Watson Tide
If we were to think of those who voted for the 2003 Allied invasion of Iraq and did their utmost to block any investigation into the affair, certain obvious names would leap forward; it’s significant that these names remain largely unapologetic about their role in the decision bar the odd ‘Well, what we didn’t know at the time…’ caveat carefully inserted into any justification a Paxman or a Humphrys has been able to wrestle from them over the past decade. By contrast, it’s been hard to shut up those who voted against it; any MP seeking to establish good-guy credentials since the aftermath of Iraq never misses a chance to loudly proclaim they were on the side of the angels all along. More interesting, however, are those whose approval of the invasion and subsequent war has been something to quietly sweep under the Westminster carpet in the hope that their thumbs-up for the greatest British military disaster since Suez won’t damage their future prospects as heroic crusaders for truth and justice.
Step forward one Thomas Anthony Watson, Honourable Member for West Bromwich East, 2003 cheerleader for said invasion and persistent voter against any inquiry into it. Funny how he doesn’t advertise this. Mind you, Tom has always preferred to exploit the popular mood of ‘the people’ as a means of obscuring his intentions. Elected to Parliament in 2001, he first attempted to make a name for himself by capitalising on the embryonic Paedo panic of the early 2000s by suggesting the sales of albums by Gary Glitter be banned. One wonders how many CDs by a Glam Rock has-been without a top ten album to his name since 1974 were flying off the record racks in the wake of his 1999 sentencing for possession of indecent images, but why let the facts get in the way of a good stunt?
Whilst British and American troops were busy winning hearts and minds, Tom was again displaying aspects of his character he’d probably prefer not to be publicly revisited, such as his behind-the-scenes role at the 2004 Birmingham Hodge Hill by-election. This especially unedifying campaign by Labour included a slogan declaring ‘Labour is on your side – the Lib Dems are on the side of failed asylum seekers’, an example of Socialist brotherly love uncomfortably reminiscent of the slogan attributed to Tory MP Peter Griffiths at Smethwick during the 1964 General Election – ‘If you want a nigger for a neighbour, vote Labour’. Another Watson masterstroke at odds with the portrait he likes to paint of himself as the defender of fair play.
Pro-Iraq War Watson experienced apt promotion to the Ministry of Defence in 2006; his one notable act there was the pushing of legislation few were going to argue with, the posthumous pardoning of WWI British and Commonwealth soldiers shot for cowardice. The positive response to this populist move was not lost on Watson, who evidently sensed the best way to further his career was to focus on issues that would garner him the kind of plaudits that inevitably lead to high visibility and another step up the ladder to the frontbench. The increasing unpopularity of Tony Blair was something Tom next seized upon, signing a 2006 letter urging the PM to resign. When asked to remove his signature, Watson refused and then committed the ultimate narcissistic act for a nondescript MP desperate to get himself onto the Six o’Clock News: he resigned his ministerial post. Cold-shouldered by the Blair camp for his disloyalty, Tom then began making eyes at the Brown camp, just in time for Gordon’s capture of the key to No.10.
Gordon Brown’s idea of a reward once in possession of the premiership was to make Watson ‘Minister for Digital Engagement’ in 2008, a post presumably created for Tom that reflected his early embrace of the political blog as a tool for getting his message across to a wider audience – or at least the message he wanted the online electorate to hear. When what became the Digital Economy Act was passing through Parliament, a bill that proposed curbs to the internet freedoms Watson professed to favour, he was prominent in a protest opposing its introduction outside the Commons. However, this was on the eve of the 2010 General Election, so Tom could afford to be seen as a defender of free speech without fear of losing his ministerial position when school was all-but out for summer.
During the 2009 expenses’ scandal, Watson’s expanding waistline received the most attention when it was revealed he had unsurprisingly spent every penny of the annual £4,800 allocated for food; but he was instrumental in promoting the succeeding scandal, one that was to deflect attention away from the misdemeanours of parliamentarians and onto the press.
Public revulsion at revelations that under-fire journalists pressurised into finding scoops that would boost flagging newspaper sales had hacked into the phones of ‘ordinary people’ dragged into the headlines through no fault of their own was the kind of story Tom Watson had spent a decade looking for. He grabbed the phone-hacking affair with gusto, playing a starring role as one of the inquisitors who grilled Murdoch & Son at the Culture, Media & Sport hearing that was televised live before an audience of millions. His website published the evidence Alistair Campbell was due to give at the Leveson Inquiry a week before Blair’s ex-henchman was scheduled to face the music; but when the Guido Fawkes blog republished the information and credited Watson, the evidence vanished from Tom’s website and the Guido Fawkes editor was the one summoned to appear before Leveson, not Watson – mysteriously. It was as if ‘the powerful’ were being protected or something…
There was still mileage to be made out of hacking, however. Watson collaborated with a journalist from The Independent, Martin Hickman, on a book called ‘Dial M for Murdoch: News Corporation and the Corruption of Britain’, another key step on his progress to the dizzying heights of Labour Deputy Leader. When the public eventually wearied of the scandal, the onset of hacking fatigue led Tom to turn his eye to the next moral outrage bandwagon guaranteed to keep him in the spotlight, one that had its roots not only in his first stab at backbench publicity in 2001, but even his own family.
