The Daily Mongoose

25/01/2024

I'm quite looking forward to conscription. I'm too old to fight, so I'll join the Home Guard and demoralise the organisation from within by turning them all communist. What larks! 😃
Imagine a cross between Sergeant Wilson and Wolfie Smith. That. 😁

25/01/2024

So this UK conscription and war with Russia-thing...is this another Brexit benefit? 🤣 Or just Sunak flexing the muscles on his eleven-year-old-boy's physique? 🤣
Galloping inflation, spiralling energy prices, s**t-strewn beaches...and now the chance to participate in a ground invasion of Russia. Because that's always worked out so well for anyone who's tried it in the past. 🤣
I presume that's the plan, because that's the only thing for which you'd need a large conscript army. I mean, if it's to defend against Putin's threat to deploy WMD's against Britain....well, I can't see how a load of half-trained 'Erberts peeling spuds in Aldershot are really going to stop the incoming missiles. 🤣
Seriously, this country since 2016, absolutely fc***ng bonkers. I mean, I know the nobs like a bit of nose-candy, but they must've been at the elephant-tranquilisers this time.
Either that, or it's an election year ...and having used every skulduggery short of warmongering to whip up the phony patriotism that gave us Brexit and Boris last time...well, now it's time to monger. Monger like buggery. Sunak and Starmer acting the hardmen. We really are Loony Island. Fruitloop-on-Sea. Wibble-World. 😁

16/01/2024

It's extraordinary to me that people who were unhappy about being governed from Brussels are quite happy to be governed from Tel Aviv. You didn't just deploy the Royal Navy, Israel did. On your money. I don't get why the "look after our own first" crew are so happy to look after the interests of Israel when it's going to wreck our economy, and our country's reputation.

16/01/2024

Another wrong decision by our idiot Tory auto-pilot government. We've now gone to war with Yemen, to protect Israel's oil supply. But those sea-lanes are also moving 40 per cent of the world's supply of traded oil. America's fine, they're a net energy exporter. We're not. If it ends in blockade, as it certainly will, our economy is headed for destruction. How do you fancy paying five hundred times more for your energy use?

The days of gunboat diplomacy are over. You can't just fling the Royal Navy at a problem and hope that'll be the end. The world doesn't work that way any more, and I'm sorry, but the Yemeni forces aren't Somali pirates armed with a few AK's. The Royal Navy, gods bless 'em, aren't quite the force they once were, either. Sorry if you haven't been keeping abreast, but they're not.

We're heading for an economic meltdown....and for what? To help the Israelis? I mean, do you really feel strongly enough about that to devote most of your income for the next several decades to it? Your bank accounts are going to get fu***ng r***d. For Israel.

Picture this: you're in your sixties, and struggling to heat your home in winter...but it's all worthwhile, because Israel has a right to fight Hamas. That's your future, Mr and Mrs "We Should Look After Our Own". Europe is going to get fu***ng destroyed because of YOUR commitment to Israel. A country that couldn't give a flying f**k about you.

13/01/2024

Listening to South Africa's case in the ICJ.
Incredibly powerful stuff.
Expect to see a global media campaign to smear South Africa any minute. South Africa will either be employees of Hamas, Putin stooges, antisemitic, or just plain N***s.

Remember, this is a people, a non-aligned nation who have known apartheid, racism and the most violent oppression. But the smears will come: that's how the Likkud party defeats anyone who dares stand up to them, usually with the active connivance of our Western governments and media. If you still believe in THEM.

12/01/2024

12/01/2024

Nehru had it right, all those years ago.

“My expression of sympathy with the Arab national movement and their struggle for freedom has brought me some protests from Jews in India. I venture therefore to state a little more fully what my attitude is to this problem of Palestine.

“Few people, I imagine, can withhold their deep sympathy from the Jews for the long centuries of the most terrible oppression to which they have been subjected all over Europe. Fewer still can repress their indignation at the barbarities and racial suppression of the Jews which the N***s have indulged in during the last few years, and which continue today. Even outside Germany, Jew-baiting has become a favourite pastime of various fascist groups.

