I am often awed by how good the UK intelligence services must be.
In fact, they are so good that right now, it would seem that no member of our government has ever seen any of the images coming out of Gaza.
Nor have they heard any accounts from those who have been in Gaza of late, whether while working for an aid organisation, as a doctor, or in any other capacity.
Those security services have managed to filter all such messages so effectively that the likes of Keir Starmer think that what is happening in Gaza is nothing more than a humanitarian crisis, much as in 1847, the UK government declared that there was no genocide in Ireland, even though they were actively pursuing it.
But then, I guess it's clear that the security services here have to do this. After all, how else could the UK still be assisting genocide in Israel, which any politician would, of course, stop from happening if they knew about all this?
And, except by keeping our politicians in ignorance, how else could we still be supplying arms to Israel?.
Come to that, how else could we still be operating surveillance flights to assist the IDF, despite its murderous actions?
And if our politicians knew the truth, surely they would impose massive economic sanctions on Israel and stop treating it as if it were an innocent member of the international community and not a pariah state that needs to be isolated as a consequence of its actions?
Given the evidence, must we then consider the possibility that our security services are so effective that Keir Starmer, David Lammy, and the entire cabinet are totally unaware of all that is really happening in Gaza? Is it really the case that the intelligence services are so good that all this has been hidden from their view? Doesn't that have to be the case? Is there any other explanation for their actions?
Or is this just the line that they are preparing for their defence in The Hague?
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There is close cooperation between the UK & Israel on matters of defence & intelligence. Thus the narrative getting to Starmer (a zionist) will fit with his zionist outlook (& that of his cabinet). Moving further afield:
https://www.euractiv.com/section/politics/news/eu-staff-could-strike-over-gaza/
extract: “Meanwhile, EU Staff for Peace, a collective that supports but did not initiate the letter, has been staging weekly protests outside European institutions in Brussels, banging pots and pans and fasting in solidarity with Gaza. According to a letter seen by Euractiv, their pressure tactics have included challenging staff representatives over the presence of an Israeli military attaché in the Berlaymont, as well as the “intimidation” and “interrogation” they’ve faced in advocating for Palestinian rights. ”
The Berlaymont is where most of the EC Commissioners sit. Begs the question why a non-EU member has a MILITARY attache stationed in the EC HQ. Make sure the EU toes the zionist line? It has done so far but as the article shows, EC staff are now getting pretty pissed off. Pity UK civil servants are not doing the same. How did the UK and the EU get to the point where they remains passive when genocide was being committed? Answer: they have been inflitrated over decades by a foriegn state.
I do wonder whether Israel have manoevred themselves into supplying something to the UK (and US) that is so crucial – or so damaging if it was revealed – that they can effectively hold politicians to ransom. If so it is most likely to be in that defence/intelligence area.
The Israelis are notorious for their expertise in hacking mobile phones in ways the user can’t detect, it might be something along those lines.
Think Epstein in the USA.
The Westminster rumours are different here. I won’t repeat them. Sorry.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68177357
this was issued few months after Oct 7th
They said 18 months ago they were not being listened to.
Our politicians didn’t listen to the experts in the early 1920s when imposing the Balfour declaration and in only to an extent in setting up the League of Nations mandates
Nor in the 1956 Suez invasion
Nor in 2003 invasion of Iraq
and now in Gaza.
As it says the protest is unprecedented. So where are the brave investigative journalists? I can see no discussion of this anywhere on the web. I suspect the govt. has issued the modern DSMA notice. to stop it.
Foreign office people submitted their views again a few months ago and the report said a minister suggested they could resign.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy8nzx1475ro
It will come out in the end. My thought is that the govt and opposition front benches are realising they have backed the wrong horse and we will see attempts to dump the blame.
I know you are being polemical – and no doubt our politicians can see the evidence of their own eyes of what is happening in Gaza as well as the rest of us.
You contend that the British government in 1847 was pursuing an active policy of exterminating the Irish people. Do you have any evidence for that? (Not the deaths, but an active policy of killing people. They won’t have used the term “genocide” as it was not used until the 1940s.).
