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Thread: Poll: Brexit - Two Years After

  1. #641
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    Great to see the Brexit Broadcasting Company at full throttle again unreal, a split constituency and the rancid tom harwood ranting from guido fawkes with the usual 80% brexiteeer hand picked audience again shouting in support for that stupid rightwing twit,i wondered how long it would take for them to get back to the agenda,even worse was to come as below..

    That was the most rancid disgusting QT ever,they used a man to back johnson and his sugar tax and mention his terminal renal cancer ,then camera followed him to show him enthusiastically clapping when the audience were given a leading anti corbyn question,ffs how do they get away with this ****..
    Last edited by gigilo; 5th July 2019 at 2:01 AM.

  2. #642
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    Was watching open mouthed too, what with questions selected + the chair doing her usual job of panel order in answering it was truly awful.

  3. #643
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    Oh, Amber Rudd, how could you? A paragon of Tory moderation, a solid bulwark against the rampaging Tory right, a torchbearer for Remainia and one nation Toryism – and one of our saviours against the self-inflicted disaster of no deal, now a champion of a hard Brexit. Surely these are malicious rumours: just weeks ago you were described as the “cabinet’s leading pro-European” and were apparently leading the battle against a drunk and disorderly exit from the EU.

    Sure, you’ve always had your foibles – consistently voting for all Brexit legislation, slashing and decimating public services and the welfare state, deporting refugees – but let he who has not stripped disabled people of benefits cast the first stone.



    Rudd is perhaps the perfect embodiment of the myth of the decent, moderate, compassionate Tory. Being a Conservative is to live on easy street – having most of the press as your cheerleaders makes for fewer grey hairs – but if you consistently vote for every poor-bashing, migrant-deporting, rich-benefiting Tory policy while not coming across like somebody who pulls wings off flies for thrills, you’re guaranteed an audience of liberal cheerleaders, too. These same liberals – and to avoid offence, I should clarify not all liberals – will savage Labour for failing to oppose the Tories (while consistently voting against the government’s policies, including on Theresa May’s Brexit deal), but glorify certain Tory politicians and airbrush their political record. David Cameron was a real pioneer here, of course: ponce about the Arctic with some huskies and talk about hugging hoodies, get some liberal brownie points, then plunge Britain into its worst turmoil since the war.

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    Rudd was once charged with finding extras for Four Weddings and a Funeral – she was the aristocracy co-ordinator, but of course – and this is apt, because political analysis often comes across as if it’s written by people who watch too many Richard Curtis films. Appear to be a pleasant, good-humoured, slightly bumbling posh person and you can more or less get away with anything. Rory Stewart developed this into an artform during his “maverick” Tory leadership campaign: quietly backing Brexit, yet finding himself cheered on by the same people quick to chastise Jeremy Corbyn for being the ultimate Brexiteer. Ken Clarke proved that you can literally be the most high-profile tobacco lobbyist in Britain and still be glorified as the conscience of liberal England.

    So, preferably before Rudd and her colleagues throw the country off a cliff, can we please bury the myth of the moderate Tory? Let’s just admit it means “supporting the redistribution of wealth and power to the rich, but not minding the gays”. Britain is a country synonymous with national upheaval not just because of Cameron and May: this was a real team effort on the part of the Tories.

    Stare someone in the eyes who was forced to pay the bedroom tax because their daughter died – “I’m sorry, but that’s actually a spare room now” – and then extol the virtues of these compassionate, liberal Tories who voted for the policy. To paraphrase Regina George, stop trying to make moderate Tories happen...



    Yes its owen but saying exactly what i've always said,you just cannot trust these tory MPS she was adamant about standing against a no deal,almost had some respect for her as she seemed genuine vociferous in her language against johnson..But nope another tory with zero proncipals and for what a job in johnsons caniet,can you believe this stuff no doubt the rest will fall in behind now and the no deal will be complete they truely are pathetic and feeble.Only slight compensation i'm on at 11/4...
    Last edited by gigilo; 13th July 2019 at 1:12 AM.

  4. #644
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    sabel Oakeshott Dirty Tricks EXPOSED
    After the weekend’s revelations, one might have thought that matters could not get any worse for mercenary hack Isabel Oakeshott: that she had openly and aggressively denounced the Observer’s Carole Cadwalladr over suggestions that there had been improper behaviour around the Leave campaign in the 2016 EU referendum, while knowing full well that that is exactly what had happened, had to be the last word.

    But it is not: Ms Oakeshott’s desperation and technical ignorance have led her to indulge in dirty tricks that have taken her seriously eroded credibility and ground it into the dust along the way. We know this after the Daily Beast published a damning exposé of the Arron Banks email trove whose leaking started the whole panic in the first place.

    Nico Hines’ article tells “An email, seen by The Daily Beast, was sent to Banks at 11.57am on Friday by Cadwalladr advising him that The Observer had obtained copies of his emails which laid bare the scale of his interactions with Russia … Banks did not respond to the email until 10.30pm that night, saying he was out of the office and could not respond until Monday”. And then Ms Oakeshott hove into view.

    “Within hours, Oakeshott was in touch with Cadwalladr, however. At first she accused The Observer of hacking her archive and stealing the emails - an allegation the reporters deny - but by late afternoon on Saturday she had entered into a discussion about cooperating with The Guardian/The Observer if they agreed to hold the story until Monday”.

