David Cameron gets heckled every day of his life. The media never bother to report the names of the hecklers or the gist of what they say.
Yet a single heckler shouts at Jeremy Corbyn at Gay Pride, and not only is that front page news in the Guardian, it is on BBC, ITN and Sky News.
What makes a single individual heckling a politician newsworthy? There are dozens such examples every single day that are not newsworthy.
The answer is simple. Normally the hecklers are promoting an anti-establishment view, so it does not get reported. Whereas this heckler was promoting the number one priority of the establishment and mainstream media, to get rid of Jeremy Corbyn. So this heckler, uniquely, is front page news and his words are repeated at great length in the Guardian and throughout the broadcast media.
The impression is deliberately given that he reflects general disgust from young people, and particularly gay young people, at Corbyn over the EU referendum. The very enthusiastic reception for Corbyn at Gay Pride is not reported.
Nor is the fact that the incident was not a chance one. The “heckler” is Tom Mauchline, a PR professional for PR firm Portland Communications, a dedicated Blairite (he describes himself as Gouldian) formerly working on the Liz Kendall leadership campaign. Portland Communications’ “strategic counsel” is Alastair Campbell.
So far from representing a popular mood, Mauchlyne was this morning on twitter urging people to sign a 38 Degrees petition supporting the no confidence motion against Corbyn. Ten hours later that petition has gained 65 signatures, compared to 120,000 for a petition supporting Corbyn. Mauchline formerly worked for 38 Degrees, unsurprising given their disgraceful behaviour over the Kuenssberg petition. I am waiting for the circle to be squared and Kuenssberg to report on the significance of Mauchline’s lone heckle.
I find it incredible that the mainstream media are all carrying this faked incident while not one single mainstream journalist has reported who Mauchline really is.
The “media” if you want to call them that have been relentless in their attacks against Corbyn. The awful Polly Toynbee in today’s Guardian even suggests that Corbyn is to blame for the exit vote. A spiteful, vile piece that fails to mention that the EU Referendum was actually a fight for control of the Tory party, with Europe as the battlefield. The Media this full well, but would rather put forward the preposterous notion that Corbyn is somehow to blame.
Peter Hitchens made reference to this in an interview he did on the BBC not long after the result.
Captain Corelli,
Whilst I agree with most of what you have written, the EU Referendum was much more than a fight for control of the Tory party..
I think you are much too close to the ground and cannot see the wider picture.
Do you not realise, that the USA neocon coup in The Ukraine, and resulting Economic Sanction on Russia, was not just an American attack on Russia – it was also an American attack on Europe.
The Americans so far as I am aware, had never attacked Europe in this way before. They already completely control the EU – and almost all Senior EU Politicians – but probably not Corbyn, but certainly both Cameron and Boris – who in reality are still on the same side…
So I would argue, that what The Ordinary British People did in rejecting the EU, was really not just a Defence of Tryanical US Control of The UK, but also a Defence of All The People in Europe.
Victoria Nuland said in Kiev at the height of The Coup – “Fuck The EU”
The British People just gave The Americans The Appropriate Response..but they are probably too stupid to understand it yet.
Tony
Toynbee’s grand daddy was a big supporter of removing sovereign rights in favour of a giant European state. He even wrote a ‘how to’ guide which entailed sneaky manoeuvres to trick the public.
Perhaps Polly is furthering old pa Toynbee’s wishes?
Thanks to Craig for the explanation. I’d been pondering the ‘significance’ of this solo heckle and why it had been reported at all. Also, looks like it was self-filmed, which made me wonder about its provenance and how it came to be on the BBC website. (I’d have understood it if there had been a group of protesters and it had been filmed by someone else – maybe.)
Because our press are as corrupt as Pravda was, Craig. They lied, bullied and smeared to drive the impressionable and gullible to pull the trigger on the most disastrous political decision in my lifetime. Now they won’t take responsibility for the crisis they have created needlessly, nor would they dream of holding an Old Etonian to account for stupidity and incompetence that in most countries would have him hounded out of the country. Nor are they asking any questions of the buffoon Johnson, who has brought the country to the brink, and now has no plan whatsoever – not surprising for a man who has never got a job on merit in his life.
So they go after Corbyn, who is a principled and capable man, and hope no one notices the clowns they are keeping in power. Plus they are using this crisis to peddle their perennial agenda of installing an Israeli sympathiser as British Labour leader.
It has been truly shocking to watch this country descend into a banana republic. Best get out while you can if you’re Scottish.
We all knew this Blairite coup attempt was coming, but it seems to have been accelerated. There is a general election in the offing this year now. If Corbyn were to win that, the Blairite wing of the Labour party would be utterly destroyed. Their only card, that they are electable and Corbyn is not, would have been trumped. (Of course, it is a fake card anyway, but some fools still seem to be taken in by it.)
So they have to act now. They have to try to topple him. If they can’t achieve that, they have to damage the party so badly that Corbyn does not become PM, even in a minority Government. They have to actively work for an outright Tory victory, or their careers are finished.
Deselection is essential now. The time for magnanimity has passed. They aren’t willing to play nice. They will continue betraying Labour voters and the party until they are got rid of, so that must now be done sooner rather than later.
A fine post – I agree with every word. The Uk media – power without responsibility – the provenance of the harlot through the ages.
So many political positions are the reverse of what I would have expected such that the conventional left v right political axis is almost completely irrelevant in terms of describing anything…
Maybe we need a multidimensional chart beyond left v right and authoritarian v libertarian. Yes I have seen the Political compass – but that too is limited..
What The REMAINERS seem incapable of accepting even those who are really working class – but somehow think they are superior is that this DEMOCRATIC DECISION was made by Ordinary British people – most of who who are working Class – AGAINST The ESTABLISHMENT
The people who think they are Left Wing doing all the Abuse, Demonstrations – and Generally Being Horrible – are Representing Not The Ordinary People – But The ESTABLISHMENT – and They Do Not Realise it.
They have no idea what The EU is – and where it came from. They do not know that virtually all Powerful Politicians in Europe are controlled by Americans in Washington, and that we have had virtually no real democracy for over 40 years.
This Decision Will Effect a Change back to Democracy instead of a Further Progression To Corporate World Dictatorship.
The British People did the Entire World a Massive Favour. There has never been so many British People who voted for The Same Thing…An End To Tryanny and a Return To Democracy.
Meanwhile – A Man with Real Integrity who obviously Believes in Democracy
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2016/06/25/britains-eu-commissioner-lord-hill-calls-its-quits-after-brexit/
Tony
Lord Hill had to go, because there were motions from EU parliamentary parties asking for his resignation. He resigned before he was pushed.
Not reported in most of the media – but if I can find it (it said so in the FT Westmister blog), why can’t they?
Agree. But if the absolute worst comes to the worst, the Leavers have delivered a massive kick to the obese buttocks of the global corporatist establishment. It may have to be the first of many… as someone else points out, the establishment’s fear of Corbyn is really quite encouraging. Courage.
Great reporting, thanks
Also, note that there is no reporting on the fact that the Gove/Johnson have not the foggiest on how to to keep Britain Great or how to keep the Kingdom United.
Let alone have a plan for a trade deal, or an idea on what to do with immigration.
But the story is Corbyn.
Example:
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/brexit-leave-eu-referendum-if-you-need-reassurance-here-are-the-silver-linings-of-the-brexit-cloud-a7102841.html
Things may not be as they seem.
It is highly likely that Johnson was always keen to remain in the EU. Rather he saw a chance to further his own ambitions by fronting a Leave campaign which he always expected to lose – but to lose gloriously in the best English tradition.
