Politicians Category
Politicans and world leaders making news and in the news, and spouting hot air
Daniel Ratcliffe regrets the error: Seamus Milne is away and Jeremy Corbyn might not be magic
The big question is: does Harry Potter like Jerrmy Corbyn? The Guardian says he does:
Daniel Radcliffe has endorsed Jeremy Corbyn for leader of the Labour party, saying the veteran leftwinger’s sincerity won him over. The Harry Potter star told The Big Issue that Corbyn’s informal style had excited voters and was a welcome departure from scripted politics.
The Guardian was sticking to the right script, albeit wrongly. The paper later regretted the error:
NOTE: This article was published in error. It was based on social media circulation of an interview Daniel Radcliffe gave to the Big Issue in September 2015. It is not known whether he still holds these views. It originally ran with the headline ‘Daniel Radcliffe endorses Jeremy Corbyn for Labour leader’ and was published at 4.55am on 4 September 2016. The original article read as follows:
Whoops! As the Guardian checks the date of Seamus Milne’s contract (the paper says, he’s “a Guardian columnist and associate editor”; he’s also Jeremy Corbyn’s spin doctor), we look at what Radcliffe told the Big Issue:
“I feel like this show of sincerity by a man who has been around long enough and stuck to his beliefs long enough that he knows them and doesn’t have to be scripted is what is making people sit up and get excited. It is great.”
A days is long time in politics. A year is a lifetime…
Posted: 4th, September 2016 | In: Broadsheets, Celebrities, Politicians, Reviews | Comment
Jeremy Corbyn, Press TV and a ‘mere £20,000’ filthy lucre
Jeremy Corbyn has appeared on Press TV five times. Press TV is the Iranian regime’s propaganda channel. It used to be broadcast in the UK but it was banned “for its role in filming the tortured forced-confession of Iranian liberal journalist Maziar Bahari.” Bahari has called Corbyn a “useful idiot”, adding:
People who present programmes for Press TV and get paid for it should be really ashamed of themselves — especially if they call themselves liberals and people who are interested in human rights.
You can watch Corbyn at work here.
The Mail adds:
One Labour MP criticised the party leader’s links to Press TV, and said he should donate all the money to a Jewish charity. In 2011 Mr Corbyn took part in a round-table discussion on the channel with journalist Yvonne Ridley, lamenting the killing of Osama bin Laden.
Mr Corbyn told PinkNews his £20,000 fee for four appearances between 2009 and 2012 ‘wasn’t an enormous amount, actually’.
Is it enough to buy a train ticket?
Posted: 3rd, September 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment
North Korea uses anti-aircraft gun to execute man who fell asleep as the leader spoke
North Korea finds a use for its vast haul of bullets:
Two senior North Korean officials were executed with an anti-aircraft gun in early August on the orders of Kim Jong-un, South Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo newspaper reported, citing people it did not identify.
Unless North Korea is saving every bullet it can and the officials were beaten with the anti-aircraft gun or it was dropped on them?
Ri Yong Jin, a senior official in the education ministry — possibly minister — was arrested for dozing off during a meeting with Kim and charged with corruption before being killed, the paper said. Former Agriculture Minister Hwang Min was purged over a proposed project seen as a direct challenge to Kim’s leadership, it said.
Sleeping in class is a crime:
Since taking over after his father’s death in late 2011, Kim has carried out a series of executions of party and military officials. The most high-profile was the December 2013 execution of Jang Song-thaek, Kim’s uncle and former political guardian. Another high-profile execution was that of Hyon Yong-chol, North Korea’s former defense chief, who South Korean intelligence said was executed by firing squad in April 2015 on charges of dozing off during a meeting attended by the supreme leader.
Remains are then tossed to the dogs. Well, maybe. The source for this story offers no evidence. In fact, we never see any evidence of Mr Kim’s toughness:
In late April [2015], the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea uncovered “a ghastly sight” at a military firing range: analyzed satellite images showed six anti-aircraft gun systems being fired upon a small target at short range last October. The group assessing the bizarre scene decided it was an execution that had been watched by high-level officials who’d driven in from the capital of Pyongyang.
