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.
‘Moreover, I am delighted that the Brits wish to continue being Brits, and not, say Bangladeshis, although that is what it appears that are about to become.’
Canspeccy- more details on the ethnic make-up of Tower Hamlets, which don’t substantiate your claim, can be found here-
http://trialbyjeory.com/2012/12/11/2011-census-bengalis-now-largest-group-in-tower-hamlets-but-theres-a-but/
The Bangladeshis are the largest group in LBTH- and, as commenter ‘Imran’ points out in the link above, they actually run the place politically (the new Mayor John Biggs knows this, and will behave accordingly). However, further growth in their population within that borough seems unlikely; ‘aspirational’ Bangladeshis, (like ‘aspirational’ African Americans)seem very keen to get out of the ghetto their countrymen have created and, in the case of the Bangladeshis, that means they will continue to overspill into nearby outer London and west Essex.
BTW the Littlejohn article you linked to was (shock! horror!)actually very good. Parts of Tower Hamlets are indeed more ‘monocultural’ than almost anywhere else in inner London, and the Mulberry Girls School, visited by the First Lady, has been over 90% Bangladeshi, and around 95% Muslim, since the late 80s- and will continue to be so.
If Michelle was seeking a more ‘diverse’ experience on her East London trip, she would have been better advised to visit the nearby Bishop Challoner Girls School- a Catholic establishment, and thus not favoured by large numbers of the devout Muslim Bengali parents of the ‘New East End’.
Ha! Clark, you’re a rogue! 🙂
Fedup @4.54pm-
Thatcher set up the Falkland war!
The facts are there for anyone to discern the chaf from the truth.
As a great northern comedian once quipped-
‘They’ll be bouncing off the walls in Rampton tonight!’
Craig, thanks…
Wow:
Saudis agree Israel jets can use Saudi airspace to bomb Iran
https://wikileaks.org/saudi-cables/doc124092.html
Habb 6.24
“Perhaps it wasn’t you but another of the Jew-haters who was banging on about some Jewish ancestor of Cameron.”
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Exactly which Jew-haters are you referring to?
As Craig’s earlier post stated anti-semitic posts are banned and moderated here.
Please enlighten us on who you mean??
Clark
“better at…keeping the SNP close to their manifesto.”
But they are pro NATO. Presumably this makes their manifesto.
I do not understand how PR/FPTP has any bearing on my simple assertion (indeed to follow your logic PR helps secure NATO membership 🙁 ).
Actually Clark. The fact the SNP were elected via PR on an anti-NATO ticket and then became NATO friendly makes a complete nonsense of your argument.
I leaving this ‘pragmatic’ Philistinism that’s going precisely nowhere, backwards, in the name of “reform”.
Your quite correct Phil, the further up the chain you go the more you have to be ‘reasonable’ and submit to the system, to get the crumbs that may spill as society and the environment get completely wasted…That’s just being realistic.
John Goss
Are you meeting up with us tomorrow? I’m buying the first round if you do.
I’m leaving this ‘pragmatic’ Philistinism that’s going precisely nowhere, backwards, in the name of “reform”.
Your quite correct Phil, the further up the chain you go the more you have to be ‘reasonable’ and submit to the system, to get the crumbs that may spill as society and the environment get completely wasted…That’s just being realistic.
I’m shutting down now. See you tomorrow.
Pointless to waste electrons arguing with a moron who has nothing other than ad hominemto add to the debate. Attacking the messenger and not the message is the trade craft of those simpletons whom based on silly assumptions, make sillier assertions, and then customarily conclude in their moronic denunciations.
Thatcher willfully and carefully setup the war for Falklands to save her political career, and Argies fell for it hook, line and sinker.
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The self hating immigrant from Canada is on his hobby horse and as ever spewing the unconscious drivel he is an expert at; “genocide of the white race”, and anti immigration bollocks he is so adept at; Copiously waxing lyrical about it all. What kind of a throw back can generate so many inch lines about such a crass subject?
Only a slefhating immigrant!
Ishmael, are you in London tomorrow? Come and meet up.
Craig
I just restarted cause it occured to me: aren’t you in London? You’ve got to meet us by Corbyn’s stall if you are. Come on.
lol, was thinking of coming to the protest. I somehow don’t think i’d get on with most here. And I do enough not getting on online.
If most/some turn up i’ll be happy, one more is no big deal. Hope it’s a nice day though.
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/06/ban-silent-israel-absence-list-shame-150619044109798.html
O/T
Some amazing footage [1min 57secs ] of UN Chief Ban Ki-moon literally making a run for it at his own Press Conference on Thursday when he realizes he’s going to be questioned about why he has not included Israel in his own UN report of’List of Violaters of Children’s Rights in Conflict Zones ‘
Thatcher willfully and carefully setup the war for Falklands to save her political career, and Argies fell for it hook, line and sinker.
