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

You're fake news, Noodle Vague.

Anyway, 'you can come in if you're a high earner' isn't mirroring, but exactly mimicking the right.

there's yer tristram hunt away to pursue his idea of patriotism as director of the v&a

lunatic hyperbole is my life. and you're not wrong, but let's not look too rosy at the differential-clinging bastards

I was about to say that Tristram was going somewhere where he couldn't possibly do too much damage but then immediately saw a link to him calling for the reintroduction of museum entry fees.

Hunt's off https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jan/13/tristram-hunt-to-quit-as-mp-to-become-va-director. Wrong one unfortunately as it looks like a nasty by-election for labour.

“I am disappointed to see a talented MP like Tristram step down. His departure will be keenly felt by parliament and by the Labour party"

scumbag recognize scumbag

https://twitter.com/Sean__Clare/status/819847809780383744

Normally with these guys I assume that they joined Labour because they were never posh or connected enough to form a decent career in the Conservative Party but Hunt was pretty much landed gentry so god knows what his deal was.

his dad was a Labour councillor, god knows where he got it from tho

further digging suggests there might have been Quakerism in the family, always a hotbed of leftiness that

conviction and principles presumably bred out of the family line before they reached Tristram

Don't get me wrong I'd also take running the V&A over another three years in a constituency that the Tories are about to make disappear. He should never have been representing the people of Stoke in the first place.

as someone who crossed a picket line to teach his class on socialism he's a confusing bundle of tendencies all round

Don't get me wrong I'd also take running the V&A over another three years in a constituency that the Tories are about to make disappear. He should never have been representing the people of Stoke in the first place.

I like how the most obviously Tory types in Labour are invariably described as "talented", in Tristam's case he inherited most of his talent.

Lovely looking bit of Stoke, perhaps even on a wet Wednesday night.

https://www.europcar.com/location/united-kingdom/stoke-on-trent/stoke-on-trent

i grew up 20-odd miles from Stoke and have been there maybe half a dozen times in my entire life. not in any hurry to visit again.

@paulmasonnews 18s19 seconds ago
I was just on @BBCWorldatOne about @TristramHuntMP - good MP for Stoke, bad decision.

https://m.popkey.co/f0e5c0/eLE7K.gif

well, they both agree on the urgent need to cut immigration

trentham gardens are lovely but not sure they represented t hunt's powerbase

OK, Mason's finally flipped.

Although that was his follow up to "Nothing signifies the ideological death of neoliberal Labour better than its gilded youth heading to plush jobs out of politics." so shrug.

Pretty sure than running the V&A pays less than being the Economics Editor of Channel 4 but whatever.

does channel 4 have an economics editor these days?

The Labour MP for West Bromwich East, Tom Watson, has criticised Mr Hunt for crossing the picket line in his blog.
He said he would rather Mr Hunt "resign his post as a lecturer than cross a picket line of striking lecturers, in order to deliver a history module on Marx, Engels and the making of Marxism".
"The preposterous irony of Tristram's action will amuse many, but Labour is too near a general election to write a new episode of The Thick of It," he wrote.

tom watson is an enigma he's obviously a raging egomaniac but what is he wants?

I don't agree that Paul Mason is terrible.

I think he's a brilliant man whose writing and thought are very stimulating.

I don't know the rights or wrongs of his latest thoughts on immigration - a topic whose complexities I don't really understand very well, whatever positions are being taken.

But I won't stop thinking that Mason is a great figure and thinker.

Though Hunt is a different matter, I don't really understand the general contempt for him either.

I don't know if he's a good local MP, and I wasn't very keen on the positions he took (Blairite if you like) in the 2015 Labour debates. I don't necessarily agree with various things he's said.

But he's not simply a negligible person - he's written several substantial books for major presses, presumably based on his own research and thought. It's more than most of the thousands of people knocking and mocking him online will ever do.

It's true, Jeffrey Archer has written far more novels than I ever could.

But those are probably very bad novels.

Are Hunt's books bad? They look substantial and seem quite well respected. I admit I am only judging from a distance.

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/177720/ten-cities-that-made-an-empire/

He's written 4 books - slightly fewer than I thought. But still far more than most people. And not vanity publishing.

Even if his books were great, they would not make him a good MP.

I am only saying that he seems to have some substance as a reader, researcher and writer.

In general he's very good at pinpointing parallels with broader historical and economic trends, pretty good as a polemicist and dissolves into vague technobabble when providing solutions. I'd also say that his transition from journalistic observer to gleeful combative participant has not reflected well on him. I admired him quite a lot a year or so ago, a little less upon reading his book, and these days I find him embarrassing more often than not.

Sorry that's Mason not Hunt. I'm sure Hunt is an excellent historian but he's been a generally poor MP. I'm not sure how he's regarded in Stoke (generally not well is my guess) - I don't especially agree with people like Stella Creasey but by all accounts they are very good constituency MPs, something that doesn't seem to have particularly interested Tristram.