“Anyone who has witnessed the damage one single U.S. .50 caliber round does to the human body will shudder just trying to imagine a battery of 24 heavy machine guns being fired at human beings. Bodies would be nearly pulverized,” the report reads. “The gut-wrenching viciousness of such an act would make ‘cruel and unusual punishment’ sound like a gross understatement.”
He’s a vicious sod is Mr Kim. Well, so they say…
The victims of this brutality are unknown, but there is no shortage of past examples. In 2012, a shocked international press reported that a military officer was sentenced to death for drinking during the official mourning period for Kim’s father, Kim Jong Il. The method of execution was reportedly by short-range mortar firing squad. According to a source talking to South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo, it was ordered that “no trace of him [be left] behind, down to his hair.”
Show me the body.
Posted: 30th, August 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment
#traingate: Jeremy Corbyn and The Canary sing for an Aisle Free airline
On The Canary website, monocular readers can study Jeremy Corby’s responses to #traingate. “Corbyn delivers a brutal message to Richard Branson after the Traingate smear falls apart [VIDEO],” thunders one headline. The apparent “smear” being that Corbyn was misrepresented when he sat on the floor between carriages and said to camera that there were no seats on a packed train when there were, using his suffering to campaign for a return to State-owned railways.
Another story upbraids Richard Branson’s Virgin for running “fuel-guzzling trains”.
As Jeremy Corbyn books handgliding lessons and a sedan chair for his next trip up north, we notice that alongside the Canary’s self-styled “Fresh, Fearless Independent Journalism” is this advert for an airline offering “Aisle Seats for Everyone”.
‘Book now and book often’, as they don’t say in Corbyn’s office.
Posted: 25th, August 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment
Shami Chakrabarti: ‘There are no empty seats on Jeremy Corbyn’s Virgin train’
Virgin Trains says Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn was mistaken when he complained about a “completely ram-packed” journey. In his video lament, Corbyn is sat on the floor between carriages.
Virgin has released CCTV images which appear to show Corbyn walking past empty unreserved seats, and later sitting in one.
Corbyn’s front bench
We now await Her Excellency Dame Shami Chakrabarti to lead an investigation into whether or not there are empty seats on Corbyn’s trains and if Hitler was trying to dodge his fair by hiding in the toilets.
Posted: 23rd, August 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comments (3)
Austria’s foreign minister wants refugees to work for one euro an hour
Can you force refugees to work for the State? Surely not. The Mail looks to Austria:
Austria could be set to force refugees to do menial work for 87p an hour – or risk losing state handouts from the government.
It’s a populist idea in a country where racism is rife. Surely you cannot force asylum seekers to work?
Foreign minister Sebastian Kurz said many asylum seekers were ‘illiterate’ and should be made to carry out mandatory community jobs to help integrate them into society.
They can’t write their names? Let’s hope they know how to spell Kuntz Kutz Kurz.
They would be required to work between 15 and 30 hours a week for just one euro an hour on work like street cleaning and municipal gardening, Kurz said.
Sebastian Kurz, 29, has been Austria’s foreign minister for the past two years. He is a member of the Austrian People’s Party’s (ÖVP).
More here.
Posted: 23rd, August 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment
EU and Brexit politicians row over who won the Olympics
MP Heather Wheeler, assistant whip in Theresa May’s government, bigs it up for Great Britain’s post-Brexit Olympians.
Or as the European Union put it:
Dod the British cheer for Australian swimmers? Do Belgian root for German cyclists? Does America always win?
Posted: 23rd, August 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews, Sports | Comment
UKIP’s Lisa Duffy rises above the trolls
Can we offer a word of praise for Lisa Duffy, the unlovely would-be UKIP leader? The HuffPost says Dear Lisa is being mocked on the web.
