Memory’s buttocks beaten

Daring to tread where the mainstream media fear to go

Centre Right needs to be praised for it’s courageous decision to go ahead and publish pictures which The Daily Mail found too graphic to show it’s readers, Tim Montgomerie has decided to bring to us the story of a young woman named Memory who had her buttocks thrashed with wooden poles by Robert Mugabe’s thugs in Zimbabwe.

Her crime? She supported the opposition MDC in defiance of the ageing African dictator. This post deserves a much wider audience, please do not click “continue reading” if you are disturbed by graphic gruesome images of a bloodied body.

Memory’s story is so symptomatic of the brutal Mugabe regime’s attempt to cling on to it’s power and illustrates horrifyingly the extent to which they are trying to manipulate Zimbabwe’s re-run election. Her extreme human suffering is a testament to the suffering of a nation that was once looked upon as the bread basket of Africa, now, with the appropriation of formerly white owned farming land they can hardly produce a bean to feed themselves.

I am heartily fed up with the pious weasly words of superficial condemnation from Brown, (South Shields MP and Foreign Secretary) Miliband, and other western leaders, we were all prepared to seek “regime change” in Iraq, but Mugabe’s crew and the  generals of Myanmar/Burma (who are rounding up survivors of the cyclone and forcing them to work in labour camps) are apparently left to their own devices!

Cranmer has another post on Zimbabwe asking where is our so called ethical foreign policy?

Continue reading.

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Philip Melville Salmon

Australian MP 1892 - 1894

Philip Melville Salmon was not the man whom we named a street after on the Lawe, South Shields. However, he was born here on 16th. November 1849.

At the age of twelve he emigrated with his parents Benjamin, an engineer, and Eleanor, to the town of Bendigo in Australia. He later went on to Port Melbourne where he took a job in the sugar works before buying a business in Bay Street. After moving on to Footscray he became the proprietor of the local newspaper The Advertiser and an auctioneer and estate agent, he later returned to Port Melbourne and bought The Standard. Having married Emma Jane Ludner, the Church of England stalwart businessman and his family of four sons and three daughters alternated between Port Melbourne and Footscray, as they prospered.

He was Mayor of Port Melbourne from 1890 -1891 and Member of the Victorian Parliament from1892 - 1894 representing Port Melbourne, having previously contested two other elections in 1886 and 1889. Salmon died at the age of sixty in 1909.

Just another interesting character from South Shields who might be of interest to our Australian cousins.

If any of our readers have some anecdotal evidence of other South Shields born politicians who have made their mark elsewhere I’d be interested in hearing from them (we are already aware that Sir William Fox was Prime minister of New Zealand, and that my mother’s uncle Baron Blyton served as Member of Parliament for Houghton-le-Spring)

Update 23:20

Bob Smith was elected 19th President of the Legislative Council of Victoria on 19th. December 2006. Bob was born in South Shields, England on 22 May 1948

James Hiers McColl 1844 - 1929 emigrated from South Shields to Australia in 1853 and became a prominent Australian politician and minister prior to the first World War.

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Mandelson upsets Irish

EU Commissioner target of opposition to treaty in Eire

The face of the European Commissioner for Trade now adorns thousands of placards and “Stop Mandelson” posters as Irish opposition to the EU treaty grows ahead of a referendum next month.

Oh, to be Irish on June 12th as they become the only European state to hold a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. It seems odd to be lauding one of Europe’s smallest nations for having the largest heart and the greatest amount of courage in enabling and empowering it’s people, by allowing them to have a say over the Constitution enabling reform treaty that the rest of us have been forced to accept by it’s client governments. It’s unfortunate that Mandelson has become embroiled in an argument about ‘protectionism’ but at least they are willing to have that debate in Ireland.

Mandelson’s bete noir Gordon Brown did a nice body swerve to ensure that we in the UK wouldn’t even get the chance to be involved!

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Miliband slams Mugabe

A harder line from the Foreign Secretary

It seems that South Shields MP and Foreign Secretary David Miliband has at last been encouraged by differing African viewpoints to take a harder line against the “evil” dictator of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe. Describing the election recount which is taking place as a “charade of democracy” he said in the House of Commons:

“The ballot boxes have been kept in uncertain conditions. The Electoral Commission has seen 13 of their number arrested in a clear effort to threaten and punish those who did their job independently”

adding

“ordinary Africans do not condone the way in which President Mugabe is clinging to power and beating his own people to death to ensure he retains it”

Such a pity that Zimbabwe has no oil, or that the shipment of Chinese arms has failed to reach the impoverished state yet, that way we could, as one letter writer to the Shields Gazette commented, claim they have weapons of mass destruction. Just why has it taken so long for the FCO’s stance to harden up?

It looks as though they have been waiting for appropriate fractures to appear amongst the reticent African neighbours of Zimbabwe, who are taking somewhat longer than expected to show dissent against Mugabe’s dictatorial regime.

Kofi Annan, the former UN secretary general who recently helped broker a peace deal after Kenya’s contested elections, at the weekend asked whether African leaders were doing enough.

“Where are the Africans? Where are the leaders and the countries in the region? What are they doing?”

Such a pity that there isn’t a unified African chorus of voices screaming for Mugabe to depart with haste!

