Psychoactive Substances: Rolling UK Politics in The Neo-Con Era

Fight over Europe! Hammer the Scots! Pay down the debt Labour ran up! Gerrymander the wards! Ban immigrants! Increase the cuts! Sell the NHS! Open consultations on a draft paper for proposal for a British Bill of Rights! Vote for Boris! Sign TTIP! Ban Porn! Spy on Everything!

Is there anything to look forward to?

you forgot savage foxes!

stet, what was that thing you were raging about on the previous thread just as it ended, about Osborne?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33074500

^^^ I am really at odds to explain how stupid, short-sighted, mendacious and self-defeating it would be to enshrine a budget surplus in law. There is basically no merit in one from an economic point of view, it commits us to relying on perpetual consumer/business deficits, it effectively outlaws Keynesian economics, and there's no way in hell the Tories will be able to achieve it in any case.

They are going to regret doing this - there's no way they can achieve a budget surplus, £8bn a year spending on the NHS, all the other cuts they've promised, and a tax-rise lock at the same time. It's impossible and I'm not sure which one they're going to be able to shelve, especially if they keep making up pointless laws. They might manage it if they privatise literally everything, but otherwise?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-33074500
It's pure political posturing. Parliament can't bind its successors anyway, what a crock of shit. Ah xp

Not sure I agree that forcing Labour to defend borrow-and-spend (when apparently the public hates them for it, even when they benefit) is a good thing
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/06/osbornes-budget-surplus-trap-will-force-labour-finally-offer-economic-clarity

haven't seen the original report but fuck this guy amirite:

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/13322891.Miliband_aide_cancelled_Pavilion_photoshoot_in_case__voters_might_think_it_was_a_mosque_/

great use of campaigning time guys, visiting Brighton Pavilion rather than, say, a tory held marginal.

let's sell RBS at a loss & continue the theme of fiscal irresponsibility shall we

That comment about picking your fave player from the L**ds '74 squad rings so true every time I hear these self-regarding robotic fucks talking on the radio.

Londis?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33089711

Allies of George Osborne are studying an Institute for Fiscal Studies idea to return tax credits to 2003/4 levels, plus inflation - saving £5bn.
Changes would cut entitlements for about 3.7 million low-income families by about £1,400 a year, the IFS said.

The degree to which this govt seems to relish attacking the vulnerable appals me.

... though not as much as the fact that the Great British public lap it up.

MPs and experts close to Mr Osborne believe reducing current tax credits would see low-income households encouraged to take on more work to keep their family income up.

"Encouraged". These people are evil.

"Poor people: you are not working hard enough. Work more." As you say Tom, people voted for this crap. I will never really understand why.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jun/04/alex-salmond-tells-female-tory-minister-behave-yourself-woman

This seems to have flown under the radar, especially when we remember the DCam/Anna Eagle shitstorm or Barry Sheerman/Esther McVey.

good point

we must hold these people to account with timely and revealing analysis

yeah it's unfair that David Cameron was forced to resign over that and alex salmond isn't facing similar consequences

behave yourself, man

During the first few months of the coalition it felt like the Tories were just trying to get as much done as quickly as possible in case the government collapsed. This time the project is very obviously trying to permanently realign the centre of gravity even further to the right.

Osborne getting the message out. We all need to be more responsible and tighten our belts. Maybe use some non-solid-gold receptacles.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/06/19/article-2344670-1A68DCD5000005DC-586_634x420.jpg

We're all dindins together..

Harman backing Osborne's tax credit cuts is, I fear, going to be pretty typical of Labour moving forward. The entire party appear to be gripped by the collective fantasy that all they need to do is show they'll be tight on spending and the electorate will suddenly bestow the Holy Grail of "economic credibility" upon them and propel them back to power. As if anyone would bother when they could vote for the actual Tories.

I don't mean the entire party really, but maybe at least 3/4 of the PLP.

it's horrendous news, i am genuinely dismayed by it

dismayed doesn't cover it. holy shit.

can't believe that the party of Tony Blair, Andy Burnham, Liz Kendall, Jack Cunningham, Yvette Cooper, Ed Balls, Peter Mandelson, Frank Fields, Jack Straw, Harriet Harman, Chuka Umunna, Gordon Brown, Tristram Hunt, etc etc etc is behaving like this. truly shocking and heartbreaking

Corbyn, Burnham and Cooper are all opposed.

Kendall's silence is fairly telling.

Als, to be fair, Gordon Brown did introduce working tax credits.

Also

i take the individual points but they're all avatars of the current dead party, sometimes just a few steps at a time, but the PLP has been a rogues' gallery of careerist Tory fucks for a long time now

or in other words, they gave up every other principle, why would they baulk here?

is being unsurprised by the fuckery a more tenable reaction to being dismayed by it?

i think clinging to the notion that the Labour party is any kind of locus of resistance to our ongoing political degradation is probly unhelpful, so anything that loosens the sentimental ties is a good thing

given the lack of plausible loci of resistance (+inertia of course, always) I can understand why ppl remain there. all the hustings I've seen lately have underlined how huge the gulf is between party leadership and its local candidates, v suspect flow of information within the parties

All I'm clinging to is that a lot can happen in 5 years... pretty desperate, I know.

since Blair took the leadership the modernizing program has been all about centralizing power and strengthening hierarchies. ultimately this was more damaging than any Clause 4 moment - i see no way for any grassroots revolt to take power back from the technocrats and career politicians who run the party now. which is the same boring defeatist line i've been peddling for 10-15 years, admittedly, but it's cute how every time the party lurches further and further into neoliberalism people still look surprised.

because ultimately these are no longer social democrats in disguise trying to win back the popular vote in the service of egalitarianism or even redistribution of wealth - they're just neolib policy wonks with a faint glimmer of bleeding heart - for deserving, hard-working families - still nagging them, tho they've forgotten why

The former I could happily accept, but yeah the latter is almost certainly the case, I don't get any sense of moral purpose or indeed any real purpose at all, and neither do most of the rest of the electorate.

The thing is, this lot have become so fixated on the Brown/Miliband defeats that they've forgotten what happened to Gordon Brown when he scrapped the 10p tax band. Rightward shifts are just handled differently by the press depending on whether it's Labour or the Tories, they're not going to start clapping like seals if they adopt Tory policies wholesale.

Most of the electorate don't even think in Left-Right terms, and Harman's "listening to the electorate" line overlooks the fact that more often than not the Tories don't really bother, they just go ahead and do it even when the policies are unpopular. I still believe the British public are open to listening to social-democratic policies, individual policies that are even now popular in isolation. You just have to be someone the country trusts and wants to listen to - so not Miliband, not Harman, certainly not any of this lot (probably not even Jeremy Corbyn sadly).

Labour won't win "economic credibility" back until the Tories have managed to blow theirs, there's just no point to throwing every remaining principle out of the window in the meantime, people won't care.

that's about right, tho i think it's too late to worry about them retaining principles.

i do believe that there are better policies that could be sold to the electorate, but that would take a set of coherent beliefs, the will to do the hard work of fine-tuning and selling those beliefs and the recognition that you won't effect a substantial change in worldview in the short term, probably not even in a 5-year cycle. if a political party in our system has any point at all then it's to lead people, to persuade them and to show them alternative ways of thinking. the whole focus group market research culture is really the death of meaningful parliamentary politics, just as the de-democratizing of the Labour party has been.

but it's not like anybody gives a shit. this is the best of all possible economic worlds so maybe it's best just to let people enjoy it. while it lasts.

I joined the Labour Party after the election - as did several people I know - but nothing over the last two months has given me any clue who to vote for in the leadership election or wtf the party needs to do going forward. If anything I feel worse; it feels like the electorate in general simply doesn't care about what the Tories are doing.

Will vote Bradshaw for deputy out of local loyalty, and also because I think he's a decent moderniser and knows how to win things. But I want principles too. So maybe Corbyn for leader.

I joined the Labour Party after the election - as did several people I know

joining the gym in January

Think the gym has a little bit more shame when it comes to bombarding you with emails and text messages 24/7.

also when you sign up to the gym it probably won't decide it's a doughnut shop 6 months later

Yeah, there are a LOT of emails.

the whole focus group market research culture is really the death of meaningful parliamentary politics

OTM. See the tweets now from MPs going on about how Kendall is polling best with the voters, as if the idea is to go where the public leads, rather than to lead them.

I supported some labour party petition backing a parliamentary motion once. I kept getting emails from Alistair Campbell after.

Thinking of paying three quid to vote Corbyn.

^^^ have had the same notion but purely for the lulz you understand

Understand only too well.

See the tweets now from MPs going on about how Kendall is polling best with the voters, as if the idea is to go where the public leads, rather than to lead them

It needs to be a sensible balance between the two - "leadership" is pointless without ground-up engagement and proper dialogue. The problem is that they are being highly selective about which voters they "listen" to.

As if any of "the public" know or care who Liz Kendall is.

Can anyone fill me in on who "labour first" are. All the major press organs have been giving them a platform to say that Corbyn's politics are not "ours" but googling them all I can find aside from this story is a two year old blog post that refers to them as "mysterious." Assuming that they're the Blair led pressure group that I read about before the election in something that implied they would hand pick the next leader, but I can't find that article

they're just neolib policy wonks with a faint glimmer of bleeding heart - for deserving, hard-working families

i believe 'strivers' is now the term of art. Given that Frank Field has apparently used it three times in two sentences.

But he added: “What is unacceptable is for the government to wallop strivers who are already in work, with their low wages brought up to a more decent level by tax credits.
“The Tory attack on strivers now gives us a chance to to reposition Labour on the strivers’ side and not simply be a pressure group for people on benefit whatever their circumstances.”

oh god it's all going to be strivers vs skivers next

a chance to to reposition Labour on the strivers’ side and not simply be a pressure group for people on benefit whatever their circumstances

vote Labour

Strivers vs strikers.

and the strassengers

Anyway..

Whatever Labour does, this is going through, right?

So, we have at least one candidate that is against this, and at least one that thinks its a great idea.

So, basically, everything is abstainable unless all the potential leaders agree, at which point something can be voted against even though the end result will be the same?

Or not?

Why does Frank Field still exist?

because God doesn't

The thing is that cutting tax credits is in and of itself an assault on "strivers", unless the skivers category has now been expanded to include the working poor as well. Even the ropiest of previous Labour front benches would have been hammering the government for this.

This sort of meek capitulation only serves to enable the Tories to shift the mythical centre ground even further to the right, it's falling directly into the elephant trap set by Osborne.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jul/13/david-cameron-open-to-workers-saving-up-fund-own-sick-pay

cutting benefits to the very poor while reducing inheritance tax for the wealthy is indefensible

but they don't seem to have to defend it to anyone, nevertheless

It's this continuous pushing of the idea that the general public is not to be trusted, that if you're ill that's down to your own lack of responsibility, that sick pay is 'a benefit', and that anyone in receivership of such benefits are to be treated with the deepest suspicion.
There really ought to be a moratorium on the word 'benefits'. Too many implications in that - that it's a privilege enjoyed by some people and not others as opposed to something that is really a bare-minimum essential.
The Tories use the positive connotations around the word 'benefits' to suggest that those who claiming them are lucky, that they should be grateful for the fact the government are 'paying for their lifestyle', as if they're using their JSAs on limos and fine dining, when it's the exact opposite.
And now they're quite egregiously going after the working poor by saying they should pay for their own sick leave. What exactly is national insurance then? How will it benefit anyone?! Oh hang on, yeah the private healthcare companies that's right...

OTM, fuck "welfare" and "benefits" both. The Guardian seems to be reverting to "social security" in most places, which is much more like it.

NI doesn't pay for SSL, employers do. Which essentially makes this wheeze another dodgy redistribution from the wealthy
https://www.gov.uk/national-insurance/what-national-insurance-is-for

er, to the wealthy even

Fantastic bit of political TV debate on C4 with Corbyn this evening. Trying to get a link now.

