tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18290128310378106862024-03-06T00:29:36.037-08:00Sea ChangePhil Woodford co-hosts Colourful Radio's weekly news review show from London. He previously stood on two occasions as a Labour Parliamentary candidate.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger136125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1829012831037810686.post-68140481808719723052020-09-25T14:03:00.007-07:002020-09-25T14:06:35.792-07:00As isolation and decline looms, confusion reigns in Covid Britain...<p><span face="Arial, sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt;">There are certainly countries in the world even more divided
than the UK. But there is no country more dazed and confused.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">To move in the past 15 years from the certainty and
solidity of the Blair premiership to the sorry state of affairs that passes for
government today is an almost unimaginable decline. This is a country
particularly badly hit by the financial crisis, demoralised by years of
austerity and seemingly unable to prevent every administration we elect being
significantly worse than the one that preceded it.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">We’ve witnessed a growth of nationalism which culminated in
the murder of a British MP shortly before the tragic decision to leave the EU. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">We endured the years of torment and torpor that followed,
when Brexit was the only endless topic of conversation. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">We saw the major opposition party taken over by a leftist
sect, while the governing Tories drifted ever further to the right. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">And now, as a corollary of all the above – or perhaps as a
punishment for it – we have the most incompetent government in living memory presiding
over the coronavirus crisis.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Just as shellshocked veterans emerged from the carnage of
the First World War to be confronted with the Spanish Flu in 1918 and 1919, there
is a sense in which Covid has caught the UK at its absolute lowest ebb one hundred
years later. <o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">With Trump single-handling trying to destroy American
democracy, China achieving ever greater economic, military and cultural dominance,
and the UK detaching itself from the EU, there is nothing on the horizon other
than isolation and decline.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">When we British take our post-Brexit begging bowl to the
rich man’s table, we might find a few crumbs proffered – the 0.07% of GDP granted by Japan, for instance. But realistically, we know that our only chance
of being fed lies now in the servants’ quarters below stairs. Or through our own toil
in the ill-kept allotment out back.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Of course, Boris Johnson’s bluster and bullshit over
Covid-19 has led to a decline in Tory fortunes since the election at the end of
last year. Yet still a good proportion of the British public – 40% by most
reputable polls – places its trust in this government of mixed messages, testing
fiascos, tardy apps and crony contracts.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">I guess confused and frightened people often don’t know where
to turn.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">As we head deeper into the autumn period, the one thing we <i>do</i>
know is that nothing good lies ahead and that further confusion will reign. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">Infections
will rise and youngsters will party. University lecturers will teach students
100 metres away over Zoom. Hospitalisation will increase and people will drive
100 miles as the corona flies to get a test. And those testing centres
will be turned into Brexit car parks.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span face=""Arial",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 107%;">We'll tell ourselves it will all be over by Christmas. Although we won't be sure who's going to be able to join us for the turkey and trimmings.</span></p>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1829012831037810686.post-47310860367815676582020-06-29T10:21:00.001-07:002020-06-29T10:21:19.482-07:00More funding or defunding? It's time for the hard left to make up its mind.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
As a young teenager in the early 1980s, I remember chatting to someone
involved with the Labour Party hard left. He was of the firm view that the Metropolitan
Police should be wound up. While I don’t recall this position being
particularly mainstream, the policy of the hard-left administration on the Greater
London Council at the time was certainly that police officers should become
local authority employees. Yes, they were planning to defund the police nearly
40 years ago.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Brixton riots of 1981 had been sparked by aggressive policing
of young black men and officious use of stop and search. In an era of recession, high unemployment
and social tension, we saw a huge ideological rift between the Thatcher
government (which stood for authoritarian law and order policies) and leftists
of various persuasions who flew the red flag over town halls from Sheffield and
Liverpool to Brent, Haringey and Lambeth. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The London politics of the era were shaped by figures such
as John McDonnell (who was Livingstone’s finance chief at the GLC) and Paul
Boateng, who chaired the Police Committee and later become MP for Brent South.
This was also the time in which a certain Jeremy Corbyn was first elected to
Parliament for Islington North. The radical urban leftism he championed, which
had been brewing in an ideological vat throughout the 70s, was finally bottled
up and left in a cellar to be uncorked in 2015.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
While Thatcher was keen to give law enforcement greater
powers through what became the Police and Criminal Evidence (PACE) Act, the
Labour left provided a direct counterpoint. As well as demanding that police
officers receive their wage slips from the local authority, they championed the
idea of democratic control over the Met (an idea that was opposed 2-1 by
Londoners in polling in 1983) and a purely operational role for the
Commissioner. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Of course, with the advent of the Blair government in 90s, a
sensible system of democratic control over the police <i>was</i> eventually
established in the capital by the creation of the Mayor and Greater London
Authority. We were given a grown-up version of accountability appropriate for a
large modern city, without the posturing and extremism associated with the 80s ‘loony
left’.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Today, what people mean by defunding seems to vary quite
widely. It can signal anything from a modest diversion of funds away from law
enforcement to social services of various kinds; a commitment to ‘demilitarise’
police forces – preventing them from buying unnecessary and deadly kit; or
outright abolition of policing. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Sir Keir Starmer, the first Labour Leader in a decade to
claw himself ahead of a Tory PM in the polls, has quickly denounced the idea as
‘nonsense’. He is busy trying to bring the beleaguered party back into the mainstream
and cannot afford to be associated with such a radical notion. As a former Director
of Public Prosecutions, it would be pretty odd for him to take any other
position anyway.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
What’s more interesting are the twists and turns of the hard
left. They are very keen to associate themselves with the radical intent of the
Black Lives Matter movement and are ideologically attracted to the ‘defunding’
slogan. But just last year, their spiritual leader Corbyn – now retired to the
allotment – was pretending to favour <i>greater</i> police funding. Awkward.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The accusation against the veteran socialist was that he was
always anti-police. Equivocal about shoot-to-kill policies in terrorist
incidents; someone who announced Hezbollah and Hamas to be ‘friends’. Because of
the toxic nature of these associations, the Corbynite left pretended to be
concerned about the decline in police funding and used this as a stick to beat
the government. No one with an understanding of their political ideology believed
their position to be anything other than entirely disingenuous. And now, of course, it’s fully
exposed.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1829012831037810686.post-32341440280210652892020-03-04T15:08:00.000-08:002020-03-04T15:09:30.773-08:00Paracetamol just isn't going to cut it<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We all love
the NHS. We all rely on it. We all have amazing and positive stories to tell.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But we all
know its flaws. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We tend not
to talk about them too much because we’re grateful for the amazing concept that
lies behind the service. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The whole system
is a phenomenal slice of socialism. It says we can turn up at a doctor’s surgery
or hospital and get treated for free, regardless of who we are or how much money
we have. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Although
there are other ways of organising universal healthcare provision – we can see some
of them in parts of continental Europe, for instance – there is something
incredibly comforting and efficient about the British state service.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But it is
time to get real.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If the NHS
is prepared for the forthcoming coronavirus epidemic, I’m a trapeze artist at
Billy Smart’s Circus.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
government will tell you that we are battle ready, but surveys of people who
actually <i>work</i> in the service will tell you categorically we are not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s not
just a question of the cash crisis and the limited number of beds, although it’s
undeniable that the system is creaking and underfunded and will struggle to
cope with excess demand.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s fundamentally
an issue of British culture.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In the UK,
we tend to think that things will work themselves out somehow or other.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This coronavirus
can’t really be that bad, can it? It’s a bit like the flu. It’s probably a fuss
about nothing. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We are full
of homespun wisdom. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Catch it and
kill it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Bag it and
bin it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">See it. Say
it. Sorted.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sing the
national anthem as you wash your hands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Two times
happy birthday.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But this is
not a bug that is going to respect our birthday wishes. If we’re to defeat it,
we’re going to have to get serious. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The draconian
Chinese regime tried to silence a doctor who first raised the alarm about
Covid-19 and lost control of the virus. It was a major error which showed the
weakness in the political system. But, boy, have they have recovered in an
extraordinary manner. In Wuhan - the sprawling city west of Shanghai that was
the epicentre of the original outbreak – the authorities actually appear to have
turned a corner.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">How exactly did
they do it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Well, they
built two new hospitals within a month for starters, a feat that would be
impossible pretty much anywhere else in the world and utterly beyond the
comprehension of anyone in London or Manchester. In doing so, they clearly had
a sense of the scale of the problem they were likely to encounter. They were
going to have cope with <i>thousands</i> of people who needed hospitalisation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And where
exactly are these people going to be accommodated in the UK?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You don’t know the answer. I don’t know the
answer. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And surveys of NHS staff suggest
that no one working with in the hospital system knows the answer either.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Aircraft
hangars? Requisitioned hotels? Schools that have sent the kids home until the
end of term?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There could
be secret plans that are being held back for fear of causing alarm. But this is
the UK. I suspect there aren’t. We’ll be thinking it couldn’t <i>really</i> be
like China here. Things will work themselves out. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The mantra
is that people should ‘self-isolate’ – a nonsense phrase that is surely
destined for the dictionary as the neologism of 2020.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We self-isolate
if we’ve come back from a holiday in a corona-hit area. We self-isolate if we’ve
come into contact with a suspected carrier.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But what if
the corona-hit area is now somewhere in the UK? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What if the carrier is someone on the tube?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The
Department of Health has handily decided not to tell us in real time where
cases are emerging. It’s complete amateur hour. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In Daegu,
South Korea, citizens receive texts when they enter an area where a case has
been confirmed. The messages even inform them that someone who tested positive
has visited a local bar or club.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But in the
UK, it’s 111 and self-isolation and paracetamol and Netflix. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">How do I
know if I should be quarantining myself?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’ve been
skiing in Northern Italy? Defos. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I went to a
conference where someone told me <i>they’d </i>been skiing in Northern Italy?
Errr… maybe.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Someone
coughed over me on the train? Perhaps I should head home rather than go to the
office.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(The fear of an HR professional
I spoke to recently? Everyone will soon be ‘self-isolating’.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But was
self-isolation a big thing in Hubei province? Look at the pictures coming out
of China and South Korea.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Biohazard
suits. Spraying of streets and shopping malls with corona-killing disinfectants.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Let’s face
it. If moonsuited squads of bug-busters paraded through Westfield in Shepherd’s
Bush, Londoners would be tut-tutting and asking when Carphone Warehouse was
going to reopen. (I mean, the coronavirus is a worry, but I’m due an upgrade
and had my eye on an iPhone 11.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There is
nothing a Brit wants more than day-to-day life to continue as normal.
Infections and respirators and makeshift wards are things that happen in other
places.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">An old
friend visited a major teaching hospital outside London today. She was there
for an eye appointment, but encountered people coughing, sneezing and wiping
their hands across their faces. Touching the furniture. No happy birthdays or
national anthems. Then going into consultations with medical staff. Zero
information visible on Covid-19. Medics looking understandably nervy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We pray for
the best, but know that this bug is already causing severe economic disruption.
We are just weeks away from Covid-19 potentially bringing the country to standstill
entirely. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What if the
Chinese strategy turns out to be the <i>only</i> way to defeat the virus? And
what if Britain is completely unable to embrace or deliver it?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1829012831037810686.post-47526422146807287652020-02-12T15:15:00.003-08:002020-02-12T15:17:34.275-08:00Slumbering Labour needs a wake-up call<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The public is saying what no one in the Labour Party dares
to admit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Just take a look at the commentary that has come out of
Lord Ashcroft’s detailed research. The Conservative pollster has a sample of
10,000 voters and no fewer than 18 focus groups in which people’s concerns are
laid bare.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">My God, it makes grim reading for Corbynistas and all the
facilitators of their disastrous regime over the past few years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Labour is seen as ‘mostly for students, the unemployed and
middle-class radicals’. It seems to ‘disdain…mainstream views’ and ‘disapprove
of success’. The manifesto published at the end of last year? Pie in the sky.
The party can’t be trusted on finance. It’s too left-wing. No priorities. No
understanding of aspiration or prosperity.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The report is particularly heartbreaking for those of us
who warned consistently of the folly of pursuing a hard-left agenda with veteran
losers like Corbyn and McDonnell.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You’d think that after the catastrophic defeat on 12<sup>th</sup>
December last year, the gloves would be off. That people campaigning for the
leadership would be telling a few home truths to the radical membership.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Incredibly, the party is in absolute denial.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Keir Starmer publishes a list of policy pledges which are
straight out of the Corbyn playbook. He champions greater trade union rights,
nationalisation and some peculiar act of Parliament to restrict military
intervention abroad. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Some people say he doesn’t believe any of it. That come
April, he’ll pivot and turn on the hard left, playing them for suckers.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Maybe. But I wouldn’t count on it. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Far more likely that he’ll plod along trying to accommodate
the leftists, misfits, cranks and trolls who flooded into the party to venerate
the sage of the allotment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Every time he wants to nudge the party in the right kind of
direction, he’ll be reminded of the debt he owes to the members who lent him
their votes. And the promises he made during the campaign to honour the legacy
and 'radicalism' of the 2015-19 period.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Starmer – the supposedly razor-sharp lawyer – has created
many hostages to fortune. He’s given far more to the left than he ever needed
to, given that he was the front runner from the start.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">To be honest, it’s hard to see much difference between the
policies he’s advocating and those proposed by the continuity Corbyn candidates.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Richard Burgon – one of the worst advertisement for a Cambridge
education since the university received its charter from Henry III – introduces
a ‘peace pledge’. A few days later, Starmer is talking about ‘illegal wars’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Becky Long-Bailey challenges the candidates to back more
nationalisation of the type rejected by the electorate two months ago. Sir Keir
is only too happy to oblige!<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The options now are looking pretty limited for Labour.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Is Thornberry a comic or tragic figure? I’m not entirely
sure, but I do know her campaign has crashed and burned.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’ll head to my CLP nomination meeting tomorrow, having
rejoined the Labour Party just in time to participate. If I get the chance to make a speech, it
will be for Lisa Nandy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">God knows, she doesn’t always hit the right note. But she’s
undoubtedly bright and has an inquisitive disposition. She strikes me as
someone who would always question and agonise rather than go with the crowd.