    The (baseless and untrue) accusation of hacking didn’t work, so then she gave the impression of trying to get herself a piece of the action. And why should the Observer and Guardian hold their story until Monday? You’ll love this: “By then, a team at The Sunday Times, where Oakeshott used to work, was in full swing producing their own version of the stunning story which they managed to break before The Observer late on Saturday”.

    That sounds very much like making nice in order to chuck a spanner in the works and thereby give the Sunday Times spoiler a head start. Or, as some might call it, the lowest form of journalistic dirty tricks. After all, the ST’s article “came complete with a commentary from Oakeshott herself, in which she expressed her shock at the revelations”.

    Hines observes “Oakeshott has not responded to questions from The Daily Beast, including whether she has passed the emails to the FBI, the Mueller probe or Britain’s Electoral Commission”. But she was happy to see them go to the Murdoch press.

    You might have thought it was a pretty low trick to make that claim about the pig’s head in her unauthorised biography of Young Dave. Given what we discovered at the weekend, her behaviour on The Andy Marr Show™ looks downright nasty. But what Isabel Oakeshott appears to have done in the past 72 hours beats both of those hands down.

    No credible media outlet should have anything to do with her after these latest revelations. That some in press and broadcast will continue to do just that tells you all you need to know about the state of those organisations right now. I’ll just leave that one there.
    POSTED BY TIM FENTON AT 09:58
    LABELS: EUROPE, LEGAL, POLITICS, PRESS AND MEDIA, TECHNOLOGY
    2 COMMENTS:
    Fishman Dave said...
    She's got all the characteristics that appeal to Andrew (Brillo) Neal. Watch her appearances on Daily & Sunday Politics ramp up once the dust has settled

    11 JUNE 2018 AT 11:57
    Anonymous said...
    Surely - SURELY - Oakeshott's "mind" can't be as "blank" as her face.

    Remember Andrew neil knew all about this as well and actually accused carole cadwalladr iof lying etc,tried to belittle her on tv they really are a currupt lot and fronting the BBC politcal programes ans oakeshotts everything around this woman stinks..disgusting people..i get bored of having to put up these facts all the time same old same old..they get away with anything,.

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  6. #645
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    https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/s...12378317398016


    Looks like Aaron banks trying to take some sort of legal action against carole cadwalladr,i along with what looks like huge support from the public will be donating to her bettle with the evil little turd!!For the many not the few..
    Last edited by gigilo; 14th July 2019 at 4:10 PM.

  7. #646
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    I wonder where isabelle oakeshott got the leaks from,coincidentally in a relationship with richard tice they are so sly and vile these people..

  8. #647
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    Brexit Party MEP Alexandra Phillips has admitted she secretly worked for Cambridge Analytica on its controversial 2017 election campaign in Kenya.

    Ms Phillips – a prominent member of Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party and former Head of Media for Ukip – made the admission to Channel 4 News after initially strenuously denying any involvement with the disgraced data firm, and pressurising journalists to drop the story.

    She backtracked only after Channel 4 News obtained a recording of an interview from 2017 in which she confirms she had been employed by Cambridge Analytica to work for Kenyan President Uhuru Kenyatta.

    In a statement released to Channel 4 News last night, Ms Phillips admitted working for SCL, Cambridge Analytica’s parent company, on President Kenyatta’s successful re-election campaign.

    Embedded video

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    "That's libellous, you can't put this online, my friend.”

    Brexit Party MEP Alexandra Phillips denies working for Cambridge Analytica in Kenya, speaking to @Channel4News.

    A few days later she admitted working for the firm's parent company.

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    Dirty tricks
    Cambridge Analytica was exposed by an undercover Channel 4 News investigation last year in which company bosses were filmed boasting of dirty tricks and influencing elections across the world.

    They were caught bragging about smear campaigns, bribing politicians, and putting “unattributable, untrackable” propaganda on the Internet in a bid to sway campaigns for clients.

    The controversial 2017 Kenyan election contest was marred by misinformation with fake news spread across the country via the Internet and on smartphones.

    President Kenyatta’s opponent Raila Odinga was smeared with a series of viral videos, including one notoriously depicting apocalyptic scenes if he were to win the election.

    Cambridge Analytica strenuously denied any involvement with the content, and any role in negative political campaigning in Kenya.

    ‘I didn’t work for them at all’
    When initially questioned by Channel 4 News on camera, Ms Phillips denied working for Cambridge Analytica, or even knowing anyone on their political campaign team.

    She said: “I didn’t work for them at all. That’s libellous.” She added: “I’m being very serious now. You’re actually propagating a load of misinformation that’s been put online… based on nothing.”

    She continued: “If you want to talk about the Cambridge Analytica campaign, speak to them, not me. I don’t know them. I really don’t know the people.”

    Ms Phillips pressured the journalists to drop the story, before calling her lawyers. She said: “And if you use this online, it’s going to be very difficult, OK… And actually, please don’t pursue that because there’s going to be a lot of things that might be happening over the next weeks, months, which is going to make life very difficult. I’m being serious.

    “I’ve never been employed by Cambridge Analytica in my life.”

    Audio recording
    However, Channel 4 News obtained an audio recording of an interview from 2017 in which she told how she was secretly “employed by Cambridge Analytica” to work for President Kenyatta’s Jubilee Party.

