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

[imposs1904]

I've no doubt it'll be a comedy great to listen to, if anyone can be arsed to record it!

Surely they should be inviting Claire Solomon to speak/debate . . . or is that too close to home?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Surely they should be inviting Claire Solomon to speak/debate . . . or is that too close to home?

Definitely a bit too much of a twist of the knife for them to stomach, given Solomon's relative "success" in the protest milieu, compared to the SWP.

 

[DotCommunist]

Will Callinicos speak with his natural accent or his worker's accent, though? That's the important question.

and be wearing the good fred perry.

 

[butchersapron]

and be wearing the good fred perry.

That's running boy, Martin Smith.

 

[Kaye]

Jesus, the SWP must be desperate if that's true.

From a conversation with Simon Hester, who might not have that much weight in the party any more.

 

[butchersapron]

Bit of sense.
Beans factories and creeping liberal elitism

The kids are freezing, but the solidarity is just amazing.

They could be at home, snug from the sub-zero temperatures, but here they are, stamping their feet for warmth, keeping the fires lit with whatever they can lay their hands on, together against injustice.

They’re here to win, and they’ll do what it takes.

This is not the end. This is just the beginning.

And where is all this dramatic solidarity taking place?

Not, on this occasion, against the backdrop of famous London scenery.

This time, it’s outside a beans factory on the drab outskirts of Wigan.

 

[Kaye]

Bit of sense.
Beans factories and creeping liberal elitism

I really like that article.

 

[Santino]

Glad I bought Branston's beans today.

 

[ernestolynch]

Beans.
Is this Laura Penny fit?
Any pics?

 

[Bakunin]

That's running boy, Martin Smith.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

lol.

 

[Bakunin]

I must admit that the first thought that comes to mind when looking at the rift between Penny and the SWP is 'A plague on both their houses.' Being a former member I have no time at all for the SWP leadership, past or present, while Penny strikes me as someone whose primary aim is her own self-promotion and possibly a move from being merely one of the myriad of internet bloggers into becoming a full-time media hack. Her approach does, after all, seem to be the long-established one of wannabe media types of relentlessly attacking the mainstream in the hope that they'll be considered ubiquitous enough and annoying enough to be (willingly) co-opted into the very system that they claim to so heartily despise. Give it another ten or fifteen years of that kind of approach and then they tend to conveniently forget that they were once one the outside of the tent pissing in and often then dismiss their earlier standpoints as being the result of some sense of naive, youthful rebellion or try and hide them away completely.

 

[Random]

They're made for each other as 'enemies'. Both make the other look good. Penny acts as a straw-version of anarchism for the SWP to attack and look all pro-working class, while the SWP acts as a straw-version of socialism for Penny to look all futuristic and new wave.

 

[Red Cat]

Jesus, the SWP must be desperate if that's true.

Well, this thread is currently at more than a hundred posts, so clearly there is some interest in this. I've never heard of her and don't give a flying fuck personally but if other people have and would be into a debate, why not? Marxism has always had speakers with a bit of a name, I don't see that inviting her is that different. Maybe it'd be entertaining. Whilst Callinicos is clearly very posh and a member of the SWP, he does have a sense of humour, as do some of the rest of the monolith membership.

 

[DotCommunist]

Beans.
Is this Laura Penny fit?
Any pics?

she has got a hitler haircut, which with your love of totalitarian dictators might stir some life in the nether regions. Can't decide if I would.

 

[ernestolynch]

she has got a hitler haircut, which with your love of totalitarian dictators might stir some life in the nether regions. Can't decide if I would.

She's a fucking minger.

 

[ernestolynch]

She's a fucking minger.

She has i-phone eyes LOL

 

[butchersapron]

Can we not have this stuff please? ffs.

 

[The39thStep]

Surely they should be inviting Claire Solomon to speak/debate . . . or is that too close to home?

another shouty type with too much time on her hands

 

[ernestolynch]

She doesn't merit a serious 'discussion'.

 

[ernestolynch]

another shouty type with too much time on her hands

 

[Captain Hurrah]

Lusty was briefly her 'friend' on facebook, lol.

 

[ernestolynch]

Lusty was briefly her 'friend' on facebook, lol.

And Tasmin's too if I remember right. And Clare Fox. He does like them posh ranters.

 

[Captain Hurrah]

Don't know why she de-friended him. Maybe she read the aphorisms wall.

 

[dynamicbaddog]

Lusty was briefly her 'friend' on facebook, lol.

I'm her friend on facebook and she follows me on twitter too,
she's O.K with me

 

[audiotech]

She's a fucking minger.

cretin

 

[DotCommunist]

You can't mention how she looks without having her sort of win on the points she raises about patriarchy in politics. She does have a crap haircut though- in mitigation, so do I.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Well this thread has taken a nice turn...

 

[ViolentPanda]

cretin

Ern's no oil painting himself, so he should bear in mind the old saw "judge not, lest ye be judged". I'm pretty sure Laurie Penny would take one look at him and say "he looks like a bulldog sucking piss off a thistle".

 

[DotCommunist]

Well this thread has taken a nice turn...

We must be as sour faced as all those SWP paper floggers