Rochester & Strood by-election

[killer b]

The good bit in that article..."In the aftermath of the 2008 crash, we truly could have seen the “social democratic moment” that Miliband’s been so keen on invoking. People wanted redistribution"..What I've said in previous posts. If Gord Brown had gone to the country with a left wing agenda just after the crash Labour would have been back in with a good majority I reckon. Probably missed political oppurtunity of the century so far.

Why would he have done that? There's been a lot of this on here recently, about how Ed Miliband should do this or that, Gordon Brown should have taken this opportunity, as if they're on your side, and it's only their tactics that are at fault. it's sweet that you (and many others here) still seem to think of Labour as your 'team', but you really shouldn't. 'cause they aren't.

Could you imagine how ridiculous it would sound if you said all Cameron needs to do is offer a broad socialist manifesto, renationalise the railways and utilities and start a programme of council house construction - he'd win with a landslide? That's pretty much how ridiculous it is to say similar about the Labour party. They aren't shy social democrats, with just not quite enough nerve to push ahead with their radical agenda, they're neo-liberal capitalists. They believe the same things as the tories do.

 

[taffboy gwyrdd]

http://saintnigepriory.wordpress.com/2014/11/26/cyber-debate-tips-for-the-peoples-army-2/

 

[killer b]

do you enjoy the abuse taffboy?

 

[butchersapron]

http://saintnigepriory.wordpress.com/2014/11/26/cyber-debate-tips-for-the-peoples-army-2/

Have you really done yet another not funny parody blog?

 

[gosub]

Don't think the line about "jingoism mansion" works, but this piece is a lot more sensible than most of the drivel spouted here and elsewhere on the Thornberry incident:
http://www.newstatesman.com/politic...house-not-act-class-warfare-whatever-sun-says

"That’s all Emily Thornberry did. Just shared a picture, with the fairly redundant comment “Image from #Rochester”" At some stage there needs to be a grown up conversation about what publishing something on social media means. I was really upset when my best mate died and the local paper obit was a mining of his face book page. People need to be more aware it can be equivalent to sending out a press release. Media need the conversation too, its lazy journalism, and if I want to know what's on twitter I can look at twitterfall I don't buy the papers for someone to read twitter for me.
Hopefully this conversation will happen soon, coz the current recipe of someone reads something in the media and comments on twitter, which leads to an article in the media, which gets commented on twitter...is driving me nuts. Its a feedback loop,and as with auditory ones it just gets shriller and shriller til its painful

 

[ska invita]

Image of #hand

 

[articul8]

Don't people just assume that Twitter is full of shite anyway?

 

[ska invita]

"That’s all Emily Thornberry did. Just shared a picture, with the fairly redundant comment “Image from #Rochester”" At some stage there needs to be a grown up conversation about what publishing something on social media means. I was really upset when my best mate died and the local paper obit was a mining of his face book page. People need to be more aware it can be equivalent to sending out a press release. Media need the conversation too, its lazy journalism, and if I want to know what's on twitter I can look at twitterfall I don't buy the papers for someone to read twitter for me.
Hopefully this conversation will happen soon, coz the current recipe of someone reads something in the media and comments on twitter, which leads to an article in the media, which gets commented on twitter...is driving me nuts. Its a feedback loop,and as with auditory ones it just gets shriller and shriller til its painful

i know where you're coming from but no Conversation is going to help when it comes to social media - only two options: dont engage in social media at all or keep humble on it. sorry to hear about the way journos mined those pictures - no conversation is going to teach hacks ethics though

 

[gosub]

i know where you're coming from but no Conversation is going to help when it comes to social media - only two options: dont engage in social media at all or keep humble on it. sorry to hear about the way journos mined those pictures - no conversation is going to teach hacks ethics though

Wasn't the pictures it was the text content, he didn't give a fuck about privacy settings. tbf to the journos, he was well known locally and nobody was giving interviews. But it was all sorts of wrong and condemned in speechs at the funeral.

 

[ska invita]

terrible behaviour...i guess theres a press complaints process, but whatever else that sounds painful for grieving friends and family
schools should teach about the privacy and the implications of posting online....maybe they already do?

 

[Anudder Oik]

Can anybody explain why in Spain the crisis and a discredited political class (now called the caste) has led to a massive shift towards the left, with street movements springing up, banks being occupied, evictions being opposed by mass pickets and the establishment beginning to tremble, whereas in Britain, the same economic conditions have led to a shift towards the right with people voting UKIP?