"This revival in an intense form of racial intolerance and race war is utterly repugnant to me and I have been deeply distressed at the sufferings of vast numbers of people of the Jewish race. Many of these unfortunate exiles, with no country or home to call their own, are known to me, and some I consider it an honour to call my friends. I approach this question therefore with every sympathy for the Jews. So far as I am concerned, the racial or the religious issue does not affect my opinion.

"But my reading of war-time and post-war history shows that there was a gross betrayal of the Arabs by British imperialism. The many promises that were made to them by Colonel Lawrence and others, on behalf of the British Government, and which resulted in the Arabs helping the British and Allied Powers during the war, were consistently ignored after the war was over. All the Arabs, in Syria, Iraq, Trans-jordan and Palestine, smarted under this betrayal, but the position of the Arabs in Palestine was undoubtedly the worst of all.

"Having been promised freedom and independence repeatedly from 1915 onwards, suddenly they found themselves converted into a mandatory territory with a new burden added on— the promise of the creation of a national home for the Jews — a burden which almost made it impossible for them to realise independence.

"The Jews have a right to look to Jerusalem and their Holy Land and to have free access to them. But the position after the Balfour declaration was very different. A new state within a state was sought to be created in Palestine, an ever-growing state with the backing of British imperialism behind it, and the hope was held out that this new Jewish state would, in the near future, become so powerful in numbers and in economic position that it would dominate the whole of Palestine.

"Zionist policy aimed at this domination and worked for it, though, I believe, some sections of Jewish opinion were opposed to this aggressive attitude. Inevitably, the Zionists opposed the Arabs and looked for protection and support to the British Government. Such case as the Zionists had might be called a moral one, their ancient associations with their Holy Land and their present reverence for it. One may sympathise with it. But what of the Arabs? For them also it was a holy land — both for the Muslim and the Christian Arabs.

"For thirteen hundred years or more they had lived there and all their national and racial interests had taken strong roots there. Palestine was not an empty land fit for colonisation by outsiders. It was a well-populated and full land with little room for large numbers of colonists from abroad. Is it any wonder that the Arabs objected to this intrusion? And their objection grew as they realised that the aim of British imperialism was to make the Arab-Jew problem a permanent obstacle to their independence. We in India have sufficient experience of similar obstacles being placed in the way of our freedom by British imperialism.

"It is quite possible that a number of Jews might have found a welcome in Palestine and settled down there. But when the Zionists came with the avowed object of pushing out the Arabs from all places of importance and of dominating the country, they could hardly be welcomed. And the fact that they have brought much money from outside and started industries and schools and universities cannot diminish the opposition of the Arabs, who see with dismay the prospect of their becoming permanently a subject race, dominated, politically and economically, by the Zionists and the British Government.

"The problem of Palestine is thus essentially a nationalist one— a people struggling for independence against imperialist control and exploitation. It is not a racial or religious one. Perhaps some of our Muslim fellow countrymen extend their sympathy to the Arabs because of the religious bond.

"But the Arabs are wiser and they lay stress only on nationalism and independence, and it is well to remember that all Arabs, Christian as well as Muslim, stand together in this struggle against British imperialism. Indeed, some of the most prominent leaders of the Arabs in this national struggle have been Christians.

"If the Jews had been wise, they would have thrown in their lot with the Arab struggle for independence. Instead, they have chosen to side with British imperialism and to seek its protection against the people of the country….

"The Arabs of Palestine will no doubt gain their independence, but this is likely to be a part of the larger unity of Arab peoples for which the countries of western Asia have so long hankered after, and this again will be part of the new order which will emerge out of present-day chaos. The Jews, if they are wise, will accept the teaching of history, and make friends with the Arabs and throw their weight on the side of the independence of Palestine, and not seek a position of advantage and dominance with the help of the imperialist power.”

10/01/2024

Julia Hartley-Brewer doesn't like the term "ethnic cleansing". She prefers the term "forced relocation", and asks whether it might not be the only solution to "the Palestinian problem". She then goes on to explain that if the other Arab nations cared so much about the Palestinians, then they would take them in.

