The BBC and corporate media coalesce around an extremely narrow consensus of political thought, and ensure that anybody who steps outside that consensus is ridiculed and marginalised. That consensus has got narrower and narrower. I was delighted during the general election to be able to listen to Nicola Sturgeon during the leaders’ debate argue for anti-austerity policies and for the scrapping of Trident. I had not heard anyone on broadcast media argue for the scrapping of Trident for a decade – it is one of those views which though widely held the establishment gatekeepers do not view as respectable.
The media are working overtime to marginalise Jeremy Corbyn as a Labour leadership candidate on the grounds that he is left wing and therefore weird and unelectable. But they face the undeniable fact that, Scottish independence aside, there are very few political differences between Jeremy Corbyn and Nicola Sturgeon. On issues including austerity, nuclear weapons, welfare and Palestine both Sturgeon and Corbyn are really very similar. They have huge areas of agreement that stand equally outside the establishment consensus. Indeed Nicola is more radical than Jeremy, who wants to keep the United Kingdom.
The establishment’s great difficulty is this. Given that the SNP had just slaughtered the Labour Party – and the Tories and Lib Dems – by being a genuine left wing alternative, how can the media consensus continue to insist that the left are unelectable? The answer is of course that they claim Scotland is different. Yet precisely the same establishment consensus denies that Scotland has a separate political culture when it comes to the independence debate. So which is it? They cannot have it both ways.
If Scotland is an integral part of the UK, Jeremy Corbyn’s policies cannot be unelectable.
Nicola Sturgeon won the UK wide leaders debate in the whole of the United Kingdom, despite the disadvantage of representing a party not standing in 90% of it by population. She won not just because she is clever and genuine, but because people all across the UK liked the left wing policies she articulated.
A Daily Mirror opinion poll following a BBC televised Labour leadership candidates’ debate this week had Jeremy Corbyn as the clear winner, with twice the support of anyone else. The media ridicule level has picked up since. This policy of marginalisation works. I was saddened by readers’ comments under a Guardian report of that debate, in which Labour supporter after Labour supporter posted comment to the effect “I would like to vote for Jeremy Corbyn because he believes in the same things I do, but we need a more right wing leader to have a chance of winning.”
There are two answers to that. The first is no, you don’t need to be right wing to win. Look at the SNP. The second is what the bloody hell are you in politics for anyway? Do you just want your team to win like it was football? Is there any point at all in being elected just so you can carry out the same policies as your opponents? The problem is, of course, that for so many in the Labour Party, especially but not just the MPs, they want to win for personal career advantage not actually to promote particular policies.
The media message of the need to be right wing to be elected is based on reinforced by a mythologizing of Tony Blair and Michael Foot as the ultimate example of the Good and Bad leader. These figures are constantly used to reinforce the consensus. Let us examine their myths.
Tony Blair is mythologised as an electoral superstar, a celebrity politician who achieved unprecedented personal popularity with the public, and that he achieved this by adopting right wing policies. Let us examine the truth of this myth. First that public popularity. The best measure of public enthusiasm is the percentage of those entitled to vote, who cast their ballot for that party at the general election. This table may surprise you.
Percentage of Eligible Voters
1992 John Major 32.5%
1997 Tony Blair 30.8%
2001 Tony Blair 24.1%
2005 Tony Blair 21.6%
2010 David Cameron 23.5%
2015 David Cameron 24.4%
There was only any public enthusiasm for Blair in 97 – and to put that in perspective, it was less than the public enthusiasm for John Major in 1992.
More importantly, this public enthusiasm was not based on the policies now known as Blairite. The 1997 Labour Manifesto was not full of right wing policies and did not indicate what Blair was going to do.
The Labour Party manifesto of 1997 did not mention Academy schools, Private Finance Initiative, Tuition Fees, NHS privatisation, financial sector deregulation or any of the right wing policies Blair was to usher in. Labour actually presented quite a left wing image, and figures like Robin Cook and Clare Short were prominent in the campaign. There was certainly no mention of military invasions.
