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

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.

^ I find this analysis convincing

Oh, and yes a suspension for Ken Livingstone is probably the right thing to do.

Can't we stick him in a Trappist monastery somewhere?

Mordy tell us more of what you think on this k tx bye:

Ken Livingstone says he has never heard anyone in Labour say anything antisemitic

Ken Livingstone, the Labour former mayor of London, has defended Naz Shah in provocative terms in an interview on BBC Radio London this morning. Here are the key points.

Livingstone said that Naz Shah’s comments were “over the top” but that he had never heard anyone in the Labour party say anything antisemitic in the last 47 years.

She’s a deep critic of Israel and its policies. Her remarks were over the top but she’s not anti-Semitic. I’ve been in the Labour party for 47 years; I’ve never heard anyone say anything anti-Semitic. I’ve heard a lot of criticism of the state of Israel and its abuse of Palestinians but I’ve never heard anyone say anything anti-Semitic.It’s completely over the top but it’s not anti-Semitic.

He said Hitler was originally a supporter of Zionism “before he went mad”.

Let’s remember when Hitler won his election in 1932, his policy then was that Jews should be moved to Israel. He was supporting Zionism – this before he went mad and ended up killing six million Jews.

He said it was important to remember the context of Shah’s remarks. She was speaking “at a time when there was another brutal Israeli attack on the Palestinians”, he said.

He said the Israeli government appeared to be guilty of war crimes, but that it avoided criticism because “double standards” applied.

There’s one stark fact that virtually no one in the British media ever reports, in almost all these conflicts the death toll is usually between 60 and 100 Palestinians killed for every Israeli. Now, any other country doing that would be accused of war crimes but it’s like we have a double standard about the policies of the Israeli government.

He said “the Israel lobby” smeared anyone who criticised Israel as antisemitic.

There’s been a very well-orchestrated campaign by the Israel lobby to smear anybody who criticises Israeli policy as anti-Semitic. I had to put up with 35 years of this.

He claimed that Lord Levy had told him that one of Levy’s friends had compared Jeremy Corbyn to Hitler.

After Jeremy became leader I was having a chat with Michael Levy and he said he was very worried because one of his friends who was Jewish had come to him and said ‘the election of Jeremy Corbyn is exactly the same as the first step to the rise of Adolf Hitler to power’.

He said Corbyn was victim of a smear campaign.

Frankly, there’s been an attempt to smear Jeremy Corbyn and his associates as anti-Semitic from the moment he became leader. The simple fact is we have the right to criticise what is one of the most brutal regimes going in the way it treats the Palestinians.

LOL

According to Channel 4 News’s Michael Crick, the Labour MP John Mann told Ken Livingstone to his face outside a recording studio (it looks like Millbank from the picture) that he was “a fucking disgrace”.

Mordy tell us more of what you think on this k tx bye:

he sounds like a jerk but i don't know what else to expect from the innovator of the livingston formulation:

In February 2005, Ken Livingstone, then the mayor of London, became involved in an apparently trivial late night argument with a reporter after a party at City Hall. Oliver Finegold asked him how the party had been. Livingstone was angry because he felt Finegold was intruding. After a little banter to and fro, in which the reporter said that he was only trying to do his job, Livingstone retorted by asking him whether he had previously been a ‘German war criminal’. Finegold replied that he hadn’t, and that he was Jewish, and that he was offended by the suggestion. Livingstone went on to insist that Finegold was behaving just like a ‘German war criminal’, that his newspaper, The Standard, ‘was a load of scumbags and reactionary bigots’ and that it had a record of supporting Fascism.

Instead of apologizing for his comment in the sober light of day and moving on, Livingstone treated the publication of this exchange as a political opportunity rather than a gaffe. He wrote an article criticizing Ariel Sharon, then the Prime Minister of Israel. In that article he responded to charges of antisemitism which had been made in relation to the Finegold affair with the following words:

‘For far too long the accusation of antisemitism has been used against anyone who is critical of the policies of the Israeli government, as I have been.’ (Livingstone 2006)

This is the Livingstone Formulation. It is a response to a charge of antisemitism. It is a rhetorical device which enables the user to refuse to engage with the charge made. It is a mirror which bounces back an accusation of antisemitism against anybody who makes it. It contains a counter-charge of dishonest Jew- ish (or ‘Zionist’) conspiracy.

The Livingstone Formulation does two things. Firstly, it implicitly denies that there is a distinction between criticism of Israel on the one hand, which is widely accepted as being legitimate, and discourse and action about which, by contrast, there is concern relating to its alleged connection to antisemitism, on the other hand. The Livingstone Formulation conflates everything, both criticism of Israel but also other things which are allegedly not so legitimate, such as repeatedly insulting a Jewish reporter by comparing him to a Nazi, into the category of legitimate criticism of Israel.

Secondly, the Livingstone Formulation does not simply accuse anyone who raises the issue of contemporary antisemitism of being wrong, it also accuses them of bad faith: ‘the accusation of antisemitism has been used against anyone who is critical ...’ [my italics]. Not an honest mistake, but a secret, common plan to try to de-legitimize criticism by means of an instrumental use of a charge of antisemitism. Crying wolf. This is an allegation of malicious intent made against the (unspecified) people who raise concerns about 51 antisemitism. It is not possible to ‘use’ ‘the accusation of antisemitism’ in order to delegitimize criticism of Israel, without dishonest intent.

John Mann, another one for the monastery.

What a fucking dick he is.

Happy Ed Balls Day