Our three neo-con major political parties have come up with a jolly cunning plan to lift money direct from the taxpayer, in addtion to being paid by big business to promote the interests of big business against the people.
Former U.K. Ambassador to Uzbekistan and Human Rights Activist Craig Murray
A government inquiry is recommending that £20 million a year in public funding be given to the three neo-con parties. Is there no end to their greed? I suppose the logic is perfect – it will finally cement into our political system the monopoly of power by parties that are arrogantly unrepresentative of the will of the people, knowing that their system, above all by control of the media, locks out any alternative from competing for political power.
I write with certainty that all our three political parties are now neo-conservative, but with great sadness. The Tories became fully neo-con around 1979, New Labour around 1996 and the Lib Dems around 2010. All the parties contain still a minority of resisters, the fewer the longer they have been neo-con. So Ken Clarke is an almost entirely isolated resister in the Tory party, Jeremy Corbyn one of very few left in New Labour, while the Lib Dems still have a few Norman Bakers who have not yet been entirely corrupted by power and money, but you can see the process working on the Lib Dems like acid and their integrity will have been completely eaten through in another 18 months.
Meanwhile, there are some who don’t get it, like poor deluded old bat Polly Toynbee, who still has not worked out that New Labour went neo-con. Yesterday’s Toynbee article has the headline: “Executive pay soars while the young poor face freefall. Where is Labour?” You are a fool, Toynbee. The ex-ministers of the last New Labour government are in the boardroom picking up those massive remunerations and perks you are rightly complaining about. Did you really not know that, or do you just refuse to see?
New Labour is now neo-con, Toynbee. It is fifteen years since Peter Mandelson said that “New Labour is intensely relaxed about the filty rich.” Mandelson and Blair and Hewitt and Jowell and Milburn and Burnham and Reid and Blunkett and the whole lot of them are now filthy rich. Somebody explain this to Toynbee.
But it is an extremely important point that I did not see a single mainstream politician yesterday questioning the obscenity of directors’ earnings rising over 49% last year – from a huge base – when average real incomes were falling. The media was packed with apologists explaining trickledown theory to us. I also noted that the Occupy movement needs to beware of the media appearing to give them coverage, when in fact the media are deliberately picking on people whose hearts, instincts and minds are all in the right place, but who lack media experience and formal education in the ground on which the media places them. The media can then give the impression of debate with the cards severely stacked, to make the view that in fact the large majority of those at home will hold, that executive salaries are obscene and untenable, appear amateur and ill-informed.
The parties do not represent us and their collective membership is falling, as they are now a vehicle for career rather than belief. No wonder they want to pick our pockets to keep up the pretence of democracy.
About Craig Murray
Most recently, Craig Murray was British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004.
Personal Biography:
Craig Murray was born in West Runton in October 1958 and educated at Sheringham Primary and Paston Grammar schools.
He graduated from the University of Dundee in 1982 with a MA (Hons) 1st Class in Modern History.
From 1982 to 1984 he was President of Dundee University Students Association and he was a member of Dundee’s tournament winning Granada TV University Challenge team in 1983.
Professional Biography:
In 1984 he joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. As a member of the Diplomatic Service his responsibilities included the following:
1986-9 Second Secretary, Commercial, British High Commission, Lagos
Responsible for promoting British exports to, and business interests in, Nigeria.
1989-92 Head of Maritime Section, FCO, London
Responsible for negotiation of the UK and Dependent Territory continental shelf and fisheries boundaries, for implementation of the Channel Tunnel treaty and for negotiations on the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. From August 1990 to August 1991 he was also head of the FCO Section of the Embargo Surveillance Centre, responsible for intelligence analysis on Iraqi attempts at evading sanctions, particularly in the field of weapons procurement, and with providing information to UK military forces and to other governments to effect physical enforcement of the embargo.
1992-4 Head of Cyprus Section, FCO London
Responsible for UN negotiations on the Cyprus dispute, relations with the government of Cyprus and for the mandate and requirements of the British contingent of the UN force in Cyprus,
1994-7 First Secretary (Political and Economic), British Embassy, Warsaw
Head of the Political and Economic sections of our Embassy in Poland. Responsible for relations with Poland, and assisting Poland’s post-communist transition process with reference to preparation for EU membership.
1997-8 Deputy Head, Africa Department (Equatorial), Foreign and Commonwealth Office
Responsible for British political and commercial relationships with West Africa, including development issues.
1998-2002 Deputy High Commissioner, British High Commission, West Africa Branch
Responsible for British economic, political, commercial and aid relationships with Ghana and Togo. In Autumn 1998 Craig Murray was the UK Representative at the Sierra Leone Peace talks held in Togo, Liberia and Sierra Leone, including direct negotiation with the RUF terrorist leadership.
2002-2004 British Ambassador, Uzbekistan
Responsible for our relationship with Uzbekistan. He found Western support for the dictatorial Karimov regime unconscionable, as detailed in the rest of this website.
At the 2005 UK General Election, Craig Murray takes on Foreign Secretary Jack Straw in Blackburn as an Independent candidate, winning 2,082 votes.
No responses yet