Last night the BBC was reporting on the Conservative manifesto. This is a document whose most striking pledge is to fill in some of the potholes in roads that have proliferated due to massive cuts in local authority funding, and to give free hospital car parking to those visiting a terminally ill relative. Just think of the last one. How do you prove your relative is terminally ill? What if there is a chance they might get better? The administration of this system is going to require people to have some form of certificate or token that all hope is now lost. For the car park. The Tories are all heart.
As the News continued, Laura Kuenssberg told us that the battle lines between the parties are now clearly drawn, and the major division is over how much the government “should interfere in the economy”.
Interfere. Not intervene. Not regulate. Interfere. It is a very deliberate choice of word. Let me turn to the Oxford English Dictionary:
Interfere
1) Prevent from continuing or being carried out properly
2) Handle or adjust without permission
3) Become involved in something without being asked
4) Sexually molest
Words matter. Kuenssberg chose a word with powerful negative connotations and no possible positive meaning, to describe the alternative to the Tories. Kuenssberg talking of government interfering in, rather than intervening in, the economy is in itself a very strong and explicit declaration of Kuenssberg’s belief in an Ayn Rand, “Britannia unchained”, free market, ultra neo-liberal world view. To explicitly frame the choice in the election as between the Tories and “interfering” is just another example of the way the BBC slants their election coverage, permanently.
Now I started to draft an article three days ago, before that particular Kuenssberg propaganda masterclass.
Here is what I wrote as a draft three days ago:
“Maybe I am just unlucky. I have had television news bulletins transport me to hear vox-pops featuring former Labour voters in Dudley who now want to vote Conservative to GET BREXIT DONE. I have seen vox pops in fishing wharves in Peterhead and Grimsby, in dismal cafes in Hartlepool, in bingo halls in Yarmouth, in pubs back in Dudley, on high streets in Wakefield, in a shopping mall in Thurrock, in hardware stores back in bloody Dudley again. The country is full of people who want to GET BREXIT DONE, and who will NEVER VOTE LABOUR AGAIN.
The strange thing is that I have not seen a single vox pop from Richmond, featuring an educated woman who is switching from a lifetime of Tory voting because they have become a far right party and are going to crash the economy with hard Brexit. But there are many people like that in Richmond, and indeed all over London, and throughout much of southern England. They exist but are not worth vox-popping, apparently. Because they are not the broadcasters’ chosen “narrative”.
The BBC, ITN and Sky will doubtless defend the very obviously targeted demographic and destination of their “vox-pops” on the grounds that this is the “narrative” of the election. But that is a self-reinforcing prophecy. The public are relentlessly being told that what ordinary people want is to “GET BREXIT DONE” and to vote Tory. But that is actually only what about 40% of the people want. We just aren’t being shown the other 60% as the broadcasters focus relentlessly on areas with the highest leave vote, and on vox pop subjects with the least possible education.”
While that passage was atill on the stocks, last night, alongside the Kuenssberg analysis, the BBC gave us a vox pop from the Rother Valley that fitted perfectly the above description. It came from a Yorkshire Labour seat that voted Leave. It featured Labour voters who will now vote Conservative. The ladies interviewed were perfectly primed with precisely the main Tory slogans. A lady told us she wanted Boris so we could “get Brexit done and get on with domestic reforms”. Another ex-Labour voter told us she would vote for Boris because “he may not be trustworthy, but I like him”. Trust and likeability are two factors the pollsters regularly measure. It is important for the Tories that voters prioritise likeability over trust, because Johnson’s Trust numbers are appalling. How fortunate that the BBC happened to find a little old lady in the Rother Valley who could express this so succinctly!
Or maybe it is not so surprising. With the mainstream media as such a reliable echo chamber of public slogans, perhaps it is not surprising to find the public just echo them too, as they do in North Korea. The state media in the UK is of course not the only propaganda outlet. Billionaires control 87% of print news media by circulation, and are aggressively Tory for obvious reasons of self-interest.
This leads to the incredible circularity of the “Newspaper Reviews” that take up such a high proportion of broadcast news output. The broadcasters “review” the overwhelmingly right wing print media. And who do they invite to do the reviewing? Why the billionaire employed journalists of the overwhelmingly right wing print media, of course! So we have the surreal experience of watching journalists from the Times and the Spectator telling us how great an article in the Daily Mail is, about how Corbyn is a Russian spy and Scotland not really a country at all.
If that was not bad enough, we then get deluged by “commentators” from “think tanks” which are again billionaire funded, like the Institute of Economic Affairs and scores of others, sometimes with money thrown in from the security services, like the Quilliam Foundation and scores of others. It is a never-ending closed circular loop of propaganda.
The truth is that it largely works. Social media is overwhelmingly sceptical of the government narrative, but we still live in a society where the power of mass broadcasting and even print retains a remarkable amount of influence, particularly on the old and the poorly educated. It is no coincidence that it is precisely the old and the poorly educated that are the targets of Cummings’ “Brexit election” strategy. If it comes off, Kuenssberg and her fellow hacks will have proven that the power of the mainstream media is as yet unbroken.
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“9Meddling in elections
The Israeli government itself has a growing interest in using these spying technologies in the US and Europe, as its occupation has become the focus of controversy and scrutiny in mainstream political discourse.
In the UK, the shift in the political climate has been highlighted by the election of Jeremy Corbyn, a long-time Palestinian rights activist, to head the opposition Labour Party.”
From Jonathan Cook.
Explains a lot. And we are still talking about Russian meddling.
Corbyn’s Breton cap, photoshopped to look Russian.
A plant called Ryan Jacobz repeatedly on QT, wheeled out again for leaders debate.
Johnson’s disaster at the cenotaph covered up using archive footage.
The lies and smears in the hatchet job Panorama piece.
Some of the Tory plants on BBC Question Time revealed;
https://dorseteye.com/some-of-the-tory-plants-on-bbc-question-time-revealed/
LISTEN: BBC HOST LETS TORY MP’S BLATANT LIES ABOUT JEREMY CORBYN GO COMPLETELY UNCHALLENGED
https://evolvepolitics.com/listen-bbc-host-lets-tory-mps-blatant-lies-about-jeremy-corbyn-go-completely-unchallenged-audio/
BBC Trust says Laura Kuenssberg report on Corbyn was inaccurate
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jan/18/bbc-trust-says-laura-kuenssberg-report-on-jeremy-corbyn-was-inaccurate-labour
Are these all “mistakes”?
There are others too.
The BBC is just the propaganda arm of the Tories.
And why do their retractions and apologies feature on the arts section of their website? And not on the news section. The equivalent of burying a retraction on page 17 to a story that appeared on a papers front page.
I’m married to a Jewish woman. She founded a synagogue in her Los Angeles neighbourhood, because there wasn’t one there when she arrived. She raised her kids (now my stepkids) Jewish, they have Hebrew names.
Faute de mieux, she married me (there were no cute Jewish boys available, she freely admitted that she’d checked extensively before dating me).
And she hates what’s happening in Palestine.
So I have a very actively Jewish wife who is by the current media definition anti-semitic?
I’d love to see Andrew Neil interview her.
OK, Vronsky……are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Labour Party…_
Vronsky, I expect your wife would be called a ‘self-hating Jew’ by zionists.
There are also lots of self-hating white Westerners today. They think they are responsible for the misdeeds of their birth nation’s misdeeds in the (far) past. The are oblivious to the fact that most brown, yellow or black peoples also have a very checkered past: just look at imperialistic an genocidal Islam or Imperial Japan. A post-modern meme, defect but encouraged by some manipulators.
There are lots of Jewish people who do not support what Ephraim Mirvis is accusing the Labour Party of. There was a Facebook group called:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/903669616335883/
but this has been archived due to sensitive issues of late.
the strongest comment came from the Concentration camp survivor, Mirviz is a bought soul.
Thinking about the recent denunciations of Corbyn, I wondered: if the country elected him anyway like Allende, could there be a military coup by a British Pinochet? Could Sinclair Lewis’ novel It can’t happen here, happen here?
OTOH perhaps the LibDems and other parties will as a collective do well and become kingmakers, more benevolent ones than the DUP were. 🙂
I was rather surprised by by your comparison to Sinclair Lewis’ novel “It can’t happen here”. In that, the central motif is the election of a populist (President Windrip), who is unable to keep his extravagant promises, and thus leads to a coup. The equivalents of Windrip today are Trump and Johnson, and a Windripian suppression of democratic rights is certainly coming. Whether all will end in a coup and civil war is difficult to say – we’re not that far along.
I was thinking about the dictatorship more than the counter-revolution and civil war. The ending is a bit open-ended, which in that sense reminds me of the ending of Colson Whitehead’s Underground Railroad, which I won’t spoil by giving away details.
BTW If anyone wants to see part of the actual Underground Railroad (perhaps after Trump is no longer in the White House), pay a visit to the African Baptist Church in Savannah, Georgia and ask about the diamond-shaped pattern of holes in tne floor (this is not in Whitehead’s novel, so not a spoiler). Ostensibly resembling a diamond that slaves from Africa who were christians would draw on the ground to mark positions of prayer, but in reality be letting light, air and sound to escapees below.
MJ, that is fascinating. Last spring I attended a very lively service in that church, the oldest black one in America. (The pastor spent his sermon excoriating billionaires and what he called the ‘craven black misleadership class, ‘ to uproarious feedback!) I’d heard the church had harboured runaways before the civil war but knew nothing of the significance of the pattern on the floor. Much the most beguiling city in America in my opinion.
M.J. Could it happen here? Well, maybe. Former Labour M.P. Chris Mullin has written a novel on that theme: ‘A very British coup’.
In 1983 the Sunday Times just before the election was pushing the idea that officers in the armed forces might not accept a Labour victory. Labour had promised in their manifesto to cancel Trident.