The fact that he was on the winning side has probably shocked and sickened him in equal measure. Of course he has no idea how to react as he is in a situation he neither wanted nor expected to be in.
Corbyn, on the other hand pretended to support the EU whilst in fact loathing it.
Its a bit like all these Tories paying their £3 to join the Labour Party to elect Jeremy Corbyn, cos they thought he would destroy the labour party and make it unelectable…
Yet he is still there and if he plays it right – and comes out and says what he really thinks – and seriously Represents The LEAVERS – and Kicks The Blair Dead Clones out…
He could be our Next Prime Minister – even this Year 2016
We need a General Election Too.
Democracy On Its Way Back..I might Finally Vote Labour Again.
Tony
I entirely agree with you about Boris’s position.
Corbyn, however, not so much. Sure, he is no fan of the EU, but his point about not wanting a Brexit on the terms of the most right wing Government we have ever had is entirely reasonable.
Thank you for endorsing what I suggested on the previous thread, Loony.
It would have been courteous of you to have acknowledged the fact 🙂
Matt, the Labour Party is dead unless the Blairite ‘enemy within’ are purged. If they oust Corbyn and install an Atlanticist thug it’s ‘game over’ for the UK-what will be left of it.
Thanks for this insight Mr Murray. I have been feeling somewhat gloomy because of the general chaos and upheaval the Brexit vote has spread across the world and all to serve Cameron’s petty political agenda.
The silver lining in this heckling stunt is that someone somewhere must be scared enough of Jeremy Corbyn to pull something like this. And in that I take some small comfort.
Well the Guardian at least identifies him as a Labour activist, and alludes to the speculation as to the provenance of the heckle being from anti-Corbyn activists, so there goes that theory as far as the Guardian are concerned anyway.
And I showed you that the 38 degrees LK campaign was scrapped by the organiser of the petition himself in consultation with David Babbs of 38 degrees. The 35,000 names were forwarded but the vile misogynist abuse they both witnessed on Twitter disgusted them enough to take the petition down. Why do you persist with this stuff? Their lack of ‘screengrabs’ from Twitter was matched by your lack of video evidence of LK’s purported bias. One of your contributors to this forum provided some (6 hours worth) footage but in analysis none of it provided any remotely decent evidence of the bias purported. All you presented as evidence for 38 degrees’ connivance in the supposed ‘conspiracy’ was a recorded telephone conversation with an exasperated 38 degrees office worker. Feeble stuff.
Jim
What a pathetic lie. 38 Degrees did not see any significant number of tweets attacking Kuenssberg over the petition. The proof is here. https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/05/38-degrees-refuse-release-evidence-sexist-abuse-laura-kuenssberg/#respond
That’s the same old telephone conversation Craig, not good enough. I spent a considerable amount of time addressing these issues several months ago and you didn’t even contribute. You’ve effectively called David Babbs and Joe, the petitions organiser liars. Their lack of screen grabs of the Twitter abuse they witnessed is in no way a good enough reason to impugn their integrity. Now that’s pathetic.
And you still seem incredibly reluctant to address the issue of your own reluctance to provide evidence for the horrendous bias you persist in repeating was shown by LK. I went through 6 hours of tape contributed by one poster to this blog forum, but the evidence was non-existent.
Jim,
At it again old bean, making stuff up. Well son, I actually posted a screen grab from the LK petitioner’s Facebook page before he removed his own bloody posts on Facebook – do go and look up and refresh your memory given its all posted under my real name and was done in real time at the time itself.
I’m sure it’s Corbyn’s policies they’re concerned about rather than this “abuse” you refer to.
So, your analysis is at best superficial.
The involvement of squillionaires like Hodge is a bit of a clue here.
The question is how did Hodge believe that her wealth and the wealth of her peers would be protected by a Labour party.
And the answer lay in changing it from within.
Would it not be appropriate if, after calling someone else’s analysis “superficial”, you explained why and presented your own non-superficial counter-analysis?
Small hints, characterised as ” a bit of a clue” are somewhat elusive, wouldn’t you agree?
Feeble stuff indeed, Jim. From you-as usual. Any one of us who had supported 38 degrees through thick and thin could see what had happened. Some took the hint and acted accordingly.
Tell that to the petitions organiser, he’s the one that saw the abuse and decided to take the petition down. And forwarded the 35,000 signers’ names which I would have thought you’d applaud. So where’s the ‘feebleness’ there?
Jim, making stuff up doesn’t help you win your argument – it just makes it look like you haven’t done any research beyond reading your beloved granuiad.
Making what up pray tell? You’re telling me the petition’s organiser Joe is a liar? And David Babbs too? On the basis of Crsig’s conversation with, er, neither of them?
Or maybe it’s the analysing of the 6 hours of footage of LK’s purported bias, and finding absolutely nothing that corresponded to the posters descriptions?
Those made up things Shatner?
Jim,
You refer to 6 hours of analysis of videos. But what do you really mean by “analysis”. I could watch 30 hours of video and disagree with your, or anyone else’s assessment of it. What you mean by “analysis” is watching and listening then coming to a personal conclusion about it. Given that you are already subjective and have a bias, your analysis is no more valid than anyone else’s. Therefore, even discussing this is pointless.
However, discussing the absence of any significant number of apparently abusive tweets is NOT subjective because by definition abusive tweets are unequivocally so. There were hardly any such tweets, or if there were more, you are assuming they exist, but have not offered any evidence that they do. Where are they please? Can you link to, or quote, any of them?
No, the person who helpfully posted the footage gave timings and descriptions of events, which when checked were found to not correspond at all. It’s all absolutely verifiable, nothing to do with interpretations.
Regarding the Tweets, it is David Babbs and the petitions organiser Joe who witnessed them and made their decision. Their failure to obtain screengrabs of what they witnessed in no way invalidates their claims. Craig provided a transcript of a conversation with neither of the relevant individuals and seems to think this is some sort of damning evidence supporting his claims. It is self evidently no such thing. It is a transcript of a conversation with a frustrated and harried 38 degrees employee trying to get rid of an annoying interrogator.
The hypocrisy is thrown into relief by Craig’s own refusal to adhere to the same criteria himself when it comes to providing ‘evidence’. He didn’t provide the footage of LK, one the contributors here did. And it was as feeble as I described to you.
Well spotted. Though I think that if something is featured in the Guardian, it will also be on the BBC: the two now appear to be symbiotic and there is no need to waste more words than one: ‘BBCdian’.
Perhaps it would be useful to point out that Portland Communications and Tony Blair Associates often work hand-in-glove: here’s a good instance:
https://newrepublic.com/article/120691/tony-blair-does-pr-repressive-azerbaijan-kazakhstan-autocracies
Portland PR also work for Qatar, Kazakhstan and Bahrain, have an office in Nairobi and have advised Putin, and I believe Tom Watson MP may have more (they’re a little modest about their global reach) but his website seems to be down.
Tim Allan, Portland’s founder, worked for Blair for six years, as well as the Murdochs. More on Portland here:
http://powerbase.info/index.php/Portland_PR
Blair himself, who is undoubtedly close to the hate-corbyn initiative, will be in New York on Monday*, and has preceded his visit with a self-serving rant on Brexit in the New York Times.
*usual place for details
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scott_Trust_Limited
Liz Forgan is the current chairperson of The Scott Trust
it seems she is also the Managing Director of BBC Radio
That’s handy, she could run the same story at the same time in The Guardian and on BBC Radio.