Lost the rag a bit, I thought, the Corbynator.

corbyourenthusiasm surely

It was a bullshit question, they kept interrupting him, and he called them out on it.
https://youtu.be/3z-a5hy7QO8

Krishnan Guru-Murthy is a manspreading twat.

When I lived in Clerkenwell, he could often be found sitting in front of the felafel place below my flat, with his stumpy legs akimbo in too-tight grey flannel trousers, knees at 8 and 4 o'clock.

fox hunting ban "relaxation" going to fail because of nasty scotnats interfering with English laws.

Here's the full interview. The 14 minute one's at the bottom.

http://www.channel4.com/news/jeremy-corbyn-i-wanted-hamas-to-be-part-of-the-debate

Guru-Murthy does seem to have that affect on people doesn't he?

If he actually thinks anybody wants wants to actually look at his knackers he must be fucking deranged.

he could often be found sitting in front of the felafel place below my flat, with his stumpy legs akimbo in too-tight grey flannel trousers, knees at 8 and 4 o'clock.

the devil's angle, no less

Govt withdraw amendment to foxhunting bill, Nikki Sturg once again showing the Labour Party what a real opposition politician looks like

Mhairi Black kicking Labour's arses:

https://youtu.be/lZAmhB55_-k

Bugger-all support in CLPs for Liz
http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/07/which-clps-are-nominating-who-labour-leadership-contest

St Helen’s South and Whiston

come one the New Statesman, get it together

... though not as much as the fact that the Great British public lap it up.

One question that's been playing on my mind, looking back from this vantage point, is how much our situation in 2015 has to do with the kind of people who killed Sophie Lancaster, who was my age:

While returning home, Lancaster and Maltby were subjected to a "vicious mob attack" from "a large group of people" between 01:10 hours and 01:20 hours on Saturday, 11 August 2007, at the skate park area of Stubbylee Park, Bacup (grid reference SD865218).[3] The couple were walking home and came across a group of teenagers at the entrance to the park.[7] The group followed them, but there was no trouble until some of them suddenly assaulted Robert Maltby without provocation. When he was knocked unconscious, the gang attacked Sophie Lancaster, who was trying to protect him by cradling him in her arms. A 15-year-old witness told police: "They were running over and just kicking her in the head and jumping up and down on her head." One distraught witness used a mobile phone to call for emergency services saying: "We need... we need an ambulance at Bacup Park, this mosher has just been banged because he’s a mosher."[8] Witnesses revealed that afterwards, "The killers celebrated their attack on the goths — or "moshers" - by telling friends afterwards that they had "done summat (something) good," and claiming: "There's two moshers nearly dead up Bacup park — you wanna see them — they're a right mess."[9]

That's a teenage girl being kicked to death by kids who, let's be honest, came from families that were long-term benefit claimants and who, had they not been sent to prison, would have just continued along those lines; and that attack was just normal, just the sort of thing that used to go on at least once a month with kids at my school; I myself was a victim of such an attack, except my attackers got frightened off in time. (I got concussion though and still get the occasional hallucinations and deafness and blackouts years later.) Lancaster's killers may not have intended to kill exactly, but they had no problem with doing enough violence to kill.

I know someone who lived in Wales who was hounded out of her home, I've met a Morrocan man who, when he lived in Liverpool 7, got dogshit put through his letterbox every day and had dogs set on him and his wife and kids when they went out.

I know I'm talking about the most evil behaviour, of some discrete individuals, within the huge sea of people who one way or another need social security to help, where a neoliberal economy cannot or will not employ them. (This has included me for several long periods.) We all know that confusing the part for the whole is unreasonable, and that the monstering of 'scroungers and chavs and benefit cheats' etc is counter-factual.

Still though: when I think back to the eyes of my attackers, which as I recall were very piggish and tight and the eyes were all pupil and no white, when I remember that I meant about as much to them as an insect, I have a strong brief feeling that it doesn't matter if they get kicked off JSA, and starve, doesn't matter if they get gentrified out of wherever they live; after all, I hold down a job and like drinking coffee and reading books, and am either neutral or good to the people around me 99% of the time ... but send them to the food bank, then shut it down, why not? Really should I have to pay taxes on the off chance some of them will reform?

Then of course I come back to my senses. But I think a lot of people who got the treatment from 'chavs' are caught up in the hate spiral still, a lot of people in my office certainly, a lot of people I overhear, and not just ppl who shared my taste for stupid trenchcoats and t shirts circa 2003, but totally normal people who made the mistake of asking a neighbour to turn their music down. I struggle to 'organise' this: are people who've been in real conflict with real scum to be forgiven or not for hating 'people on benefits'?

Maybe not quite the right thread, but given we're stuck with this shit for five years it seems we can/should think through this?

Sorry but that makes no sense whatsoever, what does the benefits system have to do with any of that?

Yeah, "let's be honest" seems to be working in its other mode of "let's focus on a detail I've made up to match my prejudices".

http://imgs.littlewhitelies.co.uk/uploads/2012/10/shock-corridor.jpg

"Would it really matter if one of these men died?"

I suppose cardamon is doing us the service of demonstrating how the very notion of a benefit claimant has been demonised, as if we weren't quite sure (n.b. I post to a football forum, and sheesh howdy)

solitary posts that effortlessly clown you for the rest of your brief online presence

Sorry but that makes no sense whatsoever, what does the benefits system have to do with any of that?

― holger sharkey (Tom D.),

Very little in reality but quite a lot in the imaginary

Yeah, "let's be honest" seems to be working in its other mode of "let's focus on a detail I've made up to match my prejudices".

It is possible that these kids were all millionaires on a day trip to Bacup, I'll concede that

"Would it really matter if one of these men died?"

What I was trying to do there was dramatise what I called a brief feeling of total callousness towards someone. Everyone I know irl who actually supports the benefits cuts reaches for justification to some situation they had with 'chavs', and the anecdote they choose gets held up as a sort of totem. What I'm saying is that due to getting me head kicked in, I can relate to some extent with what such people are doing, the idea of getting revenge on the benefits people (who have been melded with 'violent people') is indeed a potent drug.

I dunno, based on the reactions here, you lot must either have had similar experiences but nobly forgiven and never want revenge just a little bit, or just never had similar experiences?

feels as if the phrase 'ivory tower' is going be deployed within a short space of time

Everyone I know irl who actually supports the benefits cuts reaches for justification to some situation they had with 'chavs'

this is confirmation bias. however vindictive ppl feel towards individuals I think they have some more realistic sense of the venn diagram of head-kickers and benefits claimants

It is possible that these kids were all millionaires on a day trip to Bacup, I'll concede that

better than concede, maybe do a bit of research?

i was hoping you were drunk when you posted. wishing harm and misery - just for a moment! - on a large socioeconomic group of people because you had a bad personal experience with a few people from that group...yes that happens irl and people use those arguments in real life. it's a common aspect of every kind of bigotry.

http://www.theonion.com/article/recently-mugged-friend-a-racist-all-of-a-sudden-4827

xxp

What I was trying to do there was dramatise what I called a brief feeling of total callousness towards someone.

And what's more callous than cheering on as vulnerable people are stripped of benefits and doomed to homelessness?

I'd find more convincing an argument that placed the kind of brutish nihilistic violence and thuggery you describe on the same continnuum as middle england's loathing of people on benefits, both being symptoms of the widespread tendency towards callousness and and actual cruelty which does seem to be on the rise among all strata of society.

(yeah, yeah trenchant, whatev)

what you're talking about is the symptomatic effect of tarring everyone with the same brush, which does happen, and the media perpetuates this as well. but there's a long long history of casting poor people as something to be feared. you hear about 'rough estates', 'dodgy areas', 'places you wouldn't want to walk around at night' in towns and cities all the time, and to some extent it's not down to hysteria or snobbery; they're likely to be fairly dangerous places to go (but maybe not as much as they're made out).

the right-wing takes the stance that poorer people are violent and dangerous by nature; that they are in their predicament because of an inherent propensity to break laws and cause trouble. from this angle, there's a natural inclination to think of these 'undesirables' as less-than human and to enforce retributive sanctions on them (such as cutting welfare etc). hating on 'chavs' therefore becomes a noble sport because they are the ones who are ostensibly ruining society with their 'violent' 'lifestyles'. so welfare cuts get supported and notions of 'lifestyle' get upheld and the vicious circle is complete.

This is an unfair pile-on really in that Cardamon is fully aware that these feelings are wrong and pushes them out of his head, which is more than you can say for huge swathes of the population, including some working class people and even including some benefit claimants.

I mean slashing benefits is hardly going to make a cycle of poverty, crime and violence any better is it?

^

I can relate to some extent with what such people are doing, the idea of getting revenge on the benefits people (who have been melded with 'violent people') is indeed a potent drug

This mixture of blind spite and lack of perspective is eerily similar to the mindset of the young murderers you describe upthread. Presumably you'll want to find out what trauma they have been through in their lives before deciding whether it's somewhat understandable to want them, and a huge swathe of the least privileged people in the country, to be wiped out.

I dunno, based on the reactions here, you lot must either have had similar experiences but nobly forgiven and never want revenge just a little bit, or just never had similar experiences?

The desire for revenge against someone who has harmed you is perfectly understandable, automatically extrapolating that out to millions of other people is laughably egotistical.

but it happens and a lot of people think this way, is what cardamom is saying.

Having a brief, inappropriately vindictive emotional reaction to a traumatic experience is one thing. Believing yourself fully justified and allowing it to dominate your thinking moving forward is quite another. It's the latter that constitutes bigotry to me.

it's the definition of bigotry through and through and it seeps through society, permeating thought at every level.

This mixture of blind spite and lack of perspective is eerily similar to the mindset of the young murderers you describe upthread.

Yep.

widespread tendency towards callousness and and actual cruelty which does

shout out to me for repetition of 'and' making it seem like I'm about to burst into tears there

I think you have to meet victims of violence with some tenderness, upbraiding people for their residual grievances can be monstrous & is not at all helpful

xxp I genuinely had no idea that 'chavs beat me up when I was a kid' was a common reason for people supporting benefit cuts. Does David Cameron have Korn to thank for his slim majority?

xxp I genuinely had no idea that 'chavs beat me up when I was a kid' was a common reason for people supporting benefit cuts. Does David Cameron have Korn to thank for his slim majority?

― Blandford Forum, Wednesday, July 15, 2015 12:06 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

'muslims bombed my city' is a key reason for people to act aggressively or fearfully towards foreigners, and a knock-on effect is support for immigration sanctions, even if statistically immigrants don't have even a fraction of the negative impact on the country as the media makes out. so maybe?

i was hoping you were drunk when you posted.

Ditto. I've mugged twice, once w/ violence and burgled twice and never once did I think, "Those bastards were on benefits", I just cannot imagine what you are thinking in linking your personal experience of crime without how much fucking tax you're paying, are you sure you're not drunk?

Nah I think fear of violence (or fear of violence towards someone's children) is more prevalent and more pernicious in terms of encouraging this sort of attitude than actual experiences of violence are. Violent crime rates have been going down for two decades but people seem more afraid than ever.

In any case, 'chav' ≠ benefits claimant. Very often (usually?) the identification the prejusice is based on will simply be wrong.

I've mugged twice, once w/ violence and burgled twice

badman lol

Lol, I've BEEN mugged twice that should be.... but then I did grow up in a council estate and I have been on benefits so you know what I'm capable of.(xxp)

I did grow up in a council estate and I have been on benefits

Then you have actual lived experience that contradicts the sort of reaction we're talking about, in a way that most of the people we're discussing here don't.

getting righteous with people about their prejudices seems like a poor substitute for acknowledging pain and providing a degree of empathy and openness that might lead to some sort of healing. telling people they are too damaged is not a great look

Really don't think almost any benefit bashing is coming from a place of genuine pain. More like callousness and kicking-down cruelty.

I doubt George Osborne or Iain Duncan Smith ever got a kicking for wearing a trenchcoat instead of a tracksuit.

