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

[snowychap]

5 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

I should really get out more.

We're in a bolitics thread. We should all do that.

Edited July 18, 2019 by snowychap

[peterms]

There's some interesting censorship happening at the moment.

First we had a letter to the Guardian from many Jewish people, supporting Corbyn on the antisemitism issue.  It was published briefly, then removed following an approach from the Board of Deputies.

Then we had the decision not to publish Steve Bell's recent cartoons, sending up Watson and others in relation to the AS issue and their recent comments.

Now we have the New Satesman removing a blog by Simon Wren-Lewis for reasons which have not afaik been made public.

Quote

I anticipated that my last post would not be popular in many circles. I want to respond to some of the common themes from the responses in this post, but there was one reaction I was not expecting. First some background. Since the beginning of the year I have had an arrangement with the online edition of the New Statesman (NS) that my Tuesday post should be simultaneously published on my blog and in the NS. The arrangement was working well.

My last post was published by the New Statesman as usual. And then sometime later it was unpublished. The line my post took was not one the NS wanted to carry. I do not know the details of what happened but I can guess. The post was hardly extolling the virtues of Corbyn as Labour leader, but it suggested any attempt to get rid of him was both futile and would increase the chances of Johnson winning the next election. I don’t think that message was welcome.

Of course any publication has a right to chose what it publishes, and I have no quarrel with that. What was unfortunate was the implicit confirmation of the main concern in the post, which was that the non-partisan and even left leaning media with the support of the Labour centre really believes they can depose Corbyn using the issue of antisemitism. I gave in the post the reasons why I think Corbyn is unlikely to depart as a result of this pressure and any challenge is unlikely to succeed, and none of the responses to my post questioned this logic...

 

[tonyh29]

You sure it was Corbyn ? The guardian had letters of support from many Jewish people regarding Chris Williamson that were removed following an approach from the BofD , haven’t seen anything pertaining to Corbyn on this 

the complaint was that the guardian reported them as Prominent members of the Jewish community , which they weren’t and many of the supporters had already been expelled /suspended from the Labour Party for anti semitism ... and some of them simply didn’t exist 

So as conspiracy’s go , it’s possible there isn’t one ? 

[blandy]

5 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

some of them simply didn’t exist

To be fair, they used to exist, they were just dead.

[peterms]

1 hour ago, tonyh29 said:

You sure it was Corbyn ? The guardian had letters of support from many Jewish people regarding Chris Williamson that were removed following an approach from the BofD , haven’t seen anything pertaining to Corbyn on this 

the complaint was that the guardian reported them as Prominent members of the Jewish community , which they weren’t and many of the supporters had already been expelled /suspended from the Labour Party for anti semitism ... and some of them simply didn’t exist 

So as conspiracy’s go , it’s possible there isn’t one ? 

The letter majored on Williamson and also referred to the Labour leadership and the issue more broadly.

The signatories included one non-Jew, apparently removed from the list and added back in error, and a couple who appended the names of organisations they are members of but don't represent.  The process for checking signatories looks sloppy.

A better way of dealing with it, especially since it was removed pending investigation, would have been to reinstate the letter once the linked list had been corrected.  But of course the BoD's problem was about such a letter being published at all, and it seems the Guardian have gone along with that.

[HanoiVillan]

14 hours ago, peterms said:

There's some interesting censorship happening at the moment.

First we had a letter to the Guardian from many Jewish people, supporting Corbyn on the antisemitism issue.  It was published briefly, then removed following an approach from the Board of Deputies.

Then we had the decision not to publish Steve Bell's recent cartoons, sending up Watson and others in relation to the AS issue and their recent comments.

Now we have the New Satesman removing a blog by Simon Wren-Lewis for reasons which have not afaik been made public.

 

Another one to add to your growing list here . . . 

Gloria De Piero resigns, citing party's 'lack of tolerance', but for what?:

'The former GMTV presenter said: "This party is about a set of values not any individual and we would all do well to remember that.

“And while I’m at it, and it doesn’t happen in Ashfield, but when I hear people being called right wing in the Labour Party I find it utterly offensive. We are all left-wingers in this Party – that is why we joined the Labour Party.”

The former justice minister also spoke about the criticism she had received on social media for not supporting a second Brexit referendum. 

She said: “People in this local party have respected my position over respecting the referendum result – in fact Ashfield delegates voted against a second referendum at last year’s conference.

“It’s a democracy we live in after all, but the abuse I’ve had on social media from some who want to overturn the referendum has been pretty grim – so to all those who have said that I only hold the position I do because I want to hold my seat, I’m afraid it’s much worse than that – I actually believe it and I’ll keep fighting for a Brexit with the closest possible trading ties with the EU.”'

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/labour-party/news/105426/shadow-justice-minister-gloria-de-piero-quits

The PoliticsHome article, full of actual quotes, reveals that the main reason she has resigned is due to feeling frozen out for not supporting a second referendum. So how do the Guardian report it?

Impossible to believe it's not intentional. They know full well what they're doing. 

[bickster]

4 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Gloria De Piero resigns

I had to Mooney

3 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

I actually believe it and I’ll keep fighting for a Brexit with the closest possible trading ties with the EU.”'

She believes in fairy stories

[blandy]

3 hours ago, peterms said:

The process for checking signatories looks sloppy.

Hold on a minute, it’s more than that, surely. I mean if you were going to write a letter from the VT off topic section ,or members of... you would ask people if they were willing to be co-signatories, you wouldn’t add a bunch of names, some of whom were dead, or not members of, or etc.  It’s false representation, not sloppy process. 

