The Chairman Mao resembling, Monarchy hating, threat to Britain, Labour Party thread

[VillaChris]

Honestly this McConnell bloke is a total idiot, haven't Labour got any other economists in the trenches? 

[snowychap]

19 minutes ago, VillaChris said:

Honestly this McConnell bloke is a total idiot, haven't Labour got any other economists in the trenches? 

He no economist.

Meanwhile, Labour MP set to stand trial for alleged attack on woman at indyref polling station:

Quote

A LABOUR MP is to stand trial for allegedly attacking a woman at a polling station on the day of the independence referendum in Glasgow last year.

Marie Rimmer, 67, allegedly assaulted Patricia McLeish at the entrance to Shettleston Community Centre in the city's east end last year, on the day of the independence referendum.

The MP for St Helen's in Merseyside also faces a charge of behaving in a threatening or abusive manner on September 18, 2014 by repeatedly approaching volunteers and pointing in the face of Dennis Ashcroft.

She is alleged to have repeatedly approached Miss McLeish in an aggressive manner.

The case against Rimmer called at Glasgow Sheriff Court where she was not present but was represented.

A not guilty plea to the charges were tendered on her behalf and a trial was set for April next year.

 

[tonyh29]

1 hour ago, snowychap said:

A LABOUR MP is to stand trial for allegedly attacking a woman at a polling station on the day of the independence referendum in Glasgow last year.

Marie Rimmer, 67, allegedly assaulted Patricia McLeish at the entrance to Shettleston Community Centre in the city's east end last year, on the day of the independence referendum.

The MP for St Helen's in Merseyside also faces a charge of behaving in a threatening or abusive manner on September 18, 2014 by repeatedly approaching volunteers and pointing in the face of Dennis Ashcroft.

She is alleged to have repeatedly approached Miss McLeish in an aggressive manner.

The case against Rimmer called at Glasgow Sheriff Court where she was not present but was represented.

A not guilty plea to the charges were tendered on her behalf and a trial was set for April next year.

 

 

Did everyone get the Villa links  in this article ?

 

ok the Kinsella one may not have been obvious  

[HanoiVillan]

12 hours ago, Mantis said:

Shadow chancellor just quoted Mao - what a joke Corbyn's Labour are and how prophetic the thread title turned out to be

Even now nobody is rebelling anywhere near as often as Corbyn used to.

You do know that China, the China that the gov't are giving sweetheart deals for nuclear power stations to, are still run by the Chinese Communist Party right? Do you remember the leader of Mao's Communist Party arriving on a state visit? I admit it's ancient history, must be all of two months ago now. 

To put this in context, McDonnell quoted from the Little Red Book in an attempt to parody the gov't's sucking-up to the CCP. It was an act of political theatre. Obviously he misjudged the audience, and it's turned into an 'EdStone'-like disaster, but let's actually be honest, he wasn't quoting it because he's really a Maoist, it was just a misjudged joke. 

[Mantis]

26 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

You do know that China, the China that the gov't are giving sweetheart deals for nuclear power stations to, are still run by the Chinese Communist Party right? Do you remember the leader of Mao's Communist Party arriving on a state visit? I admit it's ancient history, must be all of two months ago now. 

To put this in context, McDonnell quoted from the Little Red Book in an attempt to parody the gov't's sucking-up to the CCP. It was an act of political theatre. Obviously he misjudged the audience, and it's turned into an 'EdStone'-like disaster, but let's actually be honest, he wasn't quoting it because he's really a Maoist, it was just a misjudged joke. 

And surely you know that the China now although still communist bears little resemblance to the China in Mao's day - that's been the case for decades. I'm no fan of the Chinese government but it'd be silly to pretend that Xi Jinping or Hu Jintao are somehow on par with one of history's biggest mass murderers.

Yes I get the angle he was going for - most people do. That said, it was still a monumental **** up and I'm not sure it's really that appropriate for a shadow chancellor to be quoting someone like Mao at the dispatch box. This is like Farage (who obviously isn't a Nazi despite being a prick) quoting Hitler.