It was only once Labour were in power that Blair shaped his cabinet and his policies on an ineluctably right wing course and Mandelson started to become dominant. As people discovered that New Labour were “intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich”, to quote Mandelson, their popular support plummeted. “The great communicator” Blair for 90% of his Prime Ministership was no more popular than David Cameron is now. 79% of the electorate did not vote for him by his third election
Michael Foot consistently led Margaret Thatcher in opinion polls – by a wide margin – until the Falklands War. He was defeated in a victory election by the most appalling and intensive wave of popular war jingoism and militarism, the nostalgia of a fast declining power for its imperial past, an emotional outburst of popular relief that Britain could still notch up a military victory over foreigners in its colonies. It was the most unedifying political climate imaginable. The tabloid demonization of Foot as the antithesis of the military and imperial theme was the first real exhibition of the power of Rupert Murdoch. Few serious commentators at the time doubted that Thatcher might have been defeated were it not for the Falklands War – which in part explains her lack of interest in a peaceful solution. Michael Foot’s position in the demonology ignores these facts.
The facts about Blair and about Foot are very different from the media mythology.
The stupid stunt by Tories of signing up to the Labour Party to vote for Corbyn to ridicule him, is exactly the kind of device the establishment consensus uses to marginalise those whose views they fear. Sturgeon is living proof left wing views are electable. The “left unelectable” meme will intensify. I expect Jeremy Corbyn’s biggest problem will be quiet exclusion. I wish him well.
Rumour has it (HMS Talent) that this ‘leak’ is a Chicksands epitome sponsoring Trident replacement. I have to agree. Poor show DISC.
http://robedwards.typepad.com/files/the-nuclear-secrets.pdf
This great!
“If Syriza is the answer, then the question was wrong.”
http://dialectical-delinquents.com/war-politics/60-days-older-and-deeper-in-debt-by-the-tptg/
[ Mod: Removed reproduction of a 3,400 word article, which is available via the link ]
Thanks Mary regarding the BBC interview of Yanukovich. Apparently what he had to say about Crimea was edited out by the impartial BBC. 🙂
http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150623/1023739814.html#ixzz3dtF1sr8B
Thanks Mary regarding the BBC interview of Yanukovich. Apparently what he had to say about Crimea was edited out by the impartial BBC.
Not true
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-33224138
Me: “Thanks Mary regarding the BBC interview of Yanukovich. Apparently what he had to say about Crimea was edited out by the impartial BBC.”
RD: “Not true”
But of course it is true. If you had listened to Mary’s podlink and read the Sputnik link you would have seen some of what was said and left out, like:
“What is going on now in Donbass is a genocide. Genocide of the population of Donbass. And it is being committed by those who brought in tanks and guns to shoot at the peaceful civilians,” he said.
“Even during the truce over 500 civilians have died. That is the disaster.”
Read more: http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150623/1023739814.html#ixzz3dvCKmDJ7
So now you know, why do you think the impartial BBC left all that out and babbled on about the ancient news of gold taps and ostriches? Not that I approve of that kind of thing. So why do you think the BBC left the real news out?
Mr Goss
The Donbass is not Crimea – the BBC webpage I linked to clearly reported what Yanukovitch said about the Crimea – therefore what you said was not true.
Mods
I ask again. Under the new rules, personal insults are banned.
Why then does Habbabkuk’s description of me @ 4.57pm as ‘ineffable’ remain?
in·ef·fa·ble
(Än-Ä•f′ə-bÉ™l)
adj.
1. Incapable of being expressed; indescribable or unutterable: ineffable joy.
2. Not to be uttered; taboo: the ineffable name of God.
—
[ Mod: We read all the comments, Mary. If something needs to be removed, we will do so. Continually demanding that we remove this or that will only result in the removal of the demands themselves. ]
Mary – he was thinking of “ineffable beauty” http://www.edgeofenclosure.org/lastepiphanya.html: It seems to be more like stalking than insulting
The latest Wikileaks release reveals that the US have spied on three French presidents – Messieurs Chirac, Sarkozy and Hollande.
Sopel of the BBC is rubbishing it by saying that we knew that already from Snowden.
US ‘spied on French presidents’ – Wikileaks
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/33248484
Now I know you can read Resident Dissident. The BBC article only includes some of what he said which the article mentions. It does not include.
While that was a very hard decision, he opted to leave the country.
“If I hadn’t done it then, quite likely we would have had in Crimea something very similar to what we now have in Donbass,” he said. “Probably, in some other regions as well; we would have had a full scale civil war.”
