Author: Alicia

In an interview with the “Vesti.doc” TV program on Rossiya-1, reported Tuesday by TASS, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said:

Referring to the U.S.-led coalition’s “selective strikes” in Syria, Lavrov explained:

By contrast, Lavrov pointed out that Russia is waging a consistent and resolute fight:

  He also said that he sees no concrete results of the U.S.-led coalition’s air strikes other than

Lavrov also remarked about the U.S.-led coalition’s “laments” that Russia is allegedly striking at the wrong targets and causing damage to the Syrian government’s moderate opposition, and said that such laments stem from the

by Jeffrey Steinberg

On Jan. 7, 2015, just hours after terrorists staged an assault on the Paris offices of the satirical publication Charlie Hebdo and killed a dozen people, former U.S. Senator Bob Graham (D-Fla.) joined House of Representatives Members Walter Jones (R-N.C.), Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.), and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), and representatives of the 9/11 families, in a Capitol Hill press conference, convened to demand the immediate release of the 28-page chapter from the original 2002 Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11, which documented the role of the Saudi Royal Family in financing the hijackers.

Sen. Graham’s words are even more profound and timely today, in the wake of the Nov. 13 Paris massacres by Islamic State-allied butchers. Graham told the standing-room only crowd:

The Saudis know what they did. They are not persons who are unaware of the consequences of their government’s actions. Second, the Saudis know that we know what they did! Somebody in the Federal government has read these 28 pages, someone in the Federal government has read all the other documents
that have been covered up so far. And the Saudis know that.

What would you think the Saudis’ position would be, if they knew what they had done, they knew that the United States knew what they had done, and they also observed that the United States had taken a position of either passivity, or actual hostility to letting those facts be known? What would the Saudi government
do in that circumstance, which is precisely where they have been for more than a decade?

Well, one, they have continued, maybe accelerated, their support for one of the most extreme forms of Islam, Wahhabism, throughout the world, particularly in the Middle East. And second, they have supported their religious fervor, with financial and other forms of support of the institutions which were going to carry out those extreme forms of Islam. Those institutions have included mosques, madrassas, and the military. Al-Qaeda was a creature of Saudi Arabia; the regional groups such as al-Shabaab have been largely creatures of Saudi Arabia; and now, ISIS is the latest creature!

Yes, I hope and I trust that the United States will crush ISIS, but if we think that is the definition of victory, we are being very naive! ISIS is a consequence, not a cause—it is a consequence of the spread of extremism, largely by Saudi Arabia, and if it is crushed, there will be another institution established, financed, supported, to carry on the cause.

So the consequences of our passivity to Saudi Arabia, have been that we have tolerated this succession of institutions,—violent, extreme, extremely hurtful to the region of the Middle East, and a threat to the world, as we saw this morning in Paris.

Watch the full press conference with Senator Bob Graham, Rep. Walter Jones & Rep. Stephen Lynch.

 Sen. Graham was absolutely right on Jan. 7. His words now take on even greater significance, as the entire world is still in shock over the Friday events in Paris, and the prospect that it can happen again.
 

It Can Happen Again

ISIS has already issued a new threat of similar blind terror attacks, this time targeting Washington, D.C. and other American cities. The Russian government, after a careful investigation, has concluded, as of Nov. 17, that the Metro Jet plane that blew up over Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, was downed by a terrorist bomb planted on board. ISIS has claimed credit for that atrocity, in which 224 people were killed. ISIS also took credit for a pair of suicide bombings in southern Beirut on Nov. 12, which killed and wounded hundreds of innocents.

Sen. Graham is absolutely right. ISIS is a consequence of Saudi promotion of Wahhabism and violent jihadi terrorism. To be more precise, Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, the Nusra Front and other terrorist groupings are products of an Anglo-Saudi alliance, most publicly associated with the Al Yamamah arms-for-oil barter deals between London and Riyadh. Al Yamamah created an offshore slush fund for terrorism that directly fed Al Qaeda, from the start of that sinister deal in the 1980s.

The shock of the Paris attacks has forced the Obama Administration, for the moment at least, to abandon its hate campaign against Russia and President Putin, and at least formally accept the urgency of collaboration with Moscow to crush the Islamic State.

