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.
The next Labour leader should be anyone except Jeremy Corbyn, Alan Johnson says
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-next-labour-leader-should-be-anyone-except-jeremy-corbyn-alan-johnson-says-10332782.html
‘riting on the Labour website today he said his party should concentrate on providing “jobs, homes and hopes” to win the next election.
“The twin foundations of the good society must be jobs and homes. You simply can’t overestimate the happiness of having a good job and a secure home,” he wrote.
Mr Johnson was appearing on the radio to discuss the start of his appointment as the head of the Labour campaign to stay in the European Union.’
So what did the waste of space Alan Johnson ever contribute to the common good and those aims for a job and home for all apart from lining his pockets that is?
He has picked up large sums for himself from the BBC licence fee payers and the MSM. Also £32,000 in royalties?! Who buys such rot? And £thousands in speaking fees. Again, who would pay to listen to him?
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/10314/alan_johnson/kingston_upon_hull_west_and_hessle#register Recent
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/regmem/?p=10314 Historic
‘Writing on the BBC website….’
~~
No surprise at this, his record of foreign policy votes. NuLabour lobby fodder.
How Alan Johnson voted on Foreign Policy and Defence #
Voted moderately for use of UK military forces in combat operations overseas
Voted very strongly for the Iraq war
Voted very strongly against an investigation into the Iraq war
Voted moderately for replacing Trident with a new nuclear weapons system
Voted moderately for more EU integration
Voted a mixture of for and against a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU
Voted moderately for strengthening the Military Covenant
cf Jeremy Corbyn.
How Jeremy Corbyn voted on Foreign Policy and Defence #
Voted very strongly against use of UK military forces in combat operations overseas
Voted very strongly against the Iraq war
Voted strongly for an investigation into the Iraq war
Voted strongly against replacing Trident with a new nuclear weapons system
Voted a mixture of for and against more EU integration
Voted moderately for a referendum on the UK’s membership of the EU
Voted moderately for strengthening the Military Covenant
John Goss and others. See you on the march. A reminder to contact me by mobile on oh-seven-nine-one-eight;six-three-four;one-four-six to try to meet up. At the end of the march (pre-pub)meet at the Jeremy Corbyn stall.
If New Labour had a shred of creativity at the last election they would have extended the Green Deal loan/grant scheme to domestic house wall insulation and double glazing.
In a time of austerity it should surely have been possible to place the blame for the banking collapse on Gordon Brown’s refusal to challenge banking de-regulation.
It’s gob-smackingly obvious that the move to the right in the Labour Party under Blair is what caused Thatcher stupidity to go unchallenged. People voted for Blair to deal with Thatcher’s loony legacy, not to continue it.
What was inspiring about New Labour in this year’s election stating that they would do the same as the Tories, blow by blow?
Why is New Labour politics so utterly devoid of imagination?
I see nothing creative about any of the short-list for New Labour leader, including Jeremy Corbyn. If only he had a fraction of Nicola’s creativity, flexibility and human intelligence.
Nicola Sturgeon for New Labour leader, I say. Do you think they would agree?
I usually avoid the smug, self referential ‘Today’ programme, but it appears from this report that Jeremy Corbyn told it straight to his interlocutor this morning-
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33210014
Who was the unnamed but cuntish (c.Habba) interlocutor who attempted this ambush one point ?-
‘Asked about whether it was “odd” he was selected as a candidate by MPs who have said they would not vote for him but wanted his voice to be heard, Mr Corbyn said: “It indicates that 35 MPs were prepared to nominate me in order to make sure there is a proper debate within the party.’
I hope he delivers a barnstormer of a speech at the march today.
Red Devil caught mid-air by team-mate after his parachute failed to open
Oligarch owned media spinning “our heroes” to the nth degree that is taking almost comical super human and super super capable stuff.
Two paras colliding and a canopy collapse is spun into parachute failed to open and the quick thinking “super hero” (promoting the military angle as ever) came to the rescue and “captured” his mate “another hero” and brought him down safely!!! (Our heroes and camaraderie; fantastic here endth the lesson.)
There is an army investigation, and at this rate probably the bumbling “heroes” will be getting a medal instead of a reprimand for clear and manifest lack situational awareness.
Iain Orr
“Pre-pub”
Pre- shit in the underground entrance you mean.
What the hell is that supposed to mean, Giyane?
John – The cause célèbre of the right wing establishment is deafening and the media buttress predictably magnifies the demonisation of Russia over Ukraine into a self-perpetuating dynamic.
At least several military commanders admit the push is on for regime change in Russia, to oust Putin and feed the MIC to boot.
Chatham House judgement seems to suggest the UK/US could de-stabilize Russia and somehow create a political crisis there. That really hides the real aim to force Putin to make a mistake, to over-react in the face of rib-poking Russia’s borders while committing atrocities to ethnic Russians in Ukraine. This of course stokes an arms race forcing a Russia in recession to use further reserves on her sophisticated arms industry.
