Did British Agents Kill Without Consequences During The Northern Ireland ‘Troubles?’

The Northern Ireland “Troubles” were primarily a political conflict from the late 1960s to the late 1990s.  The conflict also had ethnic and religious aspects.

A key issue was the status of Northern Ireland. Unionists/loyalists, who are mostly Protestants, generally want Northern Ireland to remain within the United Kingdom. Irish nationalists/republicans, who are mostly Catholics, generally want it to leave the United Kingdom and join Ireland, according to Wikipedia.

According to the British newspaper The Guardian, Amnesty International has called for an investigation into claims that British agents inside Ulster loyalist and republican terror groups were able to kill and target victims with impunity during the Northern Ireland “Troubles.”

Did the British secret agents have a license to kill?

Lady Nuala O’Loan, a former police ombudsman in Northern Ireland, claimed that some informers who were allowed to commit crimes (including murder) while being paid by the British state were “serial killers”.

On Thursday, the BBC1 program Panorama said that in many instances, the security forces – RUC special branch, military intelligence and MI5 – helped cover up killings carried out by their agents, writes The Guardian newspaper.

O’Loan said the U.K. agents were allowed to kill. “They were running informants and they were using them.

“Their argument was that by so doing they were saving lives, but hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of people died because those people were not brought to justice and weren’t stopped in their tracks,” O’Loan said. “Many of them were killers and some of them were serial killers.”

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/may/28/amnesty-demands-action-over-bbc-findings-on-northern-ireland-killings

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/britain-colluded-with-serial-killers-during-troubles-bbc-31262741.html

Russell Brand Looks At Tory Election Propaganda

Trews

Earlier this month, Britain was in an election cycle, and Russell Brand looked at the Conservative (Tory) political election propaganda.  The Tories ran a host of political campaign ads, including on Facebook. One in every £17 pounds the Tories spent on the last general election campaign goes towards drumming up support on Facebook.

Brand analysed their policies, past promises and election tactics as well.

In the video, Brand mentions Quantitative Easing (QE), an economic maneuver governments can take in an attempt to improve the economy. What is Quantitative Easing?

Investopedia states that QE is an “unconventional monetary policy in which a central bank purchases government securities or other securities from the market in order to lower interest rates and increase the money supply.”

“Quantitative easing increases the money supply by flooding financial institutions with capital in an effort to promote increased lending and liquidity.”

Tories also ran attack advertisements that featured a famous note from a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury that implied that a Labour government would run the country to ruin by not controlling the budget.  The note reads “Dear Chief Secretary, I’m afraid there is no money.”

(Updated article)

http://www.investopedia.com/terms/q/quantitative-easing.asp#ixzz3bRRskhEV

Did Tories ‘Play Dirty’ With Media Tricks?

Recently, BBC journalists and executives told a Labour Party adviser that the BBC was threatened by Conservative (Tory) Leaders about “what would happen” if they didn’t fall into line over the election coverage.

The BBC gets funding from the government and other sources, something like PBS in the United States.

In related news, the British newspaper The Independent wrote that media owner Rupert Murdoch berated journalists at his papers for not doing enough to “stop the (left-of-center) Labour Party from winning the election.”

Murdoch “warned them that the future of the company depended on stopping Labour from getting elected,” writes The Independent.

Murdoch’s news outlets – including Fox News in the U.S. – tend to lean right-wing or have a conservative outlook.

After Mr. Murdoch paid a visit to his company’s The Sun newspaper, they devoted a two-page spread to the election – with the left-hand page containing a 10-point “pledge” to voters written by David Cameron.

Britain’s The Mirror published an article by Lucy Powell that gives examples of the Tory assault on the British media.

“The first was when John Major gave a speech on ‘The chaos of Labour with SNP pulling the strings,'” writes Powell.

“This marked the fourth day in a row of the BBC leading with that story even though Ed had already ruled out a deal with the SNP,” she writes.

“I could understand the Tory press parroting the Central Office line but I couldn’t understand why the BBC was pushing the story so hard,” she went on.  Was the BBC pushing the story because of implied threats from the government?

The Mirror article claims that scaring voters about the SNP was clearly designed as a “squeeze” message for UKIP and Lib Dem voters to encourage them to vote for the conservative Tories because they didn’t want a Labour government.

The second moment came The Tories took out huge wraparound (front page and back page) adverts in the weekly free papers in each seat.

The attack ads featured a famous note from a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury that implied that a Labour government would run the country to ruin by not controlling the budget.

