“We earned them votes tonight”, said Emma Lewell-Buck. The House of Commons has gained a social worker who can’t speak English. The auto-didacts of the early Labour movement would have been horrified. I am aware that the readers of this blog are among those who believe an inability to communicate in standard English is a mark of authenticity; I fear my view is that it has been a hundred years since the state education system in this country was so patchy that there is any reason beyond sloth for inability to follow the most basic of grammar.
But she spoke truth in one sense. They did indeed “earn them votes”. Producing fraudulent postal ballots by the thousands is very hard work, and the Labour Party in the North of England should perhaps be congratulated in bringing back aspects of manufacturing heritage in this regard.
*This was the first parliamentary constituency election in British history in which the postal ballots outnumbered the polling station votes. UKIP beat New Labour in the polling booth ballot boxes by a very clear majority, according to my mole in the count.
“… the way schools are focussing on targets and exams leaves no time for grammar…” Technicolour.
I agree. It’s nonsense. Lumpen managerialism run amok. And it’s not even effective – it doesn’t work.
“The most striking thing about this post is that the quote made what the person said hard to understand when written down – I thought she was initially saying that Labour had won other people (them) votes. Which, given the various failings of that party, would also be true, but wasn’t what she meant to say at all. Verbally, the emphasis would be on ‘them’ so you’d have heard the point.” Technicolour.
Yes, initially I thought that.
“I still affirm that it’s preferable to have an elected representative who says ‘we will not bomb them people’ than one who says ‘we will bomb those people’ but I don’t think there’s any real disagreement here.” Techicolour.
Absolutely. But that’s still no reason for us not to know, and be able effectively to use, both possibilities, both ‘them’ and ‘those’ and to know which would be regarded as ‘standard’ in a specific situation.
English grammar is not so easy, it’s not just a case of placing commas in the correct places. The definite and indefinite article confusion one sees among some experienced but non-native speakers is an example. English is quite a slippery and malleable tongue – which is part of the enjoyment. David Crystal has written wonderfully on all of this stuff. I’d recommend his work to anyone interested in the area.
http://www.davidcrystal.com/
And finally,
!!All power to the apostrophe!!
🙂
Suhayl. Thanks for the link. Great stuff!
……………………………………
And Dad!
Now just take your hands away from Adrian’s keyboard for a couple of minutes and take a look at what you’ve just gone and done.
Are you really telling off a fictional 13 and a half year old daughter who’s full of anger at stupid adults and dealing with that potent hormonal brew that has recently started to course through her veins. I don’t want to seem unkind but Dad I really think you should seek help.
I worry that anybody who can spend a good chunk of their waking life writing as you do cannot be doing their own mental and emotoinal health any good. I don’t know what your real motivations are but Dad, just look at your contributions for a moment. Every one of them, I am sure you will admit, is written with the intention of causing upset and confusion and derailing the positive dynamic of this blog. You never genuinely debate with, or answer, anyone who takes the trouble to reply to your posts. I’m sure most readers of this blog soon learn to scroll on down when they see your posts. I did for ages before the image started to settle in my mind that behind those poisonous posts was maybe a Henry Wilt-like person seemingly bereft of Wilt’s redeeming virtues. In that moment Sophie was born, and all this past week has been pulling at my sleeve and asking to get at my keyboard.
You must know that, for an increasing number of people, the contradictions between the official narrative and reality are just so vast that when a person like Craig Murray has the guts to point at the Emperer’s New Clothes we respond with respect and a desire to know more.
This blog has become a, for me atleast, a wonderful and alive exchanege of ideas information, opinion and repartee but your posts do nothing to persuade or inform. If I’m wrong on that point then let those who have read your pieces and thought, “I never thought about it like that. You know this Habbukuk has a point there!” emerge from wherever they are hiding.
In the meantime Sophie will want to know what has become of her Dad. She’ll still no doubt be embarrased about his behaviour, but she’ll love him anyway. No doubt she’ll wonder just who else is chasing him what adventures will befall him during his life on the run. And I know she’ll hold out a hope all the while that at some time he’ll push back his chair and decide, “sod that for a lark”, take a good long walk under the clouds and begin to learn a little kindness.
People can change Dad.
Busy man, that Mr Crystal. Should have said ‘some basic rules are quite easy’, probably, but the more you get a chance to read for pleasure, the more, as Sophie says, the language seeps in. Sadly, children (and adults) often don’t get a chance to read for pleasure, and when the latter do, it’s stuff like Lee Childs, who may be grammatically correct but whose books are leaden and miserable examples of language, or worse. I could name a slew of modern, widely lauded stuff from the States which I’ve read from people’s bookshelves and wished I’d eaten instead.
This comment from Craig illustrates perfectly why I lurk on this site … and very occasionally comment! I always learn something.
