+An article in this week’s New Statesman has reminded me, or perhaps more accurately alerted me to the fact that our established church has been without an Archbishop of Canterbury (ABC) for nine months. I doubt that the absence of this leadership has impinged on the lives of the country’s citizenry (on the question of precisely which country’s citizenry we’re talking about here is not entirely clear to me). As usual discussion about who or indeed what the next ABC is going to be is leading to a lot of handwringing if not bell ringing. I’m sure if CofE parishioners prayed successfully for a miracle it could be a model Labour Party members to immediately follow, to rid themselves of their own sub-performing middle manager (which is what Justin Welby was). The problem for the CofE, and religionists generally is that they build their edifices to honour themselves rather than their foundational texts. As a humble humanist and atheist to boot I would suggest that the next ABC should follow in the footsteps of Henry VIII, dissolve the stones of tradition and start afresh. Give English Heritage a decent part of the CofE’s £11billion wealth fund to look after the empty churches and do as Jesus did and get out amongst the poor and needy. Well, why shouldn’t I suggest things the CofE should do? I’m told it’s my established church and that I live in a Christian country. As it stands neither of those things are true in the proper sense of the word and perhaps it’s long past time to go down a different road.
​
+I joined a Zoom call hosted by Crispin Flintoff to discuss what the name of the new left party should be – current working title is ‘Your Party.’ I cautioned that whatever is chosen it has to be stuck to, since the usual dialectic about the left is that it endlessly debates what it is about and then splits. A more important question is who would be its leader. Corbyn has name recognition, but he is not qualified. He has, after all had two shots at the ultimate goal already. Nobody believes it would be third time lucky – at age 80?
 
+Back in July 2020 I suggested how pensioners’ winter fuel allowances and bus passes may end up being means tested. It hasn’t worked out in quite the way I foresaw, but now it is happening nevertheless. The winter fuel allowance means testing will be fairly generous, only affecting those who have incomes over £35,000.  But now, not attracting much attention yet is the real likelihood that bus passes too will be means tested. So far it is suggested that this will only be trialled on a regional basis, i.e. local councils will have to decide on their own schemes (with a little encouragement from the Treasury which will cut their grants). I guess if this means some pensioners will have to revert to travelling around in their Bentleys there will be more space on the buses for the rest of us.

+News outlets this morning are agog with speculation about the reasons for Tony Blair being at a meeting re: Gaza with Trump in the White House. It has been suggested that he is sharing his expertise with the property billionaires on how to turn the Middle East crisis into a business opportunity. But Blair’s record will not offer much hope to Palestinians. In this regard, a chapter on the subject, ‘A Hands-off Envoy: Blair in the Middle East,' in a 2015 book ‘Blair Inc. The Man Behind The Mask’ * tells us all we need to know about Blair’s use of his position as ‘envoy of the Quartet.’ It was Blair’s assumption that if he could regenerate the Palestinian economy with the support of the territory’s neighbours then a peaceful, liberal economy would follow. To be honest, I think Blair really believed that liberal democracies would follow liberal economies like night follows day. But as the authors of Blair Inc make clear, Blair didn’t really put a lot of effort into that aspect of the project. He nevertheless garnered more names on his Rolodex than the Emirates has gas reserves. In that regard alone it is conceivable that he may be of some use to Trump. I doubt that he will be able to convince the Israelis that they might usefully support anything which stops the expulsion of the Palestinians from what’s left of their country, either in Gaza or the West Bank. Blair’s involvement in the Middle East is likely to continue its trajectory as one long, unmitigated disaster.

*by Frances Beckett, David Hencke and Nick Kochan, pub. John Blake London 2015. Given Blair’s continuing influence, it would be good to see an update of this book. There is clearly an afterlife to Blair Inc.

+Also in the news is the fact that this year is set to be the hottest on record. Firefighters around the world know this to be true, and here in North Yorkshire our wildfires are setting the pace, although Scarborough has not quite matched Los Angeles yet. But the fires on the moors have closed roads and cut off communities. The land is tinder dry. There was a downpour of about ten minutes' duration yesterday - it took me a while to remember what rain looked like. And all the while the political zombies, Trump and Fartage et al are rising up against doing anything at all about climate change. They really do think their wealth will protect them. 

