PTK
Paul Kegan
George Galloway is no socialist. He said "… state ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, in which I believed, and for which I campaigned, was a false God." The Guardian, 29 April 2012.
Rochdale by-election
- Thread starter PR1Berske
- Start date
Monkeygrinder's Organ
Dodgy geezer swilling vapid lager
Galloway is just a pure chancer these days isn't he (you can debate how much that's always been true). He'd be a socialist if it suited him.
steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
Fwiw the odds against Galloway are shortening
Given that Labour seem to be doing everything humanly possible to help Galloway it's no surprise.
steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
Labour never learn from their own disastrous centralised-control freakery history: Ken Livingstone, Rhodri Morgan...the list goes on
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
Starmer thought he could surf the wave created by the alliance of the Labour right and Jewish critics of the left. And here they are, supporting genocide and doing their best to lose an absurdly safe seat. With calls for a ceasefire and criticism of Israel, the result would have added to pressure on ratboy and also terrified every tory in a red wall seat (Rochdale not actually red wall, but the point stands).
I suspect Starmer still justifies this in his head, thinking 'not being Corbyn' is the key issue. He's wrong, nobody is even thinking about Corbyn, but his strategy also means abandoning the popular policies of the Corbyn era. The Tories own binfire may still make him PM, but I'm struggling to see a working majority, whatever the current polls say. He'll be destroyed in the campaign.
I suspect Starmer still justifies this in his head, thinking 'not being Corbyn' is the key issue. He's wrong, nobody is even thinking about Corbyn, but his strategy also means abandoning the popular policies of the Corbyn era. The Tories own binfire may still make him PM, but I'm struggling to see a working majority, whatever the current polls say. He'll be destroyed in the campaign.
steeplejack
trapped lbw for a duck
The core of this is that it is simply neither possible nor desirable to re-impose Blair / Mandelson type central messaging and discipline in 2024.
That tactic came in the era of pagers, when emails and the internet were relatively new, and there was no social media. It was at the fag end of the time when state broadcasters and the printmedia constituted an oligopoly on the news agenda. It simply doesn't work now.
Political parties are a coalition of broad interests and there will be much disagreement on the issues f the day within parties, let alone beyond them. Leaderships should be relaxed about such disagreements provided they are done respectfully and as long as the canddiate and his team aren't obvious loons or advocating against a broad party line. The bigger outliers can easily be shrugged off as the Tories do with Lee Anderthal's mad shit on crime and immigration.
Voters want politicians who know their own mind, have a bit of character about them, and recognise that they serve their electorate first and leadership second. Unfortunately that notion of service has long been inverted, with the electorate seen as a once every few years impediment to the making of a career and money, and the leadership being kow-towed to if you want any sort of career.
There's a real tear in the democratic fabric; leaderships who approach real or imagined problems through moronic slogans, absurd simplistic solutions (which often aren't any kind of solution to anything) and ruthless central messaging in an era where most of the voters are capable of recognising complexity and nuance, and recognise there is no easy answer to a profound systemic polycrisis. The more politicians try to impose their version of reality on the reality the rest of us live in, the more absurd and not worth bothering with they look.
Once again great news for the likes of Galloway and the comedy local fascist who's standing.
That tactic came in the era of pagers, when emails and the internet were relatively new, and there was no social media. It was at the fag end of the time when state broadcasters and the printmedia constituted an oligopoly on the news agenda. It simply doesn't work now.
Political parties are a coalition of broad interests and there will be much disagreement on the issues f the day within parties, let alone beyond them. Leaderships should be relaxed about such disagreements provided they are done respectfully and as long as the canddiate and his team aren't obvious loons or advocating against a broad party line. The bigger outliers can easily be shrugged off as the Tories do with Lee Anderthal's mad shit on crime and immigration.
Voters want politicians who know their own mind, have a bit of character about them, and recognise that they serve their electorate first and leadership second. Unfortunately that notion of service has long been inverted, with the electorate seen as a once every few years impediment to the making of a career and money, and the leadership being kow-towed to if you want any sort of career.
There's a real tear in the democratic fabric; leaderships who approach real or imagined problems through moronic slogans, absurd simplistic solutions (which often aren't any kind of solution to anything) and ruthless central messaging in an era where most of the voters are capable of recognising complexity and nuance, and recognise there is no easy answer to a profound systemic polycrisis. The more politicians try to impose their version of reality on the reality the rest of us live in, the more absurd and not worth bothering with they look.
