Alex Callinicos/SWP vs Laurie Penny/New Statesman Facebook handbags

[articul8]

i must have

 

[love detective]

vote labour with no allusions

 

[treelover]

'it was inevitable really wasn't it? After the student protests they were always going to pick a token angry yoof. More hysterical the better. Can't have someone well-thought-out, considered and credible, obviously'


Michael Chessum, only 21, is definitely someone of that calibre, (NCAFC) he gets articles in the Guardian but little broadcast time

 

[Random]

Has anyone called her Penny Dreadful yet, or have I just made it up?

 

[treelover]

Chessums last article

http://anticuts.com/2011/07/13/guardian-tuition-fees-go-ahead-marks-the-betrayal-of-a-generation/

 

[articul8]

vote labour with no allusions

tha's quite witty for you

 

[articul8]

She's just tweeted
"During the pogroms, my great-grandfather was sold a ticket ' to New York' that actually took him to Newcastle. And that's why I'm British!"

Maybe I'm being over-suspicious but something about this story makes me doubt its veracity

 

[ViolentPanda]

She's just tweeted
"During the pogroms, my great-grandfather was sold a ticket ' to New York' that actually took him to Newcastle. And that's why I'm British!"

Maybe I'm being over-suspicious but something about this story makes me doubt its veracity

Her parent(s) and grandparent(s) would have to have had children in their 40s for her great-grandfather to have been old enough to buy a ticket, and for Ms. Penny to only be in her late 20s-early 30s. I'm nearly 50, and my great-grandmother was only 9 when she came over here (with an aunt and uncle) in the early 1900s. She had my nan in 1914, who had my mum in 1940, who had me in '62. Penny's maths don't quite work out.

 

[killer b]

Does it matter? It's an off the cuff family tale... I don't particularly want to defend her, but such stories often have a flavour of the apocryphal. I've a few myself that I haven't bothered fact checking...

 

[articul8]

Just if you've been on the wrong end of criticism for making stuff up, then adding more fuel to the fire doesn't seem very clever.

 

[killer b]

she said her dad told her something about their family history. i think she's in the clear there tbh, even if it isn't totally accurate.

 

[flypanam]

she said her dad told her something about their family history. i think she's in the clear there tbh, even if it isn't totally accurate.

Your probably right.

However she has deemed it necessary to make it public on twitter. Maybe in the hope of giving her view of herself as a 'Tribune of the oppressed' some credence.

 

[belboid]

Her parent(s) and grandparent(s) would have to have had children in their 40s for her great-grandfather to have been old enough to buy a ticket, and for Ms. Penny to only be in her late 20s-early 30s. I'm nearly 50, and my great-grandmother was only 9 when she came over here (with an aunt and uncle) in the early 1900s. She had my nan in 1914, who had my mum in 1940, who had me in '62. Penny's maths don't quite work out.

mm, yes it does.

Penny born 1990

Parent Born 1965

Grandaparent born 1940

Great grandfather got the fuck out shortly before that.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

There's enough genuine stuff out there to get her without picking on her over a half remembered family memory, my family comes out with this shit all the time, and I reuse it if it's interesting without fact checking it, so do loads of others.

 

[butchersapron]

mm, yes it does.

Penny born 1990

Parent Born 1965

Grandaparent born 1940

Great grandfather got the fuck out shortly before that.

Not really bothered, but she she could have meant the pogroms at the and of the 19th/start of the 20th century. That was my first thought as Germany in the 1930s is not usually referred to in that way. Either way, not really interested in this one.

 

[Belushi]

There's enough genuine stuff out there to get her without picking on her over a half remembered family memory, my family comes out with this shit all the time, and I reuse it if it's interesting without fact checking it, so do loads of others.

This.

 

[articul8]

No, because you want to use LP to make a pre-conceived point about class not about integrity of claims per se. Not claiming that it's scandal of the century. But as flypanam says it's more about creative self-mythologising. edit - maybe we all do this to some extent.

