Good riddance to the dreadful Executive power grab that Tony Benn would have opposed with all his might, as would David Davis in better days. But what will replace it? Will anything? The sense is growing that no attempt will ever be made to leave the EU until there is a Government elected on a manifesto the contents of which necessitated it. For example, the Labour manifesto of 2017.
Wednesday, 18 October 2017
Know Better
As Boris Johnson calls for MPs to be banned from appearing on RT, on which his own father recently appeared, the question presents itself of why no one else ever asks those particular elected parliamentarians to appear.
The media Establishment is still trotting out the BBC's barefaced lie about Laura Kuenssberg's invisible bodyguard at the Labour Party Conference, and it is preparing to present awards to the likes of Janan "Corbyn supporters are as thick as pigshit" Ganesh and Nick "Chris Williamson is like Mussolini" Cohen, both of whom it regards as on the Left, so limited is its social circle.
"The BBC is no better" is a useful riposte, not least because of its accuracy. "How can you possibly appear on LBC, or on After The News, or in one of the Murdoch, Barclay or Rothermere papers?" "The BBC is no better." And it isn't. "How can you possibly appear on RT, or on Sputnik (the radio station), or on George Galloway talkRADIO programme, or in the Morning Star?" "The BBC is no better." And it isn't.
Indeed, there is nothing on it as intelligent or as balanced as Going Underground, or Sputnik (the television programme), or The Mother of All Talk Shows. It is no wonder that the more thoughtful Conservatives and right-wing commentators wish to be on them. Their colleagues who have never been invited need to look to themselves.
Tuesday, 17 October 2017
Left To Itself?
And so inflation soars away. But remember, there are still people who think that George Osborne was right all along. For that was the position of the Labour front bench until Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell took over. It remains the position of perhaps 100 Labour MPs, most of whom are going to leave Parliament, voluntarily or otherwise, at the next General Election, but who are still there for now.
Remember, when they start gobbing off about something or other, that they still think, to this day, that Osborne was right and that Labour ought to fight an Election saying so. Like Osborne, and indeed like Philip Hammond, they remain career-long absentees from the list of politicians whose economic policies have been endorsed by Nobel Laureates in the discipline and by the IMF. For that, you need Corbyn and McDonnell.
Keeping on one or two of those 100 or so might serve a certain purpose. It might make Labour look broad enough to tolerate them, although of course nowhere near so extreme as to permit them anywhere near the running of anything. Thus would the Labour Right mirror what has always been the role of the Conservative Right.
Yes, always. Ken Clarke was a Minister continuously from 1979 to 1997. Whereas few of the Conservative Maastricht rebels had ever been Ministers and none had ever been anything very much as a Minister (unlike on the Labour side). None of the really hardcore lot who had the Whip withdrawn over the European Finance Bill had ever held Ministerial office or, with one exception, ever had any hope of such. Jeremy Paxman mockingly asked John Redwood, who was then a Leadership candidate, which of them he intended to have his Cabinet, as if that question itself were a joke. It was.
Welcome to the future fate, if it has not already befallen them, of the Blairites. Keeping on a small number of them would make Labour look broad enough to tolerate them, although of course nowhere near so extreme as to permit them anywhere near the running of anything. And it is possible that someone has already been cast in the same role on the Left. Despite her political and personal closeness to the Leader, she has not been made so much as a Parliamentary Private Secretary, whereas there are members of the 2017 intake already in Shadow Ministerial positions.
It has clearly been decided that she is the figure so tribal, sectarian and separatist that, while keeping her on makes Labour and Corbyn look broad enough to tolerate her, neither Labour nor Corbyn will ever permit themselves to appear so extreme as to allow her anywhere near the running of anything. All that can be said is that that role, however useful, is not the one to which a Constituency Labour Party is accustomed in its MP if that office has previously been held by Ernest Armstrong, Hilary Armstrong and Pat Glass. Yet that is the role with which Laura Pidcock is now stuck, for the whole of a parliamentary career that might easily last 35 or 40 years. Left to itself, that is. Left to itself.