Coming, as I do, from Glasgow originally corruption in the Labour party is not unknown to me – but it was old Labour then – I should have known that it continued (or worsened?) with Blair and the new!
“Coming, as I do, from Glasgow originally corruption in the Labour party is not unknown to me – but it was old Labour then – I should have known that it continued (or worsened?) with Blair and the new!”
Then I think there is a strong case for abolishing elections completely. Let’s face it, the political system has the effect of attracting and favouring psychopaths. Anyone who would want to be an MP is unsuited to the job.
Let’s just pick our MPs at random, like they do jurors for court cases.
“I could name a slew of modern, widely lauded stuff from the States which I’ve read from people’s bookshelves and wished I’d eaten instead.” Technicolour
I know. Me too. Maybe we all should go out for a meal of books. Mind you, if you are what you eat…
But no, I realise you meant that you’d rather have eaten something tasty instead of reading those books. Tee-hee! That English tongue again!
🙂
Thanks again Suhayl.
I was bursting to deal with the book-eater but I didn’t want to bully Mr T twice in a day.
Spuds in! Better late than never.
I read somewhere that there are more English speakers in the Indian subcontinent, and still more in North America, than there are in the British Isles – with differences in accents, spelling and even grammar. And of course, English is also fast becoming the international language. So is there such a thing as Standard English?
I don’t think you’re bullying me, dear Sophie – at least, you might be trying to? No, I did mean I wish I’d eaten the books instead. Bad for the physical digestion, but worse for the mental.
still, poor effort in attempt to be brief: if I’d said ‘which I wished’ clarity would have triumphed. goes to show.
Fred; agree, random selection. Can you see it happening?
Roderick (how are you?): there are some basics – see apostrophes ;). Indian English tends to have an attractively stilted rhythm rather than different rules (I think), more rises and falls (like Indian music maybe). Meanwhile US English, as on cracked.com, is having great fun playing with punctuation and phrasing because why not?
I live in the broken borough of South Shields, you can be assured Emma did not knock on my door. I very rarely leave the house, so I did email Emma asking her to call on me as I very much wanted to speak with her. After receiving no reply I resent my email, still no reply to date.
I used to be a postal voter for the simple reason I find it difficult to get out of the house. However I became uneasy about my postal vote not being counted because it was not for the ruling party.
The missing ballot boxes in a local election some years ago first aroused my suspicions, I know the Labour party in this area does not want Ahmed Kahn on their council. He is a decent honest man and we certainly don’t want that here.
Mr T. I should have used inverted commas.
Of course I wouldn’t want to bully you. Why would I when you so often say what I want to say, but usually so much more coherently?
I’m always being accused of having an over-graphic imagination and today you tickled it twice. That’s all. Thanks.
And I hope telling Dad a few home truths didn’t come over as bullying. He may behave appallingly and I so wish he didn’t but I feel life is too short and there’s enough of the real thing around.
One thing I love about Craig Murray’s blog is the strong sense that comes from most contributers that wherever it occurs, Chagos Islands, Iraq, South Shields or anywhere, bullying’s such a dumb way to relate to those other people and species with whom we share the planet with for a while.
@Fred,
What a great idea … doubt they could do any worse.
Various psychology/psychiatry papers give 1% as the percentage of psychopaths in a random sample of the population. Leaving aside gender difference (too complicated for this time in the evening)1% of MPs of a random selection of individuals from the population at large would give us a probability of 6 psychopaths.
This just has to be far less than the current total.
However, to minimise their acquiring power of any kind (psychopaths convince others of their outstanding abilities despite the fact that they have few) random selection of new MPs would have to be organised on a fairly regular basis.
Not sure much governing would get done but, given the ‘governing’ we’re experiencing at the moment, that could only be a bonus.
“Not sure much governing would get done but, given the ‘governing’ we’re experiencing at the moment, that could only be a bonus.”
They’re hardly ever there, just 140 days this year. Country seems to run better when they aren’t there anyway so maybe it’s a good job.
The randomly elected MPs would of course work full time, just the two week summer holiday not three months. They would also only receive the same wages they did in the job they had prior to being elected.
Any system in which decision-making is concentrated within a minority of the population, is inherently corruptible. Parliament is king with six hundred heads (Proudhon?). How the heads got to be there – elected, selected by lot, appointed, … matters little in the long run. Adam Smith offers another valuable insight into group dynamics when he talks of “people of the same trade” invariably conspiring against the public. And so on, this is uncontroversial stuff.
The reason that electoral fraud is not surprising is because the stakes are so high – getting into the decision-making group is so valuable. To remove the scope for corruption, the high desirability of belonging to the decision-making group must be removed. How? By making the representatives’ decision-making power not absolute, that is by allowing it to be challenged and over-ruled by means of mandatory and/or Initiative referenda. A tried and tested system, works rather well (most notably in Switzerland).
