[The Weeping Angel]

His comments on Ukraine are even worse.

[Youngian]

Every night is Ken Loach movie night at Jez’s house

[Andy McDandy]

To quote a character from the film "Platoon", you have to be rich in the first place to think that way.

[Watchman]

So how does that explain the “Red Wall” ?

[Crabcakes]

3 things:

They kept 1 ear on the radio, not an eye.

They would help anyone, as the service is designed to do, not just working class people (and is he suggesting that sick people are a ‘working class community’? Or is he really daft enough to think everyone who earns upwards of 25k a year is on BUPA??).

Many ambulance workers would probably not count themselves as working class, but as highly trained specialist professionals. Still underpaid, but not your classic low-level blue collar warehouse drone. So he’s got a rose-tinted view of that as well.


I don’t begrudge him supporting strikes - I do myself. I do begrudge him trying to bodge his own dated narrative onto it.

[Youngian]

Many ambulance workers would probably not count themselves as working class, but as highly trained specialist professionals.

Not just ‘professional drivers’ as Ken Clarke believed to his cost. IIRC their union was the first in the Thatcher era to have a Tory minister on the run. Roger Pool was their leader, a rare media savvy union player in the 80s.

[Tubby Isaacs]

How does Jez make sense of the 1984 Miners Strike? Or were miners in Nottinghamshire and the West Midlands not working class? Or all the trade unionists who voted Tory from 1979 onwards?

Alex Callinicos has a theory, probably the same as Jez.

The Marxist academic Alex Callinicos has suggested that the NUM officials had failed to make the case to their members adequately and believes that the Nottinghamshire miners were simply ignorant of the issues.[

[Crabcakes]

Ah, the old “I was right but the electorate was wrong” gambit

[Abernathy]

Ah, the old “I was right but the electorate was wrong” gambit

Indeed. Bizarrely, I'm picking up a similar vibe from one Truss. L. today.

[The Weeping Angel]

Oh gawd

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/r ... ight-wrong

The omerta surrounding Corbyn’s recent warnings against escalation can partly be explained by the fact he is not, like Johnson, a former prime minister. Furthermore, Corbyn has been turned into a non-person in Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.

But he has an annoying habit of being right about foreign wars.

This is not the first time that the former Labour leader has been the voice of caution when the British political class have rushed towards conflict. He took a brave and principled stand when Tony Blair blindly followed George W Bush into the Iraq disaster. He has been vindicated by his prescient warnings over Afghanistan and Libya.

Moreover, Corbyn was right at the time, and not just in retrospect.

Ideally we should hear from neither but come on Corbyn has not in any way been right about Ukraine.

[Youngian]

Oh gawd

https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/r ... ight-wrong

The omerta surrounding Corbyn’s recent warnings against escalation can partly be explained by the fact he is not, like Johnson, a former prime minister. Furthermore, Corbyn has been turned into a non-person in Keir Starmer’s Labour Party.

But he has an annoying habit of being right about foreign wars.

This is not the first time that the former Labour leader has been the voice of caution when the British political class have rushed towards conflict. He took a brave and principled stand when Tony Blair blindly followed George W Bush into the Iraq disaster. He has been vindicated by his prescient warnings over Afghanistan and Libya.

Moreover, Corbyn was right at the time, and not just in retrospect.

Ideally we should hear from neither but come on Corbyn has not in any way been right about Ukraine.

Corbyn always shouts diamonds before the card is turned over, therefore he has 13 examples in the bag out of 52 where he is right.
Oborne is from the Peter Hitchens ‘nothing to do with Blighty,’ school of anti war thought. A perspective StW embrace without irony along with any other argument. To bolster the answer they already have regardless of circumstances.

[Crabcakes]

Corbyn’s ‘hit rate’ is only annoying in the sense people go on about it like he has some sort of special insight, whereas in fact he always just says “fighting is bad” or - if one of his mates is involved - nothing whatsoever as if it just isn’t happening. And yes, fighting is bad - but his ultra-simplistic take never looks at context. Ever.

He was tin-eared on tackling apartheid, catastrophically wrong on Syria, clueless when it comes to Putin’s pre-Ukraine poison adventures, and arrogant beyond belief that he thinks he can speak for people who have been invaded and say they should gleefully give up their land so an increasingly deranged dictator can have a face-saving exit from a fight he started out of a heady mix of paranoia and small man syndrome in the first place.

