Ex-spymaster and fellow Brexiteers' emails leaked by suspected Russian op Emails between leading pro-Brexit figures in the UK have seemingly been stolen and leaked online by what could be a Kremlin cyberespionage team. The messages feature conversations between former spymaster Richard Dearlove, who led Britain's foreign intelligence service MI6 from 1999 to 2004; Baroness Gisela Stuart, a member of …
It got a G7 nation to withdraw from the largest power block on the planet.
Why not stir the pot more by showing how the banjos were played?
The goal is always maximum chaos in order to destabilise a (potential) enemy.
Both Putin and Trump supported Brexit (insofar as Trump knew anything about the subject at all)
That alone should have given people pause for thought.
Of couse it didn't.
@John Smith 19
"It got a G7 nation to withdraw from the largest power block on the planet."
The US?
"The goal is always maximum chaos in order to destabilise a (potential) enemy."
When the Russians invaded the UK provided equipment and support while the Union was infighting over gas and differing opinions of Russia.
"Both Putin and Trump supported Brexit (insofar as Trump knew anything about the subject at all)
That alone should have given people pause for thought."
And it still turned out to be a good idea. Putin might have considered brexit a good idea because the EU was trying to influence Ukraine (starting a lot of this tension). And in retrospect are you trying to say Trump was a bad president? Go on take a quick look at Biden and say it. Make me laugh.
@John Smith 19
"Thanks for sharing the Russian PoV, comrade"
You actually do need to consider their PoV which the EU didnt and so sparked the problem in the first place. Those countries were a buffer between Russia and the west so when the EU was talking association agreements with Ukraine which led to the pro-Russian president being ousted it sparked a problem. Dont you remember the EU running away with its tail between its legs while the US had to step in to try and deal with the Russians?
"I wondered when you'd crawl out of the woodwork."
Why? Have I had to correct you about this before?
[quote]
Shane Huntley, director of Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG), said ...
[/quote]
We just analyse. We don't actually do anything about it.
How else would you be getting Google emails from the United Nations and the World Bank, days after you've reported them to us?
https://www.spamhaus.org/sbl/listings/google.com
I recall encountering these a week or two ago; can't remember where, but nice to see it confirmed here.
Some of the alleged emails were a tad dodgy on the legal front. As someone that voted to leave the EU I nonetheless fully support prosecuting any breaches of UK law by people trying to make that happen.
Of course, I would've voted to leave anyway, and I also support prosecution against the traitors that colluded with the EU to try and hand control of the UK to foreign powers against the will of the British people.
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"Brexit was a mess but not as bad a disaster as the Ukraine war..."
True, but Brexit was the result of a decision by a scant majority of the British People 53% to 47%. If I recall correctly.
The invasion of the Ukraine on the other hand is a result of a kleptomaniac demagogue trying to live out his fantasies of a new Russian empire.
There will be damage done to both but only one was the result of a conscious choice.
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Brexit is nothing more than a return to the days before the UK joined the Common Market
Back in the '70s, when we were The Sick Man of Europe? With stagflation and a country that couldn't function? Rolling blackouts, rubbish not collected, strikes all round.
Remind me again what we did to get ourselves out of that mess? Hint: it wasn't Thatcherism, which only thrived as a by-product of the thing we did...
Thatcherism didn't even thrive as a by-product of that
Mostly what saved the UK's bacon last time around was North Sea gas and oil - which sucessive British governments spent 50 years partying on without bothering to put anything aside (a lot went into "associates' pockets")
That safety net isn't there this time around and so far the only people doing any semblence of "well" out of Brexit are New Zealand+Australian farmers (widely regarded in both countries as payback for being tossed under a bus when Britain joined the EEC)
Brexit was a mess but not as bad a disaster as the Ukraine war
Ukraine war was largely a disaster caused by the EU and the West. Nice example here-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-61583492
Last week, the EU announced plans to help by investing billions of euros in infrastructure. But Mrs Stetsiuk's neighbour, Kees Huizinga - who owns and farms 15,000 hectares - says it's not doing enough.He's been trying to transport goods since the start of the war, and is exasperated by the mountain of paperwork the EU requires, which he says has created queues at the border up to 25km (16 miles) long.
"It's just paper, it's not like they are actually taking samples of the corn. You just have to have the paper," he says.
Presumably paperwork would be printed in Scandanavian sourced paper, not Russian. Even though Russia's placed sanctions on wood & wood products, EUrocrats haven't reduced the demand for paper. But such is politics.
So ironically, the UK could import Ukrainian food, because the UK could decide it needs less paperwork than the EU demands. There'd still be a few logistics challenges, but with UK sovereignty, we can set our own rules. Give or take transitional arrangements, threats of EU sanctions, and grumbling by French farmers. Presumably we could also process grain and sunflower seeds into flour, oil, and export those products to the EU. Assuming we comply with the EU's paperwork mountain.
