There is a very extraordinary meme which Blairites keep raising in the Commons debate, that it is “abusive” or “undemocratic” for Labour MPs to face deselection by their members.
In the SNP, there is never any automatic reselection for anybody. You are selected for one term and have to be renominated for another term, where you can be opposed. Indeed deselection happens quite often in the SNP without drawing any comment at all. If the members aren’t happy with your performance, they will get in someone else.
It is remarkable that Labour MPs feel that they should have a job for life, whether the constituency members are happy with your performance or not. If Labour party members decide they do not want an extreme right winger like Stella Creasy or John Mann to represent them, why is it “undemocratic” to get rid of them at the end of the term for which they are elected? Individuals do not own the party, and nobody is stopping them from running as independent candidates or joining the Conservative Party.
This goes to the heart of the Blairite cause. It is apparently not “undemocratic” for them to take legal advice on whether they can keep Jeremy Corbyn’s name off the ballot in a future membership ballot. It is not “undemocratic” to discuss deselecting the Leader, but it is a heinous offence against democracy to consider deselecting an MP. The odious Blairites are the most self-centred, selfish and indeed sociopathic group ever to have a serious presence in the UK parliament.
On topic of deselection Taiwan (the only democratic Chinese state) discovered that local groups require local power. When the KMT centralised selection of candidates and ignored local elites the local elites rebelled and set up new parties and were elected. Deselection should similarly be relatively local. Of course issues arise where interest groups, such as religions,ethnic groups, unions, or any self interest group mob a local party. So there should be checks and balances.
Mary, how are you using that egregious in relation to Andrew Neil: Positive or negative sense?
Hypocrite is too weak a word;
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CVPpQttXAAUvJId.jpg:large
I am seeing some of the new crop of MPs speak for the first time. Maybe it’s my age but most of them seem lightweight and poor orators. The latest to underwhelm me is Ruth Smeeth.
I haven’t yet been banned from The Saker’s website..but I don’t always agree with him,,,and yes I’ve been banned from everywhere else for bad behaviour (I completely understand – shit sometimes I wish I had banned myself – and sometimes I did in advance – I told Clark how to do it…Is he O.K. by the way…its awful being piggy in the middle…I know I am BAD – but some of the Trolls who write here…well it’s like sharing a web space with some really bright lights and colours with this horrible slime dirty brown coloured eeerhhh…even The Telegraph isn’t as bad as here ..so the bright lights and thugs & slugs throw this brown stuff here and nothing sensible gets discussed to any depths. (better or worse than below?)
The Saker – published my comment tonight in less than 5 minutes
Tony_Opmoc on December 02, 2015 · at 7:20 pm UTC
The Saker,
I have been reading your blog for well over 2 years – since before the coup in the Ukraine, and I have quoted you and linked to your blog numerous times on places like The Daily Telegraph.
I have never posted on your blog, except once before – at around Christmas time, merely to say that you are my Journalist of the Year 2014.
God Bless You Sir,
Can you play guitar? You remind me of Billy Gibbons of ZZ Top.
You certainly are a Top Man.
Thank you so much for your analysis, and writing The Truth as best as you could. It takes tremendous courage.
The World needs many more people like you – but you are a bit unique.
Never think you don’t make a difference.
One man can change the world – maybe it will happen tonight if one man or woman in the UK Parliament switches his vote from Yes, to No War.
Tony
One exception to what I just posted is Phillipa Whitford, currently speaking as a I type. She is making some excellent points. For what it’s worth, top marks doc!
Fwl Ref Neil ‘Outstandingly bad. Shocking’.
Defo not Archaic Remarkably good!
Do Private Eye still picture him in a vest as ‘Brillo’?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurring_in-jokes_in_Private_Eye
Tony, I’m glad your not banned here and pleased by lucidity of recent post unfettered by stream of consciousness, which has at times been your hallmark.
Good speech by Kier Stamer (Lab) re dynamic makes bombing neither compelling nor cogent because of Russian involvement.
Shabea Mahmoud (labour) explains she is Sunni by upbringing and choice, that ISIS would kill her, she wants them eradicated, but does not support motion.
In Australia, pre-selection battles are famously unpleasant affairs, where sitting members can, and so, get knocked of in factional battles. Bill Shorten himself knocked of a long-serving union guy to get this safe seat. It doesn’t happen all the time, but it does happen. The factional battles are particularly interesting in seats that are being challenged for. If you lose, you certainly aren’t guaranteed another shot. But you do have to be pre-selected for every election, and it’s certainly not guaranteed.
I’m not sure how I feel about this, it can get unpleasant, and the labour left faction is in the minority (Shorten is a neocon). Generally I take the view that it’s up to the constituency party, and head office should leave alone. I’d be reluctant to see the constituency party deselect over 1 vote, even if it is a stupid one. But we must bear in mind, Bliar parachuted in a bunch of his chums, over-riding the local party, so some redress is not necessairly a bad thing … I’d sack everyone who voted for war, but then I’m not good at politics.