    She said: “I’ve not been able to speak to you because I’ve been under my contract which finished yesterday. So now I’m able to talk. But whilst I’m under contract with Cambridge Analytica, if they’d found that I’d spoken to a journalist about them, then, you know what I mean non-disclosure agreements and all the rest of it… I wasn’t working for Jubilee I was employed by Cambridge Analytica who had the contract with Jubilee.

    “I was brought on as a political communications consultant for the Kenya project.

    “I’d be writing the president’s speeches and his talking points for rallies and State House statements. I trained their communications team; they’re all sort of journalists who came together to create a press office. So I had to train them up and daily management of that communications team.”

    She said the work was so sensitive that she was told “if anyone asks” what she was doing in the country, she must tell them she was working as “an air hostess”.

    In the interview, Ms Phillips also claimed the contract was worth £300,000 [GBP] a month, and would add up to a total of around $6 million [USD] for the contract.

    She said: “The $6m they got me and another chap who are two of the best in the business at doing this kind of stuff, and paid us nowhere near that much, my friend. The only thing that appals me about Cambridge Analytica was when I realised essentially how much of a money-making exercise they are.”

    ‘Promoted peace and unity’
    In a statement released to Channel 4 News last night, Phillips said: “In Kenya, I worked as a freelance contractor — focusing on speechwriting – with the team of President Kenyatta, who is a great ally of the UK. The campaigns I worked on promoted peace and national unity in a country that I love dearly.

    “This work was sub-contracted out to me by SCL, which went on to become a different company. Out of respect for those whom I served, I will continue to respect the confidentiality agreements that I signed upon accepting the role in Kenya.

    “And I will not be bullied by agenda-driven, guilt-by-association reporting.”


    How about investigating this brexit corruption never mind trying to hide it with smearing the labour party ffs,just more and more stuff day in day out trump just openly being racist now and the two tory stooges won't say it..But if it comes to the labour pary it's institurtionally racist what a load of horseshit,talk about deflection and the media just become more and more corrupt running with it enabling it...This womens supposed to be representing a 100,000,000 ffs just lying like that and getti g caught out farage and his mob are just vile the lot of them,no ethics,humanity absolute and utter scum
    Last edited by gigilo; 16th July 2019 at 7:46 PM.

  9. #648
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    TOM WATSON is accepting donations of thousands of pounds from a businessman who also finances opponents of the Labour leadership, new figures have revealed.

    He accepted £10,000 from retired property developer Sir David Garrard on April 12.

    Mr Watson said the donation was to “support my office as deputy leader of the Labour Party.”

    However, Mr Garrard also dished out £10,000 to Joan Ryan on March 21 — a month after she abandoned Labour to help form The Independent Group (TIG), now known as Change UK.

    Ms Ryan — who cited “demonisation and delegitimisation” of Israel as a reason for her defection — received another donation, , of £8,000, from the businessman on April 3.

    At the same time, Mr Garrard has also been bankrolling another Labour defector, Ian Austin, who quit the party around the same time as Ms Ryan but did not join TIG.

    Mr Austin, who is now sits in Parliament as an independent, received £10,000 from Mr Garrard on April 4.

    When they quit Labour, both MPs blamed leader Jeremy Corbyn’s alleged “failure to tackle anti-semitism” as a factor in the decision.

    Mr Watson has also claimed the Labour leadership is not doing enough to eliminate anti-semitism from the party.

    He, Ms Ryan and Mr Austin are all supporters of Labour Friends of Israel, according to the lobby group’s website — despite two of them no longer being Labour MPs. Ms Ryan even continues to chair the group.

    It is not the first time that Mr Watson has taken money from Mr Garrard, having pocketed £15,000 from the businessman last September.


    Glyn Secker from Jewish Voice for Labour told the Morning Star: “It is clear that this deputy leader of our party, someone who was elected to office and then appointed to this post as an ally of Corbyn, has revealed his traitorous nature.

    “Jewish Voice for Labour has consistently condemned the tiny but nevertheless vile incidents of anti-semitism in the Labour Party, but equally consistently has called out the megaphone campaign by Watson and his allies to smear Corbyn and the whole party as anti-semitic as one driven by political hostility to the programme of radical reform



    Lovely corrupt centreists aye that's right who needs enemies with people like this no wonder labour have no chance of winning an election,hopefully people like this will be kept away from leadership for the foreseeable future....why do these people accept money from friends of israel ffs,don't even know why its allowed..

  10. #649
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    https://twitter.com/Jonathan_K_Cook/...93738423889923

    Censoring steve belle now,really is unbelievable what a complete hatchet job this is,another news outlet i won't be touching ever again...Jonathon freedland **** off now the media are all complicit..
    Last edited by gigilo; 18th July 2019 at 1:58 AM.

  11. #650
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    The mirror image in US now rightwing racism winning everywhere,open racists calling the left antisemtic rightwing media,elite billionaires can say what they like dare to question israel then automatically you qualify as racist,worrying times...and johnson doing it over here ambassador leak obviously brexit connected with the rancid oakeshott involved again..


    The leaking of UK Ambassador Sir Kim Darroch’s scathing assessment of Donald Trump is the latest sign of the soft political coup being carried out by pro-Brexit politicians who care only about power and their own self-interest, writes Kenny MacAskill.

