Yes, Vladimir Putin should be TIME's person of the year

The headline of Jonathan Freedland's piece in the Guardian is about the only accurate thing in the article. Truly, the Guardian has found its niche in a post-truth world in which omission, distortion and misrepresentation of the truth pads the pages of even the broadsheets. But of course the post-truth meme has a corollary; an informed readership that is post-credulous. We simply don't believe them any more. And with good reason. 

Yes, everyone admits, Boris was quite right, absolutely spot-on about Saudi Arabia, but as a member of the establishment he is required to lie to the public. His fault was not to lie for his government. And if the establishment grudgingly admits that it's lying about KSA, it won't take much to squeeze the admission that they lied over Yugoslavia, Iraq (whoops - got that one already), Afghanistan, Ukraine, Libya and Syria. Only patsies such as Jonathan and Con over at the Telegraph still trot out the feeble old establishment ordure. But the post-credulous don't buy it. 

I was enjoying drinks with some undergrads from Vienna a couple of weeks ago. Without any diminution of their proper patriotism (for Germany and Denmark as well as for Austria) they all expressed their admiration for Putin. He's everything they want our own leaders to be - smart, ruthless, patriotic, daring, skilled and cynical. And yes. For all his successes evident in 2016, he deserves TIME's appellation more than Trump. Russia has just the GDP of Italy yet still strides the world stage like a colossus. And outsmarts and outfoxes all of Europe's dull, failing, ineffective unelected officials with all their dreary policy blunders. 

What a perfect time for that leprous old fossil, himself the very Father of Fake News, bloody Blair to appear with the intention of founding a new public disinformation service, pumping out prime fake news better than the rest. And he may even have an establishment fair wind; a well informed comment over at CAW reveals that

Raedwald, I strongly suspect it is the National Security Council not the "the numpties at the FCO" that is responsible for the UK line on Syria, and I suspect the NSC is strongly under the influence of the Cabinet Office / Joint Intelligence Committee / PM. For example the new-ish £1+ billion Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF) seems to be driving UK spending in Syria now, and that has been under NSC control since 2015, using money largely transferred away from DfID. (eg spending on the White Helmets is now cumulatively £32+ million, part of "capacity building for civil society"). Also £5.3+m for "media activists" - bloggers, tweeters and facebookers? More alarming £1.4 million UK CSSF money spent on the "Syrian rebel coalition's lobbying bill in Washington DC and the UN" - pretty weird stuff.

So who better than Blair to head up the government's own fake news channels? New Blair - New Disinformation?

Top Human Rights lawyer to be struck off for lack of integrity

P.Shiner - to be struck off

The first of a number of corrupt human rights lawyers to face legal action is set to be struck-off after admitting a raft of charges of recklessness and lack of integrity. Shiner is contesting a further raft of dishonesty charges, which if proven could lead to his being jailed. 

Shiner's firm PIL has already been shut down. Other 'human rights' lawyers who were part of the frenzy of improper and unprofessional bottom-feeding coprophagia led by Shiner and his firm may also now face charges. 

Even as Shiner's life now lies in ruins - some justice, many will think, for the misery and persecution his scum-sucking business brought to members and ex-members of HM Armed Forces - other bottom-feeding scum lawyers are even now unearthing unreliable anecdotes and prejudiced memories of the Troubles in the province of Northern Ireland. Their aim is to find wrongdoing in the actions of members of HM Armed Forces in order to extort 'compensation' from UK taxpayers to meet both their own fat fees and a payoff for any 'victims' they can find.

They will no doubt by now be on notice as to how they proceed. Shiner's downfall is not only for his own malfeasance but pour encourager les autres.

Boris spot-on about the head-choppers & crane-hangers

Boris' leaked comments about the primitive native barbarism of the uncivilised head-choppers of Saudi Arabia and the crane-hangers of Iran are actually spot on. The effete old maids of the FCO, perhaps the most utterly useless bunch of tossers in charge of foreign policy since the Dutch fleet sailed up the Thames to poop in the king's river, are having camp vapours at the honesty. 

Of course these two champions of the Sunni and Shia branches of the Islamic superstition are fighting proxy wars all over the Middle East of the most primitive barbarity, but wars waged with all the technological weapons that these oil-rich spear chuckers haven't the wit or the means to make for themselves. Half of Europe is shovelling in the cash whilst maintaining the pretence that the Islamic savages are actually allies. 

As Boris might say, Pish.

