Watching live, I too did not think that John McDonnell’s Chairman Mao joke was wise, because of the obvious misrepresentation to which it was open in the right wing press. But in fact while the openly right wing media all have a go, they all respect the basic tenets of journalism by fairly reflecting both the content and the context of what Corbyn said:
The Labour shadow chancellor mocked the Chancellor – who he dubbed “Comrade Osborne” – for encouraging China to invest in British infrastructure projects…
After joking about the sale of public assets to the Chinese government, Mr McDonnell said: “To assist Comrade Osborne about dealing with his new found comrades, I have brought him along Mao’s Little Red Book.”
Mr McDonnell accused his Tory rival of selling off Government assets to foreign nations such as China.
He said: “Nationalisation is ok for him as long as its by any other state but ours.
“To assist comrade Osborne in his dealings with his new-found comrades, I have brought him along Mao’s Little Red Book.”
The Shadow Chancellor, who could not be mistaken for Jimmy Tarbuck even on a good day, was essaying a satirical dig at Mr Osborne for becoming too chummy with Chinese investors. He argued that Mr Osborne was nationalising our economy – but turning it over to the Chinese state.
That is pretty plain, is it not? And actually fair journalism.
Yet astonishingly the Guardian ran three whole articles entirely about the McDonnell gaffe. You could read every single word of these three articles and not learn the basic information provided in each of the three Blue Tory papers above. The utterly disgraceful Jonathan Jones, John Crace and Tom Phillips all managed to produce articles which utterly omit what McDonnell actually said and why he said it, to contrive to give the impression that McDonnell was quoting Mao straight and with approval.
As a member of the NUJ myself, I cannot say how much it pains me to see colleagues renouncing every single tenet of professional, let alone ethical, journalism in order to produce a deliberate distortion of the truth. Even the Blue Tory newspapers did not here sink to anything like the depths plumbed by the Red Tories of the Guardian.
Crace, Jones and Phillips have crossed a line and are not journalists. What are they? Paid lying bastards.
The embittered has-been Blairites at the Guardian, by-passed by history and despised by the public, still resentfully nursing their support for the Iraq War and insistence it improved the world, have turned a once great newspaper into a journalistic abomination.
UPDATE: This is absolutely beyond parody. The Guardian have just published a FOURTH article on this subject, by Roy Greenslade, which still fails to say that McDonnell was referring to Osborne’s disposal of British assets to the Chinese state. Instead Greenslade cuts and pastes the most damning comments he can find in the Tory media. Not of course including any of the Tory media quotes given above which, unlike the Guardian, tell you what McDonnell was saying.
When do you think the fifth Guardian article is coming?
Jones always seems to me to be a disappointment to himself. I think he believes he should be ‘up there’ , but has mainly had to content himself with an eighties era art analysis. Indeed his head certainly is ‘up there’.i think he has been pushed into political comment because some of the old regulars have ‘gone’ -e.g Jackie Ashleigh and they were a bit light in their CIF pages. It vis a kind of cheapskate shuffle as an alternative to engaging a proper political journalist
Crace is also a disappointment in the role he has been appointed to, He is not a patch on his late predecessor,who was actually quite funny, a trick Crace rarely achieves. He is too self-conscious and his jokes are somewhat forced and ‘heavy’.
Broadly I thought much the same as you- the joke was possibly ill-advised . i think he may have got away with it if he had not thrown the book at Osbourne who was quick enough to turn it around to a criticism of ‘extreme leftness’. That is the danger with these characters-they ARE quick and very very slippery.
Not sure about Phillips.
“The embittered has-been Blairites at the Guardian, by-passed by history and despised by the public, still resentfully nursing their support for the Iraq War and insistence it improved the world, have turned a once great newspaper into a journalistic abomination”
I don’t know why you still bother reading it, let alone writing about it. Other news-gathering services are available.
