The Politics Thread

[Harry Genshaw]

I'm not a member of the Labour party so I've not had your insight. I keep reading about the 'problem' but what I've seen didn't represent any anti semitic nature.

There was the Ken Livingstone comments, this painting and anti Israeli comments by a lady in momentum. I forget her name but she was Jewish so the anti semitic accusation was replaced with 'self hating Jew' iirc.

To me, the Labour party has a long and significant history of fighting racism and prejudice. The people I know who are active party members would no more accept anti semitism in their party than any other kind of discrimination.

Perhaps it's an Islington thing the rest of us just don't know about

[Prufrock]

Yeah, that's it.

Literally yesterday, unconnected to the mural story, the head of the internal disputes panel, so part of the party discipline, had to resign because she opposed suspending a council candidate who published a piece calling the Holocaust a hoax.

It's systemic and easy to find. There is a Twitter account, "#LabourAntisemitism" that documents the daily examples of party members and in many cases candidates being anti-semitic.

Yes Labour had a proud history of fighting racism but that is not good enough when it isn't doing it now.

It also had a proud history of protecting itself from Communist cranks but that seems to have fallen away too. The two are linked.

[BWFC_Insane]

Yeah, that's it.

Literally yesterday, unconnected to the mural story, the head of the internal disputes panel, so part of the party discipline, had to resign because she opposed suspending a council candidate who published a piece calling the Holocaust a hoax.

It's systemic and easy to find. There is a Twitter account, "#LabourAntisemitism" that documents the daily examples of party members and in many cases candidates being anti-semitic.

Yes Labour had a proud history of fighting racism but that is not good enough when it isn't doing it now.

It also had a proud history of protecting itself from Communist cranks but that seems to have fallen away too. The two are linked.

Yep. Corbyn is not racist. But he's enabling racism by being an ineffective leader too scared of upsetting some of those who helped him get his position.

Its as bad.

[TANGODANCER]

So who will you vote for in the next Xtravaganza? Which "Together we can do it" candidates for the local boroughs do you believe will keep their word and achieve change and prosperity? What, none of them..? Shame on you...

An aside question that hasn't come up yet, but is bound to sometime:
There is a "public footpath" in Farnworth where I walk the dog, that wends its narrow if pleasant way from Bolton Hospital entrance on Minerva Road, right through almost to Plodder Lane (a distance of some half a mile, maybe a little more. It is bordered for most of it on both sides by a high brick wall that is getting to the stage when it will be declared dangerous ( it's already leaning beyond the plumb-line in many places and much of the brickwork is perished) by some of the many people who use it, many of them schoolkids coming and going to Mount St Joseph's Scool. On one side is mostly the hospital, on the other it backs onto the gardens of a pleasant estate. My question is; who will pay to demolish and re-build half-a-mile of designated "Public Footpath" when the local council Park's Department claim they can't afford to keep on top of things as it is? That should casue a right old hoo-hah.

[Prufrock]

There's too much going on to get a grip on anything! Thus Cambridge whatsit thing is mad too.

Imagine if remain had won 52-48 and it turned out a bunch of shady online Americans had been trying to influence people to vote remain. Farridge's head would've fallen off.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

Yeah, that's it.

Literally yesterday, unconnected to the mural story, the head of the internal disputes panel, so part of the party discipline, had to resign because she opposed suspending a council candidate who published a piece calling the Holocaust a hoax.

It's systemic and easy to find. There is a Twitter account, "#LabourAntisemitism" that documents the daily examples of party members and in many cases candidates being anti-semitic.

Yes Labour had a proud history of fighting racism but that is not good enough when it isn't doing it now.

It also had a proud history of protecting itself from Communist cranks but that seems to have fallen away too. The two are linked.

Yep. Corbyn is not racist. But he's enabling racism by being an ineffective leader too scared of upsetting some of those who helped him get his position.

Its as bad.

If it walks like a duck, looks like a duck and quacks, it's a fxcking duck. Corbyn is an anti-semite. (he's probably arrived at that point by being pro-Hamas, pro-Hezbollah, etfxckincrtera, but the end result is he's an anti-semite!).
Being an anti-semite means that he's racist. Which means your statement that he's not is bollox.

[Hoboh]

Nawww Comrade Corbynista is just a dick who would be on the back bench again but for the thugs who intimidate others and he relies on them.
He cannot condone them for their true hidden beliefs or he'd be nowt but the angry terrorist loving joke he once was again.
Old McDonald's the one to fear if he gets in any important position Orwells animal farm would look like a kiddies fairy tale, momentum will make brownshirts look like saints.
Even Putin would smell of roses!

[Harry Genshaw]

It's just so contrived to me. A party member is defended on an unrelated matter. Someone pipes up with "hey, you can't defend him. 7 years ago he posted something on Facebook that looked like holocaust denial"

Woman resigns because she didn't go through all his social media posts for the last 10 years. Cue meltdown/faux outrage. I see there's another demo planned today (?) by a Jewish group within the party condemning the original complainers and questioning their motives.

Meanwhile I have to see a piece on Goggle box to learn that the Tories accepted £125k from Putins best mate to play tennis with the foreign secretary!