The candidate with the most momentum seems to Lisa Duffy, who has secured a number of significant endorsements in the past few days…. While Duffy has attracted support from established party members, some members of Ukip’s youth wing – Young Independence – have been mocking the leadership contender.
Mocking. Not trolling? So says the Huffost, on which you can read such anti-trolling stories as:
Jess Phillips Reveals The Extent Of Trolling As Even More Women Are Forced Offline
We Often Forget Online Abuse Has Real World Repercussions
Why Female Journalists Are A Major Target For Internet Trolls (Sexism Has Something To Do With It)
London Metropolitan Police Service Take A Massive Step To Tackle Online Hate Crime
Is it only mockery when you don’t much like the person on the receiving end, but criminal trolling when you do? The HuffPost provides a few examples of the mocking:
In a closed Facebook group called ‘YI Faculty’, Oscar Gomez, a former local election candidate in North East Derbyshire, wrote: “Roll the fat fuck down the street and straight to the RSPCA. We can flog her off as an unwanted butchers dog.”
Another group member, Edwin Smith, wrote: “She rolls her sleeves up before assaulting another bucket of deep fried poultry.”
After a picture was posted of Duffy mocked up as Mr Blobby with the caption: “Mrs Duffy says Move on”, Smith wrote: “She needs to ‘move on’ to a treadmill.”
And how has Duffy responded to this trolling, which looks a lot like being rude, fattist, sexist (she’s being called a ‘dog’) and, lest it go unsaid, offensive?
Duffy’s campaign manager Jay Beecher said: “…These vile attacks on her are clearly just a childish attempt by some of her competitors who see her as the main contender. We’re busy fighting for a bright future for Ukip, so we’ll do what we’ve always done: rise above them”
Stick and stones, eh. Meanwhile, over at Labour, one MP has called in the police after being told to “get in the sea” on twitter. Oh, grow up.
Posted: 16th, August 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment
Screening Donald Trump turns into Violet Elizabeth Bott
Donald Trump will screen and screen until America, the enemy and every one is sick.
He reminds us of Violet Elizabeth Bott, the spoilt nightmare in Just William books. She wants to get her own way, too. She will “scream and scream” until she’s sick. Why? Because she can.
Posted: 16th, August 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment
‘Get in the sea, twitter’ orders Labour MP Thangam Debbonaire
There are no jokes. there are only comments. The Telegraph reports:
A student at the University of Bristol has faced disciplinary procedures after telling Labour MP Thangam Debbonaire to “get in the sea” on Twitter.
No way. Get in the sea!
Ms Debbonaire responded to the tweet sent by student Verity Phillips on 15 July, saying: “This person has just told me to drown – I believe that is a threat to kill.”
“I expect Bristol Uni to deal with this,” she added in another tweet.
Can you swim, Thangam?
The rest of us can try but I fear the tide has turned…
Posted: 15th, August 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment
Policy Exchange Übermensch want British people barcoded
Policy Exchange sound like a revolting bunch. The Guardian reports on their plans to bran you all with a barcode:
British people should be given a “unique person number” to help the government keep track of the population following the vote for Brexit, according to a new report by a leading thinktank.
What has Brexit to do with being anti-human?
The paper from Policy Exchange said people feel Britain is being used as an “economic transit camp” and these fears could be allayed by creating a “population register”.
The Übermensch at Policy Exchange can go first. Form an orderly queue while we heat up the banding irons.
Posted: 8th, August 2016 | In: Broadsheets, Politicians, Reviews | Comment
Jews problem solved: There is no antisemitism in the Labour Party says Labour peer Shami Chakrabarti
Shami Chakrabarti tells us there is no anti-semitism in the Labour Party. Thanks to Shami Chakrabarti, Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn can rest easy in the knowledge that he and his party do not acquiesce to antisemitism.
Shami Chakrabarti joined the Labour Party and became Chair of its Independent Inquiry into Antisemitism.
There is no antisemitism in the Labour Party.
There is no antisemitism in the Labour Party.
There is no antisemitism in the Labour Party.