Now it is time for a reckoning with the Anglo-Saudi apparatus that has been steering the growth of the global jihadist apparatus, through decades of funding and logistical support.

It is time to release the full 28 pages from the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11. The release of those 28 pages should be the start of a thorough, top-down investigation into the role of the Saudi Monarchy in promoting global terrorism, starting with full disclosure of the Saudi role in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
 

Time for a Reckoning

Congress must not tolerate one more moment of White House cover-up of those 28 pages. The Joint Inquiry was a legislative branch investigation, and the Congress has total authority to release the 28 pages, whether the White House goes along or not. The 1971 U.S. Supreme Court unanimous ruling in the case of
then-Senator Mike Gravel (D-Alaska), who placed the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record under the “speech and debate” clause of the Constitution, makes clear that Congress has the Constitutional authority to declassify those pages immediately.

While it is known that those pages provide details of how the Saudi General Intelligence Directorate supported at least two of the 9/11 hijackers upon their arrival in California, and how then-Saudi Ambassador to the United States Prince Bandar bin-Sultan provided funds to the two hijackers, the pages clearly contain other
vital details and leads on the full scope of the Saudi regime’s backing for the 9/11 killers.

Had the full scope of the Saudi Monarchy’s bloody hands behind 9/11 come out at the time, no American President could have gotten away with the coddling of the Saudis that has been the hallmark of both the Bush and Obama Administrations, post-9/11. To this day, President Obama openly praises the Saudis for their role in the “coalition” fighting ISIS. Even if he had committed no other impeachable acts, this President’s shameless coverup of the Saudi hand behind global jihadist terrorism, itself rises to the threshold of “high crimes and misdemeanors” that warrant immediate impeachment proceedings.

If there is to be any justice for those who died in 9/11, who perished aboard Metro Jet, who were brutally murdered in Paris and in southern Beirut, the full complicity of the Saudis must be exposed publicly, now.

Otherwise, as Sen. Graham so presciently warned, Al Qaeda and ISIS may be formally rushed, but the underlying disease will resurface in a new and more virulent form in no time at all.

Release the 28 pages now!

Sign me up, I’m interested.

According to a White House statement issued after Barack Obama’s meeting with Russian President Putin on the sidelines of the G20 meeting in Antalya, Turkey, the U.S. President welcomed “efforts by all countries in confronting the Islamic State,” particularly noting the importance of Russia’s military efforts in Syria targeting ISIS.

That’s quite a change from his remarks to ABC News, in an interview just before the Paris attacks (to be aired on Nov. 20), in which he said that Russia intervened in Syria, not to go after ISIS but “to prop up Assad.” This is the interview in which Obama also stated that ISIS had been “contained” as a result of U.S. policy, for which he was roasted by several reporters in his press conference this morning in Antalya, Turkey.

A U.S. intelligence source reports that Obama has gotten the message, however, that if ISIS is not defeated, or should it launch a savage attack on the United States on the scale of 9/11—an ISIS video released Monday threatens an attack on Washington, D.C. and other U.S. cities—then his “legacy” goes down the drain. Thus, the Obama-Putin meeting in Antalya reaffirmed what was decided at last Saturday’s meeting in Vienna, in terms of U.S.-Russian collaboration moving forward, which also gives Secretary of State John Kerry greater leeway to work with his Russian counterpart Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to work out the details of collaboration.

The new position to which the Administration has been pushed was expressed Nov. 15 on CBS-TV by recent CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell: “I do think the question of whether President Assad needs to go or whether he is part of the solution here, we need to look at it again, Clearly he’s part of the problem. But he may also be part of the solution.” He suggested an agreement where Assad stays in power for another year and fights ISIS with the Syrian army and support from the U.S.-led coalition and Russia “may give us the best result.”

Even so, as displayed in this morning’s press conference, a very defensive Obama clung to the argument that his Mideast policies and anti-terror strategy have been a shining example of U.S. “leadership,” again asserting that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “is the primary root cause of this crisis.” The reporters present had little patience with his droning and overlong explanations of U.S. “successes.” Three of them questioned the results of the U.S.-led year-long coalition bombing campaign, asking if Obama hadn’t underestimated ISIS’ abilities, and pointing to his description of ISIS as a “JV team.” Referencing the slaughter in Paris, and given the reality of ISIS’ expansion in Syria and Iraq, one reporter challenged, “How is that not underestimating their capabilities? And how is that contained, quite frankly?… Why can’t we take out these bastards?”

