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Politics 2023 (Read 465924 times)

Offwidth

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#375 Re: Politics 2020
August 08, 2020, 10:50:36 am
Good to hear from you again Brutus :)

FWIW I view Facebook through a 3rd party app that removes all the advertising and suggested posts. Its remarkably anodyne now... and just what I want it for (keeping in touch with a few people) and Lancashire climbing gossip :)

Which one? I can't leave Facebook as it's the main link I have to many old friends.

seankenny

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#376 Re: Politics 2020
August 08, 2020, 10:52:10 am
Can any of the UkB members who are in or associated with the Labour party shed any light on whether they think this story:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/aug/07/jeremy-corbyn-accuses-labour-officials-of-sabotaging-election-campaign?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

Is likely to be in any way true? Did rebels wreck Corbyns election victory? I'd honestly like an opinion because it seems an awful lot like they still can't believe that the British people didn't vote for a hard left government.

It is exactly what it looks like: an incompetent extremist leader whipping up a stab in the back myth amongst the fairthful. Labour only lost as it did because the Tories were so bad at elections (ironically I think a May govt would be mildly better than a Johnson one, as at least May had an interest in governing).

Brutus, good you are back and I hope you are feeling better.

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#377 Re: Politics 2020
August 08, 2020, 10:54:32 am
 :-[
Thanks Brutus,  I'm not sure I need to watch a video of Jon Lansman to guess what the content will be? I take it therefore that you do think that Corbyn would have won if Labour moderates, or whatever you want to call them, hadn't sabotaged his election campaign by mis directing funds?

All I was after was people's opinions; I'm genuinely curious and unsure whether to regard this as another plaintive plea of we won the argument or a credible exposure of a bitter internal conflict.
You miss the point TD.  Lansman appears as a guest at the end and tbh as lefty I was not overly impressed by what he had to say on the subject.  Watch the first 30 mins or so to see/ hear for yourself hard evidence of the undermining of election efforts, diversion of party funds, sitting on AS complaints to undermine leadership, racist and misogynistic bullying by senior figures within the party etc. Thuggery of the worst kind.  When Lansman appears you can switch off he's there to comment. I'm sure you can formulate your own opinion based on facts presented and assume how people on the 'left' feel about it all.  As I said I'm not here to engage in political debate anymore.  I would encourage folk to broaden sources of information beyond the Guardian etc.. in order to at least get a deeper understanding of political shenanigans within the LP and where 'the left' is coming from.  Novara would be a good starting point.

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#378 Re: Politics 2020
August 08, 2020, 10:56:02 am
Good to hear from you again Brutus :)

FWIW I view Facebook through a 3rd party app that removes all the advertising and suggested posts. Its remarkably anodyne now... and just what I want it for (keeping in touch with a few people) and Lancashire climbing gossip :)

Which one? I can't leave Facebook as it's the main link I have to many old friends.

Friendly or Friendly +.

https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/friendly-social-browser/id400169658

It’s a little clunky as it pretends to be the regular website - but has an effective ad blocker and you can do the messenger without having to have the messenger app too. It’s not perfect but fine for me.

seankenny

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#379 Re: Politics 2020
August 08, 2020, 11:34:26 am
One has to wonder why, if Corbyn and his cronies discovered evidence of fraud, why they took it to the media and not the police. Making headline winning “allegations” which turn out to be baseless is a common tool in the populists’ arsenal - our current PM made his name at the Telegraph with such deceptions.

One also has to wonder why they didn’t properly investigate these alleged offences whilst running the party. Indeed why they went into another election without having done so.

Plenty of Labour staffers in twitter saying it’s all made up. I guess we’ll see when it comes to court.

Of course in any other context the Labour left would automatically take the side of beleaguered employees being harassed in the media by their bosses, in an attempt to blame management’s failures on staff.

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#380 Re: Politics 2020
August 08, 2020, 11:41:18 am
Cheers. I need something that will work on an android tablet. One factor of leaving work during covid is I still haven't got access to my work email with recovery details to Facebook and having forgotten the password and my old tablet being dead I can't access my Facebook account.

