I have had moments in the last few days which led me to feel pretty hopeless. Perhaps the worst was in the ITV debate when Corbyn was roundly jeered by a substantial section of the audience for stating that climate change impacted hardest on the poorest people in the poorest countries. That encapsulated for me the current far right political climate in England, dominated by boorish, selfish stupidity. I do not come from a left wing political background and I have never subscribed to the romanticisation of “the people”. Years living in the UKIP heartland of Ramsgate made me realise that “the people” en masse can be very unpleasant and racist indeed. I have always for that reason eschewed direct democracy and subscribed to a very Burkean view. That however falls down when, as now, you have a political class who are becoming even more base and vicious than the most unpleasant mob. But the growl of that studio audience, infuriated that Corbyn cared about the foreign poor, is a warning klaxon of the state of English society.
A close second despair-inducing moment was Jo Swinson’s interview following the debate when, asked if she would press the nuclear button, she replied without a millisecond of hesitation: “yes”. As I reported last week, when asked at the Lib Dem campaign launch why she would not put Corbyn into Downing St in any circumstances, she had instantly replied that he would not be prepared to instruct submarine commanders to fire nuclear weapons.
The woman is deranged.
I come from a Liberal tradition. Probably the two books which most influence my thinking are On Liberty by John Stuart Mill and Imperialism, A Study by J A Hobson. The line of British liberal thinking that comes down through writers including Hazlitt, Shelley, Byron, Carlyle, Mill, Hobson, Russell and Keynes is a tradition which looks set to disappear from British political thought. That makes me horribly sad. One thing I am sure of is that Swinson has read none of them. That the Lib Dems had moved economically so far to the right was already worrying me. Their completely illiberal opposition to Scottish Independence upset me still further. But that the party to which I belonged for 30 years and which was once led by my friend, the gentle and wise Charlie Kennedy, could now be led by an arm whirling, narcissistic, female version of Dr Strangelove, is beyond my wildest nightmares.
Let me go back to that ITV Debate. It was enormously dispiriting that of a 50 minute debate, 25 minutes were devoted to the subject of Brexit, compared to just one minute on the question of climate change. The Brexit discussion was completely unenlightening, with Johnson booming out “Get Brexit Done” at every opportunity, and even when there was no rational opportunity after the discussion had finally been moved on to other subjects.
I thought Jeremy was slightly under par. There was one point where I think he made a definite mistake. When Johnson claimed the last Labour government bankrupted the country’s finances, Corbyn failed to come back and say that it was the bankers who bankrupted the country’s finances. He could have gone on to add that banking deregulation had been the cause of a decade of global misery and Boris Johnson’s plans for Singapore on Thames would be banking deregulation on steroids.
It is not the first time this election that Labour have failed to point out it was the bankers who crashed the economy. I am not sure why. It may be a desire to seem City-friendly. Corbyn may be held back because, like me, he believes Brown was completely wrong to bail out the bankers with taxpayers’ money, and Corbyn therefore thinks it best to avoid the whole topic for the sake of party unity. Either way, to let Johnson say that Labour spending ruined the economy is to miss an open goal – the bankers are still massively unpopular.
The other point is one where Jeremy actually annoyed me. I cannot tell you how infuriating it was, as a Scot, to see Johnson repeatedly stating that Scotland would not be allowed an Independence referendum, and Corbyn making no effort at all to stand up for the Scottish right of self-determination. Given SNP exclusion from the debate, it was demeaning to see our masters discussing our future with no pretence of giving a hearing to the Scottish point of view.
Corbyn has to tackle this. The Johnson “Labour will give you two referendums” attack line is not being sufficiently countered. For Corbyn to ask Johnson whether he accepts that the Scottish people have the right of self-determination would be a killer question, and Jeremy could ask it quietly and effectively. A large majority of English people are actually perfectly happy for Scotland to have an Independence referendum.
Corbyn has tied himself in knots to accommodate the bitter cabal of Blairites and Orangemen that constitute the majority of the rump Scottish Labour Party, while its membership and voters have defected en masse to the SNP. 40% of the remaining Labour voters support Independence anyway. Rather than put himself in a false position for the sake of hopeless colleagues who have crashed Scottish Labour from domination to 12% of the vote, Corbyn should state his support for the right of the Scottish people to decide – something which I have no doubt he personally believes in, deeply.
The good news is that Johnson made an ass of himself in the debate, constantly repeating “Get Brexit Done”, and Corbyn’s insistence on discussing more important issues than Brexit cut through. You Gov’s verdict of a 51 to 49 victory for Johnson was very dubious indeed. But even that would be a major advance for Corbyn given the constant barrage of unfair media demonisation to which he has been subjected in the last five years. Almost seven million people watched the event live, a significant audience. Parity with that audience is a very good start for Labour. I suspect it really went better than that. YouGove have a long and dishonourable history as Tory push pollsters.
There are similarities here to the 2017 election. The chance for both Corbyn and Sturgeon to be seen in election coverage directly by viewers, each arguing their own case, will improve the standing of both with the electors, compared to the unmitigated vilification of normal media. (Sturgeon is being unfairly excluded from key debates but her Dundee speech today was extensively covered).
The Tory campaign of closed workplace addresses, artificial set-up encounters and a constant simple soundbite slogan is repeating the formula that failed so spectacularly in 2017. “Get Brexit Done” is going to annoy voters as much as “Strong and Stable” did, especially if Johnson continues to deploy it whatever the question asked.
I strongly expect we will see the first signs of the opinion polls starting to tighten shortly. I am half-English myself and have no desire to see Johnson inflicted on the population of Newcastle or Liverpool. But I confess I am also comfortable in the certainty that should Johnson win the election, it will precipitate Scottish Independence very soon. Nobody should despair yet. But it is certainly more comfortable to watch this from Edinburgh than from Manchester.
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Labour need those Scottish constituencies to be in with a chance of getting elected.
Anybody who is a supporter of Indyref2 knows a Labour government is the only government that could deliver a new referendum. SNP will never be a UK government, tories and liberals won’t countenance the idea of a referendum on independence.
Scottish Nationalists need a Labour Government, it’s the only possible way to Indyref2,….and you get decent fast fibre broadband as part of the deal…_
“Scottish Nationalists need a Labour Government, it’s the only possible way to Indyref2,….and you get decent fast fibre broadband as part of the deal…_”
Second point first Corbyn said he wants free broadband for all by 2030, now I’m no mathematician but wouldn’t that mean he’d need to win at least another term in office?
First point Labour can never be trusted 1979 proved that beyond doubt.
@ROS. 1979 was 40 years ago. A motion of no confidence meant an election was called. Thatchers Tories came to power. Does the phrase ‘Tartan Tory’ not get remembered? Revenge is best served when noses don’t get cut off faces.
Wise people learn from history, fools repeat it.
Now you have a decision, do you really want Indyref 2. If you do then only a Labour victory can deliver. As you say, Labour need two terms, don’t you think the SNP can force a deal off labour in that time.._
There’s no mandate for indyref2. If they want one, the SNP should call for an extraordinary Holyrood general election. Problem with that?
As for fast broadband, most of the talk about it is c*ck. What proportion of the population would notice if their bandwidth halved or doubled?
The Scottish Parliament already has a majority of MSPs who voted for indy2. Have you a problem understanding that?
LBC and Mair gratuitously shoving the Handy Andy ‘crisis’ down the ears of the listeners – completely ignoring the election manifesto’s including their Niges. Also pathetic about pushing the Trump impeachment with their correspondent whoclaims to be a personal friend of Fiona Hill ofthe NSC ‘proving’ that potus did what potus is entitled to do – no question of why SHE didn’t make a complaint, or NSC lawyer or the senior borgs like pompeo qnd bolton….
On the anniversary of JFK’s public execution- they are lining up another outsider for messing with their self given right to do what they like.
Regarding the debate, the so-called Campaign Against Antisemitism posted this vile black propaganda piece on their website a couple of days ago, in which they condence TWO falsehoods into the headline:
JEREMY CORBYN LAUGHED AT IN ITV DEBATE AS HE LIED ABOUT LABOUR’S HANDLING OF ITS ANTISEMITISM CRISIS
Needless to say, it is a lie – a falsehood – that Jeremy lied, and it is also a falsehood that the audience laughed (when Jeremy responded to the question about A/S), and anyone who watched the debate will be aware that THAT is the case. But then again, the CAA black propagandists probably realise that even of those who watched the debate – and I assume that most of the people who visit the CAA website are Jewish – they will believe the CAA that THAT is what happened. And the CAA propagandists realise, that even though they put a link to the debate (and at the end of the article mentioned where that particular part of the debate begins), the vast majority of people who DIDN’T watch it when it was aired, won’t bother to watch it.
This is probably as good an example as any of the fact that the CAA blatantly lie to their readers about Jeremy Corbyn (and in the quotes they give to the MSM) and, as such, please share far and wide with anyone you know that has been duped by the whole smear campaign during the course of the past four years or so. And ask THEM to share it and so on.
https://antisemitism.uk/jeremy-corbyn-laughed-at-in-itv-election-debate-as-he-lied-about-labours-handling-of-its-antisemitism-crisis/
A bunch of AIPAC stooges, Tories, and Blairite scum, on the whole:
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Campaign_Against_Anti-semitism
Irish economics professor: “Our water, mail, rail and buses are nationalised. Nobody thinks we’re a radical socialist republic.”
https://skwawkbox.org/2019/11/22/dublin-econ-professor-our-rail-mail-are-nationalised-nobody-thinks-were-a-radical-socialist-republic/
It appears that all main political parties in the UK are committed to increasing public spending.
Is this because they care for the economic and social conditions of their electorate or is it because Christine Lagarde (a convicted criminal) has instructed them to ratchet up spending?
https://www.ft.com/content/c3483866-0d07-11ea-b2d6-9bf4d1957a67
“What chance have you got against a tie and a crest?”
What is the point of providing a link to a firewalled article that you cannot read. I mean the FT is unreliable at the best of times when it comes to the EU without you linking to a paywalled article.
I’d imagine most parties are promising to spend, spend, spend because they want to gain more MPs. Tell me why shouldn’t Lagarde urge governments or potential governments/coalitions to spend money on improving peoples lives?
OK – Here is the WSJ saying exactly the same thing
https://www.wsj.com/articles/lagarde-calls-for-more-government-spending-in-first-public-speech-as-ecb-leader-11574416893
In her previous role at the IMFl Lagarde failed to urge the governments of Greece and Argentina to spend more money in order to improve peoples lives.
Do you think that it is possible that Christine Lagarde couldn’t care less about peoples lives but cares enormously about incumbent financial institutions and institutions of power. If this is not possible then Lagarde must be a wholly irrational xenophobe who hates Greeks and Argentinians.
Oh right a Washington/Whitehouse mouthpiece newspaper printing a less than glowing article about Lagarde/EU, what a surprise.