In front of about 85 members, and with supporters 120 total, Helga Zepp-LaRouche gave the opening speech at the 21st annual Congress of the BüSo Saturday in Berlin.

Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche started with expressing her deepest sympathy for the relatives of the victims of the bestial terrorist attacks in Paris the previous day, and with the entire nation of France. She asked: Where does all this bestiality come from?

Ten months ago, the attack against Charlie Hebdo took place. That same day in a public event in Washington, Sen. Bob Graham called for declassifying the famous 28 pages of the Congressional Report on 9/11. People who have read those pages, say that it concerns the role of Saudi Arabia.

Recently, former DIA head Michael Flynn has revealed that, despite DIA warnings, the White House has proceeded with the policy which led to the creation of ISIS. The Pentagon has admitted that billions of dollars were spent to train so-called “rebels” who eventually turned to ISIS.

In Germany, popular TV satires, like “Die Anstalt”, mock the U.S. policy of creating Islamist fighters. This is a reflection of how widely shared the view is that the U.S. government is responsible for the growth of terrorism.

Helga then stressed the importance of the new revelations on the Drone policy, which she compared in importance to the famous Pentagon Papers, which started the process that led to the fall of Richard Nixon. The documents revealed by the new whistleblower demonstrate that the President, with his policy of killing people without due process of law, is not only a murderer, but a mass murderer. This, together with the insanity reflected by such a policy, is evidence enough to activate the 25 Amendment to the Constitution, and remove him from the Presidency.

The U.S.A. does not carry out this murderous policy alone: they are helped by other countries, especially by Germany. The extent of the role played by Germany was revealed in recent Bundestag hearings with a former Drone pilot, Brandon Bryant. He explained how drones are given targets represented by cell phone cards, without checking whether the phone is in the hands of the putative owner and suspected terrorist, or whether he is alone, in a public place surrounded by innocent people, or he has given his cell phone away. All German intelligence services help the U.S. in this, the whistleblower said. The Süddeutsche Zeitung wrote that without German participation, there could be no Drone war.

Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche proposed that the BüSo Congress sends a message to the German government that this should stop.

The War Threat

If we consider the whole strategic situation, a striking discrepancy is visible between the dimensions of the global crisis and the cluelessness of the population. There is almost no news which is reported without a spin. All media play according to the rules, for instance, in claiming that Russia and China represent a war threat. Instead, it is the Obama/British policy which represents a threat of war. Their idea to build a world empire leads to World War III, as Russian President Putin said last Tuesday.

The U.S. policy of insisting on stationing ABM systems at the border with Russia, their planned modernization of tactical nuclear weapons in Europe, are prompting a legitimate reaction from Moscow and Beijing, so that a spiral of arms race is ongoing.

However, it suffices to compare the military budgets of Russia and of the U.S.A. to see who pushes the arms race and who of the two is dangerous. Mrs. LaRouche mentioned Ashton Carter’s statements accusing Moscow of “saber-rattling” and threatening the development of new weapons, some of which are secret.

Luckily, there is a resistance in the U.S., which is still a minority but is visible.  She mentioned the Capitol Hill meeting organized by Rep. Conyers, and the positive development of the Vienna conference, where today both representatives of the Syrian government and of some rebel groups should participate.

Obama’s reaction to this has been “boots on the ground” in Syria, announcing to send there special troops, without a mandate from Congress, without being invited by the Syrian government and without a UN mandate. The Pentagon provocations against China in the South China Sea are continuing.

But you can see throughout the world that there is a resistance or at least an awareness of where this would lead.

Roots of the Crisis

This policy has a continuity of 21 years, as my husband Lyndon LaRouche recently stressed. After the assassination attempt against Ronald Reagan, the U.S.A. changed its policy. If you want to find the original root of the current refugee crisis, this is to be found in the 1997 creation of the Project for a New American Century. This policy has influenced the circumstances of German reunification. Russia has experienced a bitter disappointment after having approved the reunification. First, the shock therapy through which Russia lost 1 million people a year; then the expansion of NATO eastwards, betraying assurances given by Washington to Moscow. Then, the policy of regime change, color revolutions, etc.

