The BBC and corporate media coalesce around an extremely narrow consensus of political thought, and ensure that anybody who steps outside that consensus is ridiculed and marginalised. That consensus has got narrower and narrower. I was delighted during the general election to be able to listen to Nicola Sturgeon during the leaders’ debate argue for anti-austerity policies and for the scrapping of Trident. I had not heard anyone on broadcast media argue for the scrapping of Trident for a decade – it is one of those views which though widely held the establishment gatekeepers do not view as respectable.
The media are working overtime to marginalise Jeremy Corbyn as a Labour leadership candidate on the grounds that he is left wing and therefore weird and unelectable. But they face the undeniable fact that, Scottish independence aside, there are very few political differences between Jeremy Corbyn and Nicola Sturgeon. On issues including austerity, nuclear weapons, welfare and Palestine both Sturgeon and Corbyn are really very similar. They have huge areas of agreement that stand equally outside the establishment consensus. Indeed Nicola is more radical than Jeremy, who wants to keep the United Kingdom.
The establishment’s great difficulty is this. Given that the SNP had just slaughtered the Labour Party – and the Tories and Lib Dems – by being a genuine left wing alternative, how can the media consensus continue to insist that the left are unelectable? The answer is of course that they claim Scotland is different. Yet precisely the same establishment consensus denies that Scotland has a separate political culture when it comes to the independence debate. So which is it? They cannot have it both ways.
If Scotland is an integral part of the UK, Jeremy Corbyn’s policies cannot be unelectable.
Nicola Sturgeon won the UK wide leaders debate in the whole of the United Kingdom, despite the disadvantage of representing a party not standing in 90% of it by population. She won not just because she is clever and genuine, but because people all across the UK liked the left wing policies she articulated.
A Daily Mirror opinion poll following a BBC televised Labour leadership candidates’ debate this week had Jeremy Corbyn as the clear winner, with twice the support of anyone else. The media ridicule level has picked up since. This policy of marginalisation works. I was saddened by readers’ comments under a Guardian report of that debate, in which Labour supporter after Labour supporter posted comment to the effect “I would like to vote for Jeremy Corbyn because he believes in the same things I do, but we need a more right wing leader to have a chance of winning.”
There are two answers to that. The first is no, you don’t need to be right wing to win. Look at the SNP. The second is what the bloody hell are you in politics for anyway? Do you just want your team to win like it was football? Is there any point at all in being elected just so you can carry out the same policies as your opponents? The problem is, of course, that for so many in the Labour Party, especially but not just the MPs, they want to win for personal career advantage not actually to promote particular policies.
The media message of the need to be right wing to be elected is based on reinforced by a mythologizing of Tony Blair and Michael Foot as the ultimate example of the Good and Bad leader. These figures are constantly used to reinforce the consensus. Let us examine their myths.
Tony Blair is mythologised as an electoral superstar, a celebrity politician who achieved unprecedented personal popularity with the public, and that he achieved this by adopting right wing policies. Let us examine the truth of this myth. First that public popularity. The best measure of public enthusiasm is the percentage of those entitled to vote, who cast their ballot for that party at the general election. This table may surprise you.
Percentage of Eligible Voters
1992 John Major 32.5%
1997 Tony Blair 30.8%
2001 Tony Blair 24.1%
2005 Tony Blair 21.6%
2010 David Cameron 23.5%
2015 David Cameron 24.4%
There was only any public enthusiasm for Blair in 97 – and to put that in perspective, it was less than the public enthusiasm for John Major in 1992.
More importantly, this public enthusiasm was not based on the policies now known as Blairite. The 1997 Labour Manifesto was not full of right wing policies and did not indicate what Blair was going to do.
The Labour Party manifesto of 1997 did not mention Academy schools, Private Finance Initiative, Tuition Fees, NHS privatisation, financial sector deregulation or any of the right wing policies Blair was to usher in. Labour actually presented quite a left wing image, and figures like Robin Cook and Clare Short were prominent in the campaign. There was certainly no mention of military invasions.
It was only once Labour were in power that Blair shaped his cabinet and his policies on an ineluctably right wing course and Mandelson started to become dominant. As people discovered that New Labour were “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”, to quote Mandelson, their popular support plummeted. “The great communicator” Blair for 90% of his Prime Ministership was no more popular than David Cameron is now. 79% of the electorate did not vote for him by his third election
Michael Foot consistently led Margaret Thatcher in opinion polls – by a wide margin – until the Falklands War. He was defeated in a victory election by the most appalling and intensive wave of popular war jingoism and militarism, the nostalgia of a fast declining power for its imperial past, an emotional outburst of popular relief that Britain could still notch up a military victory over foreigners in its colonies. It was the most unedifying political climate imaginable. The tabloid demonization of Foot as the antithesis of the military and imperial theme was the first real exhibition of the power of Rupert Murdoch. Few serious commentators at the time doubted that Thatcher might have been defeated were it not for the Falklands War – which in part explains her lack of interest in a peaceful solution. Michael Foot’s position in the demonology ignores these facts.