It’s bit like the Telegraph printing a Corbyn bad story, nothing new there Im afraid.
Any economist worth listening to, and there are only a few — economics is not scientific (despite what some would have you believe) — will tell you not only that capitalism basically implodes when there’s no money at the base of the triangle but that the only way to fix the economy when it does implode is to stimulate the base.
Even right wing economists accept the above. Indeed, right wing economists believe you can stimulate the base by cutting taxation and public expenditure. With that they reveal the same understanding and goal. There’s very little evidence, though, that cutting taxation and public spending has ever stimulated any economy anywhere, ever.
Capitalism has already imploded. We are living in a financial zombie apocalypse.
Capitalism is about creative destruction – i.e. getting rid of companies or industries that have no value. That is why today there are no jobs for gas lighters. However banks spewing $trillions in bizarre and incomprehensible derivatives have been prevented from collapse by the power of the state
By definition capitalism requires the assembly of capital – hard to see how you can assemble capital with positive inflation and zero interest rates. Inflating the value of property and stock prices is not capital creation.
No-one has ever cut public spending – and no-one has any intention of doing so. The so called period of austerity was coincidental with massive and unprecedented increases in public expenditure – it was just that it was used to prop up insolvent banks and buy rockets and guns as opposed to being spent on things of public value.
“No-one has ever cut public spending”
Everything else you said was opinion of the sort we can get on infowars 24/7, but we can easily invalidate the above. Labour cut public revenue between 2008 and 2010.
This money forest ideology must be a group madness
all trying to outvie each other rivals.
It is palpable twaddle, again, they are taking the voting public ( if they believe these lies) as fools.
Tory lies certainly. Tried and tested. With no change at all they suddenly have all this money that they plan to spend spend spend. Why now? How now and not before?? Because it’s an election and it’s all bullshit. Don’t get me wrong, they will spend spend spend. Straight into the pockets of big business, cushty back room deals setting themselves up for generations after politics. Business as usual. Meanwhile those businesses fuck off with all the cash leaving nothing to show for it. Labour on the other hand talk of real change. Ending this racket and instead investment in our own big business. The Tory lies are clear, whereas Labour have a very real radical and credible plan for change in black and white that you can see with your own eyes. For God’s sake get out and vote people, lets end them.
The last general election in 2017 cost £141million. Two years later? More?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/election-2019-50439751/general-election-2019-how-much-does-it-cost
So?
I am just saying that another election just to suit Johnson’s agenda is a total waste of £141m (the cost is probably more now) We have stagnation and dissent. People are fed up to the teeth with ALL politicians.
You don’t speak for “people”. You certainly don’t speak for me. I just watched a studio full of people discuss politics for two hours on live TV. Not one said they were “fed up to the teeth”. In actual fact, I don’t think I have ever seen the levels of interest and engagement on politics that we are seeing now. Not ever.
You’re entitled to be wrong, of course. But here you are discussing politics.
Hatuey
Politics is the art of being annoying. Wind somebody up and you have succeeded in destroying their intellectual energy.
Melting thousands of tonnes of working gas boilers and burning coal to make new ones is stupid. It’s the Labour Party winding us up just like the Tories wind us up with Novichok and Chavos Islands.
You have to give it to Corbyn, winding us all up by not taking a position on Brexit is both intellectually and anally retentive. Nil carborundum.
When the purpose if politicians of all hues is psychological mind games there are two possible outcomes. Either people rise to the bait and get Fed up.
Or people take no notice and politicians are ignored.
Mary may not speak for anybody but herself but we are the losers if we allow the annoying turds to skid us down to the level of their stupid mindgames
For anyone thinking of putting a batch of leaflets together to stick through peoples doors, here’s some material (by Jewish Voice for Labour) that exposes the falsehoods regarding the main allegations of A/S made against Jeremy Corbyn:
Briefing for canvassers: Challenging false allegations of antisemitism
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/statement/rebuttals/
PS And don’t forget to say at the end of it to Please Copy and/or Scan and Circulate to Friends and Family and Neighbours Etc.
Posting rubbish through peoples doors must have a negative environmental impact.
If the planet is dying then surely then surely we need an immediate cessation of posting purposeless propaganda. Maybe someone should inform Extinction Rebellion about your urging people to contribute to the acceleration of planetary destruction by way of leafletting.
What a totally asinine comment. Loony even! I assume you’re a Tory shill. Now if you’d been saying to encourage them to use recycled paper, then I would of course have agreed. And needless to say, just about everyone these days puts their paper/leaflets that they discard in their recycle bin. And since when did exposing the propaganda lies and falsehoods that have been concocted about Corbyn and the left amount to propaganda!
Anyway, for the REAL posters on here, and anyone reading through the comments, the following is an excellent article by Kitty Jones:
Media misrepresentations of the Labour party are being used strategically to create left wing folk devils and moral panic
https://politicsandinsights.org/2019/11/17/letter-endorsing-jeremy-corbyn-signed-by-key-public-figures-and-credible-jewish-academics/
It is potentially quite a shrewd strategy from Labour – shore up the traditional Labour vote with the radical manifesto, while counting on Remain voters to choose Labour’s referendum over Johnson (and over the Lib Dems and the associated risks of either propping up Johnson’s government or helping Tory candidates). The radical manifesto also has the benefit of keeping everyone talking on domestic matters so that Johnson’s Brexit pitch gets muddied in other issues.
Time will tell but I’m cautiously optimistic of at least a hung Parliament. Johnson doesn’t come across to me as a winner in either the Thatcher or a even the Cameron mould.
Landslide all the way baby! Rig that you Tory scum! (Not said to anyone in particular, just the Tory scum)
He could be one in the John Major 1992 mould. Or he could get a landslide. Remember the Tory voteshare went down in 1983 when Thatcher got her largest majority. Certainly the Tories have a lot of playing pieces on the table – including the Liberal Democrats, the Brexit Party, the Jewish Chronicle, and, according to what I’m hearing, the Catholic Herald.
What Labour need is a Zinoviev letter with the boot on the other foot this time. Vengeance for 1924! Fight dirty and win it.
That tactic only exists, and should only exist in the Tory play book. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Tories use it now. They need it, we don’t. We need to get out and vote. It’s obvious when you see these leaders in public it should be a Corbyn landslide.
Give lifts (whatever their voting intention, that’s just who we are) (especially to those who might be planning to use a postal vote), plan it, spread the word, get out and vote these corrupt bastards out. I’ve said before that I believe it is rigged, but I don’t believe they can rig it completely, so we ALL need to get out and vote these bastards out and I truly believe Labour under Corbyn would put a stop to this degradation of our democracy and our people.
Yes, Labour DO give a toss about climate change. Even Blair’s government came up with the first ever climate change act – drafted by Ed Miliband at the time. Corbyn has been consistently concerned about environmental damage and climate change
Well… I knew the Tories were scared of Corbyn, but tonight it looks like Johnson has shit a kidney.
Will be interesting to see what youGov think they can get away with on tonight’s poll on how the debate went. Corbyn smashed it. In his usual highly professional way of course (infuriating really, because while I want blood, he is able to straight talk factually and rationally). Everyone got a beating, though Sturgeon was very good too. For the record I am conscious of the very real logic in them actively helping a Tory win to promote their own case for independence with the people through misery, even though a ref under the Tories would be rigged (if it ever happened at all), it keeps the party, and its therefore false cause, alive. Actually she was good and I trust her more. Still, vote Labour if it will certainly not open a seat to the Tory scum 😉 The true cause, a fair indyRef2 would then be a very real prospect, even without a coalition.
All this ON THE BBC of all places! Really dreaded watching what dirty tricks they would play. I avoid BBC like the plague. But I am amazed to say it seemed very fair!! Still, will take a few hundred years before I trust them again.
Having signed up to Labour (holding nose and only because of JC) there are many invitations to canvas door to door. As someone who worked in direct marketing and neuromarketing for many years I’d like to know if there’s any evidence that face to face canvassing is effective? Anyone?
It would seem to me that you have collectively shot yourselves through your collective feet.
Just take a look at this comments section – here you will find references to “Tory scum” “Blairite scum” and whole host of pejorative terms directed at anyone with the temerity to disagree.
Most people do not fancy being called scum and so they will simply agree with everything some canvasser has to say. That gets rid of the canvasser without much effort and as a happy side effect provides one small brick in the wall of fake news – something that, in due course, will be magnified by the intellectually hollowed out media.
When results don’t turn out as you expect then simply assume that your fellow citizens must be infected with every form of bigotry you can imagine. This allows more and more people to be legitimately demonized as “scum” and moves everyone one step closer to some form of civil conflict. Never ever reflect on the use of language by those with whom you agree as a refusal to do so will inoculate you from any form of self doubt and enable a more pure form of hatred to be directed toward those who disagree with you.
Your logic fails you I’m afraid. Probably on purpose 😉
It is easy to class every Tory voter as Tory scum, or anyone who parrots an antisemitism slur as Blairite scum, but that is your own assumption.
Actually, Tory scum are the politicians and probably their masters, though they may be worse, who believe the Tory philosophy. Blairite scum are similar, if not the same. The vast majority of the voters who buy into their lies are just you and me in another walk of life, likely and understandably ignorant to what is actually happening via media osmosis, but to call them the scum only makes you ignorant.
The scum always rises to the top.
It is not me that is calling anyone scum – so your transference fails I’m afraid. Probably on purpose.
If you are looking for logic then supporting evidence can be found in the UK Brexit vote and the election of President Trump. If I recall correctly on the eve of the election the NYT carried a headline saying that Clinton was 99% certain to win. How did that work out?
Take a look at the drive for Scottish independence – see how so many pro-independence agitators are keen to link the position of Scotland with Catalonia. Now look what happened next. In Spain Vox are now the third largest political party with a 15% vote share. It is a racing certainty that they remain someway from peak support. How many Scottish nationalists have accepted that in part they are responsible for creating Vox? Answer none. Ask why. just try to imagine having a sensible conversation with Scottish nationalists about their role in creating fascists in Southern Europe. Yeah I know there are limits to human imagination.
Loony. Scum for me is those that facilitate WAR death and destruction
Yes it’s all just a matter of taste, isn’t it Loony. We are all detached armchair viewers having a jolly discussion about this and that and we must tolerate all shades of opinion etc. Except that we are talking about matters that impact on people’s actual lives in an increasingly devastating way. Hey – but while we’re sharing a bottle of meths under that bridge we’ll still be able to be ever so reasonable.
The ability – and willingness – to discuss problems objectively and politely is one of the most important things separating us from the rest of the animal kingdom.
We give it up at our peril.
Matters are impacting on peoples lives in an increasingly devastating way because we are at the end of the era of cheap energy. The only choices left are which segments of the population to devastate first. What right do you have to determine that someone you’ve never met is more deserving of devastation than you?
I do not think we are at an end of the era of cheap energy, I think we are entering an era of virtually unlimited, cheap energy. There is almost no end to the amounts of Methane available, even without making Methane.
