An interesting thread header, but my fear of Mr Corbyn becoming Labour party leader is not about dangers to the Conservative party, hidden or otherwise. It's fear for the country, and I'm not sure that a Corbyn-led Labour party not gaining power is any comfort to that fear.
"Muslim immigration: the most radical change in European history By Ed West: August 24th, 2009
I know I go on about Christopher Caldwell's Reflections on the Revolution in Europe a bit much, but it's only because I believe it's going to be one of the most influential political books of the next two decades. The benefits of mass immigration are the Emperor's New Clothes and Caldwell is the little boy who sees the truth, which is why I urge everyone to read it. A friend of mine, who was initially less sceptical than I was about immigration, said the book was so well-written and eye-opening it filled a void in his life that had been left by his finishing The Sopranos and The Wire.
Sorry - I'm being brutal again - but the Middle East needs to sort itself out
I would add that they and we cannot fall into the trap of blaming the problems as they are now on colonial legacies - while not to be ignored, it has been a long time since then and if the issues are still not resolved, one cannot fall back on blaming the past indefinitely, as it prevents fixes now.
Quite: the constant blaming of others (though the West's interventions certainly haven't helped - either too much and wrong, or too little, too late or too part-time or too inconsistent) is part of the tiresome adolescent grievance-mongering victimisation shtick. It's as if they refuse to accept that their own actions and beliefs might, just possibly might, have something to do with the mess they're in. And by viewing them always as victims, as oppressed peoples we are colluding in this rather than treating them as grown ups. It is a profoundly condescending view.
Western governments have tended to think that if they only get democratic elections and parliaments and all the mechanics of a democracy in place, that is democracy. But that is rather superficial. Those follow when you have, first, order and, second, a democratic state of mind and the latter takes ages to develop and is going to be very hard to develop if the prevailing mindset is that the majority religion should determine the laws of the land. A theocracy is incompatible with democracy. The Middle Eastern world is struggling with that dichotomy. We can help where we can and where we are asked and where our intervention will not do more harm than good. And if that dichotomy resolves itself in a way which leads to a state which threatens us / the peace of Europe then we may have to fight (as Germany had to be fought). But if that is what needs to be done, it needs doing properly not faffing around dropping bombs on 2nd hand lorries in the middle of a desert.
"Muslim immigration: the most radical change in European history By Ed West: August 24th, 2009
I know I go on about Christopher Caldwell's Reflections on the Revolution in Europe a bit much, but it's only because I believe it's going to be one of the most influential political books of the next two decades. The benefits of mass immigration are the Emperor's New Clothes and Caldwell is the little boy who sees the truth, which is why I urge everyone to read it. A friend of mine, who was initially less sceptical than I was about immigration, said the book was so well-written and eye-opening it filled a void in his life that had been left by his finishing The Sopranos and The Wire.
At a time when the Muslim world in the Middle East is riven with violence and extremism it is utter madness to let into Europe even more from such an unstable area and culture. Even if they are not all IS people, there are problems anyway with the integration of Muslim communities and we owe it to ourselves here,(all of us, Muslim and non-Muslim alike) to deal with the issues and problems we have now rather than make them even worse.
Sorry - I'm being brutal again - but the Middle East needs to sort itself out not export its problems to Europe so that Europe becomes as bad as the Middle East now is.
I was emailed this morning by a friend in Lyons who said that the main synagogue there (which survived WW2) is guarded day and night by 4 heavily armed French soldiers. As are the smaller synagogues. And his daughter's school could not have its annual open day because the police said that the risk to the Jewish children was such that there would have to soldiers on site all day. This is Europe in 2015. This is the problem that France has with its Arab population - see Andrew Hussey's recent book "The French Intifada".
We need to be much more tough minded about who we let in, what the risks are, what the benefit to us is and be prepared to say no to the rest and enforce that decision. Nor can we let our risks be determined by the weakest bit of Europe.
Isn't it rather rich to complain that the Middle East should sort out its own problems when we are actively involving ourselves IN the Middle East? Had it not been for our intervention, Gadaffi would still be in power in Libya, and Assad would be in full power of Syria. Neither being ideal, but neither being chaotic bloodbaths inspiring mass refugee crises. Perhaps if we stopped intervening, they might find a way to sort themselves out.
I am not sure about Labour in the 1950s or the effect the wider membership had on policy but when I started looking at Atlee's 1945-50 administration what struck me was how Atlee was forced by his cabinet to accept policies with which he disagreed. As a PM he was very much first amongst equals and held office in a very different way from more modern prime ministers.
Quite when the change to a presidential-style leader was started I am not sure. Blair certainly completed it but when did it start?
I'd be interested in some examples of Attlee being overruled by his Cabinet. I'm trying and struggling to think what issues they may have been. His Government was certainly replete with big beasts (Bevin, Bevan, Shinwell, Morrison, Dalton, Cripps etc etc) but he was an unsentimental butcher in dismissing Ministers for not being up to the job. More generally, RHS Crossman and John Macintosh were talking about Prime Ministerial (Presidential) government as opposed to that by Cabinet in the early 1960s.
