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

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.

Thank you John McDonnell, I needed that big, sad LOL.

Dan Hodges ‏@DPJHodges · 3h3 hours ago
John McDonnell compares Hilary Benn with Tony Blair. Then says there is no excuse for intimidation.

More LOLs

So the vote would've still passed if Labour had been whipped? I guess most Tories and their media foresaw this (better than they foresaw the election) hence why it happened at all.

They weren't whipped and yet the BBC is hammering the Labour MPs were pressurized into voting No line. No mention whatsoever of the UK Prime Minister accusing anyone who didn't support him of being a terrorist sympathizer.

BBC went pretty hard on that yesterday, in fairness.

I'm pretty sure that Corbyn doesn't sanction the abuse of anyone and while it's an understandable cathartic reaction to an event like this you'd hope that enough Corbyn supporters would have the intelligence to realise that they're just offering his opponents yet another stick to beat him with.

Some of them are idiots, what can you do? Esp. these Stop the War cretins.

If it was a majority in single figures it would've been hard for Cameron to justify air strikes.

The 'terrorist sympathiser' quip did come back to Cameron, who was really undermined by it repeatedly in his speech yesterday. xp

Corbyn definitely made statements against abuse on all sides, as you would expect.

Corbyn described as "Stop The War's useful idiot" in The Sun yesterday. Perhaps worse today.

Far be it from me to agree with the Sun but...

More LOLz:

The former footballer Stan Collymore has cancelled his Labour membership and joined the Scottish National party in protest at the votes by “Tory lite” Labour MPs in favour of air strikes on Syria.

That's a bit like supporting Germany in protest at and England Footballer booting his penalty over the crossbar.

and

As an English person living in England, what exactly does he believe he has to contribute to (or gain from) the SNP?

Publicity.

I think people - not all of whom are articulate or polite - are entitled to their anger and disappointment with people they may have voted for, are entitled to lobby their representatives, and are not in any way bullies. MPs with money, power and options are painting themselves as victims of people with so much less of all of those things, and it's NAGL.

The Sun's editors and journalists would know about useful idiocy. They do it at work every day.

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

Yes, if only he'd devoted his speech to eulogising Mao instead.

After the initial somewhat genuine outbursts and expressions of anger and rage and disgust, whether misguided or poorly thought through; always the more measured and studied response of who can appear the most jaded and worldweary and cynical in their reactions to the former.

^I just tried to Like that post, Branwell...

Searching for glimmers of hope in the news:

http://www.theguardian.com/law/2015/dec/03/michael-gove-scraps-criminal-courts-charge

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n24/james-meek/a-raqqa-of-the-mind

Critics of Western intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya lament the deaths of civilians, the eruption of previously contained sectarian or tribal conflicts, and the provocation of terrorist attacks on the interveners’ home countries. Less talked about is a fourth unpleasant consequence – more interventions. For all the concern at the spread of Salafist ideology around the world, there is surprisingly little concern at the spread of interventionist ideology – the creed that country A is entitled to take military action against, or within, country B, without the consent of the government of country B (if it has one) or any evidence that it poses a threat to country A.

Ah memories...

But Mr Benn said the “terrible events in Paris” meant it was “even more important that we bring the Syrian civil war to an end” before considering air strikes on Isis. He outlined his thinking: “Why? Because the vacuum in which Isil/Daesh [Islamic State] in Syria thrives is a consequence of that civil war.

“Therefore I hope that the talks that are taking place really will redouble their efforts to say, look we’ve got a find a way of bringing this to a conclusion – we’ve got to bring this to an end. Because then, people can then really focus their efforts on the threat from Isil/Daesh and the circumstances in Syria will have changed.”

Mr Benn, who supports military intervention to protect civilians, said he did not think the Government was planning to come forward with a proposal to extend air strikes from Iraq into Syria.

But asked if he thought they should, Mr Benn said: “No.” He added: “They have to come up with an overall plan, which they have not done. I think the focus for now is finding a peaceful solution to the civil war.”

The shadow Foreign Secretary added: “The most useful contribution we can make is to support as a nation the peace talks that have started. That is the single most important thing we can do.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/hilary-benn-shadow-foreign-secretary-says-labour-wont-back-air-strikes-on-syria-a6734651.html