The Labour Party is being remarkably coy about releasing the actual result of its Scottish accounting unit leadership election, giving only a percentage. The entirely complacent unionist media is complicit in what amounts to a deception. The stunning truth is that in a one person, one vote election among the entire membership of the Labour Party in Scotland plus trades union supporters, Dugdale won with 5,217 votes (out of a claimed electorate of 21,000, many of whom do not exist or could not be arsed to choose between two right wing numpties).
UPDATE: A second Labour figure just rang me to assure me my information – which was from a good source – is wrong. She would not give the actual figure and only said it was “higher”. I offered to take down the post and publish an accurate figure if she would give it, but this was declined.
From the Medialens Editors
Stephen Pollard, JC editor, follows up on Twitter….
He’s asked by someone on Twitter:
‘end of story, then?’
Pollard responds:
‘You must be joking. First, they don’t remotely close they issues down. Second, it’s just the tip of the iceberg. Watch this space’
Determined to smear Corbyn, no matter what….
DC
Link: https://twitter.com/stephenpollard/status/633975998091014145
Who said*:
“There will not be free, just elections in Egypt unless we agree to speak with persons who are part of the democracy,”
????
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/the-u-s-may-be-heading-toward-talks-with-hamas-1.370965
Suddenly, it is becoming clear to the American government that Mahmoud Abbas is not cowering under pressure to not turn to the UN for statehood recognition. It is becoming clear that the internal Palestinian rapprochement agreement has been signed despite U.S. opposition, and that Hamas will be a cornerstone in any diplomatic process. What will Washington do when Palestinian elections are held? Should it boycott the Palestinian parliament or the new Palestinian government? Should it ostracize the new Palestinian president if that president belongs to Hamas? Hamas, after all, is “part of the democracy.”
*Edward Walker, former US ambassador to Egypt and Israel.
Determined to smear Corbyn, no matter what….
And now doing so on this blog, thanks to your link. FFS.
Pure information as to what’s going on or would you rather not know.
Get off my back!
More pure information:
http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/random-google-searches-learned/
Apologies. Where was I?
http://jeremycorbyn.org.uk/articles/speech-palestine/
Oh yes.
http://www.motherwelltimes.co.uk/news/local-headlines/chaos-as-snp-meeting-is-abandoned-1-3863202
7 posts since 06h21 this morning.
Obviously on piece rates.
Hitler reacts to the leadership elections.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7E6H0BhBrAA
Best Hitler bunker mix I’ve ever seen, Dave.
“I was moved to tears by the promise of her vacuity”
So was I.
“Jeez, just piped Macky’s first paragraph at 01:08 through wc (wordcount), and there are no fewer than 147 words in that single sentence. Very impressive.”
____________________
Macky is obviously the Bernard Levin of this blog.
“Labour leadership candidate Jeremy Corbyn has responded to the seven questions the JC posed last week”
A mistake I feel. He shouldn’t be digifying this dross. It only encourages them.
Dave Lawton
Thanks for that, absolutely wonderful!
MJ
20/08/2015 10:24am
I think it would be a mistake not to answer. These are emotive accusations and they catch the attention.
State murderers and torturers are described in flowery terms by politicians of all stripes all the time. If you are trying to enter into dialogue with people, for trade or other reasons, it is not usually a good idea to start by condemning them as state terrorists and murderous psychopaths in public. Surely people are intelligent enough to understand this.
Kind regards,
John
I think he knows that if he doesn’t put his views on record, the lobby will keep banging away to the exclusion of anything else. They probably will anyway, but his position is set out.
Radio 4 was doing a vox pop this morning on Today. Punters exiting a meeting in (? – didn’t stick in memory) Huddersfield; two at least were in favour of Corbyn’s position on Israel. Also mentioned a poll in which Israel came out only slightly ahead of North Korea in popularity with the UK public. Supporting Palestine isn’t going to do Corbyn a lot of harm by itself, and that antisemitism trope is getting pretty tattered.
Ba’al Zevul ; “All I know is that if someone else’s interests visibly conflict with mine, even if I don’t like our own values much, I know which side of the argument I’m on.”