There is no antisemitism in the Labour Party.
In utterly unrelated news, the Leader of the Labour party has nominated Shami Chakrabarti for a peerage.
There is no antisemitism in the Labour Party.
There is no antisemitism in the Labour Party.
There is no antisemitism in the Labour Party.
There is no antisemitism in the Labour Party.
Posted: 5th, August 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comments (6)
Democrat convention: woman catches fire stomping on burning US Flag
Meanwhile…at the Democrat Party’s convention, a woman stomping on a burning US flag caught fire.
A protester just caught on fire trying to stomp on a burning flag. #DNCinPHL #DemsInPhilly #DemConvention pic.twitter.com/tgnf5NqNmW
— Natalie DiBlasio (@ndiblasio) July 28, 2016
Posted: 2nd, August 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment
16% of Hispanic voters would vote for Harambe over Clinton and Trump
Public Policy Polling finds that 5 percent of US voters would vote for Harambe if the dead gorilla stood to be President of the United States. Among Hispanic voters, the figure rises to 16%.
You will recall that Harambe was shot dead at Cincinnati Zoo after he began dragging a four-year-old human child around his enclosure.
Also, 18 percent of voters think Hillary Clinton has ties to Lucifer.
Posted: 31st, July 2016 | In: Key Posts, Politicians, Reviews | Comment
Jeremy Corbyn flying pig news: ‘Labour can win snap General election under my leadership’
The Guardian creates the world-class clickbait headline: “Jeremy Corbyn: Labour could win snap general election.”
But wait a moment. Did Corbyn actually says it? Does he think Labour can win the General Election?
The Conservative government has had “a field day” amid Labour divisions, Jeremy Corbyn has said in a Guardian interview, while insisting he believes the party could win a snap general election…
…when asked whether Labour could win a potential snap election this autumn or next spring, Corbyn seemed confident. “We’re going to go for it and win it,” he said.
‘Seemed confident’. He seems delusional.
Posted: 30th, July 2016 | In: Broadsheets, Politicians, Reviews | Comment
Brexit: trawling for racism proves prejudice against the white working class
The Indy has news that Britain is in the grip of an explosion of post-Brexit race crimes.
The website “reveals: the “shocking scale of racist hate since the Brexit vote”. After “painstaking” research, the Indy found 500 incidents in the past “weeks”.
We soon discover that the painstaking research was not carried out by the Indy, It was merely granted “access to a database”
A picture of nationwide hatred emerged after The Independent was allowed exclusive access to a database of accounts collected by the social media sites PostRefRacism, Worrying Signs and iStreetWatch.
All verified racist incidents, then, right? You can post an incident anonymously on the site Worrying Signs. The Moderators will then moderate it. How can they check if it happened or not without a witness and evidence?
These are some incidents on the Worrying Signs blog:
London – 22 July
I was on the platform of the central line in Tottenham Court Road tube station, and I saw a woman wearing a veil in front of me looking at her shoulder. I noticed it was wet. I asked her was she ok, she said someone spilt alcohol on her. I asked if she thought it might be an accident, she didn’t think so. I didn’t see the incident but I believe her. I said I was really sorry that happened to her. I wish I had asked her if she wanted to report it. But I was too shocked. I left the station and then returned to report it to staff,
Did anyone speak up or offer support?
I asked her if she was ok, and we had a brief chat. I also reported it to staff.
Bridlington – 13 July
Called a Pole
Did anyone speak up or offer support?
No
Racism is hateful. One offence is revolting. But is the Indy cranking up isolated incidents and linking it to Brexit to fit an agenda that holds Leave voters as bigots? A post-Brexit ComRes poll found that only 34 per cent said immigration was their main concern.
Racism is manifest in many ways. We’ve argued that favouring Europeans within the EU over Africans is a form of racism. Making Bulgarians and Romanians wait seven years to join the EU was bigotry in action.