Once again great news for the likes of Galloway and the comedy local fascist who's standing.
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
Incidentally, the Guardian are running this as their main headline
Unless I've missed something, the offending words wereLabour’s Rochdale byelection campaign engulfed in antisemitism row – UK politics live
Labour’s Rochdale byelection campaign engulfed in antisemitism row – UK politics live
Candidate Azhar Ali issues apology after comments emerge in which he suggested Israel allowed Hamas attack to happenwww.theguardian.com
Whether he's right or wrong, that's a classic case of conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism.
littlebabyjesus
one of Maxwell's demons
I don't want Starmer to have a working majority. There are no good outcomes in the next election, but least bad might be Labour as biggest party in a hung parliament, cobbling together a coalition that has to include the SNP. I don't wan the tories back in, but I don't want a strong Starmer either. (In a fantasy world, Starmer is unseated by a pro-Palestinian candidate, Labour have to choose a new leader sharpish to try to form a govt. But that is just fantasy - Starmer might get a bloody nose and a reduced majority but he'll win his seat.
Maybe by a fluke of arithmetic, he has to court the support of the new independent MP for Islington North, a certain J Corbyn.)
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
Yes to all of that, I'm just thinking about the stupidity of Labour/Starmer's approach. With 30% leads at the time of the lettuce leader, Labour could have won with just about any platform, from Corbynite social democracy through to Blair like neo liberalism + a few sly promises and sound bites (not, obviously, something I'd want). It's just that Starmer is putting together something that might actually fail to get a working majority, which would be astonishing. I do see the 15-20% poll leads, but I just have the impression those are the 'softest 15-20% poll leads' on record. It's pretty much more of the same vindictive neo-liberalism without any kind of leavening or grounds for optimism.I don't want Starmer to have a working majority. There are no good outcomes in the next election, but least bad might be Labour as biggest party in a hung parliament, cobbling together a coalition that has to include the SNP. I don't wan the tories back in, but I don't want a strong Starmer either. (In a fantasy world, Starmer is unseated by a pro-Palestinian candidate, Labour have to choose a new leader sharpish to try to form a govt. But that is just fantasy - Starmer might get a bloody nose and a reduced majority but he'll win his seat.
Probably for another thread, but where this will take Labour is the longer term issue. The Party are pretty much the frog in the now boiling pan of water. Will some awful defeat in 2028 or so get the unions and the remnants of the left to launch something? My guess is not and the FPTP system will leave them pretty much unchallenged as the 'centre left' (lol) party in the British system. But Rochdale is a perfect example of how it all falls apart on the ground.
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Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
Conspiracy theories are at the heart of anti semitism. Even if you disagree, Ali’s comments are grotesquely offensive. Had Corbyn made them there would have been a hysterical reaction from Starmer and his centrist pals.
Kate Osamor and Andy McDonald have had the whip withdrawn for comments that are clearly not anti-semitic. But for Ali an apology suffices.
You could be forgiven for concluding that Starmer’s endless claim that he’s ’rooted out anti-semitism’ is merely code for rooting those out with different politics: which of course is what Corbyn has had the whip withdrawn for suggesting
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
The thing is, I don't believe the US brought down the twin towers or somehow allowed the attack to happen. Largely because conspiracy theories require too many things to happen and for there to be perfect secrecy amongst those involved. I also very much doubt the Israel's allowed anything to happen for exactly the same reason and yes, they are grossly offensive to bereaved families in Israel. The problem is, as with Labour's response to the candidate and with the Guardian calling his comments 'ant-semitic', it takes things into other territory entirely. Ali might have fucked up and said something stupid, at a time when thousands of Muslims were being slaughtered, but that gets lost in the master narrative of antisemitism.
agricola
a genuine importer of owls
Has he actually said he is a Muslim yet, or does he still just imply that he is?
PTK
Paul Kegan
It was said in an article about Galloway in, I think, the New Statesman, about ten years ago, that he had converted to Islam. He denied it and threatened to sue, but he never did sue.
agricola
a genuine importer of owls
TBF calling what he said a conspiracy theory is as much of a label as calling what he said anti-semitic is.
People who are anti-semitic do make use of conspiracy theories all the time, but whether what he said fulfils the criteria of either of those labels is not clear to me (though I've not seen the whole speech, just what was reported here).