Everybody has self-interests, but isn’t the point of being a decent Human being, trying to aspire to the greater good when possible, which is really the only side of the argument that should count, each according to their need, rather than their greed, etc; so yes maybe you will eventually get tangible benefits, eg continued long term supply of cheap fuel, if the US gets its way with its attempts to turn Russia into another failed Iraq/Libya failed state, but at what human cost, or don’t Russian lives matter as much as British lives ? What’s the ratio, one British life is worth how many Russian lives ? Why even put yourself in such a position that you need to consider such immoral questions ?!
@Glenn, LOL ! Still counting my words ! I feel deeply honoured !
Glenn; “But I don’t think Fedup is upset about the question, rather, he thought it insulting to have to answer it”
Spot the obvious contradiction; or is it possible that Glenn doesn’t get upset if insulted !!?
Glenn: “Yes or no questions” are not always gotchas.”
True, but as when “asked” by the Posters I mentioned, they can often be loaded questions, diversionary questions, guilt by association types questions, or other similar disingenuous tactics.
Re Immigration Debate, as you well know I have put some povs on the “In Safe Hands” Thread, that you have chosen not to engage with (until now by incorrectly inflated my “barely a tenth of UK land has been urbanized” to “only 20% of the country is urbanized” !!!!) , and rather than regurgitate further povs for discussion, I had posted a link to an article that makes the opposite case to the pov that Britain is full &cannot take any more migrants/refugee, again to which you have not responded.
I leave you with this;
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CMzuvLrWcAA2zz7.png:large
He didn’t respond to all the personal name-calling from his fellow leadershp candidates over the weekend and he shouldn’t now. His record as a campaigner against racism and for peace speaks for itself.
MJ
20/08/2015 11:17am
It might speak for itself to you. I am not sure it will to the general public. If people are not much interested in politics then there’s a substantial risk that it’s the mud that will stick and that they will remember. It’s true that that might happen anyway, no matter what he says, but responding should cut it down.
Kind regards,
John
“responding should cut it down”
You may be right. We shall see.
Ex-NuLabour PM*, backed by current Tory PM, held talks with Hamas affiliate, shock horror:
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/199677
Tamimi further claimed that Blair received the approval of British Prime Minister David Cameron for Mashaal’s visit, and that Hamas has an interest in the visit taking place, regardless of its outcome, since it shows the EU’s willingness to break its “siege” on Hamas in preparation for its removal from its blacklist of terrorist organizations.
EU to follow? Burnham, Cooper please copy. If BICOM doesn’t mind, that is.
* who himself proscribed Hamas as a terrorist organisation
but isn’t the point of being a decent Human being, trying to aspire to the greater good when possible
But I’m not a decent human being. I’m a disgusting great poisonous lizard. I have more in common with Vladimir than you think….
Yet more smears:
“Rupert Murdoch backs Jeremy Corbyn for Labour leadership”
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/20/rupert-murdoch-backs-jeremy-corbyn-labour-leadership
Ba’al Zevul; “But I’m not a decent human being.”
Well as long as you know what you are, maybe you might even consider cutting down on the sanctimonious hypocrisy 😀
And what does Rupert Murdoch believe in exactly?
Money. Power. I doubt he believes in anything else at all, not even the causes he espouses so fervently, such as Israel’s.
I really don’t know how he can even speak such words without choking on his tongue, after backing a mendacious neo-con like Blair for so long.
Kind regards,
John
Found that poll. Chatham House/Yougov, so not too dodgy.
http://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/files/chathamhouse/field/field_document/20150129YouGovRaines.pdf
Page 10 – Australia tops the list of states outside Europe, as it has done in each
edition of the survey, with 47% of the public saying they feel especially favourable, followed by Canada (44%), the United States (33%) and Japan (15%). North Korea is viewed most unfavourably (47%), followed by Israel (35%). The number of those viewing Israel unfavourably has increased by 18 points since 2012, presumably in response to the controversial military campaign in Gaza and the civilian casualties it caused, which were prominent in the news at the time the survey was conducted. Iran (33%) is the third most unfavourably viewed country, though its rating is down by 12 points compared with 2012. Pakistan (28%) and Nigeria (21%) complete the top five.