Ads put out on Facebook, including some allowing users to hand over their email addresses, are costing the Tory party a “whopping £100,000 a month,” according to The Guardian.  That would mean one in every £17 pounds the Tories spent on the last general election campaign goes towards drumming up support on Facebook.

The budget is “a long-term issue dating back to the crash, which the Tories succeeded very early in blaming on Labour’s economic policies, despite the fact they were signed up to them themselves,”  writes Powell in The Mirror.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/lucy-powell-how-tried-reassure-5699489

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/09/liam-byrne-apology-letter-there-is-no-money-labour-general-election

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/feb/06/tories-pumping-facebook-advertising-email-ukip

Party Leaders Resign In Britain

Russell Brand

Three political party leaders in Britain resigned after the British election on May 7th.

Ed Miliband resigned as the Leader of the (left-of-center) Labour Party after the worst Labour result since 1987.

After huge losses for the centrist Liberal Democratic party, the Leader of that party, Nick Clegg, resigned.

The Liberal Democrats were hit particularly hard, and the party has been reduced from 57 seats in Parliament in 2010 down to just eight now.

Nigel Farage, the leader of the smaller right-wing nationalist party UKIP (U.K. Independence Party) also reportedly will resign. The party only got one Member of Parliament into the House of Commons.  Farage has “wavered” on resigning and has not yet technically left his post.

Here, Russell Brand examines the resignation speeches of Ed Miliband, Nick Clegg and Nigel Farage (who has now un-resigned) after last week’s election result.

(Updated article)

Highlights Of British Parliamentary Elections

According to the British publication The Telegraph, David Cameron – the Leader of the right-of-center Conservative Party (also called the Tories) – won a surprise landslide majority and will be the Prime Minister for another term.

Cameron’s top team remained as he reappointed several cabinet-holders to the positions they held beforehand.

Ed Miliband resigned as the Leader of the (left-of-center) Labour Party after the worst Labour result since 1987.

The Labour Party’s “Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer” Ed Balls lost his seat in a “shock result” to the Conservatives’ Andrea Jenkyns.  This was apparently an important post and a hard blow for Labour.

After huge losses for the centrist Liberal Democratic party, the Leader of that party, Nick Clegg, resigned.

The Liberal Democrats were hit particularly hard, and the party has been reduced from 57 seats in Parliament in 2010 down to just eight now.

Nigel Farage, the leader of the smaller right-wing nationalist party UKIP (U.K. Independence Party) also reportedly will resign.  The party only got one MP into Parliament.

The Scottish National Party (SNP) was a winner, taking 56 out of 59 Scottish seats possible.

The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, proposed that England make a “federal offer” of more autonomy to Scotland.

FTSE (a London stock exchange indicator similar to the Dow Jones or S&P 500) rose by £50 billion pounds as markets cheered the result of the elections.

So the take-away from the suspenseful election seems to be that the big winners were the Tories (Conservatives) and SNP.

(Updated article)

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-32633388

British Labour Leader Cries At Gay Film

In a effort to show his human side to the electorate ahead of next month’s election for British Parliament, Labour Party Leader Ed Miliband has revealed he recently shed a tear.

The Labour Leader’s sob was over Pride, a film about the gay community helping striking miners, which saw him shedding a tear on his wife’s shoulder.

When asked if he had ever cried over a film, “Red Ed” said: “Have you seen Pride? It’s about the lesbian and gay communities in London and they go and help the miners in Wales.

“Justine and I watched it recently. I blubbed.”

In the same Absolute Radio interview, Miliband also said being called a geek was “a compliment”.

Russell Brand Looks At British Election Debate

Russell Brand

The national British election will take place on Thursday May 7th, as decreed by the Fixed Term Parliament Act, which was enacted on September 15th, 2011.

Recently, there was a televised debate that failed to give any party a decisive boost, according to The Week.

The “slugging match” that came afterward was over Trident nuclear submarines and the tax arrangements of people living in the U.K. who have a foreign residence, or “non-doms.”  The debate appeared to have put the Labor Party on top of the heap.

Then came the “Challengers Debate,” which included the five main opposition leaders, but neither incumbent David Cameron of the Conservative Party nor Nick Clegg, leader of the Liberal Democrats, was there. Most pundits suggested that either Ed Miliband of the Labor Party or Nicola Sturgeon of the Scottish National Party (SNP) came out on top.

With three weeks to go, the British election still looks as unpredictable and unusual as ever.

Conservative and Labor are the two main rivals, and they remain neck and neck in the polls. The race between them has not looked so tight since 1992, states The Week.