In October 2012, the same month that the late Sir Jimmy Savile ceased to be the nation’s favourite eccentric charity fundraiser and became its most prolific unprosecuted Paedo, Watson seized the day once again by announcing the existence of a Westminster Paedophile Ring in the 1970s and 80s, one that had been protected by the police and virtually everyone in a position of power at the time. With a public now prepared to believe all their childhood heroes were ‘at it’, Tom clearly figured his opportunistic gamble, catapulted from the backbenches like a jet of treasonous piss aimed at Her Majesty’s tiara, would no longer be condemned to the David Icke Asylum for Wild Conspiracy Theories. Sadly, he was correct. Watson’s cynical route to the top had gathered such momentum that anyone unfortunate enough to be caught in its path was destined to be trampled underfoot.
Although his reckless, not to say callous, actions had been criticised for months in the alternative press of the online blog, the damage done to a dying man such as Leon Brittan and his family has finally come back to haunt Watson in the wake of last week’s ‘Panorama’; the mainstream media have belatedly woken up to the nasty, self-aggrandizing bully behind the apparently avuncular leftie now second-in-command of the Shadow Cabinet. And one can only hope that someone somewhere is meticulously sculpting a pair of concrete slippers that will fit the fat feet of the ugly sister who somehow became Cinderella.
Petunia Winegum
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October 12, 2015 at 9:16 am -
Anyone can be smeared, in fact that is how MI5 work. They can smear, and discredit any witness, and they do. Leon Brittan was caught by customs, with paedophile pornographic films on him, the rape charge was completely different to the Westminter Paedophile Group investigations going on at the moment.
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October 12, 2015 at 9:26 am -
Watson is a treasonous cunt of the Highest Order, no matter which way the press wind is blowing. A minister unofficially sponsored by Slater & Moron is a minister selling out us all out to the worlds “Top 1%” who represent their internation shareholders, and no amount of internet trolling will alter that fact.
https://twitter.com/LizDuxLawyer/status/642749622927163392-
October 12, 2015 at 11:30 am -
Oooooph! We have a winner!
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October 12, 2015 at 11:58 am -
Yes, and like all good bought politicians he will switch to the highest bidder. Those politicians can never be trusted.
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October 12, 2015 at 9:33 am -
The trouble with your certainty, David, is that we have seen loads of allegations that have been made against others, which, on rigorous examination, can be shown to be either nonsense or beyond any real credibility as evidence sufficient to obtain a conclusively safe criminal prosecution and conviction, which allegations have then been used by others to the ruin of some, or the seduction of a gullible public for their own ends or agendas.
What’s yours?
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October 12, 2015 at 9:48 am -
My evidence may well ruin the careers of international names, including titled people yes. But paedophilia, and murder is wrong?
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October 12, 2015 at 9:53 am -
Of course they are. Of course it would. And, as MI5 might well be watching, I won’t ask you under which bed you’ve hidden it
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October 12, 2015 at 10:01 am -
I have not ‘hidden’ anything. My statements are with the authorities.
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October 12, 2015 at 10:32 am -
David, I have ‘credible and true’ evidence that you are, in fact, Chris Fay.
I have similar evidence that you know where Lord Lucan is hiding out, were involved in Shergar’s kidnapping, were at one time abducted by aliens and experimented upon in ways too lascivious to describe in a family blog – shame on you, you should have made your excuses and left – laundered the Brinks Mat gold, and had a part in stealing two nuclear bombs from a hijacked Vulcan bomber in or about 1965.
I have carefully hidden all this evidence – much of it taken from confidential discussions with Sid and Doris Bonkers on David Icke’s website – and, although I have reported it to the appropriate authorities, no-one else is allowed to look at it.
Now I’m going to spend the rest of the day playing computer games before masturbating for a bit.
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October 12, 2015 at 10:41 am -
You do not sound very intelligent, but I do not think less of you for that. It is not really very important what you think of course. I suggest you keep an eye on the news, and learn.
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October 12, 2015 at 10:46 am -
You owe me a cup of coffee!!!
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October 12, 2015 at 11:06 am -
Before or after the masturbation?
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October 12, 2015 at 11:08 am -
Before actually, I would never laugh at a lonely man…!
