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

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."

The hold of these stereotypes among the progressive, university-educated middle classes explains why you never hear a rightwing political comedian on Radio 4 or see a leftwing villain in a television drama. Comics and writers tear into Daily Mail and Sun readers but never Guardian and Observer readers.

Bombs over Syria, austerity marches on, a rampant housing bubble with Tory constituency boundary changes to keep this country Tory 4 evah but actually think Nick is got a point that the above is the pressing issue of the day.

That’s the reason I spent days wondering whether I should publish this piece because it appears to support their agenda. Staying silent however seemed counter-productive. The left have to come to terms with what is happening... and going to happen.

It's basically a precis of what the likes of Paul Mason have been saying for months. Publishing it makes no difference to anyone.

What he doesn't mention is the main issue that both the press and the Labour right have completely failed to acknowledge, that the financial crisis destroyed the illusion that you could have both neoliberal economic policies and social justice. This illusion sustained New Labour, much of the London media class, and a big chunk of the electorate, for such a long time that they aren't used to having to pick a side, even as they do so without realising it. They still cling to the idea of a charismatic unifying leader who can appeal to post-industrial Northern England, soft Tories and enough of Scotland to see off the SNP. As far as I can see there isn't a single prominent figure in the party capable of doing that.

xxp When people start writing about 'real enemies' and such, it only adds to this huge obfuscating cloud of party politics that seeps into every element of debate. Rather than asking 'how can we create a more fair and just society?', the question becomes 'how can we get the Tories out?' or 'who are our enemies, really?'. This is what seems to be leading a lot of blue Labour rhetoric - caring less and less about core values and courses of action that are best for the country, in favour of concern over what these mean for the party itself. Winning the debate becomes more important than doing the right thing.

I suppose if he wants to believe it's the result of a prophecy passed down by some student Trot in 1968 then that's his call.

Man that quote from Brecht is just brilliant. Nick and Hilary Benn really think they are in the 1930s, fighting Stalinist-type purges and a Nazi-type state, when its angry people with a twitter account and a terrorist group.

I don't know why he mentions the Paula Sherriff death threat incident, is Corbyn to blame for far right extremists in Dewsbury? They got the guy responsible and he certainly wasn't a Corbyn supporter.

http://www.theguardian.com/music/musicblog/2008/jul/29/bouncytechnomeetsterribler

^^^ Don't hate on the Guardian when they let John McDonnell MP write an article about the donk scene in 2008.

The web has its uses.

Elsewhere actual kind ppl vote for kindness in numbers!

Perhaps a few of those Corbyn-kicking opinion pieces were filed and all ready to go before the by-election win?

I keep seeing Nick Cohen at my nearest street market, looking very hung over/not right in the head/like he's been dragged backwards through several hedges. Rumour also has it pretty strongly that he's a ridiculous lech, so his glossing over left-wing sexism (which is much like right-wing sexism, because men) made me do a few LOLs.

Well he's called it out to say that the left can be as nasty as the right.

What was glossed over was Yvette Cooper's utterly brainless speech in favour of the bombings.

I know a whole bunch of working class ex-Labour voters who think - cautiously - that Corbyn is the best thing to happen to the Party in forever. that's not representative. I'm not trying to make any bold claim. but the ongoing "Corbynism is a middle class phenomenon betraying the aspirations of irl working class people" is a pernicious Blairista lie that wants putting to the sword, preferable literally

donk article proves mcdonnell is not quite the hero of the working class he's said to be, here's hoping the daily mail don't catch wind of it

Time for beddy-byes, Roy, you've had not a bad career so far, not a bad life, nothing to be ashamed of, but all fair to middling things must come to an end.

Put a (peoples)Quant(itative easing) on it

Video - David Cameron repeats 'You ain't no Muslim bruv ...
www.independent.co.uk › News › UK › UK Politics
45 mins ago - David Cameron has repeated the remark "you ain't no Muslim, bruv" and praised the man who said it to the suspected Leytonstone Tube attacker. ... The Prime Minister said the man had done "much better than I ever could" in denouncing the use of Islam to justify terrorist attacks.

oh, great!

http://news.images.itv.com/image/file/108171/image_update_f0d432cfbe814752_1350865628_9j-4aaqsk.jpeg

ConservativeHome’s Mark Wallace wrote a detailed and revealing account of what took place at a Momentum meeting he attended in Lambeth recently. John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, was one of the speakers. Momentum says it is not pushing to deselect Labour MPs on the party’s right, but Wallace concluded that, in practice, this was its agenda.

