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Monthly Archives: September 2007

The allegations that Craig Murray made against Alisher Usmanov (see here for backstory) have been repeated in the European Parliament by Tom Wise MEP. This means they are now covered by parliamentary privilege and can be repeated by anyone. Way to go, Schillings.

You can hear the allegations on blip.tv, or download the MP3 file.

Alternately, here is a transcript I’ve made of Wise’s speech:
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I like to think that, despite living a champagne-and-caviar lifestyle, spending my time with models and rock stars, and living in a luxury penthouse [*], I’m still in touch with my left-wing roots.

As a result, I’m always slightly reluctant to denounce trade unions and strikers: had they not existed in the past, there’s a reasonable chance we’d still be in some kind of neo-Victorian exploitationist hell [**]; there are still plenty of employers playing the kind of dirty tricks that unions would be wholly justified in fighting against; and without the ultimate mutually-assured-destruction logic of striking (‘unless resolved, this strike will destroy your business and our jobs’), unions might as well not exist in the first place.

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