Ditto. I've mugged twice, once w/ violence and burgled twice and never once did I think, "Those bastards were on benefits", I just cannot imagine what you are thinking in linking your personal experience of crime without how much fucking tax you're paying, are you sure you're not drunk?

― holger sharkey (Tom D.), Wednesday, July 15, 2015 12:14 PM (47 seconds ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

But maybe that's because you possess the critical faculties not to make those kinds of illogical leaps? Not everyone does.
'People on benefits', as they're portrayed by the current government and the popular media who support it, = 'scroungers', 'skivers', 'wasters', 'drug-addicts', 'hoodies', 'chavs', 'thugs' etc... and the welfare system is portrayed as abetting such 'lifestyles'. It goes back to the idea that claimants are intrinsically bad people and that they're naturally inclined to carry out acts of violence; a zombie epidemic of underclass benefit claimants who need their benefits taken away (which by some huge leaps of logic) will somehow lift their curse...? I never understood the last bit, but it's common propaganda.

I'm thinking a little more broadly re: bigotry & violence, but if people do have a visceral loathing for people on benefits then moral superiority isn't going to address it

at every turn I am demonised and my choices/chances limited may as well mug/beat up one of these privileged twats today

today I have been mugged/beaten up these monsters should be systematically exterminated

but if people do have a visceral loathing for people on benefits then moral superiority isn't going to address it

you propose... moral inferiority?

Seriously, what?

one irony here is that violent crime has actually been falling for yonks

I don't think moralising is helpful. tom d saying how many times he's been a model victim is reminiscent of benefit sceptics talking about how they strived their way out of unemployment, neither is of any use to the people being addressed

Numbers of Channel 4 documentaries about people on benefits meanwhile have risen dramatically.

tom d saying how many times he's been a model victim

Nice one, cunt.

You're saying the fact that didn't associate the perpetrators of those crimes with the benefits system makes me a 'model victim'? Are you kidding me?

Largely sympathetic documentaries xpost

thought you had established yourself as a sufficiently robust character to handle that

Which means what exactly?

I don't think moralising is helpful.

It's a moral issue though afaic. I don't loathe scounger-bashing rhetoric because I think it's sub-optimal from the point of view of economic efficiency.

Largely sympathetic documentaries

lololololololol can see why you wanted yr name removed from that one

Largely sympathetic documentaries xpost

― AlanSmithee, Wednesday, July 15, 2015 12:43 PM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

gee what happened there

what did?

2

it's easy to sneer, BB, but Britain's Scroungingest Rob-Dogs was a balanced look at the issues facing unemployed people in marginalized communities today

Iin the last couple of weeks I've seen both How to get a council house, and Jaywick Benefits on Sea (admittedly Channel 5).

Neither of these showed living on benefits as something that anyone would want to do. The benefits claimants were shown sympathetically. The council housing was shown to be of a low standard. The story of a Romanian highlighted the fact that if he had had access to council housing, he would have been able to keep his job, but because he did not he could not. Their lives seemed challenging, and interactions with local government and various regulations demonstrated a power imbalance. The Jaywick programme especially showed the efforts that the local community were making to try and help themselves, through establishing soup kitchens, demonstrating to parliament around street lighting.

There certainly is demonisation of benefits claimants in the media, but it's much more in the press than these documentaries, despite their lurid titles.

There are many many many more TV programmes that demonise lower-class people and benefits claimants - from Jeremy Kyle to Benefits Street. They might show a sympathetic side on occasion for the sake of balance, but it's point-and-shame TV all the same.

Oh aye, Jeremy Kyle is awful.

Which means what exactly?

I took the fact that you were boasting about your own handling of violent crime as a way of chastening another poster to indicate that it was no longer an especially sore point for you

Enjoying ogmor's new "John Harris is away" routine

I don't think there's any way to read Tom D's post as an exhortation to Man Up - quite the opposite in fact.

a sense of justice is not the only condiseration re: victimhood & bigotry, & i think morality is too blunt an instrument, and not often well-received

Yes you're right moralising sometimes makes people look like dicks

UK ILX is alive and well!

And fractious, as befits a day when the Tories are taking a chainsaw to unions.

considering this started with a "kill the poor" post i think it's been pretty even-tempered

I don't watch Channel 5 for any reason, but have seen the two How To Get A Council House programmes so far.

The untidy couple having landlord issues: at no point did the programme makers chime in with 'actually, no matter what else is going on between the two parties, a private landlord must give 24 hours' notice before visiting tenants at a let property'.

The ginger-beard housing officer was really brilliant at his job and handled idiots kicking off about 'the immigrants' about as well as can be expected.

There was a female, blonde housing officer who, after being told about applicants' genuine issues, showed them total shitholes in exactly the setting and position they'd expressly said would exacerbate their issues further. In any other situation, that would be some kind of constructive move an applicant could challenge.

My own application process nearly 10 years ago was marked by a recognition of my needs and a lot of help with proving same. My borough is relatively sane about housing policy and is still very Labour, but I have friends waiting for a move who are going to suffer when they try to rewrite the allocation rules later this year - 23,000 people might fall off the waiting list including a close friend who's been on it for almost 10 years.

wow suzy your friend sounds like violent scum

The programme demonstrated clearly the lack of agency of the benefits claimants; they had very limited scope for choice or challenge to the process.

The housing that the family with a dog moved into (the only other option being homelessness) was in very poor condition.

It very much did not fit the narrative of people on benefits living a luxury lifestyle at the taxpayers expense; if anything the overall message was the lack of acceptable quality social housing in Portsmouth (and more widely).

I took the fact that you were boasting about your own handling of violent crime as a way of chastening another poster to indicate that it was no longer an especially sore point for you

You're aware you're making a complete arse of yourself?

:-8

I doubt George Osborne or Iain Duncan Smith ever got a kicking for wearing a trenchcoat instead of a tracksuit

You're aware of the story of a young Michael Gove having the shit kicked out of him in Aberdeen I presume? Can never bring that one up enough.

tragic tale of gabardine in aberdeen

:-o

Ha, yes, I am aware of that one. Gove is the one politician who I could buy being motivated by beatings and humiliations experienced as a youth.

these people are psychopaths

Just imagine the mouth that adolescent Gove must've had on him. Where can I find that story?

Re: council housing, I was and still am boggling at the nerve of the housing woman.

Homeless applicant: "Hi, I'm fairly open to living wherever you put me, as long as it's not the scary place I lived in for six years, the place that sent me crazy."

Housing officer: "We have an offer for you in the scary place that sent you mad, and if you don't take it I'll declare you intentionally homeless." *tight smile*

There is always one person in every housing office like this, and woe betide you if that's your case worker. Also irritating: housing officers that piss time up a wall by taking half your appointment to explain the amount of people on the waiting list as if you don't already know this, and your place within that.

Gove is the one politician who I could buy being could only have been motivated by beatings and humiliations experienced as a youth.

http://www.mayorwatch.co.uk/ignore-the-spin-boris-is-keeping-is-water-cannon-because-theyre-unsellable-scrap/

Meanwhile in London...

Fp'ed that Cardamon post, all that shite about dramatising a feeling or whatever seems like a poor excuse for just simply letting rip with what is currently a very prevalent type of UK class bigotry. I deleted my angry post this morning because I am trying cut down on being a dick, but I still find the sentiments in the op appalling and unjustifiable and am calmly registering my dislike of it for the record.

these people are psychopaths

― conrad, Wednesday, July 15, 2015 1:56 PM (19 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

^this

xp you can buy em on alibaba now anyway http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Howo-bulletproof-Anti-Riot-Water-Cannon_60141793692.html?spm=a2700.7724857.35.1.urfNhr

i dont' think anyone (other than matt dc) really understood what cardamom was really saying in his post but never mind, keep piling it on.

really

Fp'ed that Cardamon post

I found it more bizarre than reprehensible tbh.

xp yeah i mean his point was supposedly seeing where a certain kind of bigotry comes from and resisting his own tendencies towards that, right? tho i don't particularly buy into his thesis, or see it as anything but a tiny particular aspect of the much broader daily mail style demonization of the working classes etc etc

The whole anti-chav thing became a formalised meme (if you can call it a meme) around 2002 IIRC? That's well before the Tories got in, but it seemed to popularise (and legitimise) a lot of face-value classist sentiment that continues today. The only time I saw a backlash to anyone using it as a term prior to around 2007 was on ILE.

Yep. A cheap cash-in book on the 'chav' phenomenon around 2003 was subtitled 'A guide to Britain's new ruling class' iirc.

There used to be a bit of an argument as to whether it was a term of class hatred or just a new term for yobboes, but I guess that debate is pretty definitively over by now.

i believe it started as a regionalised term for yobs and grew to a national expression of class hatred.

Isn't it used blankly as "someone uncultured"?

ie that if they are hardworking or not isn't the defining attribute.

yeah i've never thought chav was synonymous with someone on benefits.

xp i dunno, i'm always quite surprised when i come across it these days, not to mention alarmed. it's a bigoted pejorative term nowadays no denying.

It's a bit old (Burberry) hat now, isn't it?

Chavs

But before that there was...

charvers

The bullshit bit of the Cardamon post was the 'should we judge these attitudes too harshly?' bit when the answer is 'of course we fucking should', especially given the minuscule overlap between anti-welfare bigotry and people who have actually been beaten up by gangs of thugs.

i dont' think anyone (other than matt dc) really understood what cardamom was really saying in his post but never mind, keep piling it on.

― cod latin (dog latin), Wednesday, 15 July 2015 15:21 (23 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ok

That's a teenage girl being kicked to death by kids who, let's be honest, came from families that were long-term benefit claimants and who, had they not been sent to prison, would have just continued along those lines

are people who've been in real conflict with real scum to be forgiven or not for hating 'people on benefits'?

I think I understand these bits where instantly and bizarrely the perpetrators of a terrible crime, and another less terrible crime ('real scum') are defined as the progeny of 'benefit claimants' as though that is of key importance.

What I'm saying is that due to getting me head kicked in, I can relate to some extent with what such people are doing, the idea of getting revenge on the benefits people (who have been melded with 'violent people') is indeed a potent drug.

I think I understand this totally vile sentence too! Just because he frames this as part of a (genuinely sad and horrible) story of something that happened to him doesn't mean that relating to this kind of thinking should be in any way ok.

I dunno, based on the reactions here, you lot must either have had similar experiences but nobly forgiven and never want revenge just a little bit, or just never had similar experiences?

Pretty sure I understand this dumb sentence too. The responses to these posts have been fairly mild considering they essentially amount to 'I know it's wrong to want to wipe out the poor but I do fantasize about it and I understand people who do actually want it and if you don't then I guess you are either the luckiest person alive or some kind of saint'.

Anyway I'll shut up now, there's an important conversation about 'chavs' to be had.

things are pretty fucked up everywhere eh

On (reluctantly) googling this horrible murder, which is somehow connected to the Conservative Party's plans to cut the welfare budget, I discovered that one of the two perpetrators has subsequently been diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic. So how the poster's hard earned taxes could have 'reformed' him I know not.

Via funding the health service properly?

Yeah?

Yeah but in the formulation "a ___ wronged me once so now I hate all ___ and want them to suffer and you are an out of touch moralist if you judge me for it", among the many unpleasant things you can fill in there (black person, foreigner, Muslim, benefit claimant) you could just as "reasonably" include schizophrenic

he didn't say he wanted them all to suffer, he just said it was perfectly understandable why people might want them all to suffer

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/09/27/article-0-02CADB2400000578-486_468x421.jpg

Oxford student paper mention of Gove kicking as requested upthread ^

"Gray did nothing to save his lifelong friend. He ran away, to leave Gove and his face to take the rap"
Let's not be judgemental here, this is not necessarily a clear cut case of moral cowardice.

The first part of that student paper story: "So not going to happen" clearly.

Just me getting Clockwork Orange vibes from the photo then?

Alfred E. Neuman... with rickets.