“What is better for the population of Crimea? War or Peace?” he questioned.
“In any country, in any part of the world population would choose peace. That is why when Crimea was holding a referendum, people were scared for their future, for the future of their children. And Crimea did not want to take up the rightwing radical ideology Maidan was bringing onto them.”
Read more: http://sputniknews.com/europe/20150623/1023739814.html#ixzz3dvFn1vma
I did not think I would have to spoonfeed you RD. So why do you think Auntie left it out? Here is a clue. It has hardly reported any of the genocide in Donbas or the fact that the Crimeans wanted peace not war. But you may think the BBC left these important facts out for other reasons. Enlighten me please.
Jon wrote, “… I’d agree that the Confederate flag is more worthy of a ban than that of countries with an imperial past, and I can see what people mean when they opine that it is on a par with the swastika.”
While we no doubt agree that the old “stars & bars” is insulting and undesirable, talking about the banning of same is a waste of time. The First Amendment’s freedom of speech section expressly prohibits the government from imposing any such ban. Since the government is the only body capable of enforcing such a ban, the best that can be hoped for is its removal from public buildings.
If someone wants to fly one from their private property, or display one on the back of their car for that matter, there is nothing the authorities can do about it.
Messieurs Chirac, Sarkozy and Hollande are the three most recent French Presidents, are they not? I wonder if the spying started when Chirac opposed the invasion of Iraq.
Ha! Tim. When I was small, I was a choirgirl 🙂 in our local CoE church, The Church of the Transfiguration. It took years into my adult life to understand what that was supposed to mean.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transfiguration_of_Jesus
glenn_uk, indeed, that’s what I meant. Even if a ban on sales or display were possible, I think it would create a counterproductive backlash at this point.
Jon: You’re right, it would produce a backlash. The self-proclaimed “conservative” Christian-right (i.e. racist teabaggers) are always wallowing in their supposed victimhood. The white male Christian is _so_ repressed, as we all know. /cough/
Actually banning some flag would be a cause of mighty rebellion (although, of course, the last time they tried that they didn’t come out of it very well – they’re just very poor losers all round). But it would be unconstitutional in any case, and even this Supreme Court is likely to uphold their rights, just as they upheld the right to flag burning.
Mind you, I had one on the back of my car there for a while. Didn’t know its significance, other than it had been on the Dukes of Hazard car, the (ahem) “General Lee”.
@Suhayl Saadi:
“Becky, My view is that like white hoods, the chatter about flags in the public arena represnts something of a diversion. Typical though of our times.”
Yes Suhayl, a commentator observed on the news the other day that it does seem like a diversion from addressing the issue of gun control in the USA. Unfortunately, there will always be racists around like Roof even if their symbols (or certain symbols that they attach themselves to) are banned. Addressing the ease of access to guns that Americans have would at least go some way to making it harder for them to murder people. One of the things that struck me when we began to learn more about Dylann Roof’s background was how even though family members knew he was psychologically disturbed he was still given a gun complete with ammo as a 21st birthday present!
Suhayl Saadi; “I sometimes pose very simple questions like, “Does the UK state assassinate people domestically?” because it takes people back to first principles, cuts to the quick.”
Well in practice it certainly misleads, and is ambiguous at best especially as your “real” opposing argument seems mostly to arrive only when it has reluctantly extracted from you at some effort.
Suhayl Saadi; “Sometimes it’s not about displaying cleverness”
There certainly was nothing clever in your strange postings the other day, that the Palestinian struggle is definitely a lost cause, that Israel has won, but even so, and almost as an aside, we all still should carry on supporting the Palestinians !!
Suhayl Saadi; “Whether or not I am “paranoid” or have “a chip” on my “shoulder” is neither here nor there.Perhaps I ma, and maybe I do. So what, really?2
It’s very much “here” I’m sorry to say, as you seemingly can’t respond to criticism with inferring insinuations of racism.
Suhayl Saadi; “These are classic charges thrown at black and brown people whenever we make observations on matters to do with racism.I always think people who issue such charges would do well to look at themselves first and at why precisely they might be making such statemets, from what attitudes might such statemenst proceed.”
The problem with you is that you ensure that the issue of racism is raised, precisely to indulge in this race card nonsense, where these issues will inevitably come up. For you it seems that it’s never acceptable to point out that a person may have a victim-hood hang-up.
