[Tubby Isaacs]

While I think Sir Keir goes too far sometimes, occasionally I look around a bit to see where he's coming from.

The UCU have made absolute fools of themselves by passing the Stop the War motion on Ukraine. In fairness to them, they also passed another, sane motion on Ukraine by a bigger margin. It's not unknown for contradictory motions to get passed at Conferences, and I expect other organisations have ways of resolving this.

Jo O'Grady, who doesn't exactly give the impression of being hostile to Stop the War, has therefore sought to address the fall out from it with lots of people threatening to resign from the union. She has upset a few people I think Mr Proudfoot was mentioned on here a while ago, and he shows up with a typical response. "Democracy" as a small number of delegates taking a very unpopular position (and contradicting themselves in this case). No word from him on whether the other motion was democracy. Or how democracy stopped when the motion was passed.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Oh dear. Looks like one slipped through the net, Kreuz!

[Andy McDandy]

I've spent a good chunk of the summer discussing the impact of AI and essay writing bots, and how many students will turn to them. Spam aside, it's immoral and unethical.

Anyway, yes, "democracy". Or "I'm right, you're wrong, fuck off".

The main thing to remember is that only decisions made by your preferred group are democratic. If a small group hijacks your local organisation to pass dodgy resolutions, that's not democracy. On the other hand if your group of committed and principled activists are sidelined by the majority of the group membership, that's just people being recruited as voting fodder and where were they at the benefit night for Venezuela and you can bet they haven't even ordered a copy of Corbyn and McCluskey's Poems from the Left, and anyway it's not democracy. When that lot over there run the local group into the ground so bad that head office need to send someone in to clear up the mess, that's not democracy. Nor though is someone being parachuted in because we dared to deviate from centralist groupthink.

It's basically a twist on vox populi, vox dei - the idea that the voice of the many is invariably right. To which one can say "Have you met the many?", but the appeal is plain - most people wanted X, so that gives legitimacy to that choice. However the hard left take seems to be "I'm always right, therefore whatever I want is right, so everyone agrees with me, unless they have an ulterior motive and want to undermine the people who are right".

[Yug]

Of course they haven't met "the many". They're too busy sitting at home banging away on their keyboards to have the time to think about getting off their arses and actually doing something useful.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Ladies and germs I present to you an example of the very English advertised by our new member. I kid you not... (Young Winston, if this is the standard you have little to worry about)

Buy Essay that is Cheap on your pockets
Have you spent restless evenings writing an effective essay? If your answer is a yes, do not worry you are not the only one. Students are master laggards. Although, getting slow can be pretty stressful, still many students' lack. This might be because of their occupied routines, overburden of assignments, or an absence of confidence as well. Thus, bid farewell to the eleventh-hour panics and procrastination! Hire for our services, "write my paper," and Our low cost essay writing service will assign a proficient writer who works on your assignment just as you want it to be. Also, our affordable essay writing service will easily reach your deadline. This will give you some extra time to analyze the content and make the changes if necessary.

[Boiler]

One of my past English teachers would have torn that from my exercise book and told me to do it again, and properly this time.

[Youngian]

Students are master laggards.

Students are all falling behind? That would mean they’re progressing at the same pace.
Is this the Ronnie Barker monologue bot?

[kreuzberger]

Oh dear. Looks like one slipped through the net, Kreuz!

[Tubby Isaacs]

Look at these goons.

[The Weeping Angel]

Oh yeah I saw that. The war in Ukraine has really helped expose the wheat from the chaff.

[davidjay]

I've spent a good chunk of the summer discussing the impact of AI and essay writing bots, and how many students will turn to them. Spam aside, it's immoral and unethical.

Anyway, yes, "democracy". Or "I'm right, you're wrong, fuck off".

The main thing to remember is that only decisions made by your preferred group are democratic. If a small group hijacks your local organisation to pass dodgy resolutions, that's not democracy. On the other hand if your group of committed and principled activists are sidelined by the majority of the group membership, that's just people being recruited as voting fodder and where were they at the benefit night for Venezuela and you can bet they haven't even ordered a copy of Corbyn and McCluskey's Poems from the Left, and anyway it's not democracy. When that lot over there run the local group into the ground so bad that head office need to send someone in to clear up the mess, that's not democracy. Nor though is someone being parachuted in because we dared to deviate from centralist groupthink.

It's basically a twist on vox populi, vox dei - the idea that the voice of the many is invariably right. To which one can say "Have you met the many?", but the appeal is plain - most people wanted X, so that gives legitimacy to that choice. However the hard left take seems to be "I'm always right, therefore whatever I want is right, so everyone agrees with me, unless they have an ulterior motive and want to undermine the people who are right".

I think it was a Tory who said that when they lose an election they change their policies, while when Labour lose an election they want to change the electorate. It was meant as an insult but it's hard, irrefutable fact. As the incredibly principled, incredibly pro-Corbyn and now sadly late friend I mentioned on here some years ago once said, "People need to be educated". And when I pointed out to him that calling people uneducated isn't a particularly good way to win their vote he replied, "They aren't aware of it yet."

[Tubby Isaacs]

This chap here says he runs Stats for Lefties. It's not Dr Eoin, as I thought.

He's on as good form as ever.

[Youngian]

“Freelance data journalist and statistician.”

[Andy McDandy]

Fancy new way of saying gobshite.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Man's a cunt.

[kreuzberger]

Never 'eard of him - has he got a proper job?

[Crabcakes]

“Freelance data journalist and statistician.”

Well his jacket - thanks to all those badges - is full of holes and consequently damaged goods. So he’s kind of right?

[Tubby Isaacs]

It looked like a pretty nice jacket to stick badges on.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Great effort from Aaron here. Minister gives a statement in the Commons in London then pops off to their department in Stoke.

And there's the distinct possibility that a lot of staff think "Fuck that!"- as happened with the ONS when Brown moved it to Newport. Far from being a bunch of chumps, lots of civil servants are extremely employable and ambitious, and like the options they have in London, not just in government, but local government, NGOs etc. The city and county council in Stoke might struggle to match that.

[mattomac]

Manchester is a bit of a cautionary tale in this, the rent rises are silly.