Saturday 24th & Sunday 25th January 2026

[refitman]

Morning all.

[Frog222]

Morning

[Frog222]

Had a look at the Times and i-news on Burnham etc

"" Issues ‘existential’ for Starmer and Burnham

Bev Craig, the soft-left leader of Manchester City Council, has emerged as the front-runner to beat Burnham as the Labour candidate.

According to party sources, Craig is popular in the city for her efforts on economic regeneration and work on local government co-operation. “She may also benefit from the anyone-but-Andy movement,” a party source added.

There was one winner out of the attention on Burnham – Streeting. “No 10 can point their guns at someone else for a change,” an MP ally of the Health Secretary said.

Yet, even as Labour tears itself apart over whether Burnham should or shouldn’t stand, Labour insiders acknowledged the stakes are higher than just one by-election.

A Labour source said the dilemma of whether to act and when was both existential for Burnham and Starmer.

""

And Galloway emerges from the woodwork too ?

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/labou ... ubscribers

[Frog222]

Sister's posting of the i- cartoon and Melania article led to a free read of Patrick Cockburn and what I remember thinking of the brits in Basra etc at the time --

""

The ( Starmer) fury was sparked by Trump’s claim that Nato troops “stayed a little off the front lines”. This is incorrect in the case of Britain, but what splenetic British politicians and generals fail to admit – and probably do not know – is that if the British Army was not behind the lines and away from the fighting, it was not for lack of trying.

Of course, there were no First World War type front lines in these guerrilla wars. In Iraq, the British joined the US-led invasion to preserve their status as America’s most loyal military ally. They then chose to base their forces just outside Basra, a city of one million people in southern Iraq, because it was Shia Muslim, anti-Saddam and a place they did not think they would see much military action.

Basra was safer than Baghdad and Anbar, the vast Sunni province to the west, but it was still a dangerous place and the British had far too few troops to control the city. Eventually, the British had to pull back away from Basra after a humiliating agreement with the local Shia militias. The debacle is all copiously documented in the monumental Chilcott report into the Iraq war.

Eager to get out of Iraq without offending the Americans, the British forces moved to Helmand Province in Afghanistan in 2006. Then-defence secretary John Reid famously said that he would be “perfectly happy to leave in three years’ time without firing one shot”. A British intelligence report had predicted gloomily that there was no Taliban insurrection in Helmand at the time, but there soon would be if the British Army turned up. Helmand was chosen because the Canadians had got Kandahar. Once again, the main British motive was to prove that they were America’s greatest ally.

""

https://inews.co.uk/opinion/the-patheti ... ty-4175809

[Frog222]

The main part of the Cockburn article --

The pathetic underachievers fuelling Trump's cruelty
NEWSLETTER (£) Rational self-interest motivates autocratic regimes to employ idiots

January 24, 2026 7:00 am (Updated 7:01 am)

Now where would Hegsneth and Kash Patel be without Trump ?

[refitman]

So, ICE just executed another person in Minnesota. They pinned him to the ground and shot him multiple times.

[Frog222]

Refit link 7.19 french time -- Number of small clips, 'man holding phone' ....

In this longer one you see the ICE rabble, one of whom draws his pistol for no apparent reason before holstering again .

[Frog222]

" Death Squads Execute Second Dissident "
Or what the US press would say if this was happening on the streets of a "shithole" country overseas
Carole Cadwalladr Jan 25, 2026

Good morning, with a good one from CC ---


https://broligarchy.substack.com/p/deat ... -dissident

[refitman]

How is the BBC trying to both sides the shooting???

[Frog222]

How is the BBC trying to both sides the shooting???

There are lots of BBC's and I often see differences between them .

In this case Radio4's The World This Weekend at 13.03 gives a very balanced account of what we saw, with added details that have come out since .

[Frog222]

Good HCR this morning --



At 16.40 minutes she brings on Trump's Jewish- Nazi Stephen Miller referencing a 1973 book on the Great Replacement Theory which he has been pushing for years now.

(( NYT -- A Racist Book’s Malign and Lingering Influence
“The Camp of the Saints,” published in 1973, has been a must-read within white supremacist circles for decades. Stephen Miller, Marine Le Pen and Steve King have touted it in recent years. White House senior adviser Stephen Miller encouraged Breitbart staffers to write about “The Camp of the Saints” in emails leaked earlier this month. (2019) ))

Then she goes onto 1950's McCarthyism and the Communism enemy within, the 1980' continuation with films such as Red Dawn,

Now (20.30 minutes) the GRT disciples suffering from " the fevered dreams of a disturbed mind" go out and kill the 'enemy' .

[Frog222]

13.08 John McDonnell

" Keir and the political cretins that are advising him "

[refitman]

There are pro-Bolsanaro protests in Brazil. They are not having a good time. 3 of them have been taken to hospital after being hit by lightning.

[Frog222]

Nobody knows how many are dead in the concentration camps, but everyone knows about the public executions , Tim Snyder has spent his life studying the gulag and the borderlands --

Lies and Lawlessness
The Camps, the Executions, and the Future

https://snyder.substack.com/p/lies-and-lawlessness

[Frog222]

[Frog222]

[Sky'sGoneOut]

A happy Burns Night to all.

I'm afraid to say I only managed half my (rather large) haggis before settling down to a nice bottle of Claret (I hate Whisky) and a Scottish film. After due consideration I chose Restless Natives which I haven't seen in years.

What an absolute joy. The clown and the wolfman riding from Eighties Edinburgh to the Western Highlands in 10 minutes on a Suzuki 125 to rob tourist buses while being pursued by the police and Japanese film crews to the sounds of Big Country. In a world going to shit it was good to have something to smile at for an hour and a half. Plus it reminded me of the Edinburgh of my teens before all the money arrived. Going to gigs and clubs knowing you'd have no trouble finding a squat to stay in for the night in the city centre. There'll be places I crashed at in the likes of Rose Street that'll be worth millions now. I'll never forget the feminists who took me in after one of them found me wandering the streets on acid after a gig. They even made me breakfast, sosmix sausages and beans. I'd love to have stayed, but my generative organs weren't compatible with the collective ethos of their dwelling. I wonder what they're all doing now.

Anyway...

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Ah well, you'll just have to watch it on Youtube.

Do Starmer and the timorous wee beasties around him not realise exactly how their actions look today? Don't get me wrong, I hardly think Andy Burnham is the second coming of the left, his previous leadership campaigns were lacklustre at best and try getting a flat in one of the myriad Manchester high rises being built if you're not loaded. I was talking to a couple a few weeks ago who'd moved from Manchester to buy a place in Hebden Bridge because Manchester has become so expensive. Needless to say I smiled politely as if I understood their pain and the sacrifice they'd made. It's weird, sometimes if you wear the right clothes and say the right things while drinking with people they mistake you for one of their own. I wonder what would have happened if I'd told them I lived in a bedsit that had been condemned by the council. We'll never know because they never asked, it was all about them. You know the type.

Anyway what was I saying? Oh yeah, Burnham. As underwhelming as I find the fellow I reckon the decision to block him is a blessing in disguise. Labour are going to be absolutely hammered in the May elections. Historically so. He's got 2 years left as mayor so can bide his time and wait for a better opportunity. All the NEC have done is prematurely shot their bolt before things have got properly frisky.

Starmer wont be leader of the Labour party by the end of this year.

And I doubt Burnham will be either.

[refitman]

They're still obsessed.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

I mean this is why I've never been tempted to join the Labour party. It's all looks so pointlessly tiring.