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October 12, 2015 at 11:31 am -
Ah, Mrs. Raccoon… I sometimes think that we – by which I mean you – should arrange a great piss-up for all us aficionados of your blog. I suppose that we’d all have to troop off to bloody Norfolk or somewhere, avoiding the stupid toads on the byepass, but it might be worth it to congratulate you on your work and clap eyes on the fellow disgusting examples of humanity who clog up your comment section (such as Mr. Dwarf). I’d make the effort and put some money behind the bar.
By the way, I forgot to add ‘…had carnal knowledge of the Loch Ness monster.’
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October 12, 2015 at 3:19 pm -
(such as Mr. Dwarf).-Major Bonkers
I posted a photo of myself here the other day so you can save yourself the trip. But incase you missed it here’s another
http://i18.photobucket.com/albums/b116/horta/cartoonketch.jpg , do you really want to spend yuletide with that sort of person?
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October 12, 2015 at 10:39 am -
So, it’s statements you’re speaking of, not *evidence* as such?
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October 12, 2015 at 10:40 am -
Good. But I’m surprised that you’ve taken such a route in an untrustworthy world where righteous informers can, as you have indicated, be smeared so readily by bad handlers.
After all, at a time when others have taken it on themselves to launch forth the Snowden material to the world and his dog, couldn’t you really have found some suitably honourable and conscientious anti British, Anti Thatcherite or just plain Anti Semitic internet warriors, of whom there are enough about, to bring your documentary proof – I assume that you have some? – to the masses for their edification?
As opposed, that is, to just appearing on places repeating a mantra that resonates with the sort of ‘I came, I saw and I’m telling you, it was terrible, so it was’ type of exposition that might have been one of Fraser’s lines in a Dad’s Army script?
I have to go now, but I’ll do some proxy headbanging in case it might help
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October 12, 2015 at 10:48 am -
I do not want press involvement. I was asked to trust one journalist, but he betrayed that trust, and published things which were wrong. Two journalists at the BBC spent four hours with me, and seem to be trustworthy, (not Panorama). There is an ongoing inquiry, so I cannot really say much at all.
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October 12, 2015 at 10:50 am -
David? How much of my bandwidth are you planning to take up telling us that you can’t tell us anything at all…
Put up or shut up.
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October 12, 2015 at 10:54 am -
Is that not what you are doing then?
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October 12, 2015 at 10:38 am -
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October 12, 2015 at 10:51 am -
Real evidence
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October 12, 2015 at 10:36 am -
How do you know this, David?
What EVIDENCE do you have to make such a statement? -
October 12, 2015 at 11:21 am -
Leon Brittan was caught by customs, with paedophile pornographic films on him,
Not that anyone has ever produced anything akin to ‘evidence’ of that, it’s total nonsense.
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October 12, 2015 at 11:27 am -
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October 12, 2015 at 11:52 am -
But please sir it states…”the contents of the papers have not been revealed.”
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October 12, 2015 at 11:57 am -
The Government has revealed that papers exist that relate to Margaret Thatcher’s former parliamentary secretary Sir Peter Morrison, former Home Secretary Leon Brittan, former diplomat Sir Peter Hayman and former minister Sir William van Straubenzee. They have not released the papers yet, but have passed them on to the police. ‘Please try to read articles properly’?
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October 12, 2015 at 11:55 am -
What bit of ‘akin to evidence’ did you not understand? Seriously dude, if you think that link is in anyway ‘evidence’ or indicative of there being evidence then it’s no wonder the police have put you in the ‘tin foil hat’ file . You know that clicking sound on your phone when you answer calls is really just static right?
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October 12, 2015 at 12:00 pm -
The Government has revealed that papers exist that relate to Margaret Thatcher’s former parliamentary secretary Sir Peter Morrison, former Home Secretary Leon Brittan, former diplomat Sir Peter Hayman and former minister Sir William van Straubenzee. These documents have not been released yet, but have been passed on to the Police. Does anyone on this forum have the ability to ‘read and understand what they are reading’?
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October 12, 2015 at 12:18 pm -
Does anyone on this forum have the ability to ‘read and understand what they are reading’?
In Enochian? It must be in some kind of code because I can find nothing in that article that even hints at LB smuggling Paedo-porn into the UK . Seriously Dude, the guy was Home Secretary, he could have had the entire annual police seizures of paedo-porn sent to his home address quite legally ‘to review’ and if you believe a Customs Officer would search the car of a cabinet minister …
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October 12, 2015 at 12:33 pm -
David, the article that you linked to explicitly states: ‘the contents of the papers have still not been revealed’ (in the last paragraph).
But you use this link as ‘evidence’ – we can come onto that later – that Leon Brittan had been ‘caught by customs, with paedophile pornographic films on him’.
The link says nothing at all about any illicit films. Even if we accept this news report as holy writ, any reference to Leon Brittan’s film is being shoehorned into it.
