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.
Technicolour
“Anyway, pet, you were meant to be focussing on the Dustmann report, not the Cream report, remember?”
__________________
I like the pet (well, assuming you’re a woman) but am not so keen on you telling me which report to focus on; if it’s all the same to you I’ll focus on the one, the other, or perhaps neither 🙂
Migration Watch? Well, I suppose they have their agenda but that doesn’t *necessarily* disqualify all they say. The accuracy of their predictions can hardly be worse than the accuracy of HMG’s predictions that EU Eastern European immigration to the UK would be in the “tens of thousands”, can it.
+++++++++++++++++
BTW here’s a little tease just for you. You do know that Professor Dustmann is an immigrant to the UK, don’t you? Or then again, perhaps he is isn’t – OldMark’s points on what is an immigrant in the various reports refer.
Geoffrey Good to hear that. He is inspirational isn’t he and has that lovely lilt to his voice. I heard him at UCL following Cast Lead when he was describing the horrific wounds caused by new weaponry and showed photos. He was interrupted throughout by one Hoffman from the JNF.
http://gaza.tumblr.com/post/235189603/dr-mads-gilbert
DeepGreenPuddock, yes it was me. 1997, Bridport, Dorset, I was there.
Thanks also for responding on the matter. Much appreciated.
Jon, good to see you again – and thanks.
*********************************
“This ploy of a polar-opposite retro agreement to an opening position, is very, very odd to say the least.” Macky.
I sometimes pose very simple questions like, “Does the UK state assassinate people domestically?” because it takes people back to first principles, cuts to the quick. These are questions which the MSM largely avoids asking in a direct manner. It’s not posing the opposite argument, it’s posing a basic and important question. Sometimes it’s not about displaying cleverness – the MSM, for example, displays lots and lots of cleverness – but about asking very simple, almost child-like questions.
Whether or not I am “paranoid” or have “a chip” on my “shoulder” is neither here nor there. Perhaps I ma, and maybe I do. So what, really? These are classic charges thrown at black and brown people whenever we make observations on matters to do with racism. I always think people who issue such charges would do well to look at themselves first and at why precisely they might be making such statemets, from what attitudes might such statemenst proceed.
This was a mass shooting by a self-proclaimed White Supremacist of black civilians in a church while they were at workship. I do think that racism is at least of some relevance to the subject. Is it not interesting really that anyone would take umbrage at the mention of racism in this context. And there is a very long history of violent, structural and personal racism in the American South. It’s not that that is mutually exclusive with many other factors – American militarism and so on – indeed it goes hand-in-hand with them.
Please try to accept that I am trying to communicate with you in good faith. I don’t have to, of course, but it’s the way I am.
What do you think of White Supremacism, Macky? Do you have a view on the subject?
Daniel
“Habbabkuk,
If they are indeed his views, then I disagree with them.”
__________________
I strongly believe they are but if I am mistaken there is nothing to stop him saying so.
There is nothing to be ashamed about to agree that Saddam and Hitler were tyrants.
Daniel
But I think he’ll just maintain a discreet silence. Let’s see if I’m right.
Trolls like to provoke comments. It’s their flame-drawing tactic. I prefer not to react.
Troglodytae non vescendi sunt.
Hmm, I think perhaps you’ll focus on neither. Coffee seems to be the best bet.
Of course Migration Watch’s agenda doesn’t discredit them; any more than someone trying to flog you a Sky package discredits them. You may indeed rely on their assurance that Sky is the best package available. It’s Migration Watch’s untruths which discredit them, untruths so comprehensively addressed by Dustmann et al in the reply which you may, or may not, choose to examine.
Given that – and thanks for the opportunity to spread some reality – how you do feel about mocha?
Dr Gilbert has been banned by Israel from ever re-entering Gaza. Did he mention that Geoffrey?
“There is nothing to be ashamed about to agree that Saddam and Hitler were tyrants.”
Of course not, but whose tyrants were they.
Were they completely self-made tyrants or did they receive external assistance.
Might as well get the full picture, eh.
Sad to hear that the composer James Horner,has died in a aircraft crash today,he was one of my favourite film score composers,with the likes of, Titanic, Braveheart and Enemy at the Gate,to his name.
Here is the beautiful soundtrack “Tania” from the closing credits from Enemy at the Gate,composed by Horner.
Enjoy.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VHiec27tu40
I consider being described as ‘ineffable’ by Habbabkuk is insulting to me and that he has broken the rules.
‘Incapable of being expressed; indescribable or unutterable’
Suggest he reads this and learns some facts.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/saddam/interviews/aziz.html
Cannot see a date but obviously some time back before the Bush/Blair massacre.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frontline_(U.S._TV_series)
Following last week’s horrific shooting in South Carolina in which nine churchgoers were murdered by the deranged racist Dylann Roof, Walmart has decided to stop selling products which feature the Confederate flag – also known as the ‘stars and bars’.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jun/23/nikki-haley-remove-confederate-flag-courageous-just-politics
Just wondered if anyone had any opinions on this. Would like to see Craig do a post on it at some stage. I think it puts paid to Henry Ford’s famous dismissal of history as “bunk” when people in the USA still seem to be taking either side of a war that ended over 150 years’ ago. Some of the CiF discussions in The Guardian whenever the subject of slavery in the antebellum South and the civil war can get really heated and battle lines are definitely drawn.