+Writing for Counterpunch about Zohran Mamdani’s appeal in the New York Mayor’s race, Stewart Lawrence had this to say:
 
'Why are younger Jews so supportive [of Mamdani]?  Research conducted by Samuel J. Abrams at the conservative American Enterprise Institute among Jewish college students gives the answer. “My  recent research on Jewish college students reveals that many progressive Jewish students are reinterpreting what it means to be Jewish; traditional practices, historical beliefs, and faith-based ideas and traditions are being hollowed out for a more general, humanistic world view. For young, progressive Jews, their identity is now defined less by faith and traditional Jewish practices or solidarity with the state of Israel, but more by universalist ethics, justice, and opposition to oppression—wherever it occurs.”'
 
I doubt that research supported by a right-wing think tank would bias their polling in a way that would favour Mamdani. If what they have found is true, then it is a good thing, and possibly reflects what has also happened elsewhere, not least in our own beloved ‘Christian’ country, where younger people are increasingly rejecting organised religion for more humanist solutions to human problems. Still, the Democrat Party old guard will still try to scupper Mamdani as they did Bernie Sanders—he may encourage genuine two party politics in the U.S.
 
+Up north in that big beautiful country Canada a recent by-election saw Pierre Poilievre the leader of the Conservatives, re-elected in a riding (constituency) formerly held by an MP who resigned to create the vacancy. Poilievre was booted out of parliament earlier this year in Canada’s general election. He had held his previous seat for over 20 years but was seen as too pro-Trump in what has been described as the ’Trump election.’ It says something when an MP stands down to help out the leader—no friendship greater than this, etc., etc. There’s surely a lesson here for the UK Tories. If they want to ditch Kemi, why not rehabilitate Liz Truss?
 
+The Independent’s travel writer Simon Calder recently wrote of his disdain for those Bexiteers who bemoan how UK passport holders will soon be no more accommodated at E.U. borders than any other ‘third country’ nationals such as Venezuelans. That’s just one way Brexit has allowed us to cherish our new blue passports. Another benefit of Brexit is our freedom to do separate trade deals, such as the recent tariff deal with the U.S. which means their ethanol imports to the U.K. will now arrive tariff-free. This means 160 U.K. jobs will be lost at Hull’s Saltend ethanol refinery, with, it is estimated, another 4,500 indirect jobs put at risk. Surely Reform UK will be celebrating ‘taking back control’ or at least the numpty Reform UK character elected this year as Mayor of Hull and East Yorkshire will be happy—ignorance, as they say, is bliss.

+I confess to thinking that Hamas, having lost so much of its leadership in Israeli assassinations is no longer capable of any serious strategic thought. With international opinion now increasingly coalescing behind recognition of a Palestinian state, Hamas’s continuing to hold hostages serves no real purpose, except to incite the Netanyahu/IDF nexus into further attacks. It’s an excuse which I believe Netanyahu relishes, since previous negotiations have broken down as Israel reneged on them.   As many have commented, Netanyahu’s government’s survival depends on his support from far-right zealots. To this extent he relies on a partnership with Hamas (whatever is left of it), apparently not for the first time.
 
+In a report on Labour’s last NEC meeting, NEC member Ann Black tells us that concerns were raised about the now proscribed ‘terrorist’ group Palestine Action. A big demo is set to take place in London on Saturday where supporters (or just opponents of genocide) aim to get arrested in such large numbers they will overwhelm police cells. In response to NEC members’ concerns, Black reported
 
‘Keir said that all organisations are held to the same standard, and Palestine Action has a history of break-ins, sabotage and targeting Jewish-owned businesses.  (The latter would indeed be disturbing but is not mentioned on the government website.)  He assured us that the ban is not intended to stifle debate on Palestine.   Though it is clogging up courts and police stations with pensioners for holding placards and Private Eye cartoons.’
 
It is true that some of the businesses which Palestine Action says it has targeted are Jewish owned, but their selection, they assert is based purely on their connections with the Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. Microsoft’s ‘Co-pilot’ suggests that Keysight Technologies (Berkshire) is one such non-Jewish owned business that has been attacked by Palestine Action. That Starmer thought only Jewish owned businesses were at risk is revealing but not surprising. Now it seems our spooks have lots more info on Palestine Action, as Craig Murray reveals in his report on the recent court case regarding Palestine Action’s attempt to lift the proscription. The court heard ‘evidence’ in secret away from our prying eyes. Really? Is Palestine Action threatening our national security now? All the examples so far known of the group’s actions could easily be dealt with under existing criminal law. 

