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.
Im only an occassional visitor here these days after 10 years or so as a regular.
I have to say though that Anon 1 seems to be the most arrogant compassionless nasty poster ive ever read on here.
Really inhumane,judging by the postings.
Jives it was Good to see you back…Peace
Node
Thanks for the clarification. It appears, as you say, Lord Janner really was a member of the Magic Circle i.e. stage conjurors. At the same time, a story in the Mail a few days ago claimed police are now investigating claims that he had been protected by the other ‘Magic Circle’ of alleged paedophiles at the heart of the Scottish Legal establishment.
Plentiful grounds for confusion there methinks.
Lysias I posted that new Medialens alert ref the Sunday Times @ 8.54 pm!
The 38 Degrees petition ref child poverty and Osborne’s cuts did not attract any comment here but I hope some signed it.
Her Maj was wheeled out to the Germans. Dripping in rubies and diamonds, she said that now there should be no divisions in Europe. A reminder that it was our lot wot won the war and a warm up act for Agent Cameron in his negotiations with Frau Merkel.
PS Someone earlier quoted the Buck House repairs at £1.5m. Wrong! Out by a factor of 10! £150m. Find the old dears a nice bungalow somewhere and turn the palace into one of those boutique hotels. The rooms would be snapped up.
Even Sky News are saying it
Official Child Poverty Levels Expected To Rise
A report reveals rising levels of child poverty as the Government suggests it could change the way deprivation is measured.
http://news.sky.com/story/1507931/official-child-poverty-levels-expected-to-rise
‘Mother-of-five Jo Dolling said she was faced with eviction after her benefits were capped under new changes introduced in 2013.
She said: “There was a huge change for us – to suddenly have to find that with the money you have, you either have a choice of paying the bills or eating.”
Ms Dolling, who earns £6.57 an hour working at Poundland, said children are being disproportionately affected by austerity measures.
“I don’t think the burden is being spread equally, whatever people’s view. I strongly believe that children didn’t ask to be here… I think the poorest families are being hit the most,” she said.’
I will say what the reactionaries here will say – ‘She shouldn’t have had five children’ but she did, the children exist and she works for the minimum wage and most probably on a zero hours contract in that junk shop where most of the goods on sale are brought into the country from China on giant container ships.
http://video.ft.com/2711124703001/The-world-biggest-container-ship/World
Agent Cameron’s loving it. He has visited several times.
Donald Macintyre’s Sketch: The only way is Essex – and David Cameron hits the superport’s heights to show why
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/donald-macintyres-sketch-the-only-way-is-essex–and-david-cameron-hits-the-superports-heights-to-show-why-8652641.html
PS Poundland’s largest shareholder is Warburg Pincus a US private equity outfit. They have just reduced their stake, as it is called.
Poundland sale nets Warburg Pincus £142m
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/01290f2e-b1c4-11e4-8396-00144feab7de.html#axzz3e3CYDUje
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warburg_Pincus I see Geithner is its president! Ex US Treasury Secretary.
Ray McGovern here on the US spying on French presidents. I believe I am right in saying that Ray McGovern is a friend of Craig’s. They are both recipients of the Sam Adams award.
Ray McGovern discusses the latest Wikileaks US spying revelations
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yO_8jQc68Y
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ray_McGovern
‘The Washington Post reported that, in his testimony, McGovern “declared that the United States went to war in Iraq for oil, Israel and military bases craved by administration neocons so ‘the United States and Israel could dominate that part of the world.’ He said that Israel should not be considered an ally and that Bush was doing the bidding of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. ‘Israel is not allowed to be brought up in polite conversation,’ McGovern said. Genuine criticism of official Israeli policy is often portrayed as if it were anti-semitism: ‘The last time I did this, the previous director of Central Intelligence called me anti-semitic.'”[11]’
Getting back to the subject of who wishes to be the next Labour fairy on top of the Labour Christmas tree, the important & powerful leader of HMG’s Official Opposition. . . fine . . .
But who actually runs the country, is it Dave?, was it Gordon? Tone??
An article in the Irish Times gives some clues
MI5 has control of most sensitive aspect of policing{/politics} {An} Unaccountable body consorted with terrorists and indulged in perjury
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/eamonn-mccann-mi5-has-control-of-most-sensitive-aspect-of-policing-in-north-1.2261517
The article mentions DC not doing things due to the omnipresent Security Service, it mentions GB writing letters at the behest of the security establishment to judges, concerning torture revelations, etcetera
at least no-one will ever read page 6 of a Craig discussions thread, so these Irish Times suggestions will obviously make no way whatsoever. . .
