Fruitcakes and Loonies


I've written about Russia Today on the blog site before and there's no that it's a Mickey Mouse TV channel, full of people grinding axes about one thing or another, especially the west, as opposed to intelligent journalism or serious reporting.

So I was not in the least surprised to see that the Arthur Daley of UK politics, Nigel Farage, is something of a hit on Russia Today along with sundry other strange people such as the university lecturer from Newcastle (Professor Stephen Graham) who went on a rampage in Jesmond dressed in his suit jacket and underpants.  


Nigel Farage's relationship with Russian media comes under scrutiny


The Ukip leader's Euroscepticism makes him a shoo-in at the Russian state broadcaster that is often called Putin's mouthpiece

By Patrick Wintour and Rowena Mason

Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, right, and Ukip leader Nigel Farage debating Britain's future in the EU last week. Photograph: Ian West/AFP/Getty Images

Nigel Farage's near monthly appearances on state-owned Russia Today have come under scrutiny after his expression of admiration for Vladimir Putin this week.

In one of his 17 appearances on the channel seen by the Guardian and transmitted since December 2010, he claims Europe is governed not by elected democracies but instead "by the worst people we have seen in Europe since 1945".

The Ukip leader has appeared so frequently that he is cited in literature for the TV station Russia Today as one of their special and "endlessly quotable" British guests. "He has been known far longer to the RT audience than most of the British electorate," Russia Today claims.

The Ukip leader did not issue a word of criticism of Russian democracy in any of the Russia Today interviews viewed by the Guardian. Last August he told the channel that British intervention in Libya and Syria would go ahead regardless of any vote in the UN, and said he was still not sure President Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons.

Farage's relationship with Russia has been under the spotlight since his comments last week on Ukraine. In a TV debate with Nick Clegg (pictured above) he said Russia had been provoked and that the EU had blood on its hands for trying to force Ukraine to choose between itself and Russia. The Lib Dem leader is expected to challenge Farage further on the subject in a second debate, this time for the BBC, on Wednesday.

Chris Bryant, the former Labour Europe minister, said: "One of the most stupid adages for politicians to believe is my enemy's enemy is my friend. Putin closes down the free press, jails journalists with impunity and has enriched himself beyond the dreams of Imelda Marcos and has territorial ambitions. Farage is rapidly becoming the Berlusconi of Britain."

Russia Today was set up in 2005 by the Russian government as a 24-hour news programme and has been accused of being a propaganda tool of Putin. Earlier this year one anchor, Liz Wahl, quit on air, saying the channel always wanted extremist voices hostile to the west.

In many of his lengthy interviews Farage predicted the breakup of Europe, adding that EU leaders "are not undemocratic. They are anti-democratic. These are very bad and dangerous people They are the worst people we have seen in Europe since 1945". In another interview he claimed "they are the most dangerous people in Europe for 70 years".

His interviews, and warnings of the EU's imminent collapse, are often conducted against a backdrop of footage of police suppressing anti-austerity riots.

He also suggests that the EU is likely to attack other countries in the Middle East, such as Bahrain and Yemen, following the intervention in Libya. He said: "International law itself is not going to stop the British and the French and, perhaps, the Americans, if they choose to do something."

He also agreed with his interviewer that the attack was largely due to a need to capture oil supplies, and agreed that the western attack will lead to collateral damage.

Asked why so few British politicians opposed the attack in Libya he says: "What we've got in the House of Commons is a political class – they all go to the same schools, get the same jobs in research, spend their lives in politics and have never had a job in the real world. So when it comes to it, they all vote like sheep. We do not have enough independent thinkers sitting in the House of Commons preparing to think of counterarguments".

Before the Syrian vote he told Russian TV: "Probably, there are stronger hatreds between some of the opposition groups than there are against the Assad regime." He said it was probable Assad had used chemical weapons but added: "We ought to be slightly cautious and we ought to absolutely make sure that it was Assad who used those weapons."

Either way he opposed the use of force saying: "I have to say that ever since Tony Blair's time, starting off with Bosnia, we seem to go in for foreign wars with alarming regularity, often having no really clear objectives or any idea how we are going to withdraw. Just to prove that point – we've now been in Afghanistan for longer than the first and the second world wars added up together."

In March last year he advised viewers to disinvest from banks and property in the EU after the Cypriot bailout. He said: "Don't invest in the eurozone. Do not invest anywhere in eurozone. You've got to be mad to do so, because it's now run by people who don't respect democracy, who don't respect the rule of law, who don't respect the basic principles upon which western civilisation is supposed to be based."

The frequency of his attacks on European economic and foreign policy has drawn him to the attention of the Russian deputy foreign affairs minister, Alexander Yakovenko: the two men met in May last year.

Farage caused surprise at the weekend when asked by GQ magazine which politician he most admired. He replied: "As an operator, but not as a human being, I would say [Vladimir] Putin." He defended his approach at a Chatham House event in London. He pointed out: "I said I don't like him, I wouldn't trust him and I wouldn't want to live in his country, but compared with the kids who run foreign policy in this country, I've more respect for him than our lot."

Clegg said: "I just think it is utterly grotesque that Nigel Farage apparently admires – and that was the question to him: 'Who do you admire?' – admires someone, Vladimir Putin, who has been the chief sponsor and protector of one of the most brutal dictators on the face of the planet, President Assad [of Syria]."