Similar to the Scottish flag, the Confederate flag is basically a saltire and there is a theory that this design was chosen by the southerners because there were a large number of people of Scottish heritage living in the South at the time.
My first thought was that by the same reasoning the stars and stripes, the union jack and also the Spanish and French flags could potentially be argued for a ban as well – because slavery (not to mention the stealing of the land from the indigenous population with extreme violence) – also flourished during the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries when those authorities controlled what’s now the USA, too. George Washington was a slave owner and the White House was actually built by slave labour.
Then again though, I can see the argument that the Confederate flag is different because it is the symbol of an organisation of states that came into being specifically to defend and uphold slavery. In that sense, it could be argued that it’s like the NSDAP swastika symbol – a symbol of a specifically racist ideology.
I’m also wondering to what extent Walmart and other retailers and organisations would be able to exercise such a blanket ban, though. It covers flags, T-shirts and clothing obviously – but what about history books or DVD movies that may have an historical representation of the Confederate flag on the cover, for instance? In Germany, the Swastika ban is enforced to such an extent that even a model kit of, say for instance, a Heinkel aeroplane cannot include swastika markings – apparently?!
How many days since the publication of the now infamous UNHRC report? The evil is ceaseless.
Israeli forces shoot, injure 2 Palestinians in southern Gaza
GAZA CITY (Ma’an) — Israeli forces, deployed on the southern Gaza border, shot and injured two young Palestinian men east of Khuzaa on Monday evening, medics told Ma’an.
The men were left bleeding for a quarter of an hour after they were shot before they were able to call an ambulance.
Israeli forces were reported to have opened fire intermittently on Palestinian civilians near the border.
Israeli forces have repeatedly opened fire on Gazans since the ceasefire agreement signed Aug. 26, 2014 that ended last summer’s devastating 50-day war between Israel and Hamas.
In May alone, there were a total of 51 incidents of shootings, incursions into the coastal enclave, and arrests, according to the Palestinian Center for Human Rights.
This included 41 shootings, which left nine injured, including one minor.
The attacks come despite Israeli promises at the end of the ceasefire to ease restrictions on Palestinian access to the border region near the Israeli “security buffer zone.”
http://www.maannews.com/Content.aspx?id=766106
~~~
David Horovitz on the report. He is a past editor of Jerusalem Post.
http://www.timesofisrael.com/shame-on-you-mary-mcgowan-davis/
and Ha’aretz’s Barak Ravid says
Head of UN Gaza probe tells Haaretz: Main message is Israel can’t drop one-ton bomb on a neighbourhood
Jurist Mary McGowan Davis tells Haaretz that committee members wanted to convey that Israel must reexamine its policy of using military might, says report would have looked ‘very different’ if Israel had cooperated.
June 23, 2015
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.662603
“He also promised to ban foxhunting (one of the reasons I voted for him the first time he stood) but that issue was not even debated till his second term”
Just not true – an options bill following the Burns report was debated in the first Parliament but ran out of time before the election was called.
“Walmart has decided to stop selling products which feature the Confederate flag”
Smart move, eh.
As if the US isn’t divided enough.
Now they’re opening up the ole North v South thing again. Another poorly understood conflict.
Complete chaos. Delicious.
How’s Sen. Lindsey Olin Graham gonna play that one.
Mary, It takes some wickedness to not allow entry into Gaza for somebody whose role is to help save the lives of men, women and children. Israel, the self-proclaimed Jewish State whose majority Jewish population re-elected a Likud fascist into power can only be blamed on Muslim power.
Not my cup of tea, ROS, but whatever rocks your boat, I suppose.
Here is another obituary for Tariq Aziz by Denis Halliday and Hans Von Sponeck, UN Assistant Secretaries-General & UN Humanitarian Coordinators for Iraq (ret.) (1997-2000) Müllheim (Germany) and Dublin (Ireland)
8 June 2015
http://www.intifada-palestine.com/2015/06/obituary-tariq-aziz/
Becky, My view is that like white hoods, the chatter about flags in the public arena represnts something of a diversion. Typical though of our times.
Becky Cohen, yes, I’d agree that the Confederate flag is more worthy of a ban than that of countries with an imperial past, and I can see what people mean when they opine that it is on a par with the swastika. It is a symbol of oppression, and its supporters often display a cultural tin ear when they defend it simply as a historical object – and as they are now doing.