And I think she understands something of the enormity of the problems facing
Labour.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">My pick for deputy is Dr Rosena Allin-Khan. The MP for
Tooting has impressed me with her online presence and shrewd use of video. She
is a good communicator and someone who represents the best of modern London. An
excellent partner for Lisa in the battle that lies ahead.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Of course, it seems highly unlikely that my personal choices for the leadership team are going to prevail in the contest. Far more likely that it's a straightforward battle between Starmer and Long-Bailey. At least the preferential voting system allows me the opportunity to express a preference without compromise.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It is time – to paraphrase <i>The Internationale</i> in a
way that I’m sure Richard Burgon would appreciate – for the Labour Party to
arise from its slumbers. At the moment, it is sleepwalking towards a lame-duck
leader – the #keirtaker – who appears defeated before he even assumes office. And
a high price will be paid.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1829012831037810686.post-39658716822610248452019-12-13T14:49:00.000-08:002019-12-13T14:50:53.374-08:00The friends, the facilitators and the failures. They now owe us all an apology.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I keep hearing Corbyn’s tenure referred to as an experiment.
But how many experiments continue for four years, despite a toxic chemical haze
billowing out of the mad inventor’s lab?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The hard-left project should have been stopped in its
tracks countless times. </span><span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">As far back as 2015, Joe Haines – Harold Wilson’s Press
Secretary – suggested that the Parliamentary Labour Party should make a
unilateral declaration of independence. They could have appointed their own
leader in Parliament and bypassed the socialist relic the members had chosen to
elect.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Instead, they prevaricated. They agonised. They muttered to
each other in corridor recesses at Westminster. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The frightened bunnies were at first bemused and
disoriented, allowing Corbyn and his cabal to consolidate their position. And
subsequently, they were frightened. Mainly frightened of the swollen membership
of three-quid flotsam and jetsam who had invaded their constituencies pledging
allegiance to the sage of the allotments.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In 2016, they managed – somehow or other – to muster the
strength for a collective vote of no confidence in Corbyn. The battle was
finally joined. Angela Eagle was rejected as a leadership contender, in no
small part because she’d supported the decision to go to war in Iraq under Tony
Blair. None of the drifters, grifters, trolls and misfits who’d signed up to
membership were going to back her, it was supposed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Step forward Owen Smith. I remember making a speech in my
own CLP in 2016 to help secure his nomination, while all the time despairing at
his hopeless campaign. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Rather than challenging the weird leftist ideology of Corbyn,
McDonnell and Abbott (which was pickled in aspic at the time when Ken
Livingstone led the ill-fated GLC back in the early 80s), Smith pretended to <i>share
</i>his socialist vision. Indeed, he even offered Jez a non-existent role as President
Emeritus or spiritual leader in his new regime.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The morning Corbyn was elected the second time, I resigned from
Labour and posted a blog that had several thousand views online. I also chatted
with John Pienaar on 5 Live, explaining in pretty blunt terms why I thought the
party was on the road to ruin.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When the 2017 election came along, I was pretty certain
that we’d see a meltdown. But I’d not calculated on Theresa May’s disastrous
campaign and Corbyn’s remarkable conjuring trick, in which he managed to persuade
both Leavers and Remainers to back him – probably on the basis they thought he
had little chance.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But once he’d clocked up 40% in the polls, he seemed untouchable.
Even though May had actually achieved the largest percentage share of the Tory
vote since 1983 (surpassed only by Johnson this week), Corbyn had made a very significant
advance in terms of the popular vote on Ed Miliband.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">At this point, the fifth column was in seventh heaven. ‘Centrism’
was dead. No one wanted compromise any more. John McDonnell argued that if the
campaign had gone on just a week longer, Corbyn would have been ensconced in 10
Downing Street.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And then the bowing and scraping. The broken Tom Watson
joining in with the rendition of ‘Oooh, Jeremy Corbyn’ to the familiar White
Stripes refrain at the 2017 conference. Truly toe-curling.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Brexit crisis rumbled on. The instances of obnoxious
anti-semitism continued unabated. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">A brave group of people chose to break away. Chuka Umunna,
Mike Gapes, Luciana Berger and the others were all talented politicians, who
ended up sacrificing their careers because of the pathetic cowardice of others.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If even 25 or 30 additional colleagues had joined them,
Corbyn would have been in a desperately weak position. But Watson used all his
influence to persuade other PLP members to stay. In the process, he helped pave
the way for the disastrous defeat in the Christmas 2019 election.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Many people have remained publicly critical of Corbyn, but
never seem to get much further than the Twitter app on their phones. Jess Phillips,
Wes Streeting, Stella Creasy and others are no doubt decent people, but trapped
by a misplaced sense of loyalty to a party that has been turned into a poundstore
Podemos.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Now, in defeat, the PLP should be immediately supporting
Alan Johnson’s call for the hard-left Momentum group to be wound up. But all we
can hear is the sound of tumbleweed blowing down the road from much-prized former
Labour strongholds <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>such as Wakefield and
Bolsover.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Who are the most complicit? The people who have <i>actively</i>
facilitated Corbyn. In the process of lending the veteran hardliner credibility,
Emily Thornberry, Shami Chakrabarti, Barry Gardiner and Keir Starmer have
destroyed their own.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I expect, at some point soon, these people will be desperately
trying to distance themselves from the four years of madness. It will cut no
ice with me. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Today, I renewed my membership after more than three years
away, determined to give it one last go. Perhaps there will be a new will to
remake Labour as mainstream social democratic party again. Any new leader will,
however, have to be someone with cleaner hands than the members of the current
shadow cabinet. And their starting point will be an abject apology not just to
Labour voters, but to the whole country. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1829012831037810686.post-44283219840847801472019-10-15T06:18:00.000-07:002019-10-15T06:18:53.198-07:00The hard choices XR must now make<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It may be that the folk in Extinction Rebellion don’t care
if they win friends and influence people. Perhaps they believe that a small
group of activists can disrupt society so much and for so long that everyone
decides to acquiesce to their demands? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Suffragettes, for example, didn’t mess about. They
chained themselves to railings, smashed windows and threw themselves in front
of horses in a bid to win women the right to vote. If they’d played
nicey-nicey, the male establishment might just have shrugged.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But there’s one important difference between these two movements.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Campaigners for women’s suffrage were addressing a specific
and fundamental injustice that could potentially be corrected through
legislation. By 1928, women had the same voting rights as men by law. There was
a focused goal and after a generation of struggle, it was achieved. That very
basic demand was a platform on which later feminists would build. Suffrage on
its own, after all, doesn’t deliver equality.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Extinction Rebellion seeks to change the way in
which everyone lives their lives.</span></i><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i><span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Legislation might no doubt play a part in this, but it is
one small element of the overall equation. Because even though the agenda largely
remains unspoken, we are being asked to envisage a world where many of the
things we now take for granted would disappear. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Foodstuffs from around the world would no longer be
plentiful on the shelves. After all, if we were serious about sustainability,
the just-in-time supply chains, packaging and logistics would all have to go. An
eco-friendly world would be a self-sufficient one – a prospect which must
create a little dissonance for the pro-EU campaigners who fear the clearing of Sainsbury’s
shelves through a no-deal Brexit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Cars would be frowned upon and fossil fuels kept in the ground.
With a zero-carbon objective by 2025, we’d be faced with some very dramatic and
possibly disorientating changes to our lives.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">XR’s radical green philosophy asks us to question the
phones and laptops we use, the clothes we wear, the doner kebab we buy. And
that week we promised ourselves in Greece? It’s now off limits, unless we’re
prepared to spend two days travelling there and two days travelling back.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Of course, the counter argument from XR would be that these
are the changes we <i>have</i> to make if human society is to survive on Planet
Earth. I am no denier of the science and agree with them that the prognosis is
pretty grim. But are they looking for people to make these changes <i>willingly</i>?
Or to have the changes imposed upon them?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Do they envisage a world of eco-authoritarianism, where
flights are rationed and meat is banned? Or do they want people to voluntarily decide
to holiday at home and embrace veganism? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">These are not flippant questions. They go to the very heart
of the current debate about what XR is as a movement. And I sense that many of
the people involved don’t know the answer themselves. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I campaigned in the 1980s against the nuclear threat and was
at one point on the National Executive of CND. We too believed we were fighting
against an existential threat (one that, incidentally, hasn’t disappeared). People
within the movement were prepared at times to disobey the law on moral grounds
and to highlight the seriousness of the issue. But no one ever lost sight of
the fact that it was fundamentally a campaign
to<i> change people’s minds</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">At the time, I made countless speeches in schools and
colleges and debated against opponents in organisations such as Peace Through
NATO. I hoped that these small efforts were part of a plan to gradually shift
public opinion. Sure, we may have collectively failed in this quest. But it
never crossed our minds that we would somehow <i>force</i> the abandonment of
nuclear weapons on to the UK. We assumed that people would eventually <i>agree</i> to
it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And another thing. We were highly focused.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There were, of course, people with ideological agendas who
tried to throw us off course. Stalinists wanted CND to be a movement that
fostered links with the Eastern Bloc. Trotskyists wanted CND to engage a whole
range of unrelated ‘struggles’ and ‘make links’ to other tenuously connected causes.
But we always resisted. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In this past week or so, Extinction Rebellion has targeted the
City of London and City Airport. These are focused activities. We might dislike
the inconvenience, but we understand their point. Unrestricted global
capitalism and expanding air travel are a menace to the environment we seek to
protect.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But XR activists and affiliates have also turned up at
Billingsgate Fish Market. They have focused their attention to MI5 and the BBC.
In the latest twist, they tell us they will be targeting the London Underground
– an example of environmentally friendly public transport in a world dominated
by cars.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If this movement is to have any real success, it needs to
make some decisions pretty quickly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The first is whether it believes in imposition. Is the
climate crisis so extreme that it justifies emergency powers to force people to
behave in ways they are currently not? If they <i>do</i> believe in that kind
of authoritarianism, perhaps they’d be honest enough to spell it out. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But if they <i>don’t</i>, and they think the campaign is
actually about winning people over, then they need to stop treating City Airport
and London Underground in the same way. Because people just don’t get it. The
first target is an unsustainable luxury, while the second is an essential part
of life in a sustainable city. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And if they <i>are</i> trying to influence public opinion,
the next decision is over structure and organisation. I get the sense of a
free-wheeling and decentralised group that allows people to pursue their own
pet agendas. If you’re anti-meat, go to Smithfield. If you think the BBC should
be a propaganda machine for the environmental movement, go to Portland Place. This
needs to be much more coherent if the average person is to understand what the
movement is all about.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "Arial",sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Finally, they need to tell us something of what their
post-capitalist, post-industrial society is going to look like. If it’s a world
that people would embrace, why not describe it to us? But if it’s a world they can’t
actually yet imagine themselves – or one they know would actually have little appeal
– then the mountain they’re climbing is almost certainly insurmountable. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1829012831037810686.post-65530593503140318082019-09-23T01:36:00.000-07:002019-09-23T01:41:28.443-07:00Use your vote wisely. And then pray.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There’s only one desirable outcome to any general election
at the end of 2019, but unfortunately it’s not something that any of us can
vote for.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We need another hung parliament. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Preferably one that allows a little more room for
mathematical manoeuvre and – critically - one in which both Boris Johnson and
Jeremy Corbyn have both suffered a severe setback.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Never in modern history have both the major parties been
simultaneously so unfit to govern. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Johnson has transformed the Conservative
Party into radical right-wing movement, intent on delivering Brexit come what
may and winning back the votes lost to Nigel Farage’s movement. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Dominic Cummings serves as a Rasputin-like figure in the
court of Tsar Boris, seemingly responsible for devious plotting and
manipulation. But he is just one figure in a coterie of hardline advisers and
ministers that the Prime Minister has gathered around him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Tories break with constitutional norms and even
threaten to defy the law. They are dragging the country further and further away
from the political mainstream. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Labour, meanwhile, under Jeremy Corbyn is this week revealing
its true colours – even to people gullible enough to have gone along with the project
so far. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The hard left is on the rampage. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It plots to abolish the deputy leader’s post in a carefully
staged ambush reminiscent of the 1930s USSR. It gleefully passes motions on the
conference floor calling for the abolition of private schools and the
appropriation of their assets. (Even the notorious 1983 manifesto didn’t go
that far and the policy apparently even makes John McDonnell queasy.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Outside the conference centre in Brighton, police are
forced to remove a large, anti-semitic banner which is proudly on display – seemingly
with the tacit acceptance of the event organisers. Meanwhile, inside the hall,
the battle between the so-called Lexiters and pro-EU faction rages unabated.
