This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[Zinneke]

I see that the mods are Labour fans.

They did you a favour.

[Zinneke]

I see that the mods are Labour fans.

They did you a favour.

but I didn't get to see the hot takes from you and the two others, how is that a favor?

How is pointing out the fact that the current leader's wife and kids being jewish is a hot take? It should be a pretty simple concept to grasp.

[Zinneke]

Actually there is an interesting divide in Corbynism with regard to Ed M - the pragmatists see him as an ally in at least some respects (not least due to how he got grief from some of the same people who so hounded Jez) whilst the hardliners see him as just another "enemy".

Didn't he also have a reasonably close political relationship with McCluskey (often used against him by the Tories) in order to pip his brother to the leadership?

[Zinneke]

Who are the rising stars in the Scottish Labour and Tory parties?

[Zinneke]

https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1327959368034299906

I'm not a huge fan of Owen Jones but he is spot on here - it seems the Labour Left aren't allowed to support regimes such as Venezuela and China but Blair and his acolytes do...

[Zinneke]

Whataboutery is something Labour really needs to stop doing.

But there is a serious difference between blind ideological naivety and then literally prostituting your services to dictators for money. How can Blair's acolytes seriously be frustrated with someone going to a support event for China when their Dear Leader is using his considerably larger influence to promote the regime and his own interests within it? Abbott is a liability but Blair is a moral stain on the party. If the Uyghurs were a little closer to home and had the same deep entrenched effect on certain psyches as the Israel-Palestine issue, this would be taken much more seriously. Labour politicians promoting the internment without trial of thousands of people based on their ethnicity...absolutely scandalous.

[Zinneke]

https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1327959368034299906
I'm not a huge fan of Owen Jones but he is spot on here - it seems the Labour Left aren't allowed to support regimes such as Venezuela and China but Blair and his acolytes do...

The majority of the Labour party isn't exactly willing to defend Blair now, though. Nor does he have any real influence left over.

The same could be said of Diane Abbott

[Zinneke]

Of course some are hypocritical in castigating the likes of Abbott whilst giving Blair a free pass, but the fact remains that DA happily appeared on a platform with people who are basically genocide deniers. Apologising was the least she could do.

And this sort of thing keeps happening because of the extremely reductive and simplistic "anti-imperialism" that so many on the Labour left subscribe to. At its crudest this seems to boil down to a genuine belief that the US, UK and (of course) Israel are literally the only bad countries in the world.

And the backing on rich dictatorships keeps happening on the Labour Right simply because Blair, and his acolytes, eventually fall in love with money.

[Zinneke]

Would Corbyn run as dissident Labour?

[Zinneke]

I didn't realise that during Brown's tenure there were pretty major falling out within his own faction. Like Jack Straw tried to overthrow him a year after organising his leadership campaign wtf. Does that still play out in Labour Party internal politics?

[Zinneke]

And, lets not forget, ran one of the worst leadership campaigns by anyone anywhere ever.

Burnham and Kendall ran worse campaigns no?

[Zinneke]

Strong arguments but Cooper came out of that contest with perhaps less gaffes/egg on her face. Kendall and Burnham had perhaps positions and views that could be defined but their "Thick of It" style media stunts and headline grabbers (which was the only way they seemed to know how to campaign) were far far worse. 

[Zinneke]

If the Observer shut down, the quality of UK journalism would - simply by default - improve.

er, its important that the pretty much only maintream progressive sunday newspaper survives though, no?

[Zinneke]

Timms is, and always has been, an outspoken Christian.  Why is it surprising or wrong that he would think this way?

Just because he's an Evangelical doesn't mean he's absolved of his condoning of a homophobic organisation. I get the Evangelical groups like to pretend they are the only charity in town as they continue to brainwash people (with numerous cases of priests shagging members of their congregation in places like Northern Ireland where they pop up, sometimes vulnerable young girls, but that's another debate that this forum doesn't seem to tolerate me bringing up).

Fact is if this was a Muslim organisation the right-wing press would be all over it. Now spiked! and the other useful idiots of the Tory state are smearing and spinning this as Labour again exposed as hypocrites.

