100 days of Starmer, lies, hypocrisy, and freebies

Keir Starmer’s hypocrisy is off the charts, over 43,000 Palestinians and Lebanese have died, the great majority innocent civilians, in Israeli attacks since October 7 last year, none of which have elicited much in the way of sympathy or concern from Keir Starmer, yet when Iran launched its missile attack on Israel yesterday, Starmer took to a televised address to the nation quicker than you could say “Here’s some free tickets to the football” in order to condemn Iran’s disregard for civilian life. Israel’s disregard for civilian life doesn’t count apparently. The world is waiting to see what happens when Israel retaliates, as it assuredly will. Iran has promised that if Israel does so it will respond with a “crushing attack” second wave. And so the dismal spiral of death and destruction continues to ratchet up.

A ceasefire seems further away than ever, not least because Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu has a personal reason for keeping the conflict going. He rejected overtures from his US allies to attempt to reach a ceasefire. That’s because the moment there is a ceasefire Netanyahu will be out of office and prosecuted for his rampant corruption. He will not baulk at committing war crimes in order to avoid that fate. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has said Israel’s action in Gaza could amount to genocide.

All attacks on innocent civilians are equally worthy of condemnation, but for all that Israel claims to be the victim, and it cannot be argued that Israeli civilians have suffered from some hideous attacks, this is a heavily asymmetric conflict, many times more Palestinians die at the hands of the Israelis than the other way around. It is abundantly clear that despite the protestations of the Israeli authorities to the contrary, the Israeli armed forces don’t bother themselves too much with protecting civilians who might be caught in their crosshairs.

If a ceasefire seems impossible, a permanent solution to the world’s most intractable geopolitical problem is now the stuff of fantasy. Everyone says they want peace, but when the powerful men with guns and missiles and drones on both sides say they want peace, what they really mean is that they want victory.

But for us here in the UK it’s the hypocrisy of Keir Starmer which sticks most in the craw. Starmer has uttered scarcely a word of criticism against Israel for its genocidal attack on Gaza, an attack whose devastation and death goes far beyond “Israel’s right to self-defence.” He has uttered not a single word about Israel’s apartheid policies against the Palestinians living in territories it controls nor the continuing and accelerating illegal land grabs taking place at the hands of the Israeli settler movement on the West Bank.

We hear a lot from Starmer about Israel’s right to defend itself, the right of the Palestinians to defend themselves, not so much, even though they are being killed or wounded in far far greater numbers than Israelis and their homes, schools and hospitals destroyed in a way that Israelis don’t experience.

As Richard McNeil-Willson, who lectures in the Islamic and Middle Eastern studies department at Edinburgh University noted about Starmer’s addrees last night when he again stressed Israel’s right to defend itself: “Even as a politics lecturer in a Middle East department, I am lost. Israel has a right to self defence, but Lebanon does not? Israelis have the right to be safe, but Palestinians do not? Iran can’t launch missiles into civilian areas, but Israel can? None of this is coherent. Starmer is incoherent in his total hypocrisy.”

It has very quickly become abundantly clear that those of us who were warning that Starmer was lying in order to get himself into Downing Street have been proven right.

Meanwhile on Twitter allegations originating from far right accounts have been circulating for days that Keir Starmer has taken out a super injunction in order to prevent some salacious details about his private life from coming out. The whole point of a super injunction is that it constitutes contempt of court to mention that the injunction even exists never mind anything about its contents. The thing about the “Starmer has a super injunction” crackpottery, is that if Starmer did such a thing he’d literally be the only person in the UK with one who could be asked about it live on national TV at PMQs where his questioner would be protected by Parliamentary immunity. Opposition is sending the online right mental.

It’s highly unlikely that there is any such injunction, no matter what some blue ticked idiot with connections to far right parties might say on Twitter, but even if there were, there are plenty of other, genuine reasons why Keir Starmer is a liar and a hypocrite whose popularity ratings will continue to plummet.

It has transpired that Keir Starmer and his colleagues have accepted gifts much more valuable than a few suits and designer glasses or the use of his millionaire mate’s penthouse flat. Waheed Alli, The Labour peer who has lavished such largesse on Starmer is under investigation by the House of Lords authorities for allegedly failing to properly declare his business dealings. He has now been placed under investigation by the Lords commissioners for standards for “alleged non-registration of interests”. It was revealed late last month that Lord Alli failed to declare that he is the director of a company based in a tax haven. He could stand to gain more than £425,000 from Mac (BVI) Limited, registered in the British Virgin Islands, openDemocracy reported.

The Times has reported that in recent years Starmer and other senior figures in the Labour party have accepted more than £1 million from casino bosses, on top of tens of thousands in freebies from bookies. Before the election, Chancellor Rachel Reeves accepted three tickets to a musical last year from the Betting and Gaming Council (BGC), alongside £20,000 in donations from betting firm bosses to fund her private office.

The Times reports that Labour have accepted £1.08m from the gambling sector, much of this from casino owner Derek Webb, which donated £750,000 this year and £300,000 in 2023. You don’t need to buy a scratch card from the corner shop when the bosses of gaming firms are opening their bank accounts for you.

Meanwhile the new Scottish Tory branch manager Russell Findlay has announced that the Scottish Tories plan to boycott any debates about independence at Holyrood. Findlay seems a bit confused about what a threat is, most of us would react to the news that the Tories are going to boycott a Holyrood debate with pleased relief. Can they not boycott Holyrood entirely? They’d be doing us all a favour.

Anas Sarwar has been urged to grow a backbone after it was reported that the Treasury has asked cabinet ministers to identify swingeing cut to capital projects budgets ahead of the autumn budget statement due later this month. During the general election campaign read my lips Sarwar not only promised no austerity under Labour, he also promised that a Labour government would borrow to increase spending on infrastructure projects. However spending is being cut instead. One broken promise after another, turning a blind eye to genocide and war crimes when they are committed by an ally of the UK, government sleaze and raking in ‘gifts’ while slashing the incomes of the poor and the elderly, apparently this is what change looks like.

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