Suhayl Saadi; “This was a mass shooting by a self-proclaimed White Supremacist of black civilians in a church while they were at workship. I do think that racism is at least of some relevance to the subject.”
Nobody is saying that racism is not relevant; my actual opening line was that Jon Stewart’s remarks about racism should be welcomed, but that this in itself was not enough as I believe that both the problem of racism & gun culture stem ultimately from a deeper underlying problem, of which these are really the inevitable inherent symptoms. This is the subject that I wanted to discuss, especially why these mass murder shooting incidents are increasing in frequency.
Suhayl Saadi; “Is it not interesting really that anyone would take umbrage at the mention of racism in this context.”
That is a very naughty misleading misrepresentation; the only umbrage taken was related solely to you once again, making yourself the issue & trying to place the race card.
Suhayl Saadi; “Please try to accept that I am trying to communicate with you in good faith. I don’t have to, of course, but it’s the way I am.”
If this is your idea of good faith, you need to try harder!
Suhayl Saadi; “What do you think of White Supremacism, Macky? Do you have a view on the subject?
And to think that you object that I call you “sly” !!
@Jon: Yes, I think the response to the ban will be a pretty predictable one from the libertarian hard right. They will use it in order to create a twisted narrative where they are the victims – and probably throw some accusations of Obama being a Stalinist into the equation, too.
@Glenn: “The First Amendment’s freedom of speech section expressly prohibits the government from imposing any such ban. Since the government is the only body capable of enforcing such a ban, the best that can be hoped for is its removal from public buildings.
If someone wants to fly one from their private property, or display one on the back of their car for that matter, there is nothing the authorities can do about it.”
I wonder if a person’s rights under the First Amendment would still stand if they flew or displayed an IS flag on US soil? As far as I know it, Cameron made some sort of statement last year in which he declared flying or displaying an IS flag to be a criminal offence. I was just wondering if they have the same rule in the USA.
One tactic that neo-Confederates frequently use is to deflect attention away from the Confederacy being all about defending the institution of slavery by claiming that the war was all about states’ rights. To employ such an ostensibly abstract argument in the context of the CSA though is in reality to be an apologist for slavery because the states rights’ that they were upholding was precisely to take away other human beings’ rights by enslaving them with the racist excuse that it was justified purely because their skin was a different colour. Although we look at the American Civil War in retrospect now and being caught up in it with all the enormous social pressure and expectations that would have been brought to bear on people to side with the sympathies of the particular area of the country they lived in, surely no reasonable person today would ever think that the Confederacy had a point or any moral justification. It’s understandable that the southern states would want to honour their war dead and even recognise their bravery in what turned out to be pretty much like first world war conditions if Matthew Brady’s photographs are anything to go by. Perhaps they should look to the example of the Germans – most of whom recognise that their troops fought for an ultimately unjustifiable cause yet would never dream of using that as a justification for flying an NSDAP swastika and pretending that it had nothing to do with Nazism?
“Perhaps they should look to the example of the Germans – most of whom recognise that their troops fought for an ultimately unjustifiable cause yet would never dream of using that as a justification for flying an NSDAP swastika and pretending that it had nothing to do with Nazism?”
Sorry that came across a bit confused. What I meant to say was that most Germans can honour and respect the hardships that their combat troops in WW2 went through and recognise that they were courageous in battle – Monte Cassino, for instance – but they rightly view waving around a swastika and pretending it’s a non-political symbol of that as a different thing entirely.
‘You know, the points which included the fact that the survey he cited in support of his claims showed that immigration had a) some economic benefits and b) an increase in GDP per capita. Those ones.’
Technicolour- just to re-iterate, I have no problem in acknowledging that the Dustmann survey (and others eg from Jonathan Portes) show that immigration produces some economic benefits and/or an increase in per capita GDP. As I’ve stated before,If the likes of Mark Carney are classified as ‘immigrants’ but second generation third world immigrants (once they leave school)aren’t, that isn’t surprising.