    Political coups come in all shapes and form. I read the biography of Victor Jara, the Chilean folksinger murdered by the Pinochet regime. His widow narrated the growing tensions as the oligarchs ramped up opposition to Salvador Allende’s democratically elected government. Fear grew before finally it erupted, with military jets bombing the presidential palace and opponents rounded up and killed. It’s to Britain’s eternal shame that Thatcher consorted with the Fascist Chilean General.


    Now I don’t for a minute believe that anything like that will ever occur here. But a soft political coup is under way, replicating what’s been happening across the Atlantic. In the USA, Trump used his personal wealth and connections, along with those of other super-rich oligarchs, to win the election and take control. Despite losing the popular vote by a considerable margin – winning because of the US electoral college system – he showed neither magnanimity nor made any attempt to broker consensus.

    Instead it’s been open partisanship and outright nepotism. Military commanders removed, others patently unfit for office such as Brett Kavanaugh appointed to the Supreme Court and now Ivanka Trump elevated to a position of some latter-day Henry Kissinger, despite possessing neither the academic record nor intellect.

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    So it is with the UK and I fear that, with a Boris Johnson Prime Ministership, it’s only going to get worse. Oligarchs and the super-rich using their wealth and their media influence to lie and distort. A referendum won with dodgy money and by telling flagrant untruths, even if it was the stupidity of David Cameron that brought it into being. The people who propagated those untruths have been easing themselves into position whilst easing out those who don’t agree with them.



    Talk of proroguing Parliament’s an abomination. Boris Johnson’s great hero Winston Churchill didn’t even consider that when the country’s back was to the wall and a Nazi invasion loomed. Instead, in the national interest, Churchill created a coalition government that not only saw the country through the war but established the welfare state.


    But Britain’s new ruling class are entirely narcissistic and care only about power and their self-interest. The rights of others matter not one jot and the national interest an irrelevancy – understandable when you consider that they offshore much of their wealth and that, to them, loyalty to the UK is about ensuring privacy in London’s financial centre. Deep state indeed.

    Stabbing Sir Kim Darroch in the back’s the clear embodiment of that. The potential and practical damage to the UK is incalculable. Hey ho, it has removed someone who isn’t at one with them or prepared to do their bidding, but so what? Joe Kennedy this is not. JFK’s father was the US Ambassador in London but had to be removed in 1940, not just for his opposition to the policies of Churchill in opposing Hitler, but even those of President Roosevelt in trying to sustain democracies.

    Now, I’ve met Darroch when he was at UKREP, as UK representation in Brussels is termed. He’s no friend of mine or of Scottish independence. Long before Jeremy Hunt’s outrageous decision to rescind support for a First Minister in overseas travel, the FCO was already doing it surreptitiously. Dealing with devolution went from the patronising, through bemusement, to seeking to thwart. Less crass than what the Foreign Secretary proposes, but probably more effective.

    But that was because Darroch’s a consummate professional and representing his nation’s interests. Likewise, full and frank reports from Washington are needed and what he said frankly only echoed what’s boradcast nightly on CNN or has already been exposed by White House whistleblowers.


    The crime’s not what the UK’s most senior diplomat reported but its public release. Suggestion of it being the Russians is absurd. This can only have come from the highest level and either from a senior political figure or at their behest. As some have correctly surmised, the answer to the question of who stands to benefit is the Brexiteers, who seem prepared to burn the UK Ambassador – if not the entire UK house down.
    The fallout has seen the outgoing Prime Minister caught in a firestorm unleashed by Trump. It’s not just the damage to UK-US relations but how it exposes the weakness of the UK to the rest of the world.

    New Britannia’s diminishing power and stature are there for all to see. Run for naked self-interest, beholden to and dependent upon an American President who demeans the office and with the UK’s global standing sinking even faster than the respect and warmth that once existed for the country.

    Too little and too late, the likes of Sir John Major and William Hague are speaking out. But as with Trump and the Republicans, the monster has been unleashed and the Grand Old Party has lost control.

    Be afraid, because for these charlatans, our institutions and our interests are as dispensable as the UK Ambassador

  12. #651
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    Brixworth (Daventry) result:

    LDEM: 49.5% (+38.6)
    CON: 37.3% (-28.2)
    LAB: 13.2% (-10.5)

    Liberal Democrat GAIN from Conservative.

    Probably the most significant result seen since euros this seat was LEAVE 58.6%There's your referendum try explaining that away...Shockedthey know what they voted for lol..they do now..

  13. #652
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    22,000 tory majority leave seat now looking under threat from the liberals incredible if this is a reflection that people are changig theur minds then these leave seats aint brexit certs anymore..

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    Watched the last this week against my rules, turned out to be a cenrists dads convention rancid way to finish portillo and johnson so smug and as per usual the corbyn bashing with the gravy trainer journalist audience deary me,absolute utter dross thank **** its finished you could see the way it was going..The more you open your eyes the more you realize wgat utterly biased tripe this stuff is...
    What the **** ws Micjk hucknall doing on it serenading Andrew neil,what a load of self indulgent garbage that was cringeworthy centrist dads..tv..
    Last edited by gigilo; 19th July 2019 at 3:00 AM.

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    Tuesday, 16 July 2019
    There is only one alternative to Prime Minister Boris Johnson

    Corbyn may not be a great or even a particularly good leader, but it seems few in the media recognise he is the only viable opposition to the far right we have.