Having watched to the end of the video now, it's notable that Landsman is more sensible than the two journalists!  My only new point is, I disagree that there is any connection with the old staffers failure to progress anti-Semitism complaints and their clear dislike of Corbyn. The motives seem backwards if this were true. Corbyn moved the party to widen membership to those previously blocked from the party and this allowed known anti-Semitic leftist activists to join (and some SWP and other entryists). The shift needed strong checks to prevent leftist racists and members of revolutionary parties entering the Labour party, bringing it into disrepute. Progressing those complaints would have damaged the Corbyn leadership as it shows up the failure to have those safe checks. The failure to progress shows cock-up, not conspiracy.

There was also some infantile bullying comments from senior staffers to another member that shame the party. All these staffers with clear problematic behaviour are no longer employed by Labour, and from the evidence they now won't be in the future.

I can't see Sean's point being true on it all being made up.... the leaked conversations are either true (most likely) or an incredibly clever fraud and I know what Occam says. Sean needs to explain why he is ignoring this (or is maybe saying stuff without seeing the evidence). The fraud accusations are not clear yet as even Landsman admitted the financial details need to be looked at.
« Last Edit: August 08, 2020, 11:51:48 am by Offwidth »

tomtom

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#381 Re: Politics 2020
August 08, 2020, 11:52:03 am
@offwidth - for android too of course

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.friendly&hl=en_GB

No idea what to do about the password though!

seankenny

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#382 Re: Politics 2020
August 08, 2020, 12:04:48 pm

I can't see Sean's point being true on it all being made up.... the leaked conversations are either true (most likely) or an incredibly clever fraud and I know what Occam says. Sean needs to explain why he is ignoring this (or is maybe saying stuff without seeing the evidence). The fraud accusations are not clear yet as even Landsman admitted the financial details need to be looked at.

I meant the fraud allegations. As I said, it’s a classic piece of media spin. The financial details from 2017 still need looking at? They thought they were good enough to re-invent the U.K. economy but couldn’t even manage their own finances.

I’ve seen some of the comments directed at Abbot which are clearly both awful and the signs of a totally dysfunctional workplace. Her staff could be wankers, she could be an extremely difficult person to work for, and both could be true. Occam’s Razor is - like all razors - sometimes blunt.

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#383 Re: Politics 2020
August 08, 2020, 03:25:44 pm
Have you even listened to the piece (the presentation may be highly biased but the content they are reporting on isn't)? Abbott was crying in a toilet after another racist and sexist attack from outside the party and a Labour party office senior staffer informed Michael Crick where she was. It wasn't her staff or anyone working with her it was a Labour party senior staffer who is supposed to be strictly independent in factional terms.

I can't stand Corbyn but this leaked commentary stinks. Occam's razor doesn't look blunt to me..... that this could really all be an incredibly tricky fabrication. If nothing else why not fabricate something more serious? Plus this is just one example of many with private written behaviour that would justify an internal investigation. Why is this not all over the mainstream press??

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#384 Re: Politics 2020
August 08, 2020, 04:17:52 pm
Why aren’t the media - other than Novara, let’s not pretend they are somehow a different beast* - reporting this? Maybe because they’ve had it lawyered and it’s potentially libellous? I looked at the bit on the crying in the toilet episode and I didn’t see any of the staffers given a right of reply. Was a comment from
them included later in the piece? (Sorry I haven’t got over an hour to watch Aaron Bastani, this could all be in an article.) If not, Novara are entering dodgy waters ethically and legally. As I said above, it’s quite clear from what we know that Labour staffers could have acted terribly and Abbot be an awful boss.

The WhatsApp message itself struck me as as much as a bad taste throw-away comment (now being taken literally) as much as a genuine description of actions taken, but of course I could be wrong - and Novara doesn’t seem to care about finding out exactly what happened.

As for internal investigation, the Corbyn faction did this already - they controlled the Party, after all - and their efforts have put the Labour Party at risk of prosecution for the way they handled the data.

Corbyn and Co were incompetent fools. Their actions now are an ego trip at the expense of Labour’s continuing attempts to win power. Corbyn doesn’t give a fig about the poor in this country - otherwise he’d hang his head in shame at what he’s done and depart the political scene immediately.


