Today Boris explained to Dan Walker that he was surfacing through the ice as a submarine. Bizarre. Colourful and typically Boris! “The submarine is crashing through the ice floes. The conning tower is emerging through the ice floes right now. Here I am. I gave two press conferences yesterday. I want to be as available as I possibly can.” (not on holiday as you can see)
About extradition from the US: “I’ll be clear with you, the chances of America responding by sending Anne Sacoolas to this country are very low. That’s not what they do,”
Brexit: “Bung a bob for a Big Ben bong”/ with trade deals “epically likely”
About FLYBE: “It’s not for government to step in and save companies that simply run into trouble.People will understand that there are limits commercially to what a government can do to rescue any particular firm. But what we will do is ensure we have the regional connectivity that this country needs. That is part of our agenda of uniting and levelling up.”
Harry and Megan: absolutely confident they will manage “much more easily without running commentary from politicians”
The North: giving “people the chances to exploit their talents.”
Iran nuclear deal: “If we’re going to get rid of it, let’s replace it with the Trump deal. That’s what we need to see. President Trump is a great dealmaker by his own account and many others.”
On Friday, Mike Pompeo said “We do believe that it’s likely that the plane was shot down by an Iranian missile.” Now, it seems, he was absolutely right.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has demanded a public admission.
The President said he “deeply regrets this disastrous mistake.”and records that a human error “led to a big catastrophe and innocent people were killed.” Indeed, we also have the name of the man who made that error, one of the Revolutionary guard, Amirali Hajizadeh who has reportedly said, “I wish I was dead”.
But admitting a mistake is only the first step. The rest, which can take some time, is about putting right the mess created. I fear that President Rouhani may not go very far towards fixing what he has done wrong, and already he is scattering blame in the direction of the US and the Ukraine. This is regrettable. 176 people died when the missile, apparently, hit the cockpit of the plane. It is impossible for Iran to remain haughty about this scale of “mistake”, yet the language used does not seem nearly apologetic enough. And it is not enough to hang some boffin out to take the blame. In the end, the way this news has seeped out, dribbled out, is testimony to a regime absolutely out of control. The level of disaster here cannot be excused as “a mistake”. This goes well beyond “a mistake”, even “an unforgiveable mistake”, though that single adjective is a sign that Iran recognises this may not be a story it can ever spin. Nor, of course, in this case, would it be a time to press the crowds out on to the street…
Here is what is reportedly said: “Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 had taken a sharp, unexpected turn that brought it near a sensitive military base”
and
“Human error at time of crisis caused by US adventurism led to disaster.”
The regime is also preparing its excuse with expressions like: “human mistake and misfired”
Now, of course, would be the time to start releasing Western prisoners and to making overtures towards peace. Let’s watch this space and see what happens. My suspicion is that very little will happen soon.
Meanwhile, the new President of the Ukraine says that he will “insist on a full admission of guilt”
International pressure seems to have brought about the revelation some 72 hours after the “accident”. Indeed the official stance until today was expressed by the Iranian ambassador to the UK, Hamid Baeidinejad, who specifically ruled out a missile strike on the aircraft. Twitter has been full of indignation about Iran’s tardiness: “I don’t know what to do with my rage and grief. I’m thinking of all the ‘human errors’ in these years that were never revealed because there was no international pressure.”
The most striking and most discordant note, however, has been made by a spokesman, the head of the foreign relations committee in the Russian senate, a building I used to walk past every morning and evening: “The admission of error,” says Konstantin Kosachev, “although not immediately, and expression of condolences is sufficient to be accepted. With this, the incident should be closed.” I wonder what that suggests? That he is worried further probing will identify the missiles as made in Russia (maybe SA-15), or that further questions might then be asked about the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 by Russian backed Ukrainian separatists?
There are now street protests in a number of universities calling on the supreme leader to resign, calling various officials “liars”. Maybe this is the beginning of the end? Let’s hope so.
An absolutely fantastic friendly from Campbell and Clarke showing us EXACTLY how to do it. Here, then, is the quest of the day- How to get Johnson to steal a chip from New Labour and unite an enlarged middle of his party as well as silence the fruitcakes and loonies at both ends. At the same time, how to unite and bring together a frankly divided country and to focus on reality rather than a never-ending “what might have been”.