So not KOWN’s usage then! I think Private Eye still run that picture when readers request tho not in last edition. He, Andrew Neil, did an interesting programme a fee years ago on the demise of the working class MP and the rise of the PPE class across all parties. He went back to his Glasgow school and was saddened by how things had changed and lamented that the school had long since given up on sending pupils there.
Brian:
“Check out Cameron being asked to apologize over terrorist supporter insult –”
_______
Thanks for that Brian. Check out his photo within the same article. Cameron really looks like a lipless wonder, reminiscent of Steve Bell’s brilliant Pink Condom caricature.
Turning to Labour it’s interesting that his shadow cabinet is out of sync with the rest of the parliamentary party. Jeremy Corbyn has done the right thing; he understands a thing or two about Change Management. You have to boil the frog gently if you are to kill it. Awful change management parable but it conveys the message. Check it out on the net if you are intrigued.
Corbyn is very impressive when he is interviewed, no matter how awkward the question.
John Smith changed the rules of the PLP. It gave the leader more power. That is why the MP cowards allowed him to carry on like he did. A dictator. No cabinet collective responsibility.
Ed Miliband changed it back and changed the voting rules for electing the leader. Before the Unions (who fund the Party) and MP’s had more power over who was leader. The MP’s voted for the leader. Now the leader is elected by one person, one vote. Every party member has an equal vote. That has what has put the cat among the pigeons.
Time will only tell if the dissenting MP’s get deselected. Some of them appear to be jostling to become leader rather than uniting the Party. Many of the dissenting MP’s were place man imposed on the constituency by HQ’s rather than selected locally. It could change and the Labour Party will return to it’s roots and become a more democratic Party. It wouldn’t happen any time soon especially for those’s voting for bombing against the wishes of the majority of the Party members. The Labour Party lost many members and voters because of the illegal war. The actions of Cameron could come back to haunt him, ruining Christmas and worrying people even more.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/02/syria-airstrikes-debate-best-commons-speeches
For a Guardian Editor tonight this is not a vote that will kill innocent people and families .
It is it appears from above a bloody schools debating contest !!
Hope you’re watching Nevermind. Ms Chloe Smith’s turn now. Very irritating. She speaks in staccato mode, splitting her sentences into segments of three or four words. At least she kept it short.
I thought Andrew Tyrie was good in his analytical approach. A thinker unlike the Bullingdon contingent and their sheep like followers.
5.42 pm
Mr Andrew Tyrie (Chichester) (Con):
Intervention will succeed only if it is part of a coherent strategy and a coherent political strategy. Both are needed. I have yet to hear them in the statements from Ministers, although I very much want to hear them.
First, on the military strategy, degrading ISIL’s capacity from the air will achieve little unless it is followed by effective use of ground forces. But President Obama has ruled out committing ground troops, as has the Prime Minister, so the question of where those troops are going to come from is paramount. The Prime Minister appears to be insisting that Assad, who still has significant forces in theatre, has no part in the future of Syria. In that case, the ground war rests largely with the Kurds, who are less well organised than they are in Iraq, and on the reported 70,000 non-extremist fighters, but the reality of those seems to have faded somewhat in recent days.
Secondly, and even more important, there is the political strategy. Before military action can be justified, we need to have arrived at the point where the main intervening powers are agreed at least about the broad outlines of a settlement. But that is not evident either. In fact, the military action that has recently been taking place in Syria vividly illustrates the absence of a strategy. A handful of outside powers are attacking or assisting a patchwork of different opponents, some of whom are fighting each other. The political objectives of the western powers and current military action to further them and the political objectives of the Russians are contradictory. The Russians have attacked the groups that the west sees as the potential salvation of Syria. The US and France want to remove the regime that the Russians have been seeking to entrench.
For military action to have a reasonable prospect of succeeding, we will need agreement among the major powers about the use and objectives of air power, about whom we are and are not targeting, about how the boots on the ground will get there, and about whose boots they will be.
/..
http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/hansard/commons/todays-commons-debates/read/unknown/22/
After an intervention, he continued.
Even Wapo is letting the cat out of bag and reporting: (with the caveats of “propaganda” as per US military sources, and “allegedly”)
That is in addition to the;
Daesh relies on their weapons to be delivered by the US that also fulfills the role of logistic supplying food, water and needless to point out the Captagon too!!
I dunno, but it seems to me that if the Tories get this vote through, as I suppose they will (written before the vote), there are going to be serious consequences. In Britain as in the ME. Voting for the bombing, when popular opinion is against, is serious, for example. Has an effect on the Blairites. Voting on a trick question, when everyone knows the real intention is to attack Asad, is another. I hate to think what disputes are going to take place in the future.
Bloody hell, it’s half past nine, UK time, and the Commons is still packed. The drug dealers and the prostitutes must be losing a fortune.
My point is, having dipped in and out of the Commons debate today, that hardly any of these egits have been addressing reality; that being, that we are directly coming into conflict with Russia when it comes to military action in Syria.
This is nothing like Iraq in 2003.
Also, barely any mention of the role of Saudi Arabia, or the origins of ISIS, or their funding, or any of this stuff, which is quite apparent beyond the cretins who sit in the Commons.