The facts about Blair and about Foot are very different from the media mythology.
The stupid stunt by Tories of signing up to the Labour Party to vote for Corbyn to ridicule him, is exactly the kind of device the establishment consensus uses to marginalise those whose views they fear. Sturgeon is living proof left wing views are electable. The “left unelectable” meme will intensify. I expect Jeremy Corbyn’s biggest problem will be quiet exclusion. I wish him well.
Sarcasm, as I am all too aware, Macky, is routinely misunderstood by commenters. Especially when the accompanying stream of repeated whinges confirms that it is indeed not sarcasm at all. The allegiance forming here is interesting.
Thanks Phil, not that I get inot this elevation stuff. But it’s nice to hear some support about now, just as a parson. But I don’t fear I won’t be staying.
I do, have, tried to keep things fresh, and I never tried to force anything on anyone. More than welcome to read past me.
But there is a continual lack of mutual respect, perhaps derived from the lack of direction, or any real movement in the gathering on this blog (though probably they have never experienced lack off hierarchy)…+ Reflecting has never really been my thing so yea, i’m always looking to push this blog as a collection of people to do something different. Or add to it…
This is not to say I haven’t seen or acknowledged things I find very good. Info and stuff, But it’s clearly structured in the most typically bad way. And I get lot’s of virtual ignorance from people, it really does me no good. And they ain’t about to change So yea, guess I am a bit mad.
It’s never been about options to me. I thought it a useful way to spread to word about injustice, link to those groups etc. Activism. But it seems mostly pontification for individual political ends. In the end.
….any comments on zero-hours contracts?
Putin says there are Russians fighting on behalf of the Donbas region. The reason is because of the millions of Ukrainians no living in Russia, nearly 1.3 million of them of draft age, come to Russia (European countries will not give them refuge) and tell stories of what is happening to the civilian population in the region and it so outrages the Russians that they risk everything to fight on behalf of these poor people. He makes constant pleas to stick to the Minsk agreements. Poroshenko and Yatsenyuk on the other hand continue to talk about getting areas like Crimea and Donbas in Kiev’s clutches. This video at the beginning shows briefly what Donetsk airport looked like before and after Kiev’s war on its own people. The rest of the video shows the reason why ordinary Russians are prepared to put their lives at risk to try and protect the poor oppressed people.
https://www.facebook.com/kazbek.magerramov/videos/878102768927841/?fref=nf
Re the above score or so posts:
and they call ME a troll! 🙂
Ba’al Zevul; “Why not start your own blog/s?”
Not only a sarcasm, but also an irony bypass ! 😀
False friends, propagandists, useful idiots & dumb enablers are the very worse enemies, and need to be countered before even a chance of success against the obvious enemy.
Macky
I am a slow learner. but it’s not all a bad thing. Maybe I should just lay off and stick the boot in more occasionally?
Dam….I though these where my allies? …strong cup of lapsang.
Daniel
“Where have I ever denied that the existence of a reserve army of the unemployed (beyond what can be considered as a “natural level” of unemployment) has a depressing effect on wage levels?”
Mind you, you could look at this from another angle.
I assume you agree with the findings of the sturdy referred to by Technicolour? Well, if that study is correct in opining that increased immigration is beneficial overall because it stimulates economic activity and increases the number of potential consumers (rather than depressing wages), then should not the same argument apply to the reserve army of native unemployed: would not getting much of that army back to work similarly stimulate economic activity and increase the number of potential consumers?
Hey Baal Im here to annoy cunts like you.
You may have noticed I only spend a few minutes a day here. You are just another self important obsessive who seems to have little else to do with your life.
Go fuck yourself. Do it quickly before this comment gets deleted.
@Ishmael, yes this blog has truely been trolled & dumbed down, and trying to counter that with one hand tied behind your back is not easy, but remember turning away is what they really want you to do, hence all those suggestions to “start your own blog”.
“propagandists, useful idiots & dumb enablers are the very worse enemies, and need to be countered”
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Exactly. It has taken a while, but Macky now seems to understand what brought me onto this blog in the first place.
Habbabkuk,
The issue relates to the notion that migrants depress wages. You suggested that they do. I showed you that they don’t.
`A true friend` : Ukraine president asks Tony Blair to take on advisory role.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/18/ukraine-president-asks-tony-blair-advisory-role-poroshenko?CMP=share_btn_fb
Blair will be in good company with all the other international criminals who have obtained lucrative positions in Ukraine.
And it was Blair’s mate Viktor Pinchuk who bankrolled the coup in Kiev. He also pumps loads of dosh into the Clinton’s foundation,as they say just follow the money.
Phil
Keep cool.
