I called BBC Any Answers yesterday to talk about Trump, Temper Tantrums, Tariffs, but NOT Tortellini !! We did also discuss, Leadership, Starmer, child psychology, Harry Potter, Brexit, and Europe in 75 seconds !! Anita Anand took a sharp intake of breath when I mentioned the B word, so I put her in the “recovery position” with Albus Dumbledore !! You can just about hear her exhaling with relief !! 🙂
Listen to the call at BBC Any Answers. No pasta was tortured during the call.
We are now a little behind on funding and need income to buy books for the events on March 23 / 24. With 1/3 of Labour MPs and 1/5 of Tory MPs mailed, we’d certainly like to increase this number to 50% and 33%. If you can support us I’d be grateful.
We are also thinking of standing as a candidate in the local elections as Reform UK threaten to take more seats. Having stood in the General Election, we believe that we have a good chance of diverting Reform voters away from Deform UK. This needs a few hundred quid to cover costs over a couple of months.
Hoping to meet some of you at the events organised by Peter French and his team on March 23/24. Or join us on ZOOM Monday 17 March at 8pm via ZOOM.
Give us Our Star back !!
Don’t be tortured by Trump, Tariffs or Tortellini. Revolt and survive !!!
I attended the march for a ceasefire in Palestine on 11/11/23. I noted a high degree of misinformation from the public in conversation on the way to the march. They failed to understand that the march was organised at a different time to the Armistice day ceremony and that the route for the march was nowhere near the Cenotaph. Such is the power of fake news. One told me that the Palestinians were planning to storm the Cenotaph. Quite the reverse was true.
STOP PRESS 9 am : Suella has resigned
Mark Rowley’s decision
The march was well organised, entirely peaceful and sensitively policed. By contrast a few so called “English patriots” attempted to storm the Cenotaph, did not observe the silence at 11 am, attacked police officers and went on a rampage though China Town. The coward formerly known as Tommy Robinson retreated early to his foreign bunker in Tenerife. I say all this as someone who is not a massive fan of the police. In particular, let’s look at Mark Rowley’s decision here. Having decided that the Cenotaph might be a flash point for violence, he prevented Palestinians from approaching it. This would eliminate a potential flashpoint by confrontation with the BNP. Having set this condition up, this allowed him to insist that Tommy Robinson fanatics did not attend the march for a ceasefire. The police were then able to enforce BOTH conditions on an even handed basis. His decision largely kept both groups apart and was a textbook example of public order management. To those trying to amplify the drama, some numbers help to restore sanity:
126 arrests were made from 300 000 people attending the march or 0.042%
Of these, the vast majority (82 estimated) were the BNP contingent
Nine police officers were injured whilst dealing with the BNP
The stoking of racism and the Tory party alliance with the BNP is ENTIRELY the responsibility of Suella Braverman and sanctioned by Rishi Sunak. Suella must go NOW. So must Sunak.
Suelphuric acis – TY James Rowland
Daily Maul
The Daily Mail was not able to claim that the Palestinians had caused widespread disorder and chaos, so what to do? Well, they got Michael Gove to go on a walkabout to Victoria station knowing full well that the Palestinians would be there. Just for clarity Gove always uses a chauffeur driven car for his movements, even if they are 300 yards. He was deliberately in Whitehall to get jostled so that the Maul could lead with that rather than EDL/Tommy Robinson violence. The Maul typically uses the word terrifying when Gove appeared to be smirking for much of the time. We see you Michael.
Read Private Eyelines for our takedown of the gammon media.
The wonderful work of James Rowland.
Tommy Robinson – Suella’s private army.
Suella must go– oh, she did
So must Sunak– oh, he played a blinder by appointing Cameron
At this point I must say that it is ‘premature evaluation’ to say that David Cameron will be foreign secretary (nowconfirmed). If that is the case, it validates my suggestion to James O’Brien that Rishi Sunak should pivot to the centre rather than to the right if he wishes to recover his position and win an election. Cameron is a centrist. He will embolden the silent MPs in the Tory party and outside (they have been popping up regularly) and even Labour. Cameron regrets every day his decisions about the Brexit referendum and if he as much as breathed these public regrets, it would allow the opposition to move along the same pathway. Once the major opposition parties are aligned on the notion that Brexit has failed, we will have broken the parliamentary paralysis that has characterised the last five years of the Brexit entropy – see objective one of our five goals below. Let’s wait and see but then act on Cameron. So far, his arrival has enraged the ERG, the Lib Dems and Labour in one day. Proof positive that he is far from done. I said some while back that Rishi needed about 12 rabbits to pull from a hat and this is clearly one of them. See our article Pay as EU go.
