MI6 enters the Labour leadership debate with vintage "Red Smear" piece in the Torygraph

[Lauren Johnson]

[video]http://www.facebook.com/inthenowrt/videos/528310943985946/[/video]

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[David Guyatt]

The Gruniard

Jeremy Corbyn is a patriot he would never have waged the illegal war that killed my son

Reg Keys
Tony Blair gladly sang the national anthem for all to see. But he brought shame on Britain and disaster to Iraq. I'm glad Labour is now led by a man of princip[URL="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/sep/17/jeremy-corbyn-patriot-war-tony-blair-iraq-labour#img-1"]
[/URL]Thursday 17 September 2015 13.56 BST

I am a patriot an immensely proud father of two sons. Both my boys served in the British army, and my eldest, Tom, made the ultimate sacrifice serving our country in Iraq. So I have a strong view on Jeremy Corbyn and patriotism.
Corbyn has found himself at the blunt end of a lot of criticism in the media for his supposed lack of patriotism for not singing along with gusto to the national anthem during a memorial service to mark the Battle of Britain at St Paul's Cathedral earlier this week. Battle of Britain veterans were quoted as saying the Labour leader's "lack of respect" was astonishing.
But I think those who criticise Corbyn should look more deeply at his record. Surely a true patriot is not just a person who follows the laid-out rituals, but one who defends the honour of his country at all levels with pride and vigour. A true patriot would not mislead or deceive his fellow countrymen or put them in harm's way with no good reason. A patriot would wish to see his country held in high esteem on the world stage with other UN nations firmly in support. This is the man we know Jeremy Corbyn is, from all his words and deeds.
Sadly, in sharp contrast we had a false patriot in a leaders such as Tony Blair who would gladly smile and sing his heart out to the national anthem for all to see, but who at the same time was misleading parliament on Iraq, misleading the people and worst of all misleading those brave troops who were to lay down their lives.
So many died for the lie of a threat of weapons of mass destruction that never existed. He brought disgrace on Britain, taking us into an illegal war without UN backing. He brought suffering and death to many of our finest including my son Tom by sending them to an ill-planned war, ill-equipped. These are hardly the actions of a patriot.
Corbyn has gone on record as saying that if Labour were to win a general election and form the government then he would apologise for the catastrophic war in Iraq. He stood firmly behind and supported military families who opposed the illegal war in Iraq in our quest to bring the troops our sons and daughters, loved ones home as soon as possible.
More recently he has supported the call for Sir John Chilcot to bring a swift end to the farcical delays in the Iraq inquiry. Our country's true honour would be upheld if those responsible for a war that has created so much havoc and unending destruction were brought to justice for what they did Tony Blair included.
Does the above display a distinct form of patriotism? Fighting for the honour through honesty and decency of our country?
Let us not forget that if Corbyn had been prime minister back in 2003, Britain would not have entered into war with Iraq on a falsehood. He would have remained true to his people and his beliefs.
Then 179 brave troops would not have died, and 3,500 would not have been severely wounded with life changing injuries. Hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi men, women and children would not have perished.
Would Corbyn willingly exacerbate anti-western feeling around the world and make Britain a less safe place to live? Would he send our troops to risk death on a lie? I think not.
Give the guy a break he just wants a more equal society where people can live in peace. Surely this is a patriotic aim. Maybe it's an unachievable utopia he strives for, but good luck to him.

Let's hope there are many more out there like this.

[David Guyatt]

Got to laugh. With Corbyn, Israel no longer has a compliant Labour Party it can buy.

But, of course, the idea of the Israeli media spin is to mobilize British Jews against Corbyn.

