Rolling Brexit Links/UK politics in the neo-Weimar era

Sadly I did not meet Katya. She advertises herself on the website Model Mayhem as an aspiring actor: “I am fun and friendly with an extensive, glamorous wardrobe and a large house which could be used for location shoots. I will not do nudes.” And I had been repeatedly told how feisty she is, a description Banks cheerily confirms.

He recalls an occasion when they were guests in a corporate box at the Emirates Stadium when Arsenal played CSKA Moscow. Katya started cheering the Russians; the crowd below barracked her. She tried to climb out of the box to confront them, whereupon the stewards hauled her back and took her away for 30 minutes to cool off.

At one point the couple separated for a year. “We’re both quite eclectic, high-energy people and probably needed a break,” he says. “I was sent to the dog kennel for a period of time . . . In the end, we got bored of the divorce and legal bills and decided to give it a miss. You get so angry with the lawyer that it actually brings you together.”

This kind of thing.

I read that "Momentum is being strangled by Trots" article that xyzzzz posted and it is very bad imo, especially this part:

Firstly, the AWL — a group with such extreme Trotskyist politics that they are almost a caricature of themselves — and their fellow travellers. Subtle support for imperialist wars, uncritical support for Israel and fanatical support for the European Union are amongst their policies.

it's probably unfair to visit the sins of the father on the children, but the author of the article is the daughter of Stop the War Coalition chair and top Stalinist Andrew Murray, so I do kind of wonder if some of the hostility to trots in general/the AWL in particular is actually an example of the left sectarianism that she complains about.

Thanks for the comments soref and others - its interesting because she is insisting on the outcome/what are we working for.

It'll be interesting what the reaction to all of this might be in the coming days..

i remembering and then laughing at this michael gove tweet about the turner prize.

https://twitter.com/michaelgove/status/805901298319167488

feels like "the tragic emptiness of now" needs to be a post-brexit thread title.

ban cameras on phones and bring back Christmas it's the only thing for it.

there is something very empty and lacking in humanity about Gove, like he is some kind of insentient mollusc impersonating a human.

gove obviously thinking of all of jmw turner's happy, sunny pictures there. and how he was critically praised at the time.

here's one for you mr gove:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Burning_of_the_Houses_of_Lords_and_Commons

One for the diaries.

I called all this Momentum shit a year ago:

A lot of Corbyn's supporter base seems to be a coalition of younger, more idealistic voters and bitter old giffers with a score to settle from 20+ years ago. There's a whole spectrum in between but these two broad blocs are already very apparent. They don't necessarily want the same things and that tension will become more visible over time. I know which lot I trust more. The younger group is only going to grow in number, while the other group is only going to shrink. They also have no particular attachment to Labour in and of itself and could easily take their votes elsewhere if an option presented itself.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, December 22, 2015 12:26 PM (eleven months ago)

Momentum cannot be allowed to become a coalition of the same useless old Trots applying the same tactics that have failed time and time again for decades. Particularly at this unique point in history, where new ideas, new thinking and new vision are essential. These fuckers should be purged from Momentum immediately, it's too important for that.

I also believe (quite strongly actually) that Momentum is a force for change within the Labour Party, and therefore for Labour members (new or old*), or it is nothing. If it just becomes a far left ragbag or effectively a political party in itself then it loses all focus and becomes pointless.

*But probably not New.

Watching Pannick in action is amazing. I want a brain like that

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/dec/07/man-held-over-online-threats-to-article-50-campaigner-gina-miller

very bad people!

I support Gina Miller. I admire her courage in standing up for what's right against all this abuse and danger.

http://cdn1.the-orbit.net/almostdiamonds/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2011/08/FreezePeach_DontTakeMah_Bk-214x300.png

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/dec/07/man-held-over-online-threats-to-article-50-campaigner-gina-miller

very bad people!

In another world, the pinefox is US president-elect.

… and ilx is Twitter.

"I don't understand how this big red button works"

I think he'd be more perplexed at the nuclear football being the wrong shape.

This story about Althea Efunshile being rejected as a ch4 board member by the culture secretary is absolutely incredible.

incredible but vmic

just got confused and tried to "like" NV's comment.

I cannot find out what is meant by 'vmic'.

"Very much in character"

:)

vmic - agreed in both instances :)

"just got confused and tried to "like" NV's comment."

i've done this an accidentally flag posted people, i think.