Private Eyelines : Have I Got Fake Brexit News for EU is just released. Humour is one of the few weapons this Government cannot take away from us. It’s a historical and hysterical record of #Brexit and one that holds this #fascist government to account in ways that spreadsheets and graphs do not. The book helps us deconstruct the fake news of populist media from “The Son” to “The Daily Maul” “Excess” and “Telegravda”. Grab copies for yourself and your Brexity friends now on Amazon or order discount copies direct from the author by e-mailing us at reboot@academy-of-rock.co.uk Here is the book blurb below:
Satire reaches the parts that spreadsheets, graphs and logic do not. Brexit provides a rich dark seam of tragicomedy in a Kafkaesque world of gaslighting, shapeshifting and shameless lies. We live in desperately sad times. But simply drowning in the sadness of Brexit does not help us deal with paranoid populist politicians. Bittersweet levity cuts through people’s minds to their visceral core. Simply stated, satire heals.
Populist media brainwashed leave voters to believe in Brexit unicorns. I tried my hand at parodying these media to expose the lies on which the Brexit hydra reared its many ugly heads. I found that people rather liked my gutterpress pages. Some even believed that they were real!
To change minds on Brexit, it is not sufficient to break the parliamentary paralysis which continues to enable the slow-motion destruction of Britain. Nor is demographic change, aka death, a success recipe. We must actively work on the huddled masses. People almost literally eat lies for breakfast from a biased populist media, owned by people who seem just a little bit too friendly with Vladimir Putin. Private Eyelines opens up the conversation anew with Brexiteers with buyers’ remorse, or Remainers numbed into submission by six years of bullshit and bullying from our so-called political leaders.
Peter Cook is a unique combination of scientist, business consultant and musician. As a 60’s child, his mum made him watch Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, saying “it would be good for him”. It wasn’t! Instead, Peter built a solid career bringing life-saving treatments for diabetes and HIV / AIDS to the world, 18 years tutoring MBAs in academia, writing books and 28 years running a business. His early exposure to Cook and Moore suddenly came to the fore after 24 June 2016, as satire met real life through Brexit. His mis-spent youth and creativity have been rejuvenated through campaigning, writing, music, film making and speaking about our rightful place in Europe. It was good for him after all. Mum was right!
Available to order direct from Amazon – click to view. Discounted copies available direct from the author.
Turn despair into action. Join us every Monday at 8pm on ZOOM via Reboot Britain.
It’s Europe Day … a brief reminder, lest we forget.
It cost each of us 37 pence a day (or half a Mars bar) to belong to the World’s greatest peace project. I can think of nothing one could buy with 37 pence that would amount to what we got by being part of the EU, faults and all.
Now we left via Brexit, Putin’s plan to create war in Europe continues and our Government plan to restart the troubles in Northern Ireland.
What did we leave for? I’m still waiting for answers beyond mythical notions of freedom. Answers on a postcard.
Footnote : I watched The Killing Fields yesterday afternoon for a reminder of how far we have travelled and just how easy it is to return to a world of violence inspired by ideology.
Finally it’s out !! The new book on Changing minds on Europe and Brexit is here. Click to buy on Amazon or contact me by e-mail via peter@academy-of-rock.co.uk for your personal copy. If you are a sponsor of Re-Boot Britain, you can get a heavily discounted copy to just cover costs.
To find out what it’s all about, join me on Thursday 7 April at 7.00 pm GMT via ZOOM. Here’s the book blurb to give you an insight as to why you will want to buy a copy.
Brexit has broken Britain, economically, socially, culturally, politically and environmentally. Quite simply, Brexit has not delivered what was promised on the tin in 2016, for anyone in our DisUnited Kingdom. This book explains how we may join anew for a better Britain in a better Europe for a better world.
Strategies and scenarios to join anew 2021 – 2031.
Brexit freedoms, unicorns, ghosts and fantasy stories laid to rest.
The influence of Russia and Vladimir Putin on Brexit and the Johnson Junta.
The psychology of ‘Brexorcism’ and the anatomy of the Brexit psyche.
Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) applied to the task of softening hardened minds on Brexit.