From Counterpunch

SEPTEMBER 18, 2015

Israel Up in Arms Over the Corbyn Threat

by NEVE GORDON

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Following Jeremy Corbyn's election as Labour's new leader, the news in Israel was bleak. "New Labor Leader in Britain: Anti-Zionist" read the headline of Yisrael Hayom, the most widely read newspaper in Israel, which is owned by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's longtime supporter, casino king Sheldon Adelson. The subtitle explained: "Bad Surprise: The newly elected head of opposition, Jeremy Corbyn, who in the past called for a dialogue with friends' from Hamas and Hezbollah, is known as a radical lefty, an admirer of Karl Marx."
The article goes on to claim that Corbyn has donated money to Holocaust deniers and notes with alarm that, as head of the opposition, he has the right to receive sensitive security and diplomatic updates.
One might have expected a different line from Ynet, Israel's most visited online news source, which was adamantly against Netanyahu's re-election in March 2015. But Ynet did not exude enthusiasm for Corbyn either, rather it characterised him as "A fierce opponent of Israel." Repeating practically all of the accusations made in Yisrael Hayom, it also criticised Corbyn for portraying Osama Bin Laden's assassination as a "tragedy". The new Labour leader was blamed for claiming that it would have been more just if the US had arrested Bin Laden and brought him to trial.
NRG, another prominent news website, used the ultimate weapon in its headline: "Newly elected Labor Leader donated to Holocaust Denier." NRG explained that Corbyn had donated money to the pro-Palestinian NGO Deir Yassin Remembered, which is run by Holocaust denier Paul Eizen. It added that seven out of 10 Jews in Britain were worried about Corbyn's election, and that the Labour Party itself was also troubled.
Another article explained to the Israeli audience the damage Corbyn's victory would have on Britain's Labour Party, announcing that it was as if Knesset Member Jamal Zahalka a Palestinian nationalist from the Joint Arab List had become the head of the Israeli Labor Party. The fact that Zahalka has never been part of Labour and that Corbyn has been a member of the British party for 40 years seemed to be irrelevant.
Assuming an ostensibly universalist as opposed to Zionist perspective, Anshel Pfeffer from Israel's liberal Ha'aretz offered the most scathing analysis, describing Corbyn's victory as "Another Step in Britain's Departure From the World Stage".

The fact that over a quarter of a million Labour members and voters affiliated with the party have just elected a leader who blames the West for Russia's aggression against Ukraine, who fervently supports repressive klepotcracies like Chavista Venezuela and has supported terrorist groups around the world from Northern Ireland to Iraq in the name of anti-imperialism, could either mean that they agree with him on this, or more likely, the majority of them simply don't care. They voted Corbyn for his anti-austerity policies, his willingness to espouse a clear socialist alternative, including the nationalisation of public transport and energy companies, and the fact that, unlike the other leadership candidates, he refuses to compromise his beliefs for something as trivial as being elected prime minister and implementing at least some of his policies.

Pfeffer went on to describe Corbyn as a "full-paid member of every fashionable cause of the radical-left, including his unquestioning support for Holocaust deniers and blood libellers as long as they're pro-Palestinian'".
What is fascinating in this piece, however, is not only the portrayal of Corbyn, but the way Israel's most left-wing mainstream news outlet describes the United Kingdom's demos with utter disdain. In Pfeffer's view, Corbyn's voters are ignorant or uninterested in their country's foreign policy. Corbyn, he exclaims, "wouldn't have been elected Labour leader with the largest personal mandate in the party's history, if it were not for the fact that these issues simply didn't matter to the vast majority of his supporters".
The disturbing logic informing Pfeffer's analysis is that in order to be a player on the world stage one has to support either a mainstream or a right-wing agenda. A leader cannot have a complex political agenda, challenge imperialism, support anti-colonial movements, or espouse an international socialist agenda if he or she wants to have influence in the global arena. He also unwittingly reveals that the most hated enemy of liberal Zionism is actually the international left, not the right. And yet, ironically, the attempt to render the political vocabulary of the left as both illegitimate and ridiculous suggests that it still constitutes a viable threat.

[Magda Hassan]

Some Jews know where their interests are best served.

Jews for Jeremy Statement

A group of several hundred members of the British Jewish community has launched Jews for Jeremy, a group to support Jeremy Corbyn's campaign for leadership of the Labour Party.

Some members of the group live in Jeremy Corbyn's constituency, some have worked with him on various campaigns, and many know him from his reputation and his tireless work for the disadvantaged in society, including migrants and asylum seekers, over the past 32 years. They are convinced that his policies are the right ones for the Labour Party to pursue both domestically and internationally at this time.

