Corbyn & Cabinet in the Media

[taffboy gwyrdd]

Media predicts a Labour crisis, then 91% back Corbyn - The Canary

 

[Brainaddict]

Not a bad summary of media on Corbyn in the LRB, and tailor-made for this thread, including an excellent attack on the guardian's coverage and how out of touch they looked. LRB · Paul Myerscough · Corbyn in the Media
A few other quotes (thought there was a blockquote button on here? seems to have gone):

The party members who voted for Corbyn hadn’t suddenly thrown their toys out of the pram just because Miliband lost. This is not a story of the last five years, but the last twenty, and their disillusionment with New Labour is about a great deal more than the Iraq War. For them, Miliband was not ‘too left-wing’; on the contrary, he was a final attempt at compromise. And when it failed, they realised they had had enough. It was too difficult to go on knocking on doors, summoning the necessary conviction, working towards the slim possibility of victory in the hope of implementing a platform of ever-weakening amelioration of the worst effects of neoliberalism. They looked at the candidates on offer, and saw that they had nothing left to lose.

And

Such moments of breakdown in the BBC’s editorial principles are a consequence not of the imposition of a producer’s or presenter’s personal views, but of the dislocation that Corbyn’s election has produced between the new state of party politics and the broadcaster’s entrenched conception of what constitutes impartiality. Because its notion of political balance between left and right is defined by the Labour and Conservative Parties, its spectrum of opinion has narrowed and its fulcrum drifted to the right in concert with New Labour. Corbyn has reopened the gap, but the BBC has not adjusted. So far as it is concerned, with his election the Labour leadership has put itself beyond the pale. Its norm remains a ‘balance’ between the Tories and the Labour right.

 

[J Ed]

So the latest post on the Jeremy Corbyn facebook page (I don't know if it has been uploaded anywhere else, if it has I can't find it) looks like the start of Corbyn's social media strategy with a video giving his summary of the week's events. He leads with his attack and victory over the pro-Saudi elements of the government on the prison contract, then talks about austerity for the poor and help for the rich.

The setting is interesting, it's just him in a room with a window facing a street. He has definitely gone with what DotCommunist mentioned upthread. Fireside chat aesthetics over Aló Presidente's marathon talkshow format.

 

[Brainaddict]

Makes sense he's doing it. As people on here have commented, he has no choice but to try to communicate with people directly, given the state of the media.

In case anyone is interested in my position btw, I haven't joined the LP and don't plan to, but I'm pretty interested in it becoming a (probably temporary) platform for the expression of clearly left wing politics - almost a forbidden topic in the media for years. I.e. whether or not the LP is using people (the new entrants) or people are using the LP is still in contention...

 

[DotCommunist]

keeping it down to two mins there.probably for the best if its just a quick internet heads up/round up, few digs in there- emphasising his constituency duties, well thats a swipe at his own parties right as much as hamhock. Never fucking out of the subsidised bar it sometimes seems

 

[DaveCinzano]

(thought there was a blockquote button on here? seems to have gone)

It's bundled together with Spoiler, Code and Strikethru in the Insert button that looks like a newspaper, twixt the Media and Drafts buttons.

 

[William of Walworth]

I'd consider use of 'mainstream media' or particularly 'MSM' as something of an amber light for conspiracy loonism. It definitely has a bit of that associated with it IMO.

I've been guilty of using those terms a while back myself

I completely avoid them now though, for exactly that reason.

 

[ska invita]

sunday times today
has-been writer mumbles something negative about corbyn - hold the front page!

 

[cantsin]

sunday times today
has-been writer mumbles something negative about corbyn - hold the front page!

fucking fuck

just..... annoying

 

[ska invita]

Stick Emily Benn on the list
Tony Benn’s granddaughter delivers blow to Corbyn by calling for policy chief to go

"Her dramatic intervention is a severe embarrassment to Corbyn, who was a close friend and political ally of the late Tony Benn. It reflects deep dismay across much of the party at the Labour leader’s choice of a hard-left and notoriously outspoken individual to fill such a key role in his inner circle."
Lol

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

Oh noes! Somebody related to someone says something. That'll teach Corbyn.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Martin Amis - plastic-toothed self-indulgent faux-aesthete dog-wanker, whose best writing is decades-old.

 

[ska invita]

Martin Amis - plastic-toothed self-indulgent faux-aesthete dog-wanker, whose best writing is decades-old.

Surely you mean national treasure, voice of the people, political bellweather, and the man whose opinion carries most weight in swinging elections?

 

[ViolentPanda]

Surely you mean national treasure, voice of the people, political bellweather, and the man whose opinion carries most weight in swinging elections?

If I'd meant Ken Dodd, I'd have mentioned him by name.

 

[youngian]

sunday times today
has-been writer mumbles something negative about corbyn - hold the front page!

In general, his intellectual CV gives an impression of slow-minded rigidity; and he seems essentially incurious about anything beyond his immediate sphere.”

Corbyn has a fair amount of hinterlands for a politician so I don't know how Amis reached that conclusion. Amis has always comes across a loathesome individual and out of his depth when discussing politics.

 

[DaveCinzano]

He's probably just feeling a bit cantankerous, because toothache.

 

[Hocus Eye.]

