bank snooping, abolishing juries, suing governments under trade treaties, the drift

A twin terrible moment for civil liberties, sending civil liberties voices' alarm setting sky high. The present move to massively reduce use of juries in Englandandwales, and now passed the present Britishwide introduction of snooping powers over welfare recipients' bank accounts. Both these at once. Both need the COURT CHANGE used by all parties resisting them.

On juries, this is both to cite the court change against the change happening, and if it still happens, to use the court change in actual cases. In Scotland, where the extent of right to juries is weaker, still 2 recent attempts to partly abolish them were successfully stopped, including by lawyers' opposition. The SNP government tried to suspend juries entirely at Covid's outset. Then straight after a jury defeated its attempt to frame Alex Salmond, it stood on a policy to abolish juries in sex cases where even the present English proposal keeps them, and where even without doing that, the Supreme Court case recently proved Scottish law to have practised unjustly in the witch-hunting of men.

So the political elite, including from the left, has been dangerously after juries for a long time already. All organisations who stand for civil liberties, who voice any resistance to this change, are evidenced only to mean what they say if they acknowledge the court change, cite it against the juryless process's demerits, and are not ignoring it. The court change is a serendipitous resource in this which they can't afford to leave aside.

The move against juries is part of shift from proper democracy to business controlled government, corporatism. A Guardian item on which by George Monbiot, Dec 1, has been welcomed by Helena Norberg-Hodge of the Local Futures mailing list. To which today she wrote in response, it -

《 details the ISDS clauses, written into free trade treaties, which give foreign corporations – and only foreign corporations – the right to sue governments, sometimes for many times their annual GDP. This is what I mean when I say, as I did in a recent video currently doing the rounds on social media, that this is a completely illegal global system.

Trade treaties have been the dark secret of the global economy for decades. Both the Left and Right have been handing over their wealth and power to global monopolies, making a complete mockery of democracy and giving rise to Corporate Rule. This lies not only behind the complete failure in the climate arena, but is also a primary reason why more and more people are forced to run faster and faster just to put food on the table and a roof over their head. As a consequence of these increasing pressures on people, we are witnessing a frightening political swing toward fascism.

And the good news is that this is not so much about "good guys" and "bad guys" as it is about blindness. It’s my experience that the majority of our political leaders have not had a clue about this, nor have most social and environmental activists at the grassroots – not even the majority of people inside these giant monopolistic corporations! 》

She asks for circulation of it - 《 That this corporate empire threatens all of us gives us reason to unite like nothing else.

Please help us spread the word. Share Monbiot’s article along with our video, Trade Gone Mad.

Big hugs,
Helena Norberg-Hodge  》

But with the court change too. This campaign too will unaffordably miss a resource if it neglects the court change. George Monbiot has not exposed the court change, and nor have campaigns against corporatism for a generation already. Uniting includes automatically taking up all resources contributed by anyone. It will visibly only be meant if it acknowledges and uses the court change.

#FreeTradeAgreement #freetradetreaties #tradetreaties #CorporateGovernance #CorporateGovernment #corporategov #oligarchpolitics #oligarchy #LocalFutures #helenanorberghodge

Youtube censors Edinburgh tram options !

Under a video by CityMoose channel on the tram expansion, that supports the Roseburn path option, including without local knowledge the total path option at Telford Road, Youtube is utterly banning the following comment. Not even the first sentence on its own, or using 1s and 0s, any comment referring to station siting in any way will not post -

《 You are wrong about Telford Road. Station's site on the path route will be in a park and behind some flats, hence lonely, won't feel safe after dark. I heard that raised in the public drop-in. Its distance from the hospital too, across a housing estate, is not good for infirm or ageing patients who can't walk well. It will be a white elephant.

The road is wide, has a hospital gate straight onto it, has not got homes straight onto it. North side of the road, in Drylaw park's corner, there is a strip of ground behind a substation, gentle gradient, where you can bring the line up from path to road, so no need to build an intrusive ramp. 》

What world geopolitics or radicalism is there in words about a bloody tram line ? Made this point in favour of the Telford Road option in my trams consultation submission. Also

• instead of writing about cross-city services from Balgreen, could reopen as tram the old Corstorphine rail branch, there have often been views on local social media for that, folks who remember it say it has always been slower getting into town by bus without it. Most of the branch route still exists as a park path. Last 1/3 mile does not, so it would take an on-road bit to reach Corstorphine village. That is short enough, and not in town, that it would not slow up the buses like they are saying the Orchard Brae route will do.
• Cockburn Association, that cares about old buildings, has blogged warning of structural doubts in building the southward line over South Bridge. Modern big train-weight trams will stress the structure far more than the bus-sized ones in the historic tram era, and is a load the bridge was not built for. Same concern as for Dean Bridge, but while the Orchard Brae route is one of 3 options, South Bridge is a less known issue because the south line's route straight down the A7 is just getting taken for granted. Clearly there is a responsibility not to take it so.

If the line was diverted down Holyrood Road and near parliament, it would be a bit longer and have more corners, but it offsetting so, it would have an off-road section and avoid trying implausibly to run through the overcrowdedness of South Bridge and Nicolson St. Street widths would allow it to turn from North Bridge eastward into High St, with the northbound track off-road there to avoid the notorious tailbacks into that crossroads. Blackfriars St, Cowgate, Holyrood Road, then it could go off-road on the waste ground that is Holyrood Park's edge behind Dumbiedykes, and rise from the ground at gentle gradient by a ramp to beat the sharp rise in ground level it will eventually meet. Though the same rise prevents the line going up Pleasance because of steep gradient, that is on-road surrounded by streets with no space to beat it by a ramp, while in Holyrood there is that space. The least bumpy course over that hill, just behind the end of Dumbiedykes Road, already has an old wall along it, that obviously was easiest to build there, so the line would go through that, use its ramp to take the hill at gentler gradient than steep Braidwood Gate path up to behind Crags sport centre, Bowmont Place where it will not affect home entrances, St Leonard's St, then for local opinion to choose which street to cross back onto Clerk St via.

public be moved to keep bureaucracy off the graves you care for

change.org/p/oppose-removal-of-grave-ironworks #westlothiancouncil #disgustingbureaucrats #bureaucrats #oppression

This type of arrogance where it hurts can move the public to react against bureaucrats as they need to.

A 16 year old boy dead from some road accident, which itself is evil enough and attests the world to be so, his family set up on his grave some honouring structures that are made of iron. 26 years later, out of the blue, arbitrarily without consultation, West Lothian council arbitrarily declares new rules to ban and remove them.

learned of from Nextdoor, 17 Jul 2025