And let’s not forget that they’ve recently stated THEMSELVES that they redacted all reader comments on articles about the Paris attacks that made any mention of blowback or Western foreign policy – because “it wasn’t the time”.
I still think the best overview of what has happened at the Grauniad is reinertorheit’s comment on an Off-Guardian article, here: http://off-guardian.org/about-2/. Scroll down and read it and many pennies will drop.
Of course, a neocon front, which is what the Grauniad has become, will do its best to brainwash its readers that you can be a rabid right winger AND progressive. That’s the entire point of the enterprise. Corbyn is, in this picture, a bigger enemy of theirs than it ever is of newspapers supporting the other faction of the business party.
“he ever is”
Sorry.
The more the right wing press has a go at Corbyn the more people will decide to rejoin the Labour party, the underdog is rising….
There are no Chinese walls between newspapers. Basically, we have one newspaper. The Guardian has a particularly useful propaganda value – due to it’s history – but it’s just a subset of The Oligarch Times.
Btw, I personally think this is a new phenomena. Within my adult life-time as it happens. The ‘free’ press may have always been over-rated, but there was a little diversity. Now – none at all. The Guardian itself is mere state-propaganda, and the laughably un-talented Viner is lucky she edits anything more than a student newspaper.
Help is at hand, though. Gifted writers of the past, they’ve all reported to the future, in their fashion, after all.
“The best way to control the opposition is to lead it ourselves.” -Vladimir Lenin
The Hidden Hand of Controlled Opposition
by Zen Gardner
This concept eludes public awareness to a scary degree. It’s similar to the reality of false flag operations, the epitome of carefully planned societal manipulation by unseen forces who have no regard for the human condition other than to control it.
This is so very similar to the slogan of the nefarious Mossad: “By way of deception, thou shalt do war.”
And the war is on us; for the subjugation, exploitation and control of….us.
The human race.
It’s all misdirection, controlled opposition for the mind. This game of ruthless deception is endemic to the fabric of the entire matrix.
http://www.zengardner.com/hidden-hand-controlled-opposition/
Bought The Observer every weekend for my entire adult life, up until about 6 months ago. Bought the Independent on most weekdays. Haven’t got either since the election, and can see no reason to do so again. I haven’t changed much in my basic outlook or principles but they have, to the point I got tired of asking, “Why am I paying to read right wing, war-mongering propaganda?”
Let’s not forget the BBC.
They’re shite as well:
http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1448529321.html
Didn’t Fred have difficulties understanding the difference between attacking ISIS and attacking Assad.
Perhaps Fred is in fact John Humphries.
Certainly grumpy enough.
“British public wrong about nearly everything, survey shows”
“A new survey for the Royal Statistical Society and King’s College London shows public opinion is repeatedly off the mark on issues including crime, benefit fraud and immigration.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/british-public-wrong-about-nearly-everything-survey-shows-8697821.html
Seems mass media is doing its job though.
An ignorant electorate is surely preferable to an informed electorate.
Isn’t that its purpose.
More on our crap media.
Hitch’s smarter brother, Peter, explains:
http://kwaku.org.uk/Archive/Video/Peter%20Hitchens.html
So that’s Professor Roy Greenslade former Maoist and contributor to ‘An Poblacht’? As the Anti-Corbyn Cultists with their GOP-like determination to immobilise the Labour Party say “Interesting Times”
The US government and the New York Times and other organs are promoting the idea that Assad supports ISIS.
It is obvious that a major war is the plan.
Jeremy Corbyn is not perfect, but I have been asked to circulate the following letter. People are sending it to Jeremy to urge him to headline the issue of the British government’s military plans in Syria, rather than the story of “backbench Labour revolt”.
It is important to send this before the House of Commons votes on military action in Syria.
BEGIN TEXT OF LETTER
Dear Jeremy Corbyn,
I write to urge you to hold David Cameron to account for his apparent
contempt for UN Security Council Resolution 2249 (20 Nov 2015), which
calls on member states that have the capacity to combat Daesh (ISIS) to
coordinate their efforts.