The Conservative government is implementing harsh austerity measures that are harming the British economy and the lives of British people. Members of Jews for Jeremy believe that Jeremy Corbyn's policies would be more likely to bring both fairness and prosperity. Jeremy Corbyn's economic plans have been endorsed by more than forty leading economists in a letter to the Observer this week, and members of the group believe they are sound, fair and realistic. They believe, as do many economists and commentators, that they will resonate with the British people, and that they will be popular with the electorate. They are impressed by Jeremy Corbyn's pledge to bring more democracy to the Labour Party, and to seek to bring in candidates for office from a wider range of backgrounds. They note that Jeremy Corbyn was the only leadership candidate to respond in full to questions from the environmental charity Friends of the Earth, with an environmental policy which is progressive and responsible.

In international relations, the group asserts that Jeremy Corbyn's policies offer the best hope for peaceful resolution of conflicts both in the Middle East and the rest of the world. Members applaud his efforts to bring together opposing parties to many conflicts in dialogue in a constructive way, and are dismayed that in some cases this has been held against him. The group notes that even Tony Blair and the Israeli government have very recently engaged in such dialogue, and it is unfortunate that it was not begun much earlier.

Crucially, as Jews, members of the group are alarmed that some unscrupulous sections of the media have sought to label Jeremy Corbyn as an antisemite, or a knowing associate and supporter of antisemites. Those who know Jeremy Corbyn and have worked with him believe that this is an absurd charge. Jeremy Corbyn has a long history of principled anti-racism, and has a close and amiable relationship with the Jewish community in his constituency. He has long had friendly contact with Jewish organisations throughout the UK and abroad. Members of Jews for Jeremy believe that these accusations are a cynical attempt to damage Jeremy Corbyn's campaign, and do not think they amount to legitimate political criticism or debate.

The group appeals both to Jews who are Labour members or supporters and to those who support Jeremy Corbyn from outside Labour to join with them. For those who quite legitimately support other candidates, or are critical of left politics in general, members of the group are happy to debate or argue in a respectful and friendly manner, but hope to dispense with the smears which have characterised some of the debate so far.

http://jewsforjeremy.org/

This is a page to support Jeremy Corbyn's campaign for Labour Party leader and refute slurs about his alleged antisemitism.

https://www.facebook.com/JewsforJeremy?pnref=story

Jewish lawmaker in Britain said she joined new Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet after having a "full and frank discussion" with him.

http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/32...my-corbyn/

[Michael Barwell]

After listening to Nick Ferrari's (C5 News) & Carole Malone's (Sky press preview) vicarious asseninity (with 'praise be' hands) on the badness of king Cromwell Corbyn's recent existence ("Three days of disaster" - out of three...), I was soothed by this consistently ribald column in the i-paper, t'other day: 　
Jeremy Corbyn won't stop until everyone in Britain is offended [size=12]Mark Steel[/SIZE] Thursday 17 September 2015
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jere...06322.html