Even if the papers do make such an allegation, there ought to be questions about any supporting evidence – such as records of an arrest by the Customs and Excise, tracing the Customs officer who discovered the film and working out why matters were not taken further, whether the paper itself is credible – it might be just reporting a rumour, lie, or even joke. Who made the allegation? Are they credible? Or are they, as we have seen all too clearly over the last week, criminals themselves, fantasists, or have their own axe to grind?
Would you really think that it would be acceptable, if Leon Brittan were still alive, to send him to prison on the basis of your evidence – a link to a news report that says nothing about the specific allegation?
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October 12, 2015 at 12:40 pm -
The Government ‘has revealed’ that papers exist that relate to Margaret Thatcher’s former parliamentary secretary Sir Peter Morrison, former Home Secretary Leon Brittan, former diplomat Sir Peter Hayman and former minister Sir William van Straubenzee. ‘The contents of the papers have still not been revealed but have ‘been shared with the police, and will be passed to the Child Abuse Inquiry led by Justice Lowell Goddard.
These files have been shared with the police. There is a lot of evidence, but it is subject to an ‘ongoing police enquiry into murder. There are also other witnesses. How with your little knowledge, can you pronounce anyone as innocent, until the investigation is over. There are also other suspects, and other murders involved, would you like to say if they are innocent as well, of course we can’t name them. You seem to be a member of the Panorama, and Daily Mail form of Justice?
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October 12, 2015 at 12:53 pm -
Call me old fashioned, but I thought the whole point of our little country and its laws and values was that we DID consider someone innocent until having been PROVEN guilty.
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October 12, 2015 at 1:00 pm -
That is different from the Panorama / Daily Mail approach, used by you, to pronounce them not guilty before investigations have taken place. Mind you, you, and many others pronounced Bishop Ball innocent, didn’t you.
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October 12, 2015 at 1:21 pm -
I’m afraid that I’m with Jim; Leon Brittan, and anyone else, is innocent until proven guilty; and that he, or anyone else, is entitled to a fair trial, under principles of natural justice, including seeing the evidence against him and having the opportunity to challenge it.
Throwing out allegations that he was caught with paedophile pornography, for which there is not a shred of evidence, is absurd. If a proper case could be put together and brought to Court, and the allegations found to be proved, then I’d believe it. I am afraid that I am not going to believe some anonymous poster on the internet.
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October 12, 2015 at 3:27 pm -
Come on, Jim, the whole point of this little blog and its rules and values is that here you consider everyone innocent whether or not they’ve been proven guilty, unless like Meirion Jones, Tom Watson or Liz Dux they happen to be on the side of the victims of the powerful, when it’s witch-hunt open season.
Don’t get on your moral high horse and pretend that the powerful and depraved haven’t been taking full advantage of the difficulty of finding them guilty on the say-so of the vulnerable and damaged.
Let’s stop pretending, the sorry little version of what this country stands for that you’re defending requires the rest of us to accept that nothing was ever proved to have happened while manipulative predators live out the rest of their sorry lives in prosperous impunity while their victims get slagged off as “compo-seekers” by individuals who’ve grabbed far bigger chunks of compensation from life than they could ever aspire to.
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October 12, 2015 at 3:30 pm -
Yes some of them have been living the high life for decades, while the parents of children have gone through hell and back. All to save their ‘careers’, and reputations.
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October 12, 2015 at 3:46 pm -
Yeah, quite right. Who needs boring old lawyers or evidence, or any of that crap.
Leon Brittan and Jimmy Savile both looked odd – that’s good enough for me.
In case this infallible test for determining paedophiles doesn’t work, we can flip a coin.
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October 12, 2015 at 3:48 pm -
October 12, 2015 at 6:16 pm -
Owen, you are being at best unfair to your fellows. I know that I am not alone in my acceptance that it is entirely possible that LB was a rent boy buggering paedophile. Possible but , to my mind, unlikely but that’s only based on my personal opinion of a man I have never met. But I have met many charming men who had a dark secret side (one of the most pleasant men I ever worked with was a former torturer!). Which of us can look into the soul of another?
Did LB abuse the power of his high office to cover up his own skullduggery of whatever flavour and the misdeeds of others? I would be amazed if he hadn’t. Does kinda go with the territory and keeps the journalists in copy.
But if you’re asking me to believe that a man so cunning as to attain the second highest political office in the land would get caught, caught out by a humble Custom’s Officer, that someone so steeped in the machiavellian dark arts as LB would ‘forget’ he had something the size of a video cassette in his glove compartment along with that tin of those naff boiled sweets ? Such a man might misplace a biro, but evidence so damning as to kill any politician’s career stone dead in a heartbeat? No way. You don’t get to be Home Secretary by being that careless.
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October 12, 2015 at 6:51 pm -
@ The Blocked Dwarf October 12, 2015 at 6:16
FWIW, my understanding of some of this was that there are allegations, not that Customs found LB in possession of a nasty film, but rather, that someone else was caught with a film in which LB appeared as a participant.
