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

[el-ahrairah]

Something that stuck out for me in that article was he thought people in the audience of question time are "non-politicos". Maybe they're not quite from the westminster village but it's telling about how small his world is that he thinks non-politicos would apply for tickets to be in the question time audience.

actually that's a really good point. by the standards of the man on the clapham omnibus, being in the audience of Question Time is pretty much as political as it is possible to be, but by the standards of the commentariat they're outside of the whole thing. the commentariat identify more with the political classes than with the people - and why indeed shouldn't they. journalists, writers, they all went to the same schools and universities and have the same lifestyles and outlooks and indeed are pretty interchangeable. and think we're a different fucking species to be ruled over or dictated to through columns, spoken on behalf of but never asked for our opinions.

 

[butchersapron]

Something that stuck out for me in that article was he thought people in the audience of question time are "non-politicos". Maybe they're not quite from the westminster village but it's telling about how small his world is that he thinks non-politicos would apply for tickets to be in the question time audience.

They're supposed to allocate on the basis of this questionaire - in reality they dish tickets out to the parties. When i was in labour i was in branch 30 miles outside of the big bristol branches which had hundreds of members, yet when QT was in bristol we still got around 20 tickets. God knows how many the bristol branches got.

 

[killer b]

They're supposed to allocate on the basis of this questionaire - in reality they dish tickets out to the parties. When i was in labour i was in branch 30 miles outside of the big bristol branches which had hundreds of members, yet when QT was in bristol we still got around 20 tickets. God knows how many the bristol branches got.

tomb-five-hundred-thousand-soldiers?

 

[butchersapron]

Oops, pasted wrong text in link. Fixed now.

 

[killer b]

sounds like an interesting book fwiw

 

[butchersapron]

sounds like an interesting book fwiw

It's fantastic - there's a rubbish pdf of it here.

 

[killer b]

nice one, cheers.

 

[goldenecitrone]

When i was in labour

Never realised. Was it a boy or a girl?

 

[ViolentPanda]

and has anyone researched if it would cause mass gnashing of teeth, wailing and beating of breast if that did happen?

Daft thing is, even a div like Hundal could work out, with a few days of simple research that only landlords in areas with flat demand for private sector housing will suffer, the rest will simply shift from taking non-working HB claimants (including "engineering" their existing HB tenants out of their homes by giving them notice to quit) to further up the benefits "food chain". Yet again the poor take a portion up the khyber, and all Sunny cares about is the landlord class. HIS class.

As for causing wailing, gnashing of teeth, beating of breast, one can only hope it causes worse trauma to the minority that will be affected.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Crisis over, she simply didn't get the article right away.

The brightest girl at a bright school didn't get it?
Fuck, I wasn't the brightest boy in my class, let alone my entire school, but I got it straight away, when I read it!
I'm now labouring under the less-than-vague suspicion that La Pennionara didn't actually read the article at all until after having a pop at Jones.

 

[ViolentPanda]

She only read the headline, not the whole article. Last time she took a quick glance at something, she assumed the IWCA was fash.

You'd think she'd learn her lesson, but these middle-class types never do. No humility.

 

[ViolentPanda]

it was either tea with Lawrie or lunch with Ellie-May

A nice shish for lunch with kebab bum finger.

 

[Random]

I've had a revelation and realised what she's doing. Penny Red is a gonzo political journalist, in the same way that Hunter Thompson was a gonzo sports journalist.

 

[Idris2002]

I've had a revelation and realised what she's doing. Penny Red is a gonzo political journalist, in the same way that Hunter Thompson was a gonzo sports journalist.

Put the crack pipe down, Random.

 

[Libertad]

Penny Red is a gonzo political journalist,

She would be if she was Italian.

 

[DotCommunist]

I've had a revelation and realised what she's doing. Penny Red is a gonzo political journalist, in the same way that Hunter Thompson was a gonzo sports journalist.

There is a whiff of the Steadman about Crabapples scrawls as well...

 

[Idris2002]

There is a whiff of the Steadman about Crabapples scrawls as well...

In her fucking dreams is there a whiff of Steadman about her scrawls.

 

[Fruitloop]

There really is, isn't there.

Or at least, there wants to be.

 

[killer b]

I've had a revelation and realised what she's doing. Penny Red is a gonzo political journalist, in the same way that Hunter Thompson was a gonzo sports journalist.

that's specifically what she claimed wrt that greece book she did with crabbaple wasn't it?

 

[phildwyer]

Fuck, I wasn't the brightest boy in my class, let alone my entire school

You weren't even the brightest boy in your Y-fronts.

 

[ViolentPanda]

You weren't even the brightest boy in your Y-fronts.

Fuck off, dwyer.

 

[Random]

Put the crack pipe down, Random.

I'm serious. Read HPT's account of how he's stuck in a hotel room, sweating, too high to get out and actually cover the football game. He wastes the whole day and night then, minutes before his deadline he realises the way out, and simply copies his report of last year's match, replacing only the names of the team. If twitter had existed he'd have crowdsourced his material instead.

 

[butchersapron]

I'm serious. Read HPT's account of how he's stuck in a hotel room, sweating, too high to get out and actually cover the football game. He wastes the whole day and night then, minutes before his deadline he realises the way out, and simply copies his report of last year's match, replacing only the names of the team. If twitter had existed he'd have crowdsourced his material instead.

He did that because he was great and his previous piece was probably good enough for two years anyway - she does it because she is an intellectually lazy dullard whose been told she's clever her whole life.

 

[Random]

that's specifically what she claimed wrt that greece book she did with crabbaple wasn't it?

Yes, and at the time I thought she was just using a rather odd and badly fitting analogy with HPT and Stedman's work, in order to sex up the project. Now I realise it all makes sense when you realise that Fear and Loathing is actually the story of an attempt to cover a motorbike race, and HPT and Stedman were ostensibly trying to cover the Kentucky Derby. I have no doubt that Penny and Molly covered the Greek working class movement with the same degree of accuracy and professionalism as Hunter and Ralph covered that horse race.

 

[killer b]

if she did it with such a prodigious intake of drugs, i'll tip my hat to her. a couple of ouzos in a sidestreet bar is falling well short of her heroes though.

 

[DotCommunist]

also doing gonzo for Rolling Stone is pretty cool. For the staggers. not so much

 

[Greebo]

You weren't even the brightest boy in your Y-fronts.

You claim to have got into them? If so, I doubt you were the brighter one.

 

[gosub]

also doing gonzo for Rolling Stone is pretty cool. For the staggers. not so much

no, what made it cool was it was original

 

[el-ahrairah]

exactly. it was a great idea, the first time. every other time it is a shit self-indulgent nonsense.

 

[Firky]

Evan Wright's articles in the Rolling Stone were good - they led to the TV series Generation Kill.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4123158