These issues go waaay back to 2014 and the pressure placed on Ukraine to pivot towards the EU, without really understanding the consequences. So all the conditions accession states have to comply with before they can join the club. This has already impacted Ukraine's agricultural sector because of these rules, and quotas placed on Ukraine's agricultural exports to the EU. This also extends to trade with non-EU nations, because if Ukraine becomes an EU member, it would have to comply with EU trade policies and regulations.
The EU's also mentioned spending billions on infrastructure in Ukraine. This is pretty much the Greek model. Sure, Ukraine needs an ever growing amount of reconstruction, but pushes Ukraine deep into debt. Which suits the EU because they get paid, or will give reconstruction contracts to EU companies, who'll make billions themselves.
So basically our current financial crisis is as a result of the EU's incompetence. Germany wanted to be the energy centre of the EU, so created a dependency on Russian gas. It made that worse by also 'investing' in 'renewables', which has increased the demand for gas. It's agricultural policies and sanctions have increased the cost of agriculture, and food. It's policy of printing money has lead to inflation. All those policies were taking effect prior to Russia's invasion, it's policies since have just made the situation far worse for everyone, especially Ukraine.
Alll that paperwork... which any third country has to comply with outside the EU in order to export into it (hey, just like the UK now)
Sorry, anyone still trotting out the risible nonsense that the cause of an invasion by Russia was somehow the EU or "the West" or NATO is clearly a Putin stooge or a moron. Possibly both.
Alll that paperwork... which any third country has to comply with outside the EU in order to export into it (hey, just like the UK now)
The EU could always waive some paperwork or quota requirements to assist both Ukraine's exports, and the EU's food imports. Attempting to reduce inflation and food shortages by simply reducing paperwork is probably too radical an idea for EUrocrats though.
Sorry, anyone still trotting out the risible nonsense that the cause of an invasion by Russia was somehow the EU or "the West" or NATO is clearly a Putin stooge or a moron. Possibly both.
Well, there's always the EU's role in the 2014 coup. Or pre-war criticisms of Ukraine's far-right problems, corruption etc. Or Ukraine issuing an order to re-take Crimea and Donbas last year. Or the OSCE reporting Ukranian troop buildups around Donbas, and increased shelling by Ukraine immediately pre-invasion. Or just ignoring Russia's concerns about Ukraine's NATO membership, or it's security concerns in general. Or once the conflict started, prioritising shipping weapons to Ukraine to keep the blood flowing rather than any serious attempts at peace negotiations.
So we've ended up with a strange situation where the MSM was criticial of Ukraine's 'neo-nazi' problems pre-invasion, then pivoted to promoting those neo-nazis as 'heroes' for their actions in places like Mariupol.
In case you hadn't noticed, it's a bit late for that.
My suspicion is that this leak is intended as a warning shot to other prominent Brexit supporters, who shall be nameless, whom the Russians might want to influence slightly. "Look, we have this from your own spy master. Imagine what we might have from you, and what we might do with it." - is the none too subtle subtext.
Ah, so you supported the liars and traitors who stripped the rights of the British people, using a rigged and corrupt electoral system to put a liar in as PM with a massive majority whilst getting a minority of the vote.
Fact: at the last general election, more than 50% of votes went to parties advocating a second referendum or simply stopping brexit.
I.e, the brexiters' lies had unravelled, the will of the British people was to remain.
"Fact: at the last general election, more than 50% of votes went to parties advocating a second referendum or simply stopping brexit."
Second fact - had the referendum actually been a binding vote it would have been declared void by the electoral commission over campaign irregularities.
Third fact - Farago claimed a 52-48 split would have been "unfinished business" had it been the other way round, yet we are expected to accept the whole mess as some kind of democratic decision by the whole country.
@Empire of the Pussycat
"Ah, so you supported the liars and traitors who stripped the rights of the British people"
The remainers? Or brexiters? I am fairly sure the those accusations get levelled to both sides.
"using a rigged and corrupt electoral system to put a liar in as PM with a massive majority whilst getting a minority of the vote."
Thankfully the huge support for UKIP just to get a choice over our membership in the EU was enough to give us an actual choice.
"Fact: at the last general election, more than 50% of votes went to parties advocating a second referendum or simply stopping brexit."
And was that their only policy? Maybe they should have just run a single party instead of competing. The lib dems offered to abandon brexit completely and got slapped down in the GE after the referendum. A party was created explicitly for remain and got a poor show of the vote.
"I.e, the brexiters' lies had unravelled, the will of the British people was to remain."
Keep telling yourself that. Referendum, MEP elections and GE's disagree.
Ah, your fact is well chosen. Allow me to present one of my own: At the last general election, more votes went to parties promising to leave the EU than to parties promising not to.
Sadly the facts, taken together, do not support your conclusions.