Utter mayhem.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Neither the Conservative Party or the Labour Party should
be anywhere near government at the moment. Both Johnson and Corbyn are people
promoted way beyond their natural ability, floundering at the challenges they
now encounter. Johnson has found himself in a role he always craved, but is only
capable of disgracing it. Corbyn is in a role he never sought and is only
equipped to fail.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So should we vote Lib Dem? Well, that’s a no-brainer for me,
as I live in a seat which is a Lib Dem/Tory marginal. But elsewhere, it’s problematic.
What if your vote for a Lib Dem inadvertently let a Boris-supporting, no-deal Brexiter reach
Westminster? Or helped to boost the numbers of Corbyn’s poundstore Podemos
party?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That’s why I conclude that we can only cast our ballots in
good conscience and pray. Because the result the country needs isn’t going to
be an option on the voting form.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1829012831037810686.post-29503482372546190432019-08-29T15:45:00.001-07:002019-08-29T15:46:06.061-07:00As the fantasists of left and right clash, Britain is caught in the middle.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Corbyn out-riders Paul Mason and Owen Jones feel their
moment has finally come. They yell through microphones of coming resistance and
revolution, while eager crowds chant their agreement. Momentum activists
discuss the need to block bridges and tweet about the firebombing of Lloyd
George’s house over a hundred years ago by Suffragettes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Labour MPs such as Dawn Butler and Clive Lewis have tweeted
their willingness to camp out in the Commons chamber to defy Boris Johnson’s
prolonged closure of Parliament during the conference season.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The hard left has suddenly, to the alarm of more moderate pro-EU
activists, taken an interest in Brexit for the first time and decided to hijack
the demonstrations and protests over the prorogation of Parliament. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">These extremists fantasise about general strikes and
confrontations on the street, while most people in the UK are just desperately praying
for the whole crisis to resolve itself.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Let’s be honest though. There’s no doubt that these
fantasists of the left have been given an unexpected boost by the fantasists of
the right. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Dominic Cummings, the Machiavellian mastermind behind Boris
Johnson’s prorogation strategy, believes in a disruptive revolution of his own.
One in which the UK’s established institutions – such as the civil service, the
BBC and perhaps the judiciary – are turned upside down in response to their
defiance of the ‘will of the people’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Right-wing extremism breeds left-wing extremism. Conflict
begets conflict. The UK is in a more perilous position constitutionally and
politically than at any point in my lifetime. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The only remote parallel in modern history is probably to
the fevered tensions of the 1984-5 miners’ strike, when Arthur Scargill and his
supporters imagined they could bring down Margaret Thatcher’s right-wing
government through extra-parliamentary action. Riot police faced off against
strikers and ‘scabs’ were targeted for daring to go to work.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As I have said many times before, there is no good outcome
to this mess over Brexit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>European
Council President Donald Tusk has spoken many wise words during the debacle –
reminding us not to ‘waste’ our precious extension period, for example – but
perhaps his most salient contribution was to present the choices facing the UK
as those of ‘damage limitation’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I see it exactly like Tusk. We have shot ourselves
repeatedly in both feet. The question now is whether we are going to allow
ourselves to bleed to death or whether we’re prepared to call for an ambulance.
We’ve given up on the possibility that we’ll ever be walking quite as
confidently as we did before.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Prior to May’s departure, the least-worst option (Tusk’s
damage limitation) was approval of the withdrawal agreement and political
declaration. Repeatedly, through an alliance of the hard left, far right,
Northern Irish unionists and bloody-minded Remainers, this pathway was blocked
off.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Now, the least-worst option is clearly some government of
national unity. This leads me to conclude that a no-confidence vote in Johnson
is probably needed next week, rather than convoluted attempts to legislate
against no deal.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Earlier in the week, Jeremy Corbyn tacitly accepted that he
was not in any position to serve as an interim Prime Minister by agreeing with
opposition parties to follow the ‘legislative route’. Now, as the Johnson and
Cummings game plan becomes more and more obvious, the no-confidence vote is
back in play. But the aftermath will be a disastrous mess if Corbyn reasserts
himself as the presumed temporary occupant of Number 10.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Tragically, after Boris' prorogation stunt, there is a sense on the hard left that maybe Jezza’s time has come
again. The veteran socialist and republican even made an unlikely request for a
meeting with The Queen. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The reality is that he has no real support in the
Parliamentary Labour Party, let alone the wider Commons. He is also the most
unpopular opposition leader since records began among the wider public. As a
consequence, he could never serve as a credible leader of the country, even for
a fortnight. After all, that fortnight could be the most pivotal and fraught of
the 21<sup>st</sup> century so far for the UK.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So where does this leave us?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s just possible the courts may rule against prorogation,
although such a decision would only give lawmakers a handful of extra days to
discuss Brexit. It won’t bring them any closer to agreeing on anything beyond the
need to block no deal. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Legislation against that no-deal outcome – if achieved
in the Commons – has to go through the Lords, which Boris is threatening to
pack with pro-Brexit peers. Such a statute would also allow Johnson to call a
general election on his own terms: pronouncing that Parliament has defied the
public’s expressed desires in the 2016 referendum.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">By a process of elimination, we have to conclude there is
now only one route towards partial salvation. That’s to prioritise a vote of no
confidence with the idea that a unity figurehead will lead an interim
administration. While of course it does matter to a certain extent whether it’s
Ken Clarke or Yvette Cooper or Harriet Harman, it’s far more important that we
install a government <i>not</i> led by Boris Johnson or Jeremy Corbyn.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">A unity government will not magically solve the UK’s
problems. Neither will the general election and possible second referendum it
might usher in. But damage control and dispassionate reflection dictates that it’s
the path we must now follow. Just don’t hold your breath.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1829012831037810686.post-23401228330692129712019-07-19T14:21:00.002-07:002019-07-20T05:13:02.194-07:00Indecision and internecine strife: why Labour's in no position to see off the resurgent right<br />
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There is a madness to politics right now in North America,
the UK and some parts of Western Europe. Trump ratchets up the racist rhetoric
and hatred in the US. And it increasingly seems as if the lunatics haven’t just
taken over one asylum, but are on the brink of securing tenure in multiple
institutions and setting up a chain. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Indeed, that’s the stated intention of far-right activists.
Steve Bannon, for instance, has spent a great deal of time on his European
operation and clearly hoped for a more decisive impact across the EU in the
Parliamentary elections in May. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Although things may not be moving at the speed some
right-wingers hope for, the elevation of Boris Johnson next week – barring an extremely
unexpected twist in the Tory leadership contest – sets the UK careering towards
a no-deal Brexit and a lurch to the right. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">A new Westminster election may be on the cards and it will be
the most unpredictable in modern history. Anything could potentially happen if half
the Tory vote remains within the grip of The Brexit Party. That scenario is a
window of opportunity for Labour. But Johnson’s obvious course of action is to lure
his voters back with a fantasy of ‘clean break’ from Brussels. Either Farage then
agrees some kind of electoral pact or he sees his newly-founded movement disappear
naturally at the same speed it emerged.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If – and this is certainly a big ‘if’ – Johnson <i>does</i>
manage to reunite the Tory vote and the general election is fought over the
issue of whether we want to go through with Brexit or not, Labour is in an
atrociously weak position.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Not only would Corbyn likely go into the poll trailing
almost as badly as he did at the start of May’s disastrous 2017 campaign, but
he would also have no clear policy on Brexit itself. <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">To recap, the veteran socialist demands a referendum on any
Tory deal or a no-deal scenario and says he would support (half-heartedly, one
presumes) Remain. But in an election where he’s campaigning for a Labour
victory, his manifesto will tell voters that he will secure a <i>better</i>
deal from the EU. And as no one knows the terms of this hypothetical and likely
mythical agreement, we are left guessing as to what Corbyn’s stance would be in
the event of any eventual Referendum.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In other words, Labour’s policy is still as clear as mud. Not
only that, but it will be interpreted and misinterpreted 100 different ways in
an election campaign by the likes of Richard Burgon, Emily Thornberry, Barry
Gardiner and Keir Starmer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Attempts to steer the election away from Brexit on to the
safer ground of public services or the NHS will, this time, be futile. We will
be up against the wire with the future of our relationship with the EU hanging
in the balance. This will be no re-run of 2017. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But following Corbyn’s unexpectedly good performance two
years ago, he will now be taken relatively seriously. The allotment king has
actually become a contender. And that means the spectre of a Labour-SNP
coalition rears its ugly head again – something which proved disastrous for Ed
Miliband, particularly in the south of England.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s conceivable Labour might pull something more coherent
together if they were united on other issues, but of course they are not.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Corbyn’s hopeless incompetence has left most parliamentarians
speechless with rage and the plague of anti-semitism that has infested the
party shows no sign of being eradicated.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As a result, the public is getting more and more of a taste
of the modus operandi of the far left and will be drawing its own conclusions
about what a Corbyn government would actually mean. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s worth noting the sequence of events over the past
couple of weeks.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In advance of the Panorama documentary on anti-Jewish prejudice,
a memo was sent to so-called ‘digital out-riders’ to go on the attack. We were soon
being told that the programme was a stitch-up and that the whistleblowers had
axes to grind. At that stage, the instruction to leftist activists was to lay
off attacks on Labour’s Deputy Leader, Tom Watson. But no such scruples applied
after the show was aired.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Watson was disingenuously denounced as a ‘bully’ for raising
issues with the Party’s General Secretary Jennie Formby, who is being treated for
cancer. Len McCluskey – a man who epitomises the archetypal dinosaur not just
in terms of antediluvian attitudes, but also brainpower – used the Durham
Miners’ Gala as a platform to swear at Watson. This was probably a genuine first.
Even for what is one of the UK’s weirdest historical re-enactment events.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Since then, we’ve had ridiculous calls for the Panorama
programme to be removed from the BBC iPlayer and Corbyn has said that BBC staff
must ‘consider their position’, giving a firm indication of his commitment to
media independence. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Dianne Hayter – a leading Labour figure in the House of Lords
– was dismissed from her role for comparing the culture of leadership team to
that of the Berlin bunker in the final days of the Third Reich.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">News of Hayter’s sacking was leaked to a cranky hard-left
website called Skwawkbox, rather than conveyed to the Labour peer herself. And
laughably, her allusion to the Nazis was declared to be <i>offensive to Jews</i>.