As he's been leader for five days now, the press are calming down a bit. By tomorrow headlines will only say things like, "Cor-Bin Laden will force pets to be Muslim", followed by an interview with 89-year-old Vera, who says: "It's not fair because my hamster's scared of burqas. That's the last time I'll vote Labour."
The Telegraph will be even more measured, reporting: "Corbyn plans to introduce women-only gravity. Men will be left to float through space, making it harder to arrive on time for work, costing Britain £40bn."
This could go alongside the genuine report in The Times on Monday, that Jeremy Corbyn's neighbours "often see him riding a Chairman Mao-style bicycle". A less thorough reporter might only mention that he rides a bicycle. Luckily this one knew the country where lots of bicycles are ridden is China, which was once ruled by Chairman Mao, which means Corbyn is planning to force us all to work in rice fields and eat dogs.
One problem with this excitement is that it's hard to increase the hysteria when they've gone so wild in the first week, but they'll rise to the challenge. By November, we'll be told he's forced Mary Berry to eat an Arctic roll full of blackbird sick as revenge for selling her book about scones via corporate tax-avoiders Amazon.
Then Panorama will reveal Corbyn appeared at a conference with Satan, who he described as an "old pal"; the evidence is a dream their informant had after falling asleep in a cowshed after drinking a bottle and a half of Sambuca.
You could tell how chaotic his leadership would be from the start, when he gave some important jobs in his party to people he agrees with. This provoked outrage. If he was being inclusive, instead of appointing John McDonnell as shadow chancellor, he'd have given the job to Jeremy Clarkson.
The other complaint about his Shadow Cabinet was the low number of women appointed, only 16 out of 31 rather than the half he promised.
The Sun complained of an "equality blunder", and you can understand their frustration as they've always been uncompromising with their feminist demands, devoting every day's Page 3 to poems by Mexican women's rights campaigners, no matter how strong the protests to stop.
He didn't even give a job to Yvette Cooper, on the grounds that she'd said she wouldn't take it. But if he really cared about women's equality, he'd have said "you'll do whatever job I bloody well give you, love", and the problem would be solved.
But none of us can have guessed the unspeakable horror to come next, when he didn't sing the national anthem at a Battle of Britain memorial, ruining the efforts of everyone who fought in the Second World War. Commentators told us: "Those pilots did more than anyone to stop Hitler, and now Jeremy Corbyn has literally opened the cockpit of every Spitfire and smeared dog mess on the seats."
It's no wonder people called phone-in shows to make comments such as "I've taught myself to snore the national anthem, so I don't insult the pilots during my sleep."
It's understandable for people to see it as an insult when someone didn't sing "God Save the Queen" at the memorial, because the Queen played a major part in the battle, as a wing commander who shot down five enemy aircraft over Folkestone.
Even so, it's hard to see how the national anthem is the song that most directly commemorates the RAF, so one suggestion to avoid a similar incident in future is to sing a different song at each memorial. Next year it could be "The Omen" by The Prodigy. Anyone not joining in by screaming "The writing's on the wall" in St Paul's cathedral will be arrested for treason.
Once again it was The Sun that seemed most furious about this lack of respect for dead servicemen. But if Corbyn gets his way it won't even be possible to insult the armed forces, because, according to The Sun, he'll "abolish the army".
It didn't make clear how he'd do that, especially when he appears at Prime Ministers' Questions seeming mild and reasonable, reading out questions sent in from around the country. Most people seem to feel this was a healthy change, though it may be even better if he puts all the questions in a bucket and draws them out at random.
This would strengthen our democracy further. "Prime Minister, Tina from Exeter asks, who would win in a fight between Godzilla and a giant tarantula?" At first, Cameron would insist the mutant spider had no chance against a seasoned monster with wide experience of destruction, and his front bench would yell "hear hear hear" as usual. But eventually a calmer atmosphere would prevail, and Parliament would become a forum for reasonable debate. That's when Corbyn will strike to abolish the army.
He'll introduce a similar system, so instead of weapons, our soldiers will march to the front line of a battle, and call out to the enemy: "Alan from Doncaster has asked what are you going to do about all the fires in the city you've just demolished." Then in 50 years' time, when there's a memorial for all our troops that are captured, he won't even sing at it.
That's how much of a danger he is.

[Paul Rigby]

Hi @BritishArmy. One of your generals is threatening a coup in The Sunday Times. Any chance of an investigation?!

https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/6...gr%5Etweet

[Magda Hassan]

Clearly the generals have not noticed the cuts to the military under the Tories. I notice this is published in a Murdoch rag too.

[Paul Rigby]

Red Neoliberals: How Corbyn's Victory Unmasked Britain's Guardian

by JONATHAN COOK

SEPTEMBER 21, 2015

http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/09/21/r...-guardian/

In autumn 2002 Ed Vulliamy, a correspondent for Britain's Sunday Observer newspaper, stumbled on a terrible truth that many of us already suspected.

In a world-exclusive, he persuaded Mel Goodman, a former senior Central Intelligence Agency official who still had security clearance, to go on record that the CIA knew there were no WMD in Iraq. Everything the US and British governments were telling us to justify the coming attack on Iraq were lies.

Then something even more extraordinary happened. The Observer failed to print the story.