Also I'm curious who you are claiming are liars and traitors and why you think the electoral system is rigged and corrupt. This system is flawed, and there's certainly corruption around postal voting in certain constituencies, but did you have anything else in mind?
I supported the UK being an independent nation, making its own decisions and succeeding or failing according to its own abilities. Nothing said or done in 2016 caused or changed that view.
Unless you have incontrovertible evidence of the identity of the person (or thing) behind a post, please refrain from posting inane comments like that. They're unhelpful and just make you look tinfoil-hat silly.
People posting here have a diversity of opinions and due to the nature of the medium some nuances might be lost, plus occasionally we all do post something stupid, as you have shown. Let's give each other the benefit of the doubt.
Wow, what a tone-deaf comment.
The prime-brexiter who doesn't recognise the fact that in one of the world's richest countries, a goodly portion of the population, including many in work, including highly trained professions such as nursing, rely on food banks in order to not starve to death.
Disgusting.
I'm sure there is plenty. For those who can afford it.
Unfortunately some of those people are so insulated, from the reality of what is happening, that they think because the local farmshop is stocked with local expensive organic produce then all is well with the country.
Why are you so entitled? The economy is tanking and more and more people can't afford to put food on the table. I guess when you're eating hand reared wagyu and freshly picked asparagus then all is right with the world. The peasants can make do with gruel. Or perhaps the elites' table scraps?
Have a great weekend. Enjoy the fruits from your horn of plenty.
Look, this is quite easy. Inflation is at its worst since 1982. Energy prices have gone through the roof, and food bank use is at an all time high. People are rejecting potatoes from food banks because they can't afford to cook them.
There's no need to be an arsehole about this and play politics. It's an objectively awful situation. I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and presume you are simply unaware of this because the Tunbridge Wells Gazette, or whatever you take, has failed to bring this to your attention. So let me help.
If your news source of choice isn't telling you this, there are some figures at https://www.trusselltrust.org/2022/04/27/food-banks-provide-more-than-2-1-million-food-parcels-to-people-across-the-uk-in-past-year-according-to-new-figures-released-by-the-trussell-trust/ from people at the front line. And you can check your own electricity bill if you're in doubt on my other point, or see https://www.nea.org.uk/energy-crisis/.
Incidentally both those links are to charities - a food bank and an energy bank respectively. Please donate.
That's issue one - many more people can't afford food than a few years ago. Issue two is what food there is, there's less of. In my Surrey village there is markedly less food on the shelves; of what there is, it's a) worse quality and b) UK grown. I actually think it's good for the UK to grow its own food, but clearly we have some catching up to do. As an ardent Brexiter you will no doubt be aware that many of our food crops were picked by European imports, who are not here. So if you want to harvest your crops, you pay more for labour. You also have more costs and delays importing parts, fertliizer etc - unlike labour issues at least we can pin some of that on Ukraine and COVID as well as Brexit. But the net result is the same, growing food in the UK is more expensive. I've resisted Guardian links as I doubt you'll read them, but this is worth a read.
These are the backing calculations for my "then we had food" statement which you so dislike. I'm sure we could have a long conversation with more numbers, but it might get a bit dull and you can look those up yourself. Please do.
There is less food available, what is there is is more expensive, and at 9% inflation it's going to get worse. "then we had food" is a reasonably summary.
@Loyal Commenter
"The prime-brexiter who doesn't recognise the fact that in one of the world's richest countries, a goodly portion of the population, including many in work, including highly trained professions such as nursing, rely on food banks in order to not starve to death."
So your disagreeing with Androgynous Cupboard who claims there is no food (seemingly linking his bull claim to brexit) and saying there is food? Or are you saying there isnt any food because its gone to the food banks?
Personally I am glad people have food and I am glad the population didnt just sit and wait for the gov to solve the problem (which tbh would likely be starve to death while they do paperwork) and put together food banks. And that as one of the richest countries people have the free disposable income and grace to voluntarily contribute to those falling on hard times. Surely you could agree??
"Disgusting."
What you have going on in your head is none of my business.especially as it doesnt seem to relate to my comment
Celebrating donations to food banks - it's like watching a man being hit by a car, and the thing you focus on is that people stopped to help. It's not really the main issue, is it?
Our country has historically low unemployment and yet large and growing segments are unable to afford food - and you think this somehow isn't the government's fault? What, exactly, do you think a government is for if not ensuring the population can be fed?
I can't work out if you're wilfully ignorant of the problem or if you're simply failing to hold those responsible to account. Either way you do yourself a disservice. Whatever your allegiance you should demand better.
@Androgynous Cupboard
"Celebrating donations to food banks - it's like watching a man being hit by a car, and the thing you focus on is that people stopped to help. It's not really the main issue, is it?"
And yet we do. Because there will be car accidents but the hero's who help the unfortunate people involved are celebrated. But is the main issue that government isnt very good at looking after the people?
