How do all those donkey commentators braying about Zac's campaign look now??
???
Because some in Labour are racist, that makes it OK for the Tories to be racist?
There is nothing racist about accusing an extremist of being an extremist.
Why is Sadiq Khan an extremist?
Because of the amount of times he's justified other extremists until it was suddenly no longer politically acceptable, including Ken. Once is an accident, twice is careless, that many times ...
'How long before all the pieces come together and some very unpleasant views are unearthed from those in Sadiq Khan's inner circle? London is great city and deserves better as its ambassador than Continuity Ken.'
How do all those donkey commentators braying about Zac's campaign look now??
???
Because some in Labour are racist, that makes it OK for the Tories to be racist?
There is nothing racist about accusing an extremist of being an extremist.
Why is Sadiq Khan an extremist?
What's the point in engaging with you on this subject when countless times people have shown you the evidence of the kinds of people he associates himself with and you just dismiss it. No wonder Labour are in the shit if the soft left like yourself are willing to turn a blind eye to the rising number of Islamists in your party.
The utterly useless and repellent Seamus Milne may just be about to create a martyr and a rallying point for those opposed to the hard left's takeover of Labour. Go on Seamus - suspend John Mann; you know you want to.
Je Suis John
After a couple of weeks of screaming at the PM I'm now starting to feel very sorry indeed for the moderate centre left.
Surely a few MPs now have the guts to quit the shad cab, if not today then next week. This isn't going to get any better unless the moderates either stand up to it publically or resign en masse to form SDP2.
If SDP2 adopted the manifesto of the Patrick Party I think it would appeal to a great many people who have previously voted Labour and Conservative. However, to break through it would need a charismatic leader and lots of money. The money would probably appear (there are lots of very rich people) if the leader was there. However, who in our political firmament is there that could appeal to masses? I can't think of a single one.
@Dixie How would you assess the chances of the runners and riders for the 3rd place market ?
Without any quantification, I think silent Kippers are helping them crawl ahead of Greens/Libs. The latter are getting no Press, whilst white working class and some Tories are at least talking about voting UKIP. Hard to say, but I would say UKIP have a good chance of coming 3rd. The referundum is as important on the doorsteps as other policies, so people are thinking of UKIP-ing at Mayoral candidate because they are inter-twining Mayoral and EU ref together.
In 2012, Green candidate 4.48% for Mayoral vote, Libs got 4.16% and UKIP only 1.96%. All very low so a little uplift of UKIP votes will give them 3rd place. I think the UKIP candidate is surprisingly pleasant. We've done Hustings together and people don't dislike Peter Whittle.
How do all those donkey commentators braying about Zac's campaign look now??
???
Because some in Labour are racist, that makes it OK for the Tories to be racist?
There is nothing racist about accusing an extremist of being an extremist.
Why is Sadiq Khan an extremist?
Because of the amount of times he's justified other extremists until it was suddenly no longer politically acceptable, including Ken. Once is an accident, twice is careless, that many times ...
When has he "justified other extremists"?
This is an upgrade on the usual doublespeak of "sharing a platform", "having links", etc.
How do all those donkey commentators braying about Zac's campaign look now??
???
Because some in Labour are racist, that makes it OK for the Tories to be racist?
There is nothing racist about accusing an extremist of being an extremist.
Why is Sadiq Khan an extremist?
Because of the amount of times he's justified other extremists until it was suddenly no longer politically acceptable, including Ken. Once is an accident, twice is careless, that many times ...
I don't think Khan is an extremist. Rather I think he turns a blind eye to people with extremist views as he needs their votes.
The utterly useless and repellent Seamus Milne may just be about to create a martyr and a rallying point for those opposed to the hard left's takeover of Labour. Go on Seamus - suspend John Mann; you know you want to.
Je Suis John
After a couple of weeks of screaming at the PM I'm now starting to feel very sorry indeed for the moderate centre left.
Surely a few MPs now have the guts to quit the shad cab, if not today then next week. This isn't going to get any better unless the moderates either stand up to it publically or resign en masse to form SDP2.
No, Southam Observer has this one exactly right: they are going to have to stay put, survive reelection, pray for evisceration (and hope against hope that some of them will be survivors) in 2020. Only then can the far left malignancy be extirpated once and for all, and what is left of the party can rebuild. It needn't be a protracted process.
After the last dose of militancy there was still a mass worker movement around which to rebuild the centre.
Now? not so much.
Agree and the huge, perhaps insolvable problem is the Unite Union. The likely successor to the dinosaur Len McCluskey is someone even further on the fruitcake left: the moderates have almost no chance in what has morphed into the old TGWU writ large.
The utterly useless and repellent Seamus Milne may just be about to create a martyr and a rallying point for those opposed to the hard left's takeover of Labour. Go on Seamus - suspend John Mann; you know you want to.
Je Suis John
After a couple of weeks of screaming at the PM I'm now starting to feel very sorry indeed for the moderate centre left.
Surely a few MPs now have the guts to quit the shad cab, if not today then next week. This isn't going to get any better unless the moderates either stand up to it publically or resign en masse to form SDP2.
No, Southam Observer has this one exactly right: they are going to have to stay put, survive reselection and pray for evisceration (and hope against hope that some of them will be survivors) in 2020. Only then can the far left malignancy be extirpated once and for all, and what is left of the party can rebuild. It needn't be a protracted process.
I'm not sure about that John, obviously it all depends on the 2020 result but something like Con 38 Lab 29 won't lead to a centre-left revolution and disembowelment of the hard left they need. If anything the hard left will say "look it wasn't as bad as we thought, we can win next time if the media weren't such dishonest bastards" and McIRA will take over the leadership after being endorsed as the continuity candidate. With Miliband's leadership election structure in place it is going to be very hard for Labour to put a moderate in place let alone someone like Blair who can win elections.