Its quite simple. Labour has always been the party for oppressed minorities. Evangelicals aren't oppressed. LGBT though historically have been, by such religious groups, who consider them mentally ill. This MP, who was a victim of religious extremism, should be keeping his own council about these religious groups that have characteristics of cult like behaviour.

I honestly don't care if you or the other R-xx envangelicals here want to play concern troll and act like this is a religious discrimination issue. Your ilk have been found to be manipulating, shagathon-sponsoring hypocrites as much as the Muslim and Jewish and other weirdo "breakaway" sects. Your evangelical cult is slightly more successful with the same techniques you find in football support and "charity". It almost makes nostalgic of the simpler Papist times. At least one can tackle the Catholic Church as a whole and not just a splinter of snake oil salesmen looking for power in a community.

[Zinneke]

https://twitter.com/jamesjohnson252/status/1390729101732982788?s=20

[Zinneke]

The plot thickens - Starmer's PPS, Carolyn Harris MP, has quit.

It is widely thought she was behind the hyper-aggressive briefing following Saturday night's "spat" about it all being the fault of Rayner for making ridiculous "demands" (swallowed utterly uncritically by the likes of the execrable Han Dodges, but making totally no sense at all for anyone who uses their actual brain for even a matter of seconds) And then made insinuations about AR's personal life.

Was this the bit about how she dressed or was it more serious allegations?

[Zinneke]

This is one of those good tests of seeing how far certain people are willing to go to defend their faction...

And who will turn it into a usual concern troll about Labour, while sharing a spiked online article about how Labour are hypocrites, and criticising Labour, which is all some self-proclaimed (ex-)Labour progressives seem to care about. This thread is evidence itself that Clegg was right : when you get a bunch of Labour people into a room or forum, they only talk about the internal workings of the faction. When you get Tories in a room, they talk about power and maintaining it.

[Zinneke]

Not surprised to hear David Miliband is earning a clean 700k yet has unpaid interns in NYC. Sums up his brand of progressivism.

[Zinneke]

Today I realised how ineffectual and sterile Keir Starmer was as a LOTO. The fact that without Cummings and several others breaking every rule in the playbook, Bojo would have an open field to propagandise. I mean, the real leaders of the opposition are a footballer, the PMs former Chief of Staff, and a former PM of the same party as the PM. Starmer cannot get a single hit in.

[Zinneke]

What about Starmers treatment by the media compared to Corbyn's?

[Zinneke]

For those who don’t follow the movement as obsessively as others this is a rather good guide for the state of Labour factions.

The point about the tribune MPs group is very good. There are MPs more right wing than me who sit in it! 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/03/labours-factions-keir-starmer-left-party-right

Interesting, and at the same time BTL...

4 hours ago
187

99% of the voting public couldn’t give two sh**ts about this People’s Front if Judea bs.

and he's spot on

[Zinneke]

Is Ken Loach being kicked out a big deal? Is he still relevant?

[Zinneke]

Kinnock wasn't (and isn't!) on the right-wing of the Labour Party.* But pseudo-history is more powerful than actual history for most people too deep inside THIGMOO to get out now. Though we should also be careful about briefings of this sort as most of the people relaying them are proven bad faith actors.

_{*His son is, but so what? So are Tony Benn's children and grandchildren.}

What about his son?

[Zinneke]

Bluntly, the issue (and this is hardly a problem only for Labour as the present low caliber of government MPs rather brutally demonstrates) is that while there are a lot of people who want to be an MP, there is less interest than used to be the case from people who might actually make for good representatives or useful ministers.

I believe someone wrote an entire book on why this is, "why the UK gets the wrong politicians "- and the main issue remains that MPs are expected to fulfill roles in their constuencies that in other countries are fulfilled by councillors or mayors. And that as a result they have to be adept at solving issues caused by poor legislation rather than actually being good legislators.

Nevertheless I'd also maintain that it's a Western wide problem of political decline and it starts at university level where elites are formed. A good start would be to abolish the PPE degree for example.

[Zinneke]

With MEPs in general you can tell instantly which countries' political classes take the EP seriously and which don't.