"Our country has historically low unemployment and yet large and growing segments are unable to afford food - and you think this somehow isn't the government's fault? What, exactly, do you think a government is for if not ensuring the population can be fed?"
Did I say it wasnt the governments fault? You may have misread my comment as I clearly say- "the population didnt just sit and wait for the gov to solve the problem (which tbh would likely be starve to death while they do paperwork)". What that means is the gov sucks at its job and the people resolved the problem themselves.
"I can't work out if you're wilfully ignorant of the problem or if you're simply failing to hold those responsible to account."
I am guessing your difficulty stems from having no clue what you said and misreading my comment. Let me clarify-
> You said there is no food. We both now seem to agree you were talking bull. Absolute and total bull.
> You seem to be thinking I am defending the government in direct contradiction to my comment you respond to. Which is why your comment makes little sense.
@Androgynous Cupboard
"It was, and still is. But then, we had food."
I know this is my second reply to your comment but I have just been reading that the Russians are pushing propaganda that the UK sanctions has pushed it to cannibalism. Is that where you got the idea the UK has no food?
For those who want to see more meat on the bones of Katyanna’s report, knock yourselves out with a read of the info and intel .... or disinformation and fake news if that is your preference for conclusion ...... available from the Grayzone ..... https://thegrayzone.com/2022/05/15/operation-leaked-emails-intelligence-coup-boris-johnson/
Quite so, AC. Nowadays IT’s all Free Radical CyberIDEntities to Joust in Jest and Surrender Remote Virtual Controls to. .... thus giving Humanity a Well Earned Rest from all the Chaos and Conflict it Presents Alive Everyday for Shows to Host Tomorrow.
Cummings Super-Talented Weirdos and Misfits Type Programmer Planners Territory ..... with NEUKlearer HyperRadioProACTive IT AIdDelivery Drivers at All’s Beck and Call. Hallowed Highland Ground for Great Game Keepers Use .....in Almighty Exercise of Heavenly Movement for Sublime Satisfaction to Reward with Further Attractions Guaranteed to Succeed with No Less than IT Being at Least Equally Rewarding and Awarding.
Does Dominic have any AI Master Plan to Beta Test with Initially Strange Programs on Exercises with Post Modern Forces with Virtual Sources ?
El Regers might like to know? There’s at least one anyway who would like to know if Dominic’s Team is NEUKlearer HyperRadioProACTivated yet.
…the actual link?
It's this site that's being talked about:
https://sneakystrawhead.co.uk/
Given the subject matter, the people concerned, and their own statements that there was nothing improper about it, it's rather clearly in the public interest not to self censor or allow oneself to be censored.
The public are not that stupid: you publish the info, you inform them of the likely source and the need not to take things at face value, and those interested can do their own verifications.
yes, I also found it 'interesting', that of all the websites that recycle this story, not a single one (at least several of them mentions the actual site address. Sometimes it's really hard not to agree with that (otherwise pathetic) Russian whine about Western hypocracy re. freedom of information,etc. And then, the very same media lament the 'unexplicable' rise of conspiracy theories. You're scared - say that loud and clear, there is a website, but we are too scared to publish the link to the address. That'll be a perfect click-bait enhancer, not to mention that it would make sure people _will_ try to find that source.
and as to conspiracy theories, is it just me? - when I try to download any of the zip files from the above site, they download - ZERO size.
How about, "it's a web site published by a Russian hacking group, which is boasting about how they hacked a bunch of people".
I'd be astounded if it wasn't only malware-laden, but the sort of site that serves additional zero-day exploits to target IP ranges of interest.
In case you don't keep up-to-date with security-related stuff (and everyone working in any field of IT should), you should try reading Bruce Schneier's blog. There's a recent example of exactly how a previously unknown zero-day exploit in Chrome was used to hack specific targets in exactly this way, with a bunch of escalations, which were so well delivered, that the security researches couldn't even get the full payload to analyse.
And that was from sites which were supposedly innocuous, and not a site openly run by fucking hackers.
> without also reminding people to assume that it's more malware-laden than the average website
Why assume?
I didn't mention this, but that thought obviously crossed my mind so I did actually check, otherwise I wouldn't have posted the link in the first place.
It has less trackers than this site :) (none in fact) and there was no evidence of malware in the files that I checked.
"Checked" how, exactly?
TFA talks about how the hackers manipulated their targets into downloading malware by making it look like something interesting. And your first thought is to go download files that look like something interesting published by the same people.
Hmmm.
I don't understand the reasoning behind not publishing the link. The victims of the breach have confirmed it and there is also some independent verification from Reuters.
It is true that there is very clearly a political motive behind the leak (as is usually the case) and that the possibility exists that false documents might have been injected along with the real stuff. That calls for a caveat emptor, but on the balance of things and in the interest of freedom of speech, I think the decision should be on the side of publication.