Of course he isn't a Maoist and everyone knows that but Corbyn's front-bench team certainly aren't doing a good job of disproving the notion that they're just a bunch of far-left loonies that are disconnected with the majority of the electorate.

I honestly don't know how you can try and defend this - even many Labour supporters are going mad about this. Corbyn's Labour are such a complete mess that they look Miliband and Balls look amazing. I hate Labour and even I'm starting to feel sorry for a lot of them.

Edited November 26, 2015 by Mantis

[HanoiVillan]

14 minutes ago, Mantis said:

And surely you know that the China now although still communist bears little resemblance to the China in Mao's day - that's been the case for decades. I'm no fan of the Chinese government but it'd be silly to pretend that Xi Jinping or Hu Jintao are somehow on par with one of history's biggest mass murderers.

Yes I get the angle he was going for - most people do. That said, it was still a monumental **** up and I'm not sure it's really that appropriate for a shadow chancellor to be quoting someone like Mao at the dispatch box. This is like Farage (who obviously isn't a Nazi despite being a prick) quoting Hitler.

Of course he isn't a Maoist and everyone knows that but Corbyn's front-bench team certainly aren't doing a good job of disproving the notion that they're just a bunch of far-left loonies that are disconnected with the majority of the electorate.

I honestly don't know how you can try and defend this - even many Labour supporters are going mad about this. Corbyn's Labour are such a complete mess that they look Miliband and Balls look amazing. I hate Labour and even I'm starting to feel sorry for a lot of them.

I've spent plenty of my adult life living in China, I'm well aware of that, thanks. Of course China looks nothing like it did in the 60's, neither does Britain. The Chinese Communist Party does have an official view on Mao, though. Mao is still hugely important in China, and venerated constantly in official propaganda. Not a night goes by without CCTV broadcasting soft-focus documentaries on his life story. Deng Xiaoping stated in the eighties that Mao was '70% good, 30% bad' and that is still the line used by the party today. Here's party mouthpiece The Global Times editorialising on it two years ago:

 

'We must admit that Deng Xiaoping's remark about Mao's life that he was "70 percent right and 30 percent wrong" represents the mainstream ideas about Mao. As the Cultural Revolution faded, most Chinese people began to recognize his mistakes as well as his achievements. That Mao is a great man has a strong foundation in Chinese society. Some think Mao has had an infamous reputation in society. This is only a naïve delusion of these people.'
 

. . . 

'There is no historical or current evidence that is convincing enough to denigrate Mao. Voices that completely deny or support him are both highly polarized. Currently, the demonizing voices are mainly from the West, which also criticizes China's socialist system.'

 

The Communist Party is still the Communist Party, after all. 

--------------------------------------------------------

Why would Nigel Farage be quoting Hitler? If we're making a precise analogy, he would be quoting Hitler because another party was busy selling large parts of the nation's infrastructure to the Nazi Party. Do I think that would be worthy of comment? Yes, of course it would. 

 

 

The reality is the point McDonnell was making is completely mainstream. It's no difference from the point chrisp65 has made in this thread many times. If McDonnell said it using words, rather than using a book as a prop, nobody would be talking about this at all. The man actually is a fool, you just happen to have chosen a time to make fun of him when he's actually making (badly) a very important point. 

[Eames]

7 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

You do know that China, the China that the gov't are giving sweetheart deals for nuclear power stations to, are still run by the Chinese Communist Party right? Do you remember the leader of Mao's Communist Party arriving on a state visit? I admit it's ancient history, must be all of two months ago now. 

To put this in context, McDonnell quoted from the Little Red Book in an attempt to parody the gov't's sucking-up to the CCP. It was an act of political theatre. Obviously he misjudged the audience, and it's turned into an 'EdStone'-like disaster, but let's actually be honest, he wasn't quoting it because he's really a Maoist, it was just a misjudged joke. 

If your jokes require that level of explanation - then you've misjudged either your audience or how funny it was. 

Hardly surprising the easier "Commie quotes Mao in attempt to be funny" headlines have emerged instead. 