    While I have been critical of the Labour leadership’s Brexit stance for some time, and still do not think Corbyn has gone far enough to maximise Labour's chances of General Election victory, he has done enough to ensure one thing: his survival. While his Brexit stance, together with continuing problems with antisemitism, will have lost some members and made others luke warm, there is little appetite to replace him amongst most members. This view will only strengthen as the likelihood of a General Election increases. It is Labour party members who choose the party’s leader.

    But what about antisemitism? Could this issue be the downfall of the Labour leadership? The answer is almost certainly no. As the poll discussed here shows, while 66% of Labour members think antisemtism within the party is a genuine problem, 77% think the problem is deliberately exaggerated to damage Labour and Corbyn himself. On the basis of current evidence, and that includes any rebuke from the EHRC investigation, Corbyn’s position among members on this issue is secure.

    The only other factor that might raise questions among the membership about their leader is very bad poll ratings. But two factors mean this is not a risk factor for Corbyn’s leadership. First, the new Brexit policy will win some voters back. As Rob Ford notes here, there are signs that the electorate’s flirtation with four party politics is coming to an end, as both Labour and the Conservatives move their own Brexit position. Second, Labour under Corbyn have been there and done that in 2017, such that there will always be the hope of a pre-election surge for Labour.

    Could Labour’s continuing antisemitism crisis create another serious split between MPs and the leadership, along the lines of the vote of no confidence in 2016 after the Brexit vote? A split of this kind would only make sense if Labour MPs believed that they had a chance of defeating Corbyn in a ballot of members, and as I have already suggested they would be delusional. MPs may demand this and that in terms of how disciplinary procedures are handled within Labour, but any attempt to unseat Corbyn, or mass defections by Labour Mps, seems unlikely.

    The security of the Labour leadership’s position within the party is one of two key factors in which to evaluate the impact of continuing criticism of Labour within the mainstream media and elsewhere. The second is the threat we face from what has become the most far right and dangerous government the UK has experienced for decades if not centuries.

    The Conservative party is looking increasingly like the US Republican party, and its likely leader increasingly looks like a UK version of Donald Trump. However the Conservative party has got itself into a far more dangerous position than the Republican’s have ever faced. The Tories have Nigel Farage and a right wing press pushing them to implement a No Deal Brexit that goes way beyond anything Trump might be contemplating with tariffs. Furthermore opposition within the Tory party towards Johnson’s leadership ideas and No Deal looks vanishingly small.

    Two recent events have underlined how far the UK government has descended into far right territory. The first was of course Johnson’s failure to stand up for one of our own ambassadors in the Darroch affair. A corrolorary of No Deal is that a trade deal with the US becomes politically essential, and that in turn means that Trump’s not so polite requests become the UK’s actions. This is a President who tells non-white Congresswomen born in the USA to go back to “the crime infested places from which they came”. In practice a US trade deal that UK politicians desperately want will be disastrous for UK agriculture, UK consumers and many more, people already hit hard by the UK leaving the EU with no deal.

    The second recent event was Amber Rudd preferring a job in any future Johnson government to her previous opposition to No Deal. It has been an object lesson to those who thought Conservative MPs would always stand up for business and the Union to see how quickly all but a few have chosen political expediency instead. Again parallels with the Republican party in the US are instructive. Just as the right wing media in the US was able to use the Tea Party movement to shift the Republicans to the right, so the right wing press have used Farage to shift the Conservative party in a similar way.

    The net result will be the normalisation of a No Deal Brexit over the next few months. Leaving without a deal was not what all of the 52% of Leave voters in 2016 voted for, but virtually no one in the broadcast media will be brave enough to push this point. The lie that the 2016 vote provides a mandate for No Deal will go unchallenged. Broadcasters will balance the nonsense that the impact of No Deal on the UK will be, to quote Johnson, “infinitesimally small” against the truth that it is the biggest act of political and economic self-harm ever inflicted on the UK.

    Allowing Johnson to become leader shows that the Conservative party has completely lost its moral compass. All of Johnson’s misdeeds in his past mean nothing, just as Trump’s behaviour means nothing to his supporters and the Republican party. Both individuals lie all the time, but it doesn’t matter to his own side. Johnson encourages a friend to beat up a journalist, but it doesn’t matter. Johnson uses racist language on many occasions, most recently comparing Muslim women wearing the niqab and burqa to letterboxes, but this was deemed acceptable by his party. Johnson gets advice from Steve (“Let them call you racist. Wear it as a badge of honour”) Bannon, and even the BBC does not think Johnson lying about these contacts matters.

    And so, as the Conservative party loses its moral compass, the chances are that large sections of the country’s elite will do so as well, and our standing overseas will plummet even further. Although Tory party members may find Johnson’s insults acceptable, don’t expect other countries to take a UK run by Johnson as more than a bad joke. Don’t expect other countries to do business with a UK that proposes to destroy its trade relationship with the EU and many other countries at a stroke. An elite that treats threats to prorogue parliament as acceptable will not be respected by countries that value democracy, although some others will welcome the development.

    Yet those who say not in my name need to ask themselves whether they are prepared to make the choice required to stop this happening. There is only one realistic opposition to a Johnson led government. Believing the Liberal Democrats could ever play that role was unrealistic, because Labour has enough loyal voters to ensure that the anti-government vote would be split. Farage along with the LibDems might also take away votes from the government, but it would be foolish to rely on an English vote split four ways just happening to go against a Conservative government.