That’s a wee bit different, but I do agree that the notion that LB would be as daft as get caught out in such a thing still makes the mind boggle, and that’s before we get round to bothering about the problems associated with identification etc. I suppose his voice and accent could ‘give him away’? Maybe David knows?
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October 12, 2015 at 6:56 pm -
Perhaps we’re going to be forced to wait until 2020 or later until Goddard publishes her conclusions on the subject before we eventually get a clearer picture, but in the meanwhile it’s known that Brittan presided over the loss of Dickens’s first couple of child abuse dossiers until Dickens decided to pass them to Scotland Yard and DPP, pretending at first that he knew nothing about them, his peer Barbara Castle was convinced he couldn’t be trusted to investigate allegations of child abuse, the Cabinet Office kept a child abuse-related file on him from the Wanless-Whittam review which they’ve now been obliged to pass to Goddard, etc….
Since, whatever the reasons, Brittan never had to appear before a court on charges, he’s entitled to be “presumed innocent in law” but that doesn’t mean that someone in possession of information they trust is obliged to kowtow to a posse of Brittan’s outraged friends and associates. Why should Watson have to pretend that Brittan was exonerated of all suspicion when only the rape accusation was found not prosecutable? He’s listened to a survivor of abuse whom he finds credible – is he meant to throw what they’ve confided in him back in their face on Brittan’s pals’ say-so? Watson’s entitled to see the wider picture even if other people choose not to.
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October 12, 2015 at 3:03 pm -
I’m sure that the papers do exist, however its the CONTENT of those papers thats important. Even if the contents contain allegations, without credible evidence to back up those allegations, what can anyone do ?
I wouldnt be remotely surprised to discover that swathes of politicians have been involved in a wide range of seedy and possibly illegal and immoral shinnanagins, but without evidence, there’s not a great deal to be done is there. For heavens sake even when you catch the blighters red handed, they still manage to come up smelling of roses, but thats just the nature of the relationship between politicians, and the electorate
The old bill have shot themselves in the foot adopting the principle that the hearsay testimony of every tom dick and harry will be believed without question.
Presumably at some point, this stuff is going to get tested in a court of law, and the wheat will be sorted from the chaff, but god only knows how much damage will be inflicted in the process. Its not really an ideal way for these things to get resolved, and its certainly not ideal that a whole host of lawyers, politicians, ex police officers, and self appointed child protection experts exploit the situation to further their own self interests (that means YOU MWT)
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October 12, 2015 at 3:14 pm -
‘The old bill have shot themselves in the foot adopting the principle that the hearsay testimony of every tom dick and harry will be believed without question’. Well you are wrong about that. There are other witnesses, indeed, other suspects, it is just a matter of linking all these people together.
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October 12, 2015 at 11:40 am -
@David are you saying the incidents you describe happened or that they were smears by MI5?
In April 1984 Yvonne Fletcher was shot dead outside the Libyan Embassy it was report that it was regarded as a failure of intelligence by MI5 and changes were demanded by Brittan. A few months later a rumour surfaced about Brittan and it was suggested (Private Eye?) that this was a smear by MI5. Could it have been the work of a disgruntled individual who been removed from post?
It’s not as though an individual within MI5 hasn’t ever taking action such as undermine a government in the hope to bring about a coup and later distance themselves from what they had been doing by claiming it was an MI5 operation…Peter Wright is a person that comes to mind.
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October 12, 2015 at 9:22 am -
Don’t you just love a good witch hunt? Still, it’s more coherent, and better written, than the pricks from the pap press could manage.
And even with the concrete slippers, I’d expect that one to float nicely
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October 12, 2015 at 9:47 am -
I’m certainly not defending the odious toad, but is he really that much different from the other members of the HOC? In general, the sort of person who wants to become an MP is going to have many of the same character traits that Tom Watson(TV) possesses – self seeking, ambitious, self aggrandizing, full of hot air, gob shites who love the sound of their own voice.
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October 12, 2015 at 10:11 am -
“is he really that much different from the other members of the HOC?”
Yes, he is. Such a level of twattery is rare in an MP. You have to look at George Galloway or, dare I say it, Geoffrey Dickens to find similar characters.
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October 12, 2015 at 10:21 am -
Another thing particularly odious about Watson is his contrived online adoption of ‘music loving man of the people’ stance, and garnering support and plaudits from the trendy ‘6music’ sorts as if he’s some kind of cultural ambassador. When in reality he’s a lickspittle cultural nazi who demands music be ‘banned’. http://retardedkingdom.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/the-auntie-fascists.html
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October 12, 2015 at 10:38 am -
“He cynically misused parliamentary privilege to victimise people in order to pursue his personal campaigns and he brought the democratic process into disrepute….”