Had the 2019 Labour manifesto stated clearly “We shall (…) withdraw charitable status from private schools” as the 1983 one did, I would be a party member by now. Seriously, how could such a policy not be a votewinner? Do people think that when the spotlight is shone on Eton and Winchester those institutions can successfully defend even their existence, let alone all the help they get from the state?
Thanks for this info, I’ve just ordreed a copy – and of a DVD of a film basewd on it, which is also available!
‘A very British coup’ The old TV version 1988 wasn’t actually about a coup, but an attempted coup against a left-wing Labour govt which the clever PM Harry Perkins is able to avert. Four episodes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ACg6IuFfMJE for the first, and the others follow.
The new version “Secret State” 2012 seemed very different, not the same story at all. Starts at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aeZT6IXCUg.
“The old TV version 1988 wasn’t actually about a coup, but an attempted coup…”
Er, I don’t think so!
From memory (it was a long time ago):
[SPOILER ALERT]
The helicopters at the end of the last episode were the clue that the establishment had had enough of PM Harry Perkins, and that the impending coup was about to begin…..
[/SPOILER ALERT]
The one and only benefit to a Johnson victory is that it could spare us this outcome…
Blocked in the UK.
Use a VPN.
All necessary stops will be pulled out to prevent a majority government being elected on a manifesto which promises to
* stop the sale of British weapons to Israel that are used “in violation of the human rights of Palestinian civilians”
* “recognise the state of Palestine” immediately
* remove legal protection for Israeli war criminals responsible for “breaches of human rights and international law” such as “the illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip”
– see pages 98-99 of the Labour manifesto.
There could be an Anders Breivik or Bataclan style event before the election. The youth organisation of the Norwegian Labour party had backed divestment of the country’s enormous sovereign wealth fund from Israel before they got massacred. Earlier this month, MI5 lowered the terror threat level in Britain to its lowest for five years. The minister responsible for MI5 is Priti Patel, who was appointed by Boris Johnson after being sacked from the cabinet for engaging in secret talks with Israeli officials in Israel behind the backs of the Foreign Office, including about funnelling British government money to the Israeli army. (Imagine if that had been Russia.) Patel is now cooperating with the vigilante organisation the “Community Security Trust”, just as Theresa May did as Home Secretary before her.
It is unlikely there would be an actual Latin American style coup in Europe. But given that the UK intelligence services seem to have behaved very oddly indeed in relation to the Novichok/Skripal affair and given that these same shadowy people would see Corbyn as an existential threat to their livelihoods, money supply and “new cold war” ideology, I would not put it past certain secretive organisations to stage some sort of crisis to give Johnson a boost shortly before the election.
And not just some elements of MI5/MI6 would see Corbyn as a threat, it is easy to see how certain foreign powers would be very worried about a Corbyn government too.
Well.
I heard Victoria Derbyshire use a strange phrase today.
” An election that might happen ……………”
In such nervous and agitated times it could have been a slip of the tongue but conspiracy theorists may interpret that word ” might ”
differently.
A very strange thing to say though.
When Corbyn was nominated as a candidate for the leadership, The Guardian quoted ‘a senior military officer’ as saying that, if Corbyn ever became Prime Minister, he would be removed from office by a military coup. This evidence of conspiracy to commit treason passed entirely without comment. Corbyn should demand an assurance from the Joint Chiefs of Staff that they will not do this to him. Of course, it would be a worthless commitment, but it would be fascinating to see them squirm and bluster to avoid making it.
It would be fun, Peter, but i can imagine it would ultimately lead to bad publicity for Labour and Corbyn.
“Jeremy Corbyn’s 40 year battle to uphold the rights and dignity of Jewish people”
(1.05 min video)
https://mobile.twitter.com/ToryFibs/status/1199087129214607360
Corbyn is not just a Russian spy he’s anti-S*mitic too.
https://johnplatinumgoss.wordpress.com/2019/11/26/the-judaic-hierarchys-big-fear-as-in-the-days-of-jesus/
John it doesn’t really help if you start bandying around slogans like “the Judaic hierarchy”, suggesting that the jewish people are collectively guilty of killing Jesus, and apparently comparing Corbyn to the Messiah.
I do not think Corbyn is antisemitic. But rhetoric like this really doesn’t help Corbyn’s supporters.
If the Chief Rabbi is not the Judaic hierarchy I don’t know who is. And your comment is out of order because I nowhere accuse the Jewish people as being collectively guilty of anything. If you read my piece it is about the media being manipulated by the Zionist lobby to present inaccurate slurs on a good leader and his party.
This former Jewish businessman has written to Ephraim Mirvis explaining, and explaining very well, why he and many others are opposed to his statement. He does not expect a reply.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/Corbyn50yrsPlusSupporters/permalink/2014705905342789/
On the occasions I have written to Justin Welby I only once got a reply and that was from someone else. It regarded the extradition and solitary confinement of Talha Ahsan.
Hi John. What I meant was that when tensions run high and people are polarised then it is very important to be careful with language and imagery. For example you wrote “Hopefully today they will not be as severe in their punishment of an innocent man and his followers as they were then!” This could easily be construed as implying that the Jews are together guilty of killing Jesus, if someone wanted to read it in that way, and this is an ancient theme that offends many people, and has been used historically to justify serious persecution of Jewish people. I suppose you didn’t intend this but I wanted to point it out.
Two people you will never see on the MSM counteracting the anti semitism narrative are Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein.
Instead tou get talking heads who strike me as commentators who pretend to know about Jewish history but know very little.
I know a little and would like to know more, but not from the Sun on Sunday and other opiners on the subject.
Perhaps The Chief Rabbi would like to debate Norman Finkelstein?
He wouldn’t because Norman would expose him and his reasons for saying what he says.
The number of journalists, intellectuals and others blacklisted by the BBC and the rest of the British media is big (and of course includes our own distinguished host!), but most of the general public doesn’t know about it.
And more than that NP one of the best journalists in the world is wasting away in Belmarsh prison a sick man. I can remember the day when we would all have been fighting against this injustice.
Having been opposed to EEC/EU membership since 1972 for constitutional and democratic reasons, I have to give something of a hollow laugh to these complaints about the BBC. If they are correct, they are what we had for over forty years and we collected statistically analysed examples of pro EU bias for decades. Join the club – for a change! I doubt whether it will last long before they revert to type and they will try to put us back in our box.
I think that dealing with potholes is probably an improvement on John Major’s “ Cones Hotline”!
Having experienced joining the EEC as a director of an animal feed mill, I knew just how deep the European Project went into our guts – but we were properly briefed and prepared to earn our living under the new dispensation – something sadly incomplete today. I even got to know the senior responsible civil servant, Sir Emrys Jones. He resigned as soon as his task was complete and people were surprised to learn that he had been totally opposed to the Common Agricultural Policy – confirming my suspicions about the nature of the whole project.
You know we were trying to join the Six simce the end of 50’s then, yeah?
@Edward – How does US influence feature in your analysis? The US government is all over Whitehall and has been for decades.
I suspect the General Eisenhower administration wasn’t keen on the 1956 plan for Britain and France to unite in a single country, a plan that would have meant no creation of the EEC the following year.
I would love it if someone were to come up with an analysis that there are senior figures in the civil service and maybe elsewhere in the “Establishment” who are conspiring to keep Britain in the EU. I don’t think that’s actually true but I would love the theory to get a good shout.
In my particular interest of agricultural policy, I know that the US is pressing very hard for free access to the British market. On “ information received” which I believe on the balance of probabilities, financial support from US agricultural interests has been extended to sympathetic Eurosceptic campaign groups who believe that cheap food will be popular. But the long term costs will be considerable. There may be considerable problems as British farms are generally on a higher level in things like animal welfare, restriction of feed additives etc than in the US. That means higher costs but has general public support, I think.
Under our pre EEC system, food imports were admitted without customs duty
but our home farm production was supported by a system called “ deficiency payments” under annual parliamentary review. But “ WTO rules”, on which hard brexiteers place great reliance, would not permit that today.
I think the Americans will press their interests in all industries very hard. The less successful HMG’s negotiations for continued access to the EU market,
the greater will be the incentive to accede to US pressure – whilst dressing it up as a triumph.
Edward,
“I think the Americans will press their interests in all industries very hard…”
I agree with your analysis. But I would go a step further in my view of the UK/US relationship. As we know there is no ‘special relationship’ that UK and US politicians like us to believe exists. The Americans are only concerned about their own interests. If they don’t get their way in trade deals with the UK they will undoubtedly resort to economic blackmail through threats to restrict, or even stop, trade in other markets. It is inevitable. And inevitably the UK authorities will concede behind closed doors whilst concocting positive spins to feed to the public.
This may seem a silly question. But as someone on the other side of the North Sea, I don’t quite understand exactly what kind of “anti-Semitism” Corbyn and the Labour Party is accused of. Corbyn strikes me as a very unlikely anti-Semite. I am sure there are few very biased people in the Labour Party as there are in all parties, but I don’t see any anti-Semitic policies coming from the Labour Party as a whole.
What is it actually all about?
Is it about recognising the plight of the Palestinians? Does that make them “anti-Semitic”? If so, what about the peace movement in Israel? Are they anti-Semitic too?
Or have I missed something important?
In a nutshell yes – and it is to stop a government taking over at the cenyre if their empire that threatens to undo their Power and Wealth in the hands of a very few aristo type families.
You first need some background.
Corbyn’s own party tried to remove him in 2016 – much like Sanders he’s popular with the activist base but the party’s establishment hate him. He has a tiny support base within the parliamentary Labour party and most Labour MPs have never reconciled themselves to his initial victory in September 2015.