"what could disinformation purposes."
Is there any reason to believe it is disinformation? It looks like the interviewee is trying to imply this without giving anything to back it up
(I'm not says the leak definitely isn't disinformation, I have no idea. Spreading information to wind people up seems very likely, but I don't see where the idea that the info is false came from)
Well this is the interesting question...
Assuming the emails are genuine, which seems to be likely...
This would suggest ProtonMail "an end-to-end encrypted email service" has been compromised for some years, but by whom exactly and what are their allegences...
Given the Russian engagement in Ukraine, I suggest a "Kremlin cyberespionage team" would not be wanting to show they have successfully breeched supposedly secure communications used by western people of interest - just like the British did with Enigma after WWII. Hence I suspect Cold River aka Callisto, are a little more independent of the Kremlin and perhaps are wanting to hint just how deeply the Kremlin is able to eavesdrop supposedly security communications...
> This would suggest ProtonMail "an end-to-end encrypted email service" has been compromised for some years
Someone's computer, much more likely.
That's how security services (and police, in more authoritarian jurisdictions, such as Spain and Greece) access suspects WhatsApp or other E2EE chat applications contents.
I gather that somebody has published emails between persons known to have advocated Brexit, in which they discuss ways of advocating Brexit. That in itself hardly strikes me as a big story. Did the emails advocate misleading the public? Bad if so, but isn't that sort of thing--within limits--taken for granted and discounted in political discourse?
(Yes, I could RTFEmails, but I am an American citizen and so this does not seem to form part of my civic duty.)
My guess is that the publication is meant as a warning shot to certain other politicians who also supported Brexit, and therefore might be expected to have been involved in some discussions within similar circles... and who have, more recently, been very aggressively anti-Russian. The Kremlin would like them to ease up just a smidgen. Else there might be another leak.
It's not just Dearlove that said it was the Russians. To quote the article:
Shane Huntley, director of Google's Threat Analysis Group (TAG), said the email security breach appears to be the handiwork of Cold River, a government-backed group in Russia also known as Callisto.
This is also out of the Russian government's favourite playbook. Not that this proves anything of course, but the Russians have done a lot of hacking email archives around controversial subjects in order to either cause general trouble or distract from their own wrongdoings. Hence all the emails about therapeutic use exemptions for drug testing got released by "FancyBears" as Russia were being accused of state sponsored doping in sport. It's all part of the Russian government's policy of: well yes we're murderous shits with no redeeming features, but look at your guys who aren't very nice either. In the Soviet days that Putin's regime hark back to, they could at least pretend they had a positive ideology that they were fighting for. Now, all they have left is whataboutery and destructiveness.
it doesn't matter if it's Russians, or anybody else pretending to be Russians, or one of the people exposed shouting 'Russians!!!!" It doesn't matter the reason behind publishing the link, which is a bleeding obvious. In fact, it doesn't matter there's been a leak: It's 2022, and the Prime Minister of a 1st world (nuke) country, exposed to be a lier and law-breaker (never mind a hypcrite and, in genral, a bad, bad person, plus a terrible leader of c country), publicly says: fuck you all, I'm staying. And his cronies (including those, that keep back-stabbing him), also say in public: fuck you all, he's staying. And the ranks of his party, of which some, a MINORITY, I think, say to themselves: fuck you all, he's OUR boy, he's staying! Not that I'd expect any better from labour or liberal democrats, they've also been caught lying and they come up to the box and smile and say: no, you got it wrong (you, silly, don't understand, let me explain it to you), etc.
So, where do we go from here? Nowhere, just keep calm and fumble on... Perhaps every nation deserves the leader(s) it gets, because those leaders reflect the nation itself.
When haven't politicians lied to cover up when they've done something wrong?
So far he's lied to cover up that he's an arse who had parties when he shouldn't have. Along with a bunch of other people who also should have known better. To be honest I don't really care about this story, though I'm still not sure if that isn't a moral failing on my behalf. But I know a lot of people who broke lockdowon rules, and in fact I'm not sure I know many people who didn't break lockdown rules. So I find it hard to summon up much outrage.
In an older, better era of politics he might have resigned. Maybe he should? But then in this era of politics someone is telling someone else to resign pretty much every day. And I think that sadly shame has diminished as a tool to compel better behaviour from politicians partly because people try to overuse it. Also there probably never was a golden era in politics - just the scandals were different. There was also a lot less constant media scrutiny back in the day.
But also, I'm not sure what partying in Downing Street has to do with these emails. So far, all we know is there's some leaked emails from people legitimately campaigning on a political issue. We still await the revelation of any actual wrongdoing. Who leaked the emails doesn't matter, as long as they've not hidden fake stuff in there.
But I'm a bit wary that we'll get stories of evil bad wrongdoing that actually are little more than - "some people I disagree with campaigned for something I don't like".