Those member states include Russia, and it is therefore Britain’s
responsibility to coordinate its efforts with Russia.
END TEXT OF LETTER
Jeremy Corbyn’s email address is
[email protected]
Those who currently pay good money for their daily propaganda fix may find this a much less expensive resource.
Includes outlets from around the world, in English:
http://www.thebigproject.co.uk/news/
Got to admit it, Osborne’s retort is a classic put down!
Source for the above:
Link text
On the other hand, every right-thinking person knows the Guardian is absolute crap anyway.
I’ve uninstalled the app I don’t know how many times in fury at the Guardian’s outright betrayal of its liberal heritage.
What did the SS have on them to force them to agree to destroy their hard drives?
Sixer, at 10:47am, wrote: “I still think the best overview of what has happened at the Grauniad is reinertorheit’s comment on an Off-Guardian article, here: http://off-guardian.org/about-2/. Scroll down and read it and many pennies will drop.”
That’s ineresting and certainly sounds plausible, given the changes that have occurred in the Guardian’s coverage over recent years.
Here’s reinertorheit’s comment:
“I understand the anger and frustration many people have voiced here – and I think that it would be worth posting an explanation of what has actually happened at The Guardian.
In 2013, The Guardian filed some of the worst financial accounts in the newspaper’s history. The publishers were clearly in deep financial trouble, and were forced to sell-off some of their assets, simply to avoid immediately bankruptcy. The financial outlook appeared very grim.
But ‘hope’ was around the corner… although it was a vile kind of ‘hope’ indeed.
The Guardian was (quietly) relaunched, positioning itself primarily in the USA and Australia – whilst aiming to retain as much as possiible from its former days as a left-wing newspaper in Britain. New and mysterious ‘backers’ appeared, who were now controlling the political content of the newspaper. Alan Rusbridger was quickly removed and thrown on the rubbish-heap – the usual nonsense about wanting to develop his career (in retirement?).
It was a very simple idea – “buy up the opposition to neoconservative American ideas – and neatralise it with a daily diet of pro-Pentagon, pro-Washington, shabby indoctrination”. Unwanted old left-wingers were quietly pushed aside. Ambitious Americans like Hadley Freeman were shoved forwards. New right-wing writers were hired, such as “Rafael Behr” (who he?). The screaming voices of the lunatic right, such as TImothy Garbage-Trash, suddenly become Leader Writers..
Let’s just explain what “neoconservative” actually means. It means following right-wing policies and ideas under the apparently acceptable cloak of being socialists, in order to secure public support for these extreme right-wing policies. Tony Blair is the perfect example… a man who found himself in perfect accord with George Bush – a god-bothering war-mongering racist fascist psychopath with the brain of a mollusc.
But it gets worse. The Guardian is now not really written by Guardian journalists any longer. Instead, coverage of all “sensitive” topics has been franchised out to American rightwing organisations. Now we get articles and editorial which have been “sponsored by the John D Rockefeller Foundation” (an extremist rightwing organisation), whose authorship and views chime perfectly with American hard-line exceptionalist Christian white right. Sometimes the sourcing is hidden more carefully… for example, the “Calvert Journal” – an American-funded pile of rightwing trash based in Calvert Street in London…. trailed as an “expert source” on Russia, but actually ghost-written in Washington. A few down-at-heel Russian emigres were hired as the ostensible “authors” of this crap. So now the Guardian’s Russia coverage is written by spooks in Washington under the guise of being written by “Russian opposition voices cowering from Putin in London”. I’ve met these filth – they are pathetic users who are happy to take Washington’s dollars to fund their empty-headed glamorous lifestyles in London. This comes under the heading of “New East”, headed by a new rightwing extremist at the Guardian called Maeve Sheerlaw… a cheap hack who has never been to Moscow in her life, yet was made an Overnight Expert to parrot the opinions of filth like Andrew McFaul, failed American Ambassador to Moscow.
