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

Churchill not a sensible figure to invoke with regard to the Middle East

Nice of Benn to jump to corbyns defence tho. 'Leave him alone he's not a terrorist sympathiser'. Fucking slimy patronising wank.

Fuck all these people forever obviously and see you in another 5 years to do it somewhere else.

Good news, the bombing can begin tonight! Huzzah! Trebles all round!

ugh:

stellacreasy @stellacreasy

Hilary benn’s speech has persuaded me that fascism must be defeated. I will hold public meeting on Sunday to discuss #syria

Those glorious years of fighting Fascism when we were bombing German civilians in their cities rather than targeting Nazi infrastructure, it didn't hasten their military defeat but sure felt good.

bomber harris, the sensitive bomber

Hilary benn’s speech has persuaded me that fascism must be defeated.

Wasn't sure about it, hadn't thought about it before.

used to think Isis were a great bunch of lads, not so sure now that Hilary Benn has employed the Nazi analogy

its the "I will hold a public meeting" that takes the biscuit.

Gotta love the glee of BBC presenters over the prospect of 60-70 Labour MPs "voting against Jeremy Corbyn".

Though 60-70 Labour MPs "voting against Jeremy Corbyn" is a pretty accurate description of what transpired.

So this woman hadn't made up her mind even what 10-15 mins before she was about to vote?! Absurd.

wandering up and down Walthamstow high street singing "who wants a game of war?" isn't really a public meeting imo

I will hold public meeting on Sunday to discuss #syria

She's a London MP, it might not be a very good idea.

152 - 67 is the so far reported Lab split

67 scabs in a one night stand

Alan Duncan taking the opportunity to attack the SNP and their opposition to the bombing, that's the party that holds 56 of Scotland's 59 seats in the UK parliament. Thumbs up, Al, Better Together.

Some nice work from BBC24, showing a brimstone picking out a hummer in the desert. If I lived in Raaqa I wouldn't be worried at all.

People sure do love doing something that makes them feel they have gravity.

Like there are no actual rational arguments for a bit of extra pointless bombing, but given the chance to stand up for 5 mins and address 'the nation' they all just wanted to prove that they could push the button.

That's obviously aside from the breathtakingly cynical politics of most of labour.

And yeh. The upshot is we spend a bit of money we apparently don't have, we radicalise a few more idiots, we add to an already impossible refugee crisis and we fucking KILL A LOAD OF ACTUAL PEOPLE.

the benn speech isn't just poor, it's actually an unexpected final insult on a grim day. like a sense of fiction to the whole thing...

I didn't think there could be a bigger twat than Tim Farron today, but he pulled it off.

Sorry I feel like I am becoming shrill + repetitive but I am just really fucked off

11 members of the Shadow Cabinet voted in favour.

Its grim but we all knew this was happening at the beginning of the day. It is hilarious, for all the watching of polls that politicians do that enough MPs seemed to disregard the numbers showing support dropping 50-50. Dropping further if this goes wrong fast, but again, the action is so symbolic that its a stretch to see that happening right now.

(Most of the Shadow cab did vote with Corbyn btw.) xp

A higher proportion (40%) of the Shadow Cabinet voted in favour than the PLP as a whole (30%) afaict.

That sound you hear is all the trendy left-wing women who annoy you on Twitter, deleting Stella Creasy's details from their phones.

that stella creasy tweet is embarrassing

the laughter & cheers after the vote were disgusting

My instinct on Benn was that it was a good speech until I started actually paying attention and saw all the bullshit being handwaved past, like "civilians will die, but at least we won't mean it" and "air strikes aren't enough but the UN wants us to do something and this is something!". Still, better than both Cameron and Corbyn's, and they didn't write theirs on the benches.

Fuck this vote, though. Fucking Westminster. Is the full list up? Want to know all the others that got this over — even had Labour been whipped and had no rebels it would still have passed.

Seven abstentions and 7 no votes in Tories, chief Labour whip abstained, 11 shad cabs voted yes, 16 shad-cab no votes.

So glad I wasn't sitting dobby-eyed over my computer waiting for doom, but was instead drinking my share of a magnum of wine, elsewhere.

yeah for me it was kind of shitty news to wake up to, not that i was expecting otherwise

Britain is vile

― Karl Rove Knausgård (jim in glasgow), Wednesday, December 2, 2015 10:22 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Really wanted to believe better of my MP but he's revealed himself as covert-Tory Blaitite scum with this. I'm not one for grand gestures but I was sorely tempted to go toss a bucket of red paint over his office this morning on my way to work.

