried to
silence her when she uncovered evidence of mismanagement, incompetence and fraud in the EU's £63billion budget. 

Marta Andreasen says the crisis could be worse than the business accounting scandals over Enron and WorldCom because it is impossible to trace EU accounts.
She warned that a total absence of basic accounting standards and effective computer systems leaves EU budgets 'massively open to fraud.'
But when she raised her concerns with Mr Kinnock - the man responsible for cleaning up Brussels - she claims he moved her to another job and tried to stop her giving evidence to the European Parliament.

She also claims she was threatened with the sack and faced harassment and that she was followed in Brussels and her private e-mails were hacked into.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-131252/Kinnock-tried-gag-claims-EU-whistleblower.html#ixzz40wKoQh5I

But look, as I never tire of saying, we're all friends here, all workers in the glorious cause of whatever it was, I forget now.  
So, friends, and we are all friends here, yes, and comrades too, comrades in unearned luxury, at this time, when a few, a tiny few, an infinitesimally minute few, that's to say most people outside the tent,  are saying that we should decouple, isolate ourselves, shrink back into primitive, indeed prehistoric mono-nationalism I  would counsel the other working people in this land that a vote against Europe is not in Lady Kinnock's and my interest. 

 Were it not for Europe her ladyship and I would not have amassed and continue to amass a fortune in excess of ten million pounds, 
 
our children would not be similarly set for life in cushy jobs with hefty pensions and expenses. 
 Do you really want to risk all this fantastic progress  by voting to leave Europe?

The Sunday Ishmael: 3/12/2023

 These days, if you take a picture to be reframed, it will be finished by the back of the picture being sealed to the frame with adhesive tape. It is important to seal the picture to prevent insect damage and the ingress of dirt and damp. I was once restoring an old picture and nestled between the glass and the mount, I found the desiccated body of a woodworm. It had been unable to make a flight hole for its escape when it metamorphosed. It had eaten some of the picture but it was clearly not to its taste. The Victorians employed a different method to seal their pictures, which is still employed by the better picture framers.

A line of glue is applied around the edges of the back of the frame. The framer then takes a piece of brown paper, larger than the picture, which has been dampened by wiping it over with a damp sponge. The paper is then laid over the picture back, pressing down on the edges to ensure good adhesion. Wipe it over with a slightly damp cloth. Leave to dry out. When dry, the paper backing will have shrunk onto the frame and become drum-tight. Bend the paper overhang to create a strong and accurate crease, then take some fine sandpaper and stroke it along the crease until the excess paper just comes away. You then screw in your little picture-hanging eyes, thread them with a nice gold wire and Bob's your uncle. That's the problem with having stuff. You've got to keep at it. Cleaning, polishing, mending, displaying or safely storing in acid-free tissue and stout cardboard, keeping the ravages of time and insects at bay. Curating, in other words.
I had occasion to take apart a picture a little while ago. It was old stock from our antiques emporium that had never found its forever home, so it had made its way into our personal collection, although I'd never liked it. A black and white depiction of a group of bewigged, frock coated gentlemen smoking pipes and plotting sedition. Anyway, it had been cleaned and resealed by mr ishmael and his dyslexic assistant some 25 years ago. The integrity of the seal had been compromised,  Damp had got in and there was condensation. So I had the back off and a scrap of paper fluttered out. Here's the message to the future that the dyslexic assistant had secreted under the brown paper backing:

"We don't no who these dead basterds ar but mr ishmael and me backed it in 1997 and we are both bead basters by the time you are reading this!!!!😊"

This small instructional tutorial and anecdote was triggered by the news this week of three bead basters, two of whom, it seems, were perfect beings who graced the world with their diplomacy,  wit and dedication to the improvement of the human condition, and one who wasn't. The first two - Darling and Kissinger, were just lucky basters. The third, Shane  MacGowan,wasn't.  

He died at the age of 65, of pneumonia, in his home in Dublin, with his wife. He had been wheelchair bound since breaking his pelvis in a fall in 2015. He suffered a further fall at home in 2021, breaking his knee, and was hospitalised in 2022 with viral encephalitis.