In doing so, she is echoing the sentiments of a certain little Bohemian corporal in a speech he made on January 30th 1939:

"...In connection with the Jewish question I have this to say: it is a shameful spectacle to see how the whole democratic world is oozing sympathy for the poor tormented Jewish people, but remains hard-hearted and obdurate when it comes to helping them which is surely, in view of its attitude, an obvious duty. " *

Ms. Hartley-Brewer has chosen her historical company in which to sit, and a damned disturbing choice it is. Not that she'll be called out on it.

*The quoted speech appears in a fuller form on the Yad Vashem website, the Centre for Holocaust Remembrance.

Novara Live broadcasts every weekday from 6PM on YouTube and Twitch. Episodes of Downstream are released Sundays at 6PM on YouTube. _________________________...

09/01/2024

When Blair was Leader of the Opposition he wasn't based in the office Starmer occupies. The current Leader of the Opposition's physical office has no connection to Blair, which makes it even funnier that they've named a room after him.
- Alex Nunns

04/01/2024

Today I hear about the Home Secretary, James Cleverly, *joking* about using the rape-drug Rohypnol on his wife. He thought it was a private thing that no-one would ever hear about, because he only said it in Downing Street, the very seat of our government, and only in front of a roomful of journalists, both male and female.

Which raises numerous questions, principal among which must be: just who and what the hell are these awful bloody people, these blithering, clueless, blundering and amoral incompetents who are running our country? Where the hell did these people come from? Why do we tolerate them and their total lack of respect for the high offices and responsibilities they hold? Why must we always put up with their tasteless behaviour, their outrageous frauds and all their manifold deceits and conceits? These are awful, awful people, acting from the basest of motives and lacking even the sophistication to conceal their evil intentions from us.

Why would anyone in their right mind tolerate such people?

Anyway, it's all alright now, because our dreadful little sq**rt of a Prime Minister has said he considers the matter "closed". 🤬

27/12/2023

Errrmmm...THE EXPRESS. Who couldn't get us out of the EU quick enough. Actually, this is the old Europe-wide high-speed rail scheme, of which HSR2 was a part...but has, oddly enough, been cancelled since it became ineligible for the EU subsidies that have been building this network across Europe. Cancelled by the same idiot Tories who took us out of the EU because the EU was about to introduce new anti-tax-evasion and money-laundering laws. Only reason we left the EU, btw. If you thought it was about anything else, you've been had.

26/12/2023

Salting the land so nothing will grow is a long-established method of rendering land unliveable. It's what the Romans did to Carthage when they destroyed the place and her people. This absolutely is genocide that is being committed, and it's high time that the international laws, currently being broken on a daily basis, are enforced by the rest of the world. Otherwise, they have no meaning.

Senior hydrologist warns Israeli plan would constitute one element of the crime of genocide

23/12/2023

You know.....this world. Today I read about a four year old child stabbed to death by a woman in Hackney, where I used to live back in the mid-nineties. It seems unthinkable, unconscionable....and yet, also, every time I look at the news, I see that hundreds more Palestinian children, infants and babies, are being slaughtered in Gaza. And apparently, that's OK, under the guise of "getting the terrorists". According to our media and government. "Israel has a right to defend herself". Against babies, infants, old people, hospitals...

Well, there can never be any justification for that sort of abomination, not in this modern era. Individually and collectively, we're all here to look after babies and infants, and the elderly, the sick and the helpless. Not just our own, any of them, anywhere. If you're not fully engaged with that deeply human purpose and wholly committed to it, then it really doesn't matter what treasures you might store up on this earth, you've missed the point of your own existence. You are your very own "existential threat".

19/12/2023

Israel are NOT "going after Hamas fighters". This is about the Christian church that came under attack by an Israeli tank yesterday. You can't show yourself outside the church, they have an IDF sniper who picked off a woman and her daughter yesterday. Israeli forces have shot the janitor, they've shot the bin-man. Forget trying to surrender, wave a white flag, telling them you're a civilian and unarmed. Look what happened to the three Israeli hostages who tried that, whilst calling out in Hebrew who they were. Gunned down where they stood, murdered by the IDF.