This is kind of stuff you really couldn’t make up. Or at least you couldn’t have
made it up prior to the elevation of the fool Corbyn in 2015.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Meanwhile – no doubt to the horror of McCluskey – unions representing
Labour Party workers have been in open revolt over the Panorama debacle. They understandably
dislike the vilification of the whistleblowers and also the appointment of a
new membership chief who has apparently endorsed the idea that the anti-semitism
accusations are ‘smears’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This is a party in crisis to the point where it can barely
function. The idea that within a few weeks it could be drawing in millions of
new voters to form a government seems completely preposterous. It’s 2019
though. So can we really rule anything out? <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It is just possible to imagine a very particular sequence
of events and peculiar alignment of the heavens which allows Corbyn to enter Downing
Street by default. If the gods decreed that we must suffer that fate, we should
start preparing for the rockiest ride the UK has seen in generations. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1829012831037810686.post-12828624719669101142019-06-28T14:17:00.000-07:002019-06-28T14:46:08.380-07:00Raise your arm in salute to Corbyn's poundstore PodemosA recent retweet of mine managed to clock up 45,000 impressions and a fair bit of online commentary. I'd spotted and circulated a post from Laura Smith, the Member of Parliament for Crewe & Nantwich, who was telling us about a 'people-powered mass meeting' just held in her constituency.<br />
<br />
Embedded in Smith's tweet was an image of the gathering.<br />
<br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #8899a6; font-family: "helvetica neue" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: center; white-space: nowrap;"></span><br />
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<div dir="ltr" lang="en">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #8899a6; font-family: "helvetica neue" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: center; white-space: nowrap;">Last night's people-powered mass meeting proved that we all share a common vision for our local community and for a fairer society. Lots of campaign ideas to rebuild Crewe & Nantwich <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ByTheMany?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ByTheMany</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/IanLaveryMP?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@IanLaveryMP</a> <a href="https://t.co/yaJ4ipwdm7">pic.twitter.com/yaJ4ipwdm7</a></span></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #8899a6; font-family: "helvetica neue" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: center; white-space: nowrap;">— Laura Smith MP (@LauraSmithMP) <a href="https://twitter.com/LauraSmithMP/status/1143810779478728709?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 26, 2019</a></span></blockquote>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #8899a6; font-family: "helvetica neue" , sans-serif; font-size: 12px; text-align: center; white-space: nowrap;">
<script async="" charset="utf-8" src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js"></script></span>
<br />
The picture showed maybe 60 or 70 people standing with their arms aloft and fists clenched, as if gripped by a revolutionary fervour. The filter on the shot gives it a slightly retro feel and one might easily be looking at a contingent of Republicans determined to defend Barcelona from the fascist onslaught in January 1939.<br />
<br />
But this wasn't Las Ramblas and the coming of Franco. It was somewhere about 25 miles south of Runcorn and frankly embarrassing.<br />
<br />
I remarked on Twitter than I'd spent 30 years in the Labour Party, chaired a constituency party and stood as a parliamentary candidate on a couple of occasions. In the past, I attended more Labour Party meetings than Tom Watson used to have hot dinners. Some of that time served was in the dark days of the 1980s, where Trotskyist infiltration was at its peak and the so-called 'loony left' held sway over a number of local authorities.<br />
<br />
I can honestly say that NEVER in all that time - and in all those endless general committees and local government committees and party conferences and student demos - was I <i>ever</i> expected to stand with my fist above my head in the style of Wolfie from the classic 70s sitcom Citizen Smith. (Note to younger readers: this was a show where Robert Lindsay played a wasteman from South London who spent his life trying to emulate Che Guevara.)<br />
<br />
Corbyn has not only taken Labour out of the social democratic mainstream politically, but he has removed it culturally too. It has become a place where people are expected to act out revolutionary theatre in a style that would have embarrassed even the most hardened Trots I knew as a student.<br />
<br />
The people in the Crewe & Nantwich salute may well be decent folk. I'm sure many of them genuinely want to create a better society. But that society will not come out of regimentation, groupthink and uncritical support for Corbyn. The tragedy is that may Labour members are so detached from mainstream opinion that they probably believe this snap will serve as an inspiration to others. The reality is that it's instant propaganda for their Tory opponents.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1829012831037810686.post-64980503562723894522019-06-12T15:44:00.000-07:002019-06-12T15:47:42.022-07:00Don't write off The Saj. He's fighting a different battle.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There are two battles being fought in the Tory Party right
now. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The first is the obvious one, which is over the Conservatives’
stance on the UK’s exit from the EU. With Farage riding high in the polls, the
dynamic is clearly towards the election of a hard Brexiter, who is prepared to
countenance a no-deal departure. That’s why it’s hard to see anything other
than a Boris premiership, despite the Old Etonian’s obvious unsuitability for
the role.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Other candidates – Dominic Raab and Esther McVey, for
example – have vowed to be just as tough with Brussels. We then see a spectrum
of opinion and rhetoric, which stretches all the way to the fairly sensible, if
skeletal, figure of Rory Stewart, who is presumed to have little chance among
the Tory faithful.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The other battle, in many ways, is the more interesting
one. It’s over the long-term future of British conservatism beyond Brexit. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This debate is understandably somewhat lost amid the current
sense of intrigue and crisis, but it is there nevertheless. It’s a contest over
ideology and class and representativeness. And that’s why the candidacy of Sajid
Javid is so interesting.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Saj has gained little momentum and is unlikely to emerge
triumphant on this occasion, but may well hope to pick up the pieces if the
Conservative Party is annihilated through Brexit and Johnson’s incompetence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Javid’s back story is well documented. The first Home Secretary
to hail from an ethnic minority background, he comes from humble beginnings in a
crime-ridden part of Bristol. Indeed, his daily victuals were not served from a
Bullingdon Club silver spoon and he can claim to be a genuinely self-made man.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Why does this matter? Javid is a clever operator and much
more in touch with the culture of modern Britain than many of his privileged or
aristocratic rivals. Intriguingly, he won the backing of Ruth Davidson, the
fiery Scottish politician whose own leadership potential is undermined only by
the lack of a seat in the Westminster Parliament.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Javid is an heir to Margaret Thatcher and the hard-nosed,
meritocratic ideology she espoused in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Every
year, according to reports, he ritually re-reads a classic scene from <i>The
Fountainhead</i> by Ayn Rand, in which Howard Roark extols the virtues of individualism.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If the Conservative Party is ever to rise Phoenix-like from
the ashes of the Brexit debacle, it will not be thanks to the patricians, but
because they have been usurped by champions of the aspiring working and middle
classes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">While in 2019, with Europe so dominant in our national
discourse, it’s probably obvious to the Saj that it is not his time, but he won’t
be too worried. He may sense that a fresh start – built from the ruins of defeat
– is not going to be too far away.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1829012831037810686.post-62569422866058594302019-05-30T03:53:00.000-07:002019-05-30T04:08:00.405-07:00Morally, the Remain campaign deserves to win. Tactically, it only knows how to lose.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There’s no doubt in my mind that the Remain campaign has economic
sense, political reality and moral righteousness on its side. Sadly, this won’t
stop it from losing its protracted battle to prevent the UK leaving the EU. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In fact, I would go as far as to say that its tactical
ineptness and catastrophic misreading of politics mean that it probably <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">deserves</i> to lose. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Take the most recent hullabaloo over Boris Johnson and the perplexing
decision by a district judge that he must appear in court over the claims he
made during the referendum campaign. Even setting aside the legal rights and
wrongs – it’s hard to imagine any precedent for ‘misconduct’ actually being extended to include campaign sloganising – the celebrations among
Remainers are completely premature and misplaced.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If I were a hard Brexiter, I would <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">love</i> the court case. It would confirm all my narrative about the political
and legal system doing everything in its power to obstruct the ‘will of the
people’. It is icing on the populist cake, as it shows the determination of the
so-called ‘liberal establishment’ to bring down people who speak out against
the EU. The fact that the decision was taken in the early stages of the Tory
leadership contest will fuel crazy conspiracists. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Let’s go back a stage to the European elections. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Again, Remainers – and a large portion of the British left –
celebrated the throwing of a milkshake over Nigel Farage. They thought it
oh-so-funny that a man whose opinions they rightly despise should be targeted
in such a way. The concerns of Brendan Cox – widower of the murdered MP Jo Cox –
that there should be zero tolerance for attacks in the street? They fell on
deaf ears. Milkshakes weren’t ‘violence’! <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">A few days later, Farage came top in the Brexit polls, much
as predicted. His dry-cleaning bill had gone up, but his credibility hadn’t
gone down. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, his folk-hero status
among a third of the population was probably enhanced.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Of course, you wouldn’t <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">know</i>
that Farage had won the election if you read the tweets or emails of the Remain
campaign. They are in a world of blissful denial, as if they might have <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/smoking-opium-in-iran-was-stupid-mistake-pm-hopeful-rory-stewart-admits-11731525" target="_blank">puffed on some Iranian opium</a> in the manner of Tory leadership hopeful Rory Stewart. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Desperately, they tot up the votes of people who voted
Green, Lib Dem, Change UK, SNP and Plaid Cymru, to demonstrate that more people
support staying in the EU than embrace Farage’s vision of British nationalism.
They can do maths, but they can’t do politics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If they want to compete with The Brexit Party, they need to
get all their pro-European canards in a row and stand as a single party. But
they couldn’t manage it in the European elections and haven’t managed it in the
forthcoming Peterborough by-election either.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Even more desperately, Remainers start calculating the
number of people who <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">didn’t</i> vote and
claiming that Farage’s success was built on a tiny proportion of the
electorate. They forget that elections – and referendums, for that matter – are
won and lost by people who <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do </i>vote,
not by those who don’t.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Let’s go back another stage and look at the way the
Remainers attack the Leave campaign. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sometimes, it’s quite specific, as in <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/16/erg-david-lammy-wrong-compare-nazis" target="_blank">David Lammy’s mistaken comparison between the European Research Group and the Nazis</a>. The ERG
that counts Sajid Javid and Suella Braverman among its members? Lammy’s
comments were not only highly provocative and counter-productive, but also defy
all historical analysis. The cranky and outspoken free-marketers in the ERG
wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in the Third Reich.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sometimes, the attacks are more generalised, but equally undermining
to the Remain cause. Leavers are frequently patronised, labelled as stupid and as
people who need to be ‘educated’. Labour MP Lisa Nandy, for instance – who is a
genuine thinker and by no means a Corbynista – has been attacked for daring to
oppose a second referendum. Her ‘job’, according to supercilious FPBE types on Twitter,
is to explain to her constituents in Wigan why they are so hopelessly wrong
about Brexit.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Let’s be clear. When Corbyn tries to avoid a second referendum,
he does it out of fear that Brexit will be reversed. He has always opposed the
EU and is completely disingenuous in all his pronouncements. Nandy, on the
other hand, is someone who speaks from the heart and deserves to be treated with
respect. Instead, she attracts contempt and opprobrium.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If we do get the point of a second referendum and there's an option to stay in the EU, I'll vote once again to stay. It's my belief that the big issues facing us - climate change, control of multinational corporations and finance, international security - can only be tackled at a transnational level. The EU is an imperfect institution, but one which has, on balance, been overwhelmingly positive. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I believe, however, that a second referendum is becoming
less and less likely and that a no-deal nightmare looms. If a new poll does go
ahead, the result is highly unpredictable. But I would bet that if the tactics
of the Remain campaign don’t change radically, Farage will end up having the
last laugh. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1829012831037810686.post-40986454760469743722019-05-12T05:42:00.000-07:002019-05-12T05:44:39.382-07:00Will the Remain cause perish on 23rd May?<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We all grew up with the adage that we must careful what we wish
for. Before we know it, we’ll find it’s actually happening.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">And here we are with the European Elections on 23</span><sup style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif;">rd</sup><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">
May.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Secretly – and latterly not-so-secretly – Remainers longed
for the idea of deferring the Brexit withdrawal date. Wouldn’t it be wonderful,
they imagined, if May were unable to force us to quit the EU at the end of March
and we would continue as full members of the club? Just think of the egg on the
Prime Minister’s face as she was forced to concede that elections to the
European Parliament would have to go ahead after all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Well, May <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">will</i>
have egg on her face after 23<sup>rd</sup> May. But so will everyone else,
apart from Nigel Farage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Numerically, the anti-Brexit voters in the population are
pretty strong, but who are they supposed to back? The revived ‘Bollocks to
Brexit’ Liberal Democrats, perhaps? The newly-formed Change UK? Maybe they
think the Greens are a good option? Or does nationalist loyalty tilt them
towards the SNP or Plaid Cymru?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It will be a mixed and patchy picture, in which collectively
these well-meaning Europeans do quite well. But polls suggest that the
newly-formed Brexit Party is likely to come out on top – perhaps by a significant
margin. In one test of opinion, it seems as if the Faragists might even amass
more votes than Labour and the Tories <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">put
together</i>. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If this does happen, it will be a disaster for the
pro-European cause. The narrative will be that a sizeable body of opinion in
the country accepts Farage’s case for ‘betrayal’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The Tories currently look as if they’re on the brink of
annihilation. This may well be the tipping point for Theresa May’s doomed
premiership and the message among the Tory faithful will be crystal clear: we
can only survive as a party if we push Brexit through.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The European elections may therefore greatly increase the
chance of a strongly pro-Brexit leader taking over the Tory Party and moving in
to 10 Downing Street. No deal will be back on the table – if not as a desired
outcome, at least as a bargaining chip.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">For Corbyn, the election will be no less problematic. In the
2017 general election, he performed a conjuring trick, whereby he convinced
both Leavers and Remainers he was on their side. This garnered him 40% of the
vote. Now, he has managed to persuade both Leavers and Remainers that he doesn’t
have a clue what he’s up to. 20% in the European elections seems plausible.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">My guess is that he will use the vote for Farage to vindicate
his Eurosceptic stance and double down on his desire to push some kind of
Brexit through. This may potentially cause a further rupture in Labour ranks,
as more moderates recognise the sheer futility of their ‘stay-and-fight’
strategy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And there’s another thing to bear in mind. The European
elections – surprise, surprise – are not confined to the UK. What if the
overall picture on the continent is one of significant gains for anti-European
and neo-right populists? The prognosis in Italy and Hungary looks bleak and both
France and Germany teeter on the brink of something ugly too.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Remainers in the UK will be advocating another referendum
to stay in a bloc which looks set to tear itself apart through its own internal
tensions. It’s quite conceivable that a third of the MEPs in any new European
Parliament would be people broadly aligned with the far right.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And the message from Farage? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You’re
not alone in opposing the EU. Brexit is part of a wider movement and the UK is
at the vanguard of radical change.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There was one thing that could have prevented this
nightmare scenario. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The political parties at Westminster could have been
grown-up enough to have passed May’s withdrawal agreement in recent months. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Brexit would have been delivered notionally, taking the
wind out of the sails of the far right. The accusations of betrayal would have
been more muted and less plausible. At the same time, we would have retained a
close economic relationship with our European partners.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Now, who knows? The whip hand will be back with the
Brexiters. And the consequences may be felt for generations.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1829012831037810686.post-19844525544906671182019-04-16T01:07:00.001-07:002019-04-16T01:07:07.123-07:00Is the climate more important than Brexit? Actually, they have something in common...<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvu-Tj_F9xMcL31Wl6KLWUULKWEhp0yMQ1r24DDP31-sswQjG5WCdw-fGbi43Phl2DwJc1AvBFmEEezRYPPbh5Kriv-mqUOF1y0gCl6_Wdct3tTJg5_-XpWVIjMO7y4rxmMRav0_b1FTs/s1600/Climate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="720" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvu-Tj_F9xMcL31Wl6KLWUULKWEhp0yMQ1r24DDP31-sswQjG5WCdw-fGbi43Phl2DwJc1AvBFmEEezRYPPbh5Kriv-mqUOF1y0gCl6_Wdct3tTJg5_-XpWVIjMO7y4rxmMRav0_b1FTs/s320/Climate.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
There’s an impressive encampment of
climate change protestors in the Marble Arch area of London. They’ve blocked
the entrances to Oxford Street, Edgware Road and Park Lane, so are causing a
fair amount of disruption to London traffic, as they intended. It would be
churlish to point out that pollution levels are rising in surrounding streets.