She does. Check it out. Radio 4 News (and ‘Today’) vs Guardian stories. The coincidence is uncanny – but you only get the agency pictures with the Graun.
As indicated above, Tom Watson MP has collated Portland’s previous and current (to 2016) clients:
Previous:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/13DBdFNV9UPXMsjyQ_ghCoqxg5zeJ0Kmxs2KtkNsknV4/edit?pref=2&pli=1#gid=0
Including, The G8 Organising Committee of the Kremlin, the Government of Kazkhstan, confirmed, The Government of Russia, Tullow Oil – rings a few bells – Vodafone, among the baddies.
Current:
http://www.appc.org.uk/register/profile/?company=Portland (may need to use the homepage’s search bar to find this, but it’s available)
Including: BAE Systems, Cuadrilla, the Government of Qatar, confirmed, the Libyan Investment Authority, the Government of Kazakhstan, still.
Corbyn was onto a loser no matter what way the EU vote fell. If he’d campaigned to leave the EU, the establishment, Blairites and media would’ve, condemned him, as they have on his ticket to remain.
Add to that, that Corbyn, half heartedly promoted staying in the EU, one got the impression that he didn’t quite believe in the EU.
Now the campaign to remove Corbyn will be ramped up, will he survive? Well nothing can be claimed with any certainty now, the vote to leave has seen to that.
As I was rather pleased with putting it to a friend today: blaming Corbyn for failing to support Remain is rather like blaming Richard Dawkins for not running round a lab shouting “I believe in fairies” . While the loudest voices urging party unity seem to be the Blairites doing their best to destroy it. Shameful.
I did not envy Corbyn. He appears to be instinctively anti-EU, but I assume that he regards it as at least a braking influence on the Duncan Smiths of the country, and had he come out for Leave he would have split his party from top to bottom. Not an easy position to be in.
Given the result, I wonder if he regrets not having fought for Leave.
I’m hoping his footwork is good. The unions – fearing further sanctions on workers’ rights on leaving the EU – are another problem. I’d like to think Corbyn (a) remembers a time when the UK traded very successfully with just about everywhere except Europe, and (b) realises that those sanctions on workers’ rights, strategic unemployment and lowering labour costs using free movement are just as much a part of the corporate agenda for the EU, and will probably be pushed through by the same lobbyists. Perhaps also that the EU was unsustainable in the long term anyway.
It was time to shake the dice again. I wasn’t personally happy about doing so, but Leave was the only available tool to express my disgust with globalisation. My tiny opinion was recorded.
I wonder if the EU will boot us out without waiting for Article 50.
I really, really hope so. That will concentrate minds wonderfully.
Wouldn’t surprise me. They won’t want us hanging about like a spectre at a feast – and the bigger mess the UK gets into the better the EU will like it, I expect – pour encourager les autres.
I” but Leave was the only available tool to express my disgust with globalisation”
So you changed your mind ?
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2016/06/will-vote-remain-love-mum/comment-page-1/#comment-605026
Anyhow you may find this quote from a comment I saw somewhere interesting;
“Information continues to come in about the Brexit vote. A member of the British Army said that 90% of the lads in his unit voted to leave. They voted exit because they do not believe they should be involved in Washingtons wars. He said that his unit agreed that the wars are dictated by Washington, via Brussels, and not by the British people. He also said that that the soldiers were “taking their own pen” to the ballot box, because “they only use pencils at the polls and they could be rubbed out and changed.”
I did. Though your antagonistic approach didn’t make it any easier for me to do so. Sorry, but that’s the truth.
@Ba’al don’t be sorry, I really don’t mind you still smarting from being pulled-up for your argumentative fallacies ! 😀
I am sure that is it. The EU’s neoliberalism as evidenced by its role in Greece and Ireland and its influence on the Hollande regime’s evisceration of labour rights does not fit Corbyn’s template. The fact as Mr. Murray indicates, that the pro-Corbin petition is doing a lot better than the phony establishment attack petition is favourable. I also think that if Labour’s establishment revolts and eliminates Corbyn, they will be on to permanent irrelevancy a la the Liberal party.
Don’t Diss Ducan Smith
at least he calls Cameron a cunt to his face.
Praise from Caesar is praise indeed.
What I found rather amusing about the lets get Corbyn agenda, was the minute the lights were turned off the creepy crawlies came a calling.
First we had Blair having a pop at him, imagine Blair having a pop at anybody, then lord yes lord Mandelson had a go at Corbyn on Sky news, shaking his head and saying Corbyn’s position was now untenable.
It’s easy for the media to find skulls to lambast Corbyn, they just need to turn over the nearest stone to find his detractors.
My one complain about the current leadership, and it’s really only small, is that they haven’t suspended Blair, or Mandelson or the Blairites. Personally I think they should all be thrown out but I do understand why they haven’t been
I don’t believe that they have that power. The apparatus is still firmly controlled by the powers of darkness, which is why they reacted with such relish to the “AntiSemitism” nonsense.
Corbyn wasn’t half hearted about the EU. He was, as he explained, 75% in favour. An honest view as he was acknowledging that it is an imperfect institution riddled with corruption and waste, but he would rather be in than out. This is probably similar to most Remain voters. The big problem with our media is that it cannot deal with nuanced opinion. It can only deal with black and white statements. But those very black and white attitudes are precisely what give rise to the wrong people claiming, then acquiring, power.
There is a significant part of the electorate who approve of nuanced views, hence the overwhelming grass roots support for Corbyn in contrast to the poisonous plotting by millionairess and Blairite, Hodge, and all the other Blair cronies who just will not own up to the fact that they are finished.
For a top flight Civil Servant and diplomat, you’re rather cavalier with language; you can only have one priority.
That is not true at all. You can have priorities. You may have 41 tasks of which 5 are priorities, for example.
No you can’t, something has to come first (prior). ;O))
prior means “former”. First English usage as “earlier”:
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=prior
Note also that it is a comparative, not a superlative, and that the term ‘list of priorities’ is in generally accepted use.
Asa one pedant to another…
Ain’t that a bit literalist.
No.
Craig and Baal are correct.
Oh dear. Go to the trouble of being hair-splitting pedant and get it wrong. How embarrassing…
It is too early to determine whether treason is afoot – but the early signs are not promising.
The Conservative government appears to be stalling for time. In their ideal world there will be a new leader followed by a General Election. Whilst all this is going on they will likely resist taking concrete measures to withdraw from the EU.
The Labour Party could win a General Election. It is clear that Corbyn both detests the EU and respects the law. There is little doubt that if elected as Premier he would move to terminate the UK relationship with the EU.
If you have no intention of withdrawing from the EU then you need to ensure that Corbyn does not become Premier – and the way to do this is to remove him from office.
It may be unlikely that Labour and Corbyn would be elected – but perhaps not if the aim is to present the electorate with a manifestly deranged Conservative Party shorn of any pretense of “one nation conservatism” and riffled by internal faction.
These are indeed interesting days.
Corbyn actually called for Art 50 to implemented immediately.
Yes – but it hasn’t been has it.
This would explain the sudden urge to renew the attack on him.
I think the main reason the attacks are now stepping up is that with the Tories in disarray he could well win any election.
And that would overturn neo-liberal economics overnight.
And set an example for others in the EU.
Do you think that was because he wants it to be, or because he can see that the Brexiters don’t want to do so, and that this is a way to foment even more dissent in the Conservative Party?
I think it’s part politicking but also to better serve those forces in the EU who are trying to move beyong neoliberalism.
Those forces are much weaker with the UK out.
Those forces are much stronger with the UK out.