I used the example of the Russian leak of TUIs in sport because I think its pertinent. Russia unequivocally did something wrong, they were using state sponsored doping. They even used their state security organisations (the FSB) to break into science labs to change doping test samples. So they then hacked into global anti-doping bodies to steal the medical records of innocent athletes, and released that data as if they'd done something wrong. And an eager press jumped on the bandwagon - in some cases just reporting, but in some clearly accusing athletes of cheating because it had been leaked that they were allowed to use asthma drugs or allergy drugs which would otherwise be banned. The sort of "no smoke without fire" shit that you get from the media. If someone leaked it, there must be a cover-up, it must be bad. We shall see if anything really comes of this. But I suspect it's just to create political turmoil, on an issue that gets lots of people angry.
I agree that your first post made a good point, and that your doping example was pertinent, but I think you're missing Anonymous Coward's point. You said (direct quote) "the Russians have done a lot of hacking email archives around controversial subjects in order to either cause general trouble or distract from their own wrongdoings." AC's point, as I understand it, is (rephrased):
We live in an era when the PM can hold a press conference about new laws, and break them himself within a couple of hours of the press conference; when photographic evidence leaks, he blatantly lies about it and gets away with lying about it. How can a leak of some e-mails in which about political campaigners allegedly coordinate lying to the public be controversial against such a background?
quote:
After the invite was sent out for that 20 May event, when meetings outdoors were allowed with one other person, Mr Reynolds was warned by a special adviser via WhatsApp that a Covid press conference was due to end around the same time.
The aide wrote: "Just to flag that the press conference will probably be finishing around that time, so helpful if people can be mindful of that as speakers and cameras are leaving, not walking around waving bottles of wine etc."
Mr Reynolds replied: "Will do my best!…"
arguably, we could expand the 'When haven't politicians lied to cover up...' to 'when haven't humans...'. The problem is different here though, I think. In the past (details please!) when politicians lied, and they were exposed as liars, there was still general pressure for them to fall on their sword, because the society, in general, believed that the leaders lead 'by example', and you're meant to 'do the right thing', if / when you're caught red-handed. In the post-truth world now, they lie, we know they lie, they know that we know, but they don't fall on their sword. But now they lead by a different example: if Boris can lie and get away with it, why should I do otherwise? If Boris can have a flat done for free, by a 'little' fund-shifting, why shouldn't I? If Boris can give funding to his US friend, who doesn't qualify for funding, and gets away with it, why should I worry about 'integrity'. Etc, etc. If Boris and his gang are rotten, this state of play gets an official stamp of approval. From the very top.
p.s. nothing will come out of 'this' (as in: to Russian advantage), because brexit as moment in a nation's history is sealed, done and dusted, and emails contain nothing that the plebs wouldn't have known alread: politics is a shitty business about how to re-package a turd and sell it as a cake.
p.s. nothing will come out of 'this' (as in: to Russian advantage
Depends what you see as Russia's advantage. I think the clearest thing we've learnt from the invasion of Ukraine is that Putin sees Russia's interest as anything that keeps Putin in power. I think he does probably have some sort of twisted love for his country, but it all flows through him now - and maybe it always has.
One ex-diplomat, whose blog I used to read said he used the Joker from the Dark Knight films as his illustration for Putin. At one point the Joker's blowing something up and his justification is, "chaos is fair." For Putin and his crew of ex-KGB guys, they're still angry at losing the Cold War. Probably, like the Nazis, they're not just angry at the people who beat them, but also at their own politicians who supposedly let them down by giving up while they still had fight in them. They didn't of course, but why let reality get in the way.
So if they can't have global power, a system that works and nice things, why should anybody else? They've no comforting ideology to defend anymore. Even though they must have known that Soviet Communism was a sick joke, by the time they joined the KGB in the 70s and 80s.
So what they've got left is to make everything equally shit. What they'r'e selling is nihilism. They smirk and say w're the good guys, and we're not really doing all these bad things. But why not just shoot Litvinenko and Skripal? Because they also want everyone to know that they damned well did it. So everyone can be appropriately afraid of them. Because they know they're not the good guys. So their tactics are fear, pressure and whataboutism. Sure we're horrible, but so's everyone else, so it's fine.
So if they can't outcompete us, and they can't scare us - they can at least try and fuck our lives up a bit.
Upthread we've got people on both sides of the Brexit debate calling each other traitors. That's what Putin would like. If I remember right, investigations after the election of Trump showed that Russian controlled Facebook accounts had been supporting both sides. I can't remember if it's ever been proved that the emails leaked to Assange were from Russia. But I doubt they seriously thought they could swing the election. What they wanted was division, as the only thing they could plausibly achieve. So there were Russian controlled Facebook accounts trying to organise pro-Trump and pro-Clinton demonstrations at the same time and place, to try and get fights started. Mostly they attacked Clinton, as Putin personally didn't like her. But the Russians expected her to win, so their real objective was just dog-in-the-manger stuff. Because otherwise they have to admit that western democracy is a much better system than theirs. Which it is. Our system's strength is that we wash our dirty laundry in public. Doesn't make us look so good.