    The awkward truth for those who for whatever reason dislike Corbyn’s Labour party is that Labour is the only party that can defeat this government, and its leader in the next election will be Corbyn. Voting is always a choice between the lesser of two evils. Supporting smaller parties when that lets the Conservatives win, or supporting none, may make those who dislike Corbyn’s Labour feel better, but it is in effect a statement that Corbyn’s Labour party would be just as bad for the country as a whole as out current government, and that is simply not a credible belief. Corbyn is not going to leave the EU with no deal, and in practice will be unable to leave the EU in any way. Corbyn is not threatening to prorogue parliament, is not desperate to do a trade deal with Donald Trump, does not lie all the time, does not get friends to beat up opponents, and does not have a history of using racist language. Whereas Johnson promises tax cuts for the rich, a Corbyn led government would help the many, not the few.

    Yet there are few in the mainstream media who seem prepared to recognise the choice we face for what it is. Even wise and perceptive commentators like Martin Wolf, who lament the situation the Conservative government has led us to, often feel it necessary to balance their piece with a derogatory remark about the Labour leadership. Those remarks may or may not be accurate, but a plague on all your houses just allows this Tory government to stay in place.

    Worse still are those in the centre or centre-left who refuse to give up hope of getting ‘their party’ back and will do anything that in their view helps that cause. In the first year after Corbyn was elected many MPs and journalists waged a constant war against the left in the media. I said at the time it was utterly futile and self-destructive, and I was right. It led to an attempt to unseat Corbyn that everyone on the left calls a coup, and a clear majority of members saw it the same way. Polls suggest the same is true today. Those in the centre and centre-left need to realise that for all Corbyn’s faults and mistakes he will be Labour’s leader going into the next election, and if they repeatedly attack him they are helping Boris Johnson do terrible damage to our country.

    Of course the right wing press will do anything to discredit Labour: that is what their owners pay them to do. But often their task is made easier by the non-partisan media who think they are making choices using simple journalistic criteria, such as going with the story. What we are in danger of seeing with 24/7 criticism of Corbyn is a repetition of what happened to Hilary Clinton in the US elections. As I showed here, the mainstream media spent much more time talking about her email server than any of the sins of Donald Trump, or indeed all those sins combined. In that sense the US media chose Trump over Clinton. It was of course not a thought-through or considered choice, but just the outcome of lots of individual decisions that seemed to make sense in journalistic terms, but were disastrous in political terms.

    Of course the constant tunes the media play matter. One of the incredible poll findings of that US election was that more people trusted the serial liar Donald Trump more than Hillary Clinton. That makes no sense unless you note the constant stream of media stories suggesting Clinton had something to hide. No one is suggesting Labour’s failures over antisemitism should not be exposed, just as no one was suggesting that Clinton should not have been criticised for using her own email for government business. What is missing in both cases is a sense of perspective, as here for example, or here. Without that perspective constant attacks on Corbyn will have an impact. The impact will be to keep a destructive far right government in power....


    Simon wren lewis blogger for The New statesman


    My last post was published by the new staesman as usual.And then sometime later it was unpublished.The line my post took was one the NS didn't want to carry.Ido not know the details of what happened but i can guess.The post was hardky extolling the virtues of corbyn as Labour leader,but it suggested any attempts at removing him were futile and would increase johnsons chances of winning an election.I dont think thst message was welcome...




    So now we have the guardian removing cartoonist steve bell and a jewish letter from a hundred prominent jewish people went to be published then taken out backing corbyn,now we have the new statesman removing this,seriously this country is fucked another media outlet i will not be reading anymore..I'm onto the scotsman currently!!It's a complete shutdown on anything remotely left of centre and everythings become a tory propaganda machine,WTF is going on..
    Last edited by gigilo; 19th July 2019 at 10:55 PM.

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    If we're anything to go by, pretty much the whole of my family have switched from Labour to LibDem.

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    There's absolutely no point in voting lib dem if it damages the labour party,that's just another centrist way to get the tories in,voting in a seat for liberals to get torues out fine if voting libs in a labour seat then another self fulfilling prophecy,as the article above says.I wouldn't vote lib dem unless it could beat the tory candidate,what would be the point otherwise..I keep saying it,you are either right or left in current climate there is no centrists anymore,tom watson and co can forget that,because labour members want a left wing government to change things not keep a status quo,you can't combat a rightwing disaster capitalist party with blairrite policys its regressive politics of the past...Even if corbyn doesn't win the next election,its inevitable that labour wll be winning the following election/s just look at the voting profiles and age groups,its the last stand of the older tories,it's staring the establishment in the face and they hate it their time will come even if it has to be in another 5 years time...the young have had enough and me i'm more staunchly labour than ever now despite corbyn after wants happened with the massive establishment onslaught you have to take a stance i've had enough of it..The last 9 months the media and corruption through the press,rabid rightwing lies trying to destroy a party,that opposes everything the tories stand for,never did i think i would see this country go so far to the right not just that but the scandal of trying to destroy a national party..
    Am hoping that labour and liberals will be voting tactically in the rught seats and then a chance of a coalition,otherwise it will be 5 years of johnsons diasters capitalism not that i think he will last that long but he will have wrecked the country before then anyway..and when they get rid of corbyn i hope and prey they get a decent left wing leader in because any veering back to old fashioned centrist politucs will result in annihilation ..
    Voters are so complicit,they believe this drivel from the media its been happening for 40 years but the last three have been unbelievable especially since brexit and the last 9 months its just pure propaganda and lies,i have no doubt the tories will win the next election becase of the older voters
    they've been doing the same thing for 40 years..But without doubt there is a big change coming,if this brexit garbage hadn't happened labour wouldv'e stormed the next election even with corbyn,just a matter of biding and waiting for the tory pary to eat itself..
    Last edited by gigilo; 20th July 2019 at 1:39 AM.