It is not hard to think that Brexit has given a few numbskulls the confidence to says nasty things to people. But there is a whiff of another kind of prejudice at play in the Indy’s story and the aforesaid campaign groups’ activism, one that says people who voted out – a large majority of the white working class did – are driven by racism.
That’s an abhorrent view.
Trawl for examples of racism and use the stats to prove you’re right. Pre-judge an incident and chalk it down one as driven by racism. Is it really like the 1970s and 1980s, when the police and the state sanctioned racism? Is the Indy right to speak of “Comparisons with 1930s Nazi Germany” and not at all hyperbolic in doing so?
Rather than speaking up and taking a stand against racism, the Indy is undermining the ugliness of racism, making light of past horrors and demeaning victims.
Britain is not a country infected by a race hate epidemic. But seeking ways to define 17.4 million people who voted for Brexit as racist is prejudiced.
Posted: 29th, July 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comments (8)
Brexit: 98% of Daily Express reders want Article 50 triggered – 2% want Princess Diana return
The Daily Express brings news of a new poll: “98 per cent say NO to EU deal.”
98% of whom?
A NEW Daily Express online poll has revealed that 98 per cent of respondents…
So 98% of people who read the Brexit-supporting Daily Express want out now. Were the other 2% Daily Mirror readers looking to corrupt the perfect score?
3,548 people – want the historic Brexit vote to be enacted now instead of Britain being embroiled in months or years of talks with Brussels bureaucrats.
As it happens, Anorak agrees. We want Article 50 triggered now. The waiting smalls funny. So. Read all about it: 100% of Anorak readers want Brexit. No need to vote. You already did.
Posted: 26th, July 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews, Tabloids | Comment
Vote for Melania Trump and reject the Clintons’ model marriage
Melania Trump is riding high on the news cycle. The critics says she’s a bit thick, unable even to speak for herself and is no way a role model. The New York Times doesn’t much like Melania:
The qualities Mr. Trump seeks in his romantic partners are remarkably retro. Melania Trump is a former model with her own QVC jewelry line and skin care brand who emphasizes that her role as a mother comes before all else; Mr. Trump… expects women to be more aesthetically appealing than intellectually substantive.
Melania survives on her looks? No. She thrived on them, working as a well-paid model. But the NY Times doesn’t see modelling as a proper job. It sneers at her choice of profession. Women who make a living from their aesthetic appeal are dumb, we’re told. The Times should read the story of the wonderful Lydia Lova and get a grip.
The problem with Melania, of course, is that she is no Hillary Clinton:
The distinctions between the Clinton marriage and the Trumps’ reflect an uncomfortable evolution also happening in homes across the United States.
The Clintons’ marriage is the model. His alleged cheating and lying, and her alleged bullying of his mistresses is the model, the American ideal? A woman who get to the top by using her husband’s name and contacts is the model?
In the past half-century, American women have undergone a transformation in roles, and married couples now look a lot more like the Clintons than whatever traditional view of women and home life that Mr. Trump holds: Most women work outside the home full time, and men increasingly marry women who are their educational and professional equals.
Melania speaks 6 languages. Hillary misspeaks one.
Posted: 22nd, July 2016 | In: Key Posts, Politicians, Reviews | Comment
Plagiarism balls: Melania Trump is Joe Biden with better hair
So Melania Trump, wife of could-be US President Donald Trump, plagiarised words used by Michelle Obama, wife to current US President Barack Obama, in a speech to believers. Salon is outraged:
Yes, plagiarism is a big deal: Melania Trump’s stolen words show how cynical Trump’s campaign is. The would-be First Lady and her husband’s campaign is counting on America not caring about her speech and ethics
The wife’s words matter than much? What, then, of current Vice President Joe Biden, who plagiarised former wannabe British Prime Minister Neil Kinnock’s speeches?
Words on that in Salon come there none.
Posted: 20th, July 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment
UN and ISIS repeating a cowardly and barbaric war in France
Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel murdered 84 people when he drove a lorry into crowds marking Bastille Day on the Promenade des Anglais, Nice, France. The massacre was “cowardly and barbaric”. We know this because the UN tells us so. It’s been telling us so for quite some time.