The party’s establishment had convinced themselves an election would see him crushingly defeated and having to resign. But the electorate had other ideas and his leftish programme manifesto proved popular and Labour did 10% better than last time gaining 40% of the vote. They couldn’t attack his policies so they switched to this antisemitism smear. Jewish Labour MPs made claims (even though the abuse they mentioned was from the far right) to further this press developed narrative of widespread antisemitism under Corbyn.
There is very little actual evidence or proof, but like all good smears: it’s easy to assert , difficult to disprove- Craig knows all about that from his career and dealings with the political establishment.
It’s a strange smear because it is very vague and insubstantial. And unless they can prove that Corbyn secretly collects German WWII memorabilia it is unlikely to stick. Would average voters finding it increasingly difficult to just have a vie normale (“normal life”) even relate to these allegations much? It would hardly be at the top of their list of worries.
Perhaps it is more about the accusers than the accused?
I think ordinary non-Labour voters like it, because they can feel good about themselves for not being antisemitic. They may be anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, racist and homophobic, but at least they’re not antisemitic.
The purpose is to create a stench around the leadership, a whiff of scandal and in that, it constantly coming back into the headlines, does matter whether true or not.
It’s positively Goebellian : if you repeat something often enough, people will slowly start to believe it’s true.
it’s just nonsense. It’s a political smear tactic/campaign designed to discredit Corbyn and the Labour party (for now, though it is used elsewhere) because they are so scared of him putting an end to the corruption.
By accusing him or the party as antisemitic, it would be tactically incorrect to point it out as nonsense publicly because to do so would be to deny antisemitism exists at all and you would be accused of actively allowing it to run rife. At least that’s how it would be spun. It’s equally difficult to stand up for anyone tenuously accused of antisemitism, because to do so would be spun as supporting antisemites.
Actually it is the Tories’ and Blairites’ who are using this tactic, backed up by the corrupt and self servers with their own agendas. Mostly fear of Corbyn ruining their racket. The idea that Corbyn is anti the rich because he stands up wealth being shared was originally used to make him out to be an antisemite. What’s hilarious is that by saying anti-rich = antisemite, that is itself actually antisemitic because it’s the accuser who is saying it’s the Jews who have all the money. Also, by hyping up this nonsense so much and using the Jewish people as their cannon fodder, the Tory scum et al have actually made antisemitism far worse than it was before. Now anti Zionism = antisemitic, standing up for Palestinians = antisemtic, Rick Stein pronounces his own name in an antisemitic fashion, calling Alan Sugar or Rachel Riley tosspots = antisemitic.
too many apostrophes, too tired, too stupid.
Good analysis otherwise!
But I also blame labour(I am a staunch supporter) for the way the accusations are handled defensively and also continuing the myth that it is a major problem which it isn’t. For example one presenter on one of the channels repeated the lie that Tuth Smeerh was hounded out by anti Semitic heckling by Wandsworth. In fact he was suspended and later lost his membership purely for bringing the party to disrepute. The heckling was because she had been collaborating with the Telegraph to undermine the leadership not because she was Jewish.
Anothe example was another presenter who tut tutted that only 12 individuals have so far been suspended for AS but instead of the answer being that that is because the numbers are small, the defender said that yes the process has been slow.
Being honest didn’t help Williamson, though. You have to be careful how you say anything.
I’ve been contemplating the possible fate of Jeremy Corbyn should he overcome all obstacles and actually become prime minister.
The last British prime minister to be assassinated in office was Spencer Perceval in 1812, whereas 4 US presidents have been killed, 2 injured, and at least 25 other attempts. It occurred to me that those statistics indicate that the USA has a healthier democracy than the UK, in that Americans are able to occasionally elect a leader who isn’t a puppet of the deep state, necessitating removal by other means, whereas Britain’s ‘democracy’ is under much tighter control.
How many US presidential candidates or aspirant candidates have been assassinated? The only ones I know of are Huey Long and Robert Kennedy.
You miss my point. The puppet masters use democracy to weed out undesirable aspirant candidates before they attain enough power to rock the boat. The UK’s puppet masters are so good at it that it’s been two hundred years since they needed to assassinate a PM. US puppet masters haven’t got their electorate so well trained.
I am making a serious point. Americans are not so easily led by the nose as Brits. Trump is a case in point.
They are normally weeded out early… true. Hence very few young, articulate Bernie Sanders types are emerging in the US, there is ‘The Squad’ and they are being put hounded – under enormous scrutiny. The younger candidates tend to be well-groomed corporate puppets like Pete Buttigieg and here in the UK, Chuka Umunna.
Joe Biden’s slurred speech and bizarre ‘ keep punching at it x3’ domestic violence gaffe in the debate have sent panic through the DNC, with billionaire Bloomberg entering the race ‘ to get the voice of the richest heard’ ? As if Warren and Sanders can’t represent the party. I know some have doubts about Warren, but realistically she’s the best of the rest after Sanders with Tulsi Gabbard having no chance to win.
On-topic: will YouGov be releasing MRP predictions for each constituency this time?
Access at https://yougov.co.uk/uk-general-election-2019 is currently password-only. I have it in my head that in 2017 they said their reason for publishing MRP predictions was that they were out on a limb compared to other pollsters and they wanted to reveal more about how they reached their headline figures. But I may be misremembering. MRP figures are likely to take them out on the same limb again this time, but that doesn’t mean they’ll publish again.
The ‘clever’ thing about the use of anti-semitism rhetoric to smear Corbyn, is that if one robustly defends oneself against the charge; that too is easily twisted and becomes yet another example of ‘anti-semitic’ thinking and attitudes! For example, that the Chief Rabbi is a Tory supporter and cynically abusing his position to smear Corbyn because of Corbyn’s ‘radical’ domestic policies and his vocal support for the rights of the Palestinians bent low under the heavy yoke of state oppression inside Greater Israel.
Owen Jones, the busy media ‘headboy’ of the sensible left, and of course a writer for the Guardian; is against ‘attacking’ the Chief Rabbi, ‘attacking’ here, means criticising his motives and his ‘weaponisation’ of anti-semitism for purely partisan political purposes. The Rabbi is according to Jones above such things and above criticism. Jones knows instinctively which side his career is buttered on. Instead one should do everything to reassure the Chief Rabbi, like uncritically accepting every outrageous premise, without a shred of concrete evidence.
Jess Philipps, that paragon of all the acceptable ‘feminist’ virtues, also supports the Chief Rabbi and wants Labour to make amends for its’ collective sins and placate Tory Jews, which seems like accepting the idea of a kind of ‘loyalty oath’ towards Israel itself, in order to prove that one isn’t smitten with anti-semitism.
I often feel that we’ve left rationality and the values of the Enlightenment behind us and instead turned towards an economic and social structure, which increasingly includes ideas and attitudes, like the witch-hunt, that reminds one of the Middle Ages. Today, in our media world, mere rumours and allegations, have pushed the need for evidence and proof of transgression aside. If one has the temerity to actually question this and defend oneself, that too is seen as yet another form of thought crime.
Where does Jones get off telling the Jewish left to just nod along to Mirvis’s blood libel of Corbyn? You are right, write, the boy takes the Guardian SHILLing to shut his eyes to the truth and supply “left” respectability to a mendacious lie. History will judge him poorly.
Neil v Corbyn should be worth a watch tonight.
Wee Nicola did not too bad last night, but she does have the advantage of a straighter story and a pitch which is easier to defend.
If Andrew Neil puts his mind to it, this could be the end of Corbyn.
Currently, the BBC production team are looking for a chair which can accommodate the fence stuck up his backside.
Corbyn did ask his spin team the best plan of action for tonight.
So far, the front runner is influenza.
Starmer is still at 100/1 or longer, to be the next PM.
He’ll be fine so long as he tells the truth, which he generally does. He has no reason to suddenly declare himself a remainer or a leaver in a country that is split down the middle and badly needs healing.
Swinson ( revoke ) and Farage (clean break ) are finished.
Corbyn and Labour tread a fine line insofar as they delivered 64 % plus remain voters whilst Chancer Cameron even with all the assistance of the MSM and other remain supporters only managed to deliver around 34 % of his lot.
The problem for Corbyn is the distribution of these remainers that Labour delivered amongst the Constituencies.
Despite what the commentators say they understand perfectly his Better Brexit/Remain plan but pretend not to understand it and have undesrtood it for a long time.
But it convinces herberts like you to think it’s fence sitting.
Farage niow has no party and Swinson is toast.
Meanwhile Chuka is staking his claim and Johnson is still a congenital liar.
If you are a Brexiter Nigel has ordered you to vote for Johnson.
Do your duty.
I’d relish facing Neil ,were I in Corbyn’s place.
Trouble is, I have a terrible temper and I might blurt out something, eg. a swear word or two. I’d be no good in politics, having to deal with the likes of the Ian Austins and John Manns of this world. Corbyn must have the patience of a saint.
“she does have the advantage of a straighter story and a pitch which is easier to defend”
She also has the advantage of not being an MP and leading a party that most of the UK can’t vote for. Surely they have own political programmes in Scotland?
“Surely they have own political programmes in Scotland?”
Indeed we do have, however the same bias media that infects the rUK also infects Scotland’s outpost propaganda oulets.
Another good reason for independence.
Neil will attack Corbyns plans from a financial point I’d imagine. The utterly bias media in Britain have been constantly saying that his plans will bankrupt the UK, (Already morally bankrupt I might add). Anyway if I were one of his advisors that’s where I’d be hastely shoring up.
They can’t. Labour have completely stuck to the “government as household” narrative, continuing Thatcher’s lie that the government has no money of its own, only taxpayers’ money – which is the opposite of the truth.
It’s like constantly playing all your matches on away turf, when you could be playing on home territory.
When Neil, quite reasonably, quizzed him on how he would pay for the £58bn WASPI restitution, or his entire spending program should the richest 31,000 people leave the country, Corbyn could only waffle something to the effect that the WASPIs would be paid over time, and that not all millionaires would leave because they too would see the benefit of eroding inequality.