How do all those donkey commentators braying about Zac's campaign look now??
???
Because some in Labour are racist, that makes it OK for the Tories to be racist?
There is nothing racist about accusing an extremist of being an extremist.
Why is Sadiq Khan an extremist?
Because of the amount of times he's justified other extremists until it was suddenly no longer politically acceptable, including Ken. Once is an accident, twice is careless, that many times ...
I don't think Khan is an extremist. Rather I think he turns a blind eye to people with extremist views as he needs their votes.
And for that, he deserves to have a tipper truck of shit dumped on him.
Sickening footage of a seven-year-old Palestinian girl 'stabbing' Jews was taken at a 'festival of hate' partly funded by a UK charity supported by Jeremy Corbyn and Labour MPs, MailOnline can reveal.
The film of the gruesome children's play was broadcast on Hamas TV last week, with the British charity’s logo clearly visible on a banner behind the stage...
The Charity Commission said it is investigating MailOnline’s revelations ‘as a matter of priority’. It will cause intense embarrassment to the Labour leader, who is facing a storm of criticism for not acting strongly enough to quell anti-Semitism in his party. His office declined to comment last night.
From Radio Times: David Dimbleby chairs the debate from Hull, East Yorkshire. Panellists are Conservative Communities Secretary Greg Clark, Labour's Shadow Home Secretary Andy Burnham, former leader of the SNP Alex Salmond, former Director of the Centre for Policy Studies Jill Kirby and chairman of the ARK chain of academies Paul Marshall.
The utterly useless and repellent Seamus Milne may just be about to create a martyr and a rallying point for those opposed to the hard left's takeover of Labour. Go on Seamus - suspend John Mann; you know you want to.
Je Suis John
After a couple of weeks of screaming at the PM I'm now starting to feel very sorry indeed for the moderate centre left.
Surely a few MPs now have the guts to quit the shad cab, if not today then next week. This isn't going to get any better unless the moderates either stand up to it publically or resign en masse to form SDP2.
No, Southam Observer has this one exactly right: they are going to have to stay put, survive reselection and pray for evisceration (and hope against hope that some of them will be survivors) in 2020. Only then can the far left malignancy be extirpated once and for all, and what is left of the party can rebuild. It needn't be a protracted process.
I'm not sure about that John, obviously it all depends on the 2020 result but something like Con 38 Lab 29 won't lead to a centre-left revolution and disembowelment of the hard left they need. If anything the hard left will say "look it wasn't as bad as we thought, we can win next time if the media weren't such dishonest bastards" and McIRA will take over the leadership after being endorsed as the continuity candidate. With Miliband's leadership election structure in place it is going to be very hard for Labour to put a moderate in place let alone someone like Blair who can win elections.
But, Max, those figures on the new boundaries would give the Tories a landslide majority.
Anyway, all I am saying is that an electoral rout is a necessary condition for Labour to regain its sanity, it may not be a sufficient one.
@georgegalloway: So @SadiqKhan now you want Ken out of the party too? All to please your new friends. You used Ken &Corbyn to get this gig. Then knifed them.
What a magnificent day for politics nerds. I can't recall a morning this entertaining
Tories winning the GE last year amid all the pollsters and pundits looking more and more stupid...I don't believe the exit poll...oh the exit poll looks as if it might be right...oh s##t, the exit poll is wrong, but because it hasn't given the Tories enough of a lead.
How do all those donkey commentators braying about Zac's campaign look now??
???
Because some in Labour are racist, that makes it OK for the Tories to be racist?
There is nothing racist about accusing an extremist of being an extremist.
Why is Sadiq Khan an extremist?
Because of the amount of times he's justified other extremists until it was suddenly no longer politically acceptable, including Ken. Once is an accident, twice is careless, that many times ...
When has he "justified other extremists"?
This is an upgrade on the usual doublespeak of "sharing a platform", "having links", etc.
Now either that is unacceptable, in which case that's an example of Khan doing precisely what I said ... or its perfectly acceptable behaviour in your eyes in which case there's no point talking any further?
Douglas Carswell MP @DouglasCarswell 5m5 minutes ago Rather than pointing the finger at Labour, all parties sld ask if it is ever right to seek votes by blaming some sense of "other".
@georgegalloway: So @SadiqKhan now you want Ken out of the party too? All to please your new friends. You used Ken &Corbyn to get this gig. Then knifed them.
Does make you wonder what 'new friends' he's taking about.... hmmmm
The acting Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police is facing a corruption allegations from her time at Greater Manchester Police
It's all coming out of that Northern sandpit. Must be a zionist conspiracy.
There does seem to be something very wrong with the South Yorkshire Police Force. Perhaps it should just be disbanded, and recruited from scratch.
Abolish it and let West Yorkshire Police take over.
I proposed that idea downthread. If something drastic like that isn't done then the crippled force (Which it will be by the time all the compos come and gone) won't be able to function at all. Blunkett was making some salient points on the radio this morning.
The utterly useless and repellent Seamus Milne may just be about to create a martyr and a rallying point for those opposed to the hard left's takeover of Labour. Go on Seamus - suspend John Mann; you know you want to.
Je Suis John
After a couple of weeks of screaming at the PM I'm now starting to feel very sorry indeed for the moderate centre left.
Surely a few MPs now have the guts to quit the shad cab, if not today then next week. This isn't going to get any better unless the moderates either stand up to it publically or resign en masse to form SDP2.
No, Southam Observer has this one exactly right: they are going to have to stay put, survive reselection and pray for evisceration (and hope against hope that some of them will be survivors) in 2020. Only then can the far left malignancy be extirpated once and for all, and what is left of the party can rebuild. It needn't be a protracted process.