And now to Alastair Campbell: I was so impressed by this man. He has the mind to cut through all the nonsense and to see what needs to be done practically. He also demonstrated a charm and ease that I had thought was vanishing in the corridors of Westminster. I am deeply heartened by this programme and what I saw today. Well done, all!
To see these two men spar was a rare insight into the carefully-guarded secret of centrist politics; it is self-deprecatory, undecided, but remorseful and actually embarrassable- ultimately, it can be held responsible (or they can) which is more than can be said for the Boris bus, Farage’s madness, May’s dithering (and hiding behind bureaucracy) or Corbyn’s dogmatic socialism (I enjoyed Ken Clarke’s observation that Corbyn was “naive”: exactly.) Oh what a joy to see intelligence so casually and confidently displayed.
I have been drawing pictures over the last few days. Here are some of them along with a link to my “Middle of the week” video. I shall try to keep up a mid-week vlog until Christmas.
There is a big debate about anti-semitism in the Labour party. It seems to me that this is really a debate about the quality of leadership that is offered by Jeremy Corbyn, and Miriam Margolyes, a committed Labour supported and of course a Jewish actor, yesterday on Channel 4 put it rather succinctly.
The question remains whether the Chief rabbi is right to get involved in politics during an election. He talked about “a poison sanctioned from the very top – has taken root” but what he well knows is that this has been ongoing for a good few years. It is nothing new. So the newsworthy issue is the fact that the Chief rabbi has spoken out at a time that is judged to cause maximum damage to the Labour campaign. What is generally agreed is that Corbyn has not dealt with the underlying issue well enough and that there is a swelling and vocal group within labour that smudges the distinction between being Jewish and being Israeli. There is a distinction between the two and Miriam Margolyes makes it adroitly in her interview (she goes further in fact and says she is not a zionist and that there are many things about the current state of Israel that need to change. She emhasizes that she does not in any way question the existence of the state of Israel or its legitimacy. I would be more cautious than Margolyes and simply point to the impeachment of Netanyahu as a demonstration that the rot is now identified). It is about language and about the way anger can slip into prejudice, but it is also about mob mentality and Corbyn fails to understand this. When it comes to leadership, it is not enough to look at individual failings but to strike at the problem. The problem is a nasty use of language and a casual disregard for how it is perceived. In the end, it is about arrogance.
The Chief rabbi did not specifically tell people to vote against Labour. He urged them to vote with “conscience”. He also said that there were 130 cases of anti-semitism in the labour party that had not yet been processed. (There were 635 complaints at the beginning of the year)
To prove the point of his criticism, however, on 4 occasions today Corbyn has refused to apologise to the wider Jewish community for his failure to stamp out anti-semitism in the Labour party. He has admittedly, in the past, now apologised for calling Hamaz and Hezbollah “friends” back in 2009 and has eventually permitted labour’s definition of anti-semitism to be brought in line with that of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance.
Diane Abbott today, however, said she did not think Jewish people were “anxious and frightened”. I suppose she knows Jewish people better than the chief rabbi, or is this another instance of the “arrogance” of the labour leadership? To their credit, Labour MPs seeking re-election, Wes Streeting (for Ilford North) and Jess Phillips (Birmingham) have both apologised to the Chief Rabbi for the way this has been handled, saying they will do whatever they can to “win back trust” in the community. Again, their apology suggests the leader remains out of sync.
One of the great masters of TV but also of modern media in general has died. His detah was announced about an hour ago and I have drawn a very quick picture of him which I am posting in memory here.
A short while ago, I made a youtube video in which I drew attention to the draconian law, which Putin signed on 30th june 2013, condemned as a violation of human rights both in 2017 and 2019 by the European Court of Human Rights, but currently enforced in Russia and which makes it illegal to discuss homosexuality with children under 18; specifically, it prohibits “propaganda of non-traditional sexual relations around minors.” I made a comparison in my own film with clause 28 (1988) which was thankfully repealed in the UK in 2003.