Dickens or Watson?
http://saff.nfshost.com/dickens.htm -
October 12, 2015 at 10:43 am -
Now, THAT’S interesting, because over on Youtube, there is a site named ‘The Truth Seeking Music Makers’ which posts a great deal about the Paedophile Paranoia, making videos too. Whoever runs it always refers to themselves as ‘we’, as does the person who has a site on Youtube called ‘Epiphany Tiffany’, making the same kinds of videos, leaving the same comments..and using the same photo as that chap called Robbie/Noddy who often posts on the page of Mark Williams-Thomas.
Curiouser and Curiouser, eh?
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October 12, 2015 at 10:29 am -
True, but Watson has gone too far this time.
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October 12, 2015 at 10:03 am -
I always thought he was appointed to be ‘Minister for Digital Engagement’ due to his willingness to show one middle digit, in time honoured style, towards the electorate?
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October 12, 2015 at 10:43 am -
Teehee! :0) x
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October 12, 2015 at 10:22 am -
“catapulted from the backbenches like a jet of treasonous piss aimed at Her Majesty’s tiara”
WIN
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October 12, 2015 at 10:31 am -
” the greatest British military disaster since Suez”
I have no respect for Watson, but this phrase has me puzzled. The aim of the invasion was to remove Saddam Hussein from power, and it succeeded. The trouble British troops ran into later on was caused by the Iranian-backed militias, and it is true that the government had not expected this.
But I don’t see how the Iraq war as such can be called a disaster. Certainly Maliki’s period in power was a disaster, but that was after we left.
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October 12, 2015 at 1:41 pm -
Suez was a military success – not that the Gypoes seem to have taken much notice of the whole thing – http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2183326/ – but a political failure.
The failure in Iraq was caused primarily by the gormless Paul Bremer purging the Ba’athists (order number 1) and disbanding the Iraqi army (order number 2) after the Iraqi invasion.
The British military failure was caused, in both cases, by a Chancellor conspiring to advance his own cause by starving British troops of necessary funding.
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October 12, 2015 at 11:08 am -
Watson was also the idiot who posted Sion “be quiet when I’m speaking” Simon’s video, with his hilarious caricature of David Cameron inviting people to sleep with his wife and take his children. Obviously with that level of maturity and judgement he should be deputy leader of the opposition. Good to see that Sion Simon has also moved on from that embarrassment, plus having to repay £20,000 of expenses that he handed over to his sister, and found a new home as an MEP.
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October 12, 2015 at 11:34 am -
I don’t like Watson. It’s both an instant, quite visceral thing. He’s the Fat Greedy Bully from primary school who picks on the school weed because of his own body image issues. I didnt like Leon Brittan one little bit. Toady little **********. But there is not a shred of credible evidence against as far as I can see. Watson is a band waggon merchant of the highest order.
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October 12, 2015 at 12:07 pm -
The true indicator of the collapse of Labour is not that Corbyn could be elected leader but that Watson could be elected as his Deputy.
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October 12, 2015 at 12:12 pm -
Britain has already ‘collapsed’, under George Osborne, the childlike Chancellor. The Nation Debt has doubled in the last five years, and is going up at £5.000 per second. http://www.nationaldebtclock.co.uk/
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October 12, 2015 at 2:23 pm -
Notwithstanding the irrelevance of your comment to the subject matetr of the post, that would seem at first glance to be an open goal for a competent political body to address. Except that the conversation would have to be accurately framed between the opposing memes of austerity and debt. Or do you mean to say that the Tories have NOT savagely cut costs? Just asking.
Those who think, as Watson appears to think, that any smear of one’s opponents is justified by one’s own judgment of the rightness of one’s cause are already lost in self-referencing, and therefore uncorrectable, error. It is as if the last 30 years have not happened for Jeremy but Watson is a modern creature, and vile in so many modern ways. He is also political toast.
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October 12, 2015 at 2:42 pm -
Watson has not smeared anyone. Brittan has been named, by the government, in Child Abuse Papers. These have been handed over to the police. They cannot be revealed at this time, because there is a murder inquiry taking place, as I am sure you are aware. As for George Osborne, he has no Idea how to run an economy, it cannot be run as you would run a wallpaper shop, which is what, in his own childish way, he is doing.
People have to spend money, to get a modern economy moving again, but he limiting that by his austerity. Less money spent, less tax revenue, less employment, less people working, less money spent. It is a downward spiral. Anyway I do not expect you, as a Tory, to understand economics. My very wealthy, super rich, neighbours, tell me they pay very little tax. We here in Chelsea, do not feel the recession, but it seems a shame to run the UK economy into the ground.
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October 12, 2015 at 3:24 pm -
“Anyway I do not expect you, as a Tory, to understand economics.” This I think is worthy of its very own place – framed and on the wall of the snug – or the loo. BTW for the avoidance of error, David, I am not – nor have I ever been – a Tory.