Seems like a lot of people who ostensibly have left-wing political views are really against Corbyn because of the Hamas thing and now a 5-year old tweet vaguely supporting homeopathy. Now I'm not keen on either of those myself but it seems a bit weird to be so against the only leftie candidate based on those factors when choosing between leaders, almost like they are buying into right-wing media narratives. I dunno this is a bit of a strawman I've built and I'm probably talking out of my arse again, I totally accept that left-wingers might be against a Corbyn leadership based on his apparent unelectability (it's not really my position, I'd rather there was a leader representing me than another Blairite whether they were in government or not, I don't see the point in getting Labour elected if they are just Tory-lite, at all). Mind you I hate George Galloway and people have compared Corbyn to him so maybe they are onto something.

Sorry I'm really rambling here.

Corbyn seems like the least Galloway-like leftie politician imaginable in terms of modus operandi + personal style

Corbyn is nothing like Galloway but expect that connection to be made again and again if he wins. A big part of me wants him to win, but otoh he seems like a genuinely decent man who will be torn limb from limb if he does. The loss of temper + eyeroll in that C4 News interview suggests he lacks the temperament to deal with even a relatively easy-to-sidestep grilling. I don't really believe it will realign Labour to the left either, because the likelihood is that once he resigns or is deposed, they'll sweep back with someone even more right-wing in charge, and that'll probably happen sooner rather than later.

I suspect the likelihood is that either Burnham or (more likely) Cooper will drop out of the race between now and the ballot in return for one of the plum shadow cabinet positions. I don't really understand the second preference thing either - Burnham apparently ahead on first votes but Corbyn ahead after transfers, but I don't really understand why anyone would put Cooper or Kendall down as their first choice and then Corbyn as a #2.

united by a fondness for hats, I suppose xp

Every possible stop will be pulled out to ensure Corbyn doesn't win.

he has plenty of faults, he's not a good media performer and he isn't likely to sell his policies to anybody who doesn't already share them but otoh he's the only candidate with any sense of principle or opposition to the neoliberal hegemony. that's broadly what makes him unelectable and precisely what needs to happen to the Labour party, whatever the outcome.

also the Torygraph's hilarious "vote for Corbyn and destroy Labour forever" campaign stinks of mildly alarmed double bluff to me

A big part of me wants him to win, but otoh he seems like a genuinely decent man who will be torn limb from limb if he does.

^

NV also otm, no tories are going to be joining labour to vote for Corbyn.

xps The Hamas thing... It's a funny one. Seems that if you're a prominent socialist asking for dialogue it automatically makes you a terrorist sympathiser. It's a transparent bit of dirt-digging crossed with a canard on behalf of the right-wing, but so many people seem to take it seriously, as if Corbyn's key objective all these years has been to invite terrorists into number 10 and blow up parliament or whatever.
Yesterday the Telegraph were celebrating Corbyn's popularity, hoping his election would 'destroy' Labour. He's either unelectable or not. But the fact so many people think he's a. unelectable and b. dangerous just makes me despair in humanity.

The Telegraph has 'campaigns' now? Standards slipping not like in my day they don't like it up 'em.

a lot of leftists who may well sincerely seek an equitable solution to the Palestine issue have the unfortunate habit of wording their public statements a bit less diplomatically than "i am asking for dialogue"

he has very little support in the parliamentary labour party, right? to the point where he struggled to get on the ballot? which would surely make any theoretical Corbyn victory a non-starter even aside from the fact that labour establishment will obv move heaven and earth to crush him if he looked like he had any chance of victory

Hamas: diplomatically referring to conference attendees from an elected government as 'friends' is normal political behaviour, see also our 'friends' in Saudi Arabia, whose wealthy citizens are probably paying for all the terrorism and yet we get half-mast Union flags when their king pegs it. I call *bullshit*.

Homeopathy: a cursory glance shows JC sees it as possible complementary medicine in some cases, not a replacement for regular medicine (the cleu is in 'complementary'), on the perfectly understandable willow bark = aspirin tip. Nothing more, surely?

Corbyn wouldn't even be close to winning this if there were another candidate willing to challenge the austerity narrative, which is what every grassroots party person or left-wing/labour voter I know really wants from PLP politicians.

What if Corbyn and allies were to form their own left-wing party? What would happen to Labour? Would it have an SNP-like effect or no effect at all?

Hamas: diplomatically referring to conference attendees from an elected government as 'friends' is normal political behaviour, see also our 'friends' in Saudi Arabia, whose wealthy citizens are probably paying for all the terrorism and yet we get half-mast Union flags when their king pegs it. I call *bullshit*.

just wanted to OTM this.

I assume people only vote Labour to keep the Tories out, so no effect.

to what extent are these stories about his unexpected levels of support exaggerations? either from excitable Corbyn supporters or opponents of Labour who feel theyhave an interest in making it seem like he is a credible candidate?

I don't think they're exaggerated.

i trust nothing i read except what can be openly evidenced at this stage tbh

but it wdn't be much of a surprise if grassroots party activists and some Trade Unions got behind the only candidate who isn't a fucking Tory

sort of wonder how this could have played out if Diane Abbott was running as the left candidate rather than Corbyn, someone who maybe could sell these policies to people who aren't already true believers

Corbyn's appearance on Channel 4 polarised Twitter as far as I could tell, but maybe people's minds were made up already. I went to an anti-austerity thing in town the other day with Natalie Bennett speaking, as well as others, and there was obviously a lot of pro-Corbyn talk.

http://i2.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article5984150.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/MAINcorbynweather.jpg

He's putting up a fair battle in endorsements apparently:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorsements_in_the_Labour_Party_(UK)_leadership_election,_2015

Sort of surprised (but not unhappy) how poorly Liz Kendall's doing there.

Kendall to clown all predictions and win at a canter imo

on the perfectly understandable willow bark = aspirin tip

Eh? What does willow bark have to do with homeopathy?

they're both magic

he has plenty of faults, he's not a good media performer and he isn't likely to sell his policies to anybody who doesn't already share them but otoh he's the only candidate with any sense of principle or opposition to the neoliberal hegemony. that's broadly what makes him unelectable and precisely what needs to happen to the Labour party, whatever the outcome.

Except "electability" isn't really about policy, it's about personality and presentation. A leader with the principles of Corbyn and the presence and communication skills of mid-90s Blair would stand a better chance of winning than a centrist wonk who excites precisely no one.

Also a) I don't think Corbyn ever expected to be in this position when he entered the contest and b) why the fuck are Jason Cowley and other professional political journalists still talking about opinion polls like they mean anything? They might as well be consulting the fairies at the bottom of the garden.

i don't think it's one or the other. over-relying on your ability to play the media is a fool's enterprise if you're proposing anything that's broadly unpalatable to the media, as any anti-austerity position wd be. winning hearts and minds is going to take grassroots work and the ability to get a message out there thru a steady barrage of flack. it's going to take enough patience to not worry about soundbiting yrself into short term TV popularity. obviously a "leader" has to not make an arse of themselves in public whenever poss, but i don't think meaningful change is something that can be accomplished thru a polished enough media presence. Blair, after all, wasn't interested in meaningful change.

Unfair advantage for the Tories is that they don't need personality as such, just presentation (don't be bald or too old looking).

I'd rather support politicians who react like human beings when confronted with bullshit and posturing. Part of the problem in Westminster is that they do not.

xp - All kinds of medicines have origins in nature, eg. morphine. Aspirin is a synthetic iteration of a chemical found in willow bark, which has been used for pain and inflammation relief since forever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aspirin

if the Labour party's got nothing to sell then it doesn't matter who's in charge. the next step needs to be to sort itself out a vision and a plan for realising that vision. this is the step that i think it's going to absolutely fail at.

Right, but homeopathy is not medicine of any kind, it's not the same thing at all. That's my point. Willow bark contains an active ingredient. Homeopathy is magical mystery water.

xpost

dude, it's water with molecules in it

over-relying on your ability to play the media is a fool's enterprise if you're proposing anything that's broadly unpalatable to the media, as any anti-austerity position wd be. winning hearts and minds is going to take grassroots work and the ability to get a message out there thru a steady barrage of flack. it's going to take enough patience to not worry about soundbiting yrself into short term TV popularity. obviously a "leader" has to not make an arse of themselves in public whenever poss, but i don't think meaningful change is something that can be accomplished thru a polished enough media presence.

Yeah you need both but as I keep saying people are going to be a lot more open to your message if you're the sort of person they want to listen to in the first place, but you also need to be disciplined enough not to just chase soundbytes. There are popular politicians who can work the media and sell an anti-austerity message to the public, they're just in Scotland (which admittedly is a more favourable climate to this sort of thing). But then again I don't think anti-austerity is as unpopular as it's made out to be - the issue is mistrust and/or fear of Labour themselves.

Heartening to know Corbyn can do no wrong, unlike this guy lol

NV also otm, no tories are going to be joining labour to vote for Corbyn.

― 2011’s flagrantly ceremonious rock-opera (Bananaman Begins), Thursday, July 16, 2015 9:19 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Dunno about that, they might get tempted after being very pleased that Ed got in instead of David, and they might like the idea of ensuring the 'vote winner' doesn't get in.

I'd rather support politicians who react like human beings when confronted with bullshit and posturing.

I do think that the electorate might enjoy someone that does that, rather than the well-trained politico that smiles and describes the alternate scenario all the time.

Hmmm. Coming to suspect that the electorate, despite claiming to want honesty and straightforwardness in politicians, actually much prefer well-trained politicos' smiles, bullshit and posturing.

Of course they fucking do.

Boris Johnson is the bellwether of this really? Did you see him being interviewed about the water cannons on Sky? butter wouldn't melt. even when he's writhing around and squirming, he's still got this smugly amused grin as if he knows something the interviewer doesn't, and that comes across as superior even if he is clearly checkmated.

Since he has habits that make Bill Clinton look like a eunuch, I'd imagine that the second he got near leading the Tories, the public might somehow find out a bit more about his behaviour.

lots of rightwing blogs + twitter ppl are doing giggly 'vote corbyn' campaigns, not sure how many votes that would actually translate into, though

some folks also reviving this oldie but goodie:

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CGuKzoxXAAETIYv.jpg:large

http://flashbak.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Screen-shot-2015-04-01-at-09.50.09.png

Ironically, Corbyn's one there is... okay? No-one would bat an eyelid if he said it tomorrow.

LOL Keith Vaz

LOL like there's anything dodgy about George Galloway right

http://bodley30.bodley.ox.ac.uk:8180/luna/servlet/detail/ODLodl~6~6~51843~105198:1987-31?sort=Shelfmark&qvq=w4s:/when/1987;sort:Shelfmark;lc:ODLodl~29~29,ODLodl~7~7,ODLodl~6~6,ODLodl~14~14,ODLodl~8~8,ODLodl~23~23,ODLodl~1~1,ODLodl~24~24&mi=31&trs=33

who were the 'militants' they were all helping to fund?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militant_(Trotskyist_group)

ah right

In fact, Corbyn is obviously only on there because he looks the beardy sociology lecturer part.

off topic, but some fantastic Militant tendency related photos can be found here:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/dave_sinclair_liverpool_photos/albums/72157602168852769/page1

Tim Farron is the new leader of some party or other

not so much a party as a book club

Hands up if you can name anyone else he was competing up against.

Going back to the Labour contest, if these lamers can't beat a "bearded voter repellant" like Corbyn, how exactly do they propose to beat Boris?

Norman Lamb!

http://bodley30.bodley.ox.ac.uk:8180/luna/servlet/detail/ODLodl~6~6~51843~105198:1987-31?sort=Shelfmark&qvq=w4s:/when/1987;sort:Shelfmark;lc:ODLodl~29~29,ODLodl~7~7,ODLodl~6~6,ODLodl~14~14,ODLodl~8~8,ODLodl~23~23,ODLodl~1~1,ODLodl~24~24&mi=31&trs=33

zoomable version with slightly less horrible url here: http://digital.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/inquire/p/5a090e3d-2139-4e1d-8a47-e7a82add1379

Richard Stanton still paying for his Brighton bomb comments 30 years later

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/11648447.Green_Party_select_candidate_who_said_Grand_Hotel_bombing_was__justifiable__to_replace_hired_killers_tweets_councillor/

Even the quotes about armed workers' brigades aren't as embarrassing as Harman working for a "civil liberties" group that lobbied parliament to drop the age of sexual consent to 10 in that same era.