 

[ViolentPanda]

mm, yes it does.

Penny born 1990

Parent Born 1965

Grandaparent born 1940

Great grandfather got the fuck out shortly before that.

Mate, if you're descended from east Europeans Jews, "the pogroms" mean only one thing - Tsarist-era licenced murder and theft. If what she meant was "during Nazism" she should say that.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Not really bothered, but she she could have meant the pogroms at the and of the 19th/start of the 20th century. That was my first thought as Germany in the 1930s is not usually referred to in that way.

Quite.

Either way, not really interested in this one.

Neither am I, particularly, but if you put private history into the public sphere you could at least attempt accuracy, so that spods like me don't think "oooh, pogroms. She obviously means the late-Victorian period" (which is the era where the apocryphal tales of tickets to the USA that only took you as far as Tilbury/Liverpool/Newcastle etc also came from).

 

[Sue]

Quite.



Neither am I, particularly, but if you put private history into the public sphere you could at least attempt accuracy, so that spods like me don't think "oooh, pogroms. She obviously means the late-Victorian period" (which is the era where the apocryphal tales of tickets to the USA that only took you as far as Tilbury/Liverpool/Newcastle etc also came from).

We've one of these apocryphal tales in my family, though in that instance was Edinburgh rather than America. Still, at least the dates work out...

 

[ViolentPanda]

We've one of these apocryphal tales in my family, though in that instance was Edinburgh rather than America. Still, at least the dates work out...

Whenever I hear about Jews settling in Edinburgh and Glasgow, it's invariably accompanied by a story of how they were asked by the locals "But are you a Catholic Jew or a Protestant Jew?".

 

[kavenism]

Perhaps she’s bigging up her Jewish heritage in order to pave the way to claim that any criticism of her is just thinly veiled anti-Semitism. Wouldn't put it past her.

 

[killer b]

she's just retelling an entertaining story her dad told her over dinner ffs.

 

[TruXta]

Whenever I hear about Jews settling in Edinburgh and Glasgow, it's invariably accompanied by a story of how they were asked by the locals "But are you a Catholic Jew or a Protestant Jew?".

TF?

 

[lazyhack]

Perhaps she’s bigging up her Jewish heritage in order to pave the way to claim that any criticism of her is just thinly veiled anti-Semitism. Wouldn't put it past her.

Most likely.

Protestant/Catholic jews thing is an old joke - http://www.bethjacobnorwich.org/yksermon25770.htm

 

[Sue]

Whenever I hear about Jews settling in Edinburgh and Glasgow, it's invariably accompanied by a story of how they were asked by the locals "But are you a Catholic Jew or a Protestant Jew?".

Heh, they were from the South of Italy so Catholic Catholic... (Was more the emigration thing than the Jewish thing I was meaning in terms of aprocryphal tales...)

 

[Tokyo]

Her parent(s) and grandparent(s) would have to have had children in their 40s for her great-grandfather to have been old enough to buy a ticket, and for Ms. Penny to only be in her late 20s-early 30s. I'm nearly 50, and my great-grandmother was only 9 when she came over here (with an aunt and uncle) in the early 1900s. She had my nan in 1914, who had my mum in 1940, who had me in '62. Penny's maths don't quite work out.

It's not impossible. I was born in the late 1970s, my father in the early 1950s, his father in the early 1890s (yes, he was 60 when my father was born), and his father in the early 1850s. So I'm only ten years or so older than her, and my great-grandfather really did come over here during the pogroms. Pretty sure he knew he was heading for London, though.

 

[TremulousTetra]

We've one of these apocryphal tales in my family, though in that instance was Edinburgh rather than America. Still, at least the dates work out...

"spods " what are spods?

 

[Mr.Bishie]

what are spods?

 

[ViolentPanda]

"spods " what are spods?

People with a keen interest in a subject. You could be said to be a spod about the SWP (except spods tend to be neutral about their chosen subject).