There is almost no end to the amounts of coal available, an example is the North Sea is awash with coal.
Solar energy is unlimited, the cost of the cells is constantly reducing, it will be the cheapest energy for most of the Third World.
The costs of wind power are going down as technologies improve and as the scale of manufacturing increases.
There will be a boom in microgenerating in many forms.
Fracking has released much Methane and Oil that was thought to be out of touch.
Nuclear is getting ever more expensive, which is why it is in decline.
When Graphene is able to be manufactured in large quantities and cheaply it will transform the economy
of everything.
Cheap energy is just getting started.
Michael: It is unlikely that your thoughts are correct.
In 1990 the global average energy cost of energy (ECoE) was 2.9% (This is the percentage amount of energy that needs to be expended in order to access or harness energy).
By 2000 this ratio had risen to 4.1%. By 2008 it had risen to 5.6% and today stands at 8.1%. Do you spot a trend in place here? Coincidentally this rising ECoE almost exactly tracks declines in prosperity per capita. Thus in the UK prosperity per capita has declined by 11.3% since 2003.
Maybe graphene is capable of reversing this trend – I have no idea. Conversely I am very certain that fracking, solar, wind and nuclear are all contributing to increasing the ECoE and hence contributing to the decrease in prosperity per capita.
That doesn’t even make sense. We need to decide who gets the axe. We have no option but to make that decision. And yet we have no right to make that decision?
Basic state British pension about 100 gbp a week. Share of council tax about 25 gbp a week cost of leaving a one kilowatt fire on for a week with edf about 35 gbp a week. So much for all this theoretical stuff about energy supplies. Why are not people talking about real issues this election? It to is impossible for an old person to live through a cold winter in England if they rely on electricity and are poor. Edf even provides a hi-tech gadget to tell you when you cannot afford heat any longer. Die, or get into unpayable debt.
“When results don’t turn out as you expect then simply assume that your fellow citizens must be infected with every form of bigotry you can imagine”.
And blame the Russians. Don’t forget to blame the Russians.
Canvassing doesn’t usually involve calling people scum. Sounds an ineffective strategy.
Yes. It will have a great effect on you. Do it.
Instead of being in a keyboard warrior bubble, where reality is easily avoided, you will be out in a genuine world. Step up to the plate and get on the learning curve; if it doesn’t frighten you then you’re not doing it right…_
There’s evidence that face to face sales is effective. I used to be involved in marketing.
It’s hard to distinguish between sales and political canvassing in any meaningful way, so I guess face to face politics works too.
I agree that face-to-face selling is very effective. Many salespeople are charming and pretend to be friendly. Having sold themselves, so to speak, they find it easy to sell whatever goods or services they are getting commission on.
However, an apparently friendly salesperson must be carefully distinguished from the (possibly shoddy, overpriced or unnecessary) items she is hawking. Not to mention that, as a successful salesperson probably has hundreds or thousands of customers, she can’t very well be genuine friends with all of them.
The same caution applies in spades to political selling. The person who calls on you to persuade you to vote for Labour or another party may be a lovely person – but that does not say much about what the Labour (or other) party would do if actually elected to office.
Yes, rk. I believe it is effective, and I have (a tiny amount) of evidence to support that.
Over very many years canvassing I have spoken to lots of “undecided” voters on their doorsteps, talked to them, identified concerns, explained real party policy vs “what the papers say”, got councillors or (in GEs) PPCs to contact them.
I have felt that quite a few were persuaded – but that’s a subjective view, not evidence.
On a very much smaller scale, I know for sure that at least a tiny few were persuaded when I knock on their door again, usually years later, and find they are clear about their political views, and remember our conversation (or the Councillor, or PPC) that crystalised their thinking.
So it’s well worth doing, by the Many, for the Many.
You have joined Labour (Hurrah!) so now, please, get to work on this once in a lifetime opportunity to reverse the decline of civilisation in the UK!
‘Over very many years canvassing I have spoken to lots of “undecided” voters on their doorsteps, talked to them, identified concerns, explained real party policy vs “what the papers say”…’
And when the party you were recommending got elected and came to power, Chris, how many of the policies you attributed to it were really whole-heartedly implemented? And how many of the concerns were properly dealt with?
thanks Chris, door wins over phone then.
I was under the impression that it was Cambridge Analytica wot won it.
Is this incorrect?
They used direct and targeted marketing on social media, collating previously expressed preferences and so on.
Dunno, perhaps it’s doorstepping for the modern age.
Oor Nicola was By Miles the best on Leaders QT tonight.
Answered Questions Flawlessly.. no Bullshitting around..She had wee Fiona Sussed, and sorted her out too.
The evil bbC did have a couple of Stitch up jobs on the go
1, Helping Swinson avoid audience response to her WMD’s Lies..Kinda important that..Especially to us that can see the Submarines from our Window.
2, ignorance..Or Lies about Scotland’s knife crime
The Blond haired Cretin at the end was Em, A Tory.. A Famed for lying Tory.. ( Mind you, So is Swinson.. A lying Tory that is )
It’s All Very well the ‘ I’m All Right ‘ Scot’s voting Tory, LibDems, Labour
But If by some Miracle WMD Worshiping Swinson becomes PM..the Scottish Government should Declare UDI, That very same day.
Another gem from Miss Swinson tonight, in response to a member of the audience refuting the claim that Corbyn is antisemitic. She replied that she knew he was because Luciana Berger and Louise Ellman had told her so. Mmmm must be true then.
Jo Swinson starting attacking Corbyn for antisemitism before any questioner had mentioned it or Corbyn. And it felt really non-genuine. To suffer antisemitism is really horrible. I think it’s really offensive that Jo Swinson tried to make political capital out of it.
The Daily Mail are now going all out on this one. Maybe DM readers like to think they are not racist.
“To suffer antisemitism is really horrible. I think it’s really offensive that Jo Swinson tried to make political capital out of it.”
You’re absolutely correct.
Disgusting tactics from the Lib Dems, as per usual.
Been caught at this many times before.
I mean, Jeremy Corbyn, the most insipid inoffensive snowflake since the birth of Bambi.
Is compared to Hitler!
That’s her pitch?
Actually, the very first question put to Corbyn (well, not a question, but an angry accusation) was about the Ruth Smeeth incident in June 2016. The BBC featured it as their single example of a tough question:
Q: I look at a video of Ruth Smeeth online where she was in a press conference with you and Ruth Smeeth – a Jewish MP – was heckled out of that press conference with you. At the end of the press conference there you are chatting to that same heckler. I don’t buy this “nice old grandpa”.
A: Nobody should suffer any abuse in public life or privately. Nobody should suffer abuse and many women Labour MPs, Ruth Smeeth included, have suffered the most unbelievable levels of abuse. And it was a Labour MP Jo Cox who was murdered because she stood up in public life… Bad behaviour, misogynism, racism in any form is absolutely not acceptable in any form whatsoever in my party or in society.
When Ruth Smeeth was mentioned, I thought this was going to be an antisemitism accusation, because I well remembered the incident. The BBC obligingly printed the original story immediately after the Q and A:
In 2016, Labour MP Ruth Smeeth called for Jeremy Corbyn to “resign immediately” for what she saw as his failure to intervene when “anti-Semitic slurs” were directed towards her in front of him.
Ms Smeeth walked out of a press conference held to launch a report on anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.
“It is beyond belief that someone could come to the launch of a report on anti-Semitism in the Labour Party and espouse such vile conspiracy theories about Jewish people,” Ms Smeeth said in a statement at the time.
“The leader of my own party stood by and did absolutely nothing.”
Why didn’t Mr Angry make those killer points? – antisemitic abuse of a Jewish woman! at a Labour meeting! right in front of Corbyn! he did nothing about it!
Well, presumably because it turned out that Smeeth was… well, gravely mistaken – there was no antisemitic abuse. The ‘abuser’ was Marc Wadsworth, a well-known black activist. He claimed that he had not abused Smeeth at all, but had criticised her for conferring with a Telegraph journalist. He had not known who she was, and had not known she was Jewish. He was immediately suspended from the party.
However, many people who had been present subsequently posted video footage, taken on phones, which supported Wadsworth’s account. Certainly he had been angry with Smeeth, but he had said nothing which could remotely be described as antisemitic. Smeeth did not apologise, or withdraw her accusations, but did delete the tweet in which they were made.
Two years later, Wadsworth’s disciplinary hearing took place. Some 50 Labour MPs and peers (all white, and all well-known opponents of Corbyn), led by Jess Phillips, declared themselves to be a ‘protective escort’ and marched with Smeeth to the hearing, where a few supporters of Wadsworth, mostly black, were standing outside quietly holding placards. This seemed to be a fairly clear dogwhistle that a white woman was not safe on the streets from a black man.
At the hearing, nothing was said about antisemitism. Wadsworth was expelled for bringing the party into disrepute.
The BBC report on Saturday said nothing of this. Not did it mention that Mr Angry was in fact a South African
Tory activist named Ryan Jacobsz who had already appeared on Question Time three times, although this soon spread across the internet:
https://dorseteye.com/ryan-jacobz-the-tory-plant-that-bbc-question-time-cannot-get-enough-of/
Pictures showed the trivial but amusing fact that Mr Jacobsz (like Dominic Cummings) apparently owns only one shirt.
I posted most of the above on The Guardian CiF on Saturday, but it was immediately deleted, as were two more versions, radically trimmed, omitting everything about the Smeeth-Wadsworth incident, but suggesting that people make their own enquiries and draw their own conclusions.
Here are two further accounts of the episode. Spot the difference!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-43920227
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/activists-outraged-labours-expulsion-black-campaigner-marc-wadsworth
Very good post – I think you should put it as a stand-alone post, though, as new readers are unlikely to see it this far back in the discussion.
I’ve seen it Glenn, great refutation Peter. It’s disappointing that some of the best journalism is found on blogs such as this.
An excellent post well worthy of an independent post of it’s own as glenn_uk suggests.
Nice . Saved to reuse.
Oor Nicola is in the enviable position of not having to offer policies for advancing the interests of everyone in the UK. All she has to concern herself with is a relative handful of Scots who want to leave the UK behind anyway.
A far easier proposition than facing up to the problems of the whole country. Not to mention that, if Scotland does become independent, the Scots will find that their troubles are just beginning.
When you live in a country with a tropical climate and infested with mosquitoes, it doesn’t do you much good to climb into a boat and row out on a lake. It will be just as hot and humid, there is no shelter from the sun, and the mosquitoes gather in even greater numbers over water.
I posted a comment earlier about the so-called Campaign Against Antisemitism, and how I came across an article on their website about Jeremy Corbyn which was a pack of lies. And now I’ve just come across what must be the most absurd allegation of anti-semitism EVER!