I'm not sure about that John, obviously it all depends on the 2020 result but something like Con 38 Lab 29 won't lead to a centre-left revolution and disembowelment of the hard left they need. If anything the hard left will say "look it wasn't as bad as we thought, we can win next time if the media weren't such dishonest bastards" and McIRA will take over the leadership after being endorsed as the continuity candidate. With Miliband's leadership election structure in place it is going to be very hard for Labour to put a moderate in place let alone someone like Blair who can win elections.
But, Max, those figures on the new boundaries would give the Tories a landslide majority.
Anyway, all I am saying is that an electoral rout is a necessary condition for Labour to regain its sanity, it may not be a sufficient one.
I agree, but you're looking at it from the point of view of a sane person who wants to win elections, not from a hard left point of view that wants to "change opinions". In a scenario like this they will blame:
Dishonest bastard Tory media including the Guardian Bastard Tory boundary commission Dishonest bastard Tories
Basically anyone but themselves and the new membership and the £3 voters will eat it up and vote for McIRA instead of Jarvis handing the Labour leadership over to the hard left for another 5 years.
The acting Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police is facing a corruption allegations from her time at Greater Manchester Police
It's all coming out of that Northern sandpit. Must be a zionist conspiracy.
There does seem to be something very wrong with the South Yorkshire Police Force. Perhaps it should just be disbanded, and recruited from scratch.
Abolish it and let West Yorkshire Police take over.
Won't work, Mr. Eagles - got to sack the staff otherwise West Yorkshire will just inherit the organisational cultural problems. At the very least everyone at Superintendent rank and above (with civvie equivalents) must be barred from continuing service and junior ranks should only be allowed to continue on a strict two year probation (otherwise they will only become orgainsational terrorists).
Just as the tories were ripping each other apart over Europe, here comes labour to show how infighting is really done.
That we routinely call the Shadow Chancellor McIRA, Jihadi Jezz as leader and everyone knows about Gulag PR from Milne - the whole level of *unacceptable* has gone LaLaLand.
Now Ken talks about Hilter and some are defending him. It makes The Donald talking about building a wall and banning Muslims look at bit tame.
Douglas Carswell MP @DouglasCarswell 5m5 minutes ago Rather than pointing the finger at Labour, all parties sld ask if it is ever right to seek votes by blaming some sense of "other".
I think Carswell is right. As Nick Clegg pointed out on DP there are demons in everyone's closet. And the Cons must be careful because if they think anti-semitism and racism and homophobia is unknown in the not so distant reaches of their Shire constituencies then they are very foolish indeed. Some researcher somewhere must be doing some digging.
How do all those donkey commentators braying about Zac's campaign look now??
???
Because some in Labour are racist, that makes it OK for the Tories to be racist?
There is nothing racist about accusing an extremist of being an extremist.
Why is Sadiq Khan an extremist?
Because of the amount of times he's justified other extremists until it was suddenly no longer politically acceptable, including Ken. Once is an accident, twice is careless, that many times ...
When has he "justified other extremists"?
This is an upgrade on the usual doublespeak of "sharing a platform", "having links", etc.
Now either that is unacceptable, in which case that's an example of Khan doing precisely what I said ... or its perfectly acceptable behaviour in your eyes in which case there's no point talking any further?
Checkmate.
Is there a fuller quote of what Khan said in 2005 about Livingstone? Because what Khan is quoted as saying in that article is not a defence of Livingstone's comment at all.
What a magnificent day for politics nerds. I can't recall a morning this entertaining
What it does show is how much better the Tories are at this sort of thing. One imagines CCHQ has by now crawled the social media output of every Labour figure and has extensive files of potential scandals. Imagine if a Tory had said something ... Labour would ignore the issue, attack him for being a toff and then let it slide.
What a magnificent day for politics nerds. I can't recall a morning this entertaining
Tories winning the GE last year amid all the pollsters and pundits looking more and more stupid...I don't believe the exit poll...oh the exit poll looks as if it might be right...oh s##t, the exit poll is wrong, but because it hasn't given the Tories enough of a lead.
Oh sure, that's why I said morning
The 2015 GE was just sublime, and caused an entire night of exultant rightwing gloating, in my flat. I remember drinking champagne out of my racist Labour mug at about 11am.
@patrick_kidd: "You've lost it Mr Livingstone, you need help. What are you on?" John Mann MP lays into the hug-a-Hitler former mayor
Hug-A-Hitler...brilliant.
John Mann never one to turn up on TV without a petrol can.
What a complete shambles. Labour right wing out to get the current leadership.
Livingstone must be completely thick at best to bring Adolf into this
This is why Labour is totally and utterly screwed. Instead of dealing with the anti-Semitism that is now rife in parts of the party, members see calls to tackle it as an attack on the leader. Thus, you get the disgusting sight of the disgusting Ken Livingstone defending Adolf Fucking Hitler on the television as a member of the NEC.
Do Labour members begin to understand that they are destroying their party's brand and also consigning the country to year upon year of inept and destructive right wing rule?
It is utterly shameful.
I've just watched the interview and whilst there were bits of it that were un PC and made wonder what Livingstone REALLY thinks 'proper anti-semites don't just hate Israel' I don't think there was a smoking gun. Saying Hitler favoured Zionism in 1932 may just be an historical truth. It's not ludicrous to think that some of the Europeans who favoured a Jewish state were anti-semites who wanted rid of the Jewish population.
His worst comment was talking about "before Hitler went crazy in 1932", as if he what he wrote in Mein Kampf about how Jews weren't part of the "master race" were all fine and dandy. Talking about "the Israel lobby" also has horrible implications.
Ken let the cat out of the bag back in 2012, when he said something like how Jews don't vote Labour because they're rich. Unfortunately, there is a section of the Left who thinks any group who are stereotypically richer cannot be subjected to "real" discrimination.