Francis Fukuyama fucked up, we are witnessing the end of the Satan-e-Buzurgs history instead. And its Xi and Putin who are displaying utmost tact and caution in the face of the juvenile nudelmans infesting the US State Dept who are out of control and chanting USA USA USA !!
Becky, that’s salutory information about the Confederate flag. I recall something of the St Andrew’s connection – and I think that Scotland sometimes is reluctant to confront these aspects of its own history – but I didn’t know about the Southern Jewish connection. Such delicious and convoluted ironies history throws up, ironies which often confirm the existential absurdity of humanity. I guess the Swastika is a case in point.
We haven’t had a Russia/America proxy war in Ukraine story for a while. . .so I’ll keep it short, as its in German
V.V.Putin warned that sanctions against Russia will hurt Europe. The EU denied it, but economists have calculated the cost of the crisis, especially for Germany. Die Welt: Cost of sanctions for Europe: 100 billion (100,000,000,000) euros (£71Billion)
http://www.welt.de/wirtschaft/article142742046/Russland-Krise-kostet-Europa-bis-zu-100-Milliarden-Euro.html
(There is a video in English – when he says “sized” I think we should hear “seized”)
Please sign.
https://secure.38degrees.org.uk/child-tax-credit
200,501 so far of 300,000 signatures needed.
CiF Watch, the Zionist outfit devoted to removing all criticism of poor little Israel from the Guardian’s comment threads, has now metamorphosed (having spotted that it’s not just Guardian readers who have qualms) into MUKWatch and extended its paranoia to all the other media.
Here’s a tendentious and insulting article, of just the kind it exists to suppress:
http://ukmediawatch.org/2015/06/24/labours-hamas-connection/
Apparently, Over the years, Jeremy Corbyn, this old-fashioned Trotskyite — known for his ragged beard, shabby jackets and Leninist worker’s cap — has been linked to a range of extremists, from the IRA and 9/11 conspiracy theorists to Hamas….(rant continues at length)
Someone’s extremely scared that Labour might move Left. Or talk (like Blair has), to the IRA and Hamas? Or maybe they’re just interested in menswear…
Mary 25 Jun, 2015 – 6:43 am :
“PS Someone earlier quoted the Buck House repairs at £1.5m.
Wrong! Out by a factor of 10! £150m.”
Wrong! Out by a factor of 100.
🙂
Should add that apparently MUKrake was unable to find a pic of the stereotypically unkempt Communist Corbyn they described. The shot they use has him capless, with a neatly trimmed beard, and a perfectly respectable light jacket.
Yes Node. I missed out a zero. Duh!
Crown Estate income up.
http://www.thecrownestate.co.uk/news-and-media/news/2015/another-record-breaking-year-with-285-million-return-for-public-finances/
All paid back to the plebs (how kind) but we are not told the TOTAL cost of running the multiple royal pads.
From memory –
Buckingham Palace
Clarence House
Kensington Palace
Balmoral
Sandringham
Windsor Castle
Castle of Mey or is that P of Wales’ private joint like Highgrove?
Is Holyrood Palace another? I remember some royal hanger on wedding there. Zara Phillips?
Obviously, it’s not the schmutter – it’s this:
http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/66606/jeremy-corbyn-calls-inquiry-pro-israel-lobby
(2012)
Our old chum Poju Zabludowicz (he of Foxwerrity funding fame) makes an appearance here.
The Houses of Parliament will cost £3Bn to fix –
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-31703712
This is a “realistic scenario”. As would be knocking the crumbling cod-Gothic monstrosity down and selling the site to developers. The sale price would pay for a purpose-built complex in Manchester, the Northern Powerhouse for Hardworking Families. Space in which could be sponsored, much as it is at present, by global corporations.
Clarification to link at 8.58: Corbyn did not in fact call for an enquiry into pro-Israeli lobby groups at all. See:
http://liberalconspiracy.org/2012/04/23/how-the-jewish-chronicle-is-trying-to-smear-jeremy-corbyn-mp/
actually I called for an inquiry into the decisons made by the Home Secretary concerning Raed Salah. Necessary I think
Ha’aretz editorial: fair play to them, they recognise that all is not well with israel’s democratic model.
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.662903
MK Basel Ghattas (Joint Arab List) announced this week that he intended joining a flotilla destined for Gaza. The Knesset House Committee’s recommendation to the Ethics Committee that it suspend Ghattas from the day he joins the flotilla and its announcement that it will consider withdrawing his rights are unacceptable infringements on an MKs’ freedom of political action…
…Beyond the parliamentary attempt to rein in Ghattas, it is important to remember that the purpose of the flotilla is to break the blockade that Israel has imposed on Gaza, which continues an unacceptable situation in which nearly two million people are closed up as if in a cage. Instead of “killing the messenger,” who is trying to increase awareness of an ongoing injustice, it would behoove the State of Israel to remove the blockade and help rebuild the Gaza Strip.