The truth is that money does not grow on rich people; the govt owns its own central bank – the BoE – and spends money into existence simply by instructing it, via a computer keystroke, to credit reserves to the BoE reserve account of the bank of the initial recipient of public spending. There is no need whatsoever to seek recourse to any “taxpayers’ money” before this occurs.
No-one ever received an extraordinary tax demand before the UK govt could bail the banks out to the yune of £800bn in 2008. Nor did they receive one in order for Brown, and then Osborne, to create another £435bn, again at the stroke of a keyboard, to re-purchase previously issued Gilts under QE. Because that’s not how the money creation system works.
The currency is spent into existence first, as described above, and because money doesn’t stop at first use, it continues to circulate around the economy, getting taxed away at each transaction (whether by VAT, income tax, NI, alcohol fuel or tobacco duties, corporation tax, insurance premium tax, airport and flight taxes, capital gains tax, IHT, etc) until the whole of the original amount gets returned (“re-venue”) to the Exchequer in an ever decreasing geometric progression, and is removed from circulation, via a reserve drain operation at the BoE, and effectively destroyed forever – so that the whole govt spending process can continue, ad infinitum, without the inevitable hyper-inflation that would occur if that continuous govt spending were to go untaxed.
By all means tax the rich in the interests of a more equal society, and to constrain their ability to lobby and wield political influence through their billions – but we don’t *need* their money before the govt can spend! Govt always spends first and taxes later – but only to avoid inflation, *not* to fund spending.
If anyone ever doubted how important an understanding of Modern Monetary Theory is to the progressive cause, then watching Corbyn squirm in discomfort, having been so poorly advised by Simon Wren-Lewis, James Meadway, Jo Michell et al, should dispel all doubts.
This is what happens when you try and argue progressive spending plans from a neo-liberal and mainstream monetarist standpoint – you end up not being able to answer the most obvious challenge – how will you pay for it? Sticking to Thatcherite narratives, and outdated, Gold-Standard, neo-classical macroeconomic theory, has left Corbyn, and Labour, a hostage to fortune.
Had Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell got on board with MMT in 2015, when they came to be leader and shadow chancellor respectively, Corbyn could easily have dismissed Andrew Neil’s economically illiterate challenges, by responding that the restitution money for WASPI women would be paid for, in the normal way as is all other govt spending, by spending it!
Because the WASPIs would most likely spend every penny of their restored pensions – after all, they need it to live on – pretty much every penny will eventually revert back to the Exchequer in taxes, probably within a week or two. Any deficit at the Treasury will be the equivalent of what they choose to save – but as soon as they spend it, taxed it will be!
So Wren-Lewis won’t even have to worry about reconciling any deficit under his stupid Fiscal Credibility Rule – because there won’t be one! Had Corbyn understood MMT, he could have explained this too.
They’ve had four years to have realised this, and could have educated the voting public accordingly – this vital chance to rescue the public sector from Tory depradation may well be lost because of this failure to properly understand how macroeconomics really works in a nation with its own sovereign, non-convertible, fiat currency.
What a crying shame.
#LearnMMT
“the govt owns its own central bank – the BoE”
The BoE is not owned by the government.
Yes it most certainly is.
It was nationalised in 1946, and is legally “owned” by the Treasury Solicitor.
You need to stop believing what you read on alt-right, libertarian, goldbug blogs!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bank_of_England
I thought it was owned by the Treasury on behalf of the government but having independence concerning monetary policy.
‘It was nationalised in 1946, and is legally “owned” by the Treasury Solicitor.’
Thanks for the update.
You’re most welcome!
There is the appearance of operational independence; an undemocratic, managerialist device set up by Gordon Brown in order to persuade the markets to “have confidence” in a Labour Govt not to scare the horses, and which was continued by Osborne, but it’s all window dressing really – the target inflation rate is set by the Chancellor, and if he/she tells the Governor of the BoE to do something (such as increasing or decreasing the level of QE, for example), it will get done without question.
There is absolutely no necessity to maintain this seemingly “arm’s length” relationship – it certainly wasn’t the case until 1997, and its introduction by the coward Gordon Brown – who, ironically, wrote a book called Courage. Ironic, because he totally lacked any.
Remember “Prudence”? Sticking to Tory spending limits for the first two years of the New Labour governemt, when the nation was crying out for an end to 19 years of Tory punishment, and would have voted for Pol Pot in 1997 had that been the only alternative to Thatcherite vandalism.
The sooner the UK moves on from this neo-liberal, market-pleasing nonsense, the better off we shall all be.
A perpetual motion machine is exactly what it is, and what it should be.
Money gets spent into existence by govt spending, and then, having circulated around the economy being taxed at a few subsequent transactions, it’s eventually all hoovered up by the Exchequer, withdrawn from circulation and effectively destroyed, having done its job in inducing work, trade, and all the things that benefit us in our society – and allowing the whole spending>taxing process to continue, without causing inflation, yes, ad infinitum!!
Why would you want it to end? You’d have no more money! You’d starve!
Consider the game of Monopoly, created as a warning against, and not a celebration of, capitalism. After a few hours, the winner takes all, it makes for a fun game. But if you were designing an economic system for real life, that’s not what you’d want at all – you’d want it to go on forever, around and around; no one would win and it would be the most boring game on earth, but that’s exactly how the economy should work: no overall big winners, just a continual circulation of commerce, trade, and economic and social security for everyone .
A perpetual motion machine, in other words.
To Mr Shigemitsu
November 26, 2019 at 22:05
John Law would have been hard pressed to make a better case. ‘MMT’ indeed.
Not one ‘fiat’ money system has survived in all of human history anywhere, ever.
Not one.
MMT theorist: ‘No, really, this time it’s different – we’ve learnt from the mistakes of the last few thousand years; we really have – believe us’.
That’s the very definition of ‘fiat’ – ‘Faith’.
This occurrence will be like all the rest. It will keep going until it can’t keep going, then it will stop. QE anyone?
OK, goldbug.
“Sound money” is an extreme-right libertarian, Austrian school recipe for permanent austerity. If that’s what you want to condemn the nation to, then fine – be honest about the outcomes. Just don’t expect anyone but bankers and the wealthy to benefit.
MMT is the lens that allows us to see that neoliberalism doesn’t need to be the only game in town; that there IS an alternative, and that the UK government, as currency issuer, is not constrained in the same way as a currency user – like a household, an individual, a local authority, or a eurozone nation – thereby freeing it up to spend the required amount of currency into existence to permit the optimum standard of living for the population up to the constraints of the capacity of its *real* economy (labour, materials, land, energy, etc), and not by how much taxation it can impose or, worse, b) by how much gold(!) it has in the vaults of the Bank of England.
By the way, if you don’t like the idea of worthless fiat currency, please feel free to send me any you have. Thanks!
To Mr Shigemitsu
November 27, 2019 at 16:16
Thank you for correcting me. The correct term is of course, as you rightly point out, ‘fiat *currency*, and not ‘money’ in any shape or form.
Mr. S:
“By the way, if you don’t like the idea of worthless fiat currency, please feel free to send me any you have. Thanks!”
When the *current* fiat does inevitably become worthless, I will be unlikely to afford the postage stamp to send it to you, and I fear we will have more important things to concern us at that unhappy event.
However, the currency is lent, not ‘spent’ into existence as you stated – the difference is important, and probably off-topic, so I shall leave it there.
“However, the currency is lent, not ‘spent’ into existence as you stated – ”
Sorry, but you are confusing currency that is created debt-free by direct government spending (“high-powered”, or “vertical”, money, as described by Keynes) with lending by private-sector commercial banks (“low-powered” or horizontal money).
The latter is simply *credit*, created ex-nihilo by private banks (under BoE licence) but because it needs to be repaid (at interest), which extinguishes the previously created sum, it provides no *new* net financial assets into the economy – which direct spending by government absolutely does.
However, *all* currency is debt; the cash in your wallet (“I Promise to Pay”, etc), as well as your savings in the bank, are all a liability (debt) at the Bank of England, which, being wholly owned by the UK government, is also UK government debt.
“the difference is important,”
Yes it certainly is, and I’ve just expalined to you why!
“and probably off-topic, ”
Not off-topic at all, but you have it the wrong way around – vertical money (govt spending) is most definitely *on topic*; bank credit (horizontal money) not so much!
“…so I shall leave it there.”
OK. Goodnight!
Mr Shigemitsu
November 27, 2019 at 20:54
You’re struggling.
The principal is ‘invented’, the interest, not.
Therefore the system you propose is unsustainable.
Why are you defending an impossible perpetual motion machine?
Magic Robot,
I’ve just taken the time to explain to you the difference between vertical and horizontal money.
You are fixated on the latter, and are quite correct as far as that goes, but it’s not the only source of currency! In fact it’s not a net source of currency at all; it’s just credit, which must be repaid, and so effectively extinguished.
So where do you think the currency (net financial assets) actually comes from? Clue: not from anywhere else, other than from government spending via the BoE, because as we’ve seen, commercial bank lending creates no net new currency, and forgery is illegal.
You, and the Positive Money crowd whose misunderstood analysis of currency creation you are repeating, are completely ignoring the creation of currency by the BoE that occurs every single day as the government spends both on public services directly, and by purchasing goods and services from the private sector.
I have also explained that as the monopoly creator of Sterling, the govt has no need to “borrow” the currency that it alone creates, but chooses to do so in order to drain excess bank reserves to target a positive interest rate, and as a service to savers seeking an ultra-safe vehicle for their sterling savings. (It could equally run an overdraft at its own central bank, but this is currently disallowed under EU law.)
The tragedy is that people who consider themselves to be progressive, by parroting neoliberal narratives regarding currency creation, are siding with their enemies in preventing the ordinary population, rather than solely the rich, from having nice things. And by nice things, I mean decent housing, education, healthcare and a welfare state.