Kissinger, by contrast, "the aged warrior, full of years and honours, venerable from his piety and courage and implicit obedience" made his full century and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize early in his career for interfering in the affairs of foreign countries.  His approach to politics was called Realpolitik, which prioritizes pragmatic geopolitical considerations over moral or ideological values. Kissinger has been criticized for ignoring war crimes committed by American allies during his tenure and, of his death, House of Representative member  Gerry Connolly, stated Kissinger's "indifference to human suffering will forever tarnish his name and shape his legacy". Rolling Stone ran an obituary titled "Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Beloved by America's Ruling Class, Finally Dies", HuffPost labeled him "The Beltway Butcher" and  Teen Vogue's  headline ran : "War Criminal Responsible for Millions of Deaths Dies at 100".

mr ishmael took a dim view of Kissinger's career and Peace Prize, called him a: "horrid little turd, Kissinger, but typical of the lowlifes with whom poor, barmy Nixon surrounded himself." Here's an essay from July 2011:

Hello, Norway und Heil Hitler. Seckatry Kissinger here,

butcher of Laos und Cambodia und Vietnam 

und Father Confessor to asshole president, TrickyDicky Nixon und all-around sex god.

I just vant to say sank you all vunce again for giving me ze Nobel Peace Prize und a million dollars of cash.  

 

Giving zat award to a person like me goes to show zat ze committee truly has its hand on the pulse of global whatchamacallit und it also spelled the end of satire in Amerka because all ze funny men said zat zis was so shit zat it was beyond satire, zat zey couldn't make up shit like this. Und I vood say to ze Norwegian peoples zat a good way to purge zis unhappiness is to take a few ragheads up in ze helicopter and throw zem the fuck out.  It wuz srategy like zis vot helped me secure my historic victory in SouthEast Asia.  Zat vill be twenty sousand dollars, bitte. Oh, und don't forget zat I brought peace in the Middle East,too, und so can I have anudder prize?

The Mayor of London, seeking to milk the Norway business* for all it's worth, has offered the entire Metropolitan Police Service to Oslo, at a knockdown price.

They're jolly good chaps, what, blustered the albino charlatan, and if the Norwegians want stuff covered-up, want evidence ignored and if they want an investigative team which will spend it's time on freebie piss-ups with international criminals then there is no better body of professional, dedicated law enforcement officers anywhere in the world. Any faults they may have are of course due to my good friend the unelected prime minister and not to me; you know me, good old Boris, never one to take things too seriously, especially when they're codswallop. Not, of course that an island full of dead sardineheads is codswallop, or even sardineswallop,  but as we say in showbusiness, there's no such thing as bad publicity and anything which diverts attention from my accomplishments in policing has to be simply spiffing... So come on you Olympics-hungry Londoners, let's all stand together with the Oslovians in forgetting all about Sir Paul Gob and that other cove, wotsisname; see, I've forgotten him already. And so should you. And so, if he knows what's good for him, should  Assistant Commissioner Yates.

My fellow Nordic motherfuckers. I join with you tonight, in sorrow, and Michelle and I, and our two robokids, sit here in the White House, eating sardines on toast, out of a sense of solidarity, yes and kinship. It's not widely known but my great grandfather, Sven Obamasensen, sailed those icy Northern waters all the way across the Atlantic and founded Amerka, the greatest and most indebted nation on Earth. So, your loss is my loss and if you want some of Amerka's peace-loving, democracy-loving, crewcut, psychobastard, mommasboy, gangraping troubleshooters to come over there, wherever the fuck it is, and kick some ass then all you need to do is ask and we'll come and set up some secret bases and secret prisons and surveillance systems and make you pay for them.  Just like we do with our British subjects, I mean friends. No, I don't, I mean subjects. Those Brits, they can be subjects of Europe and Amerka, why the fuck not?

And let me thank you, once again, motherfuckers, for my Nobel Peace Prize, which you sensitive, caring Norwegians so kindly gave me for stopping the wars and shutting down Camp Freedom, or Camp Guantanamo, as it has been known.  I will be doing these things, of course, just not now, because   in the meantime we have some other wars to start, regimes to change and suspects to torture.  Never forget that the price of Freedom and Peace is a police state and permanent,  total warfare. Thank you and God bless Amerka.