 

 

 

[HanoiVillan]

Nobody, least of all me, is denying that the joke backfired. 

[Dr_Pangloss]

It was a good joke. 

[Davkaus]

It showed a complete lack of awareness of public perception, on top of a startling degree of naivety regarding how the media would inevitably show it. 

Still, if last week's MI5 gaffe is anything to go by, McDonnell can just claim that he never quoted Mao in parliament, and he's never seen a copy of the little red book, despite any photographic evidence to the contrary.

Edited November 26, 2015 by Davkaus

[Wainy316]

Corbyn's front-bench team certainly aren't doing a good job of disproving the notion that they're just a bunch of far-left loonies that are disconnected with the majority of the electorate.

Yep wanting a fair society makes you loon. This has been implanted into people's heads over the last 30 years.

And they are far more connected with the electorate than the electorate are allowed to realise, thanks again to the media etc who have such heavy influence over large swathes of the electorate.

[Eames]

6 minutes ago, Wainy316 said:

Yep wanting a fair society makes you loon. This has been implanted into people's heads over the last 30 years.

And they are far more connected with the electorate than the electorate are allowed to realise, thanks again to the media etc who have such heavy influence over large swathes of the electorate.

I don't think wanting a fairer society makes you a "loon" - its a semantics argument about what "fair" actually is. 

 

Are they? They are connected with the proportion of the electorate who could be arsed to join the Labour Party to elect him as leader - I'm not sure you can argue anything beyond that given the ongoing incompetence and lack of political awareness on display since. 

[gordoncharles]

17 minutes ago, Wainy316 said:

 

And they are far more connected with the electorate than the electorate are allowed to realise, thanks again to the media etc who have such heavy influence over large swathes of the electorate.

Not this "it's all the media's fault" whine again?  Everyone is influenced by "the media" except of course the poster and his enlightened fellow travellers.

When the Guardian is making jokes like "They think it's all over - it is Mao" you know you're on the wrong side of public opinion.

Someone should point you in the direction of a Bell Curve.

[Mantis]

9 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

I've spent plenty of my adult life living in China, I'm well aware of that, thanks. Of course China looks nothing like it did in the 60's, neither does Britain. The Chinese Communist Party does have an official view on Mao, though. Mao is still hugely important in China, and venerated constantly in official propaganda. Not a night goes by without CCTV broadcasting soft-focus documentaries on his life story. Deng Xiaoping stated in the eighties that Mao was '70% good, 30% bad' and that is still the line used by the party today. Here's party mouthpiece The Global Times editorialising on it two years ago:

 

'We must admit that Deng Xiaoping's remark about Mao's life that he was "70 percent right and 30 percent wrong" represents the mainstream ideas about Mao. As the Cultural Revolution faded, most Chinese people began to recognize his mistakes as well as his achievements. That Mao is a great man has a strong foundation in Chinese society. Some think Mao has had an infamous reputation in society. This is only a naïve delusion of these people.'
 

. . . 

'There is no historical or current evidence that is convincing enough to denigrate Mao. Voices that completely deny or support him are both highly polarized. Currently, the demonizing voices are mainly from the West, which also criticizes China's socialist system.'

 

The Communist Party is still the Communist Party, after all. 

--------------------------------------------------------

Why would Nigel Farage be quoting Hitler? If we're making a precise analogy, he would be quoting Hitler because another party was busy selling large parts of the nation's infrastructure to the Nazi Party. Do I think that would be worthy of comment? Yes, of course it would. 

 

 

The reality is the point McDonnell was making is completely mainstream. It's no difference from the point chrisp65 has made in this thread many times. If McDonnell said it using words, rather than using a book as a prop, nobody would be talking about this at all. The man actually is a fool, you just happen to have chosen a time to make fun of him when he's actually making (badly) a very important point. 

You clearly recognise the differences between China under Mao and China now so what exactly was your point?

I don't know, but then again I didn't think McDonnell would be stupid enough to quote Mao either.