#LearnMMT
I replied to your perpetual motion comment above, sorry, hit the wrong reply button, so it went in the wrong place!
In case you missed it, from Indy comments in reply to a request for evidence of Corbyn’s opposition to antisemitism.
1. In October 1936, Jeremy Corbyn’s mother participated in the battle of Cable Street in defence of British Jews after British fascists had staged an assault on the area. Corbyn was raised in a household passionately opposed to antisemitism in all its forms.
2. In 23rd April 1977, Corbyn organised a counter-demonstration to protect Wood Green from a neo-nazi march through the district. The area had a significant Jewish population.
3. On 7 November 1990, Corbyn signed a motion condemning the rise of antisemitism in the UK.
4. In 2002 Jeremy Corbyn led a clean-up and vigil at Finsbury Park Synagogue which had been vandalised in an anti-Semitic attack.
5. On 30 April 2002, Corbyn tabled a motion in the House of Commons condemning an anti-Semitic attack on a London Synagogue.
6. On 26 November 2003, Jeremy Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion condemning terrorist attacks on two synagogues.
7. In February 2009, Jeremy Corbyn signed a parliamentary motion condemning a fascist for establishing a website to host antisemitic materials.
8. On 24th March 2009, Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion praising British Jews who resisted the Holocaust by risking their lives to save potential victims.
9. Nine years ago, Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion praising “Jewish News” for its pioneering investigation into the spread of Antisemitism on Facebook.
10. On 9 February 2010, Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion calling for an investigation into Facebook and its failure to prevent the spread of antisemitic materials on its site.
11. On 27 October 2010, Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion praising the late Israeli Prime Minister for pursuing a two state solution to the Israel/Palestine question.
12. On 13 June 2012, Corbyn sponsored and signed a motion condemning the BBC for cutting a Jewish Community television programme from its schedule.
13. 1 October 2013, Corbyn appeared on the BBC to defend Ralph Miliband against vile antisemitic attacks by the UK press.
14. Five years ago Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion condemning antisemitism in sport.
15. On 1 March 2013, Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion condemning and expressing concern at growing levels of antisemitism in European football.
16. On 9 January 2014, Jeremy Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion praising Holocaust education programmes that had taken 20,000 British students to Auschwitz.
17. On 22 June 2015, Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion expressing concern at the neo-nazi march being planned for an area of London with a significant Jewish population.
18. On 9 October 2016, Corbyn, close to tears, commemorated the 1936 Battle of Cable Street and recalled the role his mother played in defending London’s Jewish community.
19. On 3 December 2016, Corbyn made a visit to Terezin Concentration Camp where Jewish people were murdered by the Nazis. It was Jeremy’s third visit to such a camp, all of which were largely unreported in the most read UK papers.
20. Last year, a widely-endorsed 2018 academic report found ninety-five serious reporting failures in the reporting of the Labour Antisemitism story with the worst offenders The Sun, the Mail & the BBC.
But he wants to officially recognise Palestine, so none of that matters, and to some he may as well be a former SS officer.
Look how these ‘community leaders’ have embraced Trump after supporting Hillary.
Yes Corbyn was the main subject on the Sheila Fogarty slot on LBC today. There were several Jewish folk on who were certain that Jeremy Corbyn was anti-Semitic by association, no firm evidence was given.
I was rather surprised at the hostess comment that she wasn’t sure if Corbyn was or was not anti-Semitic. I’m definitely no fan of Labours however, I’m pretty sure Corbyn is not anti-Semitic, and the current dredging up of a few undesirables within the party on making poor taste comments, on people of the Jewish faith has been disgracefully exploited and blown way, way out of proportion by his opponents and the partisan media.
Thanks for that catalogue. He also created many Early Day Motions and asked many Questions.
I watched Jeremy Corbyn over years when he was a back bencher. He used to sit next to that other good Labour man, Paul Flynn, sorely missed.
Corbyn has tenacity, backbone and bravery to have been able to withstand the constant attacks and backbiting from the BLiarite brigade and hangers on. A true Parliamentarian.
That list of Corbyn’s anti-anti-semitic achievements has in fact appeared several times in The Guardian, but only in the BTL comments. It has always been deleted within a few minutes by the moderators.
What a surprise!
We on the left have got to stop taking this stick from the Zionist lobby. I don’t mind if people call me anti-Semitic because I know I am not. We cannot stay silent when the head of the Jewish faith makes unfounded statements to try and denigrate a Labour Party that actually believes in socialist policies.
The Chief Rabbi says he is not telling anyone who to vote for in the GE.
But he’s telling people who not to vote for so it’s pretty clear for me who he is aiming at.
The guilt by association is contradictory.
Johnson is welcomed as leader by The Chief Rabbi and Victor Orban ( an antisemite if there was one) is welcomed by Johnson.
That is skating on very thin moralistic ice.
Of course the media only like association to work one way.
No matter how outrageous the tenuous links to these connections are.
Don’t forget how he went campaigning for Margaret Hodge when the BNP were targeting her seat – she gushed about it at the time.
Then she physically and verbally assaulted him behind the Speakers chair calling him a ‘fucking racist and anti-semite’ – I suppose you can’t please some.
Dungroanin
Margaret Hodge: When I was fighting fascism… Jeremy Corbyn helped me more, I think, than any other MP
https://dorseteye.com/margaret-hodge-when-i-was-fighting-fascism-jeremy-corbyn-helped-me-more-i-think-than-any-other-mp/
MediaLens did a great piece on this a year or so ago. I can’t be bothered searching for it, but their findings were something like this :
They searched all the UK printed media for the last 20 years for “Jeremy Corbyn” and “antisemitism” in the same sentence. In the 18 years before he became Labour leader, they found only one instance (from a speech he made condemning antisemitism). In the following 2 years they found 1000s of instances.
They made a convincing case that the accusations of antisemitism were not because Corbyn was antisemitic but because he had become powerful enough to threaten Zionist ambitions.
Needs to do more!
The orchastrated campaign by the Scottish unionist branch office politicians and the media in Scotland against Health secretary Jeane Freeman has been almost fanatical of late especially by the BBC.
However here a in the know medical professional succinctly puts to bed the majority of the BBC’s branch arm in Scotland wild accusations.
https://mobile.twitter.com/MSM_Monitor/status/1199079793872003074
Of course these kind of attacks on any body or organisation that is under control, of the Scottish government occurs on a daily basis even more so during a GE.
Here’s a link from the good old BBC that puts things into context regarding childrens deaths in England in hospitals.
One wonders if the British media calls for the Health secretary in England Matt Hancock on a daily basis.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-shropshire-48746832?__twitter_impression=true
Classic Kuenssberg, just what Craig was saying.
https://twitter.com/bbclaurak/status/1199342574487474182
Interesting wording from Kuenssberg when she complains about a Labour candidate “who defended Ken Livingstone when he was accused of antisemitism” and who was “on the platform behind Jeremy Corbyn today”. She is careful to say Livingstone was “accused of anti-Semitism” as if it is a debateable matter but her obvious outrage implies that he IS anti-Semitic.
I also see further comments from the usual suspects e.g. one “GnasherJew” who I presume is David Collier who was frightfully concerned about all the mental stress this anti-Semitism was causing these blameless individuals.
This extraordinarily eloquent comment on the Chief Rabbi from Haaretz.
How interesting that you fail to mention the array of progressive groups representing Jewish people of conscience who are horrified by the slanderous ‘labour antisemitism’ PR campaign being run by the hard right of UK politics, non-Jewish and Jewish alike. These are groups like Jewish Voices for Labour, Jewish Voices for Peace, Jews Sans Frontieres, Jewdas, Jews for Economic and Social Justice etc. etc. which the real anti-Semites of the Times, BBC, Guardian etc have completely invisibilized in their efforts to persuade the UK public that Jeremy Corbyn, one of the foremost champions of equality and human rights in the UK, a man whose record on championing the teaching of Holocaust Studies in UK education (as one example) is unequalled by any of the MPs currently attacking him with false charges of antisemitism, is antisemitic.
Equally interesting that you fail to mention the false campaign against Labour and all its’ members and supporters in the wider context of surges in attacks against anyone voicing support for rights for Palestinians and opposing support for Apartheid Israel, as if this appalling set of untruths perpetrated against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement had any other purpose than silencing any and all opposition to the increasingly Kahanist bent of Israeli politics. Let us be quite clear – attacks on it by the hard right notwithstanding, in Europe, the UK and the USA the BDS Movement is the moral heir of the anti-Apartheid movement in South Africa and it will not be stopped. The fact that you, supposedly the moral exemplar of the Jewish community in the UK, have so far forgotten the moral precepts for which you are supposed to stand as to use your office to further advance this Kafkaesque campaign of truth inversion, brings great shame on you and the office you hold. The campaign against pro-Palestinian Labour (which is what this is) has brought out the awful, amoral spectre of Apartheid Denial from under the rock where Labour and Conservative Friends of Israel have been nurturing it in the damp psychoses of their fetid imaginations.
The fact that the proponents of the IHRA definition of antisemitism have so far forgotten themselves or sold themselves outright to Kahanism as to state that “claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavour” constitutes antisemitism is a further disgrace on them and on you for supporting it. The truth is that Israel *is* an Apartheid State and therefore, by the very definition of Apartheid, it is a racist endeavour. Pointing this out is siding with truth and reality and the duty of all Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus and non-believers in the UK alike – claiming that truth and reality are antisemitic is the road to insanity. As Nelson Mandela, a man who stood strongly for the right of Israel to exist as a state said: “Apartheid is a crime against humanity. Israel has deprived millions of Palestinians of their liberty and property. It has perpetuated a system of gross racial discrimination and inequality. It has systematically incarcerated and tortured thousands of Palestinians contrary to the rules of international law and waged war against a civilian population, in particular children.” This Apartheid, apparently, is what you now stand in support of, alongside arch-racists and neo-Nazis Tommy Robinson and Katie Hopkins – shame on you once again for siding with the descendants of the architects of the Shoah.