In the Daily Mail. I mean if you haven’t heard about this one, you just won’t believe it’s for real. But it is! Here’s the headline, and then the three sub-headlines, and then the first paragraph:
Jewish campaigners accuse Jeremy Corbyn of ‘trying to underscore’ dead paedophile ‘Jeffrey Epstein’s Jewishness’ as Labour leader’s pronunciation of ‘Epschteen’ blows up into ANOTHER full-blown anti-Semitism row
Corbyn accused of trying to make Epstein sound ‘more Jewish’ in TV debate
He called the convicted sex offender ‘Epschteen’, sparking fury on social media
Campaign Against Antisemitism attacked ‘bizarre … inconsistent pronunciation’
Jewish campaigners tore into Jeremy Corbyn today after he mis-pronounced the name of notorious society paedophile Jeffrey Epstein in front of millions of people on live television.
(Ends)
And who WERE these so-called ‘Jewish Campaigners’? Yes, it was our good friends at the Campaign Against Antisemitism, and THIS is what is says in relation to THEM:
A spokesman for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: ‘Jeremy Corbyn’s risible attempt to deceive viewers about his handling of Labour’s anti-Semitism crisis was compounded by his bizarre and inconsistent pronunciation of the Jewish surname of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, referring to him at one point as ”Epschteen”.
‘Mr Corbyn’s abhorrent record on Jews certainly raises questions as to whether the Labour leader was attempting to underscore Mr Epstein’s Jewishness.’
(Ends)
And the DM have very kindly included a separate section entitled ‘Why are people saying ‘Epschteen’ is anti-Semitic?’ so as to help us all understand. How very very thoughtful of them! Oh, right, and they’ve got a video clip of it, but the sound appears to have been disabled!!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7705967/Jeremy-Corbyn-accused-bizzare-mis-pronounciation-Jeffrey-Epsteins-surname-Jewish-groups.html
PS It was probably just a simple case of Jeremy having not put his teeth in properly!
And yet the very same Daily Heil brings us a photo of a life-size image of Jesus on a cross that Jeffrey Epstein kept in his ranch.
Was Epstein actually Jewish? When I saw that cross, I thought either he was a Christian or he used the cross in some kind of extreme and horrific paedophile abuse and conditioning.
It’s possible to be ethnically Jewish without following the religion. Benjamin Disraeli was an Anglican.
From all the fuss about pronunciation you might assume he wasn’t Jewish at all. But he was buried in a Jewish cemetery.
“Was Epstein actually Jewish? When I saw that cross, I thought either he was a Christian….”
Surely his “lifestyle” is one which depends upon the killing of the Christ?
Re the sound appears to be disabled…
You have to click on the sound icon to switch the sound on. It doesn’t sound to me like Mr Corbyn had any serious pronounciation problems, so this is probably the Daily Fail just drawing our attention to the possible faith of Mr Epstein for what ever purpose that might be.
“In the Daily Mail.”
Well that says it all and there is really no need to read further.
Allan, this will be the same daily fail that supported the nazi party will it not? Now assuming some false moral high ground!
I offer the following thought on the context of this election…
We pretty much all know that in Britain the rulers are about to pull their jackboots on and that a small proportion of them, which will get larger as you look further up the scale, are set to make an absolute killing financially out of the crash or disaster or time of troubles or whatever we want to call it.
Probably most of us who have recognised the above have envisaged that the triggering event, the ladder to Malthusian heaven, the “proximal cause” of the Night When Trillions of Quid Left the Country, the Solicitors’ Insurance Fund Went Bankrupt So the Courts Stopped Working, the Banks Shut, the Lights Went Off, the Water Pumps Stopped, and Soon Afterwards Everything Became Like Venezuela Including the Hyperinflation Except that Very Few People Were Able to Swim the English Channel So There Was No Equivalent of Colombia To Go To, would be a crashout Brexit. It doesn’t matter whether this would be a “pure” “Article 50” “No Deal” kind of crashout, or a “Whoops, Boris couldn’t manage to sort out a Free Trade Agreement” kind. But Brexit. Stuff relating to Britain’s relationship with the European Union and in particular a national act of trade autoblockade, for which there are few if any parallels in the history of the world but which perhaps recalls Pol Pot’s Kampuchea.
So…what if…what if something other than a crashout Brexit is chosen – given the parallelogram of forces – as the trigger instead? And if it is, then what if something other than a Tory election victory suits the above-mentioned fellows’ purposes?
Blood, hatred, cruelty, greed and fear all meld together in the sick psychokiller Tory mind, whether we’re talking about down at the golf club with the franchise boys or dining at high table in one of the Clarendon schools.
So what might give these excuses for humanity the overpowering feeling of apocalypse and of the advent of a final reckoning with the Other that they’ve been droolingly anticipating throughout the whole of their sorry “lives”? Might they possibly view the election of a Labour government on a social reform manifesto as the raising of the war standard, as the “proof” that their psychotic worldview is fully correct and natural? Some of them have their fingers on the button ready to whizz large sums of money out of the country perhaps even as soon as the results of the exit poll are announced at 10pm on 12 December. We might be in for a lesson on how expectations and reality intertwine. Certainly “Venezuela” is getting mentioned a lot in Tory circles. They’re so f***ing thick they haven’t bothered to find out anything about the US sanctions that brought that country to its knees, or if they know about them they basically think the victims deserved them and that the poor old US government had no choice but to impose them because of the wicked actions of the Chavist socialists. But they’re not thinking about the real country Venezuela and what has happened there, except insofar as the population are eating jackboot, which for Tories is something to celebrate, just as their scum-arsed Tory parents celebrated Pinochet “taking no nonsense from the left” in Chile in 1973. Any working class person or socialist’s cry of pain, whether because of torture, or hunger, or absence of health treatment, is music to Tory ears. The reason they are talking about Venezuela so much at the moment is because they feel “it” coming.
And the big question in any time of trouble is who does what to whom.
As Charlie Chaplin said: “Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot.” Politicians provide the tragedy, but it’s up to us individually to create the comedy. I won’t be voting on 12th December as I have some fun thing concerning Christmas to do with my children.
Very true but please get out and vote. It’s your children’s future.
The consensus after last night’s leaders’ question time seems to be that Jo Swinson was lucky she wasnt allowed on the ITV debate..The lib dems dodged a bullet by her not being seen by more people.
A review of the proceedings by the Guardian’s political correspondent. He agrees about Swinson.
BBC Question Time leaders special: who came out on top?
A hostile Sheffield audience greeted – and grilled – the Conservative, Labour, Lib Dem and SNP leaders. But how did they fare under the spotlight?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/nov/22/question-time-leaders-special-who-won-johnson-corbyn-swinson-sturgeon
Briefing for canvassers: Challenging false allegations of antisemitism.
Jewish voice for Labour.
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/statement/rebuttals/
“Challenging false allegations of antisemitism.”
False allegations of antisemitism?
Are these guys for real.
It has already been demonstrated, in the public sphere, that the idea that there are false allegations of antisemitism, is itself antisemitic.
I mean, people have been sacked and abused for simply saying that the problem is overblown.
You don’t get it do you.
Get what?
It’s ok they have a pass they ARE jewish – and THEY support Labour.
Still got a problem?
You don’t get a pass for being Jewish.
Obviously you haven’t heard of Norman Finkelstein, or the many many others who’ve been ostracised for questioning the program.
Best not to forget the activities of the spin doctors at work in CCHQ. Previously in the time of Cameron and May (remember them?) there was Lynton Crosby, CTF Partners, knighted by Cameron in 2016. He worked in other countries on election campaign and also helped Philip Morris to flog their cigarettes. Now it’s Isaac Levido, another Australian from Crosby’s stable.
Lynton Crosby protege positioned at heart of Tory election machine
Isaac Levido takes up role in central ‘pod of power’ at Tory HQ
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/oct/30/lynton-crosby-isaac-levido-protege-conservative-election-machine
A friend googled ‘Bob Gill + Selling the NHS’ and received a Tory ad.
The funding behind the parties, not forgetting Sir Mick Davis of the Fox/Werrity scandal (see Craig’s previous)
Conservative Party tops donations list
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47392658
The playing field is nothing like one at Eton. It is uneven and pitted.
Turn the sound aff oan the tele n’ let your eyes inform you. Minus the commentary by privately educated, Oxbridge graduated MSM commentariate.
Johnson only appears at closed doors, party photo ops..
Ditto Swinson, complete with that arms spread messiah stance that really ripps ma knitting.
Only Corbyn and Sturgeon are capable of working an actual crowd of regular punters.
@Mary – Do you reckon Isaac Levido “knows something” about the big cyberhack of various political parties in Australia that took place earlier this year, a few months before he engineered a “surprise election victory” for the government largely by using online methods in the last few days?
Bear in mind that in Britain the Labour party was cyberhacked very recently. This may shed light on why Levido was appointed over Eugenics Cummings’s head.
I’m not convinced Cummings does “know the North”. Sure, he’s from there, and he did well in the referendum on the regional assembly. But running a night club in Durham and successfully bringing in the students by selling psychotropic substances advertised as “quadruple slammers” and putting up signs saying “wipe your feet on the way out” does not require exactly the same skillset as political “persuasion”. Which is not to say that the skillsets don’t overlap. They overlap a lot. But they’re not identical. Levido I imagine will know more about cyberwarfare, and his knowledge in that area (see above) is current.
The “cyberhack” you talk of was a DDoS attack, which isn’t particularly sophisticated. The odds are that it was done by a computer geek on his own. A lot of IT consultants are self employed, therefore plenty of us have a grudge against the Labour Party.
Craig tweeted about the BBC Election Special. Says he was reminded of Ceausescu on his balcony when Boris appeared. 🙂
https://twitter.com/CraigMurrayOrg/status/1198033906647343104
Boris not only had a bad week but Labour had a fantastic week. The Labour manifesto has changed everything. Arguing that Corbyn is a vile antisemite when everybody can see he’s a harmless and well-meaning softy isn’t going to stop the swing to Labour.
I hope the SNP are watching this. The lesson is clear, be honest and true to your principles, forget polls and media opinion, argue your case and shape opinion instead of trying to respond to it all the time.
Before I saw the Labour manifesto I thought a hung parliament would be impossible. Today I think it’s the most likely outcome but I actually think Labour could come out of this with the most seats and wouldn’t rule out a majority. Momentum is with Labour and the SNP and momentum is massively important.
Britain has a left-right spectrum again, for the first time in decades. People are talking about public spending, investing in houses, welfare, and the NHS. The media and big business will hate that but it’s hard to put the genie of hope back in the bottle after it gets out. Brexit is a background issue.
In England Brexit is the only issue.
I’m afraid Corbyn and McDonnell’s pie in the sky baloney has not changed that.
Polling shows the NHS is the prime public concern in this election.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nhs-concerns-brexit-general-election-boris-johnson-corbyn-poll-a9211196.html
Of course that concern is heavily related to fear of a Trump/Big Pharma Brexit so you are not entirely wrong.