Given the racial conflict in the United States, and its primarily with-us-or-against-us binary argumentation, I wonder if state-wide or federal bans would be premature, and would feed into the hard Right libertarianism that is the cause of such crises in the first place. A prohibition on state buildings flying the flag would be a great place to start, with South Carolina taking a principled lead on the matter, and other states following suit. If the government is willing to condemn its racist past, it helps, even if causes private flag sales to sky-rocket at gun expos.
He did,Mary.
“Just not true – an options bill following the Burns report was debated in the first Parliament but ran out of time before the election was called.”
It was not properly debated. A bill was deliberately introduced too late for it to have any realistic chance of being concluded in that parliament and the Lords (including Burns) made sure foxhunting would continue. Blair is a liar through and through. He only got my vote once. The act did not come into law until 2005 just before Blair’s third crack at making the Labour Party into a party of (by and large) right wing gobshites.
But not surprised you are a Blairite. I’ve seen who you support in Ukraine.
Attempts were made in Westminster Hall by Starmer and Main to squelch Simon Danczuk’s comments on Janner.
Lord Janner ‘abused children in Parliament’, claims MP
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33243782
‘Personally I fail to see how the knowledge that a peer of the realm is a serial child abuser is not in the public interest,” the MP added.
Mr Danczuk was repeatedly warned by the chair of the debate, Conservative MP Anne Main, against criticising Lord Janner.
A former DPP-turned-Labour MP, Sir Keir Starmer, said: “The decision before the DPP was not an easy decision. It was a stark and difficult choice between two unattractive approaches.
“We should respect the independence she brought to the decision making, and the fact she’s had that decision out for a review.
“To that extent I think we should inhibit our comments on the case.”
~~
Hansard debate 23.6.2015 2.30pm onwards
Crown Prosecution Service
http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/hansard/commons/todays-commons-debates/read/unknown/1318/
He also recommended we listen to this:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKucPh9xHtM
Mary – I had no idea they banned Mads Gilbert. I suppose I should have expected this.
He’s a wonderful man.
The new flotilla is coming. They will stop this as normal but the publicity will be good.
https://freedomflotilla.org/
Other than the terrible deaths do you remember last time the IDF stole from the credit cards of the passengers?
John I read on Medialens that the BBC’s Gabriel Gatehouse ended up talking about ostriches in an interview with Yanukovich!
‘BBC: Ignoring US orchestrated coups and foregrounding ostriches
June 23, 2015, 5:19 pm
I wasn’t sure if I imagined it last night so I checked. I found it wasn’t my imagination!
BBC Radio 4 The World Tonight featured an interview with Victor Yanukovych last evening – it was, we were told, his ‘first interview to a western media organisation’. In view of that you’d have expected or at least hoped that the interviewer, Newsnight’s Gabriel Gatehouse, might delve into the nitty gritty of the US-backed coup that saw Yanukovych fleeing the country in fear of his life. But no, Gatehouse – after telling us that the BBC ‘spent months trying to get this interview’ goes on to outline the consequences of Yanukovych’s ouster and details certain charges levelled against the deposed PM: ‘ Yanukovych’s downfall triggered the annexation of Crimea, the war in the East, and he is accused of complicity in the mass murder of unarmed protestors on Independence Sq in February 2014′.
All fairly standard BBC fare really. The truly astonishing segment starts around 41:00 – after a second listen I am even more flabbergasted than I was last night. Here we have an exclusive interview with an ousted PM of a country whose future could well determine the future of human life on earth, and what is Gatehouse’s overriding concern? Ostriches!
Have a listen segment begins at 36:08 – it’s outbloodyrageous.’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05zhm84
Habba. they were the victims of an overwhelmingly biased judicial procedure, yes. I have no idea what their defence might be, I’m not an historian nor am I a lawyer so therefore, I wouldn’t have defended them. Just because you have decided they were guilty, does that mean they shouldn’t be allowed to have the best legal team available to represent them?
Ditto, Jon.
Cor Blimey, Marx Vs Keynes
http://thewolfatthedoor.blogspot.co.uk/2015/03/the-political-economy-of-things.html
[ Mod: Text of a lengthy article removed – it can accessed via the link above. ]
Thanks Twoleftfeet, I think we’re in agreement. Hello Suhayl, good to see you also.
Regarding my last post, my crystal ball seems to be firing on all cylinders. Top story on NBC just now, “Sales of Confederate Flags Spike on Amazon”.
It’s not all bad news though – some states have announced they will phase out Confederate symbols, and even some Republicans are willing to take a stand on the issue.
Dr. Varoufakis (Dr. V. from now on) is another self-proclaimed Marxist among the ranks of SYRIZA –although an erratic one according to his confession, in the sense that he has replaced Marx’ s social abstract labour theory of value with a humanist theory of the value of labour.[1] …
[ Mod: Please provide your own summary, then a link. Please do not reproduce masses of material here. ]
March 2015
http://dialectical-delinquents.com/war-politics/60-days-older-and-deeper-in-debt-by-the-tptg/