[Tubby Isaacs]

Paul the learned jurist speaks.

[The Weeping Angel]

I take it Paul is defending Noel Clarke?

[Tubby Isaacs]

He's probably thinking of him.

Though that kind of wisdom transcends time and subject matter.

[Youngian]

Paul’s right in theory and Noel Clarke can always sue the 20 women for libel. Go on do that.

[davidjay]

Paul's clearly never heard of bail conditions.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Real Inspector Hound Paul on the case.

As ever the real issue BTL is what "lefties" will make of it, not whether it's true there or here.

[Tubby Isaacs]

GB News level analysis here from Paul. Because the last bit was meant literally.

See below the line for some funny Jonn Elledge v Embery action.

[davidjay]

The real voice of the working class speaks again.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Ha ha.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Neither of the twats can spell.

[Cyclist]

I love the way Embery says it is "almost certain" that heartfelt messages from footballers were written for them. Is he one of those twats whose opinion of footballers is so low that he cannot bring himself to believe they are ordinary people with the intelligence and articulation needed to come up with these statements themselves?

Dunno who Tony Yates is, but it's Embery who is coming across as the moron here.


I might not know much about football, but I *do* know footballers aren't some special breed. Some are brainy, some are thick, most are somewhere in between - just like the rest of us.

[RedSparrows]

Tony Yates is pretty thoughtful, ex-academic economist, I think.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yep. Ex Bank of England too. I like him.

[Tubby Isaacs]

[Tubby Isaacs]

[The Weeping Angel]

This should be fun.

https://labourlist.org/2021/07/the-labo ... ue-labour/

Of the many tragic missed opportunities over the last five years, the failure to build a political bridge between supporters of Jeremy Corbyn’s re-energised social democracy and the tendency sometimes called Blue Labour is one of the less noticed, but one of the saddest. Despite the towering intellect of its chief theorist, Maurice Glasman – a British-Jewish intellectual steeped in the most radical traditions of democratic socialism – Blue Labour is probably the most maligned and misunderstood in the entire labour movement.

If Labour’s already fragile coalition is to hold, an earnest engagement with Blue Labour from the left is vital. Despite impressive organisational achievements, the Bennite/Corbynite tradition that dominates the culture of the Labour left has emerged from its period of ascendancy battered, humiliated and toothless. This is, no doubt, in large part due to the relentless hostility it faced from external forces determined to destroy any spark of the progressive tradition left in the Labour Party, but this is hardly the whole story.

The Labour left was sabotaged from within, not just by internal enemies and agents provocateurs, but as a direct result of its own deficiencies, contradictions and profound misjudgments. If the left in Labour wishes to have even a limited voice within the party, let alone wrest back political ascendancy from the intellectually bereft Starmerist right, it can no longer afford to deliberately marginalise itself by ridiculing, deliberately misunderstanding or ignoring the arguments for civic pride, politics of place and sovereignty espoused by Blue Labour.

[Youngian]

Might be interesting to hear how urban Britain’s biggest migrant group are thought of by their friends and families. That’s people from provincial Britain and their friends and family on the whole are very pleased they’re doing alright and vice versa. Neither side wants to herd cats. But I’m only guessing, perhaps Maurice Glasman is right and England is a shouty John Osbourne play from 1958.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Has he got a season ticket? I'm old enough to remember when it wasn't considered a problem that the Tories did well in "fashionable towns". The Cotswolds are fairly fashionable, judging by house prices, and the Tories win there. Is that bad? Should they hold their hands up and say "this one doesn't count, sorry, we don't want place like this in our column".

The Tories have improved in a poll today, but still have 41 compared with LAB-GRN-LD's 51. Add the SNP, PC and the SDLP on and I reckon that brings the score up to 56. In next week's show, Paul asks "Have the Tories become the party of pensioners and Etonians with big houses in the Home Counties? Are they losing touch with working people?"

[Youngian]

All social democrat parties in Europe have seen their blue collar vote dwindle with deindustrialisation. Labour hold up quite well among people who work in comparison. Including its middle class vote not fragmenting to Green and liberal parties. Probably FPTP to thank for that.

[mattomac]

Yeah the issue seems more to do with age rather than working status.

That’s what the polling suggests.