That’s temporary, where as the climate disaster is likely to be very permanent.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 142.2pt;">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 142.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 142.2pt;">
As I walked among the dozens of
tents this morning, where people had spent the night, I was reminded of my
teenage years in the 1980s demonstrating against nuclear weapons. In the height
of the Cold War, when Reagan and Thatcher faced off against the Soviet Union,
they appeared to represent the ultimate existential threat.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 142.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 142.2pt;">
I remember camping out on Clapham
Common in 1985 and using it as a base for demos and protests in a week of
action. The Leader of Lambeth Council, ‘Red’ Ted Knight, paid us a visit. At
the time, if you’d asked me why I spent more time focused on CND than, say,
Anti-Apartheid, the industrial disputes of the era or other pressing social
issues, I would have answered in the same way as today’s eco-warriors: if the
bomb goes off, the rest doesn’t matter.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 142.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 142.2pt;">
Some of the current protesters get
even more specific. Climate change is more important than the hellish issue of
Brexit, they say. There is compelling logic to this and, although I voted
Remain and worry about the consequences of the stupid decision the UK made back
in 2016, it’s impossible to ignore the nagging voice that says maybe everything
has just a little out of proportion. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 142.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 142.2pt;">
When you hear Lord Adonis or David
Lammy or Anna Soubry talk on the subject of the UK’s exit from the EU, they all
seem obsessed to the point of complete distraction. Meanwhile, the polar ice
caps are fast melting and by 2050, there will be more plastic in the oceans by
weight than fish.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 142.2pt;">
Of course, one could make a
logical argument that climate change will only be fought effectively through
multinational collaboration of the type fostered by institutions such as the
EU. But the argument seems fairly feeble when confronted with the urgency of
the problems highlighted by demonstrators and the snail-like bureaucracy for which
Brussels is renowned.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 142.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 142.2pt;">
There is, I feel, a close parallel
between Brexit and climate change though and it’s to do with human psychology
in response to looming, self-inflicted disaster. Brexit has gone to the wire. Theresa
May gambled on the deadline of a disastrous cliff-edge departure focusing the minds
of lawmakers. The deadline loomed and people started to panic. Some – such as
Yvette Cooper and Oliver Letwin – actually tried to take control of the
situation to a degree. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 142.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 142.2pt;">
But notice what’s happened now.
After the extension granted by the European Council, everyone gave a huge sigh
of relief. Despite Donald Tusk’s salutary warning that we should not waste our
time, we have started to drift. Talks go on between the two major parties,
although little is known of the detail. No need to worry. We have more time
again. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 142.2pt;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 142.2pt;">
I admire the climate activists,
who will no doubt be vindicated. The science behind global warming and
pollution is overwhelming and the evidence of their impact is already being
felt in countless ways. My sense of human nature, however, is that it will take
the flood waters to reach Marble Arch before anyone is prepared to change their
lifestyle of throwaway convenience.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 142.2pt;">
As a teenager, I would have driven
by optimism. Today, I am not so sure.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1829012831037810686.post-31931972571070203792019-03-08T12:47:00.003-08:002019-03-08T12:54:30.282-08:00Prepare for fireworks as the Corbyn project crashes and burns<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There really was no need for the government to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/mar/08/threshold-for-offering-blood-pressure-drugs-reduced" target="_blank">reduce the threshold at which high blood pressure gets treated</a>. Corbyn’s supporters are
registering 160/100 right now, as their project starts its inexorable – and inevitable
– downward spiral.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Long gone are the days when the hard left used to dine out
on Jez’s improbable 40% showing in the 2017 general election. The latest YouGov
poll has the Tories on 40, while the remodelled Momentum-run Labour Party languishes
on 31.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Even the faithful are beginning to realise the game is up.
If there ever were an opportunity for the veteran socialist to slip into
Downing Street, the window has now closed. And as the decline continues, you
can expect recrimination, denunciation and howling exasperation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">How did the Corbynites find themselves in this position? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Of course, there’s no one answer. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Like many movements, they are divided between
purists and pragmatists. Although Corbyn and McDonnell share much the same
ideology, the former is incapable of modifying his pronouncements and actions
to suit the prevailing mood. The Shadow Chancellor is cleverer and more
tactical, knowing very well that revealing the full extent of their leftist agenda
is political poison.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This has led to reports of a <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeremy-corbyn-john-mcdonnell-labour-economy-budget-tax-cuts-shadow-cabinet-a8614596.html" target="_blank">deterioration and distance in the relationship</a>, with some Blairite wags cuttingly describing the pair as ‘shits
that pass in the night’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">There’s no issue which divides the purist ideologues and
the pragmatic realpolitikers more decisively than the anti-semitism debacle.
While Momentum and its founder Jon Lansman join McDonnell in wringing their hands
over the anti-Jewish hostility, many loyalists rebel. They continue to post
obnoxious sentiments online, target MPs perceived to be ‘Zionists’ and defend
the likes of Derby MP Chris Williamson, who was recently suspended over his
conduct.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Brexit is the other major fault line. Here, it’s possible
to have more sympathy with the Labour leadership, as it is difficult to arrive
at a policy which holds Corbyn’s fragile 2017 coalition together.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nevertheless, the impact of their vacillation
and confusion has clearly dented Labour’s credibility and – along with the anti-semitism issue – helped provoke the departure of several MPs to the
newly-founded Independent Group.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Recent polling is particularly hard for the Jezuit faithful
to swallow, as they have been fed a line that ‘centrism’ is dead and that no
one wants a return to the sensible middle ground. Now they know it to be
completely untrue. Cue cognitive dissonance and disarray. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">A few weeks ago, the idea of a breakaway group was
ridiculed. Now, the rebel lawmakers are the subject of fierce condemnation and opprobrium
– accused of ruining Corbyn’s chances of making it to No 10. It would be funny,
if it weren’t so tragic. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Well, actually, it is just quite funny.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So where do we go from here? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When religious adherents are confronted with evidence that
their mantras are false, the usual response is to retreat into defence,
defiance and denial. Sometimes complete volte-faces are essential to keep the
ideological show on the road. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If you’re told the end of the world is in Feburary 2019 and
the calendar stubbornly insists that it’s March, it’s never the original prediction
that was wrong. You insist the world is <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">still
</i>going to end, but you explain you’ve re-read the runes and it’s now
scheduled for September instead. Technical error, rather than ideological bankruptcy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Outsiders and heretics will be feared and condemned more
loudly and vigorously than ever before. And I predict that, increasingly,
heresy will be identified <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">within</i> the
movement itself, as it begins to split and fragment under external pressure.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The final stages of the Brexit showdown will, I’m sure,
produce more shockwaves. The interest of the Equality and Human Rights
Commission in the anti-semitism issue is another ratcheting of the pressure.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I suspect we are in for turbulent times. They will be disastrous
for Labour, but very healthy for British democracy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1829012831037810686.post-9793008911240537982019-02-23T15:35:00.003-08:002019-02-23T15:36:46.581-08:00TIG has already rattled Corbyn. Now, the battle is really on.<span style="font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Perhaps the Independent Group – or the party into which it
will inevitably morph – will achieve little electorally. Critics are quick to point
to the experience of the SDP in the 1980s and the crushing nature of the UK’s
first-past-the-post electoral system.</span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But those who obsess over the chances of a breakthrough in
a general election are missing the point entirely.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The very emergence of TIG is the single best thing to
happen to British politics in some years.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The breakaway faction offers a potential choice to voters
that goes beyond hard-left vision of Jeremy Corbyn and the laissez-faire madness
championed by the Tories. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It exposes the vacuous claim of the far left that ‘centrism’
is now dead and has no natural constituency.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It shakes up the arithmetic in Parliament and presents some
new possibilities in the endless and painful debate over Brexit. (Indeed, in
recent days John McDonnell and others have signalled that Labour might be more
inclined to embrace a second referendum. The Shadow Chancellor knows that more
concessions are needed to prevent further walk-outs.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So without forming a political party proper and without
contesting any public election, the Independent Group has already shaken up British
politics.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">For me, as a former Labour parliamentary candidate, the
most exhilarating thing about TIG is the fact that people have finally called
Corbyn’s bluff. The veteran leftist believed that he could push and push and
push with no consequences. His online supporters – a motley collection of
cranks, bullies, trolls and Trots – have been given free rein to snipe and intimidate.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Now, at last, they’re on the defensive.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When TIG launched, its members not only attacked Corbyn over
Brexit and the anti-semitism crisis. They also made a point of exposing his
dangerous foreign policy and hopeless incompetence. These are things that need to
be right out in the open. And, now, free of the shackles of party discipline,
these parliamentarians can actually speak their minds.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The reaction of some Corbynistas is to pretend that TIG is
an irrelevance, although polls in recent days suggest otherwise. The majority,
however, lash out. They denounce the ‘scabs’ and ‘traitors’ who have left the
movement and prioritise campaigns to oust them from their seats.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Let the hard left huff and puff. Because it’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">their </i>house that is going get blown
down.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But what of the likes of Emily Thornberry? The Shadow
Foreign Secretary joins the Jezuits in vitriolic attacks on her former colleagues.
She – along with others, such as Barry Gardiner and Baroness Chakrabarti – seem
determined to nail their colours firmly to the Corbyn mast, no matter what. But
they need to realise that when the ship hits the shore, no one will be interested
in rescuing the survivors.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 189.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Tom Watson, as ever, teeters.
The Labour Deputy Leader expresses sorrow in video messages and wrings his hands
at the news of the breakaway. But what does he actually <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">do</i>? Every day he has spent in office has been a day facilitating
Corbyn, by propping up the regime and giving it undeserved credibility.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 189.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 189.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The challenge to the remaining
moderates in Labour is this: do you stick with the Momentum project while it
self-destructs? Or do you play a part in finishing the disastrous Corbyn experiment
and breathing new life into British democracy?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="tab-stops: 189.0pt;">
<br /></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1829012831037810686.post-35468300906951102402019-02-18T13:31:00.000-08:002019-02-18T13:33:39.161-08:00Who needs Chuka when you have Degsy?In a moment of immense unscripted irony, it was announced today that Derek Hatton - Deputy Leader of Liverpool City Council during the Trotskyist insurgency of the 1980s - has rejoined the Labour Party. As seven brave moderates stick their heads above the parapet and quit to form The Independent Group in Parliament, Corbyn reaches out to his old pals on the hard left.<br />
<br />
For those with long memories, 'Degsy' was associated with the very worst of the excesses in local government 35 years ago and was expelled by Neil Kinnock for his part in the organised infiltration of Labour by the Militant Tendency.<br />
<br />
Of course, in the world of the current Labour leadership, he's just a comrade who was hounded out in a 'witch-hunt'. Corbyn was one of the leading lights in the campaign to oppose the expulsions in the first place.<br />
<br />
Hatton's reinstatement proves the claim of the so-called 'Magnificent Seven' - led by Chuka Umunna and Luciana Berger - that the Labour Party is no longer the party they originally joined. It is now a movement led by fools. Anti-European relics, who have always secretly welcomed Brexit. Anti-Israeli zealots, who have allowed a sickening tide of anti-semitism to take hold.<br />
<br />
It was interesting that Chuka Umunna and Chris Leslie also highlighted Corbyn's dangerous foreign policy as a reason for the split. His opposition to NATO and seeming willingness to peddle whatever pronouncements come out of Moscow make him completely unsuitable as a potential Prime Minister.<br />
<br />
I anticipate that the Independent Group will act as a magnet for other Labour MPs. There was apparently applause for the renegades in tonight's Parliamentary Labour Party meeting, which will have caused a great deal of concern to Corbyn and McDonnell.<br />
<br />
Deputy Leader Tom Watson said publicly that others may follow Berger, Umunna, Gapes et al unless the leadership changes direction.<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>But the leadership is incapable of changing direction. </i><br />
<br />
It pursues only one goal: the installation of a hard-left government committed to nationalisation, a pacifist foreign policy and support for 'socialist' regimes overseas such as Maduro's authoritarian government in Venezuela.<br />
<br />
So now, with every crisis provoked by the Labour leadership's incompetence, petty-mindedness or religious fervour, MPs will have a choice. Do they stick around? Or head somewhere the grass is decidedly greener.<br />
<br />
Listening to the breakaway MPs, it's clear that what is now a Parliamentary grouping is set to become a fully-fledged party. Of course, the first-past-the-post electoral system is stacked against them. The SDP never made the breakthrough it hoped for in terms of seats in Parliament. But it did achieve something quite profound and remarkable: by getting practically the same level of the popular vote in 1983 as Michael Foot, it forced the Labour Party back towards the mainstream under Kinnock.<br />
<br />
The British electorate deserves real choice and, today, we have a sign that it might just be on the horizon. While the Independent Group looks to a different political future, Labour reaches nearly four decades back into the worst of its past.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1829012831037810686.post-66645844302435517552018-11-27T05:41:00.000-08:002018-11-27T07:16:50.777-08:00Why the Dame faces defeat in the Christmas pantoWas it Brexit that turned us collectively insane? Or was the
EU referendum a sign that we had already lost our marbles? Whether the chicken
laid the egg or the egg gave rise to the chicken, perhaps we’ll never know. In just
two weeks, however, Parliament looks set to act in an utterly reckless and crazy
way by voting down Theresa May’s proposed withdrawal agreement. After which, we’ll
all be running around the farmyard without our heads and the country will be in the
biggest clucking mess since World War II.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
But let’s get one thing straight early on. It’s not actually
Theresa May’s deal at all. To describe it that way is entirely misleading. This
is the deal that the EU is prepared to offer us. Sure, they might tinker with
some of the detail at the margins. But we’re not going to get something
fundamentally better than this. That’s because of the power relationships involved.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Remember how the crackpot Brexiters promised us that the
German car manufacturers would be strapping Merkel to the bonnet of a BMW and
driving her down the Autobahn at 90mph until she conceded everything we wanted?