[TANGODANCER]

It's just so contrived to me. A party member is defended on an unrelated matter. Someone pipes up with "hey, you can't defend him. 7 years ago he posted something on Facebook that looked like holocaust denial"

Woman resigns because she didn't go through all his social media posts for the last 10 years. Cue meltdown/faux outrage. I see there's another demo planned today (?) by a Jewish group within the party condemning the original complainers and questioning their motives.

Meanwhile I have to see a piece on Goggle box to learn that the Tories accepted £125k from Putins best mate to play tennis with the foreign secretary!

The Scandanavian governments want the history books re-writing to obliterate scandulous untruths. "Vikings didn't rape and pillage, villages went on fire during drunken celebration bonfires with the locals and any sexual activity was always between consenting adults....and there's no one alive to prove differently" ...(my weak idea of a joke at ouragerati in general) ....

[Prufrock]

He wasn't defended on an unrelated matter, he was suspended because of that post. She, as part of the party's disciplinary system argued against that suspension.

If you believe she didn't read it (and if you believe that I've got a bridge you might want to buy) then why the feck not?! It would seem to be the most basic of steps in that job. As with all this stuff, but the boot on the other foot. Imagine a Labour party member was suspended for posting something anti-Muslim or anti-black. Now imagine party discipline defended that person without even bothering to read what they were accused of. There's no fecking chance people would be saying it's an overreaction.

But yet again, Jews are treated differently. I can't think why. Corbyn couldn't even release his "apology" without mentioning Israel despite it having feck all to do with it.

-

[Lost Leopard Spot]

He wasn't defended on an unrelated matter, he was suspended because of that post. She, as part of the party's disciplinary system argued against that suspension.

If you believe she didn't read it (and if you believe that I've got a bridge you might want to buy) then why the feck not?! It would seem to be the most basic of steps in that job. As with all this stuff, but the boot on the other foot. Imagine a Labour party member was suspended for posting something anti-Muslim or anti-black. Now imagine party discipline defended that person without even bothering to read what they were accused of. There's no fecking chance people would be saying it's an overreaction.

But yet again, Jews are treated differently. I can't think why. Corbyn couldn't even release his "apology" without mentioning Israel despite it having feck all to do with it.

-

You're wasting your breath. A YouGov poll shows that over 60% of the Labour Party thinks that Corbyn is handling the anti-semite issue "Well".
Yesterday I had a conversation with a Labour Councillor who claimed it is all a conspiracy trumped up by a concoction of "right-wing racists, Jewish bankers, Islamophobes, and "Zionazis" like ' "Lucinda" ' Berger"
He had no idea of the irony inherent in his statement. None. He was truly livid that I'd been been taken in by all these "enemies of Socialism".

[Lost Leopard Spot]

...meanwhile it seems we (as taxpayers) are paying the Palestinian authorities millions of pounds to produce a 'National Curriculum' that normalises violence and anti-semite sentiment on an industrial scale with 10 year olds encouraged to be Martyrs rather than living peacefully.
(and that's nothing to do with the Labour Party, just our government in general, which actually does involve the Labour Party...).

[TANGODANCER]

I wrote a lengthy view out on a few things political and otherwise, read it through a couple of times, decided I sounded like a politician..and didn't bother posting it.

[Prufrock]

Think that's the same poll that had more Labour party members who thought America was a force for bad in the world than fecking Iran!

[Lost Leopard Spot]

Think that's the same poll that had more Labour party members who thought America was a force for bad in the world than fecking Iran!

That's the very badger!

[Bijou Bob]

Think that's the same poll that had more Labour party members who thought America was a force for bad in the world than fecking Iran!

I'm not sure I have a problem with that point of view to be honest, given the abject, short-sighted disaster that has been US foreign policy for the past ten years or more. The huge issues in the middle east may have Iran and the Saudis as major players, but in terms of influence as well as direct action, the US has done more to unsettle the region and North Africa than any other nation or government.

[Lost Leopard Spot]

Think that's the same poll that had more Labour party members who thought America was a force for bad in the world than fecking Iran!

I'm not sure I have a problem with that point of view to be honest, given the abject, short-sighted disaster that has been US foreign policy for the past ten years or more. The huge issues in the middle east may have Iran and the Saudis as major players, but in terms of influence as well as direct action, the US has done more to unsettle the region and North Africa than any other nation or government.

Has it fxck.

[Hoboh]

Song for Khan Re events in London.

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dared
Disturb the sound of silence
Fools, said I, you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you
But my words, like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said, the words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence

[Hoboh]

Another four stabbings.

Who runs London?

Where are the lefties and Liberal hand wringers with their candlelit vigils?

Why is silly Lilly so quiet?

Wet nursing and shockingly poor judges running a not fit for purpose justice system, the writings been on the wall for years, build a few shacks on the moon and invite them to escape!

[Prufrock]

Murder rate last year was 2/3 of what it was in 2005 (which was lower than it had been previously). Violent crime has been dropping for decades.

That stat the other day about London having more murders per head than NY is because last year New York had 10% of the number of murders it had 20 years ago.

But you know, it was better in the past.

Does unfortunately look like things are going backwards atm and it's a horrendous tragedy for the families, but the idea London is some lawless ghetto is nonsense.