Also for Germany, legitimate aspirations for reunification were betrayed with the imposition of the euro by François Mitterrand as condition for the reunification.

After an eight-year period of a hiatus with Clinton, who had a mix of good and bad policies, the neocon project re-started full speed with George Bush Jr. In January 2001, Lyndon LaRouche made a historical video saying that the force of the economic crisis would impact the Bush Administration and that the latter would react with a “Reichstag Fire” action. Then we had 9/11, which was not what the official version says. She again referred to the 28 Pages. The Patriot Act and the uncontrolled activity of the NSA followed, Then, the Iraq war in 2003, prompted by the Blair/MI6 memo full with lies.

In March 2011 the U.S. government decided to support the “rebels” in Syria, and that same year they started the attack on Libya. Russia and China remained neutral only because they believed what eventually was revealed to be a lie, i.e. that Qaddafi had fired on his own population. I believe this is the last time that they let themselves be duped, she said.

These were all functioning countries. Those wars are the origin of the refugee crisis, Mrs. LaRouche said amid applause.

When Qaddafi was brutally assassinated, Lyndon LaRouche said: this reflects the intention of starting World War III.

This policy has brought no advantage to the U.S.A., not even domestically. The U.S.A. has become impoverished, real unemployment has grown, and recent data show unprecedented rates of suicides among the white male population.

In front of us is the next global financial crisis, which even the IMF warned that the world is unprepared to face. The commodity bubble is becoming the trigger, as the subprime mortgage market was in 2007.

The solution is to bankrupt Wall Street. Reintroduce Glass-Steagall. Presidential candidates such as O’Malley, Sanders and Rand Paul are calling for that.

We have launched the Manhattan project in the United States to do that.

What Germany Can Do

What can Germany do? A lot, contrary to those who claim we are too small to do anything.

First of all, we should start a debate on what are the real interests of Germany.  We should lift sanctions against Russia. Helmut Schmidt was right when he said that the Ukrainian crisis had been started by the Maastricht agreement.

We should also terminate any and all military missions of the Bundeswehr in support of the U.S./U.K. policy.  We should promote a public debate on the security interests of all nations. We need a new inclusive security architecture.

German Finance Minister Schäuble should resign because his “Black Zero” policy is feeding the right-wing escalation.

We should dissolve all intelligence agencies in Germany… and finally establish a German intelligence service, because all current agencies are not working for German interests.

We should launch cooperation with the New Silk Road. China’s model is a Win-Win model. The Chinese leadership is more Confucian than Marxist. They have freed 600 million people from poverty; these are human rights!

Russia, China, India, Iran, Egypt, Germany, Italy, France and the U.S.A.; all these countries have a common interest for development. Let us have development and create a motivation for the young generation in the Middle East, create a future for them so that they do not fall prey to terrorism. As the Chinese insisted, it is important to plan reconstruction for Syria already now. Let us make Development a real new name for Peace.

For that, however, we need a new culture. We must re-discover our real identity. Our identity, especially in Germany, lies in classical culture. We are so rich and blessed in music, poetry, discoveries. But who, today, still reads Friedrich Schiller, his Aesthetic Letters? Who reads Leibniz?

Only through inner freedom does one reach outer freedom, thus overcoming the “club appurtenance” (enjoying the advantages of the club) which is the sickness of today’s population.

Mrs. LaRouche mentioned in this context the idea of “placement,” as her husband has recently insisted, as defined by the Italian school of singing, which is not only indispensable for rendering the composer’s intention, but it is also a political method.

She concluded with a quotation from Schiller, who said that the artist, before he goes on stage, must elevate himself at the level of the highest ideal of Man. 

The following statement was released on Nov. 14, 2105.

by Jacques Cheminade, President of Solidarité et Progrès in France

Horror has struck Paris. The massacres were committed blindly to plunge our country into a state of shock. With the same barbarity and the same methods as those used in the Middle East, Lebanon, Iraq, Israel or Syria. Six simultaneous attacks in the heart of our capital, and one at the Stade de France stadium, aimed at maximizing the number of victims, bodies piled up in the streets, restaurants transformed into morgues, emergency vehicles with sirens wailing: a carefully planned strategy of fear to signal that the worst can happen everywhere and to everyone.