*You do know “mainstream media” was a term invented by the US right in order to discredit information around climate change? It’s a term fit for conspiracists and extremists. Surprised you use it.

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#385 Re: Politics 2020
August 08, 2020, 06:08:55 pm
Edit. Oops, just seen Offwidth asked the same question!

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#386 Re: Politics 2020
August 08, 2020, 07:46:55 pm
Why is this not all over the mainstream press??

Because there's been non-stop allegations around bullying,  nepotism, incompetence,  sexism,  racism and virtually everything else with an ism between the various factions of the labour party since before the 2017 election,  Corbyn is yesterday's news and the media judges that nobody cares about the he said she said tittle-tattle between the factions?

Or alternatively Kier's mates are leaning on contacts in the media that it wouldn't be helpful to the Labour cause for the media to pursue it now the party is apparently getting its act together post Corbyn...

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#387 Re: Politics 2020
August 08, 2020, 10:38:00 pm
The way that every single political tribe is complaining bitterly about the 'main stream media' really cheeses me off. To the Corbyn fans, they're all Tory party supporters, to the libertarian right, they're all slavishly following a nanny state agenda, to the true blue euro sceptics they're all pinko liberal remainers.

Unless you live in China or Russia and have an actually state controlled media, I think whining about the media is a sign that you have a weak argument.

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#388 Re: Politics 2020
August 09, 2020, 10:12:20 am
Why aren’t the media - other than Novara, let’s not pretend they are somehow a different beast* - reporting this? Maybe because they’ve had it lawyered and it’s potentially libellous? I looked at the bit on the crying in the toilet episode and I didn’t see any of the staffers given a right of reply. Was a comment from
them included later in the piece? (Sorry I haven’t got over an hour to watch Aaron Bastani, this could all be in an article.) If not, Novara are entering dodgy waters ethically and legally. As I said above, it’s quite clear from what we know that Labour staffers could have acted terribly and Abbot be an awful boss.

The WhatsApp message itself struck me as as much as a bad taste throw-away comment (now being taken literally) as much as a genuine description of actions taken, but of course I could be wrong - and Novara doesn’t seem to care about finding out exactly what happened.

As for internal investigation, the Corbyn faction did this already - they controlled the Party, after all - and their efforts have put the Labour Party at risk of prosecution for the way they handled the data.

Corbyn and Co were incompetent fools. Their actions now are an ego trip at the expense of Labour’s continuing attempts to win power. Corbyn doesn’t give a fig about the poor in this country - otherwise he’d hang his head in shame at what he’s done and depart the political scene immediately.


*You do know “mainstream media” was a term invented by the US right in order to discredit information around climate change? It’s a term fit for conspiracists and extremists. Surprised you use it.

Novara are a highly biased fringe outfit as far as I'm concerned, not dissimilar to Socialist Worker. I'm not interested in their spin one jot. The leaked content does look politically important, as these same senior staffers were being suggested for prospective senior roles under Keir, which could damage his leadership. The left of the party are hardly going to forgive and forget. Retaining a sense of balance and rights of reply in proper journalism without ending up facing writs is normal for a major media company, and you know that, so why are you still deflecting? My semantics of 'mainstream media' wasn't loaded, it's just the situation we live with.

Corbyn and co did pretty well for incompetents in the face of a large opposition in the PLP and pretty much the whole establishment..... they were not many seats from preventing a workable tory government in 2017... so I fail to understand the benefit of your childish comments when there are many concrete things to pick up, on what they did wrong. If Labour are to maximise their chance of winning next time, some kind of internal reconciliation is needed.

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#389 Re: Politics 2020
August 09, 2020, 11:46:55 pm
One has to wonder why, if Corbyn and his cronies discovered evidence of fraud, why they took it to the media and not the police. Making headline winning “allegations” which turn out to be baseless is a common tool in the populists’ arsenal - our current PM made his name at the Telegraph with such deceptions.

One also has to wonder why they didn’t properly investigate these alleged offences whilst running the party. Indeed why they went into another election without having done so.

So this was my initial knee jerk reaction to reading this story. The Corbyn administration were clearly awful enough at cultivating any widespread popular appeal or winning elections without needing this to be sabotaged.