That said I wouldn't have been anywhere near as definite as he was in saying that was what happened, but there is quite a bit of reporting (the warnings from Egypt and from the IDF troops on the border, the siting of the Nova festival where it was in spite of local security objections, the movement of troops from there to the West Bank, the scope of Israeli intelligence within Gaza and the character of the Israeli leadership and its provocations prior to October 7th) that do raise a lot of concerning and depressing questions.
tim
EXPLODED TIM! (Help me!!!)
Racist cunt backs racist cunt. What's that got to do with horseshoes?
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
The question of whether his reported comments are anti-semitic or not is debatable in my view (as I've indicated above).
As you note, it depends on your interpretation of the claim that Ali made that "they deliberately took the securty off, they allowed the massacre". That's probematic (to put it mildly) for two reasons 1. Because whilst there is some evidence of security failings, there's none whatsoever that it was a 'deliberate' act or an inside job and b) suggestions that bad things that happen to jews are largely of their own making/their own fault are normally dodgy as fuck.
A broader question is why Ali felt the need to go there in the first place. He either believes it - in which case his judgement is dubious - or he felt that he needed to say it -presumably to create a favourable impression among Labour members in Rochdale - which raises other questions.
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The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
But it's that kind of logic that creates a track where criticism of Israel becomes antisemitism. I'm not accusing you of hardening that linkage, but we need a space where claims - almost certainly wrong in this case - can be assessed on their own merits (rather than as almost inherently antisemitic).
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
I think that's right. I heard a R5 phone-in to put questions to the BBC's very own Jeremy Bowen this morning in which he suggested that many people believe that Netanyahu is deliberately prolonging the war in order to stave off the inevitable election loss, conclusion of the corruption court case and his likely imprisonment. Now, if another another Jeremy had made such a suggestion...
The facts are that Hamas was warming up for for literally years, with full on military training and bombing, within eyesight of IDF patrol towers on the border, even to the extent of practising their armed paragliding within plain sight. And the lauded Israeli intellegence services had days of warnings from Egypt. And yet were somehow 'taken by surprise'. I wouldn't be apologising if I was this guy. You don't need be a genius to figure out who benefitted more from October 7. I believe the current score is 30,000 - 1,300. And tonight will go up even further.
Wilf
Slouching towards Billingham
I don't think I'd be breaking new intellectual ground to say there's now a well established trap where criticism of Israel is blunted amid accusations of antisemitism. The difference is, Starmer has deliberately ramned the Labour Party into the jaws of that trap. I'm now even contemplating they might lose Rochdale over this, even though scraping home is more likely. Gets really sticky if they find anything else the candidate has said about Palestine.
kenny g
Sheeple Awake!
How prescient. He has now lost the support of the Labour party due to additional comments made.
The voters of Rochdale really have a shitty choice now. Green and labour candidates without support of their parties, a former MP who has a dubious history, and Mr Galloway.
Monkeygrinder's Organ
Dodgy geezer swilling vapid lager
Hahaha that is some fucking fearsome competence right there isn't it. Booted out ex-Labour loon vs, er, George Galloway. What a contest.
lazythursday
Averagely-Known Member
Don't forget you could also vote for Simon Danczuk! What a line up
kebabking
Not a Girly Swot, but I like them....
Labour have ditched him.
As nominations have already closed, Labour don't have a candidate in this by-election.
Not a huge loss imv - they've lost Rochdale (which they didn't hold anyway), but mitigated an issue that might have impacted their efforts in far more seats.
Absolutely shit candidate selection though, absolutely shit. Almost excusable in a GE when you've got to trawl through the twitter feed of thousands of potentials, often with little time to do it, but this is just one by-election.
As nominations have already closed, Labour don't have a candidate in this by-election.
Not a huge loss imv - they've lost Rochdale (which they didn't hold anyway), but mitigated an issue that might have impacted their efforts in far more seats.
Absolutely shit candidate selection though, absolutely shit. Almost excusable in a GE when you've got to trawl through the twitter feed of thousands of potentials, often with little time to do it, but this is just one by-election.
marty21
One on one? You're crazy.
What a fucking shambles ! I'm not sure the now ex-labour candidate can win as an independent (although he is still the Labour candidate on the ballot) so the Tory votes will go to reform but a fair percentage of them will think wtf , vote for an ex-labour MP who sexted teenagers? So will either not vote or go Lib Dem . Odds on a Lib Dem win must have shortened.
lazythursday
Averagely-Known Member
Puzzled - they did hold Rochdale.
times like this you could wish the system was set up to allow the returning officer to declare "game's a bogie" and start over.
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