How to hold difficult conversations with Leavers in regret and Remainers in remission.
How does Brexorcism differ in real life from online conversations and what can you do about it?
Strategies to put forward a positive vision of a united Europe and heal rifts from the ‘dialogue of the deaf’ over 6 years.
Stories to motivate you and show how these strategies work in practice. Alongside this we explore a number of ‘glorious failures’ as they offer even better insights to success.
A resource section on how to break ‘parliamentary paralysis’, how to make progress in advocacy to MPs and how to engage mainstream media (MSM).
How to multiply your impact and pro-Europe / anti-Brexit influence in real life conversations, lobbying and in mainstream and / or social media.
A ‘Brexorcism’ requires time, patience, unconditional positive regard and skill. This book provides these elements, drawing on a range of approaches to change management from psychology, sociology and therapeutic approaches.
Events of the last week have shown that forecasts can be wrong, however we have learnt that Putin is determined to remove Zelensky and install a puppet regime in Ukraine. Such is his determination that direct conflict with the EU or NATO seems more like ‘when’ not ‘if’ with escalation unavoidable. There are a couple of things that could de-escalate current tensions and I discuss them below by the names given by others: The Palace Coup and The Chinese gambit:
The Palace coup – envisages Putin being removed by Russian politicians who consider his attempt to subjugate Ukraine is damaging Russia as a credible world power. He has an inner circle of eight ‘securocrat’ officers or Siloviki, profiled by Paul Kirby on the BBC website– with no evident dissent among them. He also has a 30-member security council that unanimously endorsed his decision to invade Ukraine and was televised doing so. Finally, he has a lower house of 409 Russian MPs all of whom supported the vote to restrict news reporting to the state broadcaster. No objections or abstentions on that vote televised yesterday.
Any political opposition is either in jail like Alexei Navalny or already murdered like Boris Nemtsov, so it is fair to say that after 23 years in power Putin is as secure from defenestration as Stalin was right up his death on 5 March 1953, exactly 69 years ago.
The Chinese gambit envisages Putin being offered a face-saving exit or ‘exit ramp’ by a third party he respects. At the moment Putin is only likely to halt his armies if President Xi Jinping suggests it or offers to mediate a peace deal with NATO. Putin has shown that he will listen to other leaders like President Macron of France but rejects any request to halt his military advance on humanitarian grounds.
Threats from the United Nations carry no weight because it is headquartered in New York, and because Russia has a veto as one of the five permanent members of the UN security council.
Putin would not recognise President Biden as an independent mediator, he believes the US is still his greatest adversary. Although he respects the US military arsenal, he suspects Biden is reluctant to get involved in any new European war. He’s happy to provoke NATO but not yet attack a member.
Putin agreed to delay his invasion until the Peking games concluded on 20 February so as not to distract media attention away from the games. If Xi could extract some advantage he would step in as a mediator, but the longer the war goes on the more he learns about the West’s resolve.
History shows that a tyrant or despot usually meets a violent end, either at the hands of his own people or at the hands of his enemies. For now, the West, or liberal democracy, must balance two distinct risks – the risk of action versus the risk of inaction. See also Action on Ukraine. As well as Gary’s fine analysis of Putin Power Plays, we must also consider disruptive interventions such as the surgical removal of Putin or a gradual realisation on the part of the West that inaction may well lead to World War III. Here are Garry’s 10 lessons from the first 10 days of Putin Power Plays:
1.The Ukrainian people resolutely do not want to be liberated by Russians.
2.NATO and the EU have been played by Putin for years and woken up to it too late.
3.Putin is prepared to use brutality in Ukraine as he did in Grosny and Aleppo.
4.Counter-action is needed but fear of escalation results only in paralysing inaction.
5.Sanctions are neither fast acting nor effective – ‘banks don’t stop tanks’.
6.Putin didn’t just want Ukraine to keep out of NATO, he wanted subjugation.
7.Rolling up other former soviet domains will inevitably mean conflict with NATO.
8.The UN was created in 1945 by world leaders who had experienced Hiroshima.
9.Those, like Gordon Brown, who have dealt with Putin say he only respects force.