Finally, my poor understanding of the Talmud indicates that there is no more important a precept than caring for strangers, be they Palestinian or not – “You shall not wrong nor oppress the stranger, for you were strangers in the Land of Egypt” (Exodus 22:20); “The strangers who reside with you shall be to you as your citizens … for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Leviticus 19:34); and “For the Eternal your God is God supreme and Lord supreme, the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, who shows no favor and takes no bribe, but upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and loves the stranger, providing food and clothing — you too must love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt” (Deuteronomy 10:18-19). I fail in the depths of my soul to understand how someone claiming to be the supreme upholder of these precepts can have decided to betray them so badly and thoroughly. Your efforts to intervene in the UK general election on the side of evil may well succeed, but in the long run we win – as Martin Luther King said: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice”. How truly sad and awful that you appear to have abandoned that justice.
The idea Labour represents a threat to UK Jewish citizens is deeply obnoxious and insulting to the whole UK population.
It’s never specified, is it, how this threat would manifest itself. Because once they start talking along those lines, they know they’ll lose all credibility even among those who don’t like Corbyn and Labour much.
The idea Labour represents a threat to UK Jewish citizens is so pathetically desperate that to take it seriously at all is to give in to the vicious hacks who manufactured this smear. And in light of that, the lack of a specific allegation goes without saying. But saying that misses the point. The whole thing is simple noise that has been raised to create an impression which, through repetition, will stick.
Hello, could you tell me who the author is of this comment? I could not find it on the Haaretz website.
Thank you for your response. I thought this was the most evocative statement I have seen on the subject and it brought tears to my eyes. The author is obviously Jewish which makes it doubly important. I asked for permission to reproduce it but went ahead anyway when I didn’t get a response. I have a subscription to Haaretz (which I recommend even though it causes me great pain but Gideon Levy is worth the cost alone) which I think you need to access the articles and the comments. This was below the article. Link to article which you may not access but I will cut and post if you want.
https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/top-uk-rabbi-slams-labour-says-soul-of-nation-at-risk-1.8186455
And now the archisbishop of Canterbury has supported him. What the f**k? What country have we become? I am 75 and cannot believe it. If we don’t win this one, it’s all over.
And now the archbishop of Canterbury has supported him. Yes isn’t it fascinating what this entire case is bringing out? Very instructive.
Thankyou very much. Yes a compelling statement. I am passing it on if you think that is alright? Well done for finding it.
Why is there such abject desperation in the msm? Why does the bbc make up stories and edit clips and put ringers (illegitimate) in audiences? Why indeed does the old Etonian bastard scion of the ancient robber barons- the troublesome Archbishop of Canterbury jump up and salute at the orders of the chief rabbit?
‘Figures show more than 3 million people have registered since the election was called on 29 October.
More than two-thirds of those applications are from people under 34, who tend to be more favourable towards Labour than the Conservatives.’
Ha ha all these snowflakes, millennials, Y generation.. types must have learnt a lot of AS with their computer games and have been waiting for a leader that will allow their AS full reign! I mean there are 300,000 people in the whole of the UK who identified Judaism as their religion in the last census – 0.4%. Other studies showed only 25% of these who are eligible to vote do so fot Labour and 60% for tories – that has been steady for decades – assuming many are under 18 and many non voting that means say about 50-80,000 voters at most across the whole country.
AS is a red herring always has been – it was used last election and non-stop since – the voters are not buying that old vomit to swallow again or the other attack tropes.
Richard Murphy writes as much today:
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2019/11/26/jeremy-corbyn-is-not-a-racist-but-boris-johnson-undoubtedly-is/
He also wrote about the letter in todays FT by 163 eminent economists and experts.
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2019/11/26/labour-deserves-to-form-the-next-government/
Tonight that old attack dog of Murdoch and the DS beeb , Andrew Neil gets to bite Corbyn in the baalls live on air!
Wonder what he will be barking about? That’s the why of the twattery of today.
The first Murphy link ended with this interesting statement:
“Because I am bored of the trolls who exploit this issue I will not be opening this post to comments, largely because I will not have time to deal with them today. Comments relating to it on other posts will be deleted.”
Yes the trolls are all working overtime – all of them “lone gunmen” of course. No conspiracy here!
Neil with Corbyn on tonight at 7pm for 30 minutes. BBC1
Puff piece for Neil and snide stuff on Corbyn from Mr Lebedev’s incorrectly named Independent whose editor is Christian Broughton. Afraid I have never heard of him.
https://inews.co.uk/culture/television/the-andrew-neil-interviews-jeremy-corbyn-bbc-one-when-time-schedule-party-leaders-1324634
PS. The BBC Six O’Clock News has just come on. Ms Raworth is going large on the chief rabbi stuff. No surprise there. Ms Kuenssberg is doing the commentary on the piece using a very solemn voice, with almost a catch in it. It’s like theatre.
Then they showed that John Mann/Ken Livingstone confrontation followed by words from Johnson and Swinson. Now La K is shown shouting a question about AS at Corbyn as he entered a venue. Mirvis followed on and then one Jonathan Lis from some think tank. A full 12 minutes of the stuff. It’s disgraceful.
Peerages for Mesdames Kuenssberg and Raworth.
Jonathan Lis: I’m Jewish and I’m voting Labour in the general election. Here’s why
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/nov/22/jewish-voting-labour-antisemitism-progressive-government
Generally good views, as I remember.
Did that not come across on the 6 oclock news? I didn’t really want to watch it
I have good news from the streets of Norwich North. After last nights attack on a 72 year old Labour canvasser, walking with a stick, two people stopped, seeing me, and said that this was a disturbing state of affairs. Others thanked me for leafletting??? I am getting the feeling that all this Corbyn bashing for three years is making people fed up, they had enough of this constant stream of one sided unfounded negativity.
And guess where this happened…in the Rother valley where days earlier, the BBC brexited through for some well prepared Corbyn bashing comments. I blame the BBC for this attack, their acidic language and ad nauseam repeats, wheeling out some radical Zionists to deliver it, has reached backlash time.
I said this before, but the siren voices who are acting on behalf of a rogue states agenda will one day regret to having undermined their very own success here.
here is the link
I hope that the BBC will interview Bob, he has a broken jaw but he’s plucky and will not let this get him down.
https://www.thestar.co.uk/news/crime/labour-supporter-72-attacked-doorstep-while-canvassing-rotherham-1324173
I don’t watch mainstream news but after reading this, I dipped into iPlayer. Jesus! This is vicious stuff! I love the little nod towards “balance” with that token gesture of Conservative Islamophobia (about 5 seconds?) before launching stridently back to the Labour “crisis”. Kuenssberg herself thundering wrath at Corbyn. An interview from another Rabbi – a “liberal” one this time. But he too is terrified of the abyss we are facing!
Now the Nazis get a mention. Ooh a little mention that the Rabbi may have gone a little too far? Ooh can’t have that! Back to the fear, the horror, the “precipice” we are facing. We may have an “anti-Semitic prime minister” etc etc Now Kuenssberg herself gets interviewed. And she gives a little nod towards the Muslim issue. But let’s not talk about that. Back to Corbie-Hitler!
Curious, eh? Not one interview with a Muslim religious leader. Not one view of a Muslim community.
What utter repulsive rabble rousing shit.
The BBC’s out posts in Scotland pumping out that Jewish folk in Scotland won’t vote for Labour because of Jeremy Corbyn.
In a way it doesn’t matter because Labour in Scotland are predicted to lose all but one of their MP seats anyway. Still the disgusting bias from the BBC knows no bounds when it comes to retaining the status quo.
This blog opened by taking aim at the BBC for being biased against the political left. The BBC quite openly takes a centrist view on politics and economics and a pro unionist/ anti Scottish Independence position on the constitution. If it’s biased anywhere it is towards the status quo. They have a go at the left and the right. The simple fact is that Corbyn is deeply unpopular in the former industrial, old Labour heartlands in the North of England, Central Scotland and South Wales. They point to his lack of leadership, gravitas and relatability. They see it differently to the metropolitan liberal and academic circles. And all the polls are recording a haemorging of working class Labour votes. Therefore it’s no surprise that the BBC zooms in on Rotherham , Bishop Auckland and Stoke on Trent. They recognise a social phenomena when they see it. Foot was a highly educated and a principled fellow and I remember how devastated I felt as a young engineering apprentice when Labour imploded and he lost the election in 1983. Robin Day then asked the historian AJP Taylor on Question Time, if Labour would ever come back and he said it would but take time to recover. It was to take 16 years before Labour came back though to be fair Labour just about got it right with Kinnock and then tragically Smith died. Forget for a moment Blair’s propensity for war and imagine him squaring up to Johnson just now….. Labour would romp it and we’d still be in the EU.
‘got it right with Kinnock’. Are you for real? Suggest a read of Craig’s Peak Kinnock.
And we do not need any sidelong admiration for BLiar. He has blood on his hands and should be in prison for the rest of his life.
PS We still are in the EU iirc.
Baxter
The BBC is alive with well known Tories, both on and off screen. All working relentlessly to frame and filter its news and political coverage to smear and denigrate Corbyn. By the way, Labour started haemorrhaging working class votes from the late nineties, under New Labour, and only started to recover them in 2017 when the party finally stood unequivocally against the austerity the likes of Blair have been advocating since 2010. Nobody wants what Blair and his ilk are selling anymore — check the state of so-called “centre” left parties across the continent.
Blair was commenting on” Inspirational Capitalism ” the other day as if that would help keep Corbyn out.
