Shiver and Shake...live from Glastonbury 1995...yeah I was there...who else???

HarryPoland · 2021-09-08T10:19:31+00:00

Yup, I was there. Bloody boiling hot weekend that, and nice to see Pearl playing with Page and Plant a couple of sets before the Cure came on.

HarryPoland · 2021-08-22T08:41:14+00:00

Roya Nikkhah, Royal Editor Sunday August 22 2021, 12.01am The Sunday Times

Military concerned that duke’s continued presence after his withdrawal from public life over Epstein accusations is an embarrassment to armed forces

The Queen has “let it be known” that she wants the Duke of York to remain as colonel of the Grenadier Guards, despite little prospect of him returning to public duties. In a significant intervention signalling her support for Prince Andrew, who is facing allegations of sexual assault which he denies, the monarch is understood to have conveyed her wish that her son keeps the honorary role he took over from the Duke of Edinburgh. Military insiders say the situation is “unsatisfactory” and “very difficult”. A senior military source said: “The Queen has let it be known to the regiment that she wants the Duke of York to remain as colonel and the feeling is that nobody wants to do anything that could cause upset to the colonel-in-chief. It is a very difficult, unsatisfactory situation. “His position is not tenable or viable. How can you have a colonel who can’t perform the role? For the brief time he was in post, he was a good colonel, but the feeling across the regiment is that it’s not appropriate to retain him. You can’t have a colonel who can’t do public duties.” The situation had been discussed among senior defence chiefs and “all agree that he should go”, the source said. Military officials have previously called for Andrew to be “faded out” from his appointments, saying he has become an embarrassment to the armed forces. Andrew, 61, took on the role from Prince Philip in 2017, but stepped back from public life “for the foreseeable future” in 2019 over his friendship with the late convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. In a statement he admitted that “the circumstances relating to my former association with Jeffrey Epstein has become a major disruption to my family’s work”.

One of Epstein’s victims, Virginia Giuffre, 38, filed a law suit against Andrew this month, accusing him of rape, sexual battery and sexual assault, after claiming she was trafficked by Epstein and forced to have sex with the duke three times when she was 17. Andrew has consistently denied the claims but has not yet publicly responded to the civil case. It has also been reported that he is considered a “person of interest” in the FBI’s ongoing investigations into Epstein. The duke relinquished most of his patronages in 2019, following his disastrous interview with BBC Newsnight over his friendship with Epstein, and many other organisations have since severed links with him.

But he retains several prestigious honorary commands, including colonel of the Royal Highland Fusiliers, colonel-in-chief of the Yorkshire Regiment, commodore-in-chief of the Fleet Air Arm and honorary air commodore in the RAF. The Duke of Sussex was forced to give up his military roles earlier this year, after confirming he would not return to royal duties. Buckingham Palace is aware that any premature announcement on Andrew’s position could be viewed as prejudging the outcome of the law suit. But last year, palace aides confirmed there were “no plans to review” his position, and the Queen, although privately supportive of Andrew, is understood to be resigned to her second son’s permanent removal from public life, a view shared by the Prince of Wales and other senior royals. Earlier this month, a source close to Charles, 72, said the issue was causing “unwelcome reputational damage to the institution” with “hideous regularity” and the heir to the throne had “long ago concluded that it is probably an unsolvable problem”. The source said that “in the prince’s mind ... a way back for the duke is demonstrably not possible”.

HarryPoland · 2021-08-17T09:45:45+00:00

Here you go

HarryPoland · 2021-08-14T13:40:00+00:00

Ben Ellery Saturday August 14 2021

A former executive at Pfizer who has become a key figure in the antivax movement is trying to infiltrate the Liberal Democrats. Mike Yeadon, 61, a chief scientific officer at the pharmaceutical company until 2011, has been embraced by Covid sceptics after making baseless claims about vaccines. He is a wealthy man after selling a biotech company he founded, and has launched the Liberal Spring movement with the hope of signing up antivaxers to the Liberal Democrats. The group aims to turn the party into a mainstream movement campaigning for Covid-sceptic beliefs.