I think the strong consensus from historians, including Irish historians, is that it was not genocide, and that in any event, deploying a simplistic and inflammatory label is not helpful to explain a complex series of events. Absolutely we can blame the British government for neglect and for failure to take effective action to address the famine but I would suggest that is far from an active policy of genocide. I suspect we might have to agree to disagree.
This is well written up in Irish history but never taught in England.
Ireland was a net exporter of food throughout the so-called famine. There was never a food shortage. The crisis was economically imposed. Rent extraction denied people the chance to buy food.
And the policy was deliberate. The ignorant Irish from ‘behind the pale’ (a deeply racist term) were to be taught a lesson. That was that if they were supposedly too lazy to work as the English determined – and not what the Irish wanted – they could starve. It was calculated, brutal and deliberate. It’s easy to find sources, but you need Irish ones. English versions are very different.
Something similar happened in Scotland in 1846/47, but on a smaller scale. The staple food in the West Highlands and Hebrides was potatoes and when blight wiped out the crop, aid was not provided until it was too late to be effective, with catastrophic results. In the more fertile east of Scotland, grain was generally the staple of working people on and off the land. When a shortage of grain occurred across much of the UK, prices rose rapidly beyond the resources of most people and Scotland’s crops were sent south to London and Edinburgh where the high prices were more affordable by the metropolitan elite. The Army was sent out to quell with lethal force the uprisings which were commonplace. The scale of this was not as great as in Ireland, so genocide is probably not applicable, but the reaction of the UK Government and Military was the same: the ‘common people’ were dispensable.
Thanks, Ken. And I was only marginaly aware of that.
I have just read a book about it ‘the hunger’ and why so many left Ireland for America – the landlords were mainly English and ‘absent’- if the tenant complained, not only did they get thrown out, but their ‘homes’ and all their belongings were burnt.
For the Scottish situation see:
T M Devine, The great Highland famine : hunger, emigration, and the Scottish Highlands in the nineteenth century
Devine is Scotlands best known historian, but is a genocide denier, viewing the Highland Clearances not a matter of deliberate government policy of extermination and displacement, but the result of a combination of economic and political circumstances and the assorted responses of Highland landlords to them, some of the benevolent.
Re the 1846/47 potato famine in Scotland, this book by James Hunter gives a detailed account:
https://birlinn.co.uk/product/insurrection-3/
A twentieth-century book about the Irish Potato Famine which you might look for in second-hand book-shops is by Elizabeth Longford: ‘The Great Hunger’. Her family were part of the Whig Ascendancy and also Irish landlords – I recommend her book as the most accessible account of the Famine – from what she doesn’t say, but implies, the famine was deliberately exacerbated by the amounts of food leaving Ireland, including potatoes, the staple diet of the then Irish peasantry.
The book was recommended to me by an Irish Roman Catholic priest (one of the most humane men I ever met) whom I met whilst on a Geology field-course in Antrim, Northern Ireland, and with whom I remained in touch for several years, although my family background was, and is, Quaker. My father met Gerald when all three of us were trying to help at the Aberfan disaster in 1966, and admired him as much as I did.
Thanks
Do you have the ISBN of that book? Can’t find this on second-hand bookshop websites. I can find similar title by Cecil Woodham-Smith.
Jeni
I believe the book, to which you refer, was by another woman Cecil Woodham-Smith https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Woodham-Smith I read it years ago and found it very harrowing.
When contemplating history from this side of the Irish sea I have always tried to bear in mind that the British elite treated their own people with contempt and nearly as badly as they treated the Irish.
The arrogance and contempt continues today. Our elite act, they would contend, on our behalf. In doing so they wreak havoc in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Palestine and who knows where else. I understand that there are effectively three Civil wars ongoing in Sudan and the “West” is supplying arms to both sides in these wars.
Gaza is more of the same. The terrorists are the White supremacists and their allies.