NICE: UN Security Council: “[A] barbaric and cowardly attack … the perpetrators of these acts [need to be brought] to justice”.
PARIS:
PARIS:
Always cowardly and barbaric. And always nothing is done.
Posted: 16th, July 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment (1)
Brexit therapy: How to mend Broken Britain
Good news. Leave voters can be cured of mental disorders through therapy, wonder of the age and booming business sector to boot.
Ewan Cameron, “a psychologist who provides assessment and treatment of forensic and clinical clients”, writes on Politics. co.uk:
So your mother voted Leave: How to fix a family broken by Brexit
It’s a new version of David Cameron’s “broken Britain”, the former Prime Minister’s view of the working class and other Untermensch. It’s no longer the much-derided, dystopian Tory vision, what the Guardian called “glib jargon” that “feeds off popular anxieties”, a “popular, ill-defined sense that somehow things are going wrong in society”, adding that “there is real hostility to being tarred as a broken society”. That broken Britain was “offensive”. This broken Britain is all about helping. It is, of course, entirely offensive, bigoted, condescending, ageist, and dismissive of the working class and the right of one person one vote.
Says E. Cameron:
It’s not just political parties that are being torn apart by the Brexit vote. Across the country, families have been pitted against each other, usually on generational lines, as the emotional fallout continues. Millions of older voters feel they’ve taken back control of their country. But for many of their sons and daughters, it’s like someone just stole their future. The political has never felt more personal.
Never felt more personal? It’s history day one all over again. What about when being gay was a crime? What about when women were banned from voting? What about abortion law? What about 1780, when less than 3% of the total population of England had the right to vote? Democracy won the day in the EU Referendum. The people voted in large numbers. The Leave vote won. The therapy should be short and succinct: suck it up and crack on.
But Cameron E has tips on what you should do if you can’t grasp the concept of democracy and are slamming bedrooms doors and shouting “I never asked to be born”:
1. Seek to understand before being understood
Try to understand not just your mother’s political arguments, but the personal reasons and emotions that contribute to them. Maybe her fears are both political and personal, reflecting a general fear of change or a core belief that unknown others can never be trusted.
A fear of change for the woman who, er, voted for change, who embraced the new and the risky.
Personality factors are also relevant – are your mother’s view sustained by a sense of entitlement? Do her political views conform to a broader sense of personal alienation, or vulnerability? Seek to understand not just ‘what’ but ‘why’ she has the views she does.
In a word: experience.
2. Communicate in neutral, non-judgemental language
What an utter kno..
Simple techniques like avoiding the pronoun ‘you’ and instead structuring sentences around ‘I’ can reduce the potential for the other person feeling blamed, and keeps the focus on your needs.
Why not go the full superior and opt for “one”.
Examples might include “I have noticed that when I express those thoughts, I am often not heard”, as opposed to “you’re ignoring everything I say”.
More!
3. Specify the problem, even if it seems obvious
…Maybe it’s that your mother deliberately ignores certain widely known facts in order to sustain a distorted worldview.
You: you need to look at the facts.
Mum: I do. You lost.
4. Express the emotion you are feeling
Tell your mother what emotion you feel when you bring up this problem. Telling someone how you actually feel makes an issue harder to ignore. Examples might include “I feel hurt that you voted in a way that I believe damages the future of my children”, or “I actually feel quite alone and sad when I think about the political distance between us”. Be honest when you do this.
Mum to child: “I feel hurt that you voted in a way that I believe damages the future of my children.”
5. Specify what you want – and be realistic
…Maybe you need to tone down the moral certainty.
But without moral certainty you’re left with nothing apart from the T-shirt that orders ‘Hug An Immigrant’.
6. Practice Acceptance
If you are troubled by any of the above or see assurance and direction, seek help immediately. No, not therapy. That clinic has a revolving door. Ask your mum what you should do.
Remember: mother knows best.