That worked out well. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Recall the swagger and misplaced couldn’t-be-arsed complacency
of David Davis? How stupid Jean-Claude Juncker and Donald Tusk and Michel
Barnier have made us all look now.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
When you listen to Theresa Villiers or the bumptious Michael
Fallon demand that Theresa May ‘changes’ the deal this way or that way – or you
hear Jeremy Corbyn argue that he and the hard-left relics running the Labour
Party could do <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">better</i> in the negotiations
– it’s important to remember two things. The first is that the EU27 call all
the shots. The second is that there isn’t going to be any fundamental renegotiation.
Just window dressing at most.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Imagine I’ve walked into a Maserati showroom. (This takes
some imagination on my part too, it has to be said.) I try my best to negotiate
a discount or, at the very least, get some extras thrown in. Strangely, no dice
from the salesman. I am shown the door with a look of bewildered pity. The
price is the price, sir.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I get back home and tell my wife. <o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
She says I’m a blithering idiot who couldn’t negotiate my
way out of a paper bag. If only <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">she</i>
had been there. Get yourself back down to the showroom, she says, or let <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">her</i> conduct the negotiations instead.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The delusional psychology in the Commons over the Brexit
deal is absolutely off the scale.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I sense MPs are far more vehement in their opposition to the
deal than people in the country at large. Sure, polls do show that most people don’t
like the deal. Why? Because they are either Leavers or Remainers and with the
current offer from the EU, it’s hard to see either side really getting its way.
The agreement is a compromise. Polls also show, however, that May is right in
asserting that public is keen to get on with everything now and move forward.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It looks as if the Prime Minister could be crushed arithmetically in a
fortnight’s time. Half her own party are against her, most of Labour, as well as
the DUP and the smaller parties.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The Brexiters think that voting down the deal will lead to a
Canada+++ arrangement. The Corbynistas did hope it would lead to a general election and a socialist government. Now, ITV's Robert Peston is being briefed that Jez might quickly move to a so-called 'people's vote' in the wake of a Commons defeat for May. This is music to the ears of the full-on Remoaner faction, which encompasses more moderate Tories such as Justine Greening and pro-European Labour MPs such as David Lammy.<br />
<br />
So perhaps a second referendum is now a more likely outcome? A chance for the poor misguided electorate to demonstrate how it has seen the light. But don't assume that anything about that referendum will be easy. What are the questions? How is it financed? When is it held?<br />
<br />
The escape hatch may turn out to be some kind of dark labyrinth that no one can navigate their way around. And Corbyn would be in the ludicrous position of being unable to recommend staying in the EU, but simultaneously unable to recommend the deal that had just been rejected.<br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So the outcome of any Parliamentary defeat for May on 11<sup>th</sup>
December is completely unpredictable.<o:p></o:p><br />
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Everyone talks with a smug confidence, as if their <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">own</i> formula simply <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">must</i> be the one that prevails. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br />
The reality will be chaos.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
I am not remotely surprised at the games being played by Jacob
Rees-Mogg, Arlene Foster and Jeremy Corbyn for their own political purposes. It
is shocking, however, to see so many mainstream Labour MPs – who share no love of
the Labour leadership – looking to vote down the deal. The Yvette Coopers and
Chuka Umunnas and Tom Watsons should know better.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The EU’s deal is imperfect and it raises a lot of complex
and uncomfortable issues. But it is concrete. It is tangible. It exists in the
real world.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In a Christmas pantomime on 11<sup>th</sup> December, parliamentarians
look set to vote against a solid proposal in favour of wispy genie emerging
from a lamp. And everyone has their own wish list.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Utter madness, completely befitting the end of 2018. Wave
bye bye to any last semblance of stability, boys and girls.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1829012831037810686.post-55466072917671411742018-11-13T15:01:00.000-08:002018-11-16T01:57:31.296-08:00Why I have a sinking feeling over Brexit<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">As the Good Ship Brexit – holed multiple times beneath the water
line – limps to the end of its two-year voyage, four distinct islands are now in
view.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The first is the one that everyone seems to agree we simply
cannot approach. It’s the island favoured by the beleaguered Captain May and,
through our telescope, we can just make out the tiny figure of Donald Tusk
waving from a crag.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Some people think the island is too big. Some think the
island is too small. Some believe it to be inhabited by monsters. But all agree
it’s a desperate place to head for and they shake their heads at Captain May
for her folly.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The second potential destination is the one favoured by a
group of officer mutineers, who plan to throw the Captain overboard. It’s an island
of sunny uplands, where the inhabitants trade freely with neighbouring
provinces and business proceeds unfettered by any regulation. If we head there,
we’re assured by Lieutenant Boris that grog will be replaced by milk and honey.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Island number three is just off our port side right now and
is a workers’ paradise. People labour for only four days a week and shelter
under the ever-plentiful Magic Money Tree on their three-day weekend. Ship’s
cook Jezza – inspired by the Spithead and Nore mutineers of yore – believes that
if he sinks the Good Ship Brexit, this will be the destination of choice for
all his fellow seamen.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The final island has an attractive allure. It’s the one where
all dreams come true. It is rumoured that when you set foot on the sands, time
is reversed and all the bad decisions you previously made disappear. After a
day or two in this idyll, the holes in the Good Ship Brexit will repair
themselves and after a week or so, everyone will forget that the vessel ever
set sail.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The bewildering array of choices now in front of us comes
with a caveat. Only one of them is real. That’s the destination favoured by the
Captain. The others are mirages conjured from two years of drinking sea water
and battling scurvy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s time that we faced up to a very obvious fact. There is
no good outcome to Brexit. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Although the choices we make in the coming days and weeks
will, of course, be hugely important and have momentous consequences, none of
them will solve the UK’s divisions and each comes with a whole heap of new problems.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If May is overthrown by her own party and replaced by a
Brexit extremist, does that fundamentally change the arithmetic in Parliament?
Of course not. The balance of power remains pretty much the same. There is no majority
for a hard Brexit and a no-deal disaster.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If May ploughs on, but loses on the key votes, would there
be a general election? Possibly, but it’s by no means certain. She could be
replaced by the Tories (see above) and the DUP have already signalled that they
might vote her Brexit plans down and still support her in a vote of confidence.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If the government did fall, we’d be faced with the prospect
of a general election – probably at the beginning of 2019. The campaign would
be a confusing and fraught. Corbyn and McDonnell would want to fight on their hard-left
manifesto, but everything would be overshadowed by Brexit. This would be the <i>actual </i>EU election that May promised in
2017, but which never materialised.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If Corbyn said he would stop Brexit, he would risk his
heartland seats. While it’s true that a large majority of Labour voters want to
stay in the EU, there are still enough people of the opposing view in key seats
to cause him a nightmare.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">He could go into the election promising a second
referendum, but this is tantamount to saying he wants to reverse Brexit. And
his fence-sitting schtick has now run its course. People will want to know where
he stands.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Jez’s best chance by far would be if Brexit provoked a fundamental
schism in the Tory Party, to the point where right-wing MPs actually broke away
and stood against official Conservative candidates. It’s possible to imagine ending up with a
far-left government by default.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Of course, any election might produce another hung
parliament. And there’s an additional factor at play. This time, a Labour
victory will be taken seriously, so the issue that caused so much trouble in
2015 for Ed Miliband will start to resurface. People will worry that Corbyn
would govern under orders from Edinburgh, while propped up in Westminster by
the SNP.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So what of the referendum? Many people believe that the way
out of this terrible quagmire is not a general election, but a so-called ‘people’s
vote’. I find it hard to believe there is really a majority for this option in Parliament,
although never say never if all other possibilities seem out of the question or
if May sees it as once last crazy gamble.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The PM would hope for a deal v no deal poll, which she
would probably win. That will never be acceptable to those who see the
referendum as a way of reversing Brexit. They will demand there is an option on
the ballot to stay in the EU. Some have the arrogance to believe that such an option
would be automatic, but why would it be? The questions on the voting paper
would be hotly contested, as would the rules and financial regulations for any second
vote.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If we could overcome these practical obstacles in the intensely
short timeframe that lies ahead, could the referendum become a panacea? I very
much doubt it. We would be faced with acrimony and rancour over a period of several
weeks, possibly culminating in another very close vote. I see this as solving
nothing fundamental at all.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Brace yourselves,
shipmates, as we may never make land. And we have a desperate shortage of lifejackets.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1829012831037810686.post-12414607305210315912018-10-22T13:24:00.000-07:002018-10-22T13:28:13.728-07:00How unpopular can a populist get?<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What’s the biggest lie that is told about Corbyn by his
supporters?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><o:p></o:p></span><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Is it the fact that Jez supposedly supports the EU? Or that
he has always been on the ‘right side’ of history? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Could it be the claim that his elevation to the leadership
has nothing to do with the surge in anti-semitism within the Labour Party? Or
the fact that the veteran leftist is apparently committed to stamping that
racism out?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">All of the above are certainly whoppers by anyone’s standards
and would be credible contenders for the top spot, if it weren’t for a lie that
is actually far more obvious and outrageous and staring us right in the face.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The biggest lie told by the Jezuit cheerleaders is one that
can be immediately and categorically disproved, yet it still seems to have a
currency.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s
the lie that Corbyn is ‘popular’.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We hear it all the time, thrown casually into conversation.
<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">‘Is it any wonder that Corbyn is so popular when the trains
don’t run on time?’ <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">‘Can we be surprised at the Labour Leader’s popularity when
austerity has so demonstrably failed?’<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">You’d think from the commentary that Jez was riding a crest
of wave – perhaps 15 or 20 points ahead of the Tory government in the polls,
just as Blair was in the 1990s.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In fact, the latest polls make dismal reading for Labour.
Theresa May is 14 points ahead of Corbyn when members of the public are asked
who would make the best Prime Minister. She is also more trusted to manage the
Brexit negotiations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Support for Corbyn has even been steadily sliding among
young people since the general election. Perhaps some of them expected to see
the bearded guru on the barricades at the ‘People’s Vote’ rally the other day?
No chance. Jezza was in Geneva and tweeting about General Pinochet – news that
will make parody writers and comedians everywhere shudder, as they envisage the
arrival of a P45.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Let’s give this some wider context.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">By almost any criteria we could imagine, this is the most
divided, incompetent and untalented government in modern history. No ifs or
buts about that. The only remote parallel would be with John Major’s
administration in the 1990s, which completely ran out of steam and was reduced
to introducing Cones Hotlines on motorways. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Remember how the Corbynistas dismiss Tony Blair’s victory
in 1997? <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Anyone</i> could have won then,
they said. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Is that a fact?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Well, if anyone could beat John Major in 1997, one of the
turnips from Jez’s allotment should stand a fighting chance against Theresa May in
2018.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">She is besieged, beleaguered and belaboured by her fellow
Tories and has no idea whatsoever how she is going to rescue us all from the
Brexit disaster.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But
she is still more popular than Corbyn.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Some rational people on the left know that the game is up
with Jez. Even erstwhile supporters are imagining a world without him and
greatly regret the bizarre cult of personality that has built up around him.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">So these people rush to the next line of defence.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Corbyn himself may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">policies</i> are popular. It was the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">manifesto</i> last year that captured people’s
imaginations.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This is a much more complex issue and the claim cannot be
dismissed out of hand. It’s certainly true that many of the individual policies
advanced by Labour command broad support. People are fed up with cutbacks to
public services and are more amenable than for a number of years to the idea of
higher taxation.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But I still believe that those who cling to the manifesto
as evidence of a broader swing in public opinion or the expansion of the ‘Overton
Window’ are in for a shock.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Again, some context.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Labour did surprisingly well last year and much better than
I and other Blairites imagined they would. At the same time, the electorate was
polarising after the collapse of UKIP and the Tories managed to achieve their
highest share of the popular vote since 1983.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Labour was helped by two big factors. The first was the astonishing
incompetence of the Tory campaign, triggered by the epic miscalculation of the
dementia tax. The second was Corbyn’s remarkable fence sitting over Brexit. At
a tactical level, I have to take my hat off to him, as I didn’t really think it
would wash in the way that it did.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">People who wanted to believe Corbyn would be a bulwark
against a hard Brexit were able to kid themselves. Heartland voters were able to
tell themselves that he would honour the UK’s commitment to leave. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This is <em><span style="background: white; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-style: normal;">Schrödinger’s</span></em></span><em><b><span style="background: white; color: #6a6a6a; font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-style: normal;"> </span></b></em><span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Brexit. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">While box is closed, Labour is
both for and against quitting the EU. But the cat is going to be let out of the
bag very soon. And Jez is going to find he is even less popular than he is
right now.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1829012831037810686.post-6438500904936550652018-09-29T15:02:00.002-07:002018-09-29T15:02:47.923-07:00Corbyn's biggest enemy will never be defeated<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The populist
movement led by Jeremy Corbyn likes nothing better than to be besieged by enemies.
