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

28 year old women with connections to the conservative party paid 53k per year out of public funds to give fashion advice to Samantha Cameron

Taxpayer 'pays for Samantha Cameron's £53,000-a-year fashion adviser'
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/samantha-cameron-special-adviser-fashion-aide-taxpayer-salary-530000-a6974181.html

Rosie Lyburn, a former model and grandaughter of late Conservative politician Lord Elliott, was hired after last year's general election.

where is that neoliberal mouthpiece at the IEA, Mark Littlewood today? he would normally be spouting freemarket dogma and highlighting public sector waste and suggesting the job can be done for the new national living wage of 7.20 (for the over 25s) and should be funded personally by Samantha Cameron.

Where is George Osborne and his difficult decisions on public spending mantra? cutting public sector funds at every budget and his fundamentalist economic believe in the private sector.

And where is the media coverage of this story?

This has been all over the press and is a nothing story, tbh. She replaced an aide who left and seems to be doing a similar role to the one Carole Caplin did for Cherie Booth. The £53k a year is also potentially misleading - her salary isn't known, all they can tell is that if she was paid more than £53k she would be in pay band 2 rather than pay band 1. Samantha Cameron has a fairly official role vis-a-vis state visits, etc.

The fashion people on my FB are being sooooooo catty about this. Also, SC's sister is the deputy ed of British Vogue.

Caplin was paid for by Blair though

http://www.express.co.uk/scotland/659831/Safety-scare-forces-Edinburgh-schools-to-stay-closed-after-Easter-SNP-Nicola-Sturgeon

At least those asbestos ridden post-war prefab shack type schools are still standing, unlike the PFI financed ones, built in the Blair era.

Interesting they put SNP-Nicola-Sturgeon in the url.

Labour initiative put in place by a Labour council.

Caplin was paid for by Blair though

I'm not sure this is correct and, even if it is, the wife of the PM has always had a taxpayer-funded personal secretary / assistant. Sarah Brown certainly did.

Jeremy Corbyn has promised to publish his own tax return. But there has been a hold-up - because he does not have a copy.

According to Labour, MPs have to submit their tax returns by paper and Corbyn sent his only copy to HM Revenue and Customs.

picard_facepalm.jpg

God, Tristram Hunt is useless.

That's the nicest thing anyone's said about him.

What's he done now?

Just been mugged by Andrew Neil. So much for the right of the Labour Party, I don't know who's more of a dimwit out of him, Chuku Umunna and Liz Kendall... what, am I saying, it's Liz Kendall.

There are a lot of triumphant Outers on Twitter right now.

What a disaster it was when these intellectual giants resigned from the Shadow Cabinet.

http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/apr/17/pressure-mounts-on-jeremy-hunt-over-handling-of-junior-doctors-dispute

Some track record this guy's got.

fucking albania, can you imagine????

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CgzAkJ8WsAAzY2s.jpg

sorry, 'albania'

Dodged a bullet like Enver Hoxha in the Banda Mustafaj plot when Chuka bottled his leadership run.

good to see room for pig ignorant chauvinism on both sides of the debate

Just been mugged by Andrew Neil. So much for the right of the Labour Party, I don't know who's more of a dimwit out of him, Chuku Umunna and Liz Kendall... what, am I saying, it's Liz Kendall.

― Terry Micawber (Tom D.), Sunday, April 17, 2016 10:32 AM (1 week ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Can I change my mind?

Isn't this the anniversary of some giant Armenian genocide?

It is and also just a few days after Hitler's birthday, who like Chuka was also a complete twat.

This is some serious Enemy Within bollocks, I might be outraged if it wasn't so hilarious.

Notorious hotbed of Trotskyism the BMA

The source told the BBC BMA leaders had radicalised a "generation of junior doctors".

https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/labour-hq-deleted-references-to-anti-semitism-from-naz-shahs?utm_term=.na3Kd9XXr

I know I really shouldn't be surprised by cack-handed incompetence from the labour leadership by this point, but ffs

Ken Livingstone's now popped up to let us know that he doesn't think that Shah's comments were anti-semitic, just to cap it off

so apparently they redacted her speech to make it less apologetic and less convincing and then suspended her - pretty dysfunctional party over there huh

Corbyn also reportedly praised her apology before she'd even made it. Just terrible management and useless communication throughout, my guess is this is mostly Seamus Milne's fault.

I thought that Peter Wilby's recent profile of Milne in the NS was interesting: http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2016/04/thin-controller

can't believe Milne would let anti-Semitism go unchecked

She has been suspended from Labour. A lot of these attacks on Corbyn coming from the same lot who gave no 2nd thoughts to anti-semitic attacks on Ed M - nothing to see here.

I got it wrong. The Naz Shah apology leaked to me was a draft under consideration, not "final" as I was told. https://www.buzzfeed.com/jimwaterson/labour-hq-deleted-references-to-anti-semitism-from-naz-shahs?utm_term=.yaLpplox9

https://twitter.com/jimwaterson/status/725415287118503936

smh

so apparently they redacted her speech to make it less apologetic and less convincing and then suspended her - pretty dysfunctional party over there huh

― Mordy, Wednesday, April 27, 2016 3:47 PM (6 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

First of all, they didn't. Second of all, what do you care anyway?

tbf I was responding to the information as it came out and not after damage control. also I'd think my interest in labour & antisemitism would be obvious?