All that said, frequent random selection by lot is likely to be better than elections as it would at least tend to reduce the number of sociopaths and already corrupted individuals in office. And of course the other important bit mustn’t be forgotten – information. Tell ’em a pack of lies and they may vote against their best interest. Media outlets have a value beyond their bottom-line profitability. I do not know of any real-world solutions to this little problem.
Note the correct use of apostrophe above 🙂
“All that said, frequent random selection by lot is likely to be better than elections as it would at least tend to reduce the number of sociopaths and already corrupted individuals in office.”
It would also be an end to the most corrupting influence, party politics.
The law of averages would ensure that each class had representation in proportion to their numbers, an end to gerrymandering.
I have an idea for a themed restaurant:
“And for dessert, will that be the ‘Paradise Lost’, the ‘Middlemarch’, or the ‘Ulysses’, madam?”
“I think I’ll have a King James Bible, done blue, Calvin-style, and a Quran, please, medium rare, with white wine sauce and pork dripping.”
Scurrilous, eh? You read it here first.
Fred, maybe you need a Beppe Grillo. Mind you, that sounds like a finger lickin’ good meal rather than a comedian-cum-politician. Anthropophagy!
Fred, I think most people would relate to what you wrote about many career politicians and career politics/political parties, etc.
On the three-month Parliamentary break, it is important that it is understood that most MPs will spend most of that time working in their constituencies (as they do when Parliament is in session).
But yes, Westminster has some arcane rules that need updating. A lot of the work they do – MPs (and MSPs, and no doubt the same applies in Wales and Northern Ireland) of all parties – is good, grassroots work which one doesn’t see. Of course, that’s nothing more than their job.
But I think this constant, all-too-easy assumption of uselessness wrt local and national government which over the past 20-30 years or so, seems to have become almost a default position, actually best serves neoliberal transnational interests.
I also should ask whether we really want to return to the days when only the wealthy could be MPs, since only they had the spare time and money to pursue such interests?
Having said all that, I abhore the subservient relationship that seems to have developed b/w our elected representatives and neoliberal financial systematised piracy. The Pirates of the Red Sea have much to learn from those of the City of London. Perhaps they should institute exchange schemes for lifelong learning, diversification and continuous professional development in the career field of piracy. One is unsurprised, however, at their subservience to structural power, a subservience which manidests in both economic and military-security sectors.
‘On the three-month Parliamentary break, it is important that it is understood that most MPs will spend most of that time working in their constituencies (as they do when Parliament is in session).’
Do you really think that Suhayl? Mine, like others, seems to spend time getting photo ops for the local paper. I rarely get a response to infrequent communications on such topics as alcohol pricing, neonicotinoids and so on and if I do, it is a month or two later and consists mostly of blurbs from Central Office.
Many go overseas on sponsored visits. Those abroad for the Thatcher eulogy/debate were paid to a maximum of £3,750 to return. Nice work if you can get it.
Well, I guess it depends a lot on who your MP is (and that is independent of political party). A lot of MPs do work very hard for their constituents – as indeed they ought. For example, it is my understanding that whatever one might think of some of their politics, Douglas Alexander (Paisley), Rory Stewart, Ann McKechin (Glasgow North), Norman Baker (Lewes)and (yes, the Senior) Ian Paisley all are/were excellent constituency MPs. You’re quite right, though, April Showers, systemically and maybe by the very nature of career politics, there is corruption of various sorts.
Jeremy Corbin, Glenda Jackson, Zac Goldsmith, Caroline Lucas, Fiona McTaggart, Jessica Morden, the brilliant Helen Goodman:
http://www.dailyshame.co.uk/2013/03/satire/mp-lives-on-18-a-week-food-bill-and-we-love-her-for-it/
…off the top of my head.
I think also that it – the corruption – has got worse, though, as, sadly, the notion of public service becomes degraded. One just has to compare, say, Harold and Mary Wilson (and yes, I know about the ‘Falkender Affair’, etc.) with, say, Anthony and Cherie Blair.
Thanks, Technicolour, that’s a brilliant and very powerful link.
“Those abroad for the Thatcher eulogy/debate were paid to a maximum of £3,750 to return.”
How many accepted it, or any amount? Had they asked for it?
“But I think this constant, all-too-easy assumption of uselessness wrt local and national government which over the past 20-30 years or so, seems to have become almost a default position, actually best serves neoliberal transnational interests.”
and the far right, on the ground.
Technicolour, 5.5.13, 12:39pm: Yep.
On the subjects of language and politics …..
Apparently the word ‘politics’ is derived from the Greek ‘poly’ meaning ‘many’ and ‘tics’ meaning ‘blood-sucking parasites’.
ho ho. someone should have told Nye Bevan.
Technicolour This FoI request was made by Dr Shona McIntosh
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/cost_of_recalling_parliament_to
The reply to Ms (sic) McIntosh was batted into the long grass of IPSA.