There is a corollary of that among certain lefties in the US - that blacks cannot be racist as they are the object of so much racism.
Just as the tories were ripping each other apart over Europe, here comes labour to show how infighting is really done.
That we routinely call the Shadow Chancellor McIRA, Jihadi Jezz as leader and everyone knows about Gulag PR from Milne - the whole level of *unacceptable* has gone LaLaLand.
Now Ken talks about Hilter and some are defending him. It makes The Donald talking about building a wall and banning Muslims look at bit tame.
Perhaps that's Labour strategy. They looked at how much free publicity that Trump has got and thought well we can match the stupid quaff haired American....Send out Red Ken to talk about how Hitler wasn't all bad, until he went a bad mad.
What a magnificent day for politics nerds. I can't recall a morning this entertaining
What it does show is how much better the Tories are at this sort of thing. One imagines CCHQ has by now crawled the social media output of every Labour figure and has extensive files of potential scandals. Imagine if a Tory had said something ... Labour would ignore the issue, attack him for being a toff and then let it slide.
You must have missed Labour's attacks on Zac Goldsmith.
The acting Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police is facing a corruption allegations from her time at Greater Manchester Police
It's all coming out of that Northern sandpit. Must be a zionist conspiracy.
There does seem to be something very wrong with the South Yorkshire Police Force. Perhaps it should just be disbanded, and recruited from scratch.
Abolish it and let West Yorkshire Police take over.
Won't work, Mr. Eagles - got to sack the staff otherwise West Yorkshire will just inherit the organisational cultural problems. At the very least everyone at Superintendent rank and above (with civvie equivalents) must be barred from continuing service and junior ranks should only be allowed to continue on a strict two year probation (otherwise they will only become orgainsational terrorists).
Deba'athification of an entire UK police force. Are we really at that point in proceedings?
sorry if it's been mentioned but the "highlight" for me, in a tough field, was when he said that Shah wasn't anti-semitic because anti-semites hate all Jews. Left unsaid, of course, was..."whereas she only hates the ones in Israel..."
I think Rupa Huq comparing Shah to someone sharing a picture of Boris failing to use a zipline properly was the highlight for me.
Labour's "Moderate" Muslim MPs are looking rather less moderate than they would like us to believe.
What a magnificent day for politics nerds. I can't recall a morning this entertaining
Tories winning the GE last year amid all the pollsters and pundits looking more and more stupid...I don't believe the exit poll...oh the exit poll looks as if it might be right...oh s##t, the exit poll is wrong, but because it hasn't given the Tories enough of a lead.
Oh sure, that's why I said morning
The 2015 GE was just sublime, and caused an entire night of exultant rightwing gloating, in my flat. I remember drinking champagne out of my racist Labour mug at about 11am.
Douglas Carswell MP @DouglasCarswell 5m5 minutes ago Rather than pointing the finger at Labour, all parties sld ask if it is ever right to seek votes by blaming some sense of "other".
I think Carswell is right. As Nick Clegg pointed out on DP there are demons in everyone's closet. And the Cons must be careful because if they think anti-semitism and racism and homophobia is unknown in the not so distant reaches of their Shire constituencies then they are very foolish indeed. Some researcher somewhere must be doing some digging.
It is the reaction though isn't it. If somebody finds a Tory MP with a dodgy facebook post or tw@tter, I am pretty damn sure they will be suspended in minutes, not hours or days. And even the nuttiest of nutty Tories, I doubt are going to go onto DP and start saying well that Adolf bloke wasn't so bad.
If I had to guess, they will find some Tory with some dodgy crap about Muslims rather than Jews.
Douglas Carswell MP @DouglasCarswell 5m5 minutes ago Rather than pointing the finger at Labour, all parties sld ask if it is ever right to seek votes by blaming some sense of "other".
I think Carswell is right. As Nick Clegg pointed out on DP there are demons in everyone's closet. And the Cons must be careful because if they think anti-semitism and racism and homophobia is unknown in the not so distant reaches of their Shire constituencies then they are very foolish indeed. Some researcher somewhere must be doing some digging.
The Bufton Tufton's of the world dont tend to sprout their views on twitter and facebook as much however.
What a magnificent day for politics nerds. I can't recall a morning this entertaining
Tories winning the GE last year amid all the pollsters and pundits looking more and more stupid...I don't believe the exit poll...oh the exit poll looks as if it might be right...oh s##t, the exit poll is wrong, but because it hasn't given the Tories enough of a lead.
Oh sure, that's why I said morning
The 2015 GE was just sublime, and caused an entire night of exultant rightwing gloating, in my flat. I remember drinking champagne out of my racist Labour mug at about 11am.
The acting Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police is facing a corruption allegations from her time at Greater Manchester Police
It's all coming out of that Northern sandpit. Must be a zionist conspiracy.
There does seem to be something very wrong with the South Yorkshire Police Force. Perhaps it should just be disbanded, and recruited from scratch.
Abolish it and let West Yorkshire Police take over.
Won't work, Mr. Eagles - got to sack the staff otherwise West Yorkshire will just inherit the organisational cultural problems. At the very least everyone at Superintendent rank and above (with civvie equivalents) must be barred from continuing service and junior ranks should only be allowed to continue on a strict two year probation (otherwise they will only become orgainsational terrorists).
Deba'athification of an entire UK police force. Are we really at that point in proceedings?
When you're left arguing if Hillsborough or Rotherham was the worse feck up, you've serious issues as an organisation
What a magnificent day for politics nerds. I can't recall a morning this entertaining
What it does show is how much better the Tories are at this sort of thing. One imagines CCHQ has by now crawled the social media output of every Labour figure and has extensive files of potential scandals. Imagine if a Tory had said something ... Labour would ignore the issue, attack him for being a toff and then let it slide.
some genius backroom tory took Ken out for breakfast and gave him extra helpings of his favourite - ahem - refreshment? Then set him loose on the airwaves. Or was it Murdoch? Does anyone know where the dirty digger is today #justsaying
Conservative and Ukip racists - bad. Labour and LD racists - ignore.