THE PEACE PROCESSEERS
Aye, that's right, so it is. And as First Minister of Northern Ireland I know that I speak for  my fellow Mick, Father Blair and my good friend Mr Gerry Nonce, when I say that we deplore acts of violence against civilians, anywhere and anytime;  they are totally unjustified, so they are.  Unless it's us who's doing them, But in this case it wasn't, so it wasn't, and so I say to the people of Norway:  If this slaughter leads to the release from prison of hundreds of murdering scum,   like me,  then it's a price worth paying in what we call conflict resolution terms, so we do.  And by the way, we took a dim view, me and Gerry, so we did, of youse pofaced Presbyterians giving the Nobel Peace Prize to that Davy Trimble and not us, so we did. And youse better remember that I haven't put my Black and Decker beyond reach, so I haven't.  Next time youse're giving out a Peace Prize, bear that in mind.

..............................................................

*The 2011 Norway attacks, were two domestic terrorist attacks by  Anders Behring Breivik against the government, the civilian population, and a Workers' Youth League (AUF) summer camp, in which a total of 77 people were killed.

Baron Darling of Roulanish, or Darling Alistair, managed more years than MacGowan, but fell far short of the "old warrior's" centenary. He died this week of cancer at the age of 70. He followed Gordon Brown into post as Chancellor of the Exchequer, a post he was eminently well suited for, having such a grasp of economics that he changed the designation of his second home four times in four years, allowing him to claim for the costs of his family home in Edinburgh, and to buy and furnish a flat in London including the cost of stamp duty and other legal fees. Darling said that "the claims were made within House of Commons rules"

Nick Clegg, Leader of the Liberal Democrats, said: "given that very unique responsibility that [Darling] has [as Chancellor], it's simply impossible for him to continue in that role when such very major question marks are being raised about his financial affairs". 

On 1 June 2009, Darling apologised "unreservedly" about a mistaken claim for £700, which he had agreed to repay. Gordon Brown dismissed it  as an inadvertent mistake.

He continued to be at it, though, and the next year, he resigned from the Faculty of Advocates as they were investigating a complaint about his expenses claims. Darling Alistair denied any connection between the two events.

mr ishmael honoured him with this little essay in 2009:

Badgerisms: Axioms for the New Depression 2009

"And you say, mon ami, that you work for le governement des Rosbifs?"

"Yes, Christine, in my country, too, an old woman can be finance minister."

"Nobody is actually opposed to bonuses per se."

Alastair Badger, a Scottish solicitor and laughably the pretend Chancellor of the Exchequer, at the final NewLabour conference.

Actually, comrade, we are opposed to bonuses per se , unless they are awarded to all who exceed the requirements of their job description and not just to those who, already handsomely paid and pensioned, fail spectacularly to do so. Nurses, for instance, or paramedics whose prompt action saves lives, although not yours, you worthless gabshite.

"The taxpayer has put his hand in his pocket to bail out the banks."

Actually, comrade, you put your hand in our pockets, to bail out the banks, for whom you will shortly be working on a more formal basis; this a juxtaposition, it is true, more desirable than having, like yourself, Gordon Brown's nail-bitten fist up your arse, but not much more.

.......................................................

I tried in vain to find anything  by mr ishmael about MacGowan. I don't think mr ishmael rated him at all. Maybe it was the formidable, toothless ugliness, maybe the alcohol and drug use, maybe the fact that mr ishmael was a musician and MacGowan wasn't, not really - or possibly it was the Oirishness - apparently MacGowan's regret was that he didn't have the balls to join the IRA. MacGowan was an English-born Irish musician, best known as the co-founder, lead vocalist and chief songwriter of Celtic punk band the Pogues. MacGowan's songs were influenced by Irish history, Irish nationalism, the Irish diaspora, and London life. He went to Westminster School (a public school) as a scholarship boy, but was expelled at 16 for possession of drugs. Which kind of set the stage for the rest of his career. I did like 

 "Fairytale of New York" (1987), though, which he recorded with Kirsty MacColl.  There actually isn't now, nor ever was, an NYPD choir, unlike the song's assertion - "The boys of the NYPD choir still singing Galway Bay".  But they do have the NYPD Pipes and Drums who are featured in the official video. They did not know "Galway Bay" and so sang a song that all of them knew the words to – the "Mickey Mouse March". The footage was slowed down and shown in brief sections to disguise the fact that the Pipes and Drums were not singing Galway Bay. The NYPD Pipes and Drums were drinking  on the coach that brought them to the video shoot, and by the time they arrived they were drunker than the band, refusing to work unless they were supplied with more alcohol.

............................................................................