With the results of that kind of Inspirational Capitalism now known as in a 1.9 trillion national Debt Andrew Neil could grill Blair and Javid on the reasons why it has risen despite current spending year on year savings (cuts) for the last nine years?
The given reason for austerity agreed by nearly all commentators and politicians and Blair.
What was it borrowed for and what was it spent?invested on/in?
Neil will not ask that question because he is scared of the answer.
In fact no self respecting Tory ever will.
Not even Laura deficit Kuenssberg.
“And all the polls are recording a haemorging of working class Labour votes.”
Presumably these are the same polls that were predicting a Tory landslide right up to polling day two years ago. I think they just make it up as they go along.
The BBC certainly does *not* take a centrist view on economics; it regularly parrots Thatcher/Osborne’s right-wing, neoliberal, pro-market, pro-privatisation, pro-austerity, low-tax, “govt-as-household, anti-public spending narrative – as evidenced by the subject of this very blog.
Perfectly normal government intervention, as practiced in all countries with decent standards of living and which regularly score highest in terms of citizens’ well-being, is described by the BBC, via Kuenssberg, as “interference”.
QED.
The coverage of the latest MSM antisemitism smears against both Corbyn personally, and the Labour party as a whole, have been truly unbelievable. Blanket coverage, no counterpoint, no balance, no objectivity, just relentless repetition of this scandalous libel. I wondered what the response to the Tories dropping the in the polls would be, and this is clearly it.
The BBC must have a team of scribblers working away posting articles like his as the half hour proceeds –
General election 2019: No apology from Jeremy Corbyn over Labour anti-Semitism claims
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election-2019-50564965
12 mins ago
Peerage for political services to the Conservative Party for
Andrew Ferguson Neil please PM.
Neil is twice the man he used to be, in weight and girth,!
It makes my blood boil. They smear you with the cruellest lies, ones which speak contrary to your life as an activist, and then they further excoriate you for failing to apologise for the things you didn’t do.
It’s a crude trick – by demanding that someone “apologises” for something, the assumption is conveyed under the table that they did it.
Unfortunately Jeremy Corbyn feels he has to pull his punches, because certain things are simply not allowed to be said, either in the MSM or on a blog such as this one. Time to emigrate very soon, I think.
@Baxter1967 – “Centrist” mean monarchist, pro-NATO, pro Clarendon schools, pro the City of London, pro Big Pharma, pro Oxford and Cambridge universities, pro the gentlemen’s clubs in your book? WTF does “right wing” mean then?
I rather doubt that the ‘relentless MSM antisemitism smears’ are going to work. Obviously the Jewish community is concerned about dangers of antisemitism, but I doubt that anyone else is. People in general are unbothered by the question of anti-semitism because in daily life it is completely invisible. A few nutters, and those whom it helps politically, and that’s all.
I don’t understand why the non-Jewish Tories are convinced it’s going to help them, rather than backfire. Any Tory of any sense would stay out.
Imagine if every time Boris Johnson (or any other politician) went anywhere, someone with a loudspeaker kept calling him “Sh*thead! Sh*thead! Sh*thead!” and it got on all the broadcasts. The fact that he does not actually have a head made of faeces would be neither here nor there.
Not that this is by any means the whole of the matter, but it’s not as if many Tory members, activists or politicians (involved in “showbusiness for ugly people”) have much of a thought about it other than to give that bloke who wants to nationalise stuff (and who’s been a dirty traitorous rotter in their “minds” ever since he opposed the South African apartheid that they held so dear) a damned good kicking and then say urgh, he’s bled all over the carpet, how common. This is the Tories in their element. “Windups” can be ultra-vicious.
Meanwhile an awful lot of money is going to “disappear” some time quite soon…
In daily life most of the content of the BBC – ahem! – News is completely invisible. That doesn’t stop them from giving you the big Hollywood treatment of shit they just made up.
When I read Corbyn’s interview with Andrew Neil was tonight (I don’t watch the MSM) it became clear why the libellous attack on Corbyn by the rabbi came today–because Corbyn has excelled in interviews and debates and they needed something fresh with which to attack him so Neil could ignore his popular policies, put him on the defensive against lies, and leave him unable to project himself as he otherwise would. All very dark, all very sinister. Labour should have challenged these smears in the early days and been far firmer with these evil people.
It’s very hard for anyone in public life in Britain (and several other countries) even to use the term “Jewish racism”, let alone to ask well if Theresa May says Britain is an “ally” of Israel then can we see the treaty of alliance please, because secret treaties are in breach of UN law.
Yes that sounds depressingly plausible Michael. The aim is to avoid TV interviews in which Corbyn has a chance to talk about anything other than this manufactured racist bullshit. But the sheer desperation of these manoeuvres may be hopeful. Somebody up there – indeed quite a few – are crapping themselves empty.
I thought Corbyn did well in his verbal assault on him by Neil, pity that the WASPI issue let him down. I said earlier than Neil would attack Corbyn’s costings on policies and he did.
It’s also a pity Corbyn isn’t more acerbic by nature his brilliant riposte to Neil on Johnson choosing Trump’s side in the Brexit debacle instead of the people of the UK’s was a pleasure to hear and see.
Finally Neil rode roughshod on Corbyn over issues on terrorism, a typical tactic of gish galloping by Neil.
Verbal not verble apologies.
Just got in so I missed it.
Read Neil raised antisemitism first question, as if the most pressing issue facing the UK (all 0.06% of it among the Labour party membership)… shows how warped media coverage is.
The whole thing was timed precisely so that this trap could be laid for Mr Corbyn. There is no defence to being called anti Semitic: denying it just proves you are.
Right, Bramble.
Meanwhile, and astonishingly, its still perfectly okay to be as openly racist if you are a Tory and your target is a black person.
This paragraph is buried in a Guardian article about Stormzy:
“Labour’s David Lammy accused the Tory minister of “sanctioning crass stereotypes” by “telling an intelligent, successful young black man to stay out of politics”. The Tottenham MP added: “Challenge stereotypes, don’t compound them.””
While “Corbyn refuses to apologise [for God knows what?!]” is the biggest headline right now.
It’s “have you stopped beating your wife?” all over.
@Bayard – Yes agreed, it is exactly “Have you stopped beating your wife?”
@Bramble – “There is no defence to being called anti Semitic: denying it just proves you are.” A proper counter to the accusation is not allowed to be made in current conditions.
I thought Corbyn handled Neil significantly better than Sturgeon. Corbyn stuck to his guns on every issue and defeated Neil as evidenced by Neil moving swiftly on when Corbyn was eventually allowed to answer the question. On the issue of WASPI women, Corbyn’s answer was entirely justified, the total fiscal liability does not have to be met in year one. Similarly to the fiscal liability of Glasgow council settlement with female workers, the liability can be met on a year by year basis from the budget at the time.
The toatl fiscal “liability” never has to be met.
As long as the WASPI women spend every penny of their pensions – which is most likely, as that’s why they’re campaigning to receive them – then, becuase money does not stop at first use, taxation will accrue on every subsequent transaction, until every last penny of the original spend will have returned (“re-venue”) to the Exchequer. This would probably take less than a month.
The only longer-term deficit that would appear, after the initial spend, is if the WASPI women *saved* some of their restored pensions, rather than spent it. (This is a nice example of how government deficit, and its accrual in national “debt”, is nothing more sinister than private-sector savings!)
But as soon as they do spend it, it will get taxed in the normal way.
Nothing to see here, in other words.
If only Corbyn had bothered to #LearnMMT, he could have sent Andrew Neil packing. Instead he was left squirming and looking shifty – it’s so sad.
It’s not really similar; unlike central government, Glasgow city council is a currency *user* rather than currency *issuer* , so it really *does* have to raise, or divert, funds in order to settle with its female workers.
It’s difficult, if not outright impossible, given our skewed media culture, to examine, analyse or question the Chief Rabbi’s motives and agenda, properly or effectively. To do so would be to open oneself to being branded as… ‘anti-semitic.’
It’s fascinating and terrifying how such an incredibly powerful rhetorical weapon has been created and employed within our political culture. It’s extraordinary really. It reminds one of the was Iraq’s WMDs were simply conjured out of thin air in order to justify the military attack on a country on its’ knees. Not only was Iraq weakened by years of brutal and inhuman seige. It was nowhere near a military threat, but rather a country that was virtually defenceless.
Then one had the endless fantastical lies and propaganda employed against Ghaddafi in Libya. Nothing was learned by the media at all, except how to perfect the war propaganda and most importantly deny the opposition any space to question the headlong rush to war.
Now it appears that these methods, having been employed so successfully on the battlefield, so to speak; the methods are now being applied to the ‘enemy within’, Corbyn and the Labour Party.
Liberals and the ‘soft left’ are terrified of labelled as ‘intolerant’ or ‘prejudiced, let alone ‘racist’ or ‘anti-semitic.’ The Guardian typifies all of this. Perhaps the greatest political scourge or mirage of our times is the way the left and liberals have embraced ‘identity politics.’ It’s an historic and very dangerous mistake.
“It’s difficult, if not outright impossible, given our skewed media culture, to examine, analyse or question the Chief Rabbi’s motives and agenda, properly or effectively. To do so would be to open oneself to being branded as… ‘anti-semitic.’”
Yes – it’s classic McCarthy witch-hunting.
As I have said here and elsewhere, Mr Murray, it behoves all of us who recognise the bias to biycott the biased sources.
I read your site, not because I agree with you on everything, but because you are not a mouthpiece fir either the State or for billionaires. I read John Ward’s site for similar reasons. I read Off Guardian for similar reasons. I find The Saker a fascinating source of foreign policy insights and RT is a suitably sardonic echo chamber for US media nomsense.
I completely ignore the BBC now, ditto ITV and I do not subscribe to Sky. I have barely bought a single printed newspaper in 2019. It may mean I am not aware of what piffle is being spouted, but it keeps my mind fresh, uncluttered and able to observe what is going on. It also makes me motivated to find new sources of information. villagemagazine.ie was an interesting recent discovery….