Garage and will self on question time tonight

Farage, obv. Happily Nigel hasn't made it into my autocorrect yet.

UKIP Garage is a sadly overlooked microgenre.

Used that as a pub quiz team name a few years back, idiot quiz guy fucked up reading it out, so will never know what lols it would have brought

It was even worse than Koogs implies - it was Farage, + Mensch, + a Con MP.

I was so glad that minor Europa League highlights were on the other side.

also, THIS WEEK finished with a car-crash live appearance from 'Peter' Doherty talking to Neil, Portillo and Liz Kendall about 'bust-ups'.

Garage and will self on question time tonight

― koogs, Thursday, December 8, 2016 10:03 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

really enjoyed rolling this sentence around in my head while pretending to forget that will self is a person

An interesting perspective on why QT has gone so fash recently, from someone who's been on a couple of times:

https://mobile.twitter.com/MxJackMonroe/status/806721058539769856

Makes depressing sense

It's so gross - my friend's nephew is at cadet school and the faculty there tell the kids that Britain First is toxic and if they catch them so much as Liking or sharing one BF item, there will be hell to pay.

QT is made by Mentorn and should really be taken back in-house if the BBC wants their impartiality standards taken seriously.

http://bellacaledonia.org.uk/2016/12/06/fake-audiences-update/

QT is a joke and probably always has been afaic, the kind of sports politics that belongs to a stupider era. but as long as there are people who regard it as a significant part of the political scene I think you're right suzy

I don't think it's enough to say it's always been a joke -- this programme goes back c.40 years to Robin Day etc etc and has often hosted interesting discussions, has introduced viewers to political ideas, has sometimes featured interesting speakers and good people.

If it's true that it's going this badly downhill (as last 2 weeks suggest) that is more bad news about present that has to be registered.

If Jack Monroe's suspicions / construals of evidence are accurate then that is seriously disturbing, scary. Someone needs to start campaigning about this now, hard as it will be.

'more bad news about present' = OUR present

This year has just been an ongoing miserable realisation that the media and political bulwarks that have been constructed to prevent even moderate post-war style social democracy are like fifty times stronger than those in place against the far right.

holy shit

They're just reflecting what they think are the real concerns of proles. A la Stephen Kinnock.

'Populism'. That must mean it's popular.

the degradation of the quality of the bbc's news and current affairs editorial has been happening over many years -- the forced resignation of alastair milne (seumas's dad!) in 1986 was 30 years ago

A bit more:
https://www.commonspace.scot/articles/10001/bbc-reprimands-question-time-producer-over-far-right-social-media-posts

degradation of quality might be long term but a fascist being in control of QT audience seems like a new development.

There's something oddly reassuring about the first comment there.

I didn't know Seumas Milne was the son of Alasdair Milne! It's like Hugh Greene and Graham Greene all over again (a bit). This exciting news caused me to look at A Milne's Wiki page:

Milne was strongly critical of later BBC Director-General John Birt whom he called "blue skies Birt". Birt's thesis on television's so-called 'Bias Against Understanding' Milne described as "balls, actually", and said "[Birt is] the most graceless man I have ever known. Ghastly man".[13]

In October 2004, stories were published implying that he had suggested that alleged dumbing down of the BBC was partly the consequence of the corporation's growing number of female executives: "Too many dumb, dumb, dumb cookery and gardening shows . . . I have nothing against women. I've worked with them all my life. It just seems to me that the television service has largely been run by women for the last four to five years and they don't seem to have done a great job of work."[14][15] Milne later clarified his position: “What I actually said was that the three people who had run the television service for the past four or five years had not, it seemed to me, done a marvellous job. I would have said the same if they had been mice or men. They happened to be women and then I was stitched up by The Times.”

kickstarter for the beeb to be run by mice for the next ten years

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DlP7l8vkNOk

There's something oddly reassuring about the first comment there.

― Matt DC, Friday, 9 December 2016 11:04 (seventeen minutes ago) Permalink

Agree. Spam Therapy feels like it's something that could blow up big in 2017

Uber but for spam. No, hear me out... you see a comment piece, CiF or somewhere, about the refugee crisis, or a proposed burqa ban, and feed the url into an app, which then drowns the article comments thread with strangely comforting enthusiastic plugs for non-prescription medicines or obscure exercise techniques, completely swamping the head-measuring race-hate that would otherwise dominate