Keir Starmer opened his comments at questions to the prime minister in the House of Commons yesterday by saying this:
Mr Speaker, I want to say to Government Members that theirs is the party of Winston Churchill. Our parties stood together as we defeated fascism in Europe. Now their leader stands in the House of Commons parroting the conspiracy theories of violent fascists to try to score cheap political points. He knows exactly what he is doing. It is time to restore some dignity.
The reference to fascism was deliberate.
So too was the suggestion that 'He knows exactly what he is doing'.
I think Starmer knew exactly what he was doing as well.
The reference to Churchill and the war was also deliberate.
As was his suggestion was that Johnson is a fascist because he is using the fascist rulebook to advance his cause.
Johnson did not back down on his false accusation about Starmer in response. Nor did he deny the suggestion made.
The man has been exposed.
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Johnson is merely carrying on a new tradition of Tory PMs abusing parliamentary privilege to slur political rivals (see Cameron and his disgusting smears of Khan – via a third party – to ‘aid’ Goldsmith during their Mayoral campaign)
How craven that they wouldn’t dream of repeating the same statements outside of parliament.
Raab stating “I can’t substantiate that” on the BBC is a paradigm of the post-satire zeitgeist. He is clearly channelling Dr Fox on Brass Eye:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=qqvS3zLsIuw
In the concluding chapter of Tim Snyders’ book ‘Black Earth’, the author draws parallels with Neo – Liberalism and Fascism – they have a lot in common so taking that further we should not be surprised that Johnson and too many of his Tory cronies have gone down this avenue.
BTW – the fact the Lynton Crosby – the natural heir to Joseph Goebbels in my honest opinion – and whose ‘work’ has made the politics of even Australia fraught with division – is involved is proof yet again that fascist tactics are the norm for the Tories who are desperate to stay in power.
‘Black Earth’ is Snyder’s dissection of fascist methodology and it is highly recommended.
I also recommend it because he does an amazing pivot at the end. He brings into play global warming, and looks at its geo-political impact which is going to cause a lot of change to happen.
Societies – as I interpret Snyder – are at their most vulnerable to fascism when faced with change or other pressures (real or manufactured – and we know manufacturing problems is definitely a fascist tactic for Right wing and Left fascists). Snyder sees a lot of competition for liveable space in the future as the oceans rise (he relates this to Hitler’s quest for more land for Germany which is why he expanded East any way).
The need for liveable space in the face of environmental pressures (as well as the propensity for some in society to be attracted to fascism anyway – the ‘banality of evil’ as pointed out by Hannah Arendt) will create a fertile ground for those wishing to use the fascist playbook to gain power.
I don’t know if Snyder ever read Mirowski, but it seems that the agnotology (the deliberate release and promotion of misinformation into society) that Mirowski identifies as a Neo-liberal tactic is no different to that practiced by the Nazis in their persecution of Jews or the Russians in their persecution of Poles, and farmers in the great famine and (who knows) even their work against Ukraine today and the way in which the climate crisis/green movement is undermined by the Carbon lobby.
Snyder’s warning I think paints the end of WWII not as the end of fascism – but its beginning, and suggests that Hitler’s (and even Stalin’s) legacies somehow live on just waiting for the right conditions to align.
It’s not a pretty thought is it? A bit of s buzz kill our American friends would call it.
This does not mean however that all is lost, but we really need to get to grips with what is happening and I will give Starmer credit for raising this and hope that it is more than just ‘soundbite politics’ . Just as the fascists do with their lies, we need to use our own tautology to keep pointing out what they are up to.
Because as I think we can all agree, and as a father of two – a lot is at stake here.
I might be in the bookshop later….
Stop doing that! This is now the fourth Snyder book I have ordered.
The most appealing lipstick you can apply to this particular squealing piglet – as some ministers have been trying to do when asked – is that Johnson was trying to say that he was taking responsibility for the failings in his organisation and taken action to address them, in the same way that Starmer did in in 2013. But that is a retrospective reinterpretation of what he actually said – I have no doubt that Johnson was blowing a particularly nasty dog whistle.
But if anything, the slur casts Starmer in a good light.
People in the organisation that he headed from 2008 made mistakes in 2009 when they decided there was not enough evidence to prosecute Savile (though I would argue that the larger mistakes were made by the police in 2007 and 2008, or indeed in earlier decades, when they were too cautious in their investigations and building the case against Savile, so the CPS did not have the evidence it needed. And in passing, we should not forget that Margaret Thatcher herself advocated on no fewer than four occasions for Savile to be awarded a knighthood, in the face of published allegations of sexual offences against him, including offences against children. The allegations had been raised with her from the beginning, but unaccountably she decided not to heed the warnings).
Starmer himself would have had no hand in the prosecution decisions, or even known that they were under consideration or had been taken. The decisions were taken by experienced professionals acting in good faith according to the principles as they saw them.
When the issue they came to light 3 years later, in late 2012, he did not prevaricate: he asked a QC to investigate, who delivered a full report three months later, in early 2013. Starmer did not seek to blame others or throw anyone under a bus. He apologised immediately and without reservation for the failings of his organisation, and undertook take action to stop it happening again. E.g. https://www.counselmagazine.co.uk/articles/dpp-apologises-savile
Whereas Johnson initially denied that anything happened, then said it was all in accordance with the rules, then when it turned out that he himself had participated in the events claimed that no one told him it was against the rules, then in an attempt to kick the can further down the road asked one of his officials to investigate (including the events which he himself had attended) but it quickly turned out they were also involved in the wrongdoing, and then asked another official to investigate (not someone external, or someone with their own professional obligations), who was unable to publish their full findings on a timely basis because the police were investigating him for offences he may have committed.
It is the difference between a serious professional acting properly according to his legal duties and moral compass, and a chancer without a care for anyone else, who will do or say anything to get through the next minute, hour, day.
Here is what the current DPP said when he was appointed: https://www.lawgazette.co.uk/practice/i-dont-need-a-legal-adviser-cps-chief-tells-mps/5068558.article
‘It does not seem to me that my role as DPP is to take casework decisions. My role is to support decisions taken by our very experienced prosecutors. … we should be placing our trust in our experienced prosecutors – both our regional area officers and in our specialist casework divisions’
Thank you Andrew – I might forward that summary to my (Tory) MP who has been silent on the matter. Its Jeremy Hunt…
Dennis Skinner nailed it with that wonderful quote that ‘when posh boys get into trouble they sack the servants’. The usual suspects claiming that it is Johnson sorting out No 10. Question is how many people will buy that argument.
🙂
Thank you
The ease with which Johnson is remaining on place despite his total incompetence, venal indifference to suffering, lack of any political or moral principle, psychopathic attacks on critics and compulsion to lie should make people conclude that he has, and knows he has, support from the highest authority. The most likely reason for such support is that he still has some unacceptable, anti-democratic dirty work to do, after which he will be dumped, leaving the Tories the unassailable State Party in future elections, the financial world richer than ever and the poorest in their ‘natural place’ – destitute. And the gullible public will cheer at what they will be told is a ‘return to normality’ – which it will be anything but.
It is preposterous that the leader of the CPS would be ultimately responsible for the detail of ever decision made by the organisation during their tenure.
There is a huge dose of hypocrisy not been acknowledged though by Keith when he and his faction held his predecessor to such impossible standards.