I'll have to get my notes out to find the details and that means putting away 14th century London (I need two studies, and a games room, but Herself will just not have it), I'll get back to you.
Sorry - I'm being brutal again - but the Middle East needs to sort itself out
I would add that they and we cannot fall into the trap of blaming the problems as they are now on colonial legacies - while not to be ignored, it has been a long time since then and if the issues are still not resolved, one cannot fall back on blaming the past indefinitely, as it prevents fixes now.
Quite: the constant blaming of others (though the West's interventions certainly haven't helped - either too much and wrong, or too little, too late or too part-time or too inconsistent) is part of the tiresome adolescent grievance-mongering victimisation shtick. It's as if they refuse to accept that their own actions and beliefs might, just possibly might, have something to do with the mess they're in. And by viewing them always as victims, as oppressed peoples we are colluding in this rather than treating them as grown ups. It is a profoundly condescending view.
Western governments have tended to think that if they only get democratic elections and parliaments and all the mechanics of a democracy in place, that is democracy. But that is rather superficial. Those follow when you have, first, order and, second, a democratic state of mind and the latter takes ages to develop and is going to be very hard to develop if the prevailing mindset is that the majority religion should determine the laws of the land. A theocracy is incompatible with democracy. The Middle Eastern world is struggling with that dichotomy. We can help where we can and where we are asked and where our intervention will not do more harm than good. And if that dichotomy resolves itself in a way which leads to a state which threatens us / the peace of Europe then we may have to fight (as Germany had to be fought). But if that is what needs to be done, it needs doing properly not faffing around dropping bombs on 2nd hand lorries in the middle of a desert.
The ludicrous element of it is, its people like Blair that bomb Iraq despite most normal people thinking its insanity, who then tell us that we have to suffer the mass immigration of people from the countries affected by his warmongering madness... a significant minority of whom want to fucking kill us!
He has poked a hornets nest, ran away and left the people nearby get stung, then adding insult to injury, calls them racist, xenophobic or narrow minded for daring to question it
"Muslim immigration: the most radical change in European history By Ed West: August 24th, 2009
I know I go on about Christopher Caldwell's Reflections on the Revolution in Europe a bit much, but it's only because I believe it's going to be one of the most influential political books of the next two decades. The benefits of mass immigration are the Emperor's New Clothes and Caldwell is the little boy who sees the truth, which is why I urge everyone to read it. A friend of mine, who was initially less sceptical than I was about immigration, said the book was so well-written and eye-opening it filled a void in his life that had been left by his finishing The Sopranos and The Wire.
At a time when the Muslim world in the Middle East is riven with violence and extremism it is utter madness to let into Europe even more from such an unstable area and culture. Even if they are not all IS people, there are problems anyway with the integration of Muslim communities and we owe it to ourselves here,(all of us, Muslim and non-Muslim alike) to deal with the issues and problems we have now rather than make them even worse.
Sorry - I'm being brutal again - but the Middle East needs to sort itself out not export its problems to Europe so that Europe becomes as bad as the Middle East now is.
I was emailed this morning by a friend in Lyons who said that the main synagogue there (which survived WW2) is guarded day and night by 4 heavily armed French soldiers. As are the smaller synagogues. And his daughter's school could not have its annual open day because the police said that the risk to the Jewish children was such that there would have to soldiers on site all day. This is Europe in 2015. This is the problem that France has with its Arab population - see Andrew Hussey's recent book "The French Intifada".
We need to be much more tough minded about who we let in, what the risks are, what the benefit to us is and be prepared to say no to the rest and enforce that decision. Nor can we let our risks be determined by the weakest bit of Europe.
Isn't it rather rich to complain that the Middle East should sort out its own problems when we are actively involving ourselves IN the Middle East? Had it not been for our intervention, Gadaffi would still be in power in Libya, and Assad would be in full power of Syria. Neither being ideal, but neither being chaotic bloodbaths inspiring mass refugee crises. Perhaps if we stopped intervening, they might find a way to sort themselves out.
I am not sure about Labour in the 1950s or the effect the wider membership had on policy but when I started looking at Atlee's 1945-50 administration what struck me was how Atlee was forced by his cabinet to accept policies with which he disagreed. As a PM he was very much first amongst equals and held office in a very different way from more modern prime ministers.
Quite when the change to a presidential-style leader was started I am not sure. Blair certainly completed it but when did it start?
To be pedantic, the very first time someone was able to be referred to as a PM was surely when presidential styles started, in that one person was recognised as first even among equals, they were the primary face of the government. I leave to others an actual answer though.
How presidential a PM is Cameron though I wonder? Certainly the pitch to the electorate was very much about Cameron vs Ed (notwithstanding the Tory manifesto picture being about a strong team), nothing about wider merits of either side just a straight contest between leaders, but he's always given the impression of giving Ministers a lot of free rein and time to do their thing.
...
Was Wilson the first of the "modern" leaders?