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    By George Monbiot..

    Had we put as much effort into preventing environmental catastrophe as we’ve spent on making excuses for inaction, we would have solved it by now. Everywhere I look, I see people engaged in furious attempts to fend off the moral challenge it presents.

    The commonest current excuse is this: “I bet those protesters have phones/go on holiday/wear leather shoes.” In other words, we won’t listen to anyone who is not living naked in a barrel, subsisting only on murky water. Of course, if you are living naked in a barrel, we will dismiss you too, because you’re a hippie weirdo. Every messenger, and every message they bear, is disqualified, on the grounds of either impurity or purity.

    As the environmental crisis accelerates, and as protest movements like YouthStrike4Climate and Extinction Rebellion make it harder not to see what we face, people discover more inventive means of shutting their eyes and shedding responsibility. Underlying these excuses is a deep-rooted belief that if we really are in trouble, someone somewhere will come to our rescue: “they” won’t let it happen. But there is no they, just us.

    The political class, as anyone who has followed its progress over the past three years can surely now see, is chaotic, unwilling and, in isolation, strategically incapable of addressing even short-term crises, let alone a vast existential predicament. Yet a widespread and wilful naivity prevails: the belief that voting is the only political action required to change a system. Unless it is accompanied by the concentrated power of protest, articulating precise demands and creating space in which new political factions can grow, voting, while essential, remains a blunt and feeble instrument.

    The media, with a few exceptions, is actively hostile. Even when broadcasters cover these issues, they carefully avoid any mention of power, talking about environmental collapse as if it is driven by mysterious, passive forces, and proposing microscopic fixes for vast structural problems. The BBC’s Blue Planet Live series exemplified this tendency. As TV comedy and drama have become ever more daring, factual and current affairs programmes have become ever more timid. Truth now has to be smuggled into our homes under the guise of entertainment.

    Those who govern the nation and shape public discourse cannot be trusted with the preservation of life on Earth. There is no benign authority preserving us from harm. No one is coming to save us. None of us can justifiably avoid the call to come together to save ourselves.

    I see despair as another variety of disavowal. By throwing up our hands about the calamities that could one day afflict us, we disguise and distance them, converting concrete choices into indecipherable dread. We might relieve ourselves of moral agency by claiming that it’s already too late to act, but in doing so we condemn other people to destitution or death. Catastrophe afflicts people now, and, unlike those in the rich world who can still afford to wallow in despair, they are forced to respond in practical ways. In Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Malawi, devastated by Cyclone Idai, in Syria, Libya and Yemen, where climate chaos has contributed to civil war, in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador, where crop failure, drought and the collapse of fisheries have driven people from their homes, despair is not an option. Our inaction has forced them into action, as they respond to terrifying circumstances caused primarily by the rich world’s consumption. The Christians are right: despair is a sin.

    As the author Jeremy Lent points out in a recent essay, it is almost certainly too late to save some of the world’s great living wonders, such as coral reefs and monarch butterflies. But, he argues, with every increment of global heating, with every rise in material resource consumption, we will have to accept still greater losses, many of which can still be prevented through radical transformation.

    Every nonlinear transformation in history has taken people by surprise. As Alexei Yurchak explains in his book about the collapse of the Soviet Union – Everything Was Forever, Until It Was No More – systems look immutable until they suddenly disintegrate. As soon as they do, the distintegration retrospectively looks inevitable. Our system – characterised by perpetual economic growth on a planet that is not growing – will inevitably implode. The only question is whether the transformation is planned or unplanned. Our task is to ensure it is planned, and fast. We need to conceive and build a new system, based on the principle that every generation, everywhere has an equal right to enjoy natural wealth.

    This is less daunting than we might imagine. As Erica Chenoweth’s historical research reveals, for a peaceful mass movement to succeed, a maximum of 3.5% of the population needs to mobilise. Humans are ultra-social mammals, constantly if subliminally aware of shifting social currents. Once we perceive the status quo has changed, we flip suddenly from support for one state of being to support for another. When a committed and vocal 3.5% unites behind the demand for a new system, the social avalanche that follows becomes irresistible. Giving up before we have reached this threshold is worse than despair: it is defeatism.

    Today, Extinction Rebellion takes to streets around the world in defence of our life support systems. Through daring, disruptive, non-violent action, it forces our environmental predicament onto the political agenda. Who are these people? Another “they”, who might rescue us from our follies? The success of this mobilisation depends on us. It will reach the critical threshold only if enough of us cast aside denial and despair, and join this exuberant, proliferating movement. The time for excuses is over. The struggle to overthrow our life-denying system has begun

  19. #658
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    Quote Originally Posted by moehat View Post
    If we're anything to go by, pretty much the whole of my family have switched from Labour to LibDem.
    Great if you're in a tory seat,otherwise you are doing what ''they'' want you to do..

