As the scorn and mock outrage poured on Jeremy Corbyn this week for insisting on a lawful, evidence-based approach to Britain’s response to the Salisbury nerve-agent attack starts to ebb, there are signs of encroaching panic among the Establishment.
After all, it’s clear from the unseemly mob behaviour that those who want to return to the bad old days of near indistinguishable main political parties thought they saw an opportunity in the Salisbury horror to smear Corbyn’s statesmanlike, measured demeanour – if only they bayed loudly enough.
And if they can’t make that stick, what have they got left?
Jeremy Corbyn has a point… when he wrote in yesterday’s Guardian and reiterated later that the Government was ‘rushing way ahead of the evidence’ in condemning Russia for the attack on Sergei Skripal
Melanie McDonough, Coffee House
The cracks started to appear when the Guardian and Independent – no great friends of Corbyn – started to treat his approach as credible and even preferable. But they widened to chasms when right-wing commentators such as Peter Hitchens and The Spectator’s Coffee House started to salute the wisdom of his stance:
Corbyn yet again on the right side of a major issue, according to the more sensible right–wing journalists and commentators – including Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson’s own sister, journalist Rachel Johnson:
Even the BBC News channel, after at first parroting May’s ‘no credible alternative‘ line as common-sense fact, has started to reframe its narrative to reflect that Corbyn was right – and has forced yet another change in the political landscape:
The signs of panic among the rest have been seen in an emerging eagerness among the unsavoury ‘outriders’ of the Establishment to start trying to create a narrative of ‘conspiracy theorist’ behaviour among the ‘new left media’ (NLM) – even if that just requires inventing claims out of thin air.
Some of the smears and sources will not be repeated here, as we have no wish to give oxygen to some of the vile, fabricated dross that have characterised some of these ‘fake news’ attempts.
But one that does bear mentioning is an email received by the SKWAWKBOX this evening from Murdoch rag The S*n, in the form of a press enquiry. It said:
We’re publishing a story on the alternative media sharing conspiracy theories about the poisoning of Sergei Skripal. Skwawkbox is included because of articles such as https://skwawkbox.org/2018/03/14/video-corbyn-the-anti-establishment-statesman-as-may-moderates-rush-to-judgment-over-salisbury/ in which you suggest the UK could be the source of the nerve agent involved. Do you have any comment?
The article linked in the enquiry, of course, makes no such suggestion. It merely mentions that Porton Down and facilities across the EU are said to have samples of Novichoks and that these samples may contain ‘signature markers’ to allow the samples to be told apart from one another.
We responded to the enquiry accordingly:
See below for use in full:
“The Skwawkbox article makes no such suggestion. The Sun appears to be forsaking basic reading comprehension for the sake of whatever agenda it is pursuing.”
It’s not known which other ‘alternative media’ the S*n was referring to and therefore cannot comment on what they did or didn’t say. But the S*n and at least two others are either planning or have already run similar articles.
Comment:
This appears to reflect a certain desperation to keep the smear going against Corbyn – in this case vicariously via media sympathetic to him – even though opinion is starting to swing behind him. Again.
If you can’t make the ‘disloyalty’ smear stick – because everyone is starting to realise he was right – then smearing the left media for supposedly claiming the UK might have committed the attack or for wild conspiracy theories about other countries appears to be considered the next best thing.
Even if you have pretend those claims and theories are there when they’re not.
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The second murder blows apart the idea it could only have been the Russian state. It stinks of Big Money and squabbling gangsters.
Let’s see whether or not the BBC or other right wing media have the bottle to ask May and Johnson if they will resign if their accusations are found to be untrue?
More to the point Jack, have we or should I say, our CLPS got the bottle to ask our traitorous MPs Umana , Creasy,Perkins, Streeting etc etc to resign , those who jumped on the Tory bandwagon supporting the Tories EDM condemning Russia just to undermine and isolate Corbyn’s stance.Backstabbing little shits the lot of em !
Come on you CLP’s do the right thing and deselect them !!!!
True, the Mays and the Johnsons we can’t do much about at the moment. But our MPs, we can. After the Afghanistan/Iraq/Libya/Syria debacles – death toll since 9/11: 1,160 521 deaths (source: http://anonhq.com/deaths-toll-since-911-u-s-5000-middle-east-1160521/) we do not expect any Labour MP to sign up to another rushed and dangerous decision based on incomplete/flawed information. Let’s go full steam ahead with DESELECTIONS. The sooner, the better, in view of the imminent fall of the May government despite its propping by the MSM.
Whilst they may be turning in there opinions it will make little difference as any damage is already done and their is no chance of front page corrections from the press
In other words, you told the Sun to go forth and multiply. Conspiracy theories my @r$e!
Its interesting to see how the media go into panic when they don’t have complete consensus on their campaigns. They know that once this happens, the cracks appear in a story and they gradually widen and widen, and in the end the game is up and they look stupid when it falls apart.
Your headline states “as even right-wing sites starts to agree with Corbyn on Novichok”. But after Corbyn’s article in the Guardian on 15 March does Corbyn agree with Corbyn? Has he said or written something since this article that I have missed?
“Theresa May was right on Monday to identify two possibilities for the source of the attack in Salisbury, given that the nerve agent used has been identified as of original Russian manufacture. Either this was a crime authored by the Russian state; or that state has allowed these deadly toxins to slip out of the control it has an obligation to exercise. If the latter, a connection to Russian mafia-like groups that have been allowed to gain a toehold in Britain cannot be excluded.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/15/salisbury-attack-conflict-britain-cold-war
Your response to the S*n was great, Steve, and SO funny. But you’d better watch it – the MSM (and Mrs May) don’t like “sarky” responses, do they!!
Interesting point by Gary Sakorov, an Opposition Leader in Russia (ex chess champion) in today’s Guardian. His take was that this is a shot across tthe bows of Russian ex-pats who may be considering testifying in the US Robert Mueller investigation against Russian interference in the US Presidential election. And (tragically) he suggests such minor players as the Skirpils were expendedible (to the Right wing Russian Barbarians) when all human beings are valued by Left Wing Democratic Socialists! Interesting and possibly dyanamite! Jeremy Corbyn and Johm McDonnel are absolutely correct that we need to be tough on the Russian Oligarchs whilst Medoicre May enables a Wild West for them in the city of London. If there were free and fair elections in Russia we would hope that Left Wing democratic Socialists would arise and to the citizens of Russia (and every country) perhaps we should say working people of no county are your enemies!. Yours in peace & international solidarity & love!
Ooops -Gary Kasporov!
It is worth bearing in mind that Theresa May has, by blaming Russia and expelling their diplomats, pre-empted the police investigation. As if that were not bad enough, what happens if the police investigation leads away from Russia? Will they feel pressured to drop such an investigation in order to save her from embarrassment?
Shame on all those Labour MPs who have supported her.