Corbyn has a fair amount of hinterlands for a politician so I don't know how Amis reached that conclusion. Amis has always comes across a loathesome individual and out of his depth when discussing politics.

Yup
Game set and match.

 

[DotCommunist]

Martin Amis - plastic-toothed self-indulgent faux-aesthete dog-wanker, whose best writing is decades-old.

and whos dad was right wing to a degree that borders on

 

[ViolentPanda]

Corbyn has a fair amount of hinterlands for a politician so I don't know how Amis reached that conclusion. Amis has always comes across a loathesome individual and out of his depth when discussing politics.

I wouldn't say that Amis is out of his depth. Once upon a time he was quite sharp on politics. His problem is that he's his father's son, including inheriting his dad's loathsome views on immigrants and immigration. Combine that with his Mick Jagger circa 1968 drawl, and his Oxbridgean self-belief and he comes across as a colossal twat.

 

[ViolentPanda]

He's probably just feeling a bit cantankerous, because toothache.

He spent a fortune having most of his teeth pulled out and replaced by implants because vanity. Maybe he's got gum syphilis.

 

[ViolentPanda]

and whos dad was right wing to a degree that borders on

The son isn't exactly UAF membership material, either.

 

[teqniq]

Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party is being perceived as 'increasingly incompetent'

John McDonnell leads calls for UK to cancel Egyptian president’s visit

 

[nino_savatte]

Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party is being perceived as 'increasingly incompetent'

John McDonnell leads calls for UK to cancel Egyptian president’s visit

That Independent poll is bullshit.

 

[killer b]

'down and outs'

 

[teqniq]

That Independent poll is bullshit.

I kinda suspected it might be, soon as I started reading it looked like another hatchet job

 

[Pickman's model]

Martin Amis - plastic-toothed self-indulgent faux-aesthete dog-wanker, whose best writing is decades-old.

the only thing i've read by amis jr was his book about stalin. i must say i felt rather warmer towards stalin afterwards as he'd clearly riled amis so much. haven't read anything by the father.

 

[ViolentPanda]

the only thing i've read by amis jr was his book about stalin. i must say i felt rather warmer towards stalin afterwards as he'd clearly riled amis so much. haven't read anything by the father.

"Lucky Jim" is dated but funny in that "let's laugh at the lower middle classes desperately trying to be upper middle class" kind of way, and "The Green Man" is a good spin on the "ghost story" genre. Apart from those two, everything else I've read by Amis Sr has been a bit "meh".

 

[ska invita]

Yesterday Two full pages in the Evening Standard, including the front page, attacking John MCDonnell, allowing Scotland Yard free reign to talk about their innocence in Blacklisting, making McDonnell the one at fault, and giving him no room for response...

Ex-terror cop: Corbyn ally smears have put me and my family in danger

 

[Wilf]

Corbyn adviser 'backed non-Labour candidates at least three times'
However much the press have been predictably cuntish, I think this does point to some of the contradictions of the Corbyn thing *. At one level, there's the contradictions of the social democratic project itself, whether it's still available as a politics or an economic project (however much it might be better than Newlab). That's the political issue. But in terms of this thread, it shows that Corbyn, McDonnell haven't really got a strategy in place. It was always going to be extremely difficult with the Blairites in open revolt from day 1. He hasn't really got a stable base with which to run the party. As a result he's just seemed beleaguered and responsive.

I haven't really been watching Labour on the ground, at the constituency level, but I don't get the sense that they are building new alliances, speaking to people directly, nudging labour towards becoming a social movement. As a sceptic, I didn't think they would be able to do that anyway, but he did have a chance to do something on the back of the leadership campaign. If it is ever to succeed he needs to put something different in place, some combination of parliamentary politics and active local coalitions. That might have meant not dancing to the media's tune for a while, getting out there and carrying on with the big public meetings. Trouble is, when it comes down to it, his instincts - as a social democrat - do still seem trapped in the structures of the party and parliament.

* Essentially, he should have told the press to grown up and fuck off over this adviser stuff.

 

[Pickman's model]

Corbyn adviser 'backed non-Labour candidates at least three times'
However much the press have been predictably cuntish, I think this does point to some of the contradictions of the Corbyn thing *. At one level, there's the contradictions of the social democratic project itself, whether it's still available as a politics or an economic project (however much it might be better than Newlab). That's the political issue. But in terms of this thread, it shows that Corbyn, McDonnell haven't really got a strategy in place. It was always going to be extremely difficult with the Blairites in open revolt from day 1. He hasn't really got a stable base with which to run the party. As a result he's just seemed beleaguered and responsive.

I haven't really been watching Labour on the ground, at the constituency level, but I don't get the sense that they are building new alliances, speaking to people directly, nudging labour towards becoming a social movement. As a sceptic, I didn't think they would be able to do that anyway, but he did have a chance to do something on the back of the leadership campaign. If it is ever to succeed he needs to put something different in place, some combination of parliamentary politics and active local coalitions. That might have meant not dancing to the media's tune for a while, getting out there and carrying on with the big public meetings. Trouble is, when it comes down to it, his instincts - as a social democrat - do still seem trapped in the structures of the party and parliament.

* Essentially, he should have told the press to grown up and fuck off over this adviser stuff.

tbh i don't think corbyn expected to win and is therefore doing things very much on the hoof. so there is no strategy.