UK General Discussion: 2017 and onwards, Mayhem

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Anyway, this is relevant to the discussion above:



A lot of right-wing arguments Online about British political trends basically amount to pure fantasy. This land is not Ohio.

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Most of the MPs who genuinely were on the books of foreign intelligence agencies mostly just gave them useless information - often publicly available - in exchange for cash. Will Owen (Labour MP for Morpeth 1954-70) built a lavish lifestyle for himself off selling useless information to the Czechs; his handlers nicknamed him the greedy pig. The only one who has been named and confirmed and who gave valuable information (e.g. a detailed floorplan of the inside of No. 10) was Ray Mawby, a Conservative MP for a seat in Devon. He would have been easily exposed at the time if ever investigated, but he wasn't because MI5 assumed that only Labour MPs could be spies!

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Who knows what the future holds, particularly now that the Labour Left has a degree of institutional strength that it lacked two years ago. I'll leave that one as cryptic: interpret how you want.

But it's important to note that the last election was - on the ground - less personalised than it might have looked following the election abroad online. One reason why Labour performed surprisingly strongly was because it ran a campaign on multiple frequencies: a campaign for people who support Labour but dislike Corbyn and a campaign for people who maybe aren't so keen on Labour but lapped up Corbyn's personal message. Corbyn's rallies were social media phenomenons, absolutely, but he barely appeared on the television or on the radio - which are the mediums that most people imbibe politics through: the faces and voices of Labour during the campaign in that sense were Thonberry and Gardiner - and when he did it was in controlled and rehearsable situations. The paradox of Corbyn was (and remains) that he's an unpopular politician* who also happens to be able to inspire enthusiasm amongst a substantial block of the electorate.

_{*If, since the last GE, no more unpopular than most unpopular politicians.}

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Smith, of course, pushed his luck for some reason (why?) and the Leadership reacted in a harsher way than I guess he'd calculated (perhaps due to lingering mistrust regarding the events of 2016, perhaps out of a desire to distract attention from the other brewing clusterfyck). It's a shame because he was good on his brief. Ah, but that's politics. Mostly it's a bit crap really.

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Incidentally all those people (invariably non-Jewish) who every now and again have clutched their lapels and argued that because of Corbyn all Jewish members should leave Labour might wish to note that the present increase in pressure relating to that issue is due pretty much entirely to Luciana Berger...

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At the end of the day, people expect higher standards from the Left. They're right to.

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This round of anti-semtism does feel different. It’s interesting how quiet the leadership\usual pro JC media figures (outside the fringe) have been

It is interesting - especially when you remember how functionally irrelevant that fringe is (for all the attention it gets, and o/c enjoys getting). I think at least in terms of media figures etc a factor is that a) this particular mess did not emanate from a hostile newspaper article (and actually as a media story it was picked up pretty late), and that b) it isn't possible to mutter tired excuses about e.g. Israel as evasion.

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Ofc there's incidents in all parties; but there's a clear difference between isolated, and stupid incidents such as the one's you linked to, and Labour's entire cluster in dealing with the issue.

If we're being really blunt about it, it's specifically the Leader and some of the people around him. At an institutional level things are dealt with better than they used to be - and better than in certain other parties: consider the case of David 'The Jews' Ward here for a moment - but so long as the Leader continues to act like Ted Crilly that won't matter.

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I must say I don't think anti-Semitism in the UK is skewed among high earners - check out certain Premier League fixtures involving Spurs

Given the demographics of the people who regularly attend Premier League matches these days that would actually count as an argument in the opposite direction. I'm always blackly amused whenever football fans are prosecuted for hooliganism and it emerges they're middle managers living in well-to-do suburbs, as is nearly always the case these days...

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This is a very good piece on the Mural mess and what has followed from a very firm Left perspective (to say the least).

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I've made my views on Shawcroft clear before on here, I think. If not I certainly have elsewhere. My only surprise is that this happened after months rather than weeks.

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I've made my views on Shawcroft clear before on here, I think. If not I certainly have elsewhere. My only surprise is that this happened after months rather than weeks.

I'm being too lazy to google, but wasn't Shawcroft involved in Luthur Raham and the whole fiasco of Tower Hamlets?

Yes, Rahman was an old mate of hers from back when she was a councillor in the borough. She actually had her Party membership suspended (though not for long) for campaigning for Rahman after he was expelled. She was widely expected to be selected for Nottingham South in 2010 - it is historically a very Left CLP, the retiring incumbent was Campaign Groups stalwart Alan Simpson, it was her home CLP technically, she was a sitting NEC member etc - but was beaten out by Lilian Greenwood. Which may be considered indicative of certain things...

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Shawcroft has resigned her seat on the NEC.

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Secret recording reveals Jeremy Corbyn ally Jon Lansman (Labour NEC member and Momentum chair) saying anti-Semitism complaints are 'opportunistic'

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/exclusive-jeremy-corbyn-ally-jon-lansman-recorded-saying-antisemitism-complaints-are-opportunistic-a3804536.html?amp&__twitter_impression=true

This is a pretty gross misrepresentation of what Lansman said. I suspect he may end up asking them for an apology...

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Anyway, Jewdas are an anarchist collective with a very strong penchant for caustic satire. Perhaps accepting the invite was not the greatest PR move under the circumstances given that they (obviously!) have less than great relations with the more consciously respectable institutions/organisations of British Jewry (see the quotes above), but this is very far from the GOTCHA story the media seemed to be assuming last night: Jewish antisemitism is a thing that exists, but this group is really not an example of that phenomenon, whatever you think of consciously provocative anarchist collectives.

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Now whatever you think of provocative anarchist collectives, this is pretty funny...

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Not sure if lumping any of those people together with Williamson - who is a rather... erm... singular... Member of Parliament in certain respects - is particularly fair...

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Not sure if lumping any of those people together with Williamson - who is a rather... erm... singular... Member of Parliament in certain respects - is particularly fair...

Each has their own styles, but they are all on the left wing of the party and well to the left of most Brits so that is what they have in common.

They are indeed all firmly on the Left and most are also ultrapartisan, but only one of them (for instance) regularly endorses conspiracy theories Online.

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https://twitter.com/e_casalicchio/status/983093189790838785

what on earth is happening guys i just don't even what the actual christ you know heeeeeeelp

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I mean it's mostly just May trying to evade responsibility. She actually mislead the House (twice!) yesterday, which is not good...

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Jones was obviously going to retire after a decade in post - essentially he's brought it forward by a year. As for replacements... who knows? The Welsh Labour Party is a curious and byzantine organisation and there are many elements to it...

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Is the British state trying to become a movie villain?

Our entire polity is having a collective mental breakdown I think.

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Starting to think that this country in *general* might have a bit of a problem with...

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This said, wonder how long before this new liberalism over immigration enforcement disappears.

That's not what this is about though is it? It's about the Kafkaesque targeting of a community no longer regarded as being an immigrant community. Which will upset even the least likely of people.

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British legislation on this sort of issue is quite specific. Effectively these are - as Blair says - public order offences.