Thanks for that Flickr link soref.

So, now then

That post of mine up there

Just to clear up a few things:

I wasn't drunk, but I was very tired and have recently been ill from sawdust inhalation (so ...?)

And what's more callous than cheering on as vulnerable people are stripped of benefits and doomed to homelessness?

Agree 100%, and this is one of many things that was missing from my post.

This is an unfair pile-on really in that Cardamon is fully aware that these feelings are wrong and pushes them out of his head, which is more than you can say for huge swathes of the population, including some working class people and even including some benefit claimants.

I'll take responsibility for the pile on tho because of poor phrasing and throwing down ugly matter in an ugly way

xxp I genuinely had no idea that 'chavs beat me up when I was a kid' was a common reason for people supporting benefit cuts. Does David Cameron have Korn to thank for his slim majority?

All I can say is, 'Chavs beat me up when I was a kid' is a very common reason for people supporting benefit cuts in my city

Fp'ed that Cardamon post, all that shite about dramatising a feeling or whatever seems like a poor excuse for just simply letting rip with what is currently a very prevalent type of UK class bigotry. I deleted my angry post this morning because I am trying cut down on being a dick, but I still find the sentiments in the op appalling and unjustifiable and am calmly registering my dislike of it for the record.

@Xelab considering my post was an angry post of the most self-righteous unthinking kind, you'd have been way within yr rights to post your own angry post; I also find the sentiments appalling and unjustifiable

The bullshit bit of the Cardamon post was the 'should we judge these attitudes too harshly?' bit

I agree with you I think. There's a vaguely liberal way of approaching toxic people which says 'We mustn't judge', but really works to justify their toxic thoughts and behaviours; which sounds like positive + constructive thinking but actually just leads back round to the status quo. Right? And you read something like that in my post?

What I'm actually in favour of is a sort of clinical emotional maths.

For example Mr Joe Bloggs (of Billinge) votes for the benefit cuts because his elderly aunty was mugged outside Kwik Save by a gang of teenagers, had savings stolen and bruises across her face for months, was afraid to leave the house afterwards. Mr Joe Bloggs is fucking fuming, long term, and says 'Aye fookin dead right' when he hears new benefits cuts being announced on Sky News because he associates 'benefits people' with 'muggers'.

'Understanding' the anger of Mr Bloggs isn't going to get us very far, because at the end of the day, we disagree with him. We know for certain that slashing benefits may not even touch the people who mugged his aunty but will definitely hurt people who are innocent of anything like that. We know the cuts to benefits and public services will make such muggings even more likely to happen, in fact. We can't honestly concede anything to his position, which is a pathological position.

Strategically though, this is the situation: the tories are tapping into the psychic torment of Joe Bloggs up and down the country, so how are we going to proceed? The pathology is a fact about a chunk of our population. What then is the move to play here?

(I do see a moral distinction between people who have actually been mugged/attacked/victimised and politicians who make use of those experiences; and also between people who have actually had those experiences and respond 'illogically', and people who invoke or pretend to those experiences rhetorically, to puff up an illogical and self-serving argument; I can often sniff out whose terrible chav stories are real and who's bullshitting, likewise with horror stories about 'large groups of asian lads' etc etc)

he associates 'benefits people' with 'muggers'.

I'm still struggling with this connecting of benefits to crime. I don't know who you're hanging about with but how many people actually think this way, seriously? Where are you hanging about? I just don't get it.

Strategically though, this is the situation: the tories are tapping into the psychic torment of Joe Bloggs up and down the country

They aren't though, Osborne said it himself, it's about people getting up in the morning and passing their neighbour's house who still have their curtains drawn, i.e., they're still lazing about in their kip until they roll out of bed at noon to watch Jeremy Kyle or the Real Housewives of New Jersey or whatever, not that they're out mugging aunties or murdering Goths, do you actually have any contact with real people or what?

Er, there are probably some drawbacks to buying in to George Osborne's mastery of the national psyche.

Nick Clegg was the person who came up with blinds-drawn skivers as a THING. Clearly he's not working from home in a room with huge south-facing windows.

(xp) The point was that the populist anti-benefits rhetoric from politicians, like Osborne, is about fecklessness not violence.

I was going to say that. I've never seen anyone make that connection (to violence) before.

'Alarm Clock Britain' was Clegg's slogan wasn't it? Ah, what times, what memories. Longest time for the Liberals in government since Lloyd George, you know.

I'm still struggling with this connecting of benefits to crime.

Would you struggle with a link of poverty to crime?
Would you struggle with a link of poverty to benefits?

join the dots

I don't think anyone's saying all people on benefits are criminals. However, it's likely that a high proportion of violent and anti-social crime takes place in areas of deprivation where a high proportion of people are on benefits.

I think cardamon is saying making these links and playing on those fears generates support for the cuts.

tbh I think I do recognise what Cardamon is talking about. I have heard this kind of thing, both from Tories and working class ex-Labour presumably now UKIP types. Although the Tories would just see Council Estate = On Benefits = Criminal = Scum, the working class people I've heard this kind of thing from are sometimes living on council estates (or maybe have previously) but they are working and see scroungers and layabouts as a problem and often they are associating them with crime on the estate. One of the people I've heard come out with this his own brother is an ex-junkie alcoholic who is on benefits and probably does the odd bit of petty crime so I can sort of see where he gets the idea from.

In no way condoning these attitudes, they are not my own, just to be clear.

Maybe Tom D. doesn't talk to many people from outside London? I don't really hear this from anyone here, but go back to the Midlands and it's all over the place.

Things are probably somewhat different in London, I'd agree- an idea borne out by the election results.

Seems this sort of thinking has deep roots, unfortunately, in a way that can't really be combatted by the labour party 'reconnecting' or somehow pitching its message a bit better. If ordinary people are easy prey to politics of kicking-down resentment these days, it's because people are more inclined to see social life as consisting of individual conflict (and not to notice, or care, about larger structural issues) and to view the idea of 'community' in a strictly exclusionary sense.

The sort of attitudes that have been building up over decades, basically. Probably inherent in consumer capitalism, and indivisible from it.

the slow but sure enforcement of values based on extreme meritocracy has a lot do with this too, i think

Guessing rich people are lovely, except you just don't get to meet them. Don't know if anyone else here does, but if they do please report.

the working class people I've heard this kind of thing from are sometimes living on council estates (or maybe have previously) but they are working and see scroungers and layabouts as a problem and often they are associating them with crime on the estate.

Sure, but the original claim is that "may kick my head in" was a higher reason to hate dolies than any other, which still seems like nonsense.

(Also of course unemployment benefit is 3% of actual welfare)

I don't think anyone's saying all people on benefits are criminals. However, it's likely that a high proportion of violent and anti-social crime takes place in areas of deprivation where a high proportion of people are on benefits.

I think cardamon is saying making these links and playing on those fears generates support for the cuts.

First two statements are obvious tbh. Who is making these links and playing on those fears though? I don't think even IDS has done that? Maybe it's something that's going on wherever cardamon lives? Bringing up the murder of the goth girl in Lancashire in his original post was straight up bullshit however, remind me to keep away from sawdust in the future.

"people believe mean things about demonized social groups" = yeah ok i think we get that
"you can understand why people believe these things, because of their everyday experiences of people from these groups" = mistaking the distorting lenses of prejudice for a simple cause and effect process

the point is always that the demonized social group is already demonized, and any confirmation of prejudice that people gain from their personal experience requires the prejudice to already be in place

also, there are quite a different set of assumptions and experiences made about "benefits scroungers" by people from different social classes and regions. plenty of working class people hate scroungers but it's rarely because they think of them as terrifying, exotic feral beasts

perhaps ironically, there's something coming close to Stalinist about the neoliberal 'strivers versus skivers' rhetoric - the idea that you're either a useful cog or a rusty ratchet in the works

there are quite a different set of assumptions and experiences made about "benefits scroungers" by people from different social classes and regions.

^^^

there's something coming close to Stalinist about the neoliberal 'strivers versus skivers' rhetoric

oh, totally.

http://pxhst.co/avaxhome/4d/ea/001cea4d_medium.jpeg

Osborne's just issued a 5 year plan to improve productivity tbf

Who is making these links and playing on those fears though? I don't think even IDS has done that?

The media, alongside government, demonise the poor. Everything from biased coverage of the Tottenham Riots, to rhetoric around 'hoodies', to scaremongering news reports about violence on 'rough' council estates, to films like Eden Lake, all perpetuate the idea that people on benefits are somehow violent by nature. The (il)logic behind this is that if you cut benefits then fewer people will be on benefits, hence lowering violent crime. No one's going to stand up in parliament and say 'people on benefits are dangerous', but it's an implication that's reinforced again and again.

all perpetuate the idea that people on benefits are somehow violent by nature.

More likely to commit crime maybe, but violent?

... by nature? Forgot to add.

i think the problem/mistake is caused by the blurring of scroungers (not gonna keep putting scarequotes around this, y'all know what i don't mean) and chavs and working class people as represented in these strands of the media

none of the stuff dl lists is based on "LOOK OUT, HE'S ON JOBSEEKERS", all of it is general fear/hatred/othering of the poor, the young, the urban *cough cough*

if you're far enough away from these people then they probably all look the same, but i can't think of any specific constructions that equate scroungers with scary pitchfork wielding avatars of the lynchmob

and of course some people may not pick up on those nuances. fuck them to hell.

ok I take it back, damnation can be a progressive force

case by case basis :)

there's only so much time and emotional energy to expend on trying to educate yr oppressor imo

of course, but it's not always your oppressor that needs educating. I think moral condemnation of the powerful or those who respect you enough to listen can be effective, but otherwise I favour carrots over sticks, even if they are less fun to wield

xps of course people don't pick up on the nuances. it's like Bush getting mixed up between Iraq and Afghanistan. for many, it's just a big smoosh of undesirable povvo scum, right?

http://www.gdprice.com/j/00137.JPG

when i'm visiting my hometown i'll quite often hear a conflation of 'junkies' // people who get everything handed to them on a plate while the rest of us get nothing // people who will stab you and mug you with no remorse, with little heed to the various contradictions that appear there. but i'm unconvinced that this is part of the same homogeneous mass that is the general vilification of 'scroungers' (indeed many of the people making this conflation are on benefits themselves). we're a sophisticated and nuanced society, we can hate a variety of homogeneous groups of people for a variety of fake reasons.

xxp I genuinely had no idea that 'chavs beat me up when I was a kid' was a common reason for people supporting benefit cuts. Does David Cameron have Korn to thank for his slim majority?

― Blandford Forum, Wednesday, July 15, 2015 12:06 PM (2 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I'm still laughing at this two days later, but anyway, continue...

safe space

Late as ever, I think I'm just about coming round to see part of the objection to that post - yes I wd agree that most of the anti-benefits rhetoric, the stuff pumped out from above, and the attitudes pumped around down here by people taken along by it ... the majority of that rhetoric is about 'strivers vs skivers', hard work vs 'getting it handed to you', rather than about terrible feral yobs

Also what nv says:

also, there are quite a different set of assumptions and experiences made about "benefits scroungers" by people from different social classes and regions.

This rings true to me, something like:

'People who have never met anyone on benefits but reckon they're worthless and need a kick, or even worse, a helping hand such as making them pick litter'
'People who have some sort of shared life with people on benefits, see them as opponents, or as someone to distance yourself from at all moral costs'
'People who are themselves very poor and may be in receipt of a benefit who target other people in receipt of other benefits'

So apparently new libelous demagogue leader made an arse of himself on c4 news due to his being a god bothering dick who doesn't like gays or abortion

Not to mention Cameron not telling Parliament about 'embedded' British combatants in Syria, the action that same Parliament voted against.