Is the government actually spending less money this year than previously? Shall we say, less than last year or the year before? There has been no overall cut in expenditure – nor will there be IMO. We can argue about prioritisation but we cannot say that they are spending less.
eg http://www.tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/government-spending
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October 12, 2015 at 3:33 pm -
Erm – David – government is actually spending more year on year. The deficit is decreasing (albeit rather slower than some would like, and slower that government promised). GDP is rising (which means that people ARE spending more), and the number of jobs in the economy is rising, so more people are working.
As for “no idea how to run an economy”, some reference to those in charge when the deficit went through the roof might be apposite.
Just for the record, I’m not a Tory either. I’ve never been a member of any political party.
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October 12, 2015 at 3:39 pm -
The National Debt has Doubled in the last five years. That means that there has been the same level of borrowing.
None of the National Debt has been paid back, after the World Economic Collapse. The National Debt is still growing at £5000 per second. http://www.nationaldebtclock.co.uk/-
October 12, 2015 at 3:42 pm -
Do you understand the link between National Debt and deficit?
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October 12, 2015 at 12:44 pm -
Fantastic analysis as usual.
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October 12, 2015 at 1:34 pm -
Count me in. I don’t drink so I’ll take the embarrassing photographs and we can divvy up the proceeds when I sell them to Nause International.
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October 12, 2015 at 1:59 pm -
Just went out for a couple of hours and come back to this delightful exchange of views – fabulous! Where’s my tin foil hat?
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October 12, 2015 at 2:29 pm -
Well, I suppose it’s one way to get the comment count up….
Sorry to post about the subject of Petunia’s piece, but Watson has quite a long history of dabbling in the political dark arts. He had to do some heavy-duty denying that he was close to the protagonists when Guido blew the Damien McBride smear plot a few years ago. I strongly suspect that many of his schemes have more to do with attempting to paint his political opponents in a poor light than in bettering the lot of his constituents or furthering the nation’s best interests. He’s one of the nastiest pieces of work currently in politics.
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October 12, 2015 at 2:45 pm -
Stella Rimington a former boss of MI5 writing about Peter Wright..the description sounds familiar.
“Peter Wright was an extraordinary figure. I believe he had at one time been regarded as an effective counterespionage operator, but by the time I knew him well he was quite clearly a man with an obsession, and was regarded by many as quite mad and certainly dangerous.
He was self-important and he had an overdeveloped imagination and an obsessive personality that had turned to paranoia.
He used to wander around, finding out what everyone was doing, taking cases off people, going off and doing interviews which he never wrote up, and then moving on to something else, while refusing to release files for others to work on. He always implied that he knew more about everything than anyone else, but that what he knew was so secret that he could not possibly tell you what it was.
Maybe, we thought, he had been sent into MI5 to confuse everyone.”
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October 12, 2015 at 3:23 pm -
Drat…the replies have stopped linking again!
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October 12, 2015 at 5:14 pm -
Let’s not forget Watson’s Islamo-pandering in front of a segregated audience:
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October 12, 2015 at 5:20 pm -
Is it too soon to hope the tide has turned on this madness?
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October 12, 2015 at 6:56 pm -
Fatty Arbuckle isn’t backing down – must be a lot riding on his deputy leadership by his paymasters Slater & Moron
http://www.itv.com/news/update/2015-10-12/watch-tom-watsons-statement-about-brittan-allegations/-
October 12, 2015 at 6:59 pm -
But Brittan was a paedophile, currently under a murder investigation ? http://news.sky.com/story/1523577/key-westminster-figures-in-child-abuse-papers
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October 12, 2015 at 7:11 pm -
Yawn. This is a blog tackling media bollocks, not one quoting things written by various lackeys as if they are gospel.
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October 12, 2015 at 7:28 pm -
The ‘Government’ has revealed, the contents of the papers have still not been revealed but have been shared with the police. Sky News, reporting Government statements, not a ‘blog’. Those files are being used in a murder investigation. You do not sound very intelligent?
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October 12, 2015 at 7:39 pm -
I don’t trust 99% of the police or what passes for journalists these days, and I certainly do not trust 100% of Personal Injury Law firms, and anyone related to their insidious PR juggernauts in the media. Nor do I trust any modern politicians, and sadly I know through experience nobody under about 30 can now be trusted to think for themselves (due to media, the internet but mostly the New Labour “education education education” reforms.)
I do, however, trust my own judgement and modus operandi.I couldn’t give a flying toss what you think I “sound” like, I do not know who you are or anything about you.
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October 12, 2015 at 7:49 pm -
Yes I understand that. I live in Chelsea, I came across murder last year, without looking for it. On the Police I do not trust them either.
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October 12, 2015 at 7:49 pm -
Come on Chris, let’s not associate Roscoe (the name he preferred) Arbuckle with a creature like Watson.