The ‘neoliberal’ Blairite MPs who will do whatever they can to obstruct socialism.
The so-called ‘Israeli lobby’, which apparently trumps up charges of
anti-semitism against the left. And, of course, the notorious ‘MSM’ – proper newspapers
to you and me – responsible for issuing a poisonous drip-feed of lies and distortions
about the motivations and intentions of the Dear Leader.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Traditionally,
opprobrium was reserved for the ‘right-wing press’, but recently things have
taken a comical turn with the Jez junkies turning on <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Guardian</i>. Despite the liberal paper being the repository of
correspondence from every leftist luminary since the beginning of time, its
open-minded and critical stance is now anathema to the hard-left activists busily
destroying the Labour Party. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Corbyn
himself harbours bizarre fantasies of ‘democratising’ the press, as if objective
reporting can only come about through the collective decisions of NUJ chapels.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Maybe that’s
how news works in Caracas, Jez, my old son. But not in Camden Town or Canary
Wharf. People will continue to report on your antics whether you like it or
not. And they won’t be putting their latest scoop in front of a People’s
Committee for approval.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s just
one example of where Corbyn and his supporters are confronted by their <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">true</i> enemy. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s an inconvenient and doughty foe
called reality.<o:p></o:p></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Laura Smith
MP said last week that if the government didn’t call a general election, there should
be a general strike. A stirring call to warm the hearts of Momentum activists. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But there are a couple of problems. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Most people in the UK are not members of trade
unions. And last year, only 33,000 people were involved in labour disputes, which
was actually the lowest figure since 1893.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Time for a
reality check. <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">There will be no general
strike, because people don’t actually go on strike.</i> <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">At last week’s
conference, the party prioritised a discussion of Palestine. Although they did
a reasonable job at keeping overt anti-semitic commentary off the podium, it
was decided that delegates would be allowed to wave Palestinian flags. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This was
classic Corbynism – a one-sided view of a complex international dispute under
the pretext of promoting peace and justice. (Remember how Jez single-handedly
brought the warring factions in Northern Ireland together by only talking to
one side?)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">No doubt
activists felt proud of their display of solidarity. They cheered raucously
when Corbyn declared that his future government would recognise Palestine from
day one. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But out
there in the real world? People know little about the Middle East and are
bemused to see the Party obsess over it. If the public is conscious of any
major conflict, it’s Syria, because of the tragic deaths of over half a million
people over the past seven years. But hell would freeze over before the
Corbynite leadership led a denunciation of Assad and Putin.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Workers’
presses? General strikes? Palestinian flag-waving? All thoroughly embarrassing
and pretty revealing. But cynics will say largely unimportant. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">W</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;">hat about the
big issues? Hasn’t Labour captured the Zeitgeist there?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">How about
defence and security, then?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">John
McDonnell was quizzed by Piers Morgan on whether Labour would be prepared to
use nuclear weapons. Whatever your own views on the issue – and there are legitimate
arguments on both sides – his answer was as far away from sanity and reality as
anything uttered by a British politician in the modern era. He said, apparently
without irony, that any use of our nuclear arsenal would follow <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">community consultation</i>.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">That’s
right. While the Russians or some other enemy rained missiles down on us, John
would be asking Momentum to organise a consultation meeting in the Hayes and
Harlington Community Centre.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But the
Shadow Chancellor is just as detached from reality when it comes to his economic
brief. His announcement that companies with over 250 employees will have to set
aside a fund and pay dividends to their workers was pretty well received. Free
money always is. In snap polling, even a small majority of Tories backed the
idea.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Just imagine
this policy in the real world though.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Companies
with 249 workers might well choose not to expand. Other bigger businesses might
choose to relocate. And if the impact of the dividend policy didn’t prompt such
dramatic decisions, it might well have an insidious effect over time. Firms
might offer less generous benefits to workers. Or reduce pension contributions.
Or be reluctant to raise wages.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s
frustrating and more than a little depressing, but this is the very stuff of
government. The need to think beyond rhetoric and find ways to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">engage</i> with business. Taking a reality
check. But that’s just not the way of the hard left.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">And where do
we need the biggest reality check of all?<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Brexit, of
course.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Corbyn
shouts in his speech that if May can’t negotiate the UK’s withdrawal from the
European Union, she should stand aside and let him have a go. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But the public don’t want that.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Polls show that although they have little confidence
in the Prime Minister’s ability to negotiate a good deal, they have <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">less</i> confidence in the Labour Leader.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">What do
Labour offer exactly? Their six tests require that Brexit delivers the ‘exact
same benefits’ that our current membership of the single market and customs
union afford us. This is something that EU cannot concede in the real world and,
in fact, demands more concessions from the European bureaucrats than May’s
much-criticised Chequers plan.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: 16.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s all
bluster. And for as long as Labour remains in opposition, it matters little. In
the turmoil of the British politics right now though, can we really discount
the possibility of Corbyn assuming power? That’s when farce would turn quickly
to tragedy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1829012831037810686.post-76973001476224135652018-09-07T14:38:00.000-07:002018-09-07T23:57:26.656-07:00Are you sitting comfortably? Let's open the Momentum Book of History...A couple of years ago, there was a hullabaloo in the press about Momentum Kids - a club for youngsters of Corbyn's left-wing activists, which was quickly dubbed 'Tiny Trots'.<br />
<br />
I don't know if the socialist daycare centre is still up and running, but if it is, let's hope there's no history on the curriculum.<br />
<br />
Momentum's founder Jon Lansman - mischievously likened by some to Papa Smurf because of his trademark white beard - produced the most extraordinary breakfast tweet today.<br />
<br />
It was the morning after Labour MP Joan Ryan had lost a vote of confidence in her Enfield constituency. People were observing that the only media representatives live-tweeting the meeting had come from Jez's favourite foreign broadcaster - Iran's Press TV.<br />
<br />
Lansman needed a distraction and it came in the form of Tony Blair.<br />
<br />
The former Prime Minister had publicly expressed doubts that Labour could ever be rescued from the hard left.<br />
<br />
This was Lansman's chance and he leapt in.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigcZ1ny3-DjgOHDYGVs__aHtpXpyIppa7rc9wM_guSX-2QIYux240ybmrSo999zqM3odeyoNvk8YfTfbzp-Sn7VBy7CRQu64V3i3SwBsBZNbBCPkOYW64PNwJm57MrOEqOAcRhxMOnx2s/s1600/Lansman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="482" data-original-width="640" height="241" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigcZ1ny3-DjgOHDYGVs__aHtpXpyIppa7rc9wM_guSX-2QIYux240ybmrSo999zqM3odeyoNvk8YfTfbzp-Sn7VBy7CRQu64V3i3SwBsBZNbBCPkOYW64PNwJm57MrOEqOAcRhxMOnx2s/s320/Lansman.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
The arrogance of the tweet is offensive, but nothing that wouldn't surprise us. It's when you digest the true meaning of the 20-word sentence that your jaw hits the floor.<br />
<br />
<i>Blair was never in the right party.</i><br />
<br />
The Prime Minister who won <i>three consecutive election victories</i> for Labour is written out of history.<br />
<br />
<b>He wasn't Labour.</b><br />
<br />
I'm not even going to begin to list all Blair's accomplishments here, because they're well known and you can read about them in a million places.<br />
<br />
What fascinates and horrifies me in equal measure is that we are now turning the pages of the Momentum history book and seeing something very ugly.<br />
<br />
If Blair was in the wrong party, who exactly <i>was</i> the last Prime Minister worthy of the title 'Labour'?<br />
<br />
Was it Jim Callaghan four decades ago?<br />
<br />
I suspect not. The Bennite left hated Jim Callaghan.<br />
<br />
So was it Harold Wilson? You rarely hear him mentioned by anyone in Momentum, probably because few of the rank-and-file members know of him. Although the left did support Wilson initially, they soon fell out of love. Corbyn certainly wouldn't have been a fan. Vietnam and all that.<br />
<br />
Which takes us back to Attlee.<br />
<br />
This is the usual benchmark for most Jezuits, as they like to claim that the transformative government of 1945 is the spiritual antecedent of today's left-wing cabal.<br />
<br />
Anyone with a smidgen of history - who knows about the internal battles with the Bevanites - will realise that this is a grotesque parody of Attlee's true politics. But we can probably agree that the post-war Labour government is the one that the Momentum members most admire. And almost certainly the <i>only </i>one that many of them admire.<br />
<br />
So, what can we conclude? Many of the people who Lansman has helped attract to Labour - and who claim to have its best interests at heart - have only joined it in the past three years. Others have rejoined after a long period of denouncing the party during the Blair era. And when they're challenged on the achievements of the party they claim to support, they bypass 70 years of history to arrive in an age of ration cards and wage freezes.<br />
<br />
Lansman, of course, is a long-time member and was active in the Bennite left in the early 80s, along with eccentric characters such as Pete Willsman (the guy who likes to rant about rabbis). <i>Lansman knows better.</i> But he encourages his supporters to embrace a completely erroneous and distorted view of the past.<br />
<br />
Are you sitting comfortably? Let's open <i>The Momentum Kids Storybook of History.</i><br />
<br />
It needs some editing and is perhaps a little bit contradictory in places, so make sure you settle down and pay attention, children.<br />
<br />
There are broadly two eras that are taught.<br />
<br />
BNL - Before Neo-Liberalism<br />
<br />
ANL - After Neo-Liberalism<br />
<br />
BNL starts in 1945 and continues for about thirty years, until the capitulation of Wilson and Callaghan to the International Monetary Fund and global capital.<br />
<br />
ANL starts in approximately 1976 and supposedly continues to the present day. This encompasses Thatcher, Major, Blair, Brown, Cameron and May. These characters may <i>seem </i>different - Thatcher destroying the miners, for instance, and Blair introducing the minimum wage and Sure Start - but that's just an illusion. They all believe in the same philosophy, which is completely different and alien to anything that was believed BNL.<br />
<br />
<i>As neo-liberalism advanced, the people rebelled. They started looking for a radical socialist alternative, that was completely different to the neo-liberal policies advanced by failed social democratic parties across Europe. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>They were championed in their quest by a man of humble prep school origins called JC, who was untainted by any scandal apart from his £20k from Iranian state television and firebrand speeches denouncing Israel. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>JC's policies were very radical, so the rich and powerful quaked in fear. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>They would do ANYTHING to stop him. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>At the same time, the policies were actually not really very radical at all and nothing to be feared. Very similar, in fact, to those reasonable and moderate policies advanced by the failed social democratic parties across Europe. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>Nevertheless, the MSM, the Israeli lobby and the Blairite MPs all relentlessly targeted poor JC with false accusations. How he retained his dignity in the face of the onslaught is something that will no doubt puzzle historians for generations to come.</i><br />
<div>
<i><br /></i></div>
<i>Jez sent out a prophet to spread the word: CHANGE IS COMING. </i><br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>His emissary, Chris Williamson, took the Democracy Roadshow far and wide, gathering together all those who believed in mandatory re-selection of neo-liberals. At the end of each meeting, he would take a show of hands, just to demonstrate that the attendees were still young enough to raise their arms. </i><br />
<br />
Children, this is a story book that is still being written. There are pages left to be filled. History is still being made. But what kind of history exactly?<br />
<br />
The eighteenth century French essayist Bernard le Bovier de Fortenelle observed that the ancient Greeks didn't separate stories from fact. 'Il n'y a point d'autres Histoires anciennes que les Fables,' he wrote. There is no ancient history other than the fables.<br />
<br />
Lansman gives us a glimpse of a world in which real history and invented history are once again overlapping - this time in an Orwellian and sinister fashion. It's time for a robust, grown-up response.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1829012831037810686.post-33362999182119202422018-08-26T15:52:00.001-07:002018-08-26T16:08:43.388-07:00McCain is a mass murderer and Sanders is a melt. Welcome to the crazed world of the Corbynistas.<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">If there’s one thing that all extremists have in common,
it’s the pretence – or perhaps delusion – that they are <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">not</i>, in fact, extremists.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">I’m sure vehement Trump fanatics see themselves as part of
the great American tradition, rather than members of a movement that is
completely alien to that tradition and which threatens to destroy the
Republic’s democracy.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Likewise, supporters of UK Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn
often like to paint themselves as part of mainstream European social democracy.