Forty years into neo-liberalism the present state of the NHS should be of some concern to the Tories, because even their own middle-class voters with a decent income must know that if we lose the NHS to the sharks circling it, any serious illness they or their kids may succumb to could cost them their house.
Ah yes the fabled NHS. An organization about which people believe so much and understand so little.
In 1972 the annual budget for the NHS was £25 billion (in 2018 money). In 2018 the annual budget for the NHS is £132.9 billion. This is something over a 600% funding increase in real terms and yet everyone believes in the mantra of cuts.
Surprisingly even an annual budget of £132.9 billion is not sufficient to move the NHS from the precipice of disaster. Both main political parties want to substantially increase funding for the NHS – Labour offering to be somewhat more generous than the Conservative Party.
Presumably if Labour wins the election and follows through on its NHS funding promises then by around 2023 the NHS will be a well oiled, fully functioning, world class health care provider – or will it be that the NHS will remain on the brink of collapse and that more scandals will be revealed regarding NHS treatment of patients. Oh how I wonder.
Still at least you do not need to sell your house to pay medical bills. No other country in the world has sought to replicate the NHS model – so presumably citizens all over Europe are being turfed out of their homes in order to meet their medical costs. Strange how that doesn’t seem to make headlines.
Loony: There is nothing “fabled” about the NHS.
And don’t presume to lecture us about it, when you’re coming from a country with THE most screwed up health system in the world – I’ve experienced it first hand, and obviously know vastly more about it that your Trump-loving self.
Glenn – You appear to be ideologically possessed.
Given that in real terms the NHS budget has increased from £25 billion in 1972 to £132.9 billion today then for what reason would it be expected that the NHS is in crisis.
Clearly the answer cannot be lack of money so there must be some other answer.
Loony: Is your view _really_ that simplistic?
You cannot imagine costs being increased by, say, a larger population. A population which has considerably extended lifespans. Vastly increased medical technology. Improved medical services generally. And of course, profitisation which takes huge parts of the NHS as “profit centres” to be handed off to profiteers. That’s just for starters, right off the top of my head, truncated to save time you do not deserve.
Of course not – your view is incredibly, mind-numbingly simple – increased cost, therefore there’s a huge problem and you cannot think beyond that.
I’d try reading up a bit, before doing your Huckabee-Sanders impression of condescension and derision while lecturing others on something you very demonstrably know nothing at all about.
OK Looney what do you suggest? The American model where you get great healthcare if you can afford it; that seems to be the way some people want us to go.
In 1972 US health spending was $435 billion in 2017 money, in 2017 it was $3,492 billion. An eightfold increase compared to the fivefold increase in the NHS budget. It’s not even as if Americans are reaping the benefits, life expectancy is two years lower than the UK and increasing numbers are being left out because they can’t afford it.
There are a number of reasons why healthcare costs have risen, ageing populations, advances in medical technology and new treatments which are effective but expensive.
This is not meant to be a reply to Brian c. I just wanted to get involved in the debate and support Loony’s statement with regards to the NHS expenses.
I am a builder and I have done work on several hospitals. Some were brand new, Derby city hospital as an example, and some have only been refurbished partly, St Thomas and Queen Mary’s in London. I can assure you that money spent on building work is included in the NHS budget and it is a massive theft of public money. Projects that would normally cost in the region of £200 000 and last for up to three months, average over ten times that price and sometimes last for years. New hospitals that would normally cost £50 – 100 millions go twice their budgets and what they cite as an excuse is non existing safety measures for God knows what.
Main contractors are usually the same two or three that get all of the Publicly funded contracts and I am sure they have their connections in the Government but I have no way of proving it. Money is greatly overspent with managerial staff on site outnumbering the actual builders by three to one on some projects. It is funny to see them so bored sometimes that they have to play computer games so time passes quicker.
Ivan: Nobody is denying that money is wasted in the NHS, nor that inefficiencies exist. Particularly when successive administrations – from Red Tory to Blue Tory – have used the NHS to funnel money to their mates in the financial sector, and the “investment” class generally.
But what “loony” is trying to push is the idea that we should not have an NHS at all.
Do you agree with that? Because that’s what the Trump apologist Yank Loony wants you to believe.
glenn_uk – NHS is a great privilege to have. Unfortunately the resources that are supposed to keep it strong are not going in the right direction. As a result people have to wait for months and even years to get the right treatment. I have personally suffered because of that and know many others who have had similar experiences.
I do agree however that serious and life threatening conditions are dealt with properly and with due care.
“Given that in real terms the NHS budget has increased from £25 billion in 1972 to £132.9 billion today then for what reason would it be expected that the NHS is in crisis.”
PFI
Ivan: Again, I do not disagree that resources are going in the wrong direction.
That wrong direction happens – happily, according to Tories – to benefit the speculator class. But again, the prescription “Loony” wants is to abandon the NHS, and go to some free-market paradise.
You agree with and support his points, but for entirely the wrong reason, with all due respect. Loony pretends the NHS is a “fable”. Do you get that? The very concept is a fable, as far as this Trump-loving stooge is concerned. I question your wisdom in offering this dog-eat-dog crony-capitalist corrupt apologist your support.
In the question time special, I’d be surprised if discussion on Brexit add d up to 10% of the total time available.
Rubbish, only the lazy brained old faries are regurgitating this falsehood. An ever increasing climate emergency is a far more important issue with the public than this right wing spectacle game to bust the EU.
“In England Brexit is the only issue.”
No it isn’t, even Brexit isn’t all about Brexit.
@Hatuey
“Today I think it’s the most likely outcome but I actually think Labour could come out of this with the most seats and wouldn’t rule out a majority.”
Interestingly the Tory party have brought their own manifesto launch forward. They were going to release only a fortnight before the vote. Now they’re bringing it out on Sunday.
On the scenario of Labour possibly getting most seats, and as you say, possibly even a majority, see my comment above, an attempt to look at it from the rulers’ point of view. I follow what Tories are saying in a number of places, and they are talking a lot about Venezuela. It’s as if every part of their disgusting excuses for “personalities” is becoming more intense: the hatred, the cruelty, the greed, AND the fear.
It could be that certain powerful interests that want a collapse and a megaheist and also war on the streets decide that, well, they can achieve their aims by means of a crashout Brexit but they can also achieve them (big surprise) by means of a Labour election victory and the very rapid consequences thereof.
I don’t think this is very likely, but it is possible.
The test for it would be a Zinoviev letter in reverse. If that happens, then this scenario starts to look likelier. The last ZL happened four days before the election. There is an awful lot about Boris Johnson that could come out. The way the Jennifer Arcuri card is being played is fascinating. (Ditto Prince Andrew.) Why is Arcuri even in Britain. Sorry, but “to speak with the DCMS” doesn’t cut the mustard. She’s paid. And she may well be Mossad.
Of course I welcome the Labour manifesto and the promise to tax the rich more, nationalise, redistribute wealth including to the poor and homeless, build council houses, crack down on the private schools (albeit they should have been much tougher), supply free broadband, introduce free bus travel for the under-25s, etc. etc. etc., but there is some kooky stuff in there too, such as avoiding the “destruction of the planet,” creating “a million climate jobs” (!), and giving us all a “pathway” to an “enlightened” future which presumably comes from Steinerite influence in the room, because people don’t talk like that by accident.
You’re missing it. You’re missing what’s happening on the ground. Forgive me, but we have experience of this stuff and I know what I’m seeing.
All of that stuff you’re talking about is more or less irrelevant. On the ground ordinary people don’t care about that. They’re contemplating their lives, their futures, and the future of their children.
Labour have tapped into something. The odd thing is it’s Corbyn’s flaws that are his biggest asset. It would have been easy for him to say he’d press the nuclear button, come down on one side or another on Brexit, to be more forthright on antisemitism, to come out with another middle of the road manifesto.
People trust that he isn’t just trying to say what they think or he thinks they want to hear. He’s unusually honest, to a fault, and he’s talking about what he thinks is best for them.
The Labour manifesto has changed everything. It reminds me of the independence referendum. Hope is a runway train. People are suckers for the truth. I’m sensing a massive swing and as you suggest the Tories are panicking. They’ll want to stop us talking about Labour’s domestic agenda now, they’ll try to close it down, but it’s too late.
Like this you mean ?
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EKDgbI0WoAE2myK.jpg
@ Craig
‘…You Gov’s verdict of a 51 to 49 victory for Johnson was very dubious indeed…’
Indeed. In the DM Comments, David from Ludlow writes: ‘…What a load of rubbish. Are the woke me too brigade calling out anyone for their pronunciation now? And as for the Yougov poll being truly representative, ITV’s Twitter poll of 300,000 declared Corbyn the winner over Johnson by 78-22% Yougov’s polls are usually of a couple of thousand, if that. This is pure propaganda….’
On name pronunciation, have a look at this:
“David Cameron mocks Nigel Farage over ‘poncey, foreign-sounding’ name”
“Speaking in the House of Commons, Cameron praised Labour MP Ben Bradshaw for referring to the Ukip leader’s name to rhyme with ‘Farridge’, rather than ‘Farrahge’. ‘I’m glad he takes the English pronunciation of Farage rather than the rather poncey foreign-sounding one that he seems to prefer,’ the prime minister said.”
It is idiotic to make this kind of joke about a person’s name – and illustrative of the deeply racist and thuggish Tory mentality. Some Tory scum insisted on referring to Michael Portillo as “Michael Por-TEEY-yo” because of his Spanish ancestry.
I have always had a similar issue with “garage”. As I was taught French at school (and my parents were both teachers of French and German) I naturally pronounced the word in the French way – “garaaj”. I soon found that most British people say “garridge”, and that it is often seen as a marker of class. Perhaps that is sometimes the case, but not always.
English is endlessly fascinating because of its many irregularities. No one would dream of talking about a “carriaaj” – it’s always “carridge”. Likewise “marriage”.
But surely everyone has the right to pronounce their own name in any way they like. It is then polite for others to fall in with their wishes.
As for David Cameron accusing someone else of being “poncey”…
As usual the BBC state broadcaster is up to their old trick in aid of the Tories.
This guys never off QT and he campaigns for the Tories in marginal seats.
https://mobile.twitter.com/MatesJacob/status/1198026647410229248
https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2018/08/ryan-jacobsz-to-win-the-next-election-the-conservatives-must-make-better-use-of-their-activists.html
As the people of Scotland know full well the games rigged, the decks stacled when it comes to the state broadcaster the BBC.
The BBC corruption is legion. Don’t pay their “licence fee”.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EKC6HOIWkAE1qJi.jpg
Does Mr Murray have any evidence that YouGuv are Tory stooges? It wouldn’t surprise me if it were true but of all the pollsters their polls seem to turn out more accurate forecasts that the others. They were the only pollsters who predicted a hung parliament before the 2017 election, the others all predicting a Tory majority.
