Syria: Bombs Away!

Steve Bell, The Guardian.

See also Terror Can Only Succeed With Our Cooperation by Simon Jenkins. (And his excellent book, Mission Accomplished?: The Crisis Of Western Intervention).

PS The Empire Of Chaos: An interview with Noam Chomsky.

Tony Blair: Heartless

Steve Bell, The Guardian.

As chosen by Benjamin Butterworth as GT's baby killing GAY ICON!

Trident: My Two Cents

No to Trident - CND.

Any politician who wants to renew Trident is a shape-changing reptilian from Alpha Draconis!

Fuck NATO's folly!!

Michael Fallon, what a cunt he is, eh?

PS Admittedly maths isn't Fagburn's strong point, but I think this works out at £1,500 each. Can we not just have the money?

Steve Bell, The Guardian, 10th April 2015.

Tony Blair: Won't Somebody Please Think Of The Children!

Steve Bell in The Guardian.

Well, this went down well, didn't it?

The Guardian list some of his other controversial awards.

Sadly, they forgot Fagburn's favourite one, though...

Update: Save The Children sacked me for being a lesbian, Sandi Toksvig.

Politics: That Cabinet Reshuffle Not In Full

Greg Barker OUT: Leaves his position as Minister for Lightbulbs and will be leaving parliament at the next election, but please don't read anything into that. May be spending time with his ex-wife who he left cause he's a big gayer.

Nick Boles IN: Dashing and openly gay - and a former flatmate of Michael Gove - today he was suddenly given the in-no-way made-up brief of 'overseeing equal marriage implementation'. As the Equalities Minister is opposed to equal marriage. Oops.

Ken Clarke OUT: It's goodbye to the fun-loving Minister for Jazz, who had to go so he can't resign over Europe later. 'Pub?' he said on leaving Downing Street.

Stephen Crabb IN: Minister for Wales? Minister for Woof more like! Who cares if this hot bearded bear believes in anti-gay conversion therapy?

Alan Duncan OUT: The Tories' first out gay MP. The lovable diddyman leaves his position as Minister of State for International Development to go and make some more millions from dodgy oil deals during the current tumult in the Middle East.

Liam Fox OUT: Declined an offer to return as Defence Secretary as Mr Cameron said he couldn't keep going on trips with his BFF and former flatmate, Adam Werritty.

Michael Gove OUT: Adored by teachers throughout Albion, Mr Gove has left the Ministry for Education. Number 10 insists he has not been demoted, and said making tea for cabinet meetings was jolly important.

William Hague OUT: In one of today's biggest shocks, the Minister for War Crimes Foreign Secretary quit so he could spend more time with his family and young friend, Chris Myers.

Lord Haw-Haw OUT: The 112 year-old far right Minister for Anglo-German Friendship gets the boot - a sure sign Mr Cameron wants to modernise his party's image.

Nicky Morgan IN: An obvious choice for Minister for Women and Equalities due to her valiant opposition to equal marriage. And as she was privately educated, she was a shoo-in for Education Minister.

Sir Cyril Smith IN: Nick Clegg lobbied hard for the return to frontline politics of the king-sized Liberal legend. Smith will be Under Secretary for Pederasty and Death Threats.

Jennifer Token-Nice-Young-Lady IN: Position yet to be confirmed.

Steve Bell in Wednesday's Guardian.

Chelsea Manning: The Graphic Novel

Clark Stoeckley's graphic account from inside the Chelsea Manning trial is released today, marking its first anniversary. We exclusively excerpt Chelsea Manning's testimony on her treatment in prison. Content warning: state violence, discussion of suicide.

The United States Vs Pvt Chelsea Manning is available exclusively from OR Books.

PS It's thanks to Chelsea we can read things like this; a prescient 2008 cable from the US ambassador in Moscow on NATO enlargement, Russia and Ukraine.

Steve Bell, The Guardian June 4th.

Fuck ATOS: Fuck Nato, Fuck It All

Crimea: HAHAHA!

Steve Bell In The Guardian.

"No amount of sham and perverse democratic process or skewed historical references can make up for the fact that this is an incursion in to a sovereign state and a land grab of part of its territory with no respect for the law of that country or for international law."

Foreign secretary William Hague speaking in the House of Commons earlier today.

Meanwhile nine-tenths of the world dies laughing from an irony overdose...

Daily Mail: Sorry?

Steve Bell in The Guardian.

Does anyone honestly think that Ms Harman could ever have been some kind of a cheerleader for child-abuse? Of course not. And if we don’t think that, and if we do think that it was through inattention that, as an officer of the National Council for Civil Liberties, she didn’t spot the unwisdom of a dodgy lobbying outfit’s association with the council, then for pity’s sake what’s all the ruckus about? But lacking further evidence against her, we rant at her “refusal to apologise”.