All the while as Craig admits the British media soak up foreign policy directives, particularly East and West, often acted as a wing, an arm, a public relations division of the Government Department; the same Murdoch propaganda that led the drive for believing that Saddam Hussein had WMDs and the only answer was to invade Iraq.
We’ve seen what that led to. The great irony here is that as much as the MSM pretends it stands for truth and all things good, there has been virtually no accountability assessed upon people who misreported that story. Murdoch has refined a cold war mentality essentially suggesting that anybody who doesn’t go along with the UK/US version of events must be working for Moscow WITH THEIR PATRIOTISM IN QUESTION.
I admit you can point to factual errors on both sides, it is however a zero sum game getting to the point where you cannot be a reasonable person, or look at things objectively, because you are pushed into taking sides.
I vividly remember a great amount of dangerous reporting during the cold war that in some cases pushed the two sides into dangerous conflict. Now it seems there is a rush back into a Cuban missile crisis in reverse.
This time however it is NATO military forces pushing onto the Russian border, rather than the Russians putting missiles onto a place like Cuba.
Britain’s role during this Cold War crisis was the little known Macmillan’s idea of immobilising the 59 Thor nuclear missiles in the UK (deployed under dual UK–US control), as a quid pro quo for the missiles in Cuba and MI6 deploying Oleg Penkovsky together with handler(dick-head) Greville Wynne to gather military intelligence.
Today with high resolution pictures we can assess Russian RS-26 nuclear ICBM launchers and on good advice our own intelligence services (MI6) hope to penetrate Russia Naval Command to assess the Borei-class submarine and the real failure rates of the RSM-56 Bulava ballistic missile and also to penetrate the Russian manufacturing process.
We live in dangerous times again!
http://freebeacon.com/national-security/russia-again-flight-tests-new-icbm-to-treaty-violating-range/
Yet another left wing Union leader accepts his bit of bling from the establishment that he has valiantly fought against,well at least up to the time of being offered his “goodnight hood”,this “honour”is on behalf of our members he bleats ffs.Arise Sir Paul Kenny.
@Technicolour, I’ve described you as dim before, and as a person whose dimness can be dangerous both to yourself & to anybody in contact you, as your Post at 10.46 once again confirms. You criticize Nevermind’s understandably angry response to the Habby Clown mocking & taunting him because he confided on another Site, that for unstated personal reasons he couldn’t be in the demo today to meet up with the others as previously discussed. You have no idea what those personal reasons are, perhaps it’s something quite serious, and yet, as is your habit, you unthinkingly leap to attack Nevermind; if you had any perception, you would of realized that the odious Habby hypocrite, who would never meet anybody here, and doesn’t ever give out any personal at all, was mightily peeved about Nevermind’s non-appearance, and if you were capable of any critical thinking at, you might want to consider why it would be of such concern to our nosey pro-establishment troll, but like I said you are exceptionally stupid.
La la la…Came on to wish everyone marching the best of solidarity and to post this from John Pilger: very very apt:
“We’ve almost got to stop using the term mainstream. It’s a misnomer. We’re always drawn to look through this prism of something called the mainstream. It’s not. It’s actually an extreme. What could be more extreme than various institutions that propagate rapacious illegal war, deception about economic policies. What could be more extreme than that? There’s nothing mainstream about that.”
http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/9-quotes-from-john-pilger-on-media-and-power/
http://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2015/jun/20/anti-austerity-demonstrations-live#block-558547e3e4b0b5dab300b947
A live link to the anti-austerity Demo in London just starting off .
It was Jim Naughtie Old Mark.
‘Austerity is a cover for deepening inequality’
Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn was this week announced as one of the four candidates for the upcoming Labour leadership election, but his nomination has been treated with derision in some quarters.
He has made austerity the main issue of his candidacy for leadership, which he says is a “vehicle for deepening inequality in Britain”.
Questioned on Labour’s stance on public spending in the 2015 general election, Mr. Corbyn said that “Labour bought into Conservative agenda of cutting public expenditure”.
8 mins
“Today, 20/06/2015, Austerity is a cover for deepening inequality”
‘0730
The veteran left-wing Labour MP Jeremy Corbyn is in our studio this morning, speaking ahead of a protest today in central London against the government’s austerity measures. Mr Corbyn has made austerity the main issue of his candidacy for the Labour leadership. He made it onto the ballot paper as one of the four candidates this week but his nomination has been treated with derision in some quarters.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p02v4xqc
The BBC were having another go at Jeremy this morning on Radio 4.
Beth Rigby of The Financial Times looks behind the scenes at Westminster.
A rebellion by a group of Conservative MPs on the EU referendum this week, suggests that David Cameron faces problems in his own party over his European policy. just as John Major did over 20 years. How damaging is this to his first 100 days in office, and do the first 100 days of a government really matter? Plus what difference the left wing candidate Jeremy Corbyn could make to the Labour leadership election.