Posted: 12th, July 2016 | In: Key Posts, Politicians, Reviews | Comment
David Cameron channels Bertie Wooster as media abandons Angela Eagle: videos
Right. OK. Andrea Leadsom has gone. Theresa May is now the only candidate in the ‘race’ to become the next British Prime Minister.
Angela Eagle wants to be the next leader of the Labour Party. First she has to defenestrate Jeremy Corbyn, who says he will stand against her and sue the party if they don’t let him.
Could May call an election before Labour can dump Corbyn?
It’s all nothing short of brilliant.
Highlights so far:
Angela Eagle gets her big announcement gazumped by Andrea Leadsom quitting:
This clip of #AngelaEagle being abandoned by the BBC and ITV as #AndreaLeadsom quits is priceless – poor woman – pic.twitter.com/bqDgYkAiR7
— Livvy Bolton (@livvybolton) July 11, 2016
David Cameron calls it a day. Right. Good. He did not says right-ho. But he might have done. As @SimonNRicketts puts its: “I could watch it over and over. Your last moments as Prime Minister. Wandering off like Bertie Wooster going to get a sandwich…When British people realise things have gone a bit rubbish, they say “Right” very meaningfully.”
A slightly longer version of Cameron’s exit. There’s not only a ‘right’ but the classic follow-up ‘good.’ I adore it pic.twitter.com/w311FNKabL
— SimonNRicketts (@SimonNRicketts) July 11, 2016
It’s not over yet. Former Tory MP Louise Mensch thinks May could quit / implode / defect to Labour / tie herself to an radiator and drink her own urine / insert option here:
It's not going to be Theresa May, there is no chance.
— Louise Mensch (@LouiseMensch) June 30, 2016
Posted: 11th, July 2016 | In: Key Posts, Politicians, Reviews | Comment
The anti-Brexit picnic triggers the hummus revolution
Today anti-Brexit campaigners held a picnic in Green Park, London, to display solidarity with the European Union. The Standard said it was “aiming to be the biggest picnic London has ever seen”. Anorak was there. We spotted a few hundred people (and this might have been the whitest protest ever) sat on the grass talking and eating. And we noticed that what many were eating was…hummus, stable diet of the bien pensant.
It’s the Hummus Revolution!
Hummus is Greece’s lasting gift to the European Union.
Next week: Onwards with chia seeds!
Posted: 9th, July 2016 | In: Politicians, Reviews | Comment
A referendum on Party members choosing leaders is pure folly
Phillip Collins is of the mind that “party members choosing leaders is pure folly“. Why? That’s how many clubs chose their leaders. Collins doesn’t write the headlines for his Times story, of course.
Below it he opines that Tory Party members acting “in the name of democracy, are making a shambles of our democracy”.
As it is with the Tories so it is with Labour, he argues: “The gap between the parliamentary party, in which 172 MPs have declared no confidence in their nominal leader, and the members at large is breaking Labour apart.”
You might not like who the members chose, but that’s the system. Collins should be more bothered by the EU Referendum in which anyone of voting age did get to choose. More than a week after the Leave campaign won nothing has been done to trigger Article 50 and with it UK’s Brexit from the European Union.
At this point Corbyn supporters piously intone that “democracy” is on their side. They say, as if it clinched the argument, that Mr Corbyn has a mandate from the membership which renders dissent illegitimate. The numbers from the Labour leadership ballot are, indeed, clear. Mr Corbyn won a handsome mandate to be leader of the party. But he did not also win a mandate to be a hopeless leader of the party. There is no mandate to trail a leaderless Tory party in the midst of a nervous breakdown by seven points in the polls. Mr Corbyn did not win a mandate to be a general who cannot command the confidence of his parliamentary cavalry.
Democracy is not a single event. The first clause of the Labour Party constitution commits it to taking the cause of working people to parliament. It is a charter for victory for a party that was founded, out of the trade union movement, to take control of the levers of the state as a government. Labour was therefore a parliamentary institution before it was a members club. Labour MPs represent, within the party, the voters who put them into parliament. They have a democratic mandate too, larger in number than the members and a viable leader has to retain the confidence of all parts of the Labour structure.