Obviously…
I’ve no sympathy for Cameron..the missery he’s inflicted on the disabled puts him beneath compempt and I’m glad to see the back of him and hope his friend Osborne. .both loathsome creatures. .good riddens to bad rubbish.
The Chancellor has been nowhere to be seen since the most important political decision of our times.
But he did find the time to tweet his gushing congratulations to Justine Greening on her “coming out”.
That’s our metropolitan elite for you right there.
Gideon Osborne the worst Chancer of the Exchequer in living memory who’s nevet met any of his targets, would’ve been sitting crying like Stalin as Germany approach the gates of Moscow.
The Caeseresque hair styled buffoon, who has a permanent smirk on his face or is it a vacant look? Its probably the latter, will no doubt suffer a similar fate to David Cameron, which will be a blessing in disguise.
Still Giddy can rest easy knowing there’s a lucrative consultants position waiting in the wings somewhere, for him when he’s finished wrecking the economy, watch out Canary Wharf, Giddys coming soon, prepare yourself for a huge Nick Leeson style market crash.
Shows they haven’t a clue what to do.
They’ll be behind the scenes planning a fudge of some description and Johnson, Gove etc will support that.
Interesting to see what Farage has to say then.
Osborne has quietly retired to a bunker and hopes to emerge when the short memories of the media and electorate disassociate him with Cameron’s miscalculation. EU in or out, his support of the banksters and continued austerity-to-no-purpose will continue unabated. Gideon the Austere and Gordon the Prudent will join a distinguished cavalcade of failing chancellors whose wealth distribution to the already rich soldiers on unchallenged.
Osborne emerged from his bunker this morning to announce that the UK was in splendid shape, everything financial was hunky-dory , that the BofE would throw limitless amounts of freshly-printed money at the market if necessary, and that he had spent the last few days talking to bankers and businessmen about how much more he could chop from social expenditure and give to them. We’ve obviously won the Euromillions rollover, and no-one needs to remember Gideon’s predictions of Armageddon following Brexit.
Standing behind him, holding the mess Webley to his head, was Mark Carney.
OK, not really.
Iain Duncan Smith has been saying that there was no campaign promise to give £350 million a week to the NHS despite being photographed next to a bus saying exactly that.
I have no doubt at all that a large number of people voted Leave because of that pledge.
Crooks and shysters and liars, the whole lot of them, and totally unashamed of it.
Do remember that Cameron deputed IDS to inflict the misery – which he did with enthusiasm, and IDS (after ostensibly repenting his sins – believe him? )is a Leaver. He may very well feature on the next front bench. I’ll only be glad when the whole boiling of them is consigned to electoral outer darkness. Which may take some time.
Things seem to have fallen well for IDS. The unemployed and disabled and working poor might get him back again in a few months.
Has anybody seen Boy George over the last fortnight?
Here Here!
Sandra, the attack on the disabled, allied with a hate campaign in the Evil sewer of the Rightwing MSM, was diabolical enough, but coming after Cameron had used his disabled, now dead, son as a prop to reassure the public that he understood the travails of the disabled and their carers, was the work of a true fiend. Not that he would, I imagine, have had any hands-on experience himself, as a rich man able to afford nurses etc. On a par with his other scintillating lie that he would lead the ‘Greenest Ever’ Government.
Important to mention too, that much of the tension lies in the EU itself.
There are those countries who are pro voodoo finance, and there are those countries who wish to curb their excesses for more productive economics.
And the same tensions within individual countries.
That’s the divide everywhere now, including in Britain.
It’d be much better if people dealt with these disputes as manifestations of that divide, rather than ascribing to them an importance beyond that which they don’t deserve.
So arguing over “abusive” tweets etc is a distraction to the real underlying debate.
Point is, those who are pro voodoo finance can hardly argue that case because few in the public want it so they have to invent fantasy disputes.
You have a definite talent for getting to the heart of the matter, Herbie. One good side-effect of the referendum – and similar events in other EU countries – has been to expand awareness of the issue of voodoo economics. We need a Philip Green from every nation to point the lesson, though.
Well I’ve been trying to push the case on this forum for listening to people like Yanis Varoufakis, Owen Jones & Paul Mason who are anti ‘Voodoo finance’ and have been arguing passionately to remain precisely so we could have a voice in Europe to fight a concerted battle against the democratic deficit in Brussels. And was met by indifference, or a preference for the discussions of the latest ‘Voodoo theory’ on the all powerful ‘Empire’ from global research or Moon of Alabama.
Not by me, Jim. I’ll recommend Owen Jones’ “The Establishment (and how they get away with it)” to anyone standing still long enough to listen.
Nice one Ba’aal!
Yet Mr Jones voraciously defends the EU, the very epitome of ‘Establishment’.
Sally O :
No he doesn’t, he’s on the same wavelength as Varoufakis and Mason on the need for reform. But the chances of reform are less likely than a total breakup of the EU now we’ve gone. The future’s not bright.
OK
So the Globalist empire is simply those who are pushing for a neoliberal world.. The US, the British etc.
Kinda like an all world TTIP.
This position appears to be losing strength..
Varoufakis position is that we, all of us presumably, should stay and fight for a reversal of neoliberalism within the EU.
Craig’s position is that neoliberalism will anyway be defeated within the EU. That’s the way it’s going anyway.
And, Julian Assange’s position is that the EU will be better placed to defeat neoliberalism with the UK out.
So there’s three different positions which all agree on the same ultimate goal, but by different means.
These positions were argued in the Ecuadoran embassy a few days ago.
Now, you say that the UK should stay in to argue against neoliberalism.
But.
The current UK govt is actually a supporter of neoliberalism. So they won’t be arguing against it within the EU. quite the contrary. They’l be supporting it.
It’s only if we had a govt like Corbyn’s for example, that the UK could argue against neoliberalism.
That’s the position.
The fear from people like Varoufakis is that with Brexit there may well be no EU at all soon, with the dangerous rise of the far right in the ascendant, and another potential economic crash coming, Europe may be in a similar lethal position to the 1930’s. Forget your little worries about the neo-liberal elite and fighting the corporations, there could be much bigger threats coming. You also keep on mistaking my harping on the subject of the Putin agenda in all this, but this result and its potential for EU disintegration is exactly what he’s been angling for. All that funding for the far right parties of Europe. Don’t you get it yet? You guys are always banging on about the ‘bigger picture’ but seem oblivious to the obvious in this instance. Beats me why?
Jim,
Tis a pity you do not push the work of Steve Keen, who so happened to have promoted the ‘Leave’ cause, despite most of his friends, among them Varoufakis being in the ‘Remain’ camp, Steve of course being only one of a handful of economists who saw the 2007/8 financial crisis coming, and no one believed him.
My Wife is now educating me on George Orwell and Aldous Huxley…We both independently read the books when we were at Secondary Modern Schools… We went to the Best Schools in The World in Lancashire.
They had both boys and girls and normal people.
Tony
Only boys and girls your school – so obviously lacking in diversity. No wonder you have such reactionary views.
I went to school with a number of gender neutral children and also one boy who dressed like a girl but thought he was a horse. That is probably why I have such refined views on all manner of subjects. As my teachers always told me “your total ignorance in no way invalidates the supremacy of your view” If only more people could have benefited from such an enlightened education.
According to news reports, the EU are asking when the disunited kingdom, will impliment article 50. Meanwhile Boris and Farage are hiding in the broom cupboard at Westminster hastily drawing up contingency plans on the back of a fag packet.
Further down the corridor a bewildered Michael Gove is eloquently muttering to himself, we weren’t mean’t to win, we only mean’t to frighten them.