It's blindingly obvious that Israeli troops have been given orders to murder anyone and everyone, indiscriminately and under the guise of "going after Hamas".

The modern state of Israel is an abused child of generational abuse, and is now acting out in the most criminal and murderous way. And rather than do anything about it, our governments here and in the US, look on with approval and encouragement for the problem child: the disturbed teenager that has taken to acting out its own abused and dysfunctional background on anyone weaker and more helpless than themselves. At most, the parents meekly say, "Now, now, take a break from playtime, darling, please." As the problem child happily strangles the infants they've been keeping in a cage in the back-yard, and shows no signs of stopping.

Novara Live broadcasts every weekday from 6PM on YouTube and Twitch. Episodes of Downstream are released Sundays at 6PM on YouTube. _________________________...

17/12/2023

Unbelievable incompetence, not to mention a complete lack of discipline. The IDF are a bunch of scruffy, trigger-happy conscripts with no concern for human life, or international rules of engagement. For them it was never about saving the hostages, it seems. The men whom they murdered were shirtless, unarmed and waving a white flag...at people they thought were there to rescue them. The IDF, finding new ways to make a massacre even more tragic. To quote "Apocalypse Now", they're "out there operating without any decent restraint, totally beyond the pale of any acceptable human conduct."

EDIT: if that's what they do to their own people, that tells me that they're murdering civilians indiscriminately. Not because they "think they're Hamas fighters", but because someone further up the chain of command has told them to shoot anything that moves. When I compared Israel's ground-strategy to that behind the My Lai massacre the other day, I don't think I was that far off.

Captives’ families plan protest march to pressure government as talks with Qatar resume in Europe

14/12/2023

IDF execution-style massacre of women, children and babies seeking refuge in a school in Gaza. Shot point blank with side-arms, not killed by bombing or shelling.

I honestly don't know how anyone can justify this to themselves. I know the official government/ media Axis justifications that are deployed: "Israel has a right to defend herself." "Hamas have embedded themselves within the civilian population, some collateral civilian damage is acceptable". And the good old. "Well, they had it coming".

I'll deal with those one by one:

"Israel has a right to defend herself." Yes, and the Israeli government was warned thirty-six hours upfront of an impending terror-attack by Hamas, coming out of Gaza. By, of all people, the Egyptian government. The Israeli government chose to ignore the warning and chose not to redeploy troops to defend those settlements immediately adjacent to Gaza. That would have been self-defence, but they chose to let it happen and then go down a path of massive retaliation against a civilian population instead. Something expressly forbidden by international law, namely Article 33 of the Geneva Convention of 1949.

"Hamas have embedded themselves within the civilian population, some collateral civilian damage is acceptable". Yes, well that was the strategic thinking behind the My Lai massacre too. It was believed that the VC 48th Local Force Battalion had taken refuge in the Son My area, and embedded themselves among the local civilian population. By the time the acceptability of civilian collateral damage had filtered it's way down the US chain of command, it'd translated into "anyone who runs is a VC". Including women and children. We all know how that turned out.

"Well, they had it coming". Really? Premature babies dead in incubators in bombed-out hospitals? I can't imagine the human conscience that can adjust itself to that. And anyone who believes that the history of the region starts on Oct 7th 2023 is demonstrating a profound ignorance of history. Frankly, if that justification is to be accepted, then the British would have been quite justified in carpet-bombing Jewish settlers in 1946 after the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem in 1946 by Irgun.
..and yes, Britain did indeed firebomb Dresden and Hamburg during WW2, but that was after we'd taken 143,000 civilian casualties in the seven month period known as the Blitz. The response was proportionate, and it was warfare: when our bombers went over, they were facing an enemy equipped with squadrons of day and night fighters, numerous anti-aircraft batteries, radar and all the co-ordinated responses of a fully-equipped enemy in the field....and the RAF suffered huge casualties in consequence. That was warfare. When you bomb a completely defenceless civilian population, with no air force, no anti-aircraft defences etc....that's not a war you're conducting. It's genocide. For which there can never be any moral justification.

