Here’s why Owen Smith really shouldn’t kick up a fuss about bullying“I was a Labour Party activist who had no choice but to resign from the party after a very unpleasant encounter with Mr Smith. I am recounting it now because I believe it is very important that his views are robustly challenged if he stands for the Labour leadership.
On Saturday 7th March 2015 I attended a Labour meeting in Pontypridd at which the guest speaker was Owen Smith MP, then shadow secretary of state for Wales. When questions were invited from the floor, I asked Mr Smith why, given that the Work Capability Assessment (WCA) has been responsible for a great many more deaths than the Bedroom Tax, Labour had pledged to scrap the Bedroom Tax but had said nothing about pledging to scrap the WCA. Mr Smith replied that Labour could not pledge to scrap the WCA because this would make Labour appear weak on benefits in the eyes of the media and compromise Labour’s general-election chances.
I posted this on Facebook and a journalist took it up and posted the story online. Subsequently the journalist was threatened with legal action by Mr Smith if he did not take the story down. I was very intimidated by the prospect of defending myself in court, and I had no money for a legal defence. In addition my Labour colleagues were terribly keen to maintain good relations with Mr Smith and would probably have backed Mr Smith and not me if it came to a court case (one of them had even contacted the journalist and briefed against me). So I asked the journalist to pull the story and I deleted references to it on Facebook.”
Not a big deal, in a way it's good to have a summary handy of just how bad Owen was/is.My bad. I haven't had a chanceto catch up on all the threads.
Have we heard anything on the progress of hearings on expulsions? It's all gone quiet over there ...
So is alt-stalinist a thing now?
So is alt-stalinist a thing now?
If the AWL are able to take over an organisation, then the organisation is already fucked.
And so Labour slump to its lowest opinion poll lead since 2009 - New poll hands Tories 17 point lead as Labour suffer worst rating since 2009 | LabourList ... Time to go JC
Bring back Blair and storm to a huge election win for a real mandate to carry out more tory policies you reckon?
ooh ooh David Milliband! He's the one we really wanted.
or Dan Jarvis or Tristram Hunt. They look like decent chaps.
or Stella Creasy or Gloria Del Piero or Caroline Flint.
That way, I can rest assured that tory policies go through with a hint of Waitrose plonk and Guardian article to relax with while I put my feet up on the backs of he poor and tweet about aspiration.
[/moderate 2@]
Acolytes, cultists, worshippers, all of them Trots needing the purge of Tom Watson.
Fortunately we have Labour First, Labour Tomorrow and progress to take up the fight and lead us a victory in which it will be a Labour governement implementing austerity cuts, privatising the NHS by the back door and bombing another ME country.
Yay! More Parliamentary buffets for us!
party in more or less open warfare with itself polls badly shocka. It was always going to be though, from the minute corbyn was elected the right of the plp have been shown willing to damage electoral success in favour of undermining corbyn. And of course, the openly shit slinging coverage he and his associates have had since day 1. Momentum has its own problems obvs but if uou factor in all the restof it and the indyreff/berexit/wider events. I don't think its entirely fair to blame 'corbyn and acolytes' except perhaps for failing to capitalise on the upswell for the labour left. And being labour left in the first place obvs, but from a non member point of view it certainly looks like press hostility and hostility from the entrenched party right cannot be ignored as a factorCorbyn and his accolytes have been a disaster, and it looks like they are paving the way for a 400 seat Tory government in a 600 seat parliament with 50 of those seats held by the SNP. can we secure 15 years of Tory government unhindered by any kind of opposition? Jez, we can..
party in more or less open warfare with itself polls badly shocka. It was always going to be though, from the minute corbyn was elected the right of the plp have been shown willing to damage electoral success in favour of undermining corbyn. And of course, the openly shit slinging coverage he and his associates have had since day 1. Momentum has its own problems obvs but if uou factor in all the restof it and the indyreff/berexit/wider events. I don't think its entirely fair to blame 'corbyn and acolytes' except perhaps for failing to capitalise on the upswell for the labour left. And being labour left in the first place obvs, but from a non member point of view it certainly looks like press hostility and hostility from the entrenched party right cannot be ignored as a factor
party in more or less open warfare with itself polls badly shocka. It was always going to be though, from the minute corbyn was elected the right of the plp have been shown willing to damage electoral success in favour of undermining corbyn. And of course, the openly shit slinging coverage he and his associates have had since day 1. Momentum has its own problems obvs but if uou factor in all the restof it and the indyreff/berexit/wider events. I don't think its entirely fair to blame 'corbyn and acolytes' except perhaps for failing to capitalise on the upswell for the labour left. And being labour left in the first place obvs, but from a non member point of view it certainly looks like press hostility and hostility from the entrenched party right cannot be ignored as a factor
Really? I suspect there's a wee bit of truth in that, in that a few of the wet, centre leftists might have kept their mouths shut if he'd been doing better and Labour riding high in the polls. But as far as the whole set of Blairites and other ideological opponents of Corbyn they were never going to support him. Ever.Or is it that Corbyn just isnt very good? - if Corbyn was a competent leader who gave the party a clear sense of direction on the big issues of the day and reached out to gain the support of the wider British electorate all the Labour Party would be behind him