Farage is hardly likely to be personally sympathetic to Putin's politics, but the confluence of the two men's dislike for the European Union has made Farage a desirable figure for Russian state-run broadcasters.

Farage's views on the EU's role in the Ukraine are shared by some Tory Eurosceptic MPs. In a Bruges Group film on how the EU has blundered in the Ukraine, John Redwood says: "The EU seems to be flexing its words in a way that Russia finds worrying and provokes Russia into flexing its military muscles."



Mother Russia (9 February 2014)


I was idly flicking the TV channels the other day, as is my wont, when I stopped to watch a bit of Russia Today - an odd programme if you ask me, as it seems to be much more interested the the perceived faults of western societies while having little, if anything, to say about the many challenges facing Mother Russia.  

Anyway, the particular programme I stumbled across was about the changing nature of the urban environment in the UK and how city landscapes have been changing in response to  issues like terrorism.

According to the commentators on Russia Today, major towns and cities in the UK are much less welcoming that they were years ago - apparently many areas of land which were once 'public spaces' have been privatised by big business, in areas like Canary Wharf in London, for example.  

The programme also warned that UK citizens can all be tracked at will via our mobile phones as we go about our daily routine of work, rest and play - presumably by UK security services although the purpose all all this alleged monitoring was never explained.


Now having lived and worked in London during the 1980s, I immediately realised this was a load of old baloney - not least because Canary Wharf was not a lovely open public space like Hyde Park before it turned into the big commercial sector it is today. 

So, I thought to myself - "These people are talking nonsense!" - and on the screen at the time was a chap called Professor Stephen Graham who was burbling on about something or other which prompted me to 'Google' his name.

And here's what my Google search produced - a report from the BBC's web site from March 2013 which made me laugh my head off, as it confirmed all my suspicions about the kind of people who appear on these Russia Today programmes. 

"Dissociative state" indeed - that's just a fancy way of saying the man was completely drunk, off his head and out of control because why else would he be vandalising other people's property dressed in just his suit jacket and underpants?

I'll bet the neighbours felt terrorised and wished there was a bit more monitoring taking place of drunken vandals at loose in the streets of Jesmond, which I know well.

See post below from the blog site archive dated 14 December 2013. 


1 March 2013

Newcastle professor Stephen Graham to pay for graffiti spree

A report by a forensic psychiatrist found the professor was in a "dissociative state"

Prof admits 'arbitrary' vandalism

A university professor has been ordered to pay £28,000 compensation for scratching cars while dressed in his underpants and a suit jacket.

Stephen Graham, 48, from Jesmond, Newcastle, admitted four counts of criminal damage in January.

He was given a nine month prison sentence, suspended for a year at Newcastle Crown Court.

Graham scratched the words "very silly", "really wrong" and "arbitrary" on 27 cars in Jesmond in August 2011.

'Detached from reality'

Graham, who is based at Newcastle University's school of architecture, planning and landscape, had drunk alcohol mixed with medication before he caused £28,000 of damage to cars including a Mercedes, an Audi, a Volvo and a Mitsubishi.
The cars were damaged while parked on Northumberland Gardens in Jesmond

The spree took place in Northumberland Gardens, a few streets away from where Graham lived in Lansdowne Gardens.

A report by a forensic psychiatrist, Don Grubin, for the defence, found the professor was in a "dissociative state" when he scratched the cars, and was "detached from reality".

Judge Guy Whitburn accepted his behaviour was totally out of character but said the compensation - effectively the professor and his wife's life savings - must be paid in full.

He added he hoped Mr Graham would be able to resume his career.

Julian Smith, mitigating, said his client was not merely drunk, and he showed no signs of aggression when arrested, but had a bad reaction to the medication and alcohol.

A spokesperson for Newcastle University said: "We will be considering the matter through normal university procedures. We are unable to comment further on an individual employee."


Russia Today (14 December 2013)


I've taken to watching a new news channel recently - Russia Today - which as far as I can tell seems to consist of lots of people (presenters and contributors) who admire Russia greatly - while harbouring an intense dislike of the west.

Whenever Russia today covers some remotely controversial subject, a disaffected flunkey gets wheeled out to make an unflattering comparison between Nato countries like Britain or America - and good old mother Russia. 

During an industrial dispute or strike in Britain, for example, it is normal for some left wing politico, often an academic or swivel-eyed Trotskyist, to be wheeled out to tell the viewers that their country is going to hell in a handcart.

Because the Government is useless and politically corrupt - whereas we seldom see or hear very much about life under President Putin and his friends - for example, the recent barbaric treatment of Greenpeace activists.

Anyway I dearly wish that I had watched Russia Today during the great Grangemouth debacle involving the Unite trade union, its unimpressive leader Len McCluskey and the Labour Party selection contest in nearby Falkirk - which became bogged down in allegations of vote-rigging. 

Now that would have made great viewing I'm sure, for unintended comic reasons if nothing else, but my mind was on other things, I'm sad to say.

Yet every time I watch the programme, I ask myself the same question:

Do the people who control the editorial content of Russia Today understand that a similar programme could never be made in President Putin's Russia?  

If they do, then at least we can all sleep soundly in our beds - safe in the knowledge that, whatever else, irony is not dead.

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