WTF? This is some Bush-level shit.

yup, fairly egregious, yet somehow feels like water off a ducks' back. tories in power for the next decade, probably more, is a real horrendous thing to face. it's just going to be one thing after another after another

it doesn't shock because of how easy it is to imagine a Blair government doing same

Naaah, Tony Blair would probably tell people he was going to shit all over due process, and smile hopefully while doing it.

Backing the UK off Syria was probably the best thing Ed Miliband did in opposition and I hope when Parliament convenes on Monday to interrupt Cameron's hols discuss the matter, EM gets a chance to at least yell at the SOB.

This barely registers as egregious in the context of the last twenty years of British military policy. The vote in 2013 was over whether to conduct airstrikes against the Assad government in light of the alleged use of chemical weapons against civilians. This is not what was done, even if you don't buy the argument that lending three pilots to Canada doesn't constitute direct military intervention.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-33578174

really wondering what Murdoch's play is here

So, the FSA was too soft on bankers and too light-touch, and after the crash was replaced with the FCA. Whose chief exec has just been fired by Osborne for being too tough on bankers and "too much of a consumer champion". Osborne now wants a more ... light-touch approach.
https://next.ft.com/61f867fa-2c76-11e5-8613-e7aedbb7bdb7

I despair

this is brutal. and unsustainable. and utterly depressing.

Are you talking about the 40% budget cuts or Labour deciding it's okay to feed everyone earning under £18k into a car crusher if that's what the public want?

those fucks are all in this together

Can't believe I'm cheering on the Lords now. Today alone they've blocked both the right-to-buy from housing associations and take one of EVEL. Guess that's what a huge majority comprised of 200 pissed-off Labour lords, 100 furiously incandescent LibDems and 140 cross-benchers with no love for the current government gets you.

xp - both, Matt

bitter nat digression here but I wonder how no voters are managing to contort their minds into thinking they did the right thing as we face a decade (plus?) of tory rule, an ineffectual/pointless labour opposition, and the braying schadenfreude of middle england as the social costs of punitive austerity become more and more vivid.

I think they contort it by looking at Greece (and especially the Germany-Greece dynamic) and extrapolating from that what Osborne would do to Scotland. The currency issue has become even starker since the referendum because of that whole show, I think.

ah, fair enough, I suppose. need a more robust plan, currency union a certain dud.

I keep hearing people praising Osbourne's very clever act of stealing Labour's clothes, lol I am sure that took a lot of effort.

The "guilty No voters" rhetoric feels very uncomfortable to me. A No vote wasn't an vote for a Tory Gov't, it was a vote for a united country. There are still children in poverty south of the border and I still don't feel it's a morally strong position to look after your own and leave them to it, even if we have a horrible Government only because of pockets of England. I mean, this argument has been done to death in various threads so I don't see how rehashing it is going to do any good, but it's a done deal and I don't think bitterness will accomplish anything - tbh I think it almost undoes a lot of the good work that independence supporters have managed since the referendum.

imo the polity of the rUK will forever be tory, or at best you'll get blairite labour every few decades if youre extremely lucky. imo this was foreseeable last september, and is a certainty for the next several decades, ie the meaningful tranche of most scottish adults' lives, especially my glaswegian brethren who don't live long anyway.

i no longer live in scotland, and am not politically involved, so im quite happy to be bitter and know that it has no consequence. it is obviously not politic for pro-independence activists and groups to be divisively derisive of the majority of scottish voters.

the No vote sure as hell wasn't a vote against an eternity of right wing governance

that was a big part of what it was, especially amongst the 10% or so that swung in the closing month.

It wasn't necessarily a vote *for* either. I ended up spoiling my ballot paper because I couldn't reconcile my complicity in terrible nationwide governance with my guilt over the sections of society that would benefit from the continued presence of Scotland's (theoretically) traditional gravitational pull to the left, i.e couldn't vote with my head and my heart at once

maybe it's easier to despise the UK and everything it represents from England

I would say so, pretty sure living in Scotland during the referendum would have driven me into the Unionist camp.

http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/624/cpsprodpb/4AFC/production/_84369191_84369186.jpg

This photo is amazing, it manages to capture each candidate so perfectly - incredulity from Cooper, fence-sitting "hmmm, I'm going to look like I think you have a point there" from Burnham, full on vicious contempt from Kendall.

Corbyn 17% ahead on first preference votes

still don't believe Corbyn will win this. if he does, the carnage is gonna be exquisite.

whatever happens, a whole swathe of Labour MPs are going to have on record their complete contempt for the values and aspirations of a sizeable cohort of their own party's members

wd dearly love this to be Ragnarok but I'm sure cowardice and temporizing will prevail

Corbyn already pointing out that maybe what Labour is waiting for is the Chilcot inquiry result.

Corbyn's plan that the leader will have to be confirmed every 12 months gives him a good exit strategy. Could work relatively well: year or two of outright attack while they prep an election-winner for 2020.

I think that's almost exactly what the idea is - he didn't see himself as a potential winner but now he is I find it very doubtful he sees himself as a potential Prime Minister. But this has revealed a massive disconnect between the PLP and the rest of the party, if only to confirm they aren't prepared to sacrifice every principle for the sake of getting into power. A leadership election two or three years down the line would have a markedly different tenor, I think, although there would obviously be at least one Blairite true believer involved, there'd be a wider selection of actual ideas involved.

FWIW I don't think anyone on the ballot looks particularly electable and given the choice between failing with some principles and failing without any, I'd go for the latter every time. The wider public will smell bullshit with the latter approach as well, Labour could adopt every single Tory policy and still not win.

Whichever cockfarmer it was who was whining last week, "we cannot just allow our party, a credible party of government, to be hijacked in this summer of madness" showed a breathtaking lack of self-awareness. a) I think two successive election defeats against a govt as transparently unloved as this one rather proves that you are not a credible party of government, and b) if you move to unseat a popular choice you don't agree with then you are the people doing the hijacking.

All this stuff is usually couched in some bollocks about "meeting the electorate where they are, not where we want them to be", which is nonsense really given that the Tories never really bother with this.

it would be refreshing to have someone treat being the leader of opposition as an important end in itself, rather than as a platform from which to send smoke signals to the electorate

I wonder when one of the losers is gonna crack and start whinging about entryism distorting the election, either from the left or the right

the state of labour at the moment is actually embarrassing. they should have appointed a leader after the general election. this public floundering is ludicrous. they owe it to people to mount some kind of credible opposition, not give the tories a free pass to do whatever until labour are done self-flagellating.

also the whole process is like transparency with a shit in it

hard to mount a credible opposition if your MPs don't really oppose anything the government wants to do

This is the thing, if the public actually wants an eviscerated welfare state, then we should have a Tory government. The idea that Labour might have a duty or responsibility to the millions of people who DON'T want that doesn't seem to resonate with them at all.

they seem to think that the fact a slim majority voted for a different party and their policies means that they must now become that party. like some of them, i don't know what they are because they aren't politicians. there is no belief system left.

http://www.politics.co.uk/blogs/2015/07/22/tony-blair-is-to-blame-for-the-rise-of-jeremy-corbyn

This is broadly on-the-money. The confusion he highlights re: Andy Burnham was also present in Ed Miliband in a big way, despite the apparently determination of Blairites to view him as a traditional left candidate.

Blair on hand to lend his trademark guidance:

http://i.imgur.com/h7buH9u.jpg

It's also worth pointing out that Blair won three elections in pretty much the most benign economic, political and competitive conditions, and not once did he go into an election pledging to cut public spending.

He was also up against a succession of useless Tory leaders.

... as you say, benign political conditions.

Actually what I mean to say was the most benign economic, political and competitive conditions ever experienced by a British PM. I mean who has ever had it easier?

an inanimate carbon rod would have got elected for labour after 20 years of tory rule. the same will be true for the tories now for a while. the british system is incredibly fucked.

Macmillan possibly? (xp)

I think the fear of the animate carbon rod that was Neil Kinnock is probably formative in a lot of Blairites.

gosh yes that awful man with his socialism and his Welshness

will give Kinnock some credit for adding to the gaiety of nations with this kind of thing:

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/03/27/sadiq-khan-eric-pickles-dying_n_5042499.html

(tbh I normally find 'Eric Pickles is fat' jokes to be kind of cheap and crass, but Kinnock writing a letter where he wishes for Pickles to did of a heart attack, Khan tweeting the letter apparently not considering that there could be anything controversial about this and every UK news outlet reporting the story in a completely dead-pan serious fashion was hilarious at just about every level imo)

kinnock's original letter was funny because nowhere did he say "eric pickles will die", he just told khan to invite pickles on the marathon and said it would provoke an election, and our minds make the leap to suggest, oh yes, pickles died because he is unhealthy and it is a marathon = HOW COMEDY WORKS

http://www.visitcardiff.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Barry-Cryer.jpg

agree, Khan having make an embarrassing apology after it gets written up likr this:

Sadiq Khan, the shadow justice minister who is now considering running for Mayor of London, published a letter on Twitter written by Lord Kinnock, the former Labour leader, that suggested Mr Pickles would die if he ran a marathon.

adds another level to the comedy though, I think

is 'HOW COMEDY WORKS' followed by that Barry Cryer picture a meme? if not is should be

http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/simpsons/images/1/10/McBain_-_Let%27s_Get_Silly.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20130813194642

THE MEME BEGINS HERE

and given the choice between failing with some principles and failing without any, I'd go for the latter every time.

Erm....the former?

i'm assuming that was a typo, right?

Hah, yes it was a typo.

or just labour party policy eh eh

better to die on your knees than live on your feet

If the leadership candidates weren't bad enough, the London Mayoral candidates compound the misery.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/jul/24/liz-kendall-lord-falconer-accuses-dismissing-women-labour-leadership-race

is it falling into conspiracy theorist territory to think that this Times piece was given a misleading headline intentionally so that Kendall could take the opportunity to attack Burnham's campaign? the actual quote from Falconer seems totally innocuous...or did he say some more stuff that actually justifies the accusations of sexism?

Kendall believes the comments from Charles Falconer, the shadow lord chancellor, about her and Yvette Cooper – reported in the Times under the headline “Women not tough enough to lead Labour’’ – had sexist undertones.

Falconer was quoted as saying: “Neither Yvette nor Liz can steer the Labour party through the challenging few years ahead when we need a leader who can reach out to all wings of our party and provide unity. As a result, both Liz and Yvette are unlikely to beat Jeremy [Corbyn, the fourth leadership candidate].”

I cannot see who Kendall and Cooper are supposed to appeal to. They are both awful cynics and I'm pretty sure Kendall is a genuinely terrible person. I can't really see who Burnham is supposed to appeal to now either. In spite of his egregious abstention, made worse by his back-pedalling, I don't think he's all that bad. He's not evil. They are all three essentially blatant careerists who lack vision. Kendall and Cooper really are opportunist complainers though.

Ps I'm drunk

The gang of three are all as gratingly awful as each other to me, listening to any of them talk has a thermobaric weapon type effect of drawing the oxygen out of the room. But I suppose Kendall's blatant Toryness + inability to mask her mean spiritedness shades it for me, wouldn't vote for any of them.

find this whole contest so depressing, I like Corbyn, but is there any way that him winning (or even coming a respectable second) would not lead to complete Labour party meltdown and civil war? maybe that would be a good thing thing in the long run, idk, but I can't see any outcome that doesn't involve tory hegemony for the forseeable future. I guess Cooper seems the best chance for the part to not fall apart, Burnham seems useless, Kendall victory surely the death knell for any hope of the Labour part as a vaguely leftist force

Kendall seems so far to the right even a description of "Blairite" looks misleading. Burnham, Cooper and Miliband are / were all pretty much Blairite for the most part, Kendall seems to lack even that wonky moral compass. She's also a terrible communicator. If you want to propose a platform that is out of step with almost everyone in your grass roots party, you need a more convincing sales pitch than whining 'but we lost the last election'.