You may be more successful encouraging folks to stop reading/watching the biased MSM rather than try to change them. Media only change when they lose viewers/readers.
Perfect. And deeply ironic given the BBC coverage of “this poison in our society”. The Mainstream media IS the poison. I said this on Off-G – I cannot see the point in engaging with anyone who has not cut the umbilical cord of the MSM. I don’t watch TV and I don’t buy newspapers. I only just had a look at BBC iPlayer because of this “Rabbi Horrified at The Return of Hitler” stuff – and I couldn’t believe what I was watching. You don’t even have to know anything else. There’s a nod towards “balance” with the Tories being accused of Islamophobia and this accusation lasts all of 5 seconds. And then the barrage of smearing against Labour. Can any intelligent people watch this without thinking, “Hey – wait a minute…”? Well – if they have been plugged into the MSM all this time then, depressingly, yes.
Ditto Rhys, do you not also do MoonofAlabama & Col Langs SST collective and of course Consortium (where Craig is regularly reprinted)?
I rate bernard (MoA) to be one of the best on the net, along with Richard Murphy and of course our host.
Off-G is mixed as you may have noted by my interactions there. They seem to have switched off the lights there today.
Accusations heard today from LBC and talkRADIO that Mr Corbyn supports terrorist groups such as Hamas are a successful attempt to ensure that not even a socialist-lite leader of the Labour party gets the keys to the portal door of No.10 Downing Street.
This strange mentality is the result of a ‘war on terror’ planting a compliance bomb in the minds of the British people willing to accept this incantation having been pressed by a succession of terror ‘incidents’ (episodes) over two decades in the UK.
In fact the whole body uncovers the truth that Hamas supporters argue that if Israel has a fundamental right to exist as a Jewish majority state in the land of historic Palestine, then it must have had the right to expel 750,000 Palestinians from their homes in 1948 and prevent them from returning, destroy over 400 Palestinian villages, and importing millions of Russians, Europeans, Ethiopians, and Americans and others to return to their rightful, proper and deserved places. Without these actions, there would be no Jewish majority state inside what is now Israel.
Israel demands that Palestinians should respect Jewish rights to life, liberty, and property in Israel. On the other hand, Palestinians sense no reciprocal respect for their rights in either Israel or in the Palestinian territories.
Don’t you think it might even be counterproductive for Labour’s opponents?
Everyone has a sense of proportion and fairness – the press cross as certain line and the public take the underdog’s side, I think that happened last time anyway. If you were a wavering Corbyn supporter this unfair antisemitism nonsense would fire you up to vote.
I sense that most Brits are pro-Palestinian, or at least neutral. As far as I can detect from internet lines. The pro-Israel line is uniquely government, from the whispers made in government ears. Use of a pro-Israel line for election purposes is unthought out, and likely to fail.
LBC is owned by Global Radio who control commercial radio output in the UK. Global Radio belongs to the Tabor family – bookmakers etc.
Father. S Times Rich List etc
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Tabor
Son now called Tabor-King
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Tabor-King
Ashley Tabor was recently involved in a planning dispute with Westminster Councilbwho refused permission to convert two luxury penthouses in Knightsbridge into one worth £200m, with ten bedrooms no less.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashley_Tabor-King
Talk Radio is part of Murdoch’s News UK Wireless Group.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Group
So both stations putting out the anti Corbyn muck are as completely impartial as the BBC. Not! 😉
Thanks Mary – Interesting.
I could be wrong, but I really doubt that this anti-semitism blitz election tactic is going to work. Most Brits really don’t care, as anti-semitism is completely invisible in their surroundings.
A factor is that in the previous generation many East European Jews changed their names to Anglo-Saxon norms. For example, I didn’t know until today that Alf Dubs was an East European Jew – I don’t much care, but then he engaged in a discourse you wouldn’t have expected of such a name. Or Michael Howard. I quite understand why it was done at the time – a suffering minority needs to fit in, but today they’re no longer that.
Today’s anti-semitism blitz is intended to provoke shame about what was done to Jews in the 2WW. In Britain that doesn’t work, because Britain did not engage in those activities.
What plays with the Tory party, most of whom are members of Conservative Friends of Israel, or similar Labour, doesn’t necessarily play with the electing public.
@On the train, posting this lower down in case you miss it.
About Haaretz article and comment earlier.
Thank you for your response. I thought this was the most evocative statement I have seen on the subject and it brought tears to my eyes. The author is obviously Jewish which makes it doubly important. I asked for permission to reproduce it but went ahead anyway when I didn’t get a response. I have a subscription to Haaretz (which I recommend even though it causes me great pain but Gideon Levy is worth the cost alone) which I think you need to access the articles and the comments. This was below the article. Link to article which you may not access but I will cut and post if you want.
https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/top-uk-rabbi-slams-labour-says-soul-of-nation-at-risk-1.8186455?utm_source=smartfocus&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=daily-brief&utm_content=https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/europe/top-uk-rabbi-slams-labour-says-soul-of-nation-at-risk-1.8186455
And now the archisbishop of Canterbury has supported him. What the f**k? What country have we become? I am 75 and cannot believe it. If we don’t win this one, it’s all over.
Walt.
I think the aim is to maintain the status quo Corbyn would be good for England as PM, reeling in the neoliberals politicians, and foreign lobby groups who are in the pockets of big business, foreign and domestic in the UK.
The Archbishop of Canterbury is in a privileged position as are his brethern in the House of Lords. If Corbyn is true to his word, he wants to reform and nationalise, which is an anathema to big business interests and it would hit the pockets of the neoliberal politicians to boot.
So Corbyn must be discredited from all corners that want to see the status quo remain. If Corbyn wins by a majority I expect great change in England for the better I might add, if however the relentless character/policy assassination bears fruit and he loses the GE, I expect England to lurch even further to the right.
It might not seem like it but there’s a lot riding on this GE.
I sense now that things are moving our way. Let’s hope so, and keep exposing the lies.
Just over two weeks to go before the election, aren’t we a bit overdue for the obligatory terrorist attack, where the bomber handily leaves their ID on the scene of the attack? I wonder which poor sods are going to die this time.
I was thinking the same thing today, Bayard. If the polls shift any further to Labour, I’m staying away from public places!
Whenever I say this, my comment tends to get deleted. But yes, you are right. And it needn’t be a bomb. It could be something like a Bataclan or the Nice attack. MI5, an agency for which the responsible minister is Priti Patel, who got caught conducting secret talks behind the backs of the Foreign Office trying to funnel British government money to the Israeli army, reduced Britain’s terror threat level earlier this month to the lowest it’s been for five years.
“reduced Britain’s terror threat level earlier this month to the lowest it’s been for five years.”
I suppose that could mean that they have nothing planned.
Well I am not very optimistic that there will be a positive outcome in the election. It looks horribly like a Doris Johnson victory but hope springs eternal. This very day I went to my fitness class for crippled fitness seekers.
The demographic is ‘ grumpy old codger’ . The constituency( east dunbartonshire-Jo Swinson)Trying to read the runes.swinson ducked the hustings as did the Tory candidate. The Ukip candidate was apparently an amusing cove with about much of a clue as my arse has about snipe shooting. The green candidate (Carolynn Scrimgeour) was by far the best candidate by the reckoning of the assembled codgerdom. Now I have no doubt that ultimately the quality of candidate doesn’t really count for much. Swinsondespite her seriously dark political past, is likely to win and the greens will be scraping around for a deposit saving total but I would not be surprised if there was an upset.The participants were quite distinctly thinking for themselves. there was a recognition that the anti-semitism trope is an orchestrated smear. I remain hopeful. One of those present even recommended ‘Doune the rabbit hole’
Tend to agree, although not quite as pessimistic
I think a hung parliament is possible, if , big if , the SNP perform like they did in 2015’s election after the 2014 referendum boost and anger over ‘the pledge’ not being lived up to. Johnson will need those Scottish Tories.
If Johnson gets an undeserved big majority(really hope not) reckon it’ll turn sour within a year due to Brexit related problems.
“If Johnson gets an undeserved big majority”, I expect we will see some porcine aviators. The Tory offer is little different from last time and there’s been two years of Brexit chaos in between, with a steadily deteriorating NHS and a shift of the Tories to the right.
So yes, a hung Parliament is on the cards, with the possibility of a Labour/SNP coalition?
I missed Andrew Neil’s interview with Jeremy Corbyn. Some people were speculating earlier that Ephraim Mirvis’ false accusations were deliberately designed to take the focus of Neil’s interview away from policies to discuss this non-issue. It appears they were right. A third of the interview was taken up with this topic. An old hack like Andrew Neil should not have stooped to this obvious ploy!
The timing seems coordinated yes. Given news only seems to last a day now, such is the faster news cycle with social media. If the Rabbi had said this a week ago, Neil’s line of questioning prioritizing this non-issue would have seemed strange.
The Guardian has a despicable headline take on this : Corbyn resists calls to apologise to British Jews after rabbi’s claims
He[Corbyn] is damned if he does, damned if he doesn’t. If he accepted the Rabbi’s criticisms in their totality people would use that against him.
It’s like when Corbyn admitted there was a problem. It let the accusers off the hook. Before the admission they floundered when asked for evidence, this quickly changed to ” Corbyn has already admitted there is a problem” after Corbyn made the concession.
You’ve nailed it Goose.
I need to get out campaigning more to get rid of this Tory plague on all our houses.
Neil has always been a shill for the American state via their chief propagandist Rupert Murdoch. He knew exactly what he was doing with that interview. If the BBC were really impartial they wouldn’t let someone like him near their political team.
“An old hack like Andrew Neil should not have stooped to this obvious ploy!”
This obvious ploy is exactly what you’d expect from an old hack like Neil.