One of the amusing things about those here that take the “Evil Russians” narrative on the Ukraine, is that they constantly accuse others of swallowing “Russian propaganda”, conveniently overlooking the fact that they themselves are regurgitating “our” propaganda, brought to us by our totally discredited Western MSM, who didn’t exactly bathe themselves in glory with their reporting of Iraq, Libya, Iran, Syria etc; well here investigative reporter Robert Parry of Iran-Contra fame, has a look at this Orwellian upside-world we are being spoon-fed;
https://consortiumnews.com/2015/06/22/nyts-orwellian-view-of-ukraine/
Becky: It’s quite interesting, and rather complicated too. Individual States have certain powers which entitles them to create and enforce ordinances. Also, the 10th Amendment says something to the effect that the federal government (the overall government) only has that authority granted to it by the constitution. So States can impose their own ban if they wish – several have, for instance, banned the swastika being displayed IIRC.
Since the US is sort-of at war with IS, I imagine the authorities would have little trouble taking down an IS flag together with its owners. Giving aid and comfort to the enemy, a form of treason under the Constitution, would probably apply. (However, it is such a fearful, violent country that it’s quite unlikely anybody would survive hoisting such a flag for more than a few minutes.)
In the UK, by contrast, the government can pretty much do what it likes, the legality of new regulations might be challenged years later.
Danczuk said today in the House of Commons that Janner violated, raped and tortured children in the Houses of Parliament. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/11694195/Lord-Greville-Janner-violated-raped-and-tortured-children-in-the-Houses-of-Parliament.html I don’t see any indication in the Telegraph article of when this happened. Danczuk said, “The Director of Public Prosecutions has said that Lord Janner will not offend again.” But every time he appears in public, as he recently did on the streets of London, that is an additional pain to those whom he victimized.
I think this is the first statement I’ve seen that Janner actually tortured his victims.
Even if a ban on sales or display were possible, I think it would create a counterproductive backlash at this point.
If a ‘counterproductive backlash’ re the stars n bars re-acquaints a new generation with these guys, it would be no bad thing-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hMHjjvLjtAM
Although he was always a great believer in European unity, I can remember Tony Benn from way back in the 1980’s arguing that the EC/EU needed to be abolished & started up again from scratch, as a sort of “Commonwealth of Europe”, because the present set-up was simply undemocratic, and that it forced dog eat dog capitalism policies that nobody had voted for, onto countries through the diktats issued from Brussels; well if he was still around today, I’m sure that he would be agreeing with this article that it’s only Greece that once again stands before us & Fascism, as indeed it once did in WW2, when it lead the longest resistance & achieved the first victory against the upto then invincible Fascists Axis;
http://things-that-matter.net/2015/06/23/fascism-through-finance-or-citizen-driven-democracy-why-we-should-all-be-watching-what-happens-in-greece/
Reading this lead to an interesting consideration, what are the differences, despite some shared characteristics, that mean we don’t see Israelis turning guns on each other as with the US type mass murder shootings ? Is it the Occupation, if so how/why ? There’s a similar culture of guns & violence, racism, glorification of the military, contant miliary actions, constant numbers of “enemies” being killed, State generated messages of the cheapeness of (Arab) lives, same worshipping of killers and torturers as heroes, etc;
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.662364
Will Britain and America lift nuclear sanctions on Iran end June?
Critics of the nuclear talks say there can be no deal if the ayatollah doesn’t admit to treachery. “If the world allows you to lie about the past, this guarantees you will lie about the future,” said Yuval Steinitz, a senior Israeli minister who serves as his government’s point man for the Iran talks.
More practically, Steinitz added, knowing exactly what weapons research Iran conducted is crucial to identifying which locations and scientists to monitor most closely in the future.
Crucially the United States has lost the trust of its friends and allies since the Comprehensive Iran Sanctions Act was passed in 2010. The rest of the world generally detests US assertion of authority involving foreign companies in foreign countries.
If Congress imposed further sanctions in spite of a nuclear agreement reached with Iran by major powers, the international community—EXCEPT FOR BRITAIN—would believe those sanctions to be illegitimate. End of.
We cannot and should not allow a disgraced and reprehensible USA to whack and covert even the smallest island such as Diego Garcia considering the misery, desolation and mass exodus that country has caused to Iraq, Syria, Libya, Kosovo, Afghanistan and more.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/alan-elsner/eight-arguments-against-a_b_7645310.html
Naomi Wolf, speaking at the Oxford Union a few months back, about Israel and Palestine…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nfOm6O8q9yA