The latter certainly, not the former.

Major left wing Anglo parties and Jews I'd say in my wheelhouse but whatever I don't need to comment here I was just more confused by the seeming incompetence than any kind of moral panic. nb I guess this means I won't be seeing you on US politics threads anymore?

You beat me to it! I was about to say you are entitled to your opinion just as I am entitled to blunder into a thread about some goings on in the Democratic Party or whatever and sound off, not that I do very often.

She has been suspended from Labour. A lot of these attacks on Corbyn coming from the same lot who gave no 2nd thoughts to anti-semitic attacks on Ed M - nothing to see here.

― xyzzzz__, Wednesday, April 27, 2016 2:03 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

The Corbyn baiting press are obviously to be distrusted however elements of the British left, especially "loony left" outfits such as the Stop the War Coalition, which Corbyn is involved with, and the Respect party helmed by Seamus Milne's close friend George Galloway Respect have a real problem with being permissive towards Islamism, and so naturally anti-Semitism, in the ranks. This is not an un-perturbing thing for a prospective party of government to be involved with in even the most casual way.

We know all that, jim. Also that Seumas Milne is a cunt. I hardly need mention that George Galloway is a cunt.

Obviously this is unacceptable and must be fought against but what I am saying is this is a feature to be found across the political spectrum. Nobody blinked when going on about Ed Milliband's nose or what have you.

maybe someone here can explain to me tho -- it seems from her apology that she was very remorseful + sincere and she actively called herself out. is there a sense that this was a "youthful" (ok it was just a couple years ago) indiscretion or that she's scrambling to keep her job or what?

the commentariat for the most part seem to be taking the apology as sincere and praising her for showing remorse, though in some cases I suspect that this is partially cynical/political, several people drawing unfavourable comparisons between her response and the response of Corbyn + his circle when dealing with allegations of anti-semitism. I read some suggestions that she was reluctant to resign as McDonnell's parliamentary private secretary and essentially had to be forced into doing so, don't know how accurate that is.

She's obviously a cretin, she should never have been selected as a candidate in the first place but the original candidate resigned at short notice and she seems to have been chosen in something of a rush. She did however do us the great service of removing George Galloway from the House of Commons.

Politics needs women like her. I think not, Suzanne.

in some cases I suspect that this is partially cynical/political, several people drawing unfavourable comparisons between her response and the response of Corbyn + his circle when dealing with allegations of anti-semitism.

though to be clear I think that her apology does make some of the Corbynites more clumsy attempts to deal with this issue look bad by comparison, especially if you define Corbynites broadly enough to include, say, Ken Livingstone

There's a lot of anti-Semitism in British culture generally, and I'm not including people who dislike the Israeli government or military. I've calmly explained that Jews don't run the media (in the sense that print/broadcast outlets aren't owned by Jewish people in the UK) and told others that it's unacceptable to blame the Rothschild family for the banking crisis, for example. It's beyond ridiculous when people refuse to recognise Israel (I cannot help but hear them in the voice of Eric Cartman). Noticing wealthy Jewish people in positions of influence is a fool's errand, because the people in this country who really do make up the Establishment have been encouraging the public to look at this particular squirrel for as long as I can remember (while actually being in control of every single institution that matters). Those supposedly 'clannish' diaspora communities the public are encouraged to scrutinise in disapproval have nothing on the kind of old-boy networks that produce the David Camerons of this world.

Under Ed Miliband, Labour voted to recognise Palestine and the two-state solution; this is unchanged under Corbyn. During the 2015 election campaign, I noticed some Jewish voters were not impressed by this. Jewish MPs who were not in favour of these things found themselves in the minority, and there's a lot of overlap with the Labour right, including donors and voters who were also disappointed by Miliband's move (and election - most of these people wanted his brother as leader). They didn't openly challenge Ed Miliband, choosing to find other ways of briefing against him, and not fully sticking up for him when he was a victim of dog-whistle anti-Semitism.

Now that Corbyn is leader, the pro-Israel lobby within and around Labour oppose him (and some Jewish Tories are happy to exploit the rift). Most of the offensive posts under discussion were made while Miliband led, so why didn't the party or its critics demand satisfaction at the time? Labour now suspend these people within 24 hours of discovering whatever offensive communication there is, and can't really do it any faster without consulting those accused (which is only fair). At the election, Naz Shah was rightly lauded as someone who'd stood up to Muslim chauvinists, come through a forced marriage and a life of struggle to become an MP. She shouldn't have made those posts. However, the wider response to her is somewhat asymmetrical, when someone like Boris Johnson wasn't suspended by the Tories for calling black people 'pickaninnies' and racially divisive campaigning is so ingrained in the Conservative party that Tories gave a knighthood to the man they pay to do it.