10. China will only step in if Chinese citizens stuck in Kyev are endangered.
Surgical removal may just mean another of the inner Securocrat or Security Council members steps in to continue the barrage on Ukraine and possibly further. Inaction by NATO to implement a no fly zone also seems at odds with the reality of the situation. The bit about the Beijing Olympics is interesting, but how could President Zu be convinced to stick China’s neck out for the sake of the West? And what of the destabilisation of Europe’s western flank, which started long before Brexit was a hot topic? Was that just a distraction, to keep European eyes looking westwards while to Europe’s east, shenanigans were in play? It appears Russian control and command lines to its troops on the ground in Ukraine are shaky at best, and the tabletop chats with Aeroflot employees are not what they seem to be… Unless every transmission contains codes orders to various Russian-controlled military units… That the UK shows huge monetary values of sanctions, but less than perhaps 30 individuals targeted, says more for how successfully the Russian dictator has inveigled himself into the British Cabinet and Government – 30 days’ notice is so all the Tory recipients of Russian donations, in a numbered Dollar or Euro or Sterling account in a Russian bank (no doubt!) can extricate their ill-gotten gains to the relative safety of offshore British Dependent Territories, isn’t it? Meanwhile, a war and movement of people (women and children, mainly, note!) the likes of which has not been seen in Europe for decades is happening – and nobody seems willing to lift a finger to help stop the cause. World War III, yes, it does look that way.
NEW: Banning Facebook & criminalising journalism are not just the actions of a desperate man, they’re the equivalent of putting on a pair of bell-bottoms & dad-dancing across the internet.
I’ve put this in the order of urgency and importance as the situation requires. This update contains several items to help everyone stand with Ukraine. Firstly an urgent practical call for supplies of clothing, medical equipment etc. Secondly a meeting on Monday 28 Feb at 8 pm GMT to come up with more practical actions on an individual and collective basis. Thirdly, a revelation about our own Government’s involvement via the unredacted Russia report and finally things you can do to face down the scandal of Priti Patel’s refusal to accept refugees due to her need to play to the racist gallery. Read on and act
1. URGENT and VERY IMPORTANT: Please contribute to these initiatives to supply vital supplies to Ukranians in Kent. Find out where your own schemes are in UK and help support them:
Click image to go to Ela’s Cakes fb page
Canterbury and East Kent – Riverside Vineyard Church Thanet Way Whitstable CT5 3JQ from 9.5 pm
2. URGENT and IMPORTANT: Join us on Monday 28 Feb at 8 pm GMT via ZOOM to consider what each of us can do individually and collectively to support Ukraine.
3. IMPORTANT: Please write to your MP, asking for the removal of MPs who were / are involved in supporting Putin’s regime.
Find the UNREDACTED Russia report at Google Drive. A summary of the salient points can be found in this tweet below:
This is the full text of The Russia Report.
This thread contains extracts. It is truly shocking and very scary. Our government and security services have been 'asleep at the wheel'.
— Shouting into the void 🇬🇧 🇱🇰 ⚒ (@VoxLibero) August 28, 2020
Here’s a letter you may use or adapt:
Dear [MP’s Name]
As a constituent of [YOUR CONSTITUENCY], I am writing to you to express my deep concerns with regard to the disarray and incompetence displayed by our current government.
Having read the Russia Report it is clear that the lives of millions of UK citizens are at grave risk not just from Covid-19 but from the infiltration of British politics and business by actors for the Russian state.
I’m sure you will agree with me that this is an extremely serious national issue and need addressing quickly and permanently. The Prime Minister has publicly stated that the ‘first duty of government is to protect British citizens’. He and his government are clearly not up to the job. I ask you to introduce a vote of ‘no confidence’ in this government and reforms to our political system.
The gravity of this situation is clear. Please take immediate action to ensure the views and concerns of the citizens that elected you are reflected in Parliament and in government policy.
I appreciate your understanding of my concerns as your constituent, and look forward to seeing my concerns represented.
Thank you in anticipation,
[YOUR NAME, YOUR ADDRESS]
4. IMPORTANT: Please write to Priti Patel at withammp@parliament.uk Ask her to reform the arrangements for asylum seekers. Her policies are quite simply killing children and families. She has lied about accepting Ukrainian refugees in order to play to the galley of knuckle-dragging racists in England, simply due to the need to pray on the altar of Brexit xenophobia. Stand with Ukraine.
Your own link proves you wrong.
Ukrainians without family ties to the UK have to get to a nearby country and go through a normal route. And even people applying under the close family route still have to meet conditions including on salaries and language. pic.twitter.com/dBeeT3PV8z