She was silly not to apologise, but can’t you understand her sense of righteous indignation that her reputation should be impugned by the suggestion that there might be something morally suspicious about her behaviour? Her anger at these newspaper attacks stung her into playing into the hands of her tormentors by trying to tough it out and take no notice.

Easy to say, though, after the event. Sometimes taking no notice works, and it’s difficult to say when the tactic will or won’t backfire. Being attacked by the Daily Mail is rather like being mobbed by bullocks when crossing a Derbyshire field. The standard advice is to take no notice but walk confidently through the herd, which, seeing you’re unafraid, will shrink back. And (the standard advice continues) if they do run at you, run back at them, preferably waving a stick. They’ll back off. Whatever you do (the advice concludes) don’t run away or, emboldened, they’ll run after and trample you.

Matthew Parris, The Times.

Paul Flowers: For Whom The Bell Tolls

Steve Bell in The Guardian. 

Thank you, Steve! x

Never mind that the coalition encouraged Co-op bankers to expand while regulators slept, perhaps on the same sofa as Dave and Steve Brine. Were there not photos proving that the cokehead cleric and rent boy fiddler gave Labour money the Co-op couldn't afford? That he met Miliband at parties (though not – you can't have everything – with rent boys)...

Cameron was as keen to talk about Boles as Miliband had been to discuss Crystal Methodism and whether or not John Wesley ever did stuff. He did not quite accuse the Labour leader of devouring lines of coke (and rent boys) with the entire Co-op board. Flowers had "trooped in and out of Downing Street", unfit and uninvestigated. Gross exaggeration, especially from a leader whose own unvetted No 10 intimates and Chipping Norton pals are currently sub judice. That's what Miliband must have meant when he called Dave's dodgy dozen "just the people I can talk about"

Michael White writes about yesterday's immensely childish Prime Minister's Questions.

Perhaps its lowest point was David Cameron shouting at Labour MP Michael Meacher; "I can only conclude that you too have been on a night out on the town with Reverend Flowers and that mind-altering substances have taken effect."
Oh, but Mr Cameron, when did you last take cocaine?

News Of The World: Back From The Dead

Steve Bell for The Guardian.

No comment.

"The trial yesterday raised far more important issues about the machinations of the Murdoch press than tittle-tattle about Coulson and Brooks blah blah blah..." etc.

PS Keep up with the latest developments in this unfolding shitstorm at Press Gazette Hacking Trial.

Bradley Manning: So It Goes

Ruling on two defense motions to direct not-guilty verdicts, Judge Denise Lind refused to throw out the ‘aiding the enemy’ and Computer Fraud charges against Pfc. Bradley Manning. The defense filed the motions at the conclusion of the government’s case, before it began with its own witnesses, arguing that the government had failed to provide evidence to support its charges. Rules for Court Martial instruct the judge for this type of motion to view the evidence in a light most favorable to the prosecution. The judge ruled that the evidence the government provided was sufficient to not throw out the charges at this time, but at her final verdict she will weigh both government and defense evidence and could still find Manning not guilty.

Judge Lind said that the prosecution established that in his training as an intelligence analyst, Manning learned that the enemy uses the Internet to attempt to obtain classified information and to keep such information secret. He plotted U.S. military activity, she said the government proved, and knew that the enemy would attempt to do the same. That evidence, she ruled, could tend to establish that Manning knew he was dealing with the enemy. (See here for why that evidence is weak, circumstantial, and therefore could set an extremely dangerous precedent.)

Nathan Fuller, Bradley Manning Support Network.

• Negative Manning Decision and the Future of Investigative Journalism.

PS Image updated with Steve Bell cartoon from Friday's Guardian.

Aggressive Homosexuals: This Means War!

Steve Bell's cartoon in The Guardian.

Though there was an avalanche of nonsense, bigotry and hate released yesterday - and some sentimental liberal vomit from "our side" - the buzzphrase from the debate on the Marriage Bill soon emerged as "aggressive homosexuals".
This was in tribute to leading Tory grandee loonbat Sir Gerald Howarth's comments to the House...

"I fear that the playing field is not being levelled. I believe that the pendulum is now swinging so far the other way that there are plenty in the aggressive homosexual community who see this as but a stepping-stone..."*

A stepping stone to what exactly?
How does one go about join this aggressive homosexual community?
And can you please stop mixing your metaphors quite so terribly?
This was so ridiculous it soon became a hashtag on Twitter, #aggressivehomosexuals; Nigel Slayer, Kill Bert & George, Sir Ian McKillin', Russell Grant Mitchell, Extremely Vicious Old Queens, "I'm free... to kill again!" etc etc.
All most amusing, but listening to Gerald Howarth today, it just sounded incredibly sinister, with echoes of Rivers Of Blood.
Hahaha!