Remember, when they start gobbing off about something or other, that they still think, to this day, that Osborne was right and that Labour ought to fight an Election saying so. Like Osborne, and indeed like Philip Hammond, they remain career-long absentees from the list of politicians whose economic policies have been endorsed by Nobel Laureates in the discipline and by the IMF. For that, you need Corbyn and McDonnell.
Keeping on one or two of those 100 or so might serve a certain purpose. It might make Labour look broad enough to tolerate them, although of course nowhere near so extreme as to permit them anywhere near the running of anything. Thus would the Labour Right mirror what has always been the role of the Conservative Right.
Yes, always. Ken Clarke was a Minister continuously from 1979 to 1997. Whereas few of the Conservative Maastricht rebels had ever been Ministers and none had ever been anything very much as a Minister (unlike on the Labour side). None of the really hardcore lot who had the Whip withdrawn over the European Finance Bill had ever held Ministerial office or, with one exception, ever had any hope of such. Jeremy Paxman mockingly asked John Redwood, who was then a Leadership candidate, which of them he intended to have his Cabinet, as if that question itself were a joke. It was.
Welcome to the future fate, if it has not already befallen them, of the Blairites. Keeping on a small number of them would make Labour look broad enough to tolerate them, although of course nowhere near so extreme as to permit them anywhere near the running of anything. And it is possible that someone has already been cast in the same role on the Left. Despite her political and personal closeness to the Leader, she has not been made so much as a Parliamentary Private Secretary, whereas there are members of the 2017 intake already in Shadow Ministerial positions.
It has clearly been decided that she is the figure so tribal, sectarian and separatist that, while keeping her on makes Labour and Corbyn look broad enough to tolerate her, neither Labour nor Corbyn will ever permit themselves to appear so extreme as to allow her anywhere near the running of anything. All that can be said is that that role, however useful, is not the one to which a Constituency Labour Party is accustomed in its MP if that office has previously been held by Ernest Armstrong, Hilary Armstrong and Pat Glass. Yet that is the role with which Laura Pidcock is now stuck, for the whole of a parliamentary career that might easily last 35 or 40 years. Left to itself, that is. Left to itself.
"We Need Trident To Justify Having A Navy"?
No, we need the sea to justify having a Navy. And we have no shortage of that.
But we have a pronounced shortage of a Navy, now to the point of crisis. Yet we still have Trident.
But we have a pronounced shortage of a Navy, now to the point of crisis. Yet we still have Trident.
The Royal Navy was the mightiest in the world before nuclear weapons were ever even thought of.
News From Nowhere
300 dead so far, and hundreds more seriously injured, as a result of a truck bomb attack in Mogadishu.
And Daphne Caruana Galizia, the journalist who brought us the Panama Papers, killed by a car bomb in Malta.
Harvey who?
The Great Mail Robbery
Services slashed, prices up, and half a million pounds per day to the shareholders. The privatisation of the Royal Mail has been plain and simple larceny.
The courts will have any moral authority to try me when they put George Osborne, his best man, and the rest of that mob on trial for this.
The courts will have any moral authority to try me when they put George Osborne, his best man, and the rest of that mob on trial for this.
Critical National Infrastructure
The best way to protect some of these strategic national industries, such as energy, is to own them directly. Public ownership is British ownership, safeguarding, and safeguarded by, national and parliamentary sovereignty; safeguarding, and safeguarded by, parliamentary and municipal democracy; and safeguarding, and safeguarded by, the Union and the unions.
There is a clear, and highly active, role for those institutions even in relation to industries that either cannot, or on balance should not, be in public ownership. And there is now a major party in which both the Leader and the members understand all of this. Theresa May and her party need to make way for that Leader and for that party.
There is a clear, and highly active, role for those institutions even in relation to industries that either cannot, or on balance should not, be in public ownership. And there is now a major party in which both the Leader and the members understand all of this. Theresa May and her party need to make way for that Leader and for that party.
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