A survey in 2013 conducted by VTsIOM claimed that the propaganda law was supported by 90% the Russian population. At time time, Putin claimed, “I want everyone to understand that in Russia there are no infringements on sexual minorities’ rights. They’re people, just like everyone else, and they enjoy full rights and freedoms”. He went on to joke about the improbability of gay marriage in Chechnya. The Chechnyan leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, later pointed out that no one was gay in his country. He went on in a televised interview for HBO to say, “They are devils. They are for sale. They are not people.”
Over the last few years, as a result of this law, there have been a number of claims made about intimidation and assault in Russia, most notably by Gleb Latnik who was struck around the head; he was visibly bruised and had a swollen eye. Latnik said that when he went to file a complaint, but the police replied, “It’s all right, you’re gay so it’s normal that you were attacked. Why would you need to file a complaint?”
Earlier this year, a same-sex russian couple living in Magnitogorsk fled the country with their two children after a suspected appendicitis flagged up their relationship. The case workers in the State Guardianship office who had given the family a regular positive evaluation were subsequently carpeted for the “inadequate performance of duties”, a criminal offence that carries up to three months in prison. So, it s not only gay people who fall foul of the new regime.
Today, it is clear that the penalties for infringing the 2013 Russian law, are being ramped up. 21 year-old Maxim Pankratov and Victoria Pich, the producer of the Russian version of “real time” are today reported to be threatened with between 12 and 20 years’ imprisonment. Maxim says he has received death threats, been physically attacked and that both he and Victoria Pich have gone into hiding and are now living in fear.
Pankratov said that the youtube video programme he had fronted almost a year ago, a version of an American tv format called “Kids meet”, was a conversation with 4 children who asked him simple questions about his life. The programme had earlier shown children between the ages of 6 and 13 talking about a number of other prejudices. Pankratov said, “It was a normal conversation and (now) they want to put me in jail. It was about what it’s like to be a gay man in Russia and how I live. We wanted to show society that you can be tolerant.” He told reporters, “I thought it was a normal conversation with children, there was no discussion of sex.” From October, the programme was blocked by Roskomnadzor, the state media and communications watchdog agency.
It has taken some months for the authorities to react, but they were led by a particularly nasty member of the DUMA, a man called Pytor Tolstoy, whom regrettably, I have met, a direct descendant of the 19th Century author, who agitated repeatedly about the programme. He is a man who has come up, oddly a few times in conversations I have had in Moscow. A few years’ ago, he made outrageous anti-semitic claims that Jews had been –and were still– desecrating Russian Churches. Unfortunately, he is a man with significant power as a deputy-speaker of the Russian Parliament. What he says, therefore, however outrageous, has an effect.
So, Tolstoy’s badgering led to an investigation by the Department of Internal Affairs who questioned what they called the “dissemination of destructive information”. They wrote, “Currently, investigators have interrogated the organizer of the video shoot, and also are establishing the circle of victims and conducting other investigative actions aimed at establishing all the circumstances of the incident.”
As far as I can see, the organiser of the video shoot, the producer Victoria Pich, was never formally “interrogated”. She seems to have gone into hiding after she received a very aggressive letter, while Pankratov has been both physically attacked and received a stream of abuse through social media before also going into hiding. The letter they received claims that their video was of “a debauched character whose aim was to sexually abuse the children.” Victoria Pich has told the BBC that she felt like her freedom was threatened.
The Kremlin, meanwhile, have tried to distance themselves from the problem. The usual spokesman, Dmitry Peskov has been wheeled out to say in the Press today about opening a criminal case against Pankratov and Pich, “If there is a crime, then it is worth it, if there is no crime, then it’s not worth it.”
Putin himself has always defended the 2013 law. He says that “our strategic choice is for traditional families, healthy families and a healthy nation.” I hope that this statement is not an invitation to look too closely at his own domestic arrangements.
I have had a very positive experience for the last 5 years of teaching in a major Russian university, but the current climate makes it difficult, regrettably, to think of going back to Moscow anytime soon.
Things will change very slowly now I fear. It is worth noting the problems I had with being misrepresented in the Russian media:
animate-tim.com 