Burnham seems fairly personable in comparison but i'm not convinced he isn't an idiot .

Cooper is she's extremely capable and intelligent as an individual but either unable or unwilling to give any sense of what she'd do as a leader. I think the idea her game plan is to not say anything controversial and let the others dig their own graves is probably correct. She'd probably make a fairy effective PM but idk whether she'd be a good leader of the opposition.

Corbyn might not be electable but, at this stage, i doubt any of them will be for another two terms so you may as well have someone willing to articulate an alternative platform. He's not as Marxist as the press is keen to make out - most of his ideas are fairly solid-Smith-era Labour, he has been a decent and principled constituency MP for decades and speaks more directly and more honestly than the rest of them put together. His presence in the race, even if he has always known he has no real chance, has been effective in shaming the rest of them.

I think it's very obvious who Kendall is meant to appeal to, her problem is there aren't anywhere near as many of those people in the Labour Party as she thinks there are. Say what you like about 1994 Blair he could at least sell his own policies to his own party.

It's actually quite difficult on the basis of this campaign to understand what Yvette Cooper actually stands for because as far as I can see she hasn't really talked about policy at all. I don't really believe she actually believes a lot of the guff that's coming out right now, but there's close association with Gordon Brown which I suspect is electoral suicide.

Burnham appears to be tacking slightly left in the softest least committal way possible. He also just doesn't appear to be particularly bright. Also I've seen it mentioned that his (entirely laudable) involvement with the Justice for the 96 campaign means that at some point he will need to choose between facing the full wrath of The Sun or alienating much of Liverpool and looking like the world's worst sellout in the process.

Basically, they're all three unelectable, so may as well go for the other unelectable guy who won't triangulate the party into irrelevance.

Perhaps a year of Corbyn in charge might help realign what the Labour party wants to stand for. Then they can replace him with someone who might be more 'electable', but now leading a party with a clearer vision of what it wants to be (and that vision being less like 'the Tories but not in power'). It's not as if they're operating as any kind of opposition as it stands.

Andy Turnham seems wooden and awkward - but I'm not sure where all this 'not very bright' is coming from.

(says the person who gets his name wrong - no finer endorsement)

Burnham didn't exactly shine as Health Secretary and was passed over as a possible replacement for Ed Balls as Shadow Chancellor because Miliband thought he didn't have the capacity for it.

good poker joke missed

Which was?

Burnham & turnham

I know nothing of poker but I trust you that that is a good poker joke <----- post in the style of Pinefox

ha

from: Nancy Dell'Olio <✧✧✧@ben4dep✧✧✧.o✧✧.u✧>
to: conrad
date: 23 July 2015 at 20:09
subject: Strictly Ben for Deputy 💃

Dear conrad,

Put on your dancing shoes and join me at the Southwark Rooms next Wednesday!

I will be with Deputy Leadership Candidate Ben Bradshaw MP for a fun evening of drinks and mingling.

I've known Ben for years, as Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, but also as a great dancer. This is your chance to get to know him too, and hear his ideas.

From 7.30pm on Wednesday 29th July, we'll be at: Southwark Rooms, 60 Southwark Street, London, SE1 1UN (Nearest tube station: London Bridge)

I hope to see you there!

With love,

Nancy Dell'Olio[/i]

from: conrad
to: Nancy Dell'Olio <✧✧✧@ben4dep✧✧✧.o✧✧.u✧>
date: 23 July 2015 at 20:28
subject: Re: Strictly Ben for Deputy 💃

you what?

from: Ben Bradshaw <✧✧✧@ben4dep✧✧✧.o✧✧.u✧>
to: conrad
date: 24 July 2015 at 16:43
subject: Re: Strictly Ben for Deputy 💃

Hi Richard,

Thank you for your message.

Nancy is a long-time Labour supporter, and friend of mine. Aside from being a lawyer, Chair of Truce International, and a British Red Cross ambassador, she has also done a great deal of work on behalf of the Terence Higgins Trust, our leading AIDS and HIV charity, as well as other LGBT causes which I hold dear. She wanted to support my campaign, and I'm pleased that over 300 other Labour members have so far signed up to come along.

I have always thought that politics, though a very serious business, should also be fun. Maybe that is one reason we have managed to build such a successful Party in Exeter, where with over 700 members we trebled Labour's majority on May 7th in a former safe Tory seat. If we'd done that everywhere, we'd now have a Labour Government, and could put our serious values into practice.

Thanks for your support for our Party.

Best wishes,

Ben

decent snark, Richard

I imagine it was a stock response gawker's psychotic monkeys

sad lols at John Cryer and Lord Hutton actually blaming the Militant Tendency for Corbyn's recent popularity

Yep:

http://i.imgur.com/prdIQo8.jpg

Meanwhile, British society continues as it always has.

They keep saying it is £3 when it is actually £3.88. I wouldn't even risk that much for a vote that will be subject to Red Tory sabotage. Fucked if they are getting a penny, especially when I already had to cancel the charity direct debits last year.

Interesting contribution on the problems of drug abuse and prostitution by one of Tony Blair's chums

sad lols at John Cryer and Lord Hutton actually blaming the Militant Tendency for Corbyn's recent popularity

― pop addicts should "do their thing", whatever that may be (soref), Sunday, July 26, 2015 1:14 AM (21 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I wonder when one of the losers is gonna crack and start whinging about entryism distorting the election, either from the left or the right

― regret it? nope. reddit? yep. (Noodle Vague), Wednesday, July 22, 2015 11:46 AM (4 days ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ha, I was looking for that post earlier. John Rent-a-fucking-Mouth Mann has called for the leadership contest to be halted because of "Militant Tendency types coming back in"... with their zimmer frames and walkers I assume.

might rewatch Bleasdale's GBH this week, the time feels right

so does the Telegraph still want tories to register as labour supporters to vote for Corbyn or what <confused face>

Imagine a decade from now, when we live in the utopian Corbynfutur where property is theft and all men are equal, we will be able to look back upon the Torygraph of 2015 and say THANK YOU COMRADES

BTW, Go on then, who do you reckon will win? The Labour Leadership contest, that is... (I realise that's where most of the focus in UK Politics is at the moment)

http://www.buzzfeed.com/emilyashton/the-tories-are-staying-off-tv-so-everyone-watches-labour-tea

Buzzfeed News Reporter Emily Ashton

My guess would be that a significant chunk, if not a majority, of the people voting for Corbyn weren't even born when the Militant Kru were expelled.

xp Formerly of the Sun, you mean?

the gap between 1985 and 2015 is so ludicrous as to make discussing Militant irrelevant- but as an organization it was hardly more covert or subversive of the Labour party than the Fabians or any one of the umpteen "Tories for pretending to be Labour MPs whilst enacting Tory policy" subcliques that still exist

the coverage of this whole election and the focus on electability and therefore The Next Election is a neat summary of why parliamentary democracy is a sick joke

"never mind what we stand for, we must be ready to stand"

the-tories-are-staying-off-TV-so-everyone-watches-Labour-indulge-in-democracy

That's apart from all the Tory journalists, commentators, pundits, reporters etc.

Buzzfeed: with few exceptions almost entirely worthless

if buzzfeed didn't exist how would ilx clown matthew perpetua?

Every candidate from now on should be required to state what they believe the Labour Party stands for and what they intend to do to achieve those aims.

The problem with "centrism" here is that if you accept the argument that austerity is now inevitable, then the "centre-ground" that New Labour and other nominally social-democratic parties occupied ceased to exist sometime around 2008. Ed Balls briefly tried to make a Keynesian counter-argument very early in the last Parliament but effectively gave up within a couple of months. Any form of reheated Blairism that basically accepts austerity a) isn't Blairism at all b) accepts the need to dismantle most of what New Labour actually achieved and c) validates the majority of what Osborne has done and will continue to do, while giving the Tories the opportunity to crow about having won the argument. Corbyn may not be an election winner but the alternative is also complete electoral suicide.

This is also the first time that there's been a genuine groundswell of enthusiasm for an English politician (except maybe Farage/Boris/early Cameron) for as long as I can remember. I suspect it's the sort of thing (although probably not the actual thing) that Ed Miliband had in mind when he changed Labour's voting rules, creating much wider engagement with the Labour Party. If the PLP acts to choke this off (and they are never charitably nominating a token lefty ever again) then they can forget about engaging a whole generation and let the Greens/SNP/something else hoover up all that disaffected energy.

It's also worth noting that, with tax credit cuts, the voter demographics of the UK will be very different in five years. Poorer constituencies will have had a big influx of poorer families from urban centres and the South of England in general. Some of the richer constituencies will be doing a London and becoming so wealthy they effectively become dysfunctional even for middle class people (and especially for the young), all of this presents and opportunity as well as threat for Labour. I suppose somewhere in there there's a kernel of an 'aspirational' politics that isn't overtly neoliberal, if only because of the growing evidence that neoliberalism is now hollowing out the life prospects of even relatively well-off young people. I don't really believe that any of the current lot have the foresight to get to grips with any of this though.

Burnham and Cooper in particular seem to be banking on making themselves attractive to the electorate purely by virtue of never saying anything that might put them off. It won't work.

This is also the first time that there's been a genuine groundswell of enthusiasm for an English politician (except maybe Farage/Boris/early Cameron) for as long as I can remember.

*cough* Cleggmania *cough*

*hands dog latin a lozenge*

it's an interesting thought experiment to treat Burnham, Cooper et all seriously and describe what their political vision actually might be, what they see as the function of politics and what kind of world they think shd be aspired to/is achievable

booming post MDC btw

yeah v much

Ditto.

Right, I think I'm gonna pay my three quid...

Can anyone confirm whether if you just pay the £3 rather than joining as a full member you still get relentlessly spammed by June Sarpong? I'm still having to block e-mails from the last time i signed up.

You do. Except she texted me instead of emailing.

cameroon says “It is important the House of Lords in some way reflects the situation in the House of Commons."

wut?

apologies to cameroon, phone having fun

Been wondering about this since the Sewel revelations came out. The tabloid press usually don't give a shit whether some Lord most people have never heard of is having an orgy behind closed doors. But now there's a Labour-LibDem blocking majority in the Lords, they'll be doing everything they can to dig enough dirt up to force a change in that situation.

Activist Lords really could make a difference in this parliament, Sewel was totally a warning shot

Wonder if they are starting at the top. Still don't understand the nazi queen splash

is there really a consensus that the composition of the lords should reflect that of the commons?

nazi queen seems like a simple distraction rather than anything ideological

catchy single IMO

is there really a consensus that the composition of the lords should reflect that of the commons?

I'm not sure there's a consensus on anything but it's tough to defend as it is. It's manifestly cynical to be raising this now, having blocked the democratising reforms the Lib Dems proposed in 2012, but it's not particularly easy to justify the Liberal Democrats getting under 8% of the national vote and 8 MPS but having 21% of the Lords, for example, while the Greens and UKIP had twice as much and are stuck with four Lords put together.

lol Economist and all, but this sums up some of the issues at play: http://www.economist.com/news/britain/21654084-house-lords-aged-overcrowded-and-increasingly-effective-democratic-embarrassment?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/ed/ademocraticembarassment

having blocked the democratising reforms the Lib Dems proposed in 2012,
and now expressing regret that "they" failed to deliver the changes "they" wanted!

I'm not sure about the idea that voters in the general election were unwittingly participating in a list-system PR experiment?

it's not particularly easy to justify the Liberal Democrats getting under 8% of the national vote and 8 MPS but having 21% of the Lords

I think it's harder to claim the lords as a democratic institution. I know uk politicians love to tell people what their vote was actually for after the fact but pretending that the general election had something to do with the lords is a new one to me

One of the Lords' few qualities has been that it *doesn't* reflect the HoC as formed at the last election but evolves over time.

