Blind to the Truth
Here's an excellent extract from an editorial in the Financial Times which explains why the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn is blind to the truth about Russia.
Read the full piece via the link to the Financial Times below.
https://www.ft.com/content/2812d81a-2870-11e8-b27e-cc62a39d57a0
Why Jeremy Corbyn is still blind to the truth about Russia
The UK opposition leader is culpably naive about Vladimir Putin Jeremy Corbyn’s entire political career and worldview have been shaped by a deep suspicion of the west in general MARCH 16, 2018 486 The west’s leading powers have responded with commendable unity to the nerve agent attack on British soil. That makes it all the more regrettable that Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of Britain’s official opposition, has been so feeble in his response. The Nato allies agree that “there is no plausible alternative” to the conclusion that the Russian government was behind the attack. Mr Corbyn, meanwhile, is floating alternative theories. Perhaps it was the Russian mafia? Britain, he says, must be careful not to “rush way ahead of the evidence”.
By failing to face the truth, Mr Corbyn is unwittingly playing Russia’s game. President Vladimir Putin’s government uses a well-worn playbook after it commits an international outrage. The first Russian response is denial mixed with the propagation of a variety of implausible alternative explanations. Perhaps it was the British themselves who poisoned the Skripals? Maybe it was the Ukrainians who shot down flight MH17? The Kremlin then tries to blunt the response by wrapping its accusers up in procedure. The game is to confuse the narrative, delay the international response — and demonstrate to the Russian people and the wider world that the Kremlin can act with impunity.
Mr Corbyn has fallen into exactly these traps. His argument that the west was wrong about the existence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, and so should not rush to judgment now, is superficially plausible. But it does not withstand examination. We know that the nerve agent exists in this case, because it has just been used. World-leading experts have had the opportunity to analyse the substance used, and to trace it back to Russia. It might seem fair-minded to suggest that the Kremlin be given more of an opportunity to explain what happened. But these are the same people who invaded Crimea and denied it, and who intervened in the US election and denied it. At a certain point, fair-mindedness slides into culpable naivety. Mr Corbyn is now well past that point.
I Take My Hat Off To Jess Brammar Over 'Hatgate' (19/03/18)
Jeremy Corbyn supporters are resorting to the same tactics of 'unreason' as Team Trump with their faux outrage and false claims of bias against the media - with the BBC are their favourite target, just like Trump and CNN.
Witness this latest piece of nonsense over 'Hatgate' in which the Corbynistas accused the Newsnight programme of photshopping a Russian-style hat onto their Dear Leader's head, only to find that this allegation was completely false and that the same Kremlin backdrop had been used to set the scene for an interview with a Government minister.
I take my hat off, as it were, to the Newsnight editor Jess Brammar who put these crazy people in their place with a succession of very reasonable, rational Tweets.
I wonder if a fulsome apology from Owen Jones, a leading cheerleader for the Corbynistas, is on its way?
- By all means criticise Newsnight. That’s healthy, and we will always welcome people like @OwenJones84 coming on the show to criticise us from our own studio. But no one photoshopped a hat.
- And finally, the Russia background was a rehash of one Newsnight used a few weeks ago, for a story about Gavin Williamson, the Defence Secretary
- apparently (forgive me for passing on tech details I don’t understand firsthand) some detail might also have been lost with it going through the screen and then being filmed back through a camera, again the standard effect on images on that big back panel
- Our (excellent,hardworking) graphics team explained the image has had the contrast increased & been colour treated, usual treatment for screen graphics as they need more contrast to work through the screens. If you look you can see it’s same hat in silhouette