Thank you
The “architect” behind the Irish genocide of 1847.. (it eliminated much of the gaelic speaking Irish) was Trevelyan – he of the reforms to the Uk civil service. Lord Russell (grandfather of Bertrand) was the PM. The overall English view was “let nature take its course” &, we can’t interfere with commerce. All there in the historical record. The British did much the same in India (famines) and plenty of other places. Talking to the Ukrainian family staying with us – the mother regards the British Emprie as the most evil that every existed – & this is not a SovU point of view – she holds this view quite independently. More eloquently put:
O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An’ foolish notion:
Agreed
They appear to have also screened out the UK defence firms who are making big profits supplying the state of Israel and the Blair Foundation which is reputedly advising on the redevelopment of Gaza.
Having talked to people in that sort of line of business and looking at what happened in Northern Ireland where they successfully infiltrated both sides.
Also looking at what the US Military comes up with on issues like climate change I suggest that while Intelligence Services are not all powerful, they are capable of a pretty good grasp of whats going on and what the risks are which is far better than their political overlords.
Maintaining the so called “special relationship” with the USA must play a part in this as does the ongoing tariff war.
https://www.irishnews.com/news/northern-ireland/british-state-put-safety-of-touts-before-preservation-of-life-2S3DDP25R5GATL2QA74SCNJ4AA/?utm_source=Morning+Newsletter&utm_campaign=6f3767b86f-MORNING_BRIEFING_2025_08_09_09_11&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_da6327494b-6f3767b86f-114816420&mc_cid=6f3767b86f
There is a longterm working relationship between US/UK and Israeli Intelligence established during the Cold War. Destroying socialism was/is seen as key to maintaining a global oil financial hegemony. The rest of us will always be acceptable collateral damage in their global power games.
It also seems that these politicians don’t watch the only two news channels I tune into on a regular basis, Al Jazeera and C.N.N, because their videos from Gaza are so graphic, I find it emotionally upsetting to watch the pain and suffering endured by the people.
My lovely daughter, a wonderful young lady of 25 years tell me her peers get their news from Al Gazeera. They despise the BBC and sundry hypocrites.
A few weeks ago, I heard a slip of the tongue from a politician. They spoke of “people” in small boats. But those are not people, they are migrants. The children dying in Gaza are not children, they are Palestinians. We must never be allowed to think of them as people. In the Northern Ireland where I grew up, they weren’t people, they were Catholics. In the 1840s I suspect that starvation was allowed because those starving were not people. An unfortunate consequence of the same economics that rule today.
(Incidentally, my wife’s grandfather was born in 1841 and survived the famine.
The New Whig government of 1847 believed in extreme laissez-faire economics (some things don’t change), and that free markets were the will of God, they also believed that the famine was an act of God and therefore should not be interfered with and certainly not by messing with “god-given” free markets to redirect food.
The previous Conservative administration had provided some aid and work programmes (some things do change), cancelled by the Whigs, there were relatively few deaths in 1845/46 and a huge number in 1847. The Whig minister in charge of aid wrote concerning the famine in a private letter “We must not complain of what we really want to obtain” – or in other words, the famine is doing what we want.
Yes Irish were considered as inferior beings as this image from 1899 shows
https://thomasnastcartoons.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/scientific_racism_irish-1899.jpg
The potato blight affected a large swathe of Europe but with relatively few deaths compared to Ireland because aid their aid programs provided food.
Thank you
Colm Tòibin’ s book Lady Gregory’s Toothbrush is a case study on how the mass evictions and mass deaths in Ireland were carried out – non-fiction, not a novel. He also examines the hypocrisy of Lady Gregory and her ilk and the manipulation of the news that allowed the atrocities to be misunderstood. Irish people were tenants or peasants , never people unless they artists patronised by the British.
Fully agree.
The British intelligence is indeed good. All the wars and destruction in the past decades all across the globe (Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran etc.) have British intelligence inputs / support. They are so good that the the British public doesn’t see any of their acts causing deaths / destruction they support. The public is in awe that they keep us safe and make UK look great on global stage …..that is how it is sold and we believe it , just like Gaza / Ukraine.
https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2025/08/08/genocide-enablers-jd-vance-and-lammy-just-had-a-fancy-lunch-but-locals-found-out/
Lammy and Vance definitely saw and heard something about it yesterday.