It's the hypocrisy that gets you in the end. Not you personally, of course.
Well looking at the politics of it, regardless of the fact that racism, specifically anti-semitism, has been rife within the left for decades, it is a man bites dog story when Lab do it today.
If the Cons do it, sadly, it is more dog bites man, not that that makes it any better.
My point was about throwing too many stones given that there will be a non-trivial proportion of Cons supporters who hold views every bit as vile.
@patrick_kidd: "You've lost it Mr Livingstone, you need help. What are you on?" John Mann MP lays into the hug-a-Hitler former mayor
Hug-A-Hitler...brilliant.
John Mann never one to turn up on TV without a petrol can.
What a complete shambles. Labour right wing out to get the current leadership.
Livingstone must be completely thick at best to bring Adolf into this
Do Labour members begin to understand that they are destroying their party's brand and also consigning the country to year upon year of inept and destructive right wing rule?
It is utterly shameful.
I've just watched the interview and whilst there were bits of it that were un PC and made wonder what Livingstone REALLY thinks 'proper anti-semites don't just hate Israel' I don't think there was a smoking gun. Saying Hitler favoured Zionism in 1932 may just be an historical truth. It's not ludicrous to think that some of the Europeans who favoured a Jewish state were anti-semites who wanted rid of the Jewish population.
His worst comment was talking about "before Hitler went crazy in 1932", as if he what he wrote in Mein Kampf about how Jews weren't part of the "master race" were all fine and dandy. Talking about "the Israel lobby" also has horrible implications.
Ken let the cat out of the bag back in 2012, when he said something like how Jews don't vote Labour because they're rich. Unfortunately, there is a section of the Left who thinks any group who are stereotypically richer cannot be subjected to "real" discrimination.
There is a corollary of that among certain lefties in the US - that blacks cannot be racist as they are the object of so much racism.
It's a slightly naive view to think that people's reaction to racism will be to become committed anti-racists because they know what it is like to be on the receiving end. I suspect racism between groups has always been mutually re-inforcing.
Another (interesting) view is that the concept of 'racism' is an entirely western construction and so it's absurd to think anyone other than whites would be capable of it or that it isn't for westerners to impose their own cultural values on others.
@patrick_kidd: "You've lost it Mr Livingstone, you need help. What are you on?" John Mann MP lays into the hug-a-Hitler former mayor
Hug-A-Hitler...brilliant.
John Mann never one to turn up on TV without a petrol can.
What a complete shambles. Labour right wing out to get the current leadership.
Livingstone must be completely thick at best to bring Adolf into this
Do Labour members begin to understand that they are destroying their party's brand and also consigning the country to year upon year of inept and destructive right wing rule?
It is utterly shameful.
I've just watched the interview and whilst there were bits of it that were un PC and made wonder what Livingstone REALLY thinks 'proper anti-semites don't just hate Israel' I don't think there was a smoking gun. Saying Hitler favoured Zionism in 1932 may just be an historical truth. It's not ludicrous to think that some of the Europeans who favoured a Jewish state were anti-semites who wanted rid of the Jewish population.
His worst comment was talking about "before Hitler went crazy in 1932", as if he what he wrote in Mein Kampf about how Jews weren't part of the "master race" were all fine and dandy. Talking about "the Israel lobby" also has horrible implications.
Ken let the cat out of the bag back in 2012, when he said something like how Jews don't vote Labour because they're rich. Unfortunately, there is a section of the Left who thinks any group who are stereotypically richer cannot be subjected to "real" discrimination.
There is a corollary of that among certain lefties in the US - that blacks cannot be racist as they are the object of so much racism.
It's a slightly naive view to think that people's reaction to racism will be to become committed anti-racists because they know what it is like to be on the receiving end. I suspect racism between groups has always been mutually re-inforcing.
Another (interesting) view is that the concept of 'racism' is an entirely western construction and so it's absurd to think anyone other than whites would be capable of it or that it isn't for westerners to impose their own cultural values on others.
Racism is only "wrong" when you're on the receiving end?
What a magnificent day for politics nerds. I can't recall a morning this entertaining
What it does show is how much better the Tories are at this sort of thing. One imagines CCHQ has by now crawled the social media output of every Labour figure and has extensive files of potential scandals. Imagine if a Tory had said something ... Labour would ignore the issue, attack him for being a toff and then let it slide.
You must have missed Labour's attacks on Zac Goldsmith.
Douglas Carswell MP @DouglasCarswell 5m5 minutes ago Rather than pointing the finger at Labour, all parties sld ask if it is ever right to seek votes by blaming some sense of "other".
I think Carswell is right. As Nick Clegg pointed out on DP there are demons in everyone's closet. And the Cons must be careful because if they think anti-semitism and racism and homophobia is unknown in the not so distant reaches of their Shire constituencies then they are very foolish indeed. Some researcher somewhere must be doing some digging.
It is the reaction though isn't it. If somebody finds a Tory MP with a dodgy facebook post or tw@tter, I am pretty damn sure they will be suspended in minutes, not hours or days. And even the nuttiest of nutty Tories, I doubt are going to go onto DP and start saying well that Adolf bloke wasn't so bad.
If I had to guess, they will find some Tory with some dodgy crap about Muslims rather than Jews.
What about that Tory who described President Obama as half-Kenyan. Was he suspended or is he still an MP and Mayor of London?
Douglas Carswell MP @DouglasCarswell 5m5 minutes ago Rather than pointing the finger at Labour, all parties sld ask if it is ever right to seek votes by blaming some sense of "other".