If you agree that the modern world began with the Beatles, then yes. My view is that the 40's never really existed as a definable decade since the war extended into that and the '30's' went on until 1950. Were the '50's' modern? Possibly the 30's went on until Suez. After that maybe we said hello to the modern world. The Mini was produced in 1958 I think. If it's an attitude of mind then Wilson was a generation after Eden and McMillan and Home. So perhaps Yes he was.
The Labour party used to be clear on this stuff. Zero-tolerance of racism. Zero-tolerance of apologists for racism. No platform for racism.
And now that’s gone. It’s all gone. Holocaust deniers. Blood Libelers. Anti-semitic conspiracy theorists. Terrorist sympathisers. Terrorists. We are Labour. How wide and how high would you like your platform to be?
I have been one of the Labour Party’s fiercest critics. But I never thought I’d see this day: the day Labour started to launder prejudice. The day its commitment to standing against all forms of bigotry was so casually slaughtered on the altar of political ideology and expediency.
Soon Jeremy Corbyn will become Labour leader. When he does, his supporters will cheer his victory. And Paul Eisen and Stephen Sizer and Raed Salah and Dyab Abou Jahjah will pause a while from Holocaust denial, and conspiracy theories and Blood Libel and dreams of dead British soldiers. And they will stand at the very top of their platforms. And they will cheer his victory too.
If Labour elect Corbyn they will have utterly trashed any claim to the moral high ground when it comes to racism, sexism, homophobia, liberal values. They will truly be the Nasty Party.
But surely, still just a pale reflection of those on the opposite side of the chamber? Sorry, won't call you Shirley again :')
I am not sure about Labour in the 1950s or the effect the wider membership had on policy but when I started looking at Atlee's 1945-50 administration what struck me was how Atlee was forced by his cabinet to accept policies with which he disagreed. As a PM he was very much first amongst equals and held office in a very different way from more modern prime ministers.
Quite when the change to a presidential-style leader was started I am not sure. Blair certainly completed it but when did it start?
To be pedantic, the very first time someone was able to be referred to as a PM was surely when presidential styles started, in that one person was recognised as first even among equals, they were the primary face of the government. I leave to others an actual answer though.
How presidential a PM is Cameron though I wonder? Certainly the pitch to the electorate was very much about Cameron vs Ed (notwithstanding the Tory manifesto picture being about a strong team), nothing about wider merits of either side just a straight contest between leaders, but he's always given the impression of giving Ministers a lot of free rein and time to do their thing.
...
Was Wilson the first of the "modern" leaders?
If you agree that the modern world began with the Beatles, then yes. My view is that the 40's never really existed as a definable decade since the war extended into that and the '30's' went on until 1950. Were the '50's' modern? Possibly the 30's went on until Suez. After that maybe we said hello to the modern world. The Mini was produced in 1958 I think. If it's an attitude of mind then Wilson was a generation after Eden and McMillan and Home. So perhaps Yes he was.
And the Boeing 707 in 1958. First race riots in London too. A very modern year. Oh, and I was born.
maybe someone could explain how Corbyn has managed to retain his Islington seat for30 years despite his flirting overtly with the IRA in 1984 etc and all his other skeletons? I do not know the area except its reputation as `metropolitan socialist` area.Either he is a more skilful politician than is being credit or a sizeable part of the population are indifferent to his skeletons.
maybe someone could explain how Corbyn has managed to retain his Islington seat for30 years despite his flirting overtly with the IRA in 1984 etc and all his other skeletons? I do not know the area except its reputation as `metropolitan socialist` area.Either he is a more skilful politician than is being credit or a sizeable part of the population are indifferent to his skeletons.
Most people know nothing about their local MP and, in turn, the press ignores all but the most (in)famous politicians. You can bet that will change once he's leader though!
Comments
Western governments have tended to think that if they only get democratic elections and parliaments and all the mechanics of a democracy in place, that is democracy. But that is rather superficial. Those follow when you have, first, order and, second, a democratic state of mind and the latter takes ages to develop and is going to be very hard to develop if the prevailing mindset is that the majority religion should determine the laws of the land. A theocracy is incompatible with democracy. The Middle Eastern world is struggling with that dichotomy. We can help where we can and where we are asked and where our intervention will not do more harm than good. And if that dichotomy resolves itself in a way which leads to a state which threatens us / the peace of Europe then we may have to fight (as Germany had to be fought). But if that is what needs to be done, it needs doing properly not faffing around dropping bombs on 2nd hand lorries in the middle of a desert.
http://labourlist.org/2015/08/the-battle-for-labours-soul-this-leadership-election-is-the-start-of-that-battle-not-the-end-of-it/
He has poked a hornets nest, ran away and left the people nearby get stung, then adding insult to injury, calls them racist, xenophobic or narrow minded for daring to question it
Cameron not much better IMO
My view is that the 40's never really existed as a definable decade since the war extended into that and the '30's' went on until 1950. Were the '50's' modern? Possibly the 30's went on until Suez. After that maybe we said hello to the modern world. The Mini was produced in 1958 I think.
If it's an attitude of mind then Wilson was a generation after Eden and McMillan and Home. So perhaps Yes he was.
But surely, still just a pale reflection of those on the opposite side of the chamber? Sorry, won't call you Shirley again :')