It will be interesting to see the reactions of the Brexiteers, when the EU starts playing hard ball.
“Meanwhile Boris and Farage are hiding in the broom cupboard at Westminster hastily drawing up contingency plans on the back of a fag packet”
That’s not their job. It’s the job of the sitting government, whose contingency plans should have been finalised months ago.
“That’s not their job.”
_________
Well Boris may well be the next leader of the Tory party and PM I’d say that would make it his job. He’ll then involve Gove a fellow Brexiteer, as for Farage, I recall the press suggesting that Boris may offer Farage a job. I don’t recall, Boris writing off that possibility.
Don’t you think it likely that the next government will be an anti Brexit coalition “national unity” affair with places in it for the Blairites the LibDems and all-perhaps even the S**. No, that goes too far.
I caught part of an interview with an ex-Cameron advisor who was saying that if the EU threw the dog a bone it could be argued that the pre-referendum conditions were no longer valid as would then be the referendum itself (or words to that effect). What I did get though was that the new PM is very likely to call an election within a few months of taking office, and if Labour said they would reverse Brexit if elected, that would really throw the cat amongst the pigeons.
I look forward to handing out the leaflets enquiring how a country which holds referenda which obtain the ‘wrong’ result and then uses every possible lever to overturn them, might qualify as a democracy. I may chase up a few tyres to burn, too.
That happens quite a lot in the EU. Just coincidence obviously.
Ba’al Zevul
if the Old Etonian call me dave had half a brain, after he came back from Brussels waiving a piece of paper he should have said
“The Bastards have screwed us, so we will screw them”
if he had lead the light brigade into the valley of darkness, he would be a true fighter for the United kingdom.
He would be price charming
instead of a murall on a wall, adjacent to the evil blair.
I think it would have been better if Corbyn had opposed the EU based on its record in Greece, Spain, Ireland and elsewhere, its democratic deficit and its role as the transmission band for the Washington consensus and yankee imperialism in Europe. But as far as it goes, it is an obvious establishment ploy to attack Mr. Corbyn, who is probably doing as much as he can within power parameters to represent the interests of the people. I actually think it would be better for Corbyn to admit he wasn’t fully on board with the power structure on this issue. I think that Mr. Murray will eventually realize that the EU in its present form has to go. As for Scotland, a relatively surprising number, more than indicated in reports, opposed the EU despite the SNP’s tactic of using the referendum to get another independence vote. Based on the EU’s record fostering neoliberalism in Ireland, I don’t see how Sturgeon’s program could survive under EU guidelines. The SNP would end up disgraced like Syriza in Greece was by not countenancing exit from the EU. A gordian knot must be cut to gain independence from both elements.
It’s ridiculous. First the media do everything possible to undermine Corbyn’s ‘credibility’ his status and political stature; no low trick too vile to be tried. Then, and it’s bizarre, they bleat that Corbyn hasn’t asserted himself enough and thrown his weight behind the remain struggle, a ‘weight’ they done everything to subtract from.
At risk of general nausea, here’s Blair in the NYT today:
The strains within Britain that led to this referendum result are universal, at least in the West. Insurgent movements of left and right, posing as standard-bearers of a popular revolt against the political establishment, can spread and grow at scale and speed. Today’s polarized and fragmented news coverage only encourages such insurgencies — an effect magnified many times by the social media revolution.
News to me I’m an insurgent movement. He also directly accuses Corbyn of being lukewarm – Blair usually does the smiling while someone else stabs the backs for him, so he’s clearly ‘frit’, now…
These Labour supporters did not get a clear message from their own party, whose leader, Jeremy Corbyn, was lukewarm about remaining in the union.
The possibility that ‘the party’ or his part of it, has had a clear message from the supporters who hoped it was going to represent them, not the other way round, and ignored it completely, has yet to sink in. What part of the grassroots electing a socialist doesn’t he understand? How does he equate Corbyn with an insurgency? Blair’s narcissistic personality disorder requires urgent intervention.
The rest of the self-glorifying, malevolent, talking head’s diatribe is here, but I wouldn’t recommend it:
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/opinion/tony-blair-brexits-stunning-coup.html
Ba’al you don’t think Blair writes his own garbage do you?
Your rule is upheld: he didn’t write this shit he just put his name to it (and collected the cheque.)
I think at the very least he dictates chunks of it. There’s more than a suggestion that (within the limits of possible detection) a blairing is most likely to occur in the printed press when Blair is also in the UK. It’s then sent to the aggregators. Noteworthy, too, that the UK media aren’t currently too interested; compared with the main story, his opinion isn’t really important. The Archbishop’s spawn, by contrast, writes some of the slime issuing from the TBFF, and he does have a PR team.
Intersperse the first couple of pars – about him -with a few ‘y’know’s’ and pauses for a toothy grin, and I think you’re hearing the man. Though I agree, the rest could have been written by anyone except a competent PR man. It’s datelined London. He rarely flies out on a Saturday, and he was here on Friday, I think.
Oh, thanks for the concern, Ba’al, about me, but I would be happy to be taken out in any showdown with Blair, as I would have been in taking out that super bastard Nixon if it had been at all true.
Doubt I will even get into the massive propaganda session, as the people in Uppssala wouldn’t allow me the chance to hit Vilks with a shoe from 10 yards.
Still, may try to go but my 91-ear-old sister is feeling quite sickly today in New Haven, so I better stay here, as I hope she will be 92 on July 1.
Don’t hold back on any suggestions I may carry out to help see the end of the neo-cons.
Would be the high point of my good life.
Blair’s homily at 92Y is sold out, apparently. You won’t get near it for panicking bankers…go and see your sister, and give her my best wishes!
I hope your sister will be okay.
Just the expected scapegoatng when it is the ignorant British public which believes that conditions could not be made worse.
Trowbridge, if you’re anywhere near 92nd and Lexington NYC, with a handheld laser on Monday, I hope you will do the decent thing.
http://www.92y.org/Event/A-Conversation-with-Tony-Blair
A hand-hrld laser would not get passed security, though I shall try to make it.
Still have that pair of shoes which I planned to throw at loony Lars Vilks when he lectured the Uppssala Philosophy Department about the artistic merit of his insulting cartoons of the Prophet.
Could wear them. Could aim one at the rabbi, and the other at that s.o.b. Tony.
Might kick off another massacre, as I’m sure the spooks wouldn’t fail this time. They haven’t forgotten their failed attempts to ambush me, and to make out that I was ‘Jihad Jane’s whitey/assassin lover of Vilks outside of Stockholm.
Be on the lookout for stories in the media
O shit. That’s me in the frame for incitement, then. I thought I was joking. Take care.
Just to clarify: don’t do anything, Trowbridge, please. I am fully aware that NYPD can be more than trigger-happy, the place will probably be ringed by security, up to and including the National Guard, and that the SO1 minders who accompany Blair everywhere also have sidearms. There is no point in risking your health or life for a noxious shit like Blair. Don’t. Even with shoes.
The emetic is in the stomach of the komodo – Peter J. Rubinstein cannot escape the reality that it was Israel that helped sell the Iraq war to the Bush administration and the American people, well before Mr Blair and the American president had made the final decision to invade.
Medinat Yisrael will not be judged on its character but on it’s deception to invoke military might.
All of this is no doubt true, but it doesn’t alter the fact that Corbyn, however well intentioned, is a poor leader of the main opposition in the UK. At at time when a decent, articulate and principled opposition ought to be making hay with the mess the tories have created. And however many times it is claimed, it is not just the media’s fault, or the PLP, or the myriad other scapegoats for his performance.