In his book Flat Earth News, Nick Davies recounts that Vulliamy, one of the Observer's most trusted reporters, submitted the piece another six times in different guises over the next half year. Each time the Observer spiked the story.

Vulliamy never went public with this monumental crime against real journalism (should there not be a section for media war crimes at the Hague?). The supposedly liberal-left Observer was never held accountable for the grave betrayal of its readership and the world community.

But at the weekend maybe the tables turned a little. The Observer gave Vulliamy a platform in its comment pages to take issue with an editorial the previous week savaging Jeremy Corbyn's election as Labour Party leader.

In understandably cautious mode, Vulliamy called the paper's stance towards Corbyn "churlish", warning that it had lost the chance to stand apart from the rest of the British media. All had taken vehemently against the new Labour leader from the very beginning of his candidacy.

"we conjoined the chorus with our own admittedly more progressive version of this obsession with electoral strategy with little regard to what Corbyn says about the principles of justice, peace and equality (or less inequality)."

What do these two confrontations between Vulliamy and the Observer 13 years apart; one public, one not indicate about the changing status of the liberal-left media?

To understand what's going on, we also need to consider the coverage of Corbyn in the Guardian, the better-known daily sister paper of the Observer.

All the Guardian's inner circle of commentators, from Jonathan Freedland to Polly Toynbee, made public that they were dead against Corbyn from the moment he looked likely to win. When he served simply to justify claims that the Labour Party was a broad and tolerant church, these commentators were in favour of his standing. But as soon as he began to surge ahead, these same liberal-left pundits poured more scorn on him than they had reserved for any other party leader in living memory.

In a few months Corbyn has endured more contempt from the fearless watchdogs of the left than the current Conservative prime minister, David Cameron, has suffered over many years.

The Guardian's news coverage, meanwhile, followed exactly the same antagonistic formula as that of the rightwing press: ignore the policy issues raised by Corbyn, concentrate on trivial or perceived personality flaws, and frame stories about him in establishment-friendly ways.

We have endured in the Guardian the same patently ridiculous, manufactured reports about Corbyn, portraying him as sexist, anti-semitic, unpatriotic, and much more.

We could expect the rightwing media to exploit every opportunity to try to discredit Corbyn, but looking at the talkbacks it was clear Guardian readers expected much more from their paper than simple-minded character assassination.

Red neoliberals

The reality is that Corbyn poses a very serious challenge to supposedly liberal-left media like the Guardian and the Observer, which is why they hoped to ensure his candidacy was still-born and why, now he is leader, they are caught in a terrible dilemma.

While the Guardian and Observer market themselves as committed to justice and equality, but do nothing to bring them about apart from promoting tinkering with the present, hugely unjust, global neoliberal order, Corbyn's rhetoric suggests that the apple cart needs upending.

If it achieves nothing else, Corbyn's campaign has highlighted a truth about the existing British political system: that, at least since the time of Tony Blair, the country's two major parliamentary parties have been equally committed to upholding neoliberalism. The Blue Neoliberal Party (the Conservatives) and the Red Neoliberal Party (Labour) mark the short horizon of current British politics. You can have either hardcore neoliberalism or slightly more softcore neoliberalism.

Corbyn shows that there should be more to politics than this false choice, which is why hundreds of thousands of leftists flocked back to Labour in the hope of getting him elected. In doing so, they overwhelmed the parliamentary Labour party (PLP), which vigorously opposed him becoming leader.

But where does this leave the Guardian and Observer, both of which have consistently backed "moderate" elements in the PLP? If Corbyn is exposing the PLP as the Red Neoliberal Party, what does that mean for the Guardian, the parliamentary party's house paper?

Corbyn is not just threatening to expose the sham of the PLP as a real alternative to the Conservatives, but the sham of Britain's liberal-left media as a real alternative to the press barons. Which is why the Freedlands and Toynbees keepers of the Guardian flame, of its undeserved reputation as the left's moral compass demonstrated such instant antipathy to his sudden rise to prominence.