I think Carswell is right. As Nick Clegg pointed out on DP there are demons in everyone's closet. And the Cons must be careful because if they think anti-semitism and racism and homophobia is unknown in the not so distant reaches of their Shire constituencies then they are very foolish indeed. Some researcher somewhere must be doing some digging.
It is the reaction though isn't it. If somebody finds a Tory MP with a dodgy facebook post or tw@tter, I am pretty damn sure they will be suspended in minutes, not hours or days. And even the nuttiest of nutty Tories, I doubt are going to go onto DP and start saying well that Adolf bloke wasn't so bad.
If I had to guess, they will find some Tory with some dodgy crap about Muslims rather than Jews.
Yes that is true. There is a general acceptance of those nice Labour people which for Cons is never allowed.
The acting Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police is facing a corruption allegations from her time at Greater Manchester Police
It's all coming out of that Northern sandpit. Must be a zionist conspiracy.
There does seem to be something very wrong with the South Yorkshire Police Force. Perhaps it should just be disbanded, and recruited from scratch.
Abolish it and let West Yorkshire Police take over.
Won't work, Mr. Eagles - got to sack the staff otherwise West Yorkshire will just inherit the organisational cultural problems. At the very least everyone at Superintendent rank and above (with civvie equivalents) must be barred from continuing service and junior ranks should only be allowed to continue on a strict two year probation (otherwise they will only become orgainsational terrorists).
Deba'athification of an entire UK police force. Are we really at that point in proceedings?
When you're left arguing if Hillsborough or Rotherham was the worse feck up, you've serious issues as an organisation
They are rotten to the core. Disband them completely as was done to the RUC in 2001, bringing in new blood from outside for the Superintendents and heads of the civvy departments.
What a magnificent day for politics nerds. I can't recall a morning this entertaining
Tories winning the GE last year amid all the pollsters and pundits looking more and more stupid...I don't believe the exit poll...oh the exit poll looks as if it might be right...oh s##t, the exit poll is wrong, but because it hasn't given the Tories enough of a lead.
Oh sure, that's why I said morning
The 2015 GE was just sublime, and caused an entire night of exultant rightwing gloating, in my flat. I remember drinking champagne out of my racist Labour mug at about 11am.
I returned sunburnt like a lobster at 1030PM and opened the fizz expecting to be defeated and dog tired for bed. Then I caught up with the exit poll...downed another bottle of champers. I think I went to bed about 10am the next day. I had to wait for Ed Balls.
Douglas Carswell MP @DouglasCarswell 5m5 minutes ago Rather than pointing the finger at Labour, all parties sld ask if it is ever right to seek votes by blaming some sense of "other".
I think Carswell is right. As Nick Clegg pointed out on DP there are demons in everyone's closet. And the Cons must be careful because if they think anti-semitism and racism and homophobia is unknown in the not so distant reaches of their Shire constituencies then they are very foolish indeed. Some researcher somewhere must be doing some digging.
But Tory anti-Semitism is picayune compared to Labour's. It's just a tiny scintilla of old school bigots, mostly in their 90s. It's invisible.
Labour's racist problem, by contrast, is a glistening carbuncle in the middle of the face. Staring right at us. And growing.
Yes that's also true but I would bring down the average age of those bigots a decade or three or four. The less metropolitan the lower the age, I would say.
And I thought Cameron's handling of all the tax stuff was bad....Imagine if Corbyn had immediately come out suspended Shah and everybody stuck to some central line it would have remained a story buried way down on the BBC politics page. Now it has managed to be THE story, knocking all the stuff about Hillsborough off the top of the news.
What a magnificent day for politics nerds. I can't recall a morning this entertaining
El Gord's encounter with Mrs Duffy?
That was great but it didn't reach the orgasmic levels of WTF-ness that was Ken on the telly, live, setting fire to himself while mentioning Hitler 936 times.
What a magnificent day for politics nerds. I can't recall a morning this entertaining
What it does show is how much better the Tories are at this sort of thing. One imagines CCHQ has by now crawled the social media output of every Labour figure and has extensive files of potential scandals. Imagine if a Tory had said something ... Labour would ignore the issue, attack him for being a toff and then let it slide.
You must have missed Labour's attacks on Zac Goldsmith.
Douglas Carswell MP @DouglasCarswell 5m5 minutes ago Rather than pointing the finger at Labour, all parties sld ask if it is ever right to seek votes by blaming some sense of "other".
I think Carswell is right. As Nick Clegg pointed out on DP there are demons in everyone's closet. And the Cons must be careful because if they think anti-semitism and racism and homophobia is unknown in the not so distant reaches of their Shire constituencies then they are very foolish indeed. Some researcher somewhere must be doing some digging.
It is the reaction though isn't it. If somebody finds a Tory MP with a dodgy facebook post or tw@tter, I am pretty damn sure they will be suspended in minutes, not hours or days. And even the nuttiest of nutty Tories, I doubt are going to go onto DP and start saying well that Adolf bloke wasn't so bad.
If I had to guess, they will find some Tory with some dodgy crap about Muslims rather than Jews.
What about that Tory who described President Obama as half-Kenyan. Was he suspended or is he still an MP and Mayor of London?
Isn't that a statement of fact, and one which Obama himself has used in text and speeches in the past? His clam about the Churchill bust was also found to be true, despite a lot of initial spin to the contrary.
It isn't in the same universe as the Hitler wasn't too bad, etc etc etc, that Ken has said today. It wasn't one poorly phased sentence (taken out of context by the media), it was 15 minutes on DP that just got worse and worse and worse.
Same as Naz Shah. One "favourite / retweet" of social media, you can let that go, but Staines revealed a whole load of stuff about her posts, charities she supported and people she employed.
The acting Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police is facing a corruption allegations from her time at Greater Manchester Police
It's all coming out of that Northern sandpit. Must be a zionist conspiracy.
