Morning all. A great speech from Hilary Benn - when watched a second time this morning rather than when a little squiffy well after midnight! Whole 14 minute speech here. www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2GTNK4VsXs
Thanks for posting this - I didn't see it last night.
After all of the breathless hype I was vaguely disappointed. It's quite good, but not the Nuremberg Rally quality of speech that is being sold on here.
I agree, it was the walking dog of speeches. It wasn't so much that it was done well, it was that it was done at all - a Shadow Cabinet minister giving a reasonable and coherent analysis of why his party should support a "war".
Nonetheless Benn is now very clearly the front runner in the After Corbyn Candidates.
It was certainly a lot better than either Dave's or Jezza's. Clipped, fluent fury is what he gave us. It was a controlled release of pent-up emotion: "What the fuck are we doing with this fool behind me as leader? This is what Labour really should be about." I suspect it worked more magic for those of us who had despaired of ever again hearing our principles spoken out loud by a frontbench Labour politician. It gave us hope, which maybe in the cold light of day we should not have allowed ourselves. But it felt very good at the time.
A ranting emotional laden speech was the last thing you want from a prime minister.
Maybe - but it is reasonable to expect a clear and compelling one when the PM is making the case for military action. Dave failed on that front yesterday.
Agreed, Cameron could have had a major political triumph in the HoC yesterday, but for the stupid comment the day before. When even moderates such as Gisela attacked you.
I think that's true. On the other hand, politically, having a news cycle dominated by "terrorist sympathisers" is probably a lot more valuable than the effect of a good speech in the House.
Absolutely correct and moreover he was clearly referring to at least 2 terrorist sympathisers in Corbyn and Mc Donnell. The comment was accurate a appropriate - very good politics.
@georgeeaton: Reliable Lib Dem source tells me Labour victory in Oldham will be far more comfortable than expected.
UKIP are generally useless at by-elections (and elections) so this wouldn't be surprising. Labour folk will vote for the party even if they dislike the leader.
Not all of them will.
So much of the focus has been on Labour, but what would a bad result for UKIP be? A failure to get a head of steam among white working class voters would surely be a significant setback. It does need to come a close second at least, doesn't it?
A very good question, Mr. Observer, and one I hope someone in UKIP has been asking those in charge of the Party. I said before the GE that is UKIP won less than 4 four seats it would be very disappointing result and should trigger some serious heart searching as to why. I don't know of any evidence that that analysis ever took place.
To be sure the Miliband in Salmond's pocket poster and meme cost UKIP a lot of votes and probably a few seats, but was that the only reason? Who knows, but UKIP don't seem to have even asked the question.
Then we have Farage's piece in the Telegraph yesterday. One can admire and maybe even agree with the ambition but no gentleman would have written that article - vulgar, in bad taste and creating a hostage for the future. Sometimes Farage seems like an old man in a hurry.
So what does UKIP need to achieve today. Well, I am not expecting them to win (I said on here weeks ago that I think Labour will hold on comfortably) but anything less than, say, a 30% vote share would have to be classed as a major disappointment regardless of turnout. Anything below 20% (i.e. approaching their polling figures nationally) would be a disaster. If UKIP can get to within a few percentage points of the Labour share then I think they will have done well and are on track to make some gains in 2020 - but only if they do a lot of that other work.
I did the little competition thingy using transfer charts for each section of the electorate. As long as Labour vote holds up reasonably well and turnout doesn't reduce by more than about 25-30% within Asian and the smallish urban liberal voter subsets, then UKIP still need to outpoll Labour by somewhere over 2.5:1 amongst the WWC (whose turnout may reduce a little more) to get close. I had them at somewhere slightly over 2:1 (as opposed to 2:3 at GE15) in my transfers and that still resulting in a Labour majority approaching 10% - possibly around the 3000 mark.
I'm not saying I'm right, but doing that work brought home again the scale of the UKIP task here (scale of the disaster for Labour if they do lose). I was never really on the page of considering 5/2 good value for a UKIP win.
The Twitter feed on '66 Labour MPs' is a great demonstration of the 'new politics'.....
The new 'kind and gentle' politics that was sending photos of dead children to MPs yesterday, and is now calling them child murderers. Nice, kind and gentle politics.
I am frankly sick of this. What about photos of a pilot burnt alive in a cage? What about photos of young girls raped to death, of children tortured because their parents wouldn't abandon Christianity? What about photos of mass graves of murdered women? What about photos of what a gay man looks like after he's been thrown off a building and then stoned?
Those banners saying: "Don't bomb Syria" should read "Don't bomb IS".
Because that's what those protestors are FOR. They may think they're for rainbows and peace and holding hands and teaching the world to sing in harmony. But they're not. Here and now in this world as it is, they are for doing nothing about terrorists, they are for doing nothing against those who slaughter people as they eat and talk to their lovers and friends, they are for doing nothing against people who burn women alive for not doing extreme sex acts, they are for doing nothing against those who slaughter children for being Christian, and all the ghastly rest of it. They may like to think they are not but that is what, objectively, they are for when they say "let's not bomb IS".
They have blood on their hands. Inaction has consequences just as much as action.