Nothing the Dear Leader proposes would be out of keeping with the policies
pursued on the continent or in Scandinavia, they opine. (We’ll leave aside the
fact that they’ll also tell you social democracy is dead. Consistency and intellectual
coherence have never been Jezuit hallmarks.)<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">They’ll point to the relatively moderate manifesto of 2017,
which was cobbled together as a compromise in a fortnight, and pretend that
this represents the essence and extent of their guru’s political ambitions.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">We’re not complete fools. This claim of moderation is the
biggest pile of steaming manure to be dumped on British political life since
the horses paraded at Churchill’s funeral.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">The fanatical extremism of Corbyn’s movement is evident every
day on social media. And the latest example surrounds the death of the US politician
John McCain.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">In a rare moment of reflection, Republicans and Democrats
in the USA have come together to pay tribute to a man who represented a waning tradition
in politics. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">God knows, I wouldn’t have agreed with McCain’s views on a
whole heap of issues, but I respect his belief in the principles of American democracy
and I admire the way he forged a political career after the trauma of
horrendous torture as a PoW.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">When he ran for President, he graciously and publicly
disabused one of his supporters who was spreading untruths about Barack Obama. He
also made a remarkable and humble speech to concede defeat in the election in
2008.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Barack Obama will give an oration at his funeral. Even the
veteran leftist Bernie Sanders tweeted his admiration for the late Arizona
Senator. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But supporters of Jeremy Corbyn? They tell me – less than
24 hours after he died of cancer – that McCain is a ‘c**t’, a ‘war-mongerer’ and
a ‘mass murderer’. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Sanders, the Vermont Senator and Democratic primary
contender in 2016 – who is seen as being a very similar figure to Corbyn in
many respects – is dismissed by the social media vanguard as a ‘melt’.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Are these the considered views of a moderate movement? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Are they the comments of people who are part of the social
democratic mainstream? <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Are they hell. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">They are the ranting of extremists, cranks, conspiracists
and weirdos. The wild musings of no-hopers and misfits, who sadly seem to be filled with some kind of endless and pointless
rage.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Does Corbyn himself support the views expressed? No doubt
he’ll say nothing. Just as he goes into hiding when people want his opinions on
the anti-semitism crisis gripping the party.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Corbyn’s fans will tell you that he's a lovely old fellow, who wants to renationalise
the railways and end austerity. They keep promoting what seems to be a fairly
benign economic agenda. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">But railways schmailways. Look at the people that Corbyn
has attracted and encouraged.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This is a movement that calls a dead man a c**t within
hours of his death.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This is a movement that tells us that Porton Down rather than
the Russians were behind the Skripal poisoning.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">This is a movement that condemns Zionism and Israel in the
most dubious of ways, but stays quiet about half a million dead in Syria.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">Let’s start telling it like it is.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-family: "arial" , sans-serif; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 107%;">It’s a movement of extremists.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1829012831037810686.post-69362613782141583042018-08-23T16:51:00.000-07:002018-08-26T12:09:31.371-07:00Hold the front page! The workers and activists need to vet it...<br />
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Corbyn’s Alternative MacTaggart Lecture in Edinburgh was
probably the first example of the Labour Leader setting his own agenda after
weeks dominated by the anti-semitism furore. While the row with the Jewish
community shows no sign of abating – and new footage emerges of Corbyn making extremely
dubious remarks at a London conference five years ago – his media proposals were
indeed eye-catching enough to deserve some scrutiny.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
He started with a direct attack on mainstream news.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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‘While we produce some fantastic drama, entertainment,
documentaries and films,’ Corbyn argued, ‘when it comes to news and current
affairs, so vital for a democratic society, our media is failing.’<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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His evidence for this sweeping statement? That people, when
questioned in surveys, say they don’t trust the media.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Of course, a fair degree of scepticism is entirely healthy
when looking at journalistic output. The British tabloid press doesn’t have the
greatest of reputations and proprietors clearly have strong financial and
political interests. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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But in the Corbynite world, this suspicion of ‘mainstream media’
or the ‘MSM’, extends to <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">any </i>organisation
with a newsroom and professional journalists. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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His supporters are just as likely to rail against the BBC as
they are to condemn <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Sun</i> or <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Daily Mail</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In fact, any outlet which doesn’t venerate
Corbyn as some kind of living saint is treated with contempt.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><br /></i></div>
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<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Labour Leader’s
own fanbase fuels the very distrust which he describes.<o:p></o:p></i></div>
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<br /></div>
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And when politicians such as Corbyn and Trump question the
role of professional journalism, they play a profoundly dangerous game. They are
feeding a cycle of cynicism which becomes self-perpetuating and self-fulfilling.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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As he moved on, he naturally started to focus on his
obsessions with media ownership. He said that he aimed to ‘break the
stranglehold of elite power and billionaire domination over large parts of our
media’.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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The press barons who help to highlight his shameful past are
obviously in his sights, but Corbyn is also looking at multinational
corporations such as Facebook and Google, who now wield huge power over the media
landscape.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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According to Corbyn, ‘political and social activists’ should
‘get involved’ in deciding the business model of media in the future. Quite why
the views of these self-appointed people would be accepted by multinational businesses
or actively promoted by government wasn’t explained. But if these activists are
anything like the individuals who troll, snipe and vent online to promote Corbyn’s
agenda, then we’d better prepare for the biggest culture war the UK has ever
seen.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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After this, Jez started to outline his more specific proposals,
including the sponsorship of what he calls ‘public interest journalism’. The
most charitable interpretation of this segment of the speech is that he sees
the whole business of news reporting as revolving around worthy investigations.
<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Naturally, we all want to see journalism that exposes injustice
and corruption. But one gets the sense that in Corbyn’s puritanical and
self-important world, the reporting of entertainment or royalty or celebrity is
unbearable trivia. It doesn’t count as ‘real’ news. <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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And do we really believe anyway that local or not-for-profit
organisations are somehow going to expose wrongdoing or social ills more
professionally and credibly than, say, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The
Washington Post</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Guardian</i> or
the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">BBC</i>? <o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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In a world where we are confronted with <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Breitbart</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Canary</i>
and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Westmonster</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Skwawkbox</i>, what confidence do we have
that Jez’s ‘news co-ops’ are going to be producing anything other than
polemical rubbish and half-baked conspiracy theories?<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Corbyn then moved on to the BBC, with his much-reported proposals
to ‘democratise’ the public-service broadcaster. It would seemingly become a
news co-op on a grand scale, with workers and licence-fee payers running the
show.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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My general impression is that a Momentum Labour government
would promise the BBC new funding by taxing successful new media businesses,
but this largesse would come with a big caveat: adherence to the editorial
policies laid down by People’s Committees. It would be an environment in which
no self-respecting professional journalist could possibly want to work, but that
matters little to the ideologues behind the scheme.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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Naturally, supporters of Corbyn online lapped it all up.
Many saw it as Jez getting ‘his revenge’ on the biased journalists who have
given the veteran socialist such a hard time.<br />
<br />
And then, of course, their guru was on to the idea of
journalists electing their editors.</div>
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<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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This is Corbyn at his most hare-brained and is the kind of idea
that you’d expect to see championed during an occupation at Berkeley or the LSE
in the 1960s. Perhaps in Caracas, while the editor of the local paper pops out
with rucksack of cash to buy an espresso, her staff plot to overthrow her. But
it isn’t going to happen in the UK anytime soon.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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What should be particularly worrying to supporters of Labour
is that some quite good ideas – extension of Freedom of Information legislation,
for instance – were hidden amid all of Jez’s ideological baggage. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></div>
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<br /></div>
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So if you didn’t get to hear about them, don’t blame the MSM.<o:p></o:p></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1829012831037810686.post-81897897622469321452018-08-04T15:34:00.002-07:002018-08-04T15:34:47.784-07:00Dogma on Monday, history on Tuesday. I thought <i>Guardian</i> columnist Marina Hyde was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/03/corbynistas-politics-labour-leader" target="_blank">brave to bring up the siege of Waco.</a><br />
<br />
Her recent piece on the similarities in mawkish sentiment between supporters of far-right activist Tommy Robinson and the followers of Jeremy Corbyn was provocative enough. But to allude to the Branch Davidians and David Koresh was, I felt, probably asking for a little trouble online.<br />
<br />
When federal agents surrounded Mount Carmel back in 1993, it led to a bloodbath in which dozens of people died. The crackpot sect had amassed a frightening arsenal of automatic and semi-automatic weapons and fought with fanaticism.<br />
<br />
Even if we see the Corbyn movement as being cultlike in its behaviour and worship of its leader, I think we can rule out a Texan-style denouement. Jez, after all, is a man of peace, as we are repeatedly reminded by his supporters.<br />
<br />
But there is a serious question about how all this craziness <i>will</i> end.<br />
<br />
The Twitterstorm this week - running with the hashtag #WeAreCorbyn - provoked a frenzy of sycophantic drivel that sits well outside the norms of British political life.<br />
<br />
'Has a politician ever received such an outpouring of love?' asked Bevan Boy, who presumably was discounting the affection previously shown to luminaries of the left such as Kim Jong Un and Joseph Stalin.<br />
<br />
You don't need to be a sociologist, shrink or theologian to see the religious overtones in many of the obsequious eulogies. Bevan Boy proclaimed that Corbyn had 'walked in our shoes' and 'knows our struggles'. Reassuringly, he reminds us that he is, however, 'a human being'.<br />
<br />
A guy called Joe, meanwhile, took up a common refrain. We are against Jez because we are afraid and have been brainwashed. Replying directly to columnist Dan Hodges, he said: 'You sound scared. You have for a long time. Change can be daunting for the heavily indoctrinated. Don't worry, Dan. We're here to help lead you to a better place.'<br />
<br />
One would like to believe there was a sense of irony behind Joe's comment, but with the Jezuits, you can never be entirely sure. (There was one tweet circulating today in which a supporter of Corbyn speculated that former BNP leader Nick Griffin might be advocating #JC4PM because he'd been converted by the leftist guru's policies on the NHS. Are we looking at a tragic lack of understanding here or some kind of poorly-judged comedy routine?)<br />
<br />
Some of the Biblical allusions from the Corbynistas are quite overt.<br />
<br />
'The only thing that would appease the haters would be Corbyn's head on a platter,' wrote a lady called Chelley. To her, Jez seems to be John the Baptist - the voice crying out in the wilderness, although the parallel leaves me in fear that we await another socialist messiah. Believe me, one has been quite enough, thanks.<br />
<br />
Religions are built around certainties and mantras. When those are challenged by external events and objective reality, the dissonance can often be overwhelming.<br />
<br />
If there was one thing that seemed certain beyond doubt to Corbynistas, it was that the anti-semitism crisis in Labour was manufactured by the 'MSM', the 'Israeli lobby' and Blairite MPs planning another 'chicken coup'. For that reason, the stock response has been to defend the leader against obvious attempts to destabilise him.<br />
<br />
But then came a shock.<br />
<br />
Labour's Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell recorded a video in which he seemed to recognise the concerns of the Jewish community as being <i>real</i>. The anti-semitism issue, he revealed, had shaken the party 'to its core'.<br />
<br />
We can imagine the smoke billowing from the ears of the faithful. To them, McDonnell's contribution was akin to a Cardinal in the Catholic Church questioning the Eucharist.<br />
<br />
And then we had Momentum.<br />
<br />
The official Jez fan club, and vanguard for the Leader's hard-left agenda, decided to withdraw its support for Pete Willsman, the veteran hardliner who had ranted about rabbis at a meeting of Labour's ruling National Executive Committee.<br />
<br />
Suddenly the #JC9 slate had become the #JC8.<br />
<br />
All hell broke loose on social media and we started to see the emergence of different camps.<br />
<br />
Pragmatists (mainly younger and less obsessive about Israel as an issue) understand that anti-semitism tends not to be a good look. They want the issue closed down. But the old guard <i>doubles</i> <i>down</i>, cries betrayal and threatens to quit Momentum in disgust. A classic hard-left split.<br />
<br />
But it's still relatively early days. At this point, many activists probably don't fall into either camp. They are, however, disconcerted and uneasy. Dogma which seemed so central to the movement has now been relaxed and they have been blindsided.<br />
<br />
These middle-ground folk are the footsoldiers in any political organisation who tend to rehearse the prevailing line and repeat it. They are followers rather than shapers of policy and have been telling people that anti-semitism isn't a problem, because that's what they believed they were <i>supposed</i> to do.<br />
<br />
But now, it's very messy.<br />
<br />
Willsman didn't seem to say anything which lay outside the dogmatic schema of the movement. He had simply asked for evidence of anti-semitism and implied that the allegations were all part of a plot to undermine Jez by right-wingers.<br />
<br />
And that's exactly what Momentum members had been told that they believed. <i>Until the moment it became apparent that they shouldn't believe it any more.</i><br />
<br />
We're unlikely to see a formal schism just yet, but the internal tensions are there for all to see.<br />
<br />
The short-term solution will be to rally behind the one thing that unites everyone: devotion to the leader. In the longer-term, things don't look too rosy for Corbyn's followers. Because if there's one issue that can cause an even more disruptive fissure than anti-semitism, it's Brexit. And that clock is ticking very fast.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
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<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0