Then there are all the articles ‘syndicated’ from the Moscow Times – another fake newspaper funded by American rightwingers in Washington, via a chain of anonymous holding companies in the Netherlands and Scandinavia. Don’t be fooled by that “Moscow Times” title – it was one they picked on purpose, to make it sound like a serious newspaper. In fact it’s staffed by a team of cheap American journalism students, and there are no Russians working there at all. A few Russian names appear as columnists… but – surprise! – they are all Russian runaways, living in Miami or Brighton Beach, and delighted to have Washington’s cash in exchange for some bitter hatred penned during a drunken lunch-hour.
In summary, then – The Guardian which readers remember from the 1980s and 1990s no longer exists at all. Its exterior appearance and readership has been bought for cash by American fascist organisations… but covertly, so that readers “believe” they are still reading The Guardian. Surprised? You shouldn’t be, because it’s how Tony Blair came to power in Britain – the most Tory leader Britain has ever had. And where are his ‘socialist’ allies? Peter Mandelson, a penniless journalist, is now Lord Mandelson, with a two-million pound house and a seat in the House of Lords. Socialism, my arse.
The Guardian is now more right-wing than the Daily Telegraph. It features articles from Timmy Garbage-Trash saying how Britain should go to war against Russia, to save those jolly, plucky, Right Sector genocidal fascists in Ukraine.
None of this has ever been mentioned in the Guardian itself, of course. You are all still clinging to this rabid pro-American sheet of garbage until the moment they actually write it on the front page. That day will never come. Yet you still think the Guardian is a ‘socialist’ newspaper.”
Cameron this morning on his next venture into the Middle East. The last one failed dramatically.
‘The UK could not “outsource our security to allies” and it had to stand by France, he added.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-34927939
But he’s happy to outsource everything else that belongs to us!
Mochyn69 Sadly Corbyn and McDonnell, decent human beings, are thwarted by the Tory front bench spivs.
Yeah I second Sal Paradise’s comment. was about to post the same.
Truth is Gideon aced it and demolished McDonnell who showed how ineffective, politically lightweight and out of touch, both he and Corbyn are. It’s probably why the Tory press were so gentle on the shadow chancellor, they dont want him to go! This should have been an opportunity to present a new vision for the country and take the Tories on for making the UK less equal than it was in the 30s, but he blew it. The little red book gag probably sounded hilarious at the gay hussar in soho after three bottles of Shiraz, but really? apparently a whole group of folk were involved in passing it. This was not just an own goal it had Dignitas written all over it. Let’s see what happens in Oldham next week, I fear the worse.
I heard the Shadow Cabinet were subjected to a briefing from the spooks yesterday on the terrrrr threat.
Sawers this am. He talked about brilliant goalkeepers letting through some goals. A metaphor that we plebs can understand.
‘Terrorists will get through’ warns former MI6 head
BBC News-1 hour ago
Sir John Sawers, who was head of MI6 until 2014, has said that the UK should be braced for a terrorist attack in the wake of the Paris massacre.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34931132
Three weeks ago, he and Lobban were at Gleneagles ‘speaking with financiers’.
‘Former spy chiefs to meet financiers at Gleneagles
8 Nov 2015
The former heads of MI6 and GCHQ, Sir John Sawers and Sir Iain Lobban, are scheduled to appear together at an exclusive dinner at the luxury five-star Gleneagles estate in Scotland.
The pair, who both left public office late last year, will address a “top-tier” audience of fund managers on the first evening of a high-profile conference sponsored by hedge funds and investment banks. Sawers is familiar with an audience of this kind, having delivered a keynote speech at a prestigious hedge fund summit in Paris in April.’