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    Comment on macroeconomic issues
    Winner of the New Statesman SPERI Prize in Political Economy 2016


    Friday, 19 July 2019
    Reaction to “There is only one alternative to Prime Minister Boris Johnson”

    I anticipated that my last post would not be popular in many circles. I want to respond to some of the common themes from the responses in this post, but there was one reaction I was not expecting. First some background. Since the beginning of the year I have had an arrangement with the online edition of the New Statesman (NS) that my Tuesday post should be simultaneously published on my blog and in the NS. The arrangement was working well.

    My last post was published by the New Statesman as usual. And then sometime later it was unpublished. The line my post took was not one the NS wanted to carry. I do not know the details of what happened but I can guess. The post was hardly extolling the virtues of Corbyn as Labour leader, but it suggested any attempt to get rid of him was both futile and would increase the chances of Johnson winning the next election. I don’t think that message was welcome.

    Of course any publication has a right to chose what it publishes, and I have no quarrel with that. What was unfortunate was the implicit confirmation of the main concern in the post, which was that the non-partisan and even left leaning media with the support of the Labour centre really believes they can depose Corbyn using the issue of antisemitism. I gave in the post the reasons why I think Corbyn is unlikely to depart as a result of this pressure and any challenge is unlikely to succeed, and none of the responses to my post questioned this logic.

    Among comments on twitter, the most offensive was to suggest my post was itself a product of antisemitism, along the lines that I didn’t care about Jews. By implication anyone voting Labour in the future is also antisemetic. The most moderate remark I can make about this kind of comment is that it gives the drive to remove antisemitism a bad name. The implication that you are antisemitic if you support a party accused of badly handling internal cases of antisemitism is an extension of a far more frequent argument: the idea that it was not virtuous to vote for Labour.

    A common response was that it was morally wrong to support a racist party or party leadership. Of course Labour is not a racist party and I doubt very much that its leadership are antisemitic, but lets put that to one side until later. The problem with this argument is that you can make lots of other similar arguments. Is it morally right for someone to support a party that was part of a government that caused untold misery through austerity, and where neither of the possible future leaders have apologised for supporting austerity? Is it morally right to support politicians that voted for the hostile environment policy?

    Voting should be about weighing the pros and cons of each party’s stance on different issues, and in a FPTP system it means also thinking about whether voting for some parties in your constituency is a wasted vote. It is very hard to rationalise voting or not voting on the basis of I couldn't possibly vote for a party that showed any sign of racism. Would you really not vote if a party that failed to deal with antisemitism adequately even if it meant that another party whose leader actually uses racist speech and has voted for racist policies would stay in power? This is not a trolley problem: it is part of being a good citizen to make this choice.

    Another comment I received is that there are no degrees of racism. I think this is nonsense. Once again it is useful to compare the two main parties. Both leaders are accused of being racist. With Corbyn the evidence amounts to things like not recognising antisemitic tropes in a painting, not mentioning someones antisemitism in an introduction to a book, or being associated with antisemitic people as part of his support for statehood for Palestine. With Johnson we have someone who has compared Muslim women in a certain dress to letterboxes (and those are not his only racist slurs), and who has supported a racist policy: a hostile environment that saw the deportation of members of the Windrush generation. Are these really equivalent?

    Or let us look at the two parties. The Labour party has been accused at operating an inefficient disciplinary process for antisemitism or worse, of leadership interference in this process. The Conservative party routinely lets those exposed of making racist comments back in after a few months of ‘re-education’, and has just voted for a leader who makes racist remarks because most members show racist tendencies (to put it too mildly). Are these really equivalent?

    Going beyond the UK, is telling non-white Congresswomen born in America to go back home to the crime infested countries they came from the same as anything Corbyn has done? The thing about the antisemitism in the Labour party is it involves no policy against Jewish people and it involves no language by members of the Labour leadership team against Jewish people. Some Labour party members are antisemitic, but there is no evidence that this number is unusually high compared to the population at large. When people try to equate antisemitism within the Labour party to racism in the Tory party they ignore these points.

    The most depressing aspect in comments on my post was the number of people who just talked about antisemitism within Labour as if it was the same as racism within the Conservative party. This lacks the key ingredient that is also lacking in the media’s response, and that is a sense of perspective. One of the cheap remarks made in comments was that I was equating antisemitism within Labour to Clinton's email server. This was obvious nonsense, as I was clearly using the Clinton case to show how the media as a whole can lack a sense of perspective, and when it does that it can have terrible consequences.

    Perhaps the most common response in comments was that a choice between Labour and the Tories could be avoided by voting Liberal Democratic. Despite the arguments in my post, I was told that the era of two party politics was over. Let me make one final point. The disastrous events that we have recently seen in the UK started in 2010, with in particular an austerity government during the worst recession since WWII. For more than half of the 9 years since 2010 the Liberal Democrats were in power, and the two candidates for leader were both ministers in the Coalition government. Their actions and voting records speak for themselves. As I have said in the past, I think the UK needs radical change to ensure nothing like the disaster of the last 9 years happens again. Only Labour at present provides that. Simply returning things to how they were before 2010 allows what happened from 2010 to happen all over again..


    Simon wren lewis updating from the earlier piece i put up,sums up perfectly what i said about brits and the way they think and percieve media bias and then turnaway and vote for staus quo.
    Last edited by gigilo; 20th July 2019 at 2:57 AM.

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