Our reaction must be equal to the challenge. We should fear nothing but fear itself, as fear inspires mad reactions that add to the initial madness. Coping with fear cannot be done in a state of passivity or denial, but by facing the situation as it is, in the name of truth. Only the fight for truth allows us to escape the vise of anxiety.

The declaration of a state of emergency and the closing of the borders announced by President Hollande, as well as the deployment of police and military forces, are immediately necessary measures, because we are at war. And it is immediately indispensable that we remain united and stand together in upholding the values of the Republic enshrined in our Constitution.

However, we have to go to the root causes, otherwise the horror will happen again and will spread. We need to create a world in which the national and international environment no longer promotes crime, as it does today. There is no escaping evil by simply repressing it, but only by establishing the conditions in which the good leaves it less and less room.

NATO’s wars, economic injustice, and the destruction of decent living conditions created the conditions for terrorism. As did the cynical, criminal policies of divide and rule, on the British imperial model, which nothing in our trans-Atlantic universe really opposed.

Therefore, to stop the horror, we need an absolute change of policy. We need an approach of mutual, “win-win” development, to ensure that our children and our grand-children live better than we do. This is the approach announced by the Chinese and Indian leaders, which is the only real source of peace. That means fighting all forms of terrorism in the Middle East, including the Islamic State, the Al Nusra Front and the Army of Conquest. Today, Saturday November 14, France must play a leading role in the talks to begin a peace process in Syria, by coordinating our efforts with Russian diplomacy, rather than playing into the hands of those who hold freedom hostage.

In the Middle East, we must hit IS in the heart of its financial resources, by bombing its oil pipelines and going after the banks that launder its resources, which has not been done until now. We must end the complicity of Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates with terrorism, uncompromisingly. Finally, at the same time, the conditions for economic development must be recreated in all the countries of the region, so that the migrants once again have decent living conditions, as China offers to do by extending its conception of the New Silk Road. In the meantime, in all the camps in the region, we must create, in coordination with international humanitarian organizations, such conditions, by ensuring healthy nutrition, medical care, decent temporary lodgings and schools for the children.

This conception is not Russian, Chinese, American or French, it is the one that justifies the existence of nation-states: to serve the cause of mankind. France should be at the forefront of this vital commitment, instead of accepting barbarians in djellabas, qamis or three-piece suits.

Facing resistance from key governments to their plans to kill billions by returning the human race to a pre-carbon, hunting and gathering economy, Royal Consort Prince Philip and his lackey, Martin Palmer, have convoked a confab next week to gear up their project to seize the world’s religions as their ultimate weapon against the human race. They are holding up the role of Pope Francis as an agent of the British Monarchy’s satanic doctrine as the model for achieving success.

The Alliance of Religions and Conservation (ARC), run by Martin Palmer since Prince Phillip created it in 1986, is hosting a “Faith in Conservation” conference on Nov. 17-18 in the medieval Palace of the Archbiships of Canterbury, Lambeth Palace. Prince Philip will personally open the meeting of some 36 top operatives from ARC’s eco-religous project, co-sponsored by The Nature Conservancy, Science for Nature and People, WWF-UK, and The Pilkington Foundation.

On the eve of the COP21 conference, ARC recognizes that the Royal green genocide program is running into problems. ARC’s press release announcing the Lambeth Palace meeting is blunt:

“Conservation goals are not being achieved at the necessary scale to address the global environmental threats. Conservation success depends upon changing human values and behaviour, and religions often shape peoples’ identity, values and conduct.

“Religion-based strategies to environmental issues are often effective and sustainable;

“Earlier climate change talks have failed, and there is concern about how effective national governments and intergovernmental agencies can be. This has led to an increased awareness of the vital role of civil society in driving changes, and religion is the largest sector of civil society in every country….

“In June 2014, Pope Francis issued a moving, articulate, persuasive Encyclical… on the human obligation to protect creation. He is the head of the world’s biggest religious tradition, with 1.2 billion followers.”