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2015/nov/08/former-spy-chiefs-gleneagles-mi6-gchq
Sixer and Sal Paradise, thanks for linking those comments. I have been wondering for a while now what is going on with the guardian. On the one hand it reports some things of importance that other mainstream papers ignore and which do not portray the government in a good light. But at the same time it publishes this bizarre range of neocon-friendly stories and opinion pieces in a way that doesn’t so much suggest ‘balance’ as ‘split personality’.
Even with the information above something still doesn’t sit right.
Oh I don’t know Craig, I thought, McDonnell’s punchy quib about selling of state assets, and Mao’s red book were fitting.
I also liked the fact that McDonnell stated that Osborne, hadn’t met a significang target regarding the economy in the last five years.
Further to my Sawers link, there is this super graphic which illustrates what the retired spy chiefs get up to.
http://interactive.guim.co.uk/uploader/embed/2015/11/spy_chief_connections/giv-31114uR22xFn0iR3b/
Since leaving office, Sawers has taken up two influential private-sector jobs and followed his predecessors at MI6, Sir John Scarlett and Sir Richard Dearlove, into a network of small, London-based private intelligence and strategic consultancy firms that advise top corporate clients, from sovereign wealth funds to blue-chip companies and foreign governments.
Spy chief connections
Types of relationship
Business | Known to have been a client | Hospitality and meetings | Appointed | Agency they used to run
Known to have been a client= D Miliband, Lord Carlile, Sir Jeremy Heywood
For those whom read the absolute bilge pushed by the Oligarch Owned Media and reflect it here, I owe a big thank you! For I no longer can be arsed to shout at the screen/or worst still at the paper in my hand and throw it down in disgust.
It has been years since I contributed to any of the OOM, their owners control the horizontal and the vertical and can afford doing so with my two pennyworth subsidising their propaganda. However fact that I no longer read or get angry at the rubbish shoved under my nose, I have also developed a knack for finding about the actualities and the underlying facts about the events. this is the worse development scenario for these tossers who control the horizontal and the vertical because despite their control I can see through the smoke and mirrors and make my own mind up!!!
In short whence even Simpson’s is poking fun at the print media and the OOM then one expects the oligarchs have an epiphany; the great unwashed is no longer buying the message does not mean turning up the dial to spew even more rubbish hoping the deluge of carp will stick somewhere!!! Well that would be a normal persons reaction, but the recidivist tossers scared of their own shadows will blame it on their lame and supine underlings whom will genuflect and accept blame for not being on message and kick more butt down the line to shove even more crap into the content!
In short stop consuming the unconscious drivel that is being shoved your way and start exploring what is really happening? and more importantly why?
PS anyone noticed the mandatory high vis clad user of exotic substances standing on a building site and spearing oh so on the button? There is nothing else left to boast about delivering for business, and standing next a bank of telephones in a call centre will only infuriate more the already irate populace who are getting calls from ; “hell my name is Kevin and I am calling…….. (in a heavily accented tone)!
Not exactly a secret that the Labour Shadow Cabinet (though more correctly frontbench Privy Counsellors) received a briefing about military action. Both the PM and Jeremy Corbyn, plus other parties including the SNP, DUP and Lib Dems, made reference to the fact in Parliament this morning.
I will go out on a limb and say that when compared to the option of doing nothing some form of action against Daesh is right. I don’t subscribe to the view on here that the US/UK/Is are pulling the strings of Daesh. In fact I think anyone who spouts such stuff is talking nonsense.
At least this morning the PM has listened about the need to work with Russia in the area. Next question will be do we work with Assad or with the 70,000 ‘moderate’ fighters’?
Our old favourite, John McTernan, Jim Murphy’s former advisor criticizing McDonnell, on quoting chairman Mao.
In true McTernan fashion, he then goes on to quote Mao himself, good old McTernan you can always rely on him to make a gaff.
http://wingsoverscotland.com/justified-ancients-of-mao/#more-79038