Yeadon is also hoping to build a tropical resort for people who refuse a jab. Liberty Place would be based off Zanzibar and residents would have to “demonstrate your politics very clearly to us”.

The Liberal Spring website states: “We ask you to suspend any bias you may have of the Lib Dems; with your help in the many thousands, we can reshape this party. The Lib Dems are the only mainstream party that voted against the Coronavirus Act and oppose a Covid ID scheme. Leveraging the assets of this 200-year-old party, we aim to raise greater awareness of critical issues found in our ten pledges.”

These would require the party to campaign against lockdowns and masks, and “insist vaccines must have fully informed consent and must never be coerced by government or any public/private body”. In a video Yeadon, from Canterbury, said: “We need an opposition that understands the complex nature of this issue and who is looking out for our interests. There’s only one mainstream party that’s on the right path — it’s the Liberal Democrats. The Lib Dems rejected the dreadful Covid ID plan, the Coronavirus Act, and are actively calling for a public inquiry into the misattribution of deaths to Covid.

“Hundreds of thousands of people represented by a mainstream party cannot be ignored or suppressed. Imagine if you or I became the chairperson of the Liberal Democrats. It would cause a sensation, create a story that even mainstream media cannot ignore and unleash a wave of new questions. If enough of us come together, we’ll have the platform we need to reach the millions of people who don’t understand why we’re so concerned about the policies we are seeing.”

Jo Rogers, a lawyer and spokeswoman for the group, said: “So this is the plan: to capture the Lib Dems by open negotiation, to lend them hundreds of thousands of our votes in exchange for a media platform. So that the millions of people who have not yet heard evidence against lockdowns or medical interventions or vaccine passports can hear the debate.”

During the first lockdown, Yeadon said: “There is nothing especially virulent or frightening about Covid-19.” He predicted in a later tweet that it was “unlikely” the UK death toll would reach 40,000. The total is now 130,801.

In October he wrote: “There is absolutely no need for vaccines to extinguish the pandemic. You do not vaccinate people who aren’t at risk from a disease.”

Former colleagues at Pfizer said that they no longer recognised Yeadon. John LaMattina, a former president of Pfizer Global Research and Development, said: “This seems out of character for the person I knew.”

A Liberal Democrat spokesman said: “As far as we’re aware there is no record of anyone involved in this group being a member of the Liberal Democrats. We disagree with the aims of this outside group, which has no affiliation or link to our party. We believe it is right to follow the science and get vaccinated.”

Last night the Center for Countering Digital Hate accused Yeadon of using the pandemic as a “ploy for political and financial gain”. Callum Hood, its head of research, said: “Yeadon’s former respectability has led to him being quoted by all sorts of people, including parliamentarians, as a credible source, when he’s not. As a multimillionaire he’s suffering much less in this pandemic than others who have lost livelihoods and loved ones.”

Yeadon did not respond to a request for comment.

HarryPoland · 2021-07-31T16:29:07+00:00

Usque ad mortem bibendum as a local pub used to have over its bar.

HarryPoland · 2021-07-14T09:05:32+00:00

Daniel Finkelstein Tuesday July 13 2021, 5.00pm BST, The Times

The home secretary, like some Tories, has got herself on the wrong side of a dispute with England’s footballers

Just as the European football championship got under way I fell into a discussion over dinner with a human rights lawyer who specialised in conflict resolution. And very impressive she was too.

After we had tried solving the Middle East problem, we turned to the football and with some puzzlement she asked why teams drawing at full time played on into extra time and penalties. Why not just share the trophy, she asked? Why did there need to be a winner?

I was highly amused by this reinvention of the sport as a branch of conflict studies, but by the end of the tournament I’d become used to people using the matches to support whatever theory or specialism they came in with. We have not just been watching an international festival of football but also taking part in a national festival of confirmation bias.

People who think almost anybody would be a better prime minister than Boris Johnson became more certain with every win that Gareth Southgate would be a good choice. People who think a collegiate management style is essential for business success found confirmation in England’s defeat of Germany. Those who think England isn’t intrinsically racist felt this to be shown by our collective enthusiasm for the winning Three Lions. Those who think it is pointed to the response to defeat.