That's enough bead basters. Lets turn to old statues, instead. 

This former Chancellor of The Exchequer is not in the current Prime Minister's Good Books. Rishi Sunak snubbed the Greek Prime Minister this week by cancelling his appointment with him after he  appeared on the Laura Kuenssberg Show last Sunday and said he wanted his artefacts back.  Laura had dressed up nice for him in her expensive leather skirt.

 "Just say",  he told Laura, "someone ripped the Mona Lisa in half and put part of it in London and the other part in Paris, wouldn't you want it to be reunited? "

Apparently, Rishi would not. He must have reflected that this situation was very much the consequence of Bukkake George's machinations as Chair of the British Museum. - particularly when George announced to the press that the row had encouraged the British Museum to go ahead with its negotiations about loaning the Parthenon marbles to Athens. Osblow continued: " We can go on doing it whether or not Rishi Sunak meets the Greek prime minister. In fact, if anything, things have been rather clarified by this week. We obviously know we’re not going to get any particular support from the Conservative government.”

So Number 10 snippily rejoindered: Osborne can as a “private individual” – continue with any talks he wants but be warned that it saw moves to remove the sculptures from the UK as a “slippery slope” that could lead to the return of other contested antiquities.

Everything he touches turns to shit. Apart from his bank balance.

Former Chancellor George Osborne was the highest earning MP of 2016, raking in £628,000 on top of his MP’s salary of £74,962 – chiefly from lucrative public speaking engagements.  

He was sacked as Chancellor by Theresa May – but is one of 14 MPs who earned more than the Prime Minister that year, according to the Register of Members’ Interests.

After losing his job, Mr Osborne was signed by the Washington Speaker Bureau, the US agency that also acts for Tony Blair, and embarked on a round of lucrative engagements on both sides of the Atlantic. His most profitable speeches were two for investment bank JP Morgan, for which he received £81,174 and £60,578, a speech for Palmex Derivatives (£80,240), and another for the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (£69,992).

Who appointed this clown Chair of the Trustees of the British Museum?  You've not forgotten that under Osborne's chairmanship, the British Museum had to report that it  had mislaid  many valuable artefacts, including gold, jewellery, gems and semi-precious stones that date from the 15th century BC to the 19th century AD. The thefts came to light when an art historian spotted items from the British Museum collection being sold online. 

“Essentially, we were the victims of an inside job by someone, we believe, who over a long period of time was stealing from the museum and who the museum had put trust in,” Osborne told Parliament’s Culture, Media, and Sport Committee. “Quite a lot of steps were taken to conceal [thefts]… a lot of records were altered and the like.”
He added that there were “lots of lessons to be learned” as a result. But, the good news is that: "350 objects have now been recovered, and titles have been transferred to us, so we have the makings of a good exhibition that was not previously planned.” 

I believe that these are still there.

More japes, jollity and political satire  can be found in the  four-volume Call Me Ishmael oeuvre,  the work of editor mr verge.

Honest Not Invent, Vent Stack, Ishmael’s Blues, and the latest, Flush Test (with a nice picture of the late, much lamented, Mr Harris of Lanarkshire taking a piss on a totem pole) are available from Lulu and Amazon. If you buy from Amazon, it would be nice if you could give a review on their website.

Ishmaelites wishing to buy a copy from lulu should follow these steps :

please register an account first, at lulu.com. This is advisable because otherwise paypal seems to think it's ok to charge in dollars, and they then apply their own conversion rate, which might put the price up slightly for a UK buyer. Once the new account is set up, follow one of the links below (to either paperback or hardback) or type "Ishmael’s Blues" into the Lulu Bookstore search box. Click on the “show explicit content” tab, give the age verification box a date of birth such as 1 January 1960, and proceed.

Link for Hardcover : https://tinyurl.com/je7nddfr

Link for Paperback : https://tinyurl.com/3jurrzux

https://www.lulu.com/shop/ishmael-smith/flush-test/paperback/product-9yjvn7.html?q=Flush+Test&page=1&pageSize=4

 

At checkout, try WELCOME15 in the coupon box, which (for the moment) takes 15% off the price before postage. If this code has expired by the time you reach this point, try a google search for "Lulu.com voucher code" and see what comes up.

With the 15% voucher, PB (including delivery to a UK address) should be £16.84; HB £27.04.

 Hamnavoe Bay, Stromness.