I posted because I wanted my reaction challenged, I wanted to engage with the idea that Corbyn and McDonnell were cheated of their shot at government.

I've now read several articles on Novara and a few other things people have mentioned.

The thing about those horrid "main stream media" publications is that (most!) of them are actually professionally edited and sub edited so that almost every opinion piece isn't a tediously long diatribe full of cliché, childish and repetitive use of tropes such as 'meta-...' in an attempt to sound genuinely intellectual.

I find it very hard to engage with any ideas in these articles because they're so badly written.
When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases - bestial atrocities, iron heel, blood-stained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder - one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy, the appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved
George Orwell, Politics and the English Language


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#390 Re: Politics 2020
August 10, 2020, 09:05:03 am
The left of the party are hardly going to forgive and forget.
Corbyn and co did pretty well for incompetents in the face of a large opposition in the PLP and pretty much the whole establishment..... they were not many seats from preventing a workable tory government in 2017...

I'd argue  strongly against this.  The left,  it seems to me are mired in denial that they led the party to its worst defeat in almost a century,  and were a complete disaster for the party's credibility.   The PLP and those nasty media people had absolutely nothing to do with any number of examples of poor leadership.  The response to the Salisbury attacks, Corbyn's failure to ever give an actual opinion on Brexit,  the tolerance of antisemitism, the complete lack of credibility of the 2019 manifesto; just for a start. They always appeared far more engaged with their internal party administration than even pretending that they represented a realistic alternative to the incumbent government. 

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#391 Re: Politics 2020
August 15, 2020, 11:11:26 pm
The most recent New Statesman podcast is worth listening to, for those engaged with UK politics. Stephen Bush makes an interesting and convincing case for why Priti Patel is the most interesting politician in British politics today.

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#392 Re: Politics 2020
August 17, 2020, 11:26:12 pm
For fuck sake; Dido Harding screws up test and trace so they put her in charge of the renamed and reorganized PHE. It's worth noting that she also presided over a massive data breach when she was in charge of talk talk.
Hancock (et al) blaming PHE for the testing failure, Williamson blaming Ofqual for the exam debacle. Priti Patel is blaming the French for her failing on immigration strategy. Boris Johnson is blaming no-one, because he's on holiday, like he usually is.

The government has degraded into infant school name calling, denial of responsibility, and no sign whatsoever of any crumb of competence.

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#393 Re: Politics 2020
August 18, 2020, 07:00:32 am
Williamson is on BBC Breakfast shortly. Only question they need to ask is when he thinks Boris will throw him under the bus..........

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#394 Re: Politics 2020
August 18, 2020, 08:38:13 am
No prospect of that whilst return to school looms.

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#395 Re: Politics 2020
August 18, 2020, 08:43:49 am
No he still needs to blame him when that all goes wrong.

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#396 Re: Politics 2020
August 18, 2020, 09:06:28 am
No he still needs to blame him when that all goes wrong.

Or, is it overly cynical to suggest that Johnson has promoted a bunch of barely qualified mates to high level roles, on the proviso that they get Dom's approval as well?

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#397 Re: Politics 2020
August 18, 2020, 09:15:54 am
Surely both are givens.

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#398 Re: Politics 2020
August 18, 2020, 09:20:05 am
No he still needs to blame him when that all goes wrong.

Or, is it overly cynical to suggest that Johnson has promoted a bunch of barely qualified mates to high level roles, on the proviso that they get Dom's approval as well?

Is it possible to be over cynical, anymore?

I remain mildly surprised that Bojo didn’t abseil off Big Ben into a press conference and claim he had “just heard” about it all and immediately swooped in to right the wrong and save the children etc etc...

Oh, and blame the “unelected Civil sevants” at Ofqual (mindless, uncaring drones and (simultaneously) trying to make the government look bad (and so forth, etc etc))

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#399 Re: Politics 2020
August 18, 2020, 09:28:58 am
Oh the irony... there is a ship’s manoeuvre when there is a man overboard known as (OMM should know this) ‘a Williamson turn’. 😃😃

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_overboard_rescue_turn#Williamson_turn

 

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