What is the difference between Spain and Britain? If anything the crisis has hit harder here (in Spain), yet the movements that unite people rather than divide are stronger and growing.

 

[Spanky Longhorn]

Guys a recent experiment has shown that putting taffboy and gosub on ignore means the thread actually makes sense, please do try it!

 

[J Ed]

Can anybody explain why in Spain the crisis and a discredited political class (now called the caste) has led to a massive shift towards the left, with street movements springing up, banks being occupied, evictions being opposed by mass pickets and the establishment beginning to tremble, whereas in Britain, the same economic conditions have led to a shift towards the right with people voting UKIP?

What is the difference between Spain and Britain? If anything the crisis has hit harder here (in Spain), yet the movements that unite people rather than divide are stronger and growing.

I don't know if I can 'explain' it but there are definitely a good number of factors at play in Spain which aren't in Britain. As terrible as things are here, they are much worse in Spain and worse for more people, at over 50% youth unemployment for years it's difficult even for the most ardent traditionalist not to place blame on the economic system. Spain also has a much bigger 20th Century history of leftist opposition to the status quo, almost all of the active opposition to the Franco regime was Marxist or some variation thereof. The Podemos Party has grown out of the indignado movement which was significantly more successful than both the US Occupy, though I'm beginning to think that we may have underestimated the legacy of the US Occupy, and certainly our own token effort at doing the same.

No small measure of Podemos' success can also be attributed to an astute use of media to promote their message. Podemos' media effort has been led by Juan Carlos Monedero who participated in the very effective use of media by the Chavez government in Venezuela. The stuff they put out on their programme La Tuerka is just good, it's genuinely entertaining and talks about politics using common sense and accessible language.

Also, and I may be being just completely off base and ageist here or whatever, but I think that maybe part of what allows Podemos to galvanise the support of youth where groups like Left Unity are not able to is the composition of the leadership. Monedero and Pablo Iglesias are both relatively young and are to an extent unblemished by association with the failures of the traditional Spanish left and trade unions, they are outflanking them to their left in both action and ways of imagining a future politics in Spain whereas you look at Left Unity and it just seems like the same people making the same mistakes again with the same ideas that they were promoting or continue to promote in their own respective sects.

 

[JHE]

Fascinating subject, the differences.

A few fragments of an answer:

I agree the media stuff Iglesias has done and others too (but especially Iglesias) has no equivalent in Britain. I don't agree with all of it (working for the Iranian Press TV is repellent) but it is impressive and has had an enormous impact.

The Indignados: Yes, 15M is crucial to understanding Podemos. Without the first, Podemos would not have been formed, let alone have attracted so much support.

Cultural difference: perhaps in Spain there is, among an important part of the population, a more civic democratic spirit than there is at the moment in Britain. It produces not only neighbourhood organisations of many sorts but also 15M. What a contrast in 2011! In Spain: enormous peaceful clean democratic co-operative debate-filled protest. In English cities: big riots and widespread looting.

Migration: A lot of UKIP's support is against high levels of immigration. In Spain, the migration most talked about at the moment is emigration of young and youngish Spaniards - esp highly qualified ones. That is not to say that immigration has not been or will not again be an issue (it will become an issue again, IMO), but at the moment it is not near the top of Spanish concerns, while in Britain I think it bothers a lot of people.

 

[ska invita]

re: left unity, its not as if the public is saying, oh look theres so and so - first of all theyve never heard of left unity and i doubt theyve heard of anyone in a leadership position either.

 

[articul8]

Thornberry spent some time on a council estate is a better way of putting it i think. She later bought up social housing which then she then let out privately as part of their (her and her husband Sir Christopher George Nugee - why doesn't she call herself Lady Nugee, that, after all, is what she actually is btw) buy to let property empire. Nice fucking comrades articul8. Nice fucking party.

She's not a Baroness, so she isn't Lady Thornberry. The allegation about profiting from buy-to-let is more serious to my mind than the twitter pic - or it would be if she opposed rent controls and building significant numbers of new council houses (which she might do, and if she does I agree profoundly).

 

[butchersapron]

She's not a Baroness, so she isn't Lady Thornberry. The allegation about profiting from buy-to-let is more serious to my mind than the twitter pic - or it would be if she opposed rent controls and building significant numbers of new council houses (which she might do, and if she does I agree profoundly).

Wrong - she is formally Lady Nugee but chooses for political reasons not to call herself that.

It's not an allegation - it's fact. So either it's not a problem (in which case wtf?) or it is a problem. (In which case what are you going to do about it? What does it say about your party and who you choose to support in this incident?)