The catastrophic election system introduced by Ed Miliband in 2014 fails to respect the Labour Party’s tiered structure. Candidates are proposed by MPs but the vote is conducted entirely by the membership. Between 1922 and 1981 Labour’s leader was chosen entirely by the parliamentary party. In 1981, Tony Benn’s intervention established an unwieldy electoral college in which MPs held 30 per cent of the vote, members the same and trade unions 40 per cent.
The terrible answer that dropped out of the bottom of that Heath Robinson machine was Michael Foot. But at least the college made some reference to the different levels of Labour Party democracy. Certainly it was preferable to the current disaster in which any ex-member of the Socialist Workers Party can vote for less than the price of a pint. The Labour Party is left with just one option. Sign up the moderates, of whom there are more in the nation than the Corbynistas, and then let the new leader abolish the system.
There are 84 Conservative MPs, people actually paid out of public funds to conduct politics, who believe that Andrea Leadsom should be prime minister. Somebody as smart as former leader Michael Howard should be ashamed of himself
You might have thought, with Labour helpfully providing a primer in what not to do, that the Conservatives might draw the obvious lesson. Perhaps it will. Those who know the party better than I do suggest that Theresa May will win and that 199 Tory MPs took the sensible option in yesterday’s second leadership ballot. Yet there are 84 Conservative MPs, people actually paid out of public funds to conduct politics, who believe that Andrea Leadsom should be prime minister. Somebody as smart as former leader Michael Howard should be ashamed of himself. It is scarcely credible that, fired with fervour, Tory MPs will risk setting their membership against the bulk of their colleagues in parliament.
Mrs May’s victory yesterday was so overwhelming that the contest should be stopped. She should offer Mrs Leadsom the business brief and Mrs Leadsom should accept. Between 1965, when the system that Ian Macleod described as the “magic circle” was abolished, and 1998, when that dangerous radical William Hague gave the members a say, Tory MPs chose their leader. They should do so now. Then the party can get on with the task of forming a government without taking the risk that its membership is as far from political credibility as the Labour Party’s.
Yesterday, as Mrs Leadsom toured the television studios telling interviewers that she would absolutely tell Vladimir Putin to stop if he got a bit uppity and taking questions on her questionable curriculum vitae, Tim Loughton MP led a march from her rally to Parliament Square, chanting leaden Leadsom slogans along the way. As I watched the Leadsom march on Westminster I had a dream, of a deputy investment bod from a fund management company who voted both for and against gay marriage becoming prime minister. This was a delicious parallel to last Monday when, as Labour MPs gathered in parliament to declare his leadership defunct, Mr Corbyn chose to address a rally in the square outside. With the MPs lost, he took refuge in the members.
The Tories are choosing a prime minister and it would be a disaster if they did the same as Labour. It is, in any case, a democratic outrage that the next prime minister will be chosen by the 0.3 per cent of the electorate who happen to be odd enough to be members of the Conservative Party. Can any of them, I wonder, see the irony of their regular sermons about the lack of “democracy” in the EU? Probably not. These are people who have taken hold of the wrong end of the stick in order to beat the country with it. The candidate of their looking-glass world is the wholly ill-prepared Mrs Leadsom.
Just over 2 per cent of the nation are members of a political party. These members are not representative even of the people who vote for their party, let alone of the nation. They have no monopoly on the idea of democracy, which does not stop at the constituency meeting. Political parties are not sacrosanct organisations that bend to the whims of their votaries. They are simply useful agencies for gathering collective opinion. They have to look up as well as down, at the stars and not just the gutter. We will have to trust that the Tory members in the shires will do that.
Dunno really. I tend to think that chess club members get to choose the officers and leaders of the chess club. Tory party members get to choose the leader of the Tory party.
Posted: 9th, July 2016 | In: Broadsheets, Politicians, Reviews | Comment