[Youngian]

catastrophically wrong on Syria

What argument was he using then to stay out of the conflict? Probably the same as me, calculating realpolitik for what’s best for long term security. I feel a huge sense of failure about the art of the possible by holding the non-interventionist POV and certainly doesn’t make you a saintly peace campaigner.

[Crabcakes]

The same sort of vague “let’s all stand down” type arguments he’s reheating now for Ukraine, in the full knowledge that if you let the bully walk away after they’ve done what they wanted, they’re likely to come back again for more.

I’m absolutely no hawk, but it’s just so *lazy*

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/amp/en ... 51b85ba1f/

[Crabcakes]

Also, the Falklands, Bosnia etc. - all opposed, all entirely free of any application of thought and context.

His approach to making the right calls is about as nuanced as tossing a double headed coin.

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/je ... 6.html?amp

[Crabcakes]

On a related note, and entirely aware of the risk that I’m monopolising this thread, you’ll not be remotely surprised to hear that Starmer using PMQs today to talk about Ukraine (and come over about 1000 times more prime ministerial than Sunak) has gone down like a lead balloon with the usual tedious suspects, who are demanding he should have talked about working class issues so they could complain that he has no right to talk about them.

Edit: sorry, I also forgot that no mention of Ukraine can pass without some Palestine whataboutery as well. Because as we all know, not stating everything you’re against every time you mention something you are against means you’re not really against the other things at all.

[The Weeping Angel]

Jared O'Mara has been found guilty of fraud

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-s ... e-64512690

A former MP who submitted fake expense claims for £24,000 to fund his cocaine habit has been convicted of fraud.

Jared O'Mara, who represented Sheffield Hallam from 2017 to 2019, was thousands of pounds in debt to a drug dealer, the trial at Leeds Crown Court was told.

He submitted fraudulent invoices to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), the body which regulates MPs' business costs and pay.

O'Mara was found guilty at trial of six counts of fraud and cleared of two.

The court heard O'Mara, 41, made four claims to IPSA for a total of £19,400 for services he said had been provided by a "fictitious" organisation called Confident About Autism South Yorkshire.

Prosecutors said the former politician had used the postcode of a McDonald's restaurant in the city as the company's business address.

He was also found guilty of trying to claim £4,650 for services he said his "chief of staff" Gareth Arnold had provided to him.

All the invoices were rejected by IPSA due to a lack of detail about the work carried out, the jury was told.

[Youngian]

Jared O'Mara has been found guilty of fraud

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-s ... e-64512690

A former MP who submitted fake expense claims for £24,000 to fund his cocaine habit has been convicted of fraud.

Jared O'Mara, who represented Sheffield Hallam from 2017 to 2019, was thousands of pounds in debt to a drug dealer, the trial at Leeds Crown Court was told.

He submitted fraudulent invoices to the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), the body which regulates MPs' business costs and pay.

O'Mara was found guilty at trial of six counts of fraud and cleared of two.

The court heard O'Mara, 41, made four claims to IPSA for a total of £19,400 for services he said had been provided by a "fictitious" organisation called Confident About Autism South Yorkshire.

Prosecutors said the former politician had used the postcode of a McDonald's restaurant in the city as the company's business address.

He was also found guilty of trying to claim £4,650 for services he said his "chief of staff" Gareth Arnold had provided to him.

All the invoices were rejected by IPSA due to a lack of detail about the work carried out, the jury was told.

This is what can happen to an MP when they don’t have any chaps to lend them a wad to tie them over. And no powers to hand out chairmanships as a thank you.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Stop the War as ever made out like war only counted in Syria if it involved us. The idea that there was a “drumbeat to war” was bollocks. The easiest thing to do was hope Assad won and not say too much about it.

[mattomac]

He shows with every passing interview that Labour need to close the lid and select a new candidate for Islington north. They know Corbyn will lose, he won’t win most he will do is split the vote, it’s why he is threatening to run for London Mayor, he knows he won’t win but with the change in voting set up it will potentially hurt Labour.

Let’s face it, London Mayor is a demanding job, he’s never done demanding even when it was required of him.

I’d suggest someone like Christian Wolmar for the seat, he got used to Corbyn supporters voting against him in Richmond when Labour’s vote was less than its membership in the ward.