Whatever the faults of our system, there has been accountability. We now know pretty much what Boris Johnson got up to. He'll have to face the electorate eventually. I personally think most voters knew what they were getting, and saw him as the lesser of two evils. But whatever, I think his "lovable bumbler" routine is dead in the water. All Labour need to do is put up a decent opposition. Which might be a struggle if their leader has also lied about lockdown parties - which looks increasingly likely.
To be honest Westminster has always had a boozy culture problem. Which is true of many industries where people work extremely long hours and are under constant pressure. Maybe one answer is to expect a bit less of our politicians, so we don't drive them to drink? In the old golden era of politics we didn't scrutinise them enough. Now everything is instantly their fault and they should resign now! There's much less tolerance for fair disagreement and the fact that government being complicated it will always fuck things up. And so their answer is too often that if they can't fix it, maybe they can cover it up?
> In the past (details please!) when politicians lied, and they were exposed as liars, there was still general pressure for them to fall on their sword,
One thing that I appreciate about Austria* is that that's still the case, by and large.
They're as corrupt as they come, but at least when they get caught, they do the least dishonourable thing: they own up to it and resign.
(Which is in part why the president has been so busy swearing in new governments these last few years)
* Mountains, not kangaroos.
"If someone leaked it, there must be a cover-up, it must be bad."
Or -- If someone leaked it, it must be disinformation, nothing to see here, move along.
I agree with your analysis of Russian actions and motives. They have a particular axe to grind, but if that doesn't work out then they are satisfied with general turmoil. The cover-up partisans and the disinformation partisans will be duking it out for decades.
So, where do we go from here? Nowhere, just keep calm and fumble on... Perhaps every nation deserves the leader(s) it gets, because those leaders reflect the nation itself. .... Anonymous Coward
In days of yore, AC, in such times, did Brave Hearted Knights of the Round Table Realm Command Rightful Field Attention with their Arrival upon Scenes of Mindful Distress and Mindless Destruction ?
Are present times expecting It to be significantly different nowadays with all of these strange new virtualisable places so energised for realisation/population and colonisation .....and AI Colonialisation?
No, it was symptom of the stupidity of the labour party in choosing a leader even more unsuitable to be PM.
Johnson is an amoral liar and cheat, but we've had a fair number of them as PM in the past, and they did the UK no long term harm. He was the least worst option.
A curse on all their houses.
Johnson is an amoral liar and cheat, but we've had a fair number of them as PM in the past, and they did the UK no long term harm. ..... EvilDrSmith
No long term harm, EvilDrSmith? Oh please, you must be tripping to see and believe that rosy picture. All they have done is cause great harm, for who now, either at home or abroad, can ever trust them with anything sensitive and virtually earth-shattering, practically new and novel ground-breaking?
Fit for Future Greater IntelAIgent Game Purpose? No way, José. And such a shame whenever it could have been so good for them if they had been able to be trusted not be cuckolds and puppets to others.
And how pathetic and revealing it be, that supposedly secret services and secure intelligence agencies that one might expect to be in paramilitary type command and control of leading events, permit and thus condone presentation and continuity of such knucklehead cavalier behaviour.
That can only be indicative of Sub Prime Chief Executive and Chief Operating Office tenure and upper level team leaderships in such services and agencies.
Totally Unfit for the Virtual Reality Takeover and Advanced IntelAIgent Makeover of Mass Multi Media Presented Existence with Future Greater IntelAIgent Games Plays is that which they would have to prove they are fully aware of and engaged with in order to not fail and fall a great deal further into the realms of the absolutely catastrophic and accurately targeted revolutionary, environments in which they exercise zero geopolitical influence nor any type of physicalised neanderthal command and control .... ie they be as helpless cannon fodder/subjects and objects rendered and reduced to carrion and prey.
I would guess it was down to either: (a) an inadequate password, or (b) the use of local malware/keylogging to obtain the password. Doesn't matter how secure the mail app; if your means of access to it is not secure then it doesn't make much difference. And you only need to get access to one of the accounts to see a chain of emails (as suggested by the reply above). Perhaps 2FA may have helped here.
Got to question the motives here. Brexshit was certainly supported by Putin and his media claws like RT, presumably because creating disunity would create opportunity.
I'd still like a thorough audit of UKIP funding. Never gonna happen.
Now that Brexit is 'done', whatever that means (mostly trade disruption for no meaningful benefit to anyone) is upsetting the apple cart meant to sow more dissent?
I've reported this post. I doubt it will get removed because it follows the party line, but it is so obviously trolling that it's tedious.