It is for precisely that reason that American statesman Lyndon LaRouche has denounced Pope Francis’s adoption of Satanic Green fascism. Pope Francis “has been corrupted by a Satanic doctrine,” he said again in his Nov. 12 “Fireside Chat”:

“The Pope has become an instrument of evil.  He became such by the injection of [Hans Joachim] Schellnhuber, who is a British operative who is a Satanic figure.  And the Pope has succumbed to that Satanic figure and to his Satanic policy. And this thing is spreading throughout the United States and it’s spreading throughout Europe as well.  And if we don’t get rid of that Papacy, that term in the Papacy, then you’re going to get Satan all over the universe.”

An event held at the Russian Embassy titled “BRICS 2.0—A Metamorphosis of Globalization,” sponsored by Russia Direct, a monthly magazine with news on Russia, brought together some pro-BRICS intellectuals to counter much of the recent slander about the alleged imminent break-up of the BRICS. While much of what they said was of some interest, most of the presentations were narrowly focused on particular items of the BRICS agenda, without really getting to the heart of the matter.

Most interesting, however, was the presentation by Aleksei Mozhin, the Executive Director of the IMF for Russia.  He noted that the BRICS configuration came out of the aftermath of the G20 Pittsburgh summit in 2009. 

In the Q&A, the first question was asked by EIR‘s Bill Jones.  Referring positively to what Mozhin had said, Jones continued, “That crisis is still ongoing and getting worse.  One too-big-to-fail bank today would set off an unequaled systemic crisis.  Total debt, including derivatives and other exotic instruments, is estimated at $2 quadrillion.  This can never be paid, no matter how much austerity is imposed on the world’s population.  The establishment of the BRICS and AIIB, as well as the Silk Road Economic Belt, represents a new trajectory, away from the insanity of a bankrupt speculative financial system, toward a system based on credit for infrastructure.  While Europe and the U.S. still feel that they are stakeholders in this failed system, the reality of the economic collapse will force them to revise that judgment.  And anyone who looks at the total collapse of infrastructure in the United States will understand the mood-swings. This trajectory, of BRICS, the AIIB, and the Silk Road, is the only possible trajectory for humanity today, because continuing on the other path will lead to total devastation.”

Almost all of the speakers nodded agreement as Jones spoke.

Mozhin responded,

US Secretary of State John Kerry told the Financial Times on Wednesday in regard to the COP 21 Global Warming Conference in Paris: “It’s definitively not going to be a treaty… They’re not going to be legally binding reduction targets like Kyoto or something.”

French President Hollande went berzerk. “If the agreement is not legally binding, there will be no agreement,” he told the international press in Malta on the sidelines of the EU-Africa migration conference. “I know how difficult it is,” Hollande said, in reference to the opposition to a binding agreement in the US Congress. “But we must give the Paris agreement, if there is one, a binding character in the sense that the commitments that are made must be kept and respected.”

The Guardian reported that a global poll last week found that residents of China and the US were among the least concerned about climate change.

The spokesman for the EU Climate Commission, Miquel Arias Canete, said in response to Kerry’s comment, “The Paris agreement must be an international legally binding agreement.” French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius had said it was obvious that any agreement in Paris would contain legally binding elements, and suggested that Kerry was “confused” about the point.

It is not just the US Congress, of course, but India and China, which will not submit to binding suicide in Paris, as they refused to do in Copenhagen in 2009.

There is no comment as yet from the White House. 

British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, a confirmed republican, attended his first session of the Queen’s Privy Council and did not kneel before the Queen when he was sworn in as a member.  The custom is to kneel on a stool before kissing the Queen’s hand.  According to the Guardian Buckingham Palace does not force Privy Council members to do things they are not comfortable with.  Speaking to ITV News before the ceremony, Corbyn said, “I don’t expect to be kneeling at all, no.  I expect to be nominated to the Privy Council and that’s it.”

The Guardian quotes the Royal Encyclopedia on the protocol: “The new privy counselor or minister will extend his or her right hand, palm upwards, and, taking the Queen’s hand lightly, will kiss it with no more than a touch of the lips.” They are also to swear to defend the monarch against “all foreign princes, persons, prelates, states or potentates.”

The late Labour cabinet minister Tony Benn said in his diaries that he kissed his own thumb instead of the Queen’s hand.

Corbyn now has the privilege of being called “Right Honorable” as a title.  More important, membership in the council entitles Corbyn to access to security information and briefings.