Polls results can be used to try to influence undecided voters. But they need to have credibility to survive.
Craig Murray is an honest and talented journalist who I respect. But he does have his faults and I feel like he isn’t always stringent to the truth when it gets in the way of some of his more passionate hatreds i.e. the corrupt Tory party. It weakens his arguments.
Corbyn is more impressive in debate than Johnson because he has more depth. But he does not have credibility (nor do the Tories) on the economy – you can tell he doesn’t care and only plays lip service to the public debt.
Misrepresenting opinion polls has been a standard tactic in the LibDem/Liberal playbook for decades.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EJ7F5gvXsAAwfvx.jpg
Rather a surprising comment. It would be more correct to say that Tory poll owners have been misrepresenting public opinion for years (I don’t know where your ‘decades’ comes from). The YouGov misrepresentation of opinion on the Corbyn/Johnson debate was only the latest, most blatant, rigging of a poll.
I remember LIberals rigging polls 40 years ago.
I’d didn’t mean to imply that the Tories, their Friends and the MSM don’t indulge in such practices.
Really? Do you? I don’t remember anybody mentioning it at the time.
You Gov was co-founded by Nadhim Zahawi, Tory MP Stratford-upon-Avon, an Iraqi born oil millionaire, infamous for claiming for the cost of heating his horses’ stables on Parliamentary expenses. He was a PuS for Business in Johnson’s ‘government’.
Do keep up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nadhim_Zahawi
Thanks. Worth knowing & bearing in mind next time one of their polls is published.
And its President and former Chairman is Peter Kellner – a member of the Labour Party
And Kellner’s wife is Baroness Ashton, about as Blairite a politician as it’s possible to get.
Labour in name only.
Bear in mind the herding effect and also that there are polls the results of which are kept private, and I don’t just mean for the political parties but for where the real power is, which is in the financial entities including hedge funds in the City of London and elsewhere. Those entities don’t judge credibility by the garbage that’s printed in the newspapers for consumption by proletarians and chatterers, but by the quality of the advice that they buy and receive privately.
That said, it’s true that YouGov did well in the 2017 election. I particularly liked it that they released a spreadsheet of individual seat predictions including confidence intervals for each candidate. I hope they do it again.
YouGov haven’t started publishing spreadsheets with confidence intervals yet as they did in 2017 using their MRP (Multi-level Regression and Post-stratification) model. But Rupert Murdoch employee Tim Shipman at the Sunday Times reports this evening that an outfit called Datapraxis are predicting a Tory majority of 48 using YouGov data and a similar model. This is smaller than the 64 majority predicted by another Tory organ, the Torygraph, on the basis of their “poll of polls”. Like Hatuey I won’t be surprised if the Tories fail to win a majority.
Sky News have just carried Corbyn’s eloquent speech in an OB from Loughborough. It was full of content and information so unlike Johnson’s efforts. The state broadcaster did not carry it so no surprise there.
He spoke about Amazon where earlier, he had attended a GMB protest outside their premises in Sheffield about their disgusting employment practices and their tax avoidance by transferring their tax liabilities to other countries with lower tax regimes.
Also about Bezos, the Amazon co founder, not just a $billionaire but a multi $billionaire, the wealthiest person in the world according to Forbes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos
Amazon warehouse employees speak out about the ‘brutal’ reality of working during the holidays, when 60-hour weeks are mandatory and ambulance calls are common
Feb 19, 2019
https://www.businessinsider.com/amazon-employees-describe-peak-2019-2
For anyone wanting to see Corbyn’s Loughborough speech you can watch it by scrolling back on Sky News’ Youtube page here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Auq9mYxFEE
You can scroll back up to 12 hours so you have a little time to catch it.
Thanks. This is the Amazon Sheffield site as projected in 2018. 1000 workers. A 24 acre site. Horrific.
https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/exclusive-internet-giant-amazon-bring-1000-new-jobs-sheffield-440084
Boycott Amazon.
You’re welcome.
Nice pic here:
https://static.standard.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2019/11/23/12/Jeremycorbynsheffield21119a.jpg
“1000 workers. A 24 acre site. Horrific.”
What’s horrific, that 1000 poor sods are going to have to work for Amazon, or that it takes 24 acres to employ 1000 workers?
Ryan Jacobz: The Tory plant that BBC Question Time cannot get enough of.
https://dorseteye.com/ryan-jacobz-the-tory-plant-that-bbc-question-time-cannot-get-enough-of/
He is a Tory activist.
Ryan Jacobsz: To win the next election, the Conservatives must make better use of their activists.
https://www.conservativehome.com/platform/2018/08/ryan-jacobsz-to-win-the-next-election-the-conservatives-must-make-better-use-of-their-activists.html
As Laura would say:
He’s a Conservative activist.
Just sayin’
Time to set an Independent of Parties Panel and look into all forms of alleged racism in all parties and the media.
The paper that prints Johnson’s racist guff is just as guilty as he is of racism.
No race or religion should be held in higher regard than any other.
If I were Labour I would suggest that no matter who wins the GE.
Ken Kenn
False equivalence.
This was an election debate.
I know that as unlike the usual QT audience the vast majority ob observances and questions were pretty good.
Of course many of these people were activists of all stripes – that’s why the questions were good and I thought it
was interesting.
Swinson was buried – Corbyn did well and Sturgeon was sensible.
The interesting part was when Johnson walked off the set was that he did recieve decent applause form the Tories in the audience.
They were all very quiet in defending him when he came under attack and no-one of his own defended him or Swinson for that matter during the debate.
The phrase for these people is an old one; they are termed ” Shy Tories ” that is to say they vote Tory but are too ashamed to admit it even to pollsters.
My own view – for what it is worth, is that there is and has been for a very long time a big morass of Don’t Knows being distributed in polls and this varies between 30 – 35% of polling figures.
The tribes have basically been selected and it is these don’t knows that may hold the key to what happens.
It goes without saying that the SNP can gain off the Tories and hopefully Swinson.
Question is – how much is peak Tory and can Johnson garner a bigger percentage than May did last time( around 42%) and Can Corbyn’s Labour Party get close to their 40% figure last time?
At this point it is hard to say except Brexit is more pressing to members of the Brexit Tribe and one of its Chiefs has ran away.
It is notable that the Tories have brought forward their Manifesto to tomorrow.
Sundays are not usually days for releasing Manifestos as the newscoverage is lowish.
Perhaps they are up to something or they have nothing apart from the catchphrase ‘ Get Brexit Done ‘
Is Ryan Jacobsz “Rhodesian” or South African? His career as a “junior solicitor” doesn’t appear to have taken off. (Source.) Funny how he lists three different universities in South Africa and says he was studying for a bachelor’s degree in law at all three of them. I wonder why he left the first two. The “Peterhouse” he lists is not Cambridge University’s oldest college but a posh Anglican boarding school in
RhodesiaZimbabwe, a school that happens to be an “international member” of the HMC in Britain.Auld news for us sweaty Jocks. We have our very ain QT / Menthorn Media scandal in the shape of one Billy Mitchell. Billy is neck to neck with young Ryan when it comes to QT appearances.
Still, BBC Scotland’s high heedyin, Donalda MacKinnon says “nothing to see here, move along now”. Billy’s multiple appearances according to MacKinninon are pure coincidence, a statistical anomaly. This despite there being images of Mitchell in the Green room mixing with the panel.
For some reason, Nicola Sturgeon accepts MacKinnon’s shite excuses at face value (“sisters” that break through the glass ceiling are excused all sins).
…a member of Livingston Flute Band to boot! And wears a “distinctive” orange jacket.
So the Labour winning positioning on Brexit must be getting clearer now and should stop the various whiners here?
As some of us tried to explain months ago : the moment the LibDems/Funny Tingers/ABC’s put themselves into Remain/call of A50 end of the spectrum and the Tory/ERG/Hard BrexityLabour got the other end – that left Labour in the best position in the middle – that was when the ideocy of persuing the election on brexit do or die was doa for both extremes.
Now instead we get to talk about actual progresive policies for the first time since the 60’s and allowing the reaffirmation of the postwar socialdemocratic covenant between the state and all its people.
The dead cat Handy Andy diversion played out over the week is out of time.
Hell even the Groaniad can see that the game is up except for the fetid Freedland who keeps pushing his AS drivel. I suppose inCohenrant and Ridiculous Rawnsley will be baying some more. The rest of the aged and well past coterie Toynbee/Moore/Harris etc must be getting their emergency grab bag and multiple passports ready – the Groans readers comments are certainly leaving any of the stable in no doubt! It is hilarious and very heartening to see that when therr only afew of us in 2016/17 fighting the good fight there are scores more. The moderation strategy to silence our voices – has FAILED.
It has also no doubt led to massive loss of revenue from us.
If they want us back – they should restore all suspended accounts.
But that would mean clearing the 77th out of their offices and new editors and retirement or booting out of all mentioned above and their cohorts.
Then it may reinvent itself once again as a true social democratic news source for the connected english speaking peoples and spread the truth of real socialist democracy to them from the US to OZ.
Either that or they’ll double down and fuckoff behind a paywall to shut all the voices which refuse to buy their ‘liberal’ neolib con trick propoganda.
There is certainly a market for such a socialist uncontrolled daily newspaper and web site – which the Groan patently ain’t!
‘There is certainly a market for such a socialist uncontrolled daily newspaper and web site ‘
Give the trees a break
Hemp used to used until Hearst bought up all the trees
Labour are making fools of us with their indecision on Brexit, we had the referendum, more than three years ago and by more than a million votes to public voted to Leave.
We have had enough of the dithering, it must happen soon.
Even the Germans have had enough of the Brexit dithering.
https://www.dw.com/en/german-businesses-already-incurring-brexit-losses-says-industry-boss/a-50725851
German businesses have already been suffering from the negative effects of Brexit dithering, said Holger Bingmann, head of the foreign trade industry group BGA, pointing out losses to German exporters worth €3.5 billion this year.
“Labour are making fools of us”
I agree with that bit. Lol.
It must feel very uncomfortable carrying on pushing for the hard brexit.
P.S. any chance CM can give us a take on the impeachment heroine/harridan that everyone is gushing over?
You know how they HATE interference in elections by foreign state actors, like Pompeo promising aipac to put up a gauntlet to stop Corbyn? Ot asking foreign countries secret services to interfere in such elections, like the Steele dossier?
Surely an arrestable conspiracy?
You have Johnson’s assurances that there’s nothing to see in the report.
So – he’s seen it – there’s nothing to see – so your not seeing it.
See.
Has anyone got the balls of Assange and leak it?
Answer; No.
The night is young, Ken.
If you were Seumas and you had it, I’d hope you would consider timing and other factors with the aim of maximising impact on Commons seat allocation. We’re 19 days out.
else what are empires for?
As Robert Fisk neatly put it. International laws are not up for debate, they are there to be obeyed by us all.
Pompus’es latest muses about the changed status of wrstbank settlements os just another law breaking jibe of many.