If you're going to troll, have a bit of nuance about you. This is really poor effort.
My favourite bit of trolling was to simply post "I was very pleased about yesterday's election result" on the Guardian's comment section after the last general election. You could hear the exploding of heads over the Internet, and I didn't need to use any childish wordplay.
Curious. I admit that the chap(ess)'s post is not particularly witty or entertaining (and I concur that the value of the apparent wordplay is limited), but I'm not quite sure which of the house rules you think it's breaking. It doesn't look like trolling to me (at least, no more than your reply does). It's probably worth you noting that "A differing opinion does not make reasonable grounds for reporting a comment. You may end up getting flagged if you continually file unwarranted reports."
Yes, it's a rant (of which there are plenty on here). But I'd say it's very much on topic: it's questioning the motives of the Ruskies for leaking this, considering their previous apparent desire to encourage Brexit. As to whether or not it's bollocks, as noted, this would be a matter of differing opinions.
If you think the above is a troll then it is a stunning example of the ability to misread the intent of the written word; through the lens of the reader.
Brexit was generally supported by Putin and his cronies; which is the strongest argument against it of all. There has been absolutely no benefit to come from it, for anyone in the EU or the UK.
Just as most of economists, businesses and people with their heads screwed on said it was a bad idea.
Clearly, your opinions on the subject differ, you probably also vote a different direction in general elections to I. It does not mean either of us is right. But a moral position is generally preferable to a cronyism one?
Anon,
Not to get into the argument on the merits of the B word, but I wouldn't mind seeing any posts using the terms Brexshit, Remoaner, EUSSR non-ironically being banned. Or sheeple, LibLabCon and NWO, come to think of it.
Admittedly they do serve a purpose of being an excellent sign of a post that's probably not worth reading any more of.
I do also get a bit annoyed by the argument that Brexit is 100% all bad (has no possible upsides to set against any of the obvious downsides) and all right thinking people agree with me that this is so. And therefore you're either stupid or a Putin shill. Admittedly that's a caricature of your argument, which you put a good deal more politely, but still your comment that "most people with their heads screwed on said it was a bad idea". After all, many of those same people also said that not joining the Euro would be a disaster for the British economy. When in fact the Euro is the single worst policy the EU has bequeathed us. Not that you couldn't fairly argue that the good bits of the EU outweigh that policy clusterfuck.
There are a couple of reasons to take a more reasonable middle ground. Firstly because this issue has been divisive enough. Secondly because implying the people who disagree with you haven't got their heads screwed on is a poor way to persuade them to change their minds. Thirdly because saying you can't think of a single good point about Brexit suggests you probably haven't thought about it very much (surely there must be something you can manage).
And lastly, and linked to that second point, most voters in this country aren't particular fans of the EU, or particular haters of it. Things have got more polarised since the referendum and subsequent crisis of course. But most voters were in the middle and were persuadable either way. I'm pretty sure we'd have stil been members had there not been a badly handled Eurozone crisis and refugee crisis at the same time as the vote. Or maybe if the Remain campaign had been more positive and less "you'll regret it if you do". A lot of those voters could have gone either way, and see points on both sides. So if you start from the premise of leave = bad (and probably not very bright), you're alienating a lot more than just people who voted leave. I think that's possibly the reason that those post-referendum polls that've shown a narrow remain win if the vote were re-run now, also often show that only about 30%ish of voters actually wanted another referendum.
I guess, like much of politics, the voters are often more in the centre ground than the activists or party members either side of them. I think it's only law-and-order (and used to be capital punishment) where the general public are to the right of most politicians and activists.
"I think that's possibly the reason that those post-referendum polls that've shown a narrow remain win if the vote were re-run now"
More likely because the people conducting those polls want the results over-turned (hard to imagine the winning side conducting polls today), and how they pose the questions colors the results. What's really surprising is how the results are still so evenly split, despite Brexit having had plenty of time to show its defects (and there were bound to be some). To me this shows the pro-Brexit side (at least the public) had some serious convictions, and were not simply swayed by lies. (Which is not to say they weren't lied to.)
I see two basic political problems on this side of the pond, not sure if either of them fits on your side. (1) People generally form their own political views issue by issue, but they think "other" people don't do the same thing. This plays into (2) people are generally willing to think the worst of "other" people of a different political persuasion. Thus they are susceptible to being lied to about the other side.
The coverage of it floods the search results so much you can't find the actual leak site.
(Not that I wanted to snoop or anything. But Dr Tombs was my tutor and I hope he's not being knocked too harshly. Incidentally he was once hired as a consultant for a French period drama film and came back saying the production team ignored all his advice.)
> The coverage of it floods the search results so much you can't find the actual leak site.
Incredibly, that's one of the techniques described by one of the characters in Umberto Eco's Numero Zero.
I posted the link in one of the comments above if you're interested, though it beats me why it's not in the article.
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