Here’s an extract.

Not for nothing has John McDonnell risen to become the second most senior hard leftist in British politics. He knew exactly what he was doing. The meeting was shot through with Militant activists, Momentum was represented by a speaker who delivered a tirade targeted at other Labour factions. McDonnell carefully laid down all the cover in his speech about rejecting sectarianism within the Labour Party and denying that Momentum was intended to deselect dissenting MPs, then made sure to tell the audience with a wry smile that they were on the path to full control, they would get what they wanted and they would soon control who was selected. Had he really come to this meeting to bury factionalism, rather than to praise it, he wouldn’t have sat quietly while Ruth Cashman, in her vote of thanks, congratulated him on coming to Lambeth – “the vipers’ nest of Progress”.

As things wound down, I snuck out the back of the hall to head home. At the door, a final Stop the War activist asked me to sign his petition. “It’s against…well, it’s against Chuka, basically.”

:-)

Bye

Come back when a young Labour activist has killed himself as a result of systematic bullying perhaps?

I was thinking that is a minor possibility among the sea of childish tantrums.

At the door, a final Stop the War activist asked me to sign his petition. “It’s against…well, it’s against Chuka, basically.”

liking this straight talking, and wd like to sign petition

Careful you are not radicalised now.

already watches dulwich hamlet x_x

DO you feel it?

The UK has got its mojo back. Apparently.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/236x/e5/39/6f/e5396fc93e51b7d5bb4222a05b2c7ae9.jpg

Blairism, by Tony Blair

Lock thread.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/10/tories-deceitful-political-sorcery-eu-cameron-magician-labour-must-learn

So how does Labour learn from the Tories' chicanery? This piece just stopped?

I don't think they are that successful. Coalition and then a small majority in the 20 odd years. But he is backing a New Labour way of doing things.

The analysis looks wrong. From Oldham it does look as if UKIP is surely now a big Tory problem and not so much a Labour one, certainly as we get closer to the EU referendum.

In reality it isn't much of a problem for either party, electorally at least, although the pressure it exerts will exacerbate a split in the Tories.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/11/blair-frail-legacy-labour-corbynistas

This is a good and balanced piece tackling NuLab hysteria at the moment.

^ One for the credit column.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/dec/14/labour-mp-jess-phillips-knife-corbyn-vote-loser-general-election

Ah, the youth of today..

How can anyone improve Jess Philipps?

the first i'd ever heard of jess phillips was when she boasted about telling diane abbott to fuck off and suddenly she's e-v-e-r-y-w-h-e-r-e

Talk of stabbings and shooting people in the head ten times - she must've been binge watching 'winners' like Donald Trump last week.

Yuk..

“I would do anything that I felt was going to make the Labour party win the general election because if I don’t have that attitude then all I’m doing is colluding with the Tories.

Because if there's one thing proven time and time again to make you more electable it's openly divided parties.

She added: “I would do whatever I could to make Jeremy Corbyn more electable, but you’ve got to give me something to work with, mate.”

RMDE.

— John Mann (@JohnMannMP)
December 14, 2015

I told @jessphillips that she should be #Labour leader four months ago. She thought I was joking...#new generation

This is awesome, seriously:

— John Mann (@JohnMannMP)
December 14, 2015

@jessphillips @guardian what the people want are politicians who say what they think but share their common values.

Could have fun with this for a while.

She's kind of a div. Imagine the shit-storm if Diane Abbott told *her* to fuck off.

Jess Phillips complained that many people lobbying her over Syria 'weren't even on the Electoral Register' so I had to pointedly remind her that there are thousands of UK taxpayers with indefinite leave to remain. We don't appear on the ER because we are not citizens with a vote, so writing to an MP is on of only a few ways we can make our views known. She voted against airstrikes BTW, so ther's that.

lol, I don't think 'not on the electoral register no fuck them' is going to be a productive position for the labour party going forward.