I could write reams more on this topic, I've barely skimmed the surface. I'm looking at it from the point of view of a historian, however amateur I may be, and thinking of how these historical chains of cause and effect usually play out. And let me tell you, there are always survivors of genocides, and the ethnic cleansing of any region is always a bloody, dirty business, and casts a very long, very turbulent shadow across that region and her peoples, sometimes for centuries.

Now we have evidence that it might not stop at Gaza. The Israeli Ambassador in Paris gave a speech the other day, where he appeared alongside a map of "Greater Israel", that marked the kingdom of Jordan as Israeli territory. He also said that there are no such people as Palestinians, that they're a historical invention. Which I have to say is one of the most contemptuously racist conceits I've ever heard. I wish I could say that it's the first time I'd ever heard of an entire ethnicity and their very identity being slandered like that....but it's not.

I cannot believe the times through which I'm living. The world seems to have learned nothing.

Oh, hang on, I forgot the other one: "why don't the Palestinians just protest peacefully?" Well, they do. They've tried that on the anniversary of the Nakba, when they just go down to the fence of their prison-camp and stand in peaceful protest. The last two times, the IDF opened fire on them, on one occasion resulting in sixty casualties. including international journalists who were hit while standing quite separately from the protesters and identifiable by their hi-vis media vests. Peaceful protest is somewhat difficult to persist with when it's met by live rounds. And again, from a historical perspective, British troops opening fire on a peaceful march by the Irish Civil Rights Movement was what kicked off The Troubles in Northern Ireland. Opening fire on peaceful protesters is the best recruiting sergeant ever for violent paramilitary forces.

07/12/2023

Those Royal Fail "tracked" services are utter bo****ks.

You know...if a socialist government had done that to our postal service, we'd never hear the end of it....but then, that's late-stage capitalism in the UK for you: the efficient public services of Soviet-era Bulgaria, just with higher rents and bills. 🤬

05/12/2023

There's only two Tory policies- and this includes Starmer's Labour too:

1: Breaking something important, on a promise that it'll make your life better.
2: Promising to make other peoples' lives worse, but not yours, oh no...on a promise that it'll make your life better.

If you believe either, you're a damned fool. And it's that simple.

04/12/2023

Interesting. The RMT, under Mick Lynch's leadership, has won a first round of concessions from the government and rail bosses. One of the most significant things that they've won is the abandonment of the idea of driver-only trains, and they'll continue to campaign against the idea of unmanned stations.

Why are these significant? Well, it comes down to a very real threat to safety, and particularly to womens' safety on our transport systems. Meanwhile, there are still idiots who continue to believe that the greatest threat in our society to womens' safety are trans-women using female toilets. Despite there being no statistical evidence whatsoever to support this. Trans women attacking women in female toilets just isn't a thing. I looked, I searched, I could find no evidence of this ever happening.

Meanwhile, as an experienced security management professional, I can see a whole world of problems with entirely unmanned railway stations and driver-only trains. That really would be a happy hunting-ground for criminals of the very worst stripe, and one for which I could not, in all conscience, sign off a risk assessment. CCTV offers you no protection whatsoever: all it takes is a hoodie or balaclava for the criminal to be beyond identification. Manned guarding is about the only thing that will keep you safe, and I've delivered lectures to security conferences at the NEC on this very subject, complete with CCTV footage of real incidents to demonstrate my points. I've likened it to the defence of our borders being reliant on radar, but having no airforce or missiles on call: that's CCTV with no manned guarding. The two have to work together, and if you absolutely had to ditch one....well, me, I'd ditch the CCTV before I'd ditch the manpower to deal with the criminals. Believe me, I know whereof I speak. I did this stuff for a living, and competently. Unlike the rail bosses.... and unlike JK Rowling and her callow, witless adherents, who have not the first idea about the professional management of risk, and who are motivated merely by the prejudices emitting from their own foul minds, enabled by bu****it culture-wars propaganda.

Thank heavens for sensible voices like Mick Lynch, who've served their time on the ground and in management, motivated neither by profit nor hatred and who have some idea of what they're talking about.

