the day after the deadline: can the union survive brexit and other deep questions

Interesting ongoing thread from Ash Sarkar

In 4 days time, it's likely that Labour NEC will adopt the IHRA Working Definition of Antisemitism (text: https://t.co/VvI3Io9gYm) with caveats added to protect freedom of speech re: Israel/Palestine.

I don't think this is a good idea. Thread incoming, mea culpa, me paenitet..

— Ash Sarkar (@AyoCaesar) August 31, 2018

> I've seen no coverage whatsoever of his anti-Semitism, it's all a jolly good laugh.

bit on bbc london news last night. guy is in northampton and is campaigning on london knife crime. (the whole thing seems to be an attempt to sell t-shirts)

he also claimed that his use of hashtag jewsruntheworld was a compliment.

from 5:20 here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0bghckw/london-news-late-news-30082018

and this got picked up by things like the independant

https://www.bellingcat.com/news/uk-and-europe/2018/08/01/exposing-past-anti-semitic-tweets-man-crowdfunding-giant-sadiq-khan-balloon-fly-london/

i hope when we're all dying of post-hard-brexit starvation a year from now we can look back and say 'well at least we were focused on the big issues'

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/31/the-guardian-view-on-frank-field-a-voice-worth-hearing

Lol

The inappropriate response – sadly, one that some of Mr Corbyn’s supporters leapt for – is to suggest that Mr Field is an embittered has-been who was facing deselection anyway, so an unreliable critic of the leader.

Well done on persisting with this https://t.co/NEy9yskXpK

— Kate Hoey (@KateHoeyMP) August 31, 2018

Kate Hoey crowing over the arrest of documentary makers of a film about British state collusion in the Loughinisland massacre

'"Macron has a lot to answer for," a well-placed source said. "Every f****r wants to be Macron."' https://t.co/00nK6glgv2

— Stephanie Boland (@stephanieboland) September 1, 2018

after Simon Franks previous 2nd-rate visionary moment - creating the game changing business model of posting fucking DVDs to folk, and then them posting them fucking back. "Hey let's start SDP2" might be an improvement on his game!

lovefilm hate everyone else in my microparty

Everyone wants to be Macron, but will anyone walk the walk by marrying a woman 25 years their senior?

I bet Tristam Hunt would do anything Macron told him to do, well maybe apart returning some of the V+A's colonial plunder, but I bet he'd marry one of his old teachers if Macron commanded him to.

meanwhile, in london

These lads paid 60grand so 6 people could show up to hang out with a sexy mayor balloon this is my favourite self own this year I am losing my mind pic.twitter.com/DTMhMSphGT

— TechnicallyRon (@TechnicallyRon) September 1, 2018

They can always sell it off to disgruntled Man Utd fans to use as a Jose Mourinho balloon.

Stick to Economics, Mr Political editor of The Economist

He’s right https://t.co/BPtsWk33aQ

— Adrian Wooldridge (@adwooldridge) August 31, 2018

lmao

these are the "thinkers" we're cursed with

that francis fukuyama interview is quite good and worthy of discussion, although obviously its beneath the weary intellectual titans of ilx

Genuinely surprised you'd want to go to bat for Fukuyama

Should we all read it? IDK, it's nice out.

It's a toss up between that and a Trollegraph list of their dreamiest fascios

can’t help but chuckle at the fact Frank Field was included on the Daily Telegraph’s list of the '100 Most Influential Right-Wingers' https://t.co/jto627cURa pic.twitter.com/VjVupoeix7

— Jon Stone (@joncstone) September 1, 2018

proper and genuine titans of intellect feign to have read the latest Fukuyama interview and follow up with a witty "Bofa deez nuts in yr mouth, chump" type putdown to whoever they are having a discussion with!

I personally witnessed the end of history at Sug Con

I don't have the intellectual chops to engage with the nuances of his assertion that post structuralism is "complete bullshit" tbf

ofc its mostly an objection to anyone chiming in with 'lol intellectuals' about an interview they haven't read with someone they don't know much about

fukuyama is p unique, a former conservative darling who has gradually moved left in his old age. there isn't much controversial in that interview really unless yr a big trump fan. he's become a bit of a boring moderate and I don't love his philosophy, but the origins of political order is imo a fun book w/ huge scope that is rich enough to be v rewarding regardless of what you make of his thesis

His conviction that Derrida was a moral relativist even after supposedly attending his seminars is post-historical code for 'I played truant'.

And I still have no idea what 'postmodernist Marxism' means, at least within the confines of academia.

I do think he's mostly otm re: identity politics, though.

I'm still of the opinion that "postmodern marxism" is an oxymoron

OK ogmor that was a better-reasoned rationale than FF offered for his inane dismissal of Derrida.

rationale for why FF might be worth reading, I mean

took me a sec to realise we’re not still talking about frank field and ‘ff’ was fukuyama

another great thinker of the modern age!

the end of history in a container under the m53

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks adding to the already dismaying proliferation of Jordan Petersen content on our national broadcasters schedules, might make me want to leave the country if it was a realistic option. But as it is it makes me want to launch the radio out of the window.

I personally witnessed the end of history at Sug Con

― wayne trotsky (Simon H.), Sunday, 2 September 2018 15:03 (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

is this a ref to lunagate

i think simon is referring to the sugondese contingent’s performance in the breakout ligma session

hm

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/03/labour-must-reconnect-with-its-roots-to-heal-uks-rifts-says-stephen-kinnock

This is more 'turning up a dial taht says "Racism"' stuff from Kinnock which had me wondering why anyone would bother commissioning a book from him, and his clique, when everyone has heard it a thousand times before.

I'm not the only one apparently - as there are currently lots of people on Twitter trying to find any evidence that the book actually exists. There's no mention of a publisher, almost nothing on the web about it, etc.

I assume there's an element of "who you know" in publishing, especially nowadays, especially for that kind of book, but he

he's pretty much outed as a fantasist by now nicht war?

It's craven doublespeak and I hope he gets voted out asap tbh

Surely the main revenue stream for such a book doesn’t come from the fewer than 500 copies sold to the public, but from getting serialisation/excerpt dosh from a paper. Or a buy-in that’s given free with Progress subs.

god imagine the state of the fucking mutants who would willingly pay money to read the collected thoughts of stephen kinnock

actually i dunno if I can imagine them, do they even exist?

Frank Field seemed to have been knocking out a book a year since the 70's, the flow of great knowledge is far more important than profit in this strange realm!

The prevailing theory is that it’s a pamphlet that will be given away as a free PDF like Tristram Hunt’s heavily-trailed opus.

If you thought Ten Cities That Made an Empire was fucking riveting, this one will really have you bouncing off the walls!

Momentum clean sweep in the NEC election again.

Izzard unable to beat Willsman but closest of the bunch.

Great minds think alike:

absolutely howling that Stephen Kinnock and Will Straw's new centrist book uses the exact same cover as Daniel Hannan and Douglas Carswell's old libertarian fantasy manifesto pic.twitter.com/Gne49vN2m9

— Alex Sakalis (@alexsakalis) September 3, 2018

cover image available here: https://www.istockphoto.com/gb/vector/making-a-new-uk-gm525016070-92310513

Kinnock and Straw, together at last. It's like a nightmare.

The Willsman thing is very depressing but I guess a lot of the votes were cast some time ago?