There does seem to be something very wrong with the South Yorkshire Police Force. Perhaps it should just be disbanded, and recruited from scratch.
Abolish it and let West Yorkshire Police take over.
Won't work, Mr. Eagles - got to sack the staff otherwise West Yorkshire will just inherit the organisational cultural problems. At the very least everyone at Superintendent rank and above (with civvie equivalents) must be barred from continuing service and junior ranks should only be allowed to continue on a strict two year probation (otherwise they will only become orgainsational terrorists).
@patrick_kidd: "You've lost it Mr Livingstone, you need help. What are you on?" John Mann MP lays into the hug-a-Hitler former mayor
Hug-A-Hitler...brilliant.
John Mann never one to turn up on TV without a petrol can.
What a complete shambles. Labour right wing out to get the current leadership.
Livingstone must be completely thick at best to bring Adolf into this
Do Labour members begin to understand that they are destroying their party's brand and also consigning the country to year upon year of inept and destructive right wing rule?
It is utterly shameful.
I've just watched the interview and whilst there were bits of it that were un PC and made wonder what Livingstone REALLY thinks 'proper anti-semites don't just hate Israel' I don't think there was a smoking gun. Saying Hitler favoured Zionism in 1932 may just be an historical truth. It's not ludicrous to think that some of the Europeans who favoured a Jewish state were anti-semites who wanted rid of the Jewish population.
His worst comment was talking about "before Hitler went crazy in 1932", as if he what he wrote in Mein Kampf about how Jews weren't part of the "master race" were all fine and dandy. Talking about "the Israel lobby" also has horrible implications.
Ken let the cat out of the bag back in 2012, when he said something like how Jews don't vote Labour because they're rich. Unfortunately, there is a section of the Left who thinks any group who are stereotypically richer cannot be subjected to "real" discrimination.
There is a corollary of that among certain lefties in the US - that blacks cannot be racist as they are the object of so much racism.
It's a slightly naive view to think that people's reaction to racism will be to become committed anti-racists because they know what it is like to be on the receiving end. I suspect racism between groups has always been mutually re-inforcing.
Another (interesting) view is that the concept of 'racism' is an entirely western construction and so it's absurd to think anyone other than whites would be capable of it or that it isn't for westerners to impose their own cultural values on others.
I think it's more likely that people who are on the receiving end of prejudice will repay it with interest and/or pass on their knocks to other groups. It's very common to justify discrimination by reference to historic ill-treatment.
The acting Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police is facing a corruption allegations from her time at Greater Manchester Police
It's all coming out of that Northern sandpit. Must be a zionist conspiracy.
There does seem to be something very wrong with the South Yorkshire Police Force. Perhaps it should just be disbanded, and recruited from scratch.
Abolish it and let West Yorkshire Police take over.
Won't work, Mr. Eagles - got to sack the staff otherwise West Yorkshire will just inherit the organisational cultural problems. At the very least everyone at Superintendent rank and above (with civvie equivalents) must be barred from continuing service and junior ranks should only be allowed to continue on a strict two year probation (otherwise they will only become orgainsational terrorists).
Deba'athification of an entire UK police force. Are we really at that point in proceedings?
No, but South Yorks police has had a lot of organisational cultural problems going back over decades. Changing chief officers hasn't solved it. So if one does want to address the issue then, maybe, more radical surgery is what is required.
Cancer surgery succeeds only if it cuts out all of the cancer. It might scoop out some good cells with the bad but the body can normally cope with that.
The acting Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police is facing a corruption allegations from her time at Greater Manchester Police
It's all coming out of that Northern sandpit. Must be a zionist conspiracy.
There does seem to be something very wrong with the South Yorkshire Police Force. Perhaps it should just be disbanded, and recruited from scratch.
Abolish it and let West Yorkshire Police take over.
Won't work, Mr. Eagles - got to sack the staff otherwise West Yorkshire will just inherit the organisational cultural problems. At the very least everyone at Superintendent rank and above (with civvie equivalents) must be barred from continuing service and junior ranks should only be allowed to continue on a strict two year probation (otherwise they will only become orgainsational terrorists).
Deba'athification of an entire UK police force. Are we really at that point in proceedings?
When you're left arguing if Hillsborough or Rotherham was the worse feck up, you've serious issues as an organisation
Two of the letters in the Guardian today were very revealing. The first from a Sheffield resident who had kept a copy of the Sheffield Star from the day after Hillsborough that basically concurred with the verdict this week. The second was from a Forest fan who left the ground with his son early whilst the disarray was still unfolding and saw all the fleets of Ambulances outside. He gave a statement over the phone to the police but it was clear they weren't typing down the information he was giving. What I can't understand is why so much of the media didn't pick up on it.
What a magnificent day for politics nerds. I can't recall a morning this entertaining
What it does show is how much better the Tories are at this sort of thing. One imagines CCHQ has by now crawled the social media output of every Labour figure and has extensive files of potential scandals. Imagine if a Tory had said something ... Labour would ignore the issue, attack him for being a toff and then let it slide.
You must have missed Labour's attacks on Zac Goldsmith.
Douglas Carswell MP @DouglasCarswell 5m5 minutes ago Rather than pointing the finger at Labour, all parties sld ask if it is ever right to seek votes by blaming some sense of "other".
I think Carswell is right. As Nick Clegg pointed out on DP there are demons in everyone's closet. And the Cons must be careful because if they think anti-semitism and racism and homophobia is unknown in the not so distant reaches of their Shire constituencies then they are very foolish indeed. Some researcher somewhere must be doing some digging.
It is the reaction though isn't it. If somebody finds a Tory MP with a dodgy facebook post or tw@tter, I am pretty damn sure they will be suspended in minutes, not hours or days. And even the nuttiest of nutty Tories, I doubt are going to go onto DP and start saying well that Adolf bloke wasn't so bad.