In my opinion, Corbyn gets a lot of stick because he does things in a way that people are not used to. He does not attack other politicians on a personal level, which is what usually got the soundbites out to the media. He is persistent on issues he regards as important, which are not necessarily consonant with what the media regards as current. The instant someone makes a mistake, he isn’t in there with a pickaxe trying to attack their vulnerable spots.
In short, he is a decent human being instead of a media led construct. That is in fact not doing him any favours, because it doesn’t make good copy. But he’s quiet and persistent and I don’t think his decent qualities are going to do him any harm in the long run.
Corbyn ” is persistent on issues he regards as important, which are not necessarily consonant with what the media regards as current. ”
You think the media, ie, olicharchs tax exiles , should dictate topics of conversation?
“In my opinion, Corbyn gets a lot of stick because he does things in a way that people are not used to”
We are used to politcans being lying self serving greedy idiots so Corbyn
deserves stick?
I think maybe you should read my post again. I don’t think I suggested a single one of your conclusions.
Sorry, I apologise. I was confrontational.
You wrote,
“Corbyn gets a lot of stick because he does things in a way that people are not used to”
Who are these “people”?
Corbyn is very middle of the road. He isn’t very left wing, a traditional Labour type. He lives in a small house. Rides a bike. Wears normal clothes, has opinions no different to most Church of England vicars. He opposed the iraq war and bombing Libya and said bombing Syria wasn’t a good idea.
That’s okay.
I’ll try to be clearer. By “people”, I mean, in general, the establishment media, the political machinery, more politically inclined academia, pundits, commentators, opinion piece writers, and the like – and people to whom their impressions percolate, the public generally, not excluding myself. For example, we are used to Prime Minister’s Question Time as a demonstration of how smart-assed the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition can be in taunting and scoring off each other. Everybody was so used to that, that it seemed like a law of nature. Corbyn put a stop to that, to the general astonishment and consternation of those who thought it was natural that the House of Commons turned into a zoo for that period. That is an example of the kind of thing I mean.
Eh? Where did you get that from? As OP said, read again.
that’s all very well. I don’t doubt he is a decent human being. Unfortunately that is not a qualification for being the leader of a party which needs to regain the support of millions who have deserted it. He seems to be following the ‘quiet man’ line of IDS, which just means people don’t either listen or notice. Decency is admirable, I don’t doubt that Nicola Sturgeon or even Ruth Davidson are decent people – but they have both have an ability to use their articulacy to advocate their cause, and have done so far more successfully than Corbyn. Party management, especially of large parties which are formed from coalitions of interests, is a demanding and difficult task which Corbyn doesn’t seem to be doing especially successfully, and falling back on the excuses about the PLP aren’t good enough when you have been in the job long enough to make a difference. He simply hasn’t, and there are younger, more energetic and passionate people who would do a far better job. There is need for generational change in the Labour Party.
You are entitled to your opinion, of course, but I do not think that it is an excuse to say that there are a lot of people in the Parliamentary Labour Party who are determined to see him gone. He’s not a dictator and he can’t order them shot. And I do not think it is an excuse, either, to say that there has been a remarkable, if subtle, media hostility to Corbyn – and after all, that is where the average person is going to pick his or her information up from. Craig has just given an excellent example. There is a in my opinion a steady accretion of these examples. I listen to LBC a lot. Almost all the commentators on LBC and their guests present Corbyn exactly as you have described him. That reinforces the message. They do not have to do that. The PLP does not have to do that. It’s their choice not to get behind him. And the fact that they do not get behind him has nothing to do with him personally. They would be the same way with anyone who believes and says the kinds of things that Corbyn believes and says.
I think he’s doing a pretty good job, actually, under the circumstances. Can you imagine what his life would be like if he were more forceful and outspoken? He would be crucified. I can’t help but suspect that the kind of person you have in mind is not going to be someone who is on the same wing of the party as Corbyn but just younger and more energetic and passionate. It’s going to be some young suit loved by the media because he or she says what they want to hear. That’s what I honestly think.
I am sure it is what you honestly think, but I disagree. Nor do I want the ‘suit’ you infer – but that is a typical response, adhering to all the artificial boundaries and constructs so obediently trotted out by his defenders. And you do resort to blaming the media – ‘what else can he do’? Well a lot, actually. Nor do i believe his beliefs are so dangerous that that is why he is attacked – you are constructing a myriad of reasons of why it is hopeless for him, as if he had nothing to do with it. There are left wing young articulate radicals who would be a far better proposition, and are not from London, which is a major bonus. Defending Corbyn because of his beliefs doesn’t excuse his below par performances. Why can Sturgeon mount more effective attacks on the tories than he can? Even Ruth Davidson launched a more effective attack on the brexiteers than Corbyn, and wasn’t afraid to call them out as liars, while Jeremy wants to be the quiet, decent mild mannered guy who nobody can remember what he said.
You’re quite right that I blame the media. I don’t “resort” to it. I regard it as a fact that Corbyn is presented in a particular way in the media and that that way is extremely unhelpful. And I disagree with you that his beliefs are not regarded as dangerous. I think his beliefs are probably regarded as the thin end of a very popular and radical wedge, and that once they start to make headway, once politics are let loose among these peoples, there’s no telling what inconvenient further ideas might occur to the population.
Shrug. No doubt there is something to what you say. He seems too nice a person to be thrown to the coyotes in the House of Commons. On the other hand, young, radical leftists would doubtless encounter different problems.
I know it’s no good crying over spilled milk, but Corbyn received a massive mandate from the grass roots of the party and he would in all likelihood be a lot further along if the PLP had got solidly behind him at that moment. They preferred to start punching him in the back of the head, and he’s had to deal with that, and continues to have to deal with it. It’s not very long since Mann and his fellow bandits had the knives out over a load of nonsense. I wonder how you would have dealt with the media storm over all that crap. Again, I think he did a remarkably good job there. The idea that the treatment of Corbyn by the media and by the Parliamentary members of his own party is an “excuse” is risible, in my opinion. But I am happy to agree to disagree.
Liz Kendall then or Hillary Benn? Alan Johnson perhaps? Or maybe Gord and Tone could come out of retirement to lead the troops in opposition to a government doing everything they want.
Ian, what is Corbyn supposed to do? The press will only report stunts from professional hecklers and anti Corbyn smears by Blairites.
Also Frank Field was a Vote Leave campaigner, why isn’t he being blamed for persuading Labour supporters to vote Leave?
He is supposed to lead, to manage the party, to inspire people, attack the tories who have nearly destroyed the UK, and put his case fluently and memorably. I haven’t seen him do any of those things. Blaming the media, and thinking you can ignore them in favour of social media and town hall meetings is patently not working.
“I haven’t seen him do any of those things. Blaming the media, and thinking you can ignore them in favour of social media and town hall meetings is patently not working.”
Blaming the media?
Did you read Corbyn’s Gay Pride heckler is Tom Mauchline, a PR professional for PR firm Portland Communications, a dedicated Blairite?
Of course you think the poor guy didn’t have a choice, it was the forces of impartiality that made him take a very well paid job in a PR business and smear Corbyn in at a Gay Pride gig.
…And then the BBC, C4, the Guardian, all failed to mention Mauchline is an anti Corbyn activist PR professional.
Poor poor media, so easily duped.
In addition to the points JSD makes, it does take time to turn around a supertanker. The only one that likes a change is a wet baby.
Then there is the Blue Tories/Red Tories argument. And each of these are f**cking politicians you are talking about. Try shepherding cats.