I am sick of these people claiming the moral high ground. So self-centred are they, so concerned with keeping their precious hands clean are they that they turn away from the fact that they are complicit in the crimes they ignore.
It is time this was rammed down by their throats.
"For evil to triumph it is enough that good men do nothing"
I'm not even sure that all of them are good men but, even assuming that they are, they certainly want to do nothing.
Benn's reference in his speech to the Good Samaritan, to not walking by on the other side, was well said. I am not going to be told that only those who refuse to act are moral. I am not prepared to give such people a free pass on this.
Apologies I'm not sure if you're Mr, Mrs, Ms or whatever but that is a superb piece.
Thank you. I am one of the relatively few female posters on here, though I notice our numbers are increasing. (I think the Wanderer and The Apocalypse and Watford 30 are also ladies....?)
The Twitter feed on '66 Labour MPs' is a great demonstration of the 'new politics'.....
The new 'kind and gentle' politics that was sending photos of dead children to MPs yesterday, and is now calling them child murderers. Nice, kind and gentle politics.
I am frankly sick of this. What about photos of a pilot burnt alive in a cage? What about photos of young girls raped to death, of children tortured because their parents wouldn't abandon Christianity? What about photos of mass graves of murdered women? What about photos of what a gay man looks like after he's been thrown off a building and then stoned?
Those banners saying: "Don't bomb Syria" should read "Don't bomb IS".
Because that's what those protestors are FOR. They may think they're for rainbows and peace and holding hands and teaching the world to sing in harmony. But they're not. Here and now in this world as it is, they are for doing nothing about terrorists, they are for doing nothing against those who slaughter people as they eat and talk to their lovers and friends, they are for doing nothing against people who burn women alive for not doing extreme sex acts, they are for doing nothing against those who slaughter children for being Christian, and all the ghastly rest of it. They may like to think they are not but that is what, objectively, they are for when they say "let's not bomb IS".
They have blood on their hands. Inaction has consequences just as much as action.
I am sick of these people claiming the moral high ground. So self-centred are they, so concerned with keeping their precious hands clean are they that they turn away from the fact that they are complicit in the crimes they ignore.
It is time this was rammed down by their throats.
"For evil to triumph it is enough that good men do nothing"
I'm not even sure that all of them are good men but, even assuming that they are, they certainly want to do nothing.
Benn's reference in his speech to the Good Samaritan, to not walking by on the other side, was well said. I am not going to be told that only those who refuse to act are moral. I am not prepared to give such people a free pass on this.
Apologies I'm not sure if you're Mr, Mrs, Ms or whatever but that is a superb piece.
Thank you. I am one of the relatively few female posters on here, though I notice our numbers are increasing. (I think the Wanderer and The Apocalypse and Watford 30 are also ladies....?)
The Twitter feed on '66 Labour MPs' is a great demonstration of the 'new politics'.....
The new 'kind and gentle' politics that was sending photos of dead children to MPs yesterday, and is now calling them child murderers. Nice, kind and gentle politics.
I am frankly sick of this. What about photos of a pilot burnt alive in a cage? What about photos of young girls raped to death, of children tortured because their parents wouldn't abandon Christianity? What about photos of mass graves of murdered women? What about photos of what a gay man looks like after he's been thrown off a building and then stoned?
Those banners saying: "Don't bomb Syria" should read "Don't bomb IS".
Because that's what those protestors are FOR. They may think they're for rainbows and peace and holding hands and teaching the world to sing in harmony. But they're not. Here and now in this world as it is, they are for doing nothing about terrorists, they are for doing nothing against those who slaughter people as they eat and talk to their lovers and friends, they are for doing nothing against people who burn women alive for not doing extreme sex acts, they are for doing nothing against those who slaughter children for being Christian, and all the ghastly rest of it. They may like to think they are not but that is what, objectively, they are for when they say "let's not bomb IS".
They have blood on their hands. Inaction has consequences just as much as action.
I am sick of these people claiming the moral high ground. So self-centred are they, so concerned with keeping their precious hands clean are they that they turn away from the fact that they are complicit in the crimes they ignore.
It is time this was rammed down by their throats.
"For evil to triumph it is enough that good men do nothing"
I'm not even sure that all of them are good men but, even assuming that they are, they certainly want to do nothing.
Benn's reference in his speech to the Good Samaritan, to not walking by on the other side, was well said. I am not going to be told that only those who refuse to act are moral. I am not prepared to give such people a free pass on this.
Apologies I'm not sure if you're Mr, Mrs, Ms or whatever but that is a superb piece.
Thank you. I am one of the relatively few female posters on here, though I notice our numbers are increasing. (I think the Wanderer and The Apocalypse and Watford 30 are also ladies....?)
Comments
I'm not saying I'm right, but doing that work brought home again the scale of the UKIP task here (scale of the disaster for Labour if they do lose). I was never really on the page of considering 5/2 good value for a UKIP win.
Thank you. I am one of the relatively few female posters on here, though I notice our numbers are increasing. (I think the Wanderer and The Apocalypse and Watford 30 are also ladies....?)
;-)