An article in the New York Review of Books set me thinking about how to tackle populist politics of the right. One answer might of course be to have some popular politics on the left—well articulated and hopefully delivered by someone with a bit of charisma. But in Romania, which the article suggests suffers from a higher than average level of identity crisis, a rerun presidential election was won by a maths intellect who earned the slogan ‘I’m voting for the nerd.’ A reaction against the populist and absurd opportunism of his opponent. An opponent, by the way who even went so far as to embrace an ‘influencer’ who questioned whether the earth was actually flat. I think that should be a question posed to Nigel Fartage. ‘Do you believe in a flat earth?’ He may try to deny it, but the more often he is asked it and the more often he denies it the more people might want to question what he actually believes. Like Trump, whom he so ardently admires, Fartage cannot be taken at his word. More people might begin to question him. Like ‘What actual benefits have accrued to ordinary people thanks to Brexit?’ Another approach is to frame policies which appeal to the emotional rather than the intellectual (which is not to say that for those who are interested, an exploration of a policy’s intellectual heft wouldn’t be rewarding). Part of the reason for the greater volatility in electorates these days I think comes down to voters’ moods rather than their interest in facts, analysis and dialectical debate. We live in a society where immediate reward is sought and satisfied, and for many there is a great sense that occasionally one gets to satisfy that desire by giving one in the eye to the establishment. This apparently partly explains the success of our Romanian mathematician nerd.

The Israeli porn journal the Jerusalem Post (again) captures that country’s prevailing wish for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. I wonder if it is the unofficial mouthpiece of Netanyahu’s government. Here’s an example, in reference to Macron and Starmer’s conversion to supporting recognition of a Palestinian state:
 
‘This is occurring as France and Europe continue to oppose Trump’s Gaza relocation proposal. In doing so, they are robbing Palestinians of the basic human rights to flee a war zone. Palestinians are apparently needed under the rubble in Gaza to advance France’s “Palestinian state.”’
 
This is offensive on so many levels it’s hard to know where to begin, and shows a complete indifference as to why many more people find the Zionist project deplorable. It would be true to say that the Israeli state has never had any respect for ‘basic human rights’ vis-a-vis Palestinians. With cheerleaders like the Jerusalem Post, and now it seems a handful of right-wing Labour MPs protesting Starmer’s new stance, anti-Zionists need to be more vocal than ever.

Zveika Klein is the editor in chief of the Jerusalem Post and has just posted an article telling New York Jews to use the ‘London playbook’ to defeat the Democrat candidate for New York Mayor, Zohran Mamdani, whom it is claimed is anti-Semitic. The ‘London playbook’ is Klein’s description of how a co-ordinated campaign led to the termination of Corbyn’s electoral prospects in 2019. It is a brazen admission, in effect of foreign influence in another country’s political affairs, although his article doesn’t explicitly state this. Klein after all is unlikely to acknowledge the role of the Israeli embassy in British politics, as revealed by Al Jazeera.  
 
Klein’s ‘London playbook’ has six steps: Stay united; own the news cycle; commission opinion polls to bolster your argument; elevate ‘moral’ voices (apparently Chief Rabbi Mirvis in the UK was such a voice): throw in ‘personal’ stories of persecution; lastly ‘Make the debate about racism, not geopolitics.’ This last injunction clearly means don’t get entangled with Gaza issues or settler colonialism on the West Bank or Israel’s apartheid. The main force of Klein’s playbook lies in the last point anti-zionism = anti-semitism which permits denialism. Never mind that there are Christian Zionists, regardless of which elements in the British police seem to think Zionism is an ethnicity. That demonstrates how ingrained and indeed successful Klein’s ‘London playbook’ has been.  
 
Never heard of Klein before? You can learn a lot more about this person by searching Google for ‘Qatargate.’ Difficult to make head nor tail of this story but it leads me to the view that he is euphemistically ‘a piece of work.’ Surely somebody the Democrat Party establishment will look to aid their effort to defeat their own (radical) candidate.​