Pompeo is an ignorant liar, end of.
Yes the Great Satan (USA) and Israel are indeed flouting International Law Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention to which both the US and Israel are signatories strictly prohibits any occupying power from transferring parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.
As does UN Security Council resolutions 446,452,465,471 and 2234.
My postal vote ballot arrived today. The misses and I are very happy to cast an early vote for Corbyn, in so doing we’re enthusiastically voting for Labour for the first time in many a long year, with an actual hope of getting a worthwhile result. Albeit a slim one – having a decent government led by someone with integrity is too much to hope for in this hopelessly corrupt and divided country.
Hi Glen
You may appreciate this guys comments Re the NHS –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYQkiXzelZ0&
Perhaps because this gentleman is from overseas his information is limited. For example he does not seem to make mention of the latest scandal with regard to maternity care in Shropshire.
Similarly he does not mention any of the hundreds of patients that needlessly died whilst receiving “care” in Portsmouth.
Apparently the NHS also employed a Dr. Ian Paterson who had a penchant for carrying out entirely purposeless mastectomies. This cost the NHS £18 million in direct compensation. Must be an amazing administrative system that allows this kind of practice to go undetected over many years.
Still maybe he is a one off case. But wait, what is this? Dr. Myles Bradbury currently incarcerated for sexually assaulting child cancer patients. An investigation concluded that the NHS missed vital clues as to his offending.
Who could forget Dr. Harold Shipman – one of the most prolific serial killers in recorded history.
It is possible to reference literally hundreds of cases concerning the type of “care” provided by the NHS.
But what does it matter – devotion to the NHS is entirely ideologically driven., and it is this ideological devotion that makes reform impossible. No matter what the budget the NHS will always be in crisis,
Meanwhile around the world the NHS acts as the shock troops for British neo-imperialism, as it rampages around the world stealing the human capital of the poor and impoverished . It then has the gall to claim its theft of human resources from the foreign man is in fact a sign of its virtue.
There can’t be many clearer signs of ideological possession than an obsessive effort to denigrate a faroff land’s healthcare service. Deeply bizarre but your moniker provides a heads up.
So what’s your point, Loony? That because there are lackings in a system as large and complex as the NHS, the whole thing is crap? You are beyond simplistic.
I bet there’s never been a negative health outcome in America, right?
I continue to wonder if yours is a parody account, or if you actually think you have a hope of convincing anyone of anything beyond how ridiculous your views happen to be.
Pretty much Glenn. The only “systems” comparable in size and complexity to the NHS are the Indian Railways and the Chinese Army.
Should you wish you can check out Indian railways for yourself. With regard to the Chinese army pretty much all potential adversaries see no problem in their being numerically inferior – they plan to win by leveraging their superior organizational and delivery capabilities.
Try reading The Collapse of Complex Societies – maybe then you will understand my point.
The only hope is to voluntarily unwind the complexity before something comes along and unwinds it all once. The NHS is too big and too cumbersome and needs to go. This is a completely consistent view with seeking to weaken the EU and supporting President Trump who is doing everything in his power to unwind the complexity of US involvement in the world.
Yeah sure, Loony. The NHS “needs to go”. I could sum up the response you will get from the British public, unanimous other than for some deluded speculators. It consists of two words, maybe three, which can be abbreviated as follows: GFY.
If there’s anything there you don’t understand, try hearing it again: GFY.
Get it now?
Hey @Loony – You write “The only ‘systems’ comparable in size and complexity to the NHS are the Indian Railways and the Chinese Army.”
What measures are you using? It sounds to me as though you’re just repeating. The US Department of Defence has more personnel than the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (which includes the Chinese navy and air force), the Indian railways, and the NHS. I’m asking what exact measures you’re using when you say that in two respects, namely “size” and “complexity”, the only “systems” (a word which you yourself put in inverted commas – why were you too lazy to choose a better one?) that are comparable to the NHS are the Indian railways and the Chinese army. Then you can use your measures and apply them to the US DoD, Walmarts (another larger employer than the NHS), various countries’ “personal number” databases, etc. etc., and you can show us that the numbers you get for all those other entities put them outside of the “big and complex” class that consists “only” of the NHS, the Indian railway system, and the Chinese army. Right?
Your “argument” will be dead by then. If it wasn’t, the next question would be what the hell is wrong with a state health system being large in size and complexity, and why would its being sold off to profiteers, to scum who would run ever damned aspect of it, every little thing, with a view to stuffing their pockets, be an improvement for the more than 60 million people who live in this country.
You know damned well it wouldn’t be an improvement.
Tory scum have always hated the NHS and in the 1940s their parliamentary wing voted more than 20 times against creating it. (If there any ultraleftists reading this who are considering abstaining in this election, please remember that fact.)
It’s instructive to ask why the Tory scum hate the NHS, because it may help some to reach a clearer view of the Tory party. The answer is that anything a proletarian gets or benefits from in this world except in return for skivvying for Tory scum such as themselves, or except if they acquire it from “enterprise” such as robbing their contemporaries and thereby keeping them in their place, they don’t deserve. I doubt you will find any other country in the world where politicians state that those who win gambling competitions who come from backgrounds in which they have received welfare benefits should have their winnings docked; who sneer at working class people for using “buy one, get one free” offers to stuff their faces and make themselves fat; who use a term like “poundshop” as an abusive adjective for anything they wish to say is rubbish and dirt.
Tories particularly feel that no working class person deserves any SECURITY in their lives. Let me simplify: if you’re working class, the Tory scum hate your guts, they hate your culture, they hate your family, they hate your pets, they hate the seats you sit on, the air you breathe, the transport you use, the clothes you wear, the Christmas decorations you put up, the visits you make to your mum and dad, your accent, they hate your body, they hate the expressions on your face, and they hate your children. Am I being clear here? They only want you to survive at their say-so, when you’re useful to them, and they don’t want you looking them in the eye and saying “Good morning”, because they don’t recognise you as a human being.
Tories walk past NHS hospitals and smoke comes out of their ears because of the fury they feel at working class people “getting something for nothing” and “acting as if they’ve got a right”. They think that’s SCROUNGING. Think of all that effort they themselves, Tory scum, had to do paying their accountants to arrange tax avoision schemes. And then you, you working class filth, think you can get medical surgery…FOR NOTHING! They think working class exploit THEM. Their god of gods is Thomas Malthus. They are too thick to understand the difference between objectivity and subjectivity, but they know that the Malthusian picture of the “natural” state of the poor is what they WANT to be the case. They want it to be the case that the “natural”, or in fact of course, the imposed, state of working class people is either languishing in chronical illness or at risk of becoming chronically ill and dropping down dead. They begrudge everything. They hate society. They hate humanity. Welcome to the Tory party.
Germany and France operate nationalised rail systems, don’t charge tuition fees, and don’t have such a sky-high average level of personal debt as prevails in Britain. But never mind that. “Get back to Venezuela” is the Tory response. “Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses?”
Meanwhile their filthy media scoffs at a woman such as Lily Allen, who cried when she read the Labour manifesto because at long last the Labour party has a kickarse manifesto again that, if implemented, would change this country for the better. They pointed out that she supports higher tax rates for “people like herself, who are worth £15 million”. Well yes, she does. That’s because she a decent and honourable person. Yes some of them can exist who are worth that kind of money. She is walking evidence of it. She’s not a hypocrite at all. She’s the opposite of hypocrite. But Tory scum only enjoy their money if they know other people don’t have it.
I think what Loony is saying is that we should decentralise the NHS to the point where the entire population of the UK is divided up into groups of no more that four where each group squats around a tree and chants , “Um diggy diggy diggy”. That will certainly be cost effective.
Splendid rant there N_. The mentality guiding our beloved system i.e. the mentality of that top 0.01% is not that they are the cream of humanity. It is that they are the ONLY humanity. Everyone else is subhuman scum. And nothing enrages those overlords more than the thought that that sea of underlings have rights, protections, security. HOW DARE THEY! And the resentment of our bold Übermenschen has been festering away for decades until now when they have come to take it all back. Because there was really no fun having wealth in all those decades without the spectacle of others suffering beneath.
Interesting rant N.
Why don’t you explain how closing down the network of cottage hospitals in the UK improved the lot of the population.
What exactly is it about large impersonal hospitals that people find so attractive compared to local personalized care?
Surely attending to such questions would be so much more rewarding than engaging in hate filled bile against an amorphous and undefined group of enemies.
What do you think happened to the land occupied by the now destroyed cottage hospitals. Do you think that the value of the land was leveraged and used for the public good? or do you think that the NHS gave all the value away to the spiv class.
Excellent, N. Best summation of the class system we’ve heard for a while.
Loony: Your silly little gambit has absolutely failed. If you don’t realise by now that you have nothing to gain by attacking the NHS, you’re even less clued up than I thought.
Worse than that – from your perspective – you’ve managed to unite everyone against you! Pretty much ever difference has been put aside from the posters here in agreement about how wrong you are. Yet you think some further condescending waffle about “cottage hospitals” might yet save the day.
Talk about hopelessly out of touch… why don’t you stick to something you actually know about? Not sure what that subject might be, but by a process of elimination, we’ll surely find out one day.
“Cottage hospitals”?“Um diggy diggy diggy”
Maybe one of us should lower himself to creating a list of abuses that have taken place in private hospitals and care homes. I’ll leave that sort of bottom-feeding to others, though; the logic of the argument doesn’t work for me.
Are we to dismiss all humanity because a few are given to darkness?
Of course abuse occurs everywhere – that is not the point.
The point is that the NHS is entirely ineffective at identifying the potential for abuse, it is entirely ineffective in putting a stop to actual abuse and its first instinct is to cover up any abuse that it accidentally stumbles upon.
There was another scandal some years back concerning appalling patient care. One of the examples quoted was that patients were so thirsty that they were reduced to drinking water from flower pots. The NHS responded by banning flowers. This kind of thing is exactly typical of large uncontrollable bureaucratic organizations.
Take a look at Jimmy Savile – he was big in both the BBC and the NHS. He didn’t seem to show up in ITV or BUPA. Ask why that might be. One answer is that ITV and BUPA have systems in place designed to keep people like that out, or to hold someone responsible for letting people like that in – and the BBC and the NHS have no such systems, probably because of budgetary constraints.
Savile was under contact to the BBC so wouldn’t have been allowed near ITV. He was only connected with a couple of NHS hospitals and the secure mental health facility at Broadmoor.
You take a handful of cases of malpractice, some dating back years, and try and make them sound typical of the NHS or that the NHS has no safeguards in place which is untrue.
In the US medical malpractice kills 250,000 per year and is the third leading cause of death. Doctors are only human and errors are always going to occur.
Kempe: You’ve spoken more sense and truth today than in your long history of posting here, going back 15 years or so that I know about.
Absolutely. Not only does American medical negligence run to 250,000 deaths a year, but the lack of ANY healthcare at all costs the lives or maybe 50,000 per year.
