Angela Merkel was out in force making the case for Brexit better than most UK politicians yesterday at this year’s virtual Davos summit. Following a line laid out by the Chinese Communist Party’s Xi Jinping on Monday urging the EU to avoid building of blocs, Merkel said:
“I don’t think it would do justice to many societies if we were to say this is the United States and over there is China and we are grouping around either the one or the other. This is not my understanding of how things ought to be.”
If you think there is moral equivalence between a genocidal communist state and a free democracy then you have a problem. Thank God the EU no longer controls UK trade policy…
Speaker John Bercow splurged more than £11,000 of taxpayer’s money when he hosted human rights abusing Xi Jinping, Guido can reveal. The Chinese leader made a brief visit to parliament during a 2015 state visit when he addressed members of both the Commons and Lords – the honour Bercow last month said he would deny to President Trump. Figures obtained by Guido reveal a full breakdown of the costs involved, including £246 spent on flowers and £1,593 to hire furniture:
Staging, lighting and filming: £9,339.36
Furniture hire: £1,593.60
Flowers: £246.00
Total: £11,178.36
£11,000 of your cash palling up to a dictator…
Yesterday Guido reported how John Bercow ignored human rights abuses in Kuwait when the country’s Emir addressed parliament in 2012. Today we reveal the full litany of Bercow’s effusive praise for human rights abusers.
In September 2012 Bercow welcomed President Susilo Yudhoyono of Indonesia to address parliament. The Speaker said at the time:
“Mr President, it is a huge pleasure as well as a considerable honour for me, on behalf of both Houses of Parliament, to welcome you here today… It is also a huge privilege to introduce you personally. I do not know if there is an equivalent Indonesian expression for the phrase ‘Renaissance Man’ which we use to identify people with many attributes, but if it exists then it surely applies to yourself.”
Human Rights Watch says President Yudhoyono “left behind a toxic legacy of rising religious intolerance and related violence”, condemning “the Yudhoyono government’s sorry record” on human rights. Yudhoyono’s feared police force was “actively complicit in incidents of harassment, intimidation or violence against religious minorities”. His government was complicit in the “violation of the rights and freedoms of the country’s religious minorities”. Bercow said it was a “huge privilege” to introduce Yudhoyono to parliament.
In October 2014 Bercow welcomed Singapore’s President Tony Tan Keng Yam to speak to parliament. Male homosexuality is illegal in Singapore. Human Rights Watch has condemned President Tan’s record on “limiting rights to freedom of expression, assembly, and association using overly broad legal provisions on security, public order, morality, and racial and religious harmony”. Bercow smiled and shook hands with President Tan as he introduced him to speak to parliament.
In October 2015 Bercow told China’s President Xi Jinping it was “my pleasure” to have him to address parliament. China is an authoritarian state, according to Human Rights Watch its government “systematically curtails a wide range of fundamental human rights, including freedom of expression, association, assembly, and religion”. Bercow lavished praise on the human rights abusing leaders of Kuwait, Indonesia, Singapore and China, yet bans Trump to grab headlines…