If I had to guess, they will find some Tory with some dodgy crap about Muslims rather than Jews.
What about that Tory who described President Obama as half-Kenyan. Was he suspended or is he still an MP and Mayor of London?
Obama is half-Kenyan, that's a statement of fact (though unwisely phrased, in that essay, by Boris). Saying "real anti Semites don't just hate Jews in Israel, they hate all Jews" is a bigoted piece of shit.
Obama is an uppity African was the clear sub-text. It was a nasty dog whistle. But nothing compared to Livingstone. Labour supporters are just going to have to accept that their party's leadership has very little problem with anti-Semites and that Labour members put that leadership in place.
The acting Chief Constable of South Yorkshire Police is facing a corruption allegations from her time at Greater Manchester Police
It's all coming out of that Northern sandpit. Must be a zionist conspiracy.
There does seem to be something very wrong with the South Yorkshire Police Force. Perhaps it should just be disbanded, and recruited from scratch.
Abolish it and let West Yorkshire Police take over.
Won't work, Mr. Eagles - got to sack the staff otherwise West Yorkshire will just inherit the organisational cultural problems. At the very least everyone at Superintendent rank and above (with civvie equivalents) must be barred from continuing service and junior ranks should only be allowed to continue on a strict two year probation (otherwise they will only become orgainsational terrorists).
Deba'athification of an entire UK police force. Are we really at that point in proceedings?
When you're left arguing if Hillsborough or Rotherham was the worse feck up, you've serious issues as an organisation
Admitted, not to even mention the Battle of Orgreave. I'm musing whether take over or dissolve and re-recruit from scratch are the solutions. Has it really come to that or could strong leadership still bring it round? Perhaps it's my small 'c' conservative nature and maybe it has reached the time to be that radical.
Never mind today, I thought Labour had taken leave of their senses when they closed down the rail network for that week or so after Potters Bar, but as far as I know in the 14 years since then one single fare paying passenger has been killed in a mainline train collision / derailment (Greyrigg) and perhaps hindsight says they saw and took a historic opportunity that I didn't appreciate at the time.
Comments
'How long before all the pieces come together and some very unpleasant views are unearthed from those in Sadiq Khan's inner circle? London is great city and deserves better as its ambassador than Continuity Ken.'
Just a matter of timing
https://twitter.com/bbcquestiontime/status/725620588518199296
In 2012, Green candidate 4.48% for Mayoral vote, Libs got 4.16% and UKIP only 1.96%. All very low so a little uplift of UKIP votes will give them 3rd place. I think the UKIP candidate is surprisingly pleasant. We've done Hustings together and people don't dislike Peter Whittle.
This is an upgrade on the usual doublespeak of "sharing a platform", "having links", etc.
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/#/politics/market/1.107728324
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3561337/As-Labour-anti-Semitism-row-deepens-revealed-Jeremy-Corbyn-s-pet-charity-funded-Palestinian-festival-hate-children-dressed-terrorists-acted-murdering-Jews.html
...which is why he is now hiding from the press...
No civil war in the labour party....
Anyway, all I am saying is that an electoral rout is a necessary condition for Labour to regain its sanity, it may not be a sufficient one.
Now either that is unacceptable, in which case that's an example of Khan doing precisely what I said ... or its perfectly acceptable behaviour in your eyes in which case there's no point talking any further?
Checkmate.
Douglas Carswell MP @DouglasCarswell 5m5 minutes ago
Rather than pointing the finger at Labour, all parties sld ask if it is ever right to seek votes by blaming some sense of "other".
Dishonest bastard Tory media including the Guardian
Bastard Tory boundary commission
Dishonest bastard Tories
Basically anyone but themselves and the new membership and the £3 voters will eat it up and vote for McIRA instead of Jarvis handing the Labour leadership over to the hard left for another 5 years.
Now Ken talks about Hilter and some are defending him. It makes The Donald talking about building a wall and banning Muslims look at bit tame.
Another Lab source says the Mann discipline discussion lays bare the factionalism of "you take out one of ours, we take out one of yours"
Conservative and Ukip racists - bad.
Labour and LD racists - ignore.
It's the hypocrisy that gets you in the end. Not you personally, of course.
If I had to guess, they will find some Tory with some dodgy crap about Muslims rather than Jews.
John Furnish
The good news for Ken Livingstone is there's a seat in Parliament about to become vacant in Bradford #NazShah
If the Cons do it, sadly, it is more dog bites man, not that that makes it any better.
My point was about throwing too many stones given that there will be a non-trivial proportion of Cons supporters who hold views every bit as vile.
Another (interesting) view is that the concept of 'racism' is an entirely western construction and so it's absurd to think anyone other than whites would be capable of it or that it isn't for westerners to impose their own cultural values on others.
Great work Chairman Milne...
https://twitter.com/GracieSamuels/status/725650133388562433
It isn't in the same universe as the Hitler wasn't too bad, etc etc etc, that Ken has said today. It wasn't one poorly phased sentence (taken out of context by the media), it was 15 minutes on DP that just got worse and worse and worse.
Same as Naz Shah. One "favourite / retweet" of social media, you can let that go, but Staines revealed a whole load of stuff about her posts, charities she supported and people she employed.
Cancer surgery succeeds only if it cuts out all of the cancer. It might scoop out some good cells with the bad but the body can normally cope with that.
What could possibly go wrong?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJCzVV5eIg8
Labour imploding
Never mind today, I thought Labour had taken leave of their senses when they closed down the rail network for that week or so after Potters Bar, but as far as I know in the 14 years since then one single fare paying passenger has been killed in a mainline train collision / derailment (Greyrigg) and perhaps hindsight says they saw and took a historic opportunity that I didn't appreciate at the time.