They and the paper followed the rightwing media in keeping the focus resolutely on Corbyn rather than recognising the obvious truth: this was about much more than one individual. The sudden outpouring of support for Corbyn reflected both an embrace of his authenticity and principles and a much more general anger at the injustices, inequalities and debasement of public life brought about by neoliberalism.

Corbyn captured a mood, one that demands real, not illusory change. He is riding a wave, and to discredit Corbyn is to discredit that wave.

Character assassination

The Guardian and the Observer, complicit for so long with the Red Neoliberals led by Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband, thought they could kill off Corbyn's campaign by joining in the general media bullying. They thought they could continue to police the boundaries of the political left of what counts as credible on the left and place Corbyn firmly outside those borders.

But he won even so and with an enormous lead over his rivals. In truth, the Guardian's character assassination of Corbyn, rather than discrediting him, served only to discredit the paper with its own readers.

Corbyn's victory represented a huge failure not just for the political class in all its narrow neoliberal variations, but also for the media class in all its narrow neoliberal variations. It was a sign that the Guardian's credibility with its own readers is steadily waning.

The talkback sections in the Guardian show its kneejerk belittling of Corbyn has inserted a dangerous seed of doubt in the minds of a proportion of its formerly loyal readers. Many of those hundreds of thousands of leftists who joined the Labour party either to get Corbyn elected or to demonstrate their support afterwards are Guardian readers or potential readers. And the Guardian and Observer ridiculed them and their choice.

Belatedly the two papers are starting to sense their core readership feels betrayed. Vulliamy's commentary should be seen in that light. It is not a magnanimous gesture by the Observer, or even an indication of its commitment to pluralism. It is one of the early indications of a desperate damage limitation operation.

We are likely to see more such "reappraisals" in the coming weeks, as the liberal-left media tries to salvage its image with its core readers.

This may not prove a fatal blow to the Guardian or the Observer but it is a sign of an accelerating trend for the old media generally and the liberal-left media more specifically.

Papers like the Guardian and the Observer no longer understand their readerships both because they no longer have exclusive control of their readers' perceptions of what is true and because the reality not least, polarising inequality and climate degradation is becoming ever more difficult to soft-soap.

Media like the Guardian are tied by a commercial and ideological umbilical cord to a neoliberal order a large swath of their readers are growing restless with or feel downright appalled by.

In 2003 the Observer knowingly suppressed the truth about Iraq and WMD to advance the case for an illegal, "preventive" war, one defined in international law as the supreme war crime.

At that time digitally the equivalent of the Dark Ages compared to now the paper just about managed to get away with its complicity in a crime against humanity. The Observer never felt the need to make real amends with Vulliamy or the readers it betrayed.

But in the age of a burgeoning new media, the Observer and Guardian are discovering that the rules are shifting dangerously under their feet. Corbyn is a loud messenger of that change.

Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His latest books are "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and "Disappearing Palestine: Israel's Experiments in Human Despair" (Zed Books). His website is http://www.jkcook.net.

[David Guyatt]

Papers like the Guardian and the Observer no longer understand their readerships both because they no longer have exclusive control of their readers' perceptions of what is true and because the reality not least, polarising inequality and climate degradation is becoming ever more difficult to soft-soap.

I'm shocked! truly shocked! that anyone seriously believes any newspaper to give pig's blowjob about their readership. The role of the media has evolved over many decades to be public opinion shapers. To this extent they all pretty much walk in lockstep - albeit with each rag having chosen a demographic of the public on which to perform their witchery and voodoo.

[Michael Barwell]

This threat of a mutiny thing - there is a standing plan for Guards units to take control of broadcast-comms-transport-govt infrastructure. Forgotten what it's called, but it's a full plan, on the desk, ready to go. "In 1974 the Army occupied Heathrow Airport on the grounds of training for possible IRA terrorist action at the airport. However Baroness Falkender (a senior aide and close friend of Wilson) asserted that the operation was ordered as a practice-run for a military takeover or as a show of strength, as the government itself was not informed of such an exercise based around a key point in the nation's transport infrastructure.[SUP][10][/SUP]" from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harold_Wil..._coup_plot sounds reasonable enough. Reminds me of the 'tanks' that turned-up at Heathrow a while ago.
Ho-hum.