It’s also a pity that one of the local government election candidates in South Shields should choose to compare our own democracy and election procedures with the situation in Zimbabwe, on literature sent to electors in the past week. It’s a bit over the top don’t you think?

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Chinese troops in Zimbabwe

Olympic thugs to protect Mugabe?

Image courtesy of the irrepressible Beau Bo D’or

It is only a matter of a number of days ago when we witnessed the sight of blue track suited Chinese thugs (as described by Lord Coe) pushing their weight about in Downing Street as the Olympic Torch bade a fiery welcome to the UK. Men chosen from the same division of the National People’s Liberation Army that suppressed political protests in Tibet are making sure that the rest of the world doesn’t get too close to the flame that burns in the hearts of the free competitive athletes from around the globe.

These blue suited marathon running highly trained policemen probably know the identities of the Chinese troops who have been reported as being seen on the streets of Mutare in Zimbabwe, after checking into a hotel resplendent with nice shining pistols.

So why are the Chinese there? Have they been sent to protect and supervise the shipment of 77 tonnes of arms that is sitting off the coast of South Africa, waiting for someone to be brave enough to unload it? Are they the vanguard of a larger force that will help keep Harare’s streets quiet while Mugabe and the Zimbabwean electoral commission “officially” fiddle the result of the recent parliamentary and presidential elections?

It worries me that for all intents and purposes the British government appears to sit back and watch whilst Africa becomes an important outpost in the Chinese sphere of influence (just think of Darfur). It worries me too that we should give the Chinese international behaviour and alliances legitimacy by sending our Prime Minister to Beijing to collect the Olympic torch, if the (reputed) world’s fastest growing economy is intent upon the continuing oppression of it’s own, and other nations’ people, then the Prime Minister ought to dither again, and decide to send his Sports Minister to Beijing instead.

Besides, the torch probably has “made in China” stamped on the bottom anyway.

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Brown stays out of China

Hurrah!

Perhaps he does listen after all - who phoned him up, Angela Merkel? (Pity he has to go for the closing ceremony, can they not send the torch by Fedex?)

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Hillary (be my best friend)

A belated weekend entertainment

I didn’t quite manage to squeeze in a weekend entertainment feature on Saturday or Sunday, so to make up for it, here’s a nice video parody of Hillary Clinton recently found at YouTube.

ABC (Anyone But Clinton.)

I don’t suppose folks in South Shields will be that bothered either way in November!

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Chinese “thugs” identified

Picture by Yuki Mop - Associated Press

Chinese Paramilitary Police allowed to operate in London.

At least we now know who they are, where they came from, and palpably what they do!

We still don’t know what was in those bumbags!

Neither do we know who exactly authorised the presence of these men. described by Olympian Lord Coe as “thugs”, onto our streets. Indeed the sight of them organising security measures around Gordon Brown when the flame arrived in Downing Street was rather disturbing to say the least. If I felt humiliated watching the pictures on television, I shudder to think what senior Metropolitan Police commanders felt, or indeed what thoughts were going through the mind of the Prime Minister.

Coe has advised other countries to;

“get rid of those guys”.

Konnie Huq, the Blue Peter girl said:

“They were very robotic, full-on . . . They were barking orders like ‘run’ and ‘stop’ and I was like, ‘Who are these people?’.”

Shadow Home Secretary David Davis is also asking who authorised their presence after it was revealed thattThe security men entered Britain on visitors’ visas but the Home Office would not reveal whether they had disclosed on the application form for whom they worked.

One interesting point to note after the nightmare of the event, is that London still has a sufficient number of athletic policemen of it’s own, able to keep going at a decent pace over a thirty-one mile route, these must be an elite group of specially trained athletes, perhaps members of the Met’s rugby and football teams. Let’s face it with 75% of police time spent behind desks completing ludicrous amounts of paperwork after nicking little Johnny for scrawling graffiti on a garage door, the average beat Bobby wouldn’t be up to it, unless he joined the rugger team!

Wonder what the Police Inspector thinks?

Update

The Telegraph reckon they came from the Peoples Armed Police in China, the paramilitary unit responsible for crushing dissent in Tibet. I’m not sure I can assimilate this, Gordon Brown’s government allowing the killers of fredom in Tibet, the freedom to organise events in London!

I feel nauseated.

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Miliband and Fitna

David Milband’s thoughts on the film he hasn’t seen

A couple of interesting points, firstly the South Shields MP and Foreign Secretary David Miliband has given his blog a makeover, and I have to say it looks much improved, the new white background, colour scheme and fonts make it far more presentable and easier to read.

Secondly, he has made this post about the Dutch MP Geert Wilder’s film “Fitna”, and although admitting that he has not seen it, his comments seem to reflect exactly what I was saying the other day. That governments should not be in the business of banning films and that freedom of speech and expression should be maintained, so long as those expressions do not contravene legal statutes, in which case a judge can make a decision.

Does that make him a racist too? 

Finnish Foreign Minister

Alex Stubb (best male model this week)

This had me creased and in tears, I found it on a little trip to Mr. Eugenide’s place it’s hilarious!

Alex Stubb is Finlands new Foreign Minister, you must see his website, especially the photo gallery. The only thing missing are the props. Where is the Ikea furniture?

Don’t you wish we had politicians like this in South Shields? (Not)