Oh well, it’ll all be in Hansard for future generations to see.
Cameron looks like an alcoholic. Too much red wine. It changes facial features. Alcoholics make poor decisions, unless they take control, get counselling and abstain. Cameron and his cronies carry on like Psychopaths, they are unable to empathise. PR men who went into Politics to embezzle and and misappropriate public funds with their uneconomical projects through fees and consultancies. Osbourne best man and brother in law (Bankers) made £Millions from the Royal Mail sell of and pension fund grab. His father in Law is a consultant on HS2. The majority at Westminster misuse their remunerations and privileges. Most of them should be in jail. They hid their crimes under the Official Secrets Act.
Andrew Neil was Thatcher’s henchman. A total Tory. There are recorded TV reports he did in the 70’s, which highlight his ignorance and arrogance towards Scotland and the developing Oil industry. The McCrone Report was hidden for 30 years under the Official Secrets Act. Had it been known, Scotland would have been Independent and much wealthier, long ago. No illegal wars, banking fraud or tax evasion,
Of course, my previous post was done just as Hilary Benn started speaking… (see above)
It’s all very nice tricking the commons into voting yes, but the consequences will come back to hit them pretty quickly. Either Britain does nothing (well a few bombs – sad for the people of Raqqa), or we’re forced into joining the Neo-Con war against Russia. That’s going to please Britons.
I don’t normally do this, though I am sat in front of a 55″ TV.
I simply do not watch TV – thought tonight I thought I would.
I switched it on..pressed the menu buttons and everything….I thought they would be ordered in some kind of precidence…all I got was 509 channels of complete shiite and that inluded BBC News 24 Avertising The BBC Parliament Channel on some other channel…
and so I finally got there – after reconnecting cables – my Sky HD Box wasn’t even connected (I do have a lot of toys)
But I thought I would listen to what they had to say…
Oh Dear…Not like it was…when I used to listen to Prime Ministers Question Time on LBC 33 years ago.
Hilary Benn is Now Live Completely Betraying What His Dad Tony Benn Stood For and Represented. It’s not his fault – he’s been on the mind control course run by the Tavistock. They sent me too. I skipped the final course – cos I saw what it did to my colleague.
Behaviour Analysis. Behaviour Modification. The Final Course is Mind Destruction and Rebuild in The Company’s/Political Party’s Image. The Techniques…Week Long course away from your family if you have one. Staying in a very Nice Hotel and being conventional taught like in a classroom – and then being split up into different teams…and doing the role model thing – life 4 or 5 different individuals eventual after a few more days..choose a team leader and maybe it is you…on the 3rd or 4th day…the team of 15 psychologists…gradually take you down…and now all 14 of them hate you..You have only one friend…the one girl who supported in you in most of the teams you were in…
You haven’t seen your girlfriend/wife in days..and you are staying in a hotel room – and her’s is next to yours.
Got him Sir..He’s mine now…
Like I said I didn’t do the final course..well I did a bit for my previous employer – so knew the score.
You have no idea about the honeytraps – but I never took the bait – never – even when I was sad and alone…I never wanted a prostitute.
I wanted a girl to love..who would love me just the same and one day – maybe we will make babies together.
And We Did xx
Come on Guys – You’ve Got To Do Better Than That..When’s The Vote?
Tony
How shameful. He was even applauded all round the house. Who? Benn, a rabble rouser who has played into Cameron’s hands.
Ben talking himself into a frenzy. Talking himself out of a job. What a plonker. It will all end in tears. They make a fool of themselves.
Not one has said that the ones bombing Syria now, whom Cameron wishes to join, are exactly the same ones that bombed Iraq from 2003 onwards.
Yup tho Thatcherism saw working classes liberated to buy council houses and enter some areas of work which had been off limits it closed the mines and worse was the start of a growing class divide, but wasn’t it Blair who did the most damage. It was under Blair and Brown that light touch regulation (started under Thatcher) took off and that privitisation went mental with barmy NHS destroying PFI.
That was yup to Ken2 re Andrew Neil.
Philip Hammond now speaking, and once again no mention whatsoever of the role of our ‘great ally’ Saudi Arabia, or the fact that military intervention in Syria will bring the West into direct confrontation with Russia.
These people in Parliament are all total psychos.
Let the vote commence (not to mention a major purge in the Labour Party).
In the SNP, there is never any automatic reselection for anybody. You are selected for one term and have to be renominated for another term, where you can be opposed. Indeed deselection happens quite often in the SNP without drawing any comment at all. If the members aren’t happy with your performance, they will get in someone else.
But Labour Party stalwarts, such as Alistair Darling, have been telling us for years that the SNP are blood and soil nationalists, aka Nazis/fascists!.. Surely it cannot have been them all along who were the anti-democrats? 😀
Is Philip Hammond going to address David Davies’ points re we have no useful target intelligence and cut off oil purchases and get our allies in line? Or Keir Stamer’s point about Russia being part of the dynamic means watch out don’t do it?
As Stamer says if its a yes get in line and support. So a few minutes to dissent.