Today the RMT Union are celebrating an end to 18 months worth of strike action. Lynch and the union have secured no compulsory redundancies until the end of ...

23/11/2023

The mindset that lies behind the "liberal" facade. This idiot was just dumb enough to say it on camera. There are plenty who are far more careful... and it's institutional.
This exemplifies the neo-colonialism and western exceptionalism that lurk behind the veneer of liberal bromides that emanate from our western governments. Their actions are consistent with this neo-colonial world view, not their carefully-worded, focus-grouped press statements.

As someone once said, scratch a liberal and you'll find a fascist.

Novara Live broadcasts every weekday from 6PM on YouTube and Twitch. Episodes of Downstream are released Sundays at 6PM on YouTube. _________________________...

18/11/2023

The world slowly starts to turn against the Likkud government and their genocide, their ethnic cleansing. It's too little, too late, of course for the many thousands of dead innocents. If you aren't raising your voice in protest now, when will you? And what will history make of your silence?

Since Israel began its bombardment of Gaza, 9 countries have withdrawn their ambassadors or severed ties. They've called for an immediate ceasefire and for h...

16/11/2023

The King's speech:
"My government will act to keep people safe from crime, terrorism and illegal migration."

Crime: Oh yeah, then why did that same government shut down all the Police stations, then? Who's out there fighting crime? Rishi Sunak in tights and a feckin' cape?

Terrorism: not really been a real danger for me since the 1980's, when I was last caught up in an IRA bomb-scare. Sure, there's a billion to one chance you might get killed by terrorists, but frankly, you've got more chance of being struck by lightning while simultaneously winning the euro-millions. Not something of which I live in daily fear. Resource the Police properly, they'll deal with 99 percent of it before it even happens.

Illegal migration: doesn't bother me in the slightest. Back in my early days in the security industry, half the people in it were illegal migrants. Sound chaps, generally. Tended to try a bit harder, know what I mean?

So, what DOES concern me?

Spiraling inflation: if it carries on like this, food'll be a luxury.

Soaring energy prices: we're not far off having to take out bank loans just to stay warm in winter.

Wages failing to keep pace with inflation: If inflation's seven percent and your annual pay-rise is two percent, that's a de facto five percent wage CUT. Some people have had a decade of that, year on year.

Lack of entry-level affordable housing. Self-explanatory.

Being cut off from the rest of Europe. Things were better and easier when we weren't. Oh yes, they were. It's a ridiculous situation, and we need to grow up and start making some sort of a deal with our nearest neighbours and allies. We're out of the EU now, all the posturing and blustering can stop, we need to get real now.

The NHS: three generations of my family, including me, have paid into it, and without so much as a by-your-leave, it's being flogged off piecemeal to god-knows-who and run into the ground. Nearly eight million people on waiting lists? Do something about that! That's far more of a very real, existential threat to me and mine than the miniscule chance of me being blown up by some mad bomber!

Oh, and all those privatised services that now run like s**t. Literally, in the case of what private water companies pump out into our rivers and onto our once-lovely beaches. You care about our country? Oh yeah?
...oh, and six days on, I'm still waiting for my Royal Snail "Tracked 24" package to arrive. Renationalise the lot now!

So, the King's speech? Completely irrelevant and out of touch with the long-suffering people of this country and our real, actual problems. It's just the vapourings of a tiny band of billionaire psychos acting the hardman for your benefit, because they reckon that'll placate you.

Does it?

15/11/2023

Royal Fail "Tracked 24". Five days and still waiting.
Yet another privatised, no longer fit-for-purpose service that worked perfectly well when it was publicly-owned.

Now THAT'S the sort of thing that makes a very real difference to my life and yours. It will make not the slightest difference to you or I if a small boat lands on the south coast, or an Easter egg fails to say "Easter" on it. While people have been buying into that sort of daft kids' stuff, they've run the bloody country and its infrastructure into the ground.

They're still at it. It's not an accident, it's not the fault of Covid, Ukraine or dinghies full of migrants. It's THEM. They're at it, and all they ever do, all they will ever do, is take stuff away from you. Stuff that you've bought and paid for many times over.