Bet that gets some readers’ letters.
“Castle of Mey or is that P of Wales’ private joint like Highgrove?”
Neither, Charles gave it to the people of Caithness.
Beg to differ, Fred. Her Maj (not Charles) made it over to the Castle of Mey Trust, which has opened limited access for the public to the building and gardens. The ex-MP for Caithness is one of the trustees. Up to a dozen ‘people of Caithness’, or anywhere else, (provided they are not too common – they will be vetted) can stay there for the weekend for the negligible consideration of £50,000.
“Beg to differ, Fred. Her Maj (not Charles) made it over to the Castle of Mey Trust, which has opened limited access for the public to the building and gardens”.
Excuse me if my recollections of local events don’t quite match the results of your searches on google.
(£50K will also buy you a seat at dinner with Cameron. Tough choice.)
Ah, yes, Cameron. Enjoy this excellent article by Peter Oborne – if Craig reads this far, he may care to pick up on it in a future post. Dave’s idea of ME diplomacy is thoroughly filletted, with reference to his invitation to Egypt’s Sisi to vist the UK just a day after the death sentence was passed on Morsi.
http://www.middleeasteye.net/columns/sisi-s-invite-uk-terrible-message-world-716135557
The invitation came just a day after Mohammed Morsi was added to the ever growing list of death sentences. Morsi was deposed by the military two years ago, just 12 months after winning the first free presidential election in Egypt’s history.
Cameron’s government has still yet to describe this outrage as a coup d’etat. We can all feel a mixture of pity and contempt for John Casson, the wretched British Ambassador in Cairo, under orders to kowtow daily to Sisi’s murderous dictatorship.
The Foreign Office (FCO) has now taken to lying about Egypt. Two weeks ago, I rang the FCO to ask them if reports were true that Britain was shortly to invite President Sisi. A hapless official denied that a visit was on the horizon. She added that the visit was not even under discussion, that there were no plans for a Sisi visit and that there was no chance at all of an invitation being extended in the near future. So much for FCO integrity.
Some 48 hours after extending the invitation to President Sisi, David Cameron waded deeper into his personal morass. He travelled to Bratislava to accuse British Muslims of “quietly condoning” ISIS.
There is a valuable convention in British politics that leaders travelling abroad do not engage in domestic politics. If Mr Cameron wanted to attack British Muslims, he should have done so on British soil and emphatically not in front of a foreign audience of arms dealers and security types at a shady conference in Slovakia.
Better stop monopolising the comments. Gone.
Excuse me if my recollections of local events don’t quite match the results of your searches on google.
No problem at all, Fred. I usually check if I think a comment is in error. As your and my memories of the event differed, I made sure I could substantiate mine. Try it yourself some time, and be free of my interventions. Which you obviously resent.
Heh.
George Osborne: No more kids in poverty. Please don’t cut child tax credit:
https://speakout.38degrees.org.uk/campaigns/sainsbury-s-pay-your-staff-at-least-the-living-wage-b4fb6e02-7d84-4a0c-9ea5-795ea18f75b5
Children in poverty are the next victims of George Osborne’s Budget. He wants to cut child tax credits – the essential support for families who aren’t getting paid enough to live on.
All children deserve to start life on an equal footing. But low wages can put barriers in the way of a happy and healthy childhood. That’s why some of the poorest families get help to pay for essentials, like healthy food and school uniforms.
This support means thousands of children don’t have to experience poverty at the start of their lives.
The Budget is only a couple of weeks away, and the government is still arguing about what to announce. Let’s make sure these cuts are off the table.
I am not entirely surprised to hear of the connection of the confederate flag to the St. Andrews cross but i suspect the connection is more prosaic than the Jewish connection.
While I am sure Jewish people made their way into scotland as traders, and some no doubt settled, there is scant evidence that any number of Jews were present in Scotland before the late 19th century.
However there is a reference in the declaration of Arbroath to the effect that in the eyes of God there is no distinction between Scots English Jews and Greeks . Of course there is no mention of black people.
If you travel around the Southern states of the US, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and especially Kentucky there are many Scottish cultural references in place names and in other aspects of life there. One notable example is ‘scottish’ freemasonry, which refers to the style of the procedures, symbols and order of service of meetings. I had a conversation with a couple of Kentucky freemasons whose hobby was essentially ‘guns’ in quite enormous number and extent.