It would be entertaining watching Cameron on this, if it wasn't so infuriating. "We need to cut the cost of politics by losing 50 MPs from the HoC and reforming the boundaries to suit us" comes in the same breath as "and we need more Lords". He does sweat nicely when pressed on the hypocrisy.

seems heinous to pretend the various viscounts, earls and lords spiritual have any democratic mandate. you don't vote for a baron

Obvs but the further the UK gets from being a two party system, the harder it is to justify the mechanism by which representation is balanced up - the PM of the day stuffing the house with their own people.

it's so unclear what the lords role is now, "the mechanism by which representation is balanced up" once meant it was a check on democracy and representation rather than a functioning part of it. I think the less partisan nature of the lords is one of its few redeeming features rather than something to be amended

Potentially, but the lack of accountability in appointments means it has next to no argument for being able to justify those checks. Having a panel of experts from across British society capable of feeding back on law, science, civil liberties, etc, is potentially attractive even if there is no direct electoral mandate but that's so far removed from what we've got as to be laughable. It's a resting home for MPs no longer able to sustain their position in the Commons and anyone willing to grease the right palms - it's overwhelmingly affluent, male and, at the very least, small-c conservative. The only justification for keeping it as it is would be that nobody has come up with a convincing alternative.

it seems pointless to have it function in the same way as the commons (only older), or to try and borrow its legitimacy, but yes the process of modifying a 14th century institution to make it fit for modern purposes is kind of lolsy & I'm not sure where to find people trying to concoct something more visionary

So Labour passed the welfare bill with the passive silence of a married orgasm. It has lost touch so badly that it is now getting lectures on empathy from someone from Paisley.

Holl', less o' that, Boyle

"A swarm" of migrants. Fuck this guy already.

Cameron is such a careless, lazy halfwit.

ComRes - Conservative lead of 12 - CON (40%) GRN (5%) LAB (28%) LD (7%) UKIP (10%)

40!

The British Public: Name Your Reasons Why They Are So Bad & Hated.

The leadership election is obviously taking most of the attention but the race to see who is going to lose to Zac Goldsmith next year has been pretty grim as well.

Jowell is one of the least inspiring choices imaginable but it's tough to argue that she wouldn't have a better chance than Khan given the current political climate.

i don't know much about zac goldsmith other than his rep as being a left-leaning tory, and his dad in the mayfair set documentary. i guess symbolically a tory win would be bad.

am always a little well-disposed towards those who care about the way we're vandalising this planet, but i'm sure suzy will be along in a second with a list of deeply unpleasant personal characteristics

That's a very ...interesting opinion to hold, built as it is on sand and bullshit.

lol

hm? i was being sincere. what's the dirt on goldsmith

There are ways to solicit information without appearing to be snarky to the casual reader on her way to the shops, perhaps? Work on that.

(re: dirt - I GOT NOTHIN')

It must be crazytime to be a politician in the middle of a news maelstrom. Last week I met J Corbyn at a neighbourhood peace thing and spent a few minutes chatting with him about ways I could help his housing policy team (I have a council flat and several no-brainer-to-me ideas about how to get £650/wk BTL landlords out of blocks like mine). After a few hours, I checked Twitter to see whether or not this meeting had been ~documented~ and the news is you can find a video on the DM website where they show most of that, plus still photos of the same thing elsewhere. *party whistle*

You chatted about housing policy and it's covered as Why are women hot for Sex Pot Trot ?

(the Shreddies ad is a no go)

Yeah, dude was surrounded by women and if you look carefully you can see Camilla Long hanging around the edges, doing more work than I normally credit poshgirl journos with doing. Usually it seems they're paid in guineas (compared to my colleagues) for doing difficult things like appearing on panel shows and writing puffola for STStyle.

Has anybody seen the full version of the Electoral Reform Comission's HoL report? I can only find the 11 page ExSum which has a giant picture of the author as Page 2 and cartoon taking up 70% of the other pages.

I mean it's one thing to say that 10 peers were responsible for 75% of the claims but if these were e.g. Karren Brady or Melvyn Bragg then perhaps the reporting (or at least the comments and inevitable Facebook shite) would be subtly different.

I'm not sure that isn't the full report. All their documents seem to be fairly 'graphics-heavy'.

http://electoral-reform.org.uk/sites/default/files/House-of-Lords-Fact-Vs-Fiction%20%281%29.pdf

It's not necessarily a massive surprise that 62 of the 750+ Lords didn't get around to voting in at least one year.

The ten Lords will have cost about £24k each - which over the course of up to five years isn't an extraordinary amount.

If that is the full report then I despair, that's Red Top level political analysis aimed at the LCD.

I did find this, but there's a lot to wade through:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld/ldstat.htm

DWP admits making up quotes by 'benefit claimants' saying sanctions helped them

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03369/ids_3369210b.jpg

What kind of incompetence or scandal is going to get IDS out of the Cabinet? Are we talking dead woman/live boy sort of thing, , or something more banal?

If stuff like this goes on being under-reported or ignored then he'll be around for a while yet.

There is no other person alive today who deserves a plate of gone-off seafood for his tea tonight.

More than 2,300 died after fit for work assessment - DWP figures... yes, he's back.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03369/ids_3369210b.jpg

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/03368/snaps_ids-about-ap_3368683a.gif

I'd only seen still photos of this until today and hand't realised how reminiscent it was of limmy's eckied dad sketch

cunts, the lot of them

is he saying 'yes! fuck daddy!' there

i'm sure that relentless poverty and anxiety is ruinous of people's health, but those bald statistics are near meaningless imo without comparative figures for claimants prior to the current system and without information about causes of death and a range of other factors

obv when confronted with IDS people will grab for the nearest stick but unless this info has been better reported/analyzed than i've seen then people shd keep shtum until they can pin this more tellingly to government policy

Ben Goldacre, on that point:

https://storify.com/bengoldacre/how-dwp-has-confused-everyone-by-releasing-the-rig

i don't always agree with Goldacre but there it is

this was publishes a few weeks prior to the new lords being announced:

Some facts need to be rehearsed: Ultimo was not a particularly successful business. It also outsourced its production to Asia. Ms Mone and her former husband utilised employee benefit trusts to avoid tax. Their company created few jobs in Scotland, and she was involved in bugging one of her employees.

When Douglas Anderson of Gap Group – a company employing 1,300 people with annual revenues of £150m – writes to the Prime Minister to protest about the appointment of Ms Mone to the start-ups role, amid rumours of her also being appointed to the Lords, were we meant to ignore it?

Perhaps we were meant to ignore him when he said: “Her businesses have been no more than excessively over-promoted PR minnows gaining unjustified acclaim due to the glamorous sector they happen to be in. There is no way, by any measure, that she is qualified to advise anybody on setting up a profitable business, because, quite simply, she hasn’t.”

http://www.heraldscotland.com/opinion/13597457.Herald_View__Michelle_Mone_and_the_public_interest/

published*

is he saying 'yes! fuck daddy!' there

The more I look at it, the more convinced of this I become.

It's not quite "that bigoted woman", but Cameron just caught on open mic bitching about Yorkshire.
"We just thought people in Yorkshire hated everyone else, we didn't realise they hated each other so much"

Labour have chosen Sadiq Khan to lose to Zac Goldsmith in the London mayoral election.

Brilliant. To both previous posts.

Khan was the strongest candidate by a mile but i think the election press coverage is going to get very, very ugly.

If Ken is sensible he'll keep his mouth shut for the duration of the campaign.

If Goldsmith gets the nod then the Evening Standard is going to be even more unreadable than usual.

It will either way. They flung vast amounts of mud at Livingstone for standing on a stage with 'extremist preachers' - Khan has represented terrorists in court and actively campaigned for their legal and human rights outside of it. He has also got a long track record of rinsing the Met on racial bias cases which won't win him many favours either.

The new guy on Newsnight, James O'Brien, has a extremely strange manner. So laconic It's almost like he can't even be bothered talking.

DAVID CAMERON FUCKED A DEAD PIG

i'm so glad i checked twitter before going to bed

more worryingly, he's mates with James Del1ngpole

that's unnecessary googleproofing sure

anyway, well done charlie brooker. you called it, and all your fans will be eulogising you on social media for the next three months

A knighthood for the originator of the "Has the PM been casting pearls before swine?" line.

of all the times to be too busy to just constantly refresh my twitter feed :'(

I assume Iain Duncan Smith is the owner of the photo and that's how he's managed to cling on to his role for so long.

"Twitter fails on many levels but it is definitely the social media platform of choice when news breaks that the PM once fucked a dead pig"

c'mon it's a little pigfucking let's be cool about this guys.

this is the funniest shit ever. THE PRIME MINSTER FUCKED A PIG.

This is properly hilarious.

it feels politically significant

just in the sense of "yeah but you fucked a pig" for the next 5 years

jealous of people who still get to hear this news

What a publicity hog.

while this is going on the beeb leads with some positive Osbourne froth, fucking wankers.

anyway, well done charlie brooker. you called it, and all your fans will be eulogising you on social media for the next three months

― jordan amavero (imago), Sunday, September 20, 2015 10:33 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

or brooker had heard of this beforehand

^He says not.

Jeremy Corbyn turned vegetarian after a stint working on a pig farm. Is PMQs happening this week?

Hammy Gammy

Mr. Cameron, what did you say your girlfriend was called?
"Hamantha."

Brooker apparently (understandably) weirded out by the idea of Cameron watching that episode thinking "He knows. He must know. He knows. He fucking knows."

James Del1ngpole seems to be vaguely confirming on Twitter.

Taking the high ground and not mentioning this at PMQs would be some new-politics bullllshit

unless the photo surfaces, this seems like the kind of thing that results in not much more than "lol what a legend"

reminder: david cameron fucked a pig

Is this a bad time to ask if anyone has any OINK invites?

Joeks aside, if the most politically damaging revelation is that he misled people about when he found out Ashcroft wasn't paying taxes, this doesn't sound that explosive.

Other than defining the first response to every tweet he'll ever make for the rest of his life, i don't know if the pig thing adds much to the existing suspicion of the weird rituals of the ruling class.

Yeah if you consider him a member of the ruling class then your opinion probably doesn't have that much further to fall, but I think it does considerable damage to the idea of him as a regular bloke.

Someone on Twitter was claiming that the act itself is neither necrophilia (has to be a person) or bestiality (vagina or anus), but possessing photos / videos of it would be a crime.

I can't stop reading twitter hashtags and google trends.

i think caek depressingly otm

#Hameron my current favourite.

What a time to be alive

Imagine being Lord Ashcroft and just sitting on this one, biding your time, waiting to pull the trigger on the revelation that the PM put his cock in a dead pig's mouth.

I just want this thread to be variations on that sentence for the rest of this Parliament.

Joeks aside, if the most politically damaging revelation is that he misled people about when he found out Ashcroft wasn't paying taxes, this doesn't sound that explosive.

Perhaps not, although it might give labour the chance to keep the issue alive without compromising its 'new politics' stance: "leaving aside the more lurid and sensationalist allegations, there remains a serious issue with regard to the Prime Minister's tacit connivance with tax avoidance on the part of a major conservative party donor (oh and btw he got a blowie off a dead pig lol)"

Sober but no less depressing analysis of it all...

http://www.robfahey.co.uk/blog/the-pm-the-pig-and-musings-on-power/

lulz

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CPaghmbWIAAxnna.png

PEOPLE ARE ENTITLED TO FACE-FUCK PIGS' HEADS FFS WHAT IS THE WORLD COMING TO

I see the BBC haven't covered it as yet.

My question, is how would they? I assume they have to be somewhat, um, moderated in their choice of language etcet.

That's a good piece that Branwell linked to - Ashcroft has now twice attempted to game the democratic process, first through money and then through power. I don't really hold that this will play well with all Tory voters, there's a big socially-conservative garden variety Tory vote than will be horrified by this. It's more about Ashcroft deciding that he wants Cameron to go way before 2020, and I think Cameron thought he would coast through this Parliament in the knowledge that no-one would bother to try and unseat him. That's all changed now. I mean there isn't a single person in the country who doesn't believe this happened.

Also, the important thing we need to know is - did anyone have to eat the pig's head afterwards?

guardian covered it fairly moderately. xpost