And take comfort in the fact that you actually do something in the real world (helping/working with the homeless, I remember you saying) as opposed to prosing away on here all day long.
False friends, propagandists, useful idiots & dumb enablers are the very worse enemies, and need to be countered before even a chance of success against the obvious enemy.
I think the term you are looking for is “people who don’t agree with me”. What have you in mind? Firing squad?
I don’t see why my perfectly reasonable suggestion that you bugger off and start your own blog should exercise you. Look back on this one. No-one ever gets converted: they keep on stating their own points of view, usually to the point of tedium. Coming here to wave your anarchist flag is utterly pointless as compared with starting your own propaganda station. As to ‘countering’ your opponents your posts are in general so devoid of hard fact and dogmatic, all you are doing is stiffening the resistance.
What needs to happen on the anticapitalist front is some agreement between the likes of you and the likes of Craig. Identification of the common ground (You: There isn’t any. Me: You’ve never looked for it) Organising the Left is like herding cats as it is, and you are behaving like a yappy dog that’s got into the flock. Leave it out.
Zero-hours contracts: Plans for helping the poor sods who are forced into them and can’t get out?
*silence*
Hey Baal Im here to annoy cunts like you. (Phil)
Just in case the original gets deleted….I know, Phil. And you know what? I annoy you a lot more than you annoy me. It shows. Intentional? That is the question, isn’t it?
God. Am I in danger of agreeing with Buggalugs? This is Hell. Nor are we out of it.
“Habbakuk: the piece Daniel linked to was interesting, did you read it?”
The answer to that is “No”.
I got less censorship posting on the local Conservative FB page. And I did literately take that thing over for a bit in size of comment. No shame in that one. Or this small one.
Maybe there just to old and slow, need to get some ‘air’ between posts. Dead air that they criticize me for filling of this blog. And I do try and wait, believe it or not, as i’v had so much of this.
3 2 3,2,1…3 2 submit comment
BOOOM
Daniel
Technicolour’s study says that immigration has a beneficial effect on the wages of those in the middle and at the top of the wages scale:
“A full-time worker in the middle of the wage distribution gains by 60p a week (40 x 1.5p) and those at the top of the wage distribution improve by 80p a week.”
But the people I’m more worried about are those at the bottom of the scale – ie, the poorest, perhaps largely those called “the working poor”.
For them, the study’s conclusions are negative.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Be it noted in passing that your point of view pays no heed to the pressures on infrastructure brought about by large-scale immigration. Those pressure also bear most heavily, I’d suggest, on the poorest and the “working poor”.
***********************
Put mine and Macky’s comment’s back mod.
Re. Blair, TY Dave, but old news He did the Poland-Ukraine-Russia flyby last week. The latest is that now he’s working for a Zionist outfit and not sinecured to the Quartet, he has finally decided to talk to Hamas. No doubt on behalf of Israel, which appears to have noticed that Gaza could be a calamitous fuckup instead of one that random bombing fixes…there’s also more than a hint here that he’s been co-opted by HMG. Cameron has no more intelligent mediators – that says a lot.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-hearst/why-tony-blair-is-talking_b_7634070.html
btw, Mary does keep up, in this way, with current issues Phil…
Baal acting like everyones granddad
Oh come. A little harsh, surely? But youth will have its fling etc.
“you were responsible for refueling the trucks that refueled the planes”
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Now that was very funny!
(Note to Macky : that’s how humour is done, laddy! Light and witty, not clunking!)
Yea, spotted that Phil. Or maybe he’s on acid.
First, it’s not Technicolour’s study. He merely cited the study from the link I cited that you didn’t read. Secondly, and more importantly, no amount of wriggling by you can detract from the fact that no correlation exists between the depression of wages and rates of immigration. It is clear to me that your insistence to the contrary, despite the evidence, is predicated on obtuseness as opposed to intellectual integrity. So forgive me if I leave the discussion at this point.
Baal – Captain Komodo
“Baal acting like everyones granddad
Oh come. A little harsh, surely?”
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It’s not bad, actually.
I speak as someone who prefers to think of you as some kind of sawdust Zeus, sitting up there on your substitute Mount Olympus (perhaps the top of your handyman’s ladder?) and issuing the occasional edict and hurling the occasional thunderbolt (for which read ‘damp squib’).
But I do of course absolve you from the charge of raping women while disguised as a swan.
Daniel
“First, it’s not Technicolour’s study.”
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I know that, Daniel: that is why, elsewhere, I referred to the study cited by Technicolour. Is that really the best you can do?
PS – wrong use of the word “predicated” (although it sounds pompously good).
Run along!
Get this into you self esteemed head, Ba’al. I could not give a moneys how your try a slur me, I can get on fine without ‘high’ regard. Do you share that ability? I think not.
So what I can’t openly take you apart. These chains are a “kingly title”.