Forced Muslim integration - painful but necessary

I'm going to annoy some regular commentors by re-stating that I have a problem with the Islamic faith, not Muslims and with primitive native fetishes, not people with brown skin. Muslims are never going to be deported en masse, sent to concentration camps, compulsorily sterilised or chemically lobotomised. So get over it. Those that are here legally are here to stay, and we can act to modify any exhibition of deviant behaviour within the law but that's it. 

Even a year ago writing the paragraph above would still have been seen as the action of a right-wing extremist, a racist or a dangerous swivel-eyed loony by the coercive, bullying and illiberal neo-libs. Today it's mainstream. This week the floodgates have opened and the pushback by a sensible, humane and intelligent majority against the bigoted zealotry of lefty neolibs is gaining momentum.

First the Policy Exchange survey, watered and bowdlerised but still effective, graded the way.  Then came the Casey Review, which pulled no punches at all. Trevor Phillips followed-up with a hard hitting piece entitled "White liberals have speeded segregation in the UK. The great struggle now is to reverse it" and today I delight in another piece in the Telegraph by Allison Pearson;

It sounds good – but what the Casey report really tells us is unbearably bleak. Immigration needs to be restricted, marriages to “cousins” must be stopped (that means closing any ruses about coming in through Europe, too). Any man whose wife needs his permission to leave the house is not a patriarch, he’s a criminal. Islamic schools that brainwash their pupils, and treat boys differently from girls, must be closed. It’s no good pretending that all “faith schools” are equal; how many “British Catholic” primaries do you know that are incubating extremists? There is no place in a liberal, equal society for sharia courts. Oh, and ban the wretched burka, please.

And on that final point even Mutti Merkel is a convert. Yes, trash the ghastly dehumanising rags and let's see the faces of our fellow citizens. Forcing the backward and superstitious Muslim people of Britain to integrate will hurt both them and us - but it's entirely necessary.

Austrians are neither cowards nor fascists

The volume and viciousness of the internet invective directed at the Austrians yesterday surprised me. Their crime was to have swung about 8% since the last time they voted, defeating the candidate of the right. The rabid UK right on the web angrily branded them leftist green cowards, whilst the Guardian's own little Owen Jones waspishly asked why was he supposed to praise Austria because only 46% of them had voted fascist. Both extremes of hate are prime examples of gobbing-off without knowing one's arse from one's elbow. 

I strongly suspect Van der Bellen was supported because he stood as an independent, has stressed he represents all Austrians, is a more presidential figure than Hofer, defends the status quo and will do nothing to rock the boat - in other words, he will do exactly what a largely ceremonial President is expected to do. But Hofer is no fascist, nor even is he 'far right' as the BBC insists on terming him. He's just a deeply conservative Austrian traditionalist embodying the fear that Austrians are losing control over their own destiny. A Venn diagram of the two candidates would actually show a large overlap - giving the lie to uninformed UK commentors who see a divisive polarisation.  

Austrian politics are largely consensual. A Red-Black coalition - socialists and conservatives - has effectively been in power since the war, and only recently is being challenged in the Nationalrat by the Greens and Hofer's Blues. It's as if Theresa May was in coalition with Labour, and had Hillary Benn as her Foreign Secretary. Crazy, but it works. 

But perhaps more deeply ingrained in voters is Austria's post war irrevocable declaration of Permanent Neutrality. Never again, pledged Austrians, would their nation strike the spark of European war. I don't think that's cowardice. 

The country's conservative traditionalism does not make it a comfortable place for migrants. Dispersed to small rural communities around Austria, housed in barracks and youth hostels, fed boiled pasta three times a day and de-loused, disinfected and medicated as efficiently and bio-organically as any dairy herd, restricted to riding bicycles or using country postbus services, it is not the instant wealth, apartment and Audi they dreamt of. Add to those discomforts the insistence of cheery Austrians in greeting them a score of times a day with "Grüß Gott!" in praise to the Christian three-person God, a profusion of lovingly tended roadside crosses and Marian shrines, and Alpine valleys that ring with the echo of church bells three times a day and you can understand why the migrants drift to Germany and elsewhere where the Ummah has taken stronger hold.   

So neither cowards nor fascists, Austrians made a decision that will be comfortable for all Austrians to wear. And they did it for themselves, not for rabid incendiaries in foreign lands nor for ill-informed and illiberal scribblers like the Guardian's little stars. 

I can live with that.