Good darts there.

 

[articul8]

No I don't think so - a "lord justice" doesn't sit in the HoL and doesn't carry the title Lord.

Any Labour MP who refuses to back rent controls and expansion of council housing and at the same time profits from buying up and reletting social housing at private rents is a hypocrite and I'm happy to attack them on that basis. Not for a tweet which the Sun used as a pretext for generating faux-outrage.

 

[cesare]

She pissed off Guido Fawkes:
http://order-order.com/2014/11/24/lady-nugees-walled-garden/

 

[butchersapron]

No I don't think so - a "lord justice" doesn't sit in the HoL and doesn't carry the title Lord.

Any Labour MP who refuses to back rent controls and expansion of council housing and at the same time profits from buying up and reletting social housing at private rents is a hypocrite and I'm happy to attack them on that basis. Not for a tweet which the Sun used as a pretext for generating faux-outrage.

You may not think so, but you are wrong. She is formally Lady Nugee.

Right, if they don't back rent controls you think it's not ok if they buy up social housing as part of a buy to let empire because they're being hypocrites (how by the way?). if they do back them and then they buy up social housing as part of a buy to let empire then it's fine.

Instead of just condemning buying up social housing as part of a buy to let empire you've made yet another mess by attempting yet even more hack defences and spin. You really do not know that you're even doing it anymore.

What a shambles you are.

 

[Mr Moose]

Buy to let is terrible and should be an outright no for labour candidates and their spouses.

It's a bit like nationalism though, lots of people like it and at the moment Labour wishes to pretend it all fits in its big tent.

Is there a source for Your Honour's portfolio?

 

[cesare]

No I don't think so - a "lord justice" doesn't sit in the HoL and doesn't carry the title Lord.

Any Labour MP who refuses to back rent controls and expansion of council housing and at the same time profits from buying up and reletting social housing at private rents is a hypocrite and I'm happy to attack them on that basis. Not for a tweet which the Sun used as a pretext for generating faux-outrage.

He was knighted therefore she's Lady Nugee.

 

[butchersapron]

Buy to let is terrible and should be an outright no for labour candidates and their spouses.

It's a bit like nationalism though, lots of people like it and at the moment Labour wishes to pretend it all fits in its big tent.

Is there a source for Your Honour's portfolio?

Yes.

As to the rest of the post, i'm not that interested in labour's position - i'm interested in articul8 now both supporting this buy to let landlords snobbery and her buying up of social housing as long as she makes a formal but meaningless declaration of support for rent controls etc.

What have ye become articul8? What knots you tie yourself in in your attempt to play the master strategist above the rest of us thickos.

 

[Mr Moose]

She pissed off Guido Fawkes:
http://order-order.com/2014/11/24/lady-nugees-walled-garden/

Fucking hell. Street turned from workers homes to hell on fucking earth.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Don't think the line about "jingoism mansion" works, but this piece is a lot more sensible than most of the drivel spouted here and elsewhere on the Thornberry incident:
http://www.newstatesman.com/politic...house-not-act-class-warfare-whatever-sun-says

It's apologism, you sanctimonious knob-wart.

 

[butchersapron]

Fucking hell. Street turned from workers homes to hell on fucking earth.

Snob

 

[cesare]

Fucking hell. Street turned from workers homes to hell on fucking earth.

I don't suppose she ever thought of the enemies she might make.

 

[cesare]

Snob

She put up a huge fence, was a bit hellish I'd have thought

 

[ska invita]

It's apologism, you sanctimonious knob-wart.

its apologism of sorts but i think for a lot of people who have taken this line they really dont see what wrong about it - they think theres nothing to apologise for - they genuinely think the outrage is faux, a falsehood invented by the Sun:

a tweet which the Sun used as a pretext for generating faux-outrage.

She put up a huge fence, was a bit hellish I'd have thought

having that guido fawkes guy and lady nugee for neighbours does sound like hell

 

[ViolentPanda]

I know plenty of people raised on council estates who would sneer (like Thornberry) at a white van / flag of st george combo.

Yep. people on council estates, like people everywhere, evolve a variety of political/social outlooks. We're not some homogeneous mass of proletarians.

The argument being made in the article you linked to was that it was unlikely Thornberry was sneering, because she was raised on a council estate. The writer must not really know many people who were raised on council estates if she thinks this is true.

Given how completely journalism in general and "the bubble" in particular is dominated by middle-class graduates nowadays, the not knowing wouldn't actually surprise me.