Gun dealing and gun fairs are very common. Some people call themselves ‘collectors’ of guns -in the sense of stamp collecting and will have a collection of Kalashnikovs made in different places, with different ‘novel’ features. Some are ‘vintage’ gun fanciers and will have remarkable collections of second world war or sixties era guns but these are of course remarkably powerful, and in working order, and it is often the case that one senses that the collection exists for some other purpose than being an amateur museum curator.
Despite what may be said, gun culture in the US is assuredly connected with an apocalyptic mindset, or a sense that
there is likely to be period of great civil breakdown and it is wise to be equipped for this eventuality. Occasionally it is related to black people, however my experience is that the expected breakdown of civil society is more likely to be due to other reasons-economic collapse, nuclear armageddon, environmental collapse. It is difficult to separate this from an underlying paranoia related to the insecurity of the life many people still reference-namely pioneers in a hostile country where there are any number of hazards and which one must be free to act on. Nowadays, of course, the hazards are less immediate and more likely to be ‘unemployment’ or a lack of access to health care, or financial ruin due to indulging in investment scams, but the mentality of perceiving social security systems and regulation to minimise social dislocation or disadvantage as ‘socialist’ and therefore ‘bad’ or likely to contribute to dependency, or undrmine ‘freedom’, contributes to that ongoing sense of insecurity.
The dominant attitude is that ‘security’ is achieved entirely in personal wealth, assets, and accumulated material, vigilance, and preparedness(as in the having of guns) , to insulate against the extreme vagaries of life.
Even quite sophisticated individuals will be influenced by this Manichean, quasi-religious mindset, (with a peculiar sympathy for associated ideas such as literalist interpretations of the bible and scripture). Many people feel inclined to defend -if necessary with guns- the right of the individual to believe whatever they want. It is considered in many circles to be quite inappropriate to be disrespectful(liberal? ) of any religious belief, and the freedom of an individual to pursue their own (commercial) interests unimpeded.
As recently as the late nineties there were infamous small remote places where people carried their ‘six guns’ around with them, or would sit around drinking beer with their guns on display , ready for use. There were many ‘accidents’ where someone would be shot due to some grudge, misunderstanding or incident of drunken paranoia or simply from arsing around with them.
In addition as one travels around in these more remote places, there is a distinct rather unnerving sense of very quickly being ‘checked out’, if one stops at a restaurant or filing station. The feeling is of ‘interrogation’ rather than casual and friendly enquiries.
I’d have thought the only truly legitimate Confederate flag was a completely plain white one…
Thanks for putting that petition link up again Mark.
There are now 207,057 signatures, nearly 7,000 more since I wrote earlier. Surely not all 7,000 are visitors to this blog! 🙂
25/06/2015
From Our Own Correspondent
Kate Adie introduces correspondents’ stories from around the world. Today Rajini Vaidyanathan returns to the scene of the shooting in Charleston, South Carolina; Julia Langdon hears from the local people of Corfu on their five years – and counting – of economic misery; Lawrence Grissell speaks to widows in Nepal who are trying to find out what happened to their relatives who died while working overseas; David Shukman travels to one of Madagascar’s most remote corners where tortoises are being protected with the help of a two-headed bull; and Mario Cacciottolo is in Malta, talking to hunters, who balance a passion for nature with an urge to shoot wild birds.
Listen at 8mins 20secs for the report on life for the ordinary Greek people in Corfu.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05zqr6v
@Jon, Firstly thank you for that link to the Greenwald article which I missed the first time around, he does a very good in exposing of the hypocrisy & meaningless of the MSM’s use of the “Terrorst” label.
Ok, I think that commentary iro the Charleston shooting is naturally concentrating on racism & white supremacy, however both you & Suhayl seem to be overlooking the fact that I keep talking about the phenomena of US Mass Murder Shootings in the plural. As I believe that I’m correct to state that racism is not the most significant factor for a majority of the terrible long list of such massacres, which is why I tend to regard it as a symptom not an underlying cause, just like mental illness is a symptom in the sense that it normally has an originating cause; This is without allowing that a case can be made to suggest that perhaps racism itself, is really a form of mental illness ?
I’m not meaning to infer that I’ve done any sort of study into this, but a quick spot check on massacres like Sandy Hook, Columbine High School, Virginia Tech’s, etc does not indicate that racism was a factor.
This is why I’m more interested to explore any possible deeper reasons, and in this respect I regard the Racism issue as a bit of a distraction, but not as much as a distraction as all this debate over the Confederate Flag !;
http://phillyinfocus.com/2015/06/24/the-confederate-flag-a-dastardly-distraction/