Corbyn would be in tune with nearly 2/3 of public opinion if he adopted a stance fully critical of Israel. More, if Israel trashed Gaza again.
A lot of other good stuff in that .pdf, too. Note the relative priority accorded to promoting UK business abroad by (a) the general public and (b)’opinion formers’.
Looks as if they’re not doing a perfect job of forming opinion, after all.
sanctimonious hypocrisy
What’s that? I’m a lizard. Don’t expect me to be any better than Putin. Who clearly stated, somewhere above, that national interest was driving what he did. Russian national interest. Not mine. Sanctimony is a word better applied to people who, having no tangible argument for believing what a foreign autarch spends a lot of his peoples’ money propagating in the West, let alone asking others to believe it, revert to sentimental appeals to human decency.
Hypocrisy? Lemme see. You’re generally in favour of Israel creating facts on the ground in occupied Palestine, in defiance of international treaties? You’d have to be, to support the annexation of S. Ossetia and Crimea and still escape the charge of hypocrisy, wouldn’t you?
Anyway, I think, as you have got to the level of personal abuse, it’s time for the expressive, reponse pioneered by Fred.
IOW:
FOAD,R.
On retrospect the annexation of Crimea seems a good move, for the inhabitants of Crimea at least. Given what has happened subsequently they must be feeling pretty smug that they got out when they did without a single casualty and with their pensions intact. No wonder it’s so quiet down there these days.
LOL ! Forget St Fred, here’s St Ba’al Zevul the Cowardly Dragon once again !
That you try to equate the forced genocidal occupation of Palestine, with the free self-determination of the people in the Crimea & S. Ossetia to align with their fellow Russians, speaks volumes for the level of debate you are capable of; the funniest part of this, is that the Habbu-Troll rates you as some sort of heavyweight here ! Says it all really ! 😀
“Rupert Murdoch backs Jeremy Corbyn for Labour leadership”
He obviously took note of what Blair backing Kendall did for her chances. And (alternatively) he’s still gunning for Blair and all his works after the Wendy Deng fracas. I doubt he’d back Corbyn for PM though.
“He obviously took note of what Blair backing Kendall did for her chances”
Zero to zero in one fail swoop.
…the Habbu-Troll rates you as some sort of heavyweight here !
Thanks for telling me. I would far rather have the support of a rational foe than a batshit and occasional ally.
I’m glad you are able to rationalise your hypocrisy. Both the Russian and Israeli cases are equally against international law: both achieve the complete dominance of a favoured group in the region of interest: both were achieved by violence. Early days yet, but I don’t see non-Russian Ossetians staying long in their own country, and the smart money in Crimea got out long ago.
You may find this of interest, though I suspect you will ignore it completely as it doesn’t come from Tass (etc):
http://nationalinterest.org/feature/5-things-you-need-know-about-putins-popularity-russia-13380?page=2
Sergei Udaltsov, a key firebrand during the 2011 mass anti-Putin protests who was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison for his role in those protests, celebrated the result of the Crimean referendum, proclaiming, ” I am a Soviet patriot, and consider the destruction of the USSR a great mistake and crime, so I regard the return of Crimea as a small but important step towards the rebirth of an updated Union.” Likewise, Eduard Limonov, a longtime Putin foe who has spent time in jail for his political activities, called for military intervention not only in Eastern Ukraine, but also for the Black Sea Fleet to be sent to Odessa.
I don’t read Russian, but here’s the original:
http://echo.msk.ru/blog/udaltsov/1285254-echo/
Putin is popular because he is a patriotic nationalist, not because he has any concern for the good of mankind. He’s eying up, and has huge support for, the restoration of the Soviet empire. He is an expansionist, and he uses force.
Moldova is also on the Putin to-do list, and destabilisation if not immediate coercion of Georgia. The Baltic states are also vulnerable, for precisely the same reasons as Abkhazia and Ossetia. The West is right to be worried. I live in the West, and I’m a realist, so nul points for persuasion.
That’s not my last response to you, whatever the conscious provocation, Macky.
This is-
FOAD,R!