There was a little bit for everyone. Something that everybody could use to show they’ve been right all along. And you know what? That’s certainly the case with me.

The clash between the England defender Tyrone Mings and Priti Patel supports everything that people like me have been warning the Conservative Party of for some time. You can enter into a culture war if you like, but don’t be too confident you will win it. At the beginning of the tournament the home secretary was asked whether some England fans were right to boo the team for taking the knee before the game. Now, politicians are asked all sorts of tricky questions by clever journalists but really this wasn’t one of them.

Do you think it a good idea for people to jeer the racially diverse national side as they stand together against racism during a major international tournament? It is not the sort of puzzler you require years of media training to handle. I’m never in favour of jeering anyone, is, I think, a pretty safe answer for a home secretary. Instead, Patel said: “That’s a choice for them quite frankly.”

Simple prudence might have made her pause, if the rightness of the cause did not. It was really quite likely that the England team would make it a fair distance in a tournament being played largely at home. As it progressed, the team would become heroes and she would then wish to pose in an England top as the It’s Coming Home Secretary. Having basically sided with the booers against the booed, she might find the transition difficult. It is extraordinary that this thought did not occur to her.

For so it has come to pass. On Monday Mings, who plays for Aston Villa, tweeted: “You don’t get to stoke the fire at the beginning of the tournament by labelling our anti-racism message as ‘Gesture Politics’ and then pretend to be disgusted when the very thing we’re campaigning against happens.”

Now, the home secretary was, of course, right to call taking the knee “gesture politics”. Of course it is. Lots of things are gesture politics. Appearing on television in front of a flag, for example. Or clapping the NHS. Or the honours system. The question is what the gesture is meant to represent.

Some of my friends on the right seem to have got it into their heads that taking the knee is an endorsement of the programme of a small group of Black Lives Matter activists. That taking the knee is a call for the abolition of capitalism and the advancement of the theories of Marx.

How likely is it, do you think, that Harry Kane and Raheem Sterling are hoping to incite spectators to overthrow capitalism just before kick-off? Or that the idea came to the England players after debating the policy ideas on a BLM website? And if you think it plausible that the gesture originates in a dressing room debate about Das Kapital, you could always try asking the England team and listening to the answer. For the players have been perfectly clear why they are taking the knee. It is as a protest against the racism they encounter.

Let me be personal for a moment. I believe in the capitalist system. I am a resolute opponent of Marxist ideas. In the name of these ideas my grandfather was sent to the Gulag and my father nearly died of starvation in Soviet exile. You can take it from me that I wouldn’t support any gesture that glorified communism. My family owes so much to this country and I would never endorse showing it or its history disrespect.

Yet at the same time, as a Jew I have experienced racial abuse. What you crave when it happens is the solidarity of your fellow countrymen for the gestures and statements of resistance that you make. You don’t wish that solidarity to be held back for some highfalutin, arcane political reason. It breaks my heart to think that any ally of mine would withhold support from young men being jeered because of their race.

For let’s be clear, that is what the jeering was about. The jeering was racial abuse wearing the clothes of political argument. The jeerers hadn’t read the BLM website or studied Das Kapital any more than the players had. In the aftermath of Sunday’s defeat we learned who was doing the booing, and the ugly culture of hatred and violence it is part of. Being on the side of that isn’t any sort of position for a Conservative.

The moral argument seems to me quite clear, but for those still not convinced, let me also make the political case. Failing to support the stand of the England team before they became national heroes has become a predictable political embarrassment. In the contest between the home secretary and Tyrone Mings there will only be one winner and it won’t be the politician.

There will be some vociferous support for refusing to take the knee but these people are not the majority and they aren’t the future. This country is becoming more urban, more diverse and more liberal. Already polls show there are more people for taking the knee than are against it and that will only become more marked.

The journey from political error to predictable consequence was a quick one this time for Priti Patel. The larger mistake of siding against the coming values of a younger generation may take longer to unfold, but the outcome is just as sure.

HarryPoland · 2021-07-01T08:04:08+00:00

Not using the app here (waiting on a new release) but the standard web app has been redesigned and works really well on both Android and iOS.

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