The editor is Marie Jessel.
22mins 55secs in
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05z6d0w
Diane Abbott MP and James Lyons Deputy Political Editor from, where else, the Sunday Times!
~~~
You should hear the live and disparaging commentary by the BBC’s Jon Brain from the march.
https://uk.linkedin.com/pub/jon-brain/3b/748/0
I seem to remember I last heard him outside the Lindo Wing reporting on the ‘royal obstetrics’.
Excellent analysis Craig.
The constant vilification of the SNP as phoney having conned the electorate comes from both Labour supporters and the MSM. Criticisms about pro Monarchy, pro NATO etc are disingenuous. Most SNP members like myself are anto both and simply see these inclinations as expediencies which would be dealt with post independence. And for the record the desire for independence is not as again posed by Labour and the MSM as ant English it is seen as an opportunity to detach ourselves from an Imperialist mindset organized around a voting system which produces the sort of election result Craig alludes to in this article
An independent Scotland with PR would certainly be likely to elect a ‘Nicola Corbyn’ or similar in perpetuity.
And many of the issues commented on from NATO to Trident to Land Reform would get dealt with. Whilst we all know we would have to continue to deal with all forms of corrupting influence be it Corporate Power or the USA we would stand a much better chance of making people believe their vote was worth using and holding government’s feet to the fire!
It was Jim Naughtie Old Mark.
Thanks for the link Mary; I should’ve guessed it was Naughtie. In the Beeb firmament of smug look-I’ve-made-it establishment arse-lickers his light has always been one of the strongest.
Mark Golding
The title Great Game for this sparring with Russia maybe allows them, the capitalists, to think there’s nothing to lose. They lost nothing by bankrupting the global economy and they do not feel the pain and suffering of war themselves.
When I went to Hajj, on the most important day, Arafat, the crowds were engaged in football match pushing struggles, and at the end of the day I overheard a voice in English: ‘ I’m tired of pushing for one day ‘ This was the chance to get all sins forgiven.
I suppose one can conclude from this that humans are oblivious of their own faults until some tragedy befalls them. They willingly refuse to listen to good advice not to gamble with other people’s cash or lives, because they cannot envisage how they could be held to account.
In my opinion it’s impossible to understand life until you understand the principle that God feeds the good and the bad alike and weighs our deeds on the day of judgement. Those who created the austerity of war or economic hardship will not be affected by crowds and demonstrations any more than they are affected by photos and figures.
Simply the denial of the human accountability to God is sufficient to get them transferred to hell, where they will have ample, eternity, time to reflect on their destruction of the well-being of others.
“Daddy’s collecting Mimsy and Flo at two o’clock and will be dropping us off in the SUV, while Hatty is putting the finishing touches to her “Tory Scum” placard (which Mummy thinks is hilarious considering her grandfather was a Tory MP(!). Horatio is hungover from too many snakebites at the student union last night and is supposed to be organising a die-in in Trafalgar Square in which the vicious attacks on the poor are given visual representation by getting everyone covered in red paint and wailing about on the floor while he puts on a Margeret Thatcher mask and machine-guns them. And Wills, who always takes things too far, has gone and put his silly balaclava on again as well as the Che t-shirt he bought on Amazon for £20 and has tooled himself up with fart gas and an iPhone to record the vicious police brutality, such as pushes and shoves and damaged smart phones, all of which will be gathered as evidence of the fascist state and put on YouTube later.”
Having listened to Naughtie’s interview with Corbyn in full I’m unsurprised at how pedestrian and partisan his performance was. At one point he quoted Liz Kendall (clearly his preferred candidate for Labour leader) as if she were the fount of all wisdom.
At the end he side-stepped Corbyn’s point about how utterly unreasonable the ECB has acted in relation to the Greek crisis- a fact also acknowledged by Eurorealists on the right-
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/11687229/Greek-debt-crisis-is-the-Iraq-War-of-finance.html
@John Goss
As our “eyes on the ground”, can you record for us the first visual confirmation you get of an Anarchist protester carrying a “Stop the Cuts” placard?
Anon1
You mock those taking part in the Austerity marches. Do you support our government’s austerity policies?
I wish people would stop using the term “austerity”!
This legitimizes the plutocrats taxation of the poor!!!
It is taxing the poor, ie “Taxation of Poor”, and is designed for th benefit of the rich by letting the rich go free. The poor have nothing to be taken away from them, so the plutocrat scum tax the services, and benefits these poor need at source! Then call it “austerity” to legitimize it.
Do you mean the one in zionistan?
“Do you mean the one in zionistan?”
That’s not our government. That’s our government’s government.
“You mock those taking part in the Austerity marches. Do you support our government’s austerity policies?”
________________________
No, I don’t think they go deep enough.
LONDON – Austerity
http://bambuser.com/v/5603847
Anon1
What topic are you on, Anon1?
“No, I don’t think they go deep enough.”
Please explain your statement.
Very true Node!