I am amused.
It struck me this morning, looking around the world, or perhaps, the G7 (or whatever number it is now) – who are the national leaders with really big personal power problems at the moment?
USA – Trump (34 felony convictions, going gaga, self-destruct in economy, court challenges, losing support from his own MAGA base, Epstein stuff, growing civil resistance).
Israel – Netanyahu (ongoing but suspended fraud trial, very fragile coalition, civil resistance re. hostages, growing international isolation, dependant on Trump’s bullying of “allies” for survival, criticism from his intelligence and military leaders).
France – Macron – fragile coalition, resisting electoral reality and parliamentary arithmetic.
UK – Starmer – authoritarian grip on party and Cabinet cracking apart, economy failing, laughing stock in press, total loss of support from public, criticised from left and right and centre, and even by Israel lobby. Terrified of bully Trump/USA’s power to wreak economic damage on UK, knows he is a puppet controlled by his McTeam advisers, also knows he lacks political skills to extricate himself.
(Russia/Putin and Germany/Mertz not included, because I don’t feel competent to opine.)
Then I thought about how Hitler didn’t face these sort of problems till he started losing the war. He had solid public support until Germany started suffering destruction and hunger. Even then he held onto power right up until the Soviet Army entered Berlin.
The political demise of Trump, Starmer and Netanyahu seems to me to be more likely than any of them allowing successful negotiations about Israel/Palestine to proceed, and I don’t believe the UN will achieve anything until Trump is gone. The Hitler precedent suggests that the removal of Trump/Netanyahu/Starmer is the priority right now. They are much weaker than Hitler was, because they have already lost power, but are still in office.
Could the guys n gals who run things behind the scenes please see to that (in a non- fatal constitutional manner)?
Because we the people are at the end of our tethers, and out of rope.
It appears Andrew has not considered the subtleties of genocidal behavior?
It’s not always about bullets and blood.
It is also about creating chaos that brings out the worst in the people you are oppressing. Watching Gazan’s beating each other up over food drops helps to confirm to some Israelis that Palestinians ARE nothing but animals; in the Jewish ghettos in WWII starving children and corpses in the street are used to portray other Jews as uncaring and greedy; watching Irish landlords put up rents on fellow Irishmen during the famine must have satisfied the craven attitudes in the UK at the time towards the Irish.
It’s all about manufacturing the consent to destroy people you don’t like for whatever reason. It’s a closed loop that those being oppressed can never win in.
And the same has been happening to us. For many years, no matter how many hours you do at work, how many jobs you might have you will not be able to keep up in this exploitative economy that we have. But no matter – politicians will still blame you for it, call us lazy even though we have some of the lowest social assistance in Europe – because that is the way it works.
So what we have is a ‘slow/subtle genocide’ in the UK/Ireland – life expectancy is already dropping, kids will be shorter adults in future generations, hospital outcomes will be/are sub-par, our air and rivers are poisonous and the killing of hope everyday will go on.
The people in charge think they pay for us with their taxes; they think that there are too many of us who need too many things with too many scruples. We eat into their bottom line, so now AI will cut us out and increase their bottom line to the point where the rest of us will not have one. We take up their opportunities to make money by wanting open spaces where there could be rents; minimum standards where there could be returns and bonuses.
Think I’m crazy? I warn you – genocide has many faces. But at then heart of it is greed, avarice – somebody wants something, and God help any of us if you are in the way.
I used to follow the late Robert Fisk in the Independent. He knew all about Israel and wasn’t afraid to criticise their activities. In fact, he also knew about that state’s and our own terrorist activities, especially from the time the state came into existence. His voice in this never-ending saga is sadly missed. I can only imagine he would be heartened reading your comments on it.
He is still to be found on youtube and his books are still available.
For those who don’t know him I suggest you start with his youtube videos
a sample https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oO-sEougVwg a good place to start
A passionate Irishman -but also capable of good analysis
Robert Fisk reported from the Middle East with deep knowledge and insights. His early death was a tragedy for those of us seeking the unalloyed truth. Upon his death he was routinely described as “controversial” by the MSN. A great man amongst pygmies.