* You can listen to it as a soundclip here via The Guardian.

PS The "aggressive homosexuals" thing also soon gave rise to some lame, forced and painfully unfunny reworkings unto parodic accounts of "straightbashing" incidents and being hit with pink feather boas or pink feather dusters and the like. Ho ho ho. Here's a real stinker from "comedy" site NewsBiscuit. Even Vicious was funnier than this, FFS. 

Update: A piece by Michael White went up on The Guardian Online on Tuesday afternoon; Gay marriage is a detox symbol for Cameron, but is it worth the trouble?
After a heck of lot of waffle - and White agreeing with Mr Howarth "that one or two gay rights lobbies adopt the same kind of aggressive tactics that militants do in most campaigns"! - we discover that although Princess Michael thinks most people now aren't bothered by gay marriage being introduced,
"But other swaths of public opinion, they may even be small swaths, care a great deal. They are the grannies protesting – here and abroad – with their "Marriage = Man + Woman" placards, the clergymen, rabbis and imams who protest against what they regard as the tainting of the core institution of civil society down the ages, the family that consists of parents, children, grandchildren, aunts, cousins, pets."
So it's not the aggressive homosexuals we need to fear, it's the unaggressive grannies with pets.
So think on.

Marriage: Steve Bell

The Guardian: Shit Gay Cartoon

The Guardian has in their employ the two best political cartoonists in the country; Steve Bell and Martin Rowson.
But like all of us, these talented chaps need to take the occasional break from their inspired and bilious drawing.
Sometimes Rowson and Bell are on leave at the same time - usually for a week over the summer and during the festive season.
The Guardian's solution is to have a different up-and-coming guest cartoonist each day.
These are almost always execrable, unfit to grace the pages of a school magazine.
Today is the turn of someone called Anna Trench. 
Brave Anna hasn't let the little fact that she can't draw for toffee daunt her, hell no!
Nor has her obvious lack of wit.
It took me a while to figure out quite what was going on in the kindergarten-esque finger painting above, but I think she's making a - perfectly valid, though over-simplified to the point of stupidity - point that Cameron's "compassionate" support for gay marriage may merely be a sideshow to distract from the Conservative's callous cuts and the dire state of the economy.
For reasons perhaps only knowable to herself, Trench has portrayed some leading Tories as Thunderbirds puppets - as if the recent death of Gerry Anderson somehow renders this "topical" - while waving a rainbow flag.
But - and here is the punchline - "equality" comes "with strings attached".
A lesser cartoonist might have let the cartoon speak for itself.
Not Ann - who has literally spelled out this "gag" at the bottom of the frame.
Genius!
Oh well, back to the drawing board...

PS Variations on gay marriage polls have been a very popular page filler over Christmas.
Here's one from The Independent; "A survey of more than 2,500 Conservative Party members for The Independent found that a huge majority reject his arguments for legalising same-sex marriage.
"The findings come amid renewed speculation among some Tory MPs that Mr Cameron could face a leadership challenge before the next general election. His critics fear that the UK Independence Party will exploit the opposition to gay marriage among natural Conservative supporters..."
A ridiculous claim, but sadly typical of the Independent's clueless coverage of gay issues.

Cartoon Of The Day: The Whore Of Babylon

Fagburn wonders why cartoons of Cameron so often have sexual overtones.
First there were the endless Brokeback Mountain parodies featuring him and Nick Clegg, and/or showing them in bed.
The Guardian's Steve Bell always has "Dave" with a condom stretched over his head, and sometimes draws him and George Osborne in S&M gear.
And today Dave Brown in The Independent portrays the Dear Leader as a slutty whore for selling arms to human-rights abusing, corrupt and authoritarian Middle East regimes.
Hmm...

• Campaign Against The Arms Trade.

Liam Fox: Bell End

Steve Bell in The Guardian.
Genius!

Steve Bell: A Modest Proposal

From today's Guardian.

Conservatives: Steve Bell Ends

Has anyone else been following Steve Bell's cartoons from Conservative Party conference in The Guardian this week?
The brilliant Mr Bell has been portraying Boy George and "Call Me Dave" as a distinctly odd couple - who made their first outing in the cartoon above last month.
That was a comment on a hopeless Tory Party attempt to appear "female-friendly".
But this week they seem to have become rather polymorphous perverse.
Ah well, makes a change from seeing cartoons of Cameron in bed with Nick Clegg, or in Brokeback Mountain-mode.

Steve Bell: On NATO In Libya

Steve Bell in The Guardian.