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

The vote wasn't about Corbyn. iirc Cameron wanted a vote on Syrian intervention before the attacks but felt there would be enough Tory rebels or not a big enough majority to carry out air strikes. It was only post-Paris that the opportunity presented itself for the vote. Making Corbyn look bad is only a side-issue.

Labour are badly divided on almost all big issues.

I meant for Hodges, not the MPs themselves.

Sorry Matt - misread.

Also on Tracer's point - we don't know whether the Syrian campaign will end in a disaster in such a way that will be a plus for Corbyn or in a way that would kill off Benn and that rabble for good out of Labour, say. Its all symbolic, a few bombs.

Or it could end in disaster but it might take years to know, by which time Corbyn will probably be gone and we will all be in the midst of the next intervention.

Corbyn, in this respect, is almost to be seen as 'conscience of the country' - type figure.

Seems most likely - unless they hit a wedding or something - that there won't be conclusive evidence either way and whoever the media sides with will set the narrative.

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.

― voodoo rage (suzy), Thursday, 3 December 2015 12:07 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

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.

― La Düsseldork (Branwell with an N), Thursday, 3 December 2015 12:24 (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

1000x otm

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CVTjUhqUkAA6bjd.jpg

That may well be fake obv.

I assume the asterisks are the letters g, r, o, v and e.

Someone should be able to verify this now :-)

ah, the joy of replying to someone who signed with their title with the colloquial form of their first name while imploring them to learn respect. what's the smiley about tho is he an ilxor or

nah it was just a LOL moment as the name wasn't disguised throughout.

Why does Godwin's Law apply on the internet. but not in Parliament?

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

“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.”

sorry, Inspiring Orator Hilary Benn

I didn't think the Benn speech was even particularly good as a piece of oration.

couldn't hear his speech tbh, there was a weird spinning noise in the background

The John Lewis Christmas ad of speeches

xp
probably a Bennerator you could hear there:(

Oldham results in, Labout increase their vote share by 7.5% but turnout is down compared to the GE, and so the bbc report it as "Labour wins but with a reduced majority", amazing.

With a higher % of the vote than Meacher managed in 1997, no less.

nice

I despair

Don't. This could be England's SNP moment.

lol like you can put a negative spin on 10,835 majority.

Dan Hodges is doing his best on that front, as you'd expect.

That arsewipe in the Graun who was calling UKIP the other day, what a complete twat.

sorry I have had a few beers

Hilary Benn 4 PM.

They had said they needed two days of debate. War. Peace. To bomb Isil. Not to bomb Isil. The issues were too complex. The stakes too high. The arguments too nuanced.
They were wrong.

didn't realise roy keane had a new biography out with eamon dunphy

I phoned Jeremy Corbyn and he agreed it was ridiculous.

There it is

Not really in the script this by-election result.

Tom Watson "warned that any Labour members who joined an anti-war protest outside the home of the Labour MP Stella Creasy should be thrown out of the party."

So a tweet showing she doesn't have the capability to take the decision she has should be allowed not to not even bequestioned? Thanks Tom, that's wonderful.

Not really sure why Stella Creasy is apparently getting more flack than the other 60-odd Labour MPs who voted for it, many of whom are also in London.

Farage throwing his toys out of the pram is very, very entertaining.

"To vote for war is grown-up politics about Britain’s place in the world, a solid reminder of what Labour in power used to feel like"

Reminds me of the story of Thatcher after the Reykjavik summit urging Reagan not to consider nuclear disarmament because it would make Labour's current policies look stronger.

Stella Creasy is apparently getting more flack than the other 60-odd Labour MPs who voted for it, many of whom are also in London.

Must be that utterly idiotic tweet. As for the other MPs - give it time.

The protest was not outside her house, it was outside her office. The office where she asked her constituency to consult with her.

The story that it was her house was completely false and planted by a fake facebook account. Come on, this has been debunked over and over again, but hey this is how smear campaigns work, right.

Reminds me of the story of Thatcher after the Reykjavik summit urging Reagan not to consider nuclear disarmament because it would make Labour's current policies look stronger.

Of all the many factors that would have gone into Reagan's decision-making process at the height of the Cold War I somehow doubt that the credibility of the UK Labour Party was likely to have swayed him either way. I totally believe that Thatcher was deluded enough to ask though.

Where exactly are all these pro-austerity, pro-war Labour Party members who are supposed to propel Hilary Benn to power?

Where exactly are all these pro-austerity, pro-war Labour Party members who are supposed to propel Hilary Benn to power?

working in the media?

xp Thatcher apparently did ask Reagan to reign in nuclear disarmament for party political reasons, though she didn't couch it in those terms to him http://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n23/david-runciman/fear-in-those-blue-eyes

(xp) In Parliament

"rein in" of course xp

ffs

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CVY-HMqWwAAkX1s.jpg

Hilaryous

lol she was at my school, dating the head boy

Jim McMahon (Labour) - 17,209 (62.11%)
John Bickley (UKIP) - 6,487 (23.41%)
James Daly (Conservative) - 2,596 (9.37%)
Jane Brophy (Liberal Democrat) - 1,024 (3.70%)
Simeon Hart (Green Party) - 249 (0.90%)
Sir Oink A-Lot (Monster Raving Loony) - 141 (0.51%)

Low Thousands = 10,722

subs must have amended 'low tens of thousands' somewhere along the line i guess

People have written off the Lib Dems, but they're a clear three percentage points ahead of Sir Oink-A-Lot.

Getting my lolz for the morning from Roy Greenslade - thought he was a benign media commentator? Think again

Instead of writing something around the pychotic treatment of JC at the hand's of the press (which would involved screwing over The Guardian so never mind) he gets into grand historical analysis mode, which is no such thing.

It has been inevitable for a long time. I recall a conversation some 10 years after the 1968 Paris événements when one of its young intellectual participants berated me for my continuing faith in parties of the left.

“They’re over,” he said. “They don’t reflect the will of the people. They are things apart... anti-democratic... they exist for themselves.”

I lost touch years ago with Jean-Michel, a professed “situationist”, when he decided to settle in the land of the free and the home of the brave. But his words, so earnestly expressed, have stayed with me, and I’ve come to view them as both prescient and increasingly accurate.

The political past is admitted to, then a 'mind-opening' conversation with a disappointed comrade - the kind who first saw the light.

Then the magic words:

We who peopled them grew up and moved on.

Becomes one of the more hilarious pieces of recent times - right up to the fretting over whether this would help the right-wing press. In The Guardian.

Well, someone's got to worry about that - according to Nick Cohen, "The Corbynites’ real enemies are not Tories, whom they rather respect for standing up for the interests of their class, but Labour MPs who fail to show the required radical virtue and betray the leftwing cause."