The Guardian published an article the other day of the British spy plane that has been flying over Gaza repeatedly for the last 18 months. To think that the PM isn’t being briefed on what is being shared by the RAF with the Israeli security services would be false.
The UK is now funding a US contractor to fly spy planes over Gaza.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/aug/07/uks-surveillance-flights-over-gaza-raise-questions-on-help-for-israeli-military
Setting: No.10 secure meeting room.
Starmer: ‘So, X what’s your latest assessment of what’s going on in Gaza?
X: ‘Well, Prime Minister, it’s not really worth me saying much – you can see it on the news every evening: carnage, and death and destruction in a nutshell. And Netanyahu has no intention of stopping.’
Starmer: ‘Foreign Secretary (for it’s JD Vance’s bug buddy, “JD” Lammy) do you have anything to add or report?’
Lammy: ‘Nothing much to add on the terrible goings on. But I can report that JD told me that The President says we’re free to issue statements, as long as they don’t mention the G word, or make any explicit criticism of Netenyahu or Israel.’
Starmer: ‘ I see. And what if we break The President’s rules?’
Lammy: ‘The preferential tariff deal goes out the window, Prime Minister.’
Starmer: ‘Well, we can’t have that can we. Best leave things as they are. See no evil, hear no evil and all that. Mum’s the word.’
Cabinet Secretary: ‘I assume that’s all our business dealt with. Thanks for 30 minutes of your time, all.’
Starmer to X: Before to get off, can we have a brief off the record chat about The President’s forthcoming State visit. I was thinking we perhaps need to lock up as many of the likely protestors as we can before the event.’
X: ‘Quite so, Prime Minister.’ I’ll have a word with The Met and get things moving.’
Likely.
And JD Lammy deserves to stick.
They are very good at keeping tabs on people who wish to make things fairer for the majority, aren’t they? I have experience of that myself.
On a lighter note, I see you as a kind of James Bond fighting the evil forces of tax dodging, summed up by the mysterious collective known as the Covenant of Unilateral and Neoliberal Transitionists. I’m not yet sure what acronym they might have.
🙂
Now that IS funny and rather apt!
Yvette Cooper states that a certain anti-genocide group was proscribed due to intelligence gained about their future violent plans. If that is case – then the police would have sufficient evidence to arrest key individuals on the basis of conspiracy etc. Did they?
No….
Quite a few have been bailed for a long time with dire conditions.
Audrey White lives in central Liverpool and is not allowed to go shopping in Liverpool or she could be arrested and jailed. She can out for medical reasons, but can’t go to the local shops.
It’s the same for people who organised Palestine Action.
Wow, this is imprisonment without trial
Whilst the corporate owned UK media were drawing attention to the new vile anti protest legislation Patel & co passed this little human rights denying Act. If you read the small print I think you will find that imprisonment without trial, full suspension of Habeas Corpus, is now perfectly legal under this new UK law to protect UK national security: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2021/4/enacted/data.pdf
Northern Ireland says: Hello & Welcome to our daily lived dystopian reality.
Accepted
Bit it is still worth pointing out this is wrong.
Check out the final paragraphs of Kit Klarenberg’s (The Gray Zone) Substack article for an oven ready case for PA proscription. Follow the link to ‘We Believe In Israel’ the the links there to the reports.
https://substack.com/@kitklarenberg/p-169998759
I read that We Believe in Israel Link.
What’s strange is that they do not tell you who they are; too scared, I suppose.
My MP, Luke Akehurst, was a director of it from 2011 to 2024, when he resigned when becoming an MP. That’s on his Wikipedia page.
If you look it up on Companies House, it has only had 3 directors and no resignations. Anyone would think Akehurst is trying to hide something.
Which of your MPs do you think should copy this?
Would an AI MP be better than the ones we have?
Sorry if your MP is Seward.
https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/spoke-britains-first-ai-mp-got-bit-weird
Link through Left Foot Forward.