Of course the point was "mainstream" but there was no need to quote from one of history's biggest mass murderers - it totally ruined what was actually a very good point.

1 hour ago, Wainy316 said:

Yep wanting a fair society makes you loon. This has been implanted into people's heads over the last 30 years.

And they are far more connected with the electorate than the electorate are allowed to realise, thanks again to the media etc who have such heavy influence over large swathes of the electorate.

That isn't what I said, and even Corbyn supporters would say that he wants more than just a "fair society". What I said was that he and his team were perceived as far-left and if you're quoting Mao in the Commons that probably won't do much to alter that perception.

Ah yes, the old media conspiracy - heard it all before.

1 hour ago, gordoncharles said:

Not this "it's all the media's fault" whine again?  Everyone is influenced by "the media" except of course the poster and his enlightened fellow travellers.

When the Guardian is making jokes like "They think it's all over - it is Mao" you know you're on the wrong side of public opinion.

Someone should point you in the direction of a Bell Curve.

According to Corbynistas everything's a media "smear", even when his own words are quoted back at him. It really is quite ridiculous.

[blandy]

5 minutes ago, Mantis said:

According to Corbynistas everything's a media "smear", even when his own words are quoted back at him. It really is quite ridiculous.

I'm not sure that they say "everything" is, but you have a point. Equally, it is undeniable that a large part of the media (and establishment generally) is "strongly opposed" to him. In a way that's fine. The difficulty is that instead of commenting on, or critiquing what it is that he says which they think is wrong, or bad, they often don't do that. Instead they kind of join up some dog-whistling phrases, add in some utterly irrelevant characteristic, and add in a personal attack. 

You must have seen "stories" or headlines similar to this kind of thing "Dangerous Lefty Corbyn is haunted by the evil past of his grandfather" and then a (made up) story about how some ancient relative was evil. There was the stuff about him riding a communist bike, how he wants to abolish the army,  how he stole sandwiches from Army veterans, how he's a traitor for not bowing enough, or not singing the national anthem, or not kneeling for the Queen...

All papers will to a degree write or publish things which make people they don't like look worse or look bad. Whether it's pics of someone eating a bacon butty, or with a microphone that looks like a Hitler moustache, or that just makes them look weird or mad. But the extent to which most of the press and media have gone after Corbyn is higher than for others.

Also, he doesn't help himself by seemingly not making any effort to avoid some of the pitfalls. The Lao LRB thing yesterday  - you'd have thought that someone would have advised them to make their point rather differently. To steer away from waving the book around - I mean the title of this thread for example is evidence (albeit mockery of the press) that there's this false image being presented, and that they therefore shouldn't re-inforce that image. Gun - foot - fire!

 

 

[snowychap]

42 minutes ago, Mantis said:

According to Corbynistas everything's a media "smear", even when his own words are quoted back at him. It really is quite ridiculous.

Reading this might have one wondering about the source of the term 'Corbynista' (as with other similar terms) and its connotations when different groups use it.

[Mantis]

3 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Reading this might have one wondering about the source of the term 'Corbynista' (as with other similar terms) and its connotations when different groups use it.

...what?

[snowychap]

3 minutes ago, Mantis said:

...what?

Reading your post might set someone to wondering about the source of the term 'Corbynista' (as with other similar terms) and its connotations when different groups use it.

[Mantis]

3 minutes ago, snowychap said:

Reading your post might set someone to wondering about the source of the term 'Corbynista' (as with other similar terms) and its connotations when different groups use it.

Yes I read what you said the first time, I just have no idea what you're going on about or why anyone would care about the source of the term or the "connotations".

Edited November 26, 2015 by Mantis

[blandy]

Give over Mantis - it's a good point by snowy - The "Corbynista" tag is a media invented/coined one. They've taken Sandinista (socialist Nicaraguan freedom fighters/party) and Corbyn and conflated the two to give an easy term to apply to people to make them out to be also a bunch of kind of extreme socialist rebels. Instead of most of them being just people who don't agree with austerity - people not so different in most ways to many other voters or "ordinary hard working families"