Look, I see it on here: people don’t recognise wisdom the instant they see it.
You don’t miss a thing when twitter and the appalling shenanigans of the media are concerned. Once again blatant propaganda stunts are treated as news and the question, as ever, is are they stupid or merely malicious? (To which the correct answer is both.)
Feeding off media like the BBC and Guardian, the US media is crowing over the ‘stupidity’ of the British electorate, particularly the English, which puts them in mind of their own despised fellow countrymen.
Quite unselfconsciously they reproduce the mindsets of their ancestors who jeered at the idiocy of the blacks, ‘thick’ immigrants (Hunkies, Canucks, Micks and Polacks etc) and of course, worst of all, the hillbillies and red necked crackers from the backwoods. Worst perhaps are the Democratic “left” aggregator sites which are chortling away like Blairites. No doubt this stunt is already getting big play in LGBT obsessed circles.
An interesting exercise of the imagination is to suppose that the referendum in question was not one involving the British and the EU but, for example, the people of East Germany or Poland voting on whether to break away from the Russian sphere of influence and join the EU. What would the papers say about that?
What did they say about the disastrous decision of the Maidan Insurrectionists, mere months ago, not to vote but to overthrow by force the Ukraine government because it warned against joining the EU?
Would the Poles or Ukrainians have been called stupid or incapable of making rational decisions, motivated by dark emotions, swayed by cheap propaganda etc?
The answer is that there would be long screeds praising the wisdom of the masses, mankind’s eternal commitment to freedom and celebrating the beauties of the ballot box, particularly because all the media of the state will have been urging voters not to change horses in mid stream.
The U.S. media are doing all they can to prevent the election of Trump and assure the election of Hillary. One of their memes is the stupidity of Trump’s supporters.
It’s an interesting point but it seems to sum up to me the entire problem with the Brexit argument: the EU is not a dictatorship, it’s a club. I think Poland and the other former Soviet satellite states would be deeply offended to have their military takeovers compared with voluntary membership of a club. Yet such is the ignorance of many people in Britain and the mendacity of our media that Nigel Farage’s lies are repeated as gospel. Ironically, this national brainwashing is what really reminds me of the Soviet Union – not the EU.
Tom,
I’m awfully sorry, but if you believe the EU is not a dictatorship, despite its behaviour towards Cyprus and Greece, to name but two of several recent examples, you are clearly living in dream cuckoo land. I seriously urge you to go and read some material by Prof. Steve Keen over at Debtwatch or on Forbes, like Corbyn, a honest man who tells it as it is, even if it means taking a polar opposite to many of his friends, among them Yanis Varoufakis and a number of other DIEM25 founders.
Chris, as far as the likes of Tom are concerned, if it’s other people getting screwed into the dust, well-stiff cheddar. As long as I’m OK, I couldn’t give a stuff.
Thanks for this info. It was on C4 news tonight. I thought, so what, politicians are heckled all the time. Now I know it was a set up and nothing random.
Salon has a pretty good piece. The author even mentions the great Cobbett:
http://www.salon.com/2016/06/24/shocked_about_brexit_watch_uk_voters_explain_why_they_voted_to_leave_the_european_union/
Then there is OffGuardian which keeps a constant watch on the world’s most evil enterprise:
https://off-guardian.org/2016/06/25/guardian-watch-insults-fly-in-post-brexit-hysteria/
It’s delightful to see the little fishes eating littler fishes as they swirl around the flushing toilet. For them the dissolution of their bloc is nothing but a chance to jockey for position. Blairist Labourites fighting tooth and nail to be the Julius Nepos of a decomposing Britain, how very droll.
It’s because Corbyn replied. On film. An honourable thing to do, but unbelievably shit media management. Yes, the media are against him, but he continually helps them.
This is a big moment for the left, and Corbyn is incapable of seizing it. The alternative doesn’t have to be Blairism, but there needs to be an alternative. It’s not enough for him to have integrity, it’s not enough for him just to keep the Blairites out. He needs to do something, take the lead. That speech today was a thought piece, a lecture. No action points. Nothing to report. All immediately followed by Sturgeon announcing talks with European leaders, and convening an advisory panel. Why couldn’t Corbyn do that? Where’s the leadership?
Corbyn doesn’t need an action plan. Underdeveloped statelets crash all the time, and the world knows what to do: intensive human rights education, transitional justice, civil-society capacity building. The smithereens of Britain will be taken care of.
It’s more a case of ‘where’s the PR spin?’ though, isn’t it? With spin even Cameron looks like a leader. And Corbyn, who appears to have a conscience about lying about his opponents and deluding the public, doesn’t do spin.Trump actually exemplifies this aspect: getting elected, or putting yourself somewhere near it, isn’t about facts or rational policies. It’s about audience identification. You can spout any old garbage, but it has to be resonant garbage. If I believed Trump had a sense of humour, I’d say his whole campaign was an ironic comment on the emotional appeal of robustly presented tosh. Unfortunately, he’s serious.
One option for Corbyn is to start spelling out just that to the public; how professional PR’s work on its perceptions in order to reach conclusions which are not in the public interest. He does need some young, and slightly more cynical, blood to get the core messages across. And he should abandon the mental image of the working-class: the majority of those getting shafted by the system don’t recognise themselves as working-class – the rot’s spread into the bourgeois. Which is good, in revolutionary terms, if no other.
And let us please, ffs, start getting away from the notion that more stuff=superior person. Ridiculous. He should say so, often.
Right on cue, Mann is stirring up trouble again in the Guardian.
You’d think with the country in deep crisis he’d have more important things to do.
His handlers at Sky News must have been on to him again.
The Guardian can’t get enough of blaming Corbyn but not, strangely, Frank Field .
If it wasn’t so tragic it’d be funny :
http://gu.com/p/4myfh?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
Ebbw Vale votes leave when it’s been the recipient of staggering amounts of EU funding for regeneration.
Exactly what is tragic about being willing to stand for something in which you believe, something for which, if necessary you are prepared to pay a price.
How is this different from 1984 when these same areas refused to yield to either the police truncheon or to the economic misery hurled at them by Thatcher. They knew then that if they lost then their lives would be worse. And so it came to pass.
Do you really think that they care that you sneer at them. Their integrity is undiminished and shines like a beacon through the haze of lies and fog of obfuscation blown by the liberal media.
The clueless UKIP supporting former Labour supporters who’ve bought into Farage’s racist and xenophobic lies are ‘standing for something they believe in’?
They’ll be paying a price all right, see how much respect and support and money a Johnson/IDS/Gove Government throw at them.
Comparing the splurging of staggering largesse from the EU regeneration packages to the ‘truncheons’ of the Miners strike is beyond bizarre. What are you on about. And I’m not sneering, I said it was tragic.
It will continue to get the assistance it needs, in a rational world. The only difference is that the cash won’t go through Brussels first. It’s part of that £350M / week gross figure, some of which comes straight back, as Remain never tired of reminding us. Given someone economically numerate as Chancellor, that is. Bottom line: immigration isn’t a major problem in the valleys, so the issue is either sovereignty or economic. With everything getting slightly worse each year, and few decent jobs in the area – also the sight of the last great steelworks in the region succumbing to market forces – I’d say it was economic, plus two fingers to the incompetent Westminster suits who probably think Ebbw Vale is a Roman sailor’s farewell. Oh, and it’s solid Labour. Go figure, Hodge.