Roscoe suffered more than enough from a fake allegation promoted by a hustler, an ambitious politician and a venal press to earn the sympathy of most of us round here.
The final jury declared:
“Acquittal is not enough for Roscoe Arbuckle. We feel that a great injustice has been done him … there was not the slightest proof adduced to connect him in any way with the commission of a crime. He was manly throughout the case and told a straightforward story which we all believe. We wish him success and hope that the American people will take the judgment of fourteen men and women that Roscoe Arbuckle is entirely innocent and free from all blame.”Arbuckle’s acting career was finished.
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October 12, 2015 at 7:54 pm -
Arbuckle, are we going to talk about Rudolph Valentino now. He was a well known gay man, portrayed as straight by the studios, and himself?
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October 12, 2015 at 8:03 pm -
Ah – so Rudolph Valentino was also part of this VIP paedophile ring, was he? Did he do his dastardly deeds in Elm House, Dolphin Square or elsewhere?
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October 12, 2015 at 11:34 am -
October 12, 2015 at 11:36 am -
I only ever go to Norfolk for the shoot.
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October 12, 2015 at 11:37 am -
Oh yes! I shall inform Randy Hack of your proposal….
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October 12, 2015 at 12:43 pm -
Is that the whole of Advent, then the 12 Days of Christmas, with a monumental hangover on Epiphany ? Sounds OK to me.
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October 12, 2015 at 12:46 pm -
Don’t tell me you’ve already forgotten the last one, Anna…
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October 12, 2015 at 2:47 pm -
Forward address, date, and time.
I’ll bring a bottle of Scotch, Mr. Dwarf’s in charge of supplying the strippers.
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October 12, 2015 at 11:58 am -
Oh sweet Jesus, tell me no one is insane enough to let you have a gun!
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October 12, 2015 at 1:32 pm -
You are the one supporting Panorama, who put a few ‘selected’ bits of evidence to support their case that there was no Westminster Paedophile Group. They and the Daily Mail have been trying to close down investigations? I have just been pointing out to you that the Panorama are wrong to state there is no evidence. Most BBC reporters even disagree with them. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dRJGZd2wrA
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October 12, 2015 at 1:37 pm -
October 12, 2015 at 1:46 pm -
The inquiry is not being closed down, there are now 27 Officers + Staff. You have started ‘waffling’ .
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October 12, 2015 at 1:54 pm -
October 12, 2015 at 3:13 pm -
Anna, don’t confuse David with the facts, his mind is made up!
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October 12, 2015 at 3:29 pm -
AR, that link you posted sends me to the Jim Can’t Fix This site ? Is David Moor Larkin ? Or was Moor Larkin a meat puppet for the Lizard people who spent his days fashioning 6″ SJS pendants with mind control chips embedded in them?
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October 12, 2015 at 3:18 pm -
At least I am sticking to the subject matter. Everyone else on here seems to be arranging shooting parties in Norfolk. I do have a couple of gun dogs myself, but I wouldn’t trust being in this group with guns.
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October 12, 2015 at 3:22 pm -
Well, dudden’t y’all get a surprise at that one?
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October 12, 2015 at 3:24 pm -
It was you who said you only ever went to Norfolk for the shoot. Up till that point, the only other gathering anybody had mentioned was a piss-up.
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October 12, 2015 at 3:23 pm -
The one about the two dogs, I mean
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October 12, 2015 at 3:50 pm -
Why is it called ‘Watson Tide’?
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October 12, 2015 at 3:52 pm -
October 12, 2015 at 3:56 pm -
David October 12, 2015 at 3:50 pm
Why is it called ‘Watson Tide’?It could have been called ‘The Ongoing Emissions of a Red Starred Yak’, but that doesn’t have quite the same ring to it, does it?
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October 12, 2015 at 4:09 pm -
October 12, 2015 at 4:22 pm -
Why is it called ‘Watson Tide’?
What? With all your supposed Holmesian skillz you couldn’t detect a pun so lame it needed crutches to get it off the page?!?!? (and Pet, it really was a bit below par as Pet-Puns go). The commentator who questioned whether his fellows could read and understand a news paper article?
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October 12, 2015 at 3:54 pm -
Sorry, it was PETUNIA!
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October 12, 2015 at 4:37 pm -
@ The Blocked Dwarf October 12, 2015 at 4:22 pm
Sheesh, I find myself sympathising with David.
This is October, man, and we’re not all good CoE Ambridgers or good Scots Calvanist Presbyterians rejecting the apostate CoS! That pun could have died and been buried in a tomb for 2000 years and still be in no hope of resurrection or eternal life, let alone have any hope of now hobbling out on crutches.
Stop spoiling my afternoon…
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October 12, 2015 at 6:58 pm -
He was a paedophile though http://news.sky.com/story/1523577/key-westminster-figures-in-child-abuse-papers
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