It's just a bit difficult to think of anyone in a constituency with less than 50% turnout and who quits one of the party's unsafest seats halfway through their term as a good MP (not that there aren't bad MPs in super safe seats).

It used to be a safe seat though, right? As a voter, when you're faced with a parachuted-in party hack with no connection to your town and minimal awareness of its problems, it must be difficult to view that as anything more than a contemptuous Westminster decision. Like you're seen as a safe place to plonk fast-tracked future ministers and not much more than that.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2015/05/20-seats-lowest-turnout-show-labour-voters-drifting-ukip-or-not-voting-all

It is even worse elsewhere. In Stoke-on-Trent Central, Labour has shed 14,000 votes since 1997. Would-be Labour leader Tristram Hunt is Britain’s least popular MP: a derisory 19 per cent of constituents voted for him. Stoke-on-Trent Central was the sole seat in Britain where the majority of the electorate did not vote.

I'm guessing Ten Cities that Made an Empire isn't a top seller in the Stoke Waterstones then.

DC -- I agree -- he may be an OK popular historian and know a lot, and still not be a good MP.

I would imagine that he has done the MP's job as well as he could ie: surgeries, casework, etc -- surely he couldn't simply evade that?

I don't think I share the view re: people being 'parachuted in' - I mean, I don't know where my MP comes from - Bournemouth? Somewhere outside London I believe. Where she's from doesn't really matter to me. She stood for Labour and was selected and elected and now she seems to do her best for us.

DC, I can sympathise with the view of Mason you describe. I think he is very talented and knowledgeable, a Renaissance man (musician, novelist, etc). It is possible that he has overreached. It seems somewhat true that in becoming combative participant, he has taken a risk and perhaps lost some of his authority. I generally find his political prognoses wildly optimistic.

But I still respect him greatly as a multi-talented, sparky intellectual who I believe is truly and unapologetically on the Left.

But unlike you, I have not read his last week, only flicked through it very briefly.

lol calzino

... My MP is from Swindon.

I see that she worked politically in local councils here for 6 years before becoming my MP so perhaps that is what you are saying should happen - they should 'do their time locally' before they are allowed to stand for Parliament in a place?

I don't think I share the view re: people being 'parachuted in' - I mean, I don't know where my MP comes from - Bournemouth? Somewhere outside London I believe. Where she's from doesn't really matter to me. She stood for Labour and was selected and elected and now she seems to do her best for us.

London is full of people who weren't born in London, Stoke less so, and that's just how they like it.

the people of Stoke would do well to defer to their betters, people who have written far more books than they have, and get out their and blindly support the next anthropoid-looking figure that rocks up to the constituency wearing a Labour rosette

Maybe I should wait till my "The Ten Greatest Shits I've Ever Had" book is published to diss him though:p

lol

I don't care whether Tristram is a good historian or not. There have been many gaffes, doesn't seem very intelligent, seems totally out of place in the party - someone in my Twitter timeline compared him to Zac Goldsmith and there is a lot to that.

Been going through this report on the latest round in the Government's attempt to dismantle the NHS and instead of making a noise about that he has been quietly moving for this job back in London. So pathetic - just terrible selection in the first place.

The only positive is that at least these cunts seem to be de-selecting themselves. Many more resignations are needed, on the downside.

Those tweets by Mason are pretty terrible - I think it shows the severe limitations in Democratic socialism and I agree with NV up above that while Unions can put up a fight for conditions and rights they have a reactionary streak those tweets by Mason give expression too. Only the rich can come in = 'basic trade unionism'!

And despite Diane's late phone call it looks like she is fighting a lone battle. We really need more MPs like her in the PLP at the mo so the replacements to people like Jamie Reed and Tristram can be another beginning.

hoping for the by-election Labour can parachute in a proper socialist and man of the people such as the eleventh Earl of Trouser Press

This was the shenanigans around Hunt's selection process.

Hunt entered parliament in 2010, having being selected for the safe seat Stoke-on-Trent Central by the Labour national executive committee (NEC) – not by the local constituency Labour party (CLP). The NEC had taken over the process and imposed three non-local candidates (Hunt was London-based and was born in Cambridge, and his father, a Cambridge university fellow, was made a Baron by Tony Blair in 2000). The local Labour party, which had expected local candidates to be put forward, demanded a new shortlist, but this was ignored and Hunt won the ballot. In protest, the former CLP secretary changed his name to ‘Gary Labour Candidate Born in Stoke-on-Trent Elsby’ and ran as an independent, subsequently receiving legal threats from the Labour party because he used red on his rosettes.

Maybe Dan Snow can be persuaded to stand?

Niall Ferguson has written a bunch of history books