If you read the article Ba’al you’d see that the non-existent ‘immigrant threat’ played a huge part in their decision making. The lady in the chip shop was aghast at the illogic of it all. The main interviewee said all his friends were UKIP supporters, they bought into Farage’s toxic cocktail of lies totally. Giving Cameron a good kicking was part of their agenda but with no thought to the consequences for themselves.
The £350m mirage was being backtracked on within hours of the result coming out. Farage knows no shame.
If UKIP was responsible for the Ebbw Vale Leave turnout, it can only be that between last year and now, Labour has succeeded in alienating its vote there.
http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/2015guide/blaenaugwent/
And I’d say the core issue is unemployment, or extermely poor employment. As in Sunderland, people who find it hard to get jobs, housing…even food and heating…are very likely to buy the not-wholly false story that immigration is responsible for this, even if, as in Sunderland, immigration is not very visible locally. The referendum provided a focus for some very real and justified discontent with the way things are, and the voters responded by voting for the way things aren’t.
You underestimate the sheer frustration and sense of impotence outside London.
Jim,
Your’s and the fucking Guardian’s attacks on my people are both racist and a fucking insult. I’m Welsh, my wife is Asian and I voted ‘out’, I voted out not because of a hatred of Europe, but a love for Europe, a Europe being destroyed by neoliberal and neoconservatives, many of whom you’ll find in Brussels. Now take your anti-working class, anti-Welsh bollocks elsewhere.
If you think voting out was a protest against neoliberalism, prepare for neoliberalism on steroids now, with no mitigating EU finds, or human rights laws.
That just accelerates what was going to happen anyway. Globalisation is no respecter of multinational trade associations; indeed they favour its extension. And there was no sign when we were in that we were going to implement the rather fairer German employment model at any point: since Thatcher, we’ve been able to keep the workforce’s nose to the corporate grindstone. The notion of flexible labour, you may have noticed, is inherent in the EU philosophy.
That said, I see Boris is already rowing back from border controls and is making noises which will appeal more to Goldman Sachs. I don’t doubt your conclusions, but it was coming anyway. In the medium-long term, nothing much changes (except, if we scuttle off to the US, the units of measurement)
‘My people’, Christ the megalomaniac delusion. Are you from Ebbw Vale? That’s where the article was focused, and if you don’t think that’s a tragic snapshot of where Farageism has taken them, and millions of other disaffected Labour voters, then you’re even more blinkered than I thought, if that’s even possible.
The Graun reporting Benn is seeking to oust Corbyn. Asking him to stand down, due to his ‘lacklustre’ performance over Brexit. Honestly, these people just have zero shame. How they manage to blame Corbyn over Brexit is just a total mystery, to this poster. I think Craig was right when he tweeted that they only have 15 days, before Blair – and others – have their reputation savaged by Chilcot, hence the desperation. Perhaps, though, they also seek to serve up a distraction?
So, the tactic is thus: Benn asks Jezza to resign. When he doesn’t, Benn and other SC Blairite scum resign, to make his position untenable. Jezza, of course, has no reason to resign at all. He was never a fan of the EU, but sucked it up anyway, and remains popular at grass roots level, so he can merely shrug and wish them good luck on the backbenches. The calculation is of course about perception management: the media will be all over it, chaos, splits, Corbyn Must Resign, etc. Well, fuck them. Corbyn can win. It’s really that simple. He can beat the floppy haired prick, who isn’t as popular as he thinks, and he’d utterly trounce Gove. Corbyn MUST fight these vermin, and stay on with a merry smile; if they want rid of him, they’ll have to make him go, and they can’t. Well, they can, but it involves cheating, with lawyers getting involved, and I’m not convinced they have the stomach for it.
Sadly, I no longer even think their antipathy to JC is even genuine. They used to argue he couldn’t get elected, which was at least a solid argument – but it’s now clearly not true. Then they argued about foreign policy issues, but Syria is a total mess, so no dice there. Vague smears about anti-semitism were just too laughable to work. So, now it’s Brexit. The Blairite scoundrels are just making it up as they go along, and their antipathy is based on nothing, other than a vague personal snobbery. I suspect, very strongly, that they have been told their own jobs, and even preselection, are on the line, by the background scum. So, I hope they do resign, and Jezza can stuff his cabinet with lefties and lords instead; that would be funny.
I didn’t hear Benn anywhere on the campaign to Remain.
Is he out in Syria, or at base camp in Cyprus?
Yes to all. One ‘but’ though. When the troughers go, they’ll take their corporate funding with them. Their future as a spinoff party would be in doubt, though. They won’t even be Tories-lite. there will be no identifiable space between them and the Tories. Corbyn might do better to pre-emptively kick half a dozen (only) out pour encouarager les autres.
I think the crucial matter just now for Scotland is container ports. At least two will be needed in the medium term, with the super-sized Prestwick Airport becoming too a key freight hub, at least transitionally, till a deep port on the lower Clyde/Inverclyde coast for Atlantic and Mediteranean trade – the biggest ships might only be able come into Glasgow’s centre itself as far as John Brown’s shipyard, and might even be able to turn in the mouth of the River Cart opening into the Clyde, similar to the manner of the QE2 launch longways across the river – and on the Forth (Leith?) for fast linkage with Northern Europe, Denmark, Scandinavia, Germany etc. Temporary structures on the Mulberry pattern could be quite durably constructed, with existing shipyards also playing a key role. We must avoid blockade of our vast Scottish-European two-way trade by Brexit strong-arming us, as contributed to capitulation by our ‘nobles’ leading to 1707, and we would in any case wish to avoid tariff barriers, slow disjointed movement of goods by road and rail through non-EU England on infrastructure less capable than that existing a century ago. To go from a country, Scotland, moth-balled, though one of Europe’s oldest and most progressive nations and peoples, to our rightful place as equals in an evolving EU, rather than subordinates in the defunct UK, we must be ready.
Who ME!!#? I don’t actually think you mean me, do chill please Ben, I don’t know what this argument has been about or even who it’s with, you’ve been helluva grumpy lately (and don’t doubt there is plenty of justification for grumpiness as a default position, it saves time). And I have noticed some sharp unpleasant national stereotyping of Americans at-large by some commenters. (There was also on some recent thread a Labour politican referred to and I thought intended derogatively as an ‘ibo’ which I understand is a cultured and ancient African people, which the resident invigilator & co let pass as casual racism is ok by them, it seems.) I rate Americans highly Ben, just not the the clowns and inhumane monsters that govern them, and it’s not all bad, I’ve been looking recently at US consumer protection, particularly in the automotive sector, there are protections in areas of purchase and service arguably better than European levels.
A 300-odd year old union is ending, for the benefit of and to the relief of both parties, people are a bit fractious I’m sure. Often times slang, dialect and irony is missed, plus sloppiness and typos aplenty -that the wrong end of the stick gets taken and run with, often.
Please folks, attribution, attribution, attribution! Especially if hurling brick-bats, whatever the funk they are.
OK. I just get a little tired of the bigotry and certainly understand the distinction between the American people and their elected leader. That distinction is often absent in the holier-than-thou opinions, attitudes and beliefs of a putatively progressive society so I appreciate the disclaimer.
I don’t think racial or cultural bigotry is a mainstay of Britain, but you do seem to occasionally enjoy exhaling superior airs that offend. I reserve that kind of understanding and humor for people I know.
It’s good to see you pointing out obvious propaganda but in BBC, Guardian etc. there is little else. Haven’t watched BBC or TV since January… it’s great to be free of the poison but I appreciate those with the stomach to monitor the output.
Jeremy Corbyn and his mild Socialist ideas are the greatest threat to the Neo Liberal Capitalist establishment.