Some of the welfare bill abstainers have voted against - trying to put a positive shine on this - could that be at least a modicum of progress for Corbyn?

Tensions between Labour MPs spilled over into heated confrontations as Clive Lewis, an ally of Corbyn, argued in a Westminster corridor with John Woodcock, who is backing airstrikes. Woodcock has now lodged a complaint with the whips over the exchange, which ended with “fuck you” from Lewis.

Lewis said there had been many robust exchanges across the party. He has said he would be happy to apologise.

The positive for Corbyn is that most of the shadow cabinet backed him over this.

My instinct on Benn was that it was a good speech until I started actually paying attention and saw all the bullshit being handwaved past, like "civilians will die, but at least we won't mean it" and "air strikes aren't enough but the UN wants us to do something and this is something!". Still, better than both Cameron and Corbyn's, and they didn't write theirs on the benches.

I can't see anything good about this speech. Leave aside the content - it was delivered in this high, 'passionate' tone that really grates. It encourages the worst excesses in people, shouts over the noise of the complexity of the issue to give comforting moral certainties that people may want but should be grown up enough to be made to accept aren't there, and ultimately masks the content which was both wrong and contained some pretty lol appeals to left-wing history from someone who is clearly not on that side of it.

The 'bench' thing is a bogus appeal to some weird notion of authenticity. What is Benn's next act? Writing his leadership bid speech on the stairs somewhere in the house of commons?

What's particularly ludicrous with all this sub-Churchillian guff is the apparent cast-iron certainty that this is a fight we can win, when nothing about the experience of Iraq and Afghanistan suggests that is actually the case.

Also if it's so important that We Must Fight Fascists then why are they not wholeheartedly arguing in favour of ground troops?

Passionately delivered speeches that give comfort and moral certainty with a nod to history are exactly the sort of shit that goes over well with electorates.

I think if the content hadn't been so stupidly wrong (I was shouting Matt DC's point at the laptop) it would have been easier to concede something to him.

I mean as a brazen pitch for the leadership it was pretty solid stuff, except that a) it does kinda rely on ISIS and their ilk being wiped out entirely and the entire scourge of fundamentalism obliterated from the world just like that, and b) even if that were to happen there'd still be the issue of the massive gulf between the party and its MPs, and Hilary isn't the man to bridge that gap.

Some of the welfare bill abstainers have voted against - trying to put a positive shine on this - could that be at least a modicum of progress for Corbyn?

Not really like for like though - they could be types who value loyalty to the leadership above all else, even if they are in favour of the welfare cap (either through belief or political expediency) it doesn't really follow that they'd be well up for a good bit of bombing as well.

I don't really know what should be done in Syria, I'm very happy that I don't have to make this sort of call, but I'm pretty sure that whatever the best course of action is, it isn't this.

Passionately delivered speeches that give comfort and moral certainty with a nod to history are exactly the sort of shit that goes over well with electorates.

Depends - they can often polarise opinion. Polls were 50-50 on this action.

The worst thing is it sounded like something from the 1930s. This is so NOT a fight against fascism. Empty dreams of heroism, especially laughable after Lab MPs spent the day crying over the angry internet people and their tweets.

What bugged me was Hilary Benn's speech was how much it sounded like Tony Benn in tone but not in content.

the apparent cast-iron certainty that this is a fight we can win, when nothing about the experience of Iraq and Afghanistan suggests that is actually the case.

Radio 4 news journo this morning said "actions in Syria will be no different to what we've been doing in Iraq for the past year"

the past year. so, it's working really well and totally has a point then.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CVSwmsZWoAAW_b5.png

The state of this cunt.

sigh

just really tired of all of these assholes

so Benn isn't the only idiot using the language of a historical economic and class struggle in the service of propping up post-colonialism. to quote Junior Healy, "these people are dicks".

does ilx side with corbyn & disapprove of airstrikes in iraq?

Free vote in operation.

LOL McDonnell:

I thought Hilary’s oratory was great. It reminded me of Tony Blair’s speech taking us into the Iraq War.

Have you seen the cost of these brimstone missiles? They talk about fiscal responsibility/economic credibility and these missiles cost over £100k a pop, good business plan for evil multinational corp though.

In 2013, the Group(MBDA Missile Systems) recorded a turnover of 2.8 billion euros, produced about 3,000 missiles and added 4 billion euros of new orders to the order book which now stands at 10.8 billion euros. MBDA works with over 90 armed forces worldwide.