[peterms]

5 minutes ago, blandy said:

Hold on a minute, it’s more than that, surely. I mean if you were going to write a letter from the VT off topic section ,or members of... you would ask people if they were willing to be co-signatories, you wouldn’t add a bunch of names, some of whom were dead, or not members of, or etc.  It’s false representation, not sloppy process. 

The account I saw was that they circulated the draft letter (don't know where), invited people to be co-signatories, then approached those who replied to confirm they were actually Jewish, removing those who weren't or who didn't respond.

A better process would have been to approach individually people they actually wanted to be signatories.

I haven't seen anything about some of the signatories being dead.  If there were, then the question is who was responding, using their name, and why.  The false representation would lie there, unless you're suggesting that the organisers falsified signatories, which would be a strange and very easily detected thing to do.  It's sloppy process.

[peterms]

2 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

Impossible to believe it's not intentional. They know full well what they're doing. 

The article has now been changed.  They have removed all the stuff about antisemitism, which previously took up about half the piece.  Perhaps they've actually read what she said, and realised she was referring to abuse from remainers about Brexit.  But the article is still tagged "antisemitism".

 

The usual practice when an article has been amended is to mention at the bottom that it was corrected, and say why.  That hasn't been done here.

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, peterms said:

The article has now been changed.  They have removed all the stuff about antisemitism, which previously took up about half the piece.  Perhaps they've actually read what she said, and realised she was referring to abuse from remainers about Brexit.  But the article is still tagged "antisemitism".

 

The usual practice when an article has been amended is to mention at the bottom that it was corrected, and say why.  That hasn't been done here.

. . . . because they have no plausible excuse for how it happened. Either they were sloppy enough to not even read De Piero's comments, and just assumed that she was talking about antisemitism, because it's all they think about, or they were cynical enough to know she was talking about something else but just wanted to write about antisemitism anyway. Neither is any sort of an excuse.

When you combine it with the way the NS just ditched Wren-Lewis's piece, seemingly because it's conclusion was too offensive for them (as opposed to commissioning someone to rebut it using logic or something) and also the way they acted over the Eaton/Scruton thing, it looks to me like these institutions are being terribly led by the likes of Viner, Cowley and Lewis. 

[peterms]

 

[peterms]

6 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

. . . . because they have no plausible excuse for how it happened. Either they were sloppy enough to not even read De Piero's comments, and just assumed that she was talking about antisemitism, because it's all they think about, or they were cynical enough to know she was talking about something else but just wanted to write about antisemitism anyway. Neither is any sort of an excuse.

When you combine it with the way the NS just ditched Wren-Lewis's piece, seemingly because it's conclusion was too offensive for them (as opposed to commissioning someone to rebut it using logic or something) and also the way they acted over the Eaton/Scruton thing, it looks to me like these institutions are being terribly led by the likes of Viner, Cowley and Lewis. 

I think back to when I was 15, and persuaded my parents to buy the Guardian for me.

It felt like an escape route into a different world.  Different to my tedious, suburban, culturally bereft, lower middle class existence.  Intellectually open, inviting different perspectives, curious, challenging.  Utterly different to the Daily Mail that my parents read.

How tragically they have betrayed that legacy, with their compliance with D notices, their closeness with the intelligence services,  their cowardly attacks on Assange, their falling in line with today's and every day's decreed attack on Corbyn,  their pro-Israeli position.

I feel betrayed.  It has become the Daily Mail, with better cookery writers.

[Seat68]

I was the same when the NME championed Oasis. 

[bickster]

Contender for shittest protest chant ever

 

[chrisp65]

10 hours ago, peterms said:

I think back to when I was 15, and persuaded my parents to buy the Guardian for me.

[HanoiVillan]

12 hours ago, peterms said:

 

Of course, the Observer has been beyond redemption for much longer. 

[maqroll]

Does the Labour Party have an actual Jew hating problem or is their criticism of Israel artificially conflated with anti-Semitism by their opposition?

[Seat68]

7 minutes ago, maqroll said:

Does the Labour Party have an actual Jew hating problem or is their criticism of Israel artificially conflated with anti-Semitism by their opposition?

This really depends who responds. As its me responding yes they have a problem. 

[chrisp65]

30 minutes ago, maqroll said:

Does the Labour Party have an actual Jew hating problem or is their criticism of Israel artificially conflated with anti-Semitism by their opposition?

 

In my opinion, it's really difficult to have a sensible discussion on the subject. In a previous life many years ago I hung around with lots of the lefty end of the Labour Party, the sort of people that would now be in Momentum and supporting Corbyn. To my memory, not once over a number of years did I ever hear a single anti jewish sentiment. Lots of anti Israel sentiment though.

But that was then. Also, if you have any mass organisation, they are going to have their weirdos and wrong uns. I kind of suspect racism is broadly equal in each of the parties. Likely worse in the Brexit Party. Likely a bit less in the LibDems.

You'll get people in the SNP that are anti english, but you wouldn't define the SNP as racist. 

On BBC R4 on the way home, they've discussed it again. An Labour MP is quitting, at the head of the article they said she was quitting having cited intolerance. Then, live on air, she said intolerance wasn't the reasoning she was quitting. They said thanks for clearing that up, and proceeded to ask a bunch of questions about intolerance in the Labour Party.

So there's another 10 minutes of proof there's no smoke without fire. You wouldn't discuss it for 10 minutes if it wasn't real, would you?