Well done Fedup- keep digging.
“As for who breeds with who, that’s a matter for the law as determined by a democratic government”
wow, missed that one. What law?…And What democratic government. They don’t exist. But even if they did?
Phil, I ‘phoned Iain earlier to try and get some details but he wasn’t available. I am going to be there for the rally but do not know London very well. All the Birmingham coaches are full. I’m coming down by train. I’ll phone Iain again tomorrow when I get to Big Smoke. If I can’t make it have a jolly good time you guys.
I though it was peoples own business who they fuck.
Any talk like this tells me “democratic” government has got way out of hand. A word stripped of all real meaning in our system.
I withdraw my consent the be ruled by oppressors of democracy in it’s name. Fucked up psychopathic megalomaniacs. That they are, and must be to get into this shit.
Clearly the Argenitine junta was the imperialist aggressor, evoking jingoism and militarism to invade a defenceless backwater and deflect from the woeful state of its economy. It may have played into Thatcher’s hands, but she did not instigate it. There was no dissenting side – the islands were previously uninhabited, sovereign British territory and all their inhabitants wanted it to remain that way. Even from an anti-war perspective I would find it hard to think of a more just war. Really the problem with you Craig all along has been your lack of judgement. Only the looniest of the loony left pick this battle.
Monteverdi
19 Jun, 2015 – 11:59 am
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3127962/Labour-leadership-hopeful-Jeremy-Corbyn-left-wing-divorced-wife-refused-send-son-failing-comprehensive.html
You may indeed be right that the MSM will employ ‘ quiet exclusion ‘ as a tactic to marginalize Jeremy Corbyn but not before deploying a campaign of smear and attack on his personal life it seems .
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Attractive ex-wife. Not sure I believe the story though. Marriages are mad and broken on the bed.
@ SS
We’re all mixed-up and we all are really similar. ‘Europe’ has existed for the blink of an eye.
So when you deny the existence of population-level human biodiversity, SS, you become a Holocaust denier, right? I mean, if Hitler just killed a bunch of people: anyone really, folks who happened to be living in Germany, Poland, etc., he may have been a mean bastard, but it wasn’t genocide, since according to you there are no distinct peoples to be genocided.
As for “Europe has existed for the blink of an eye,” that’s nonsense, really.
Modern humans are thought to have been around for about 100,000 years, and the ice receded in Northern Europe 10,000 years ago, since when it inhabited by humans. And Southern Europe has been populated for more than 10,000 years, i.e., a large proportion of the life of the species.
But it’s interesting to see the reactions here. I sometimes wonder if I’m talking with the inmates of a loony bin. But probably they’re just globalist shills and immigrants with a settler mentality.
“Even from an anti-war perspective I would find it hard to think of a more just war. ”
Admit that I’ve hardly read the comments above. My point would be why do a war at all, except with the questionable last resort option. My stance is, I won’t fight period. I’ll talk and listen and talk, until the cows come home.
“Attractive ex-wife. Not sure I believe the story though. Marriages are mad and broken on the bed.”
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Speaking of beds,it surely must be well past your bedtime.
Tonights bed time story for you is….Once upon a time,there was a Village idiot.
Ishmael, I’d be glad to meet you.
It is people’s own business whom they fuck. It’s just Canspeccy who thinks that availability of breeding partners should be controlled by government. Apparently, he so misunderstood biological inheritance that he thinks that if people fuck willy-nilly, all humanity will end up identical – same height, same eye colour, no variations in intelligence, etc, etc. Gawd knows how he got his doctorate in biology. His use of statistics show similar biases.
Because Hitler believed in race theory and acted on his silly beliefs, does not mean it exists. You, Alfred, are depicting the terrible impact of racism, you are not proving the scientific ‘reality’ of race. And the concept of ‘Europe’ as a distinct entity really dates back at the very most, at a stretch, to the Ancient Greeks, or more plausibly, to the early popes – either way, a fragment of evolutionary time. Alfred, it is entirely possible that if like that silly professor who advanced race theory some 5-6 years ago, you might discover that you are part-Black African. Welcome, then, to the world of negritude.
“Admit that I’ve hardly read the comments above.”
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It definite shows when you comment,it’s mainly dross,do read posters comments it’s the respectful thing to do.
CanSpeccy, 10:14 pm:
And for nearly all that time there were no governmental restrictions on immigration; indeed, mostly, there weren’t even any governments. But now that there are, it is vitally important that they restrict immigration, or people will fuck willy-nilly and everyone will end up the same! Everyone the same, I tell you, like communism! Quick, quick! Panic, panic!