Medical costs are the major cause of bankruptcy in the US, and I lost count of the number of small towns where they have collection boxes trying to fund a vital operation for some unfortunate child in the locality.
The amount of paperwork which has to be filed for even the most minor procedure, and the wrangling with administration departments of clinics, health practitioners and insurance companies on each occasion has to be experienced to be believed.
The idea that we’re not screaming for the same over here might baffle the likes of Loony, but his stupid arguments that the NHS should be done away with altogether are going to go nowhere. His snide condescension notwithstanding.
“ITV and BUPA have systems in place designed to keep people like that out, or to hold someone responsible for letting people like that in”
Because a) their insurers make them, and b) reputational damage could hit them in the wallet; not for any other reason.
Your whole outlook, Loony, is that public service and caring for humanity is a load of crap because everyone’s only it for themselves.
There’s a degree of truth in what Loony says, I think, but that culture of serving and protecting the institution at all costs exists in the Church, the free market, and every other organisation too.
Look at the article Craig posted last week revealing that ABC News in the US spiked a story 3 years ago — had they broadcast that story, it may have saved kids from abuse. ABC is owned by Disney of all companies too.
I could go on and on. Look at the tobacco industry, hiding results that absolutely established a link between smoking and cancer decades ago. Look at the drugs companies hiding the side effects of medicines etc., in cases like Thalomid the impact on lives and society was profound and devastating.
And it’s the same in the military and every other sort of institution you care to mention. When people start sacrificing their principles and moral values at the altar of loyalty — whether that loyalty is to a hospital, a church, a political party, or anything else — it invariably ends in hypocrisy, abuse, cover-ups, and tears.
It’s for these reasons that I define myself as an anarchist and refuse to be a loyal servant of the SNP or anything other than my own principles and values. Think of that what you will. If I see abuse or see the SNP being hypocrites, you can count on me calling it out, something I do regularly on here, and that I would say is more a duty than a right.
Under the NHS there is at least accountability. Under a privatised care service, if one cowboy doc butchers you, everyone shrugs and says, “Well you’ll have to shop elsewhere”. And then another cowboy doc butchers you, and everyone shrugs again and says, “Well you’ll have to shop elsewhere” etc etc etc.
These aren’t a “handful of cases of malpractice” these are examples of a systemic failure.
Look at government policy with regard to smoking, and then look at government policy (via the NHS) into increasing the rates of addiction to anti depressants and opiods.
Ask why a few years ago the media hyped up some kind of porcine or avian flu and the NHS responded by purchasing 130 million flu vaccinations for a country with a population of only 65 million.
Why are you so obsessed with the US? The US has one of the worst health care systems in the world – but at least they are honest. No one doubts that if you have no money you get no treatment. No-one doubts that US health care expenditure is simply a way of funnelling money into drug companies, lawyers and insurance companies.
In the UK the NHS acts as a conduit to subsidize drug companies, construction companies and banks. Oddly the same people in love with the NHS are mostly the same people that rail against the financial system. Try to understand the NHS is an essential conduit for the transfer of money from poor to rich.
Elsewhere in the comments section someone has already laid out exactly how public money is converted into private profit by way of NHS capital expenditure. What is so hard to understand?
What right do you people have to steal the human resources of poor countries. Those with most alleged empathy for the plight of the poor foreign man are also those most determined to steal everything from the home of the poor foreign man.. Don’t you see that by holding such mutually exclusive views you drive yourselves toward insanity – where the NHS will be waiting to force feed you anti depressants. Oh say it aint so Joe.
“Try to understand the NHS is an essential conduit for the transfer of money from poor to rich.”
“Elsewhere in the comments section someone has already laid out exactly how public money is converted into private profit by way of NHS capital expenditure. What is so hard to understand?”
That’s like saying a wage-packet is only a way the boss can pay for one of the inputs he needs if he is to make a profit. And of course from the boss’s point of view that’s precisely what it is. But the boss’s point of view isn’t the only point of view.
Loony, you’re getting carried away with yourself. The nhs isn’t perfect. The context it operates in is one of endemic corruption, dominated by powerful drug companies, banks, politicians, etc., all of which have their own vested interests.
Weighed against the good it does and what it represents, none of that amounts to an argument for destroying the nhs. Even if you did, you’d replace it with something just as problematic that operated in the same undermining and corruptive context.
N_ @ November 23, 2019 at 22:10
A brilliant ripost!
I believe Loony is exactly one of those characters we all despise: rich, and him forgetting that ‘There but for the grace of God go I’.
A fully paid up member of the ‘I’m alright, Jack’ brigade. I wonder what his motives for commenting on here are?
I don’t despise him. And it would be pretty boring here if we were all crude Marxists.
The state of governance presently makes it the squeaky wheel in terms of emergencies and the priorities of such.
Climate can wait until we sort out newly hatched fascist strategies gumming up forward movement.
The guillotine might be necessary
a nice refresher is given here by The Canary, reminding us of interrelations between cambridge-analytica/SCL/twitter and the origin of probably half of the comments/nudges here on Craig’s website – and currently everywhere else in our media…
https://www.thecanary.co/exclusive/2019/11/17/a-secretive-propaganda-unit-is-manipulating-our-social-media-but-its-not-russian/
Richard “Paris Tunnel” Dearlove, the former head of MI6 who couldn’t even run a small group discussing intelligence matters at Cambridge University without throwing a tantrum because it got penetrated by Russian intelligence, is getting his oar stuck into this general election, using the Daily Heil. Will you be giving us a Zinoviev letter this time, Pont d’Alma Boy? “Jeremy Corbyn is a danger to national security who is unfit to become Prime Minister, warns former MI6 chief Sir Richard Dearlove”. How many non-disclosure agreements has Boris Johnson forced young women to sign again? Are you sure Russian intelligence hasn’t got copies of any of them? Or maybe you even sent some of them to Russian intelligence, Richard? Who knows, eh?
An observation from Australia.
The UK’s finances can not be bankrupted.
The British pound is a fiat currency which the UK Government has a monopoly.
It is not backed by a commodity. It is backed by law. No sovereign fiat currency issuing government can go broke, become bankrupt or run out of money.
https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/quarterly-bulletin/2014/q1/money-creation-in-the-modern-economy
Commercial banks can create money but only the government can issue it and regulate how much and for what reasons banks can create currency.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZbi4mMw8m4
PAUL GAMBLES on Fiat Economies
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RpyuqKLh6QU
Top 10 Things Stephanie Kelton Wants You to Know About the Economy
The “bankruptcy” alluded to is in fact systemic austerity reducing the amount of public monies spent on services like health, education and welfare, taking public money out of the system and pushing a reliance on private monetary creation from banks which has to be paid back to banks, and the delusion a government surplus is a good thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=287Cu5me0Og
Renegade Shorts – STEVE KEEN on Government Surplus
The “there is no magic money tree” that May dribbled on your TV screens last election is the big lie, comparing national accounts to a household/business budget, that allows this rubbish to be perpetuated.
I hope this helps many Britains make a more informed voting decision this election.
At 20% poverty levels, mostly comprised of working poor, decreasing levels of public services, you really need to make informed decision on who to vote for.
Many of your lives depend on this as well as who is psychopathic enough to push the nuclear button with out a second thought.
Mind you, here in Australia we are dealing with exactly the same issues, with the exception that here … and thank god this is the case … Scott Morrison does not have access to nuclear weapons.
If you could finance public spending by printing money then every central bank in the world would be doing it. All it leads to is hyperinflation as was demonstrated in Weimar Germany, or more recently Zimbabwe and Venezuela,
Who said anything about “printing”money? That’s an anachronism.
Every nation in the world nowadays uses fiat currency, none are on the Gold Standard. Fiat currency (vertical, or high-powered, currency) is created via computer keystrokes at each nation’s central bank – in the UK, the amount of physical notes and coins is miniscule in comparison to govt created currency, at less than 3%.
The limit to how much currency the UK govt can spend is defined by the capacity of the *real* economy (labour, materials, energy, land, etc) to absorb the spending without overheating it when demand exceeds supply. As monopoly supplier of sterling, it does not need to seek recourse to “borrowing” previously created pounds, neither is it limited in spending by how many pounds it has previously withdrawn from the economy by taxation, because until currency is spend into the economy, there wouldn’t be sufficient money in circulation to pay tax with!
Thatcher was lying when she compared the nation to a household; nothing could be further from the truth. There is no scarcity of currency for the UK Govt – it owns its own central bank, and creates currency every day of the week, simply by spending it into the economy at the stroke of a computer key, adding reserves to the BoE reserve accounts of the banks of the initial recipients of public spending.
It doesn’t need receipts from taxpayers before it can spend; those get hoovered up *after* the currency is spent into existence – tax is money withdrawn from circulation, and effectively destroyed, via an opposite reserve drain operation at the BoE, which prevents the massive inflation that would otherwise occur if currency was not taxed away at each transaction, as it moves around the economy.
Did you get an extraordinary tax demand before Brown’s govt bailed out the banks for £800bn, or bought £435bn worth of Gilts in QE? No, of course not, because that’s not how it works. Spending comes first, taxation comes afterwards.
A future Labour Govt wishing to greatly expand public spending will spend the money first, in the normal way, and tax it away later. The amount of taxation returned to the Exchequer (to be destroyed) will most likely exceed current receipts, but only because transactions flowing through the economy will be larger and more frequent. This is the the equivalent of having a much larger tax bill as a result of a huge payrise, or a promotion at work. What’s not to like about that?
It’s the duty of any responsible government to maximise the capacity of the economy to absorb as much public spending as possible, for the well being of the greatest number of people in the country – which is why austerity is so damaging, vandalistic.. and utterly unneccesary.
#LearnMMT
“Printing money” is a metaphor for increasing the money supply, as you know full well.
And what you’re describing sounds remarkably like a pyramid scheme
The thing that Weimar, Zimbabwe, and Venezuala have in common is that they each lost the productive capacity in their economies to a catastrophic extent.
German loss of the Ruhr to France, the willful destruction of Zimbabwe’s farming sector, and the technical neglect due largely to US sanctions that hindered Venezuala’s petrochemical industry, were the causal factors leading to those countries’ hyperinflation.
Thanks to Tory austerity, the UK has certainly suffered from underinvestment- but its circumstances are incomparable to the productive devastation in those other nations, and it’s highly disingenuous and misleading to think that they have any relevance at all to the UK economy.
The mythical sanctions again. Until mid 2017 there were no US sanctions on Venezuela at all
https://www.adamsmith.org/blog/venezuela-campaign-sanctions
You don’t think attempts to destabilise and overthrow the governments of Venezuela are at all significant? Fascinating.
I hear you are running out of water in Australia and it is impacting on your agricultural sector, i.e farm,ers are culling their life stock and diminishing any future breeding regime.
How much is water worth in Australia now?