Meanwhile the Liberal Democrats continue to trail Ukip, the Greens are still a factor, and the SNP’s position appears if anything to be growing stronger.

In this video, Russell Brand discusses the Challengers Debate.

More:

http://www.theweek.co.uk/election-2015#ixzz3XuBfwOVq

British Soccer Player Fired For Sex In Stadium

Jay Hart of the British semi-pro soccer team Clitheroe was cut from the team after video of him and the fan you see was made public.  They were having sex in the opposing team’s dugout after a match, writes the publication Screamer.

The match in question was a 4-1 Clitheroe loss to team Mossley.  Coincidentally, Mossley had advertised the game as “ladies day” in appreciation of their female fans, according to Screamer and The Daily Mirror.

While the two were going at it, someone nearby secretly began recording the encounter. Afterward, the video was shared online and caught the attention of Hart’s football club, which swiftly made the decision to get rid of the player.

The Mirror:

“Striker Jay Hart can be heard laughing on the mobile phone footage as he was caught still in his club T-shirt…”

The Mirror continues:

“The face of the fan cannot be seen. Within hours of the footage being circulated to team-mates and fans, Hart was sacked by the club, who play in Evo-Stik Division 1 North.”

Club chairwoman Anne Barker said that Hart had brought the club into disrepute. She said “Any players, while wearing a Clitheroe tracksuit, represents the club.”

“We expect a certain level of behavior and discipline. And that wasn’t it.”

To his credit, Hart – of Accrington, Lancashire – apologized for the incident and said he was “full of regret.”

The video appears to have been scrubbed from the internet. However, there is still an image on twitter.

The story isn’t all fun, though. Hart’s girlfriend slammed whoever was responsible for posting the video clip, according to The Daily Mirror.

She took to the Clitheroe Football Club Facebook page to vent her frustration at those who had made light of the incident.

She wrote: “Have a bit of decency for the people it’s affected. Thank god my kids are too young to read.”

(Updated post)

British Sailors Accused Of Sexual Assault In Canada

Four sailors in the British Navy have been charged with sexual assault during a visit to Nova Scotia, Canada.

“This is a disturbing accusation of sexual assault,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Francis Bolduc, Commanding Officer of the Canadian Forces National Investigation Service in a prepared statement on Friday, according to the Toronto Star.

“Craig Stoner, Darren Smalley, Joshua Finbow and Simon Radford were each charged with one count of sexual assault under the Canadian Criminal Code,” states ctvnews.ca.

“The alleged victim is a young woman and a civilian. Her name is protected by a publication ban,” according to ctvnews.ca.

“I’m pleased with the full co-operation provided by the British authorities to support the hard work and diligence of the CFNIS team in responding to this matter,” Bolduc said, according to the Toronto Star.

The charges reportedly stem from an alleged attack on a civilian woman at a party after a hockey game.

More:

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(Updated article)

The Falkland Islands

Recently Mother Jones went after Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly for allegedly misspeaking about reporting from a “war zone” in the Falklands in 1982.  Other news sources have also picked up the story.

O’Reilly had repeatedly suggested that he was in a combat zone or “war zone” (see video) in the Falkland Islands when no CBS News reporters (O’Reilly’s employer at the time) ever reached the islands.  Instead, he covered protests in the capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires.

As can be seen on the map, that was roughly 1200 miles away – about 1931 kilometers.

The Falkland Islands – Islas Malvinas – are in the South Atlantic Ocean on the Patagonian Shelf.  The principal islands are about 300 miles (500 km) east of South America’s southern Patagonian coast, off the coast of Argentina.

The population (2,932 inhabitants in 2012) primarily consists of native Falkland Islanders, the majority of British descent. Other ethnicities include French, Gibraltarian and Scandinavian, according to Wikipedia.

The archipelago, with an area of 4,700 square miles (12,200 km²), comprises East Falkland, West Falkland and 776 smaller islands.  As a British Overseas Territory, the United Kingdom takes responsibility for their defense and foreign affairs, though the islands have internal self-governance. Under the British Nationality (Falkland Islands) Act 1983, Falkland Islanders are British citizens.

Controversy exists over the Falklands’ discovery and subsequent colonization by Europeans. At various times, the islands have had French, British, Spanish, and Argentine settlements. Britain reasserted its rule in 1833, although Argentina maintains its claim to the islands to this day.

In April 1982, Argentine forces temporarily occupied the islands. British administration was restored two months later at the end of the Falklands War.

That was the war covered by O’Reilly.

Mother Jones

Updated post