Jeremy Corbyn vs Angela Eagle

this was wonderful:

https://twitter.com/jeremyforlabour/status/768896822899159040

I don't understand, even if he had secretly wanted to leave, why he wouldn't just have voted to remain? It's a very minor thing compared to what he could do with his position.

Boris doesn't get the same level of shit and he probably really did secretly vote Remain.

xp yeah, the argument that he secretly would be quite happy for Britain to leave the EU and was therefore half-hearted in the referendum campaign, and that his opposition to the EU is why he won't back Smith's call for a second referendum has some logic to it at least, the argument that he literaly put his x next to the leave option in the polling booth seems ridiculous

that his opposition to the EU is why he won't back Smith's call for a second referendum has some logic to it at least

would require there to be some logic to smith's call for a second referendum

I thought he'd notably switched from that to preventing Theresa May from triggering article 50 or that seemed to be what the BBC News had switched it to earlier this week. I missed a lot of the hustings last night so presume he was back saying both there. Mainly caught the last half hour. But enough to see the audience reaction to him saying that line about you could stay with jeremy which was pretty great.

I heard last night that the Labour Party is continuing a major purge including people who'd been in the party for years.
Is that going to stop or be stopped even after next month's election results or is the party just going to continue until it implodes?

Thought the Huffington Post headline about JC not being reachable during Traingate cos he was busy making jam quite amusing too.

I do wonder how many people are being blocked from voting in this election and whether the numbers will be large enough to affect the outcome. There is def a race to purge one side or the other:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37184118

In other news it looks like the Labour conference isn't going ahead.

"verifying all voters share the aims and values of the Labour Party".

At least 80% of the PLP would fail this filter, the same fuckers that share Tory values on austerity but pay lip service otherwise. repeating myself here, sorry.

In fairness Boris got a lot of (completely deserved) shit which torpedoed his shot at PM. They just took him down quickly.

Smith has been quite blatantly lying about the number of refugees in his constituency, but hey Jeremy Corbyn walked past some seats on a train so who's the real liar here?

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/08/yesterday-showed-us-real-owen-smith-and-it-aint-pretty

I enjoyed this takedown yesterday.

In other news it looks like the Labour conference isn't going ahead.

― xyzzzz__, Friday, August 26, 2016 9:47 AM (fourteen minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I heard something about that and trouble with the security at the start of the week. then there was a piece on Newsnight a couple of nights back but I thought that ended with them saying that they'd probably be able to find a new Security firm before then.

Security companies need a lot more time than is currently available to prepare for such big events is the current problem. Iain McNicol will soon be available as a childrens's party planner or for pissups in breweries etc

xp

Boris didn't seem to get much stick about his abruptly reversed stance on the EU though. I didn't hear anyone casting doubt on his secret voting intentions.

In other news it looks like the Labour conference isn't going ahead.

first bit of good news for the party in a while

not convinced what boris thinks abt anything currently has much salience tbh

He got shitloads of stick for it, but mostly some time before the referendum, whereas the insinuations about Corbyn really gathered speed in the week or so beforehand.

Since it's pretty straightforward to trace how individuals vote, someone will have checked Corbyn's ballot paper at the time. If he had voted leave, it would have leaked within hours.

first bit of good news for the party in a while

― I like it when you shoot inside me Dirk (Bananaman Begins), Friday, 26 August 2016 Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yes and yet if Jeremy wins I was looking fwd to a no more mr. kind politics approach as the PURGE begins.

I've been following this twitter account er 'commemorating' the 50th anniversary of the Chinese Cultural revolution. I won't link but if you all want to know how it was done in the #goodOldDays

No conèrence isn't going to mean a change in election deadline is it?
Mean they drag it out still further before launching whatever other ploy is up their sleeves before everybody wakes up to the correct form of centrism?

if conference is cancelled, presumably Momentum's fringe event/rival conference (delete according to your opinion of Corbyn) will still be going ahead? I'm sure that will help with the post-leadership election amity

I was thinking that the leadership election deadline was placed to tie in with the National conference. With that element of the equation gone will the centre/labour right be looking for an excuse to extend things. Or will they give up on this strategy and move onto some other ruse.
From what I'm seeing so far they're not going to be happy if Corbyn gets reelected which seems likely.
So do wonder what's next.

Struggle sessions, deselections ... nah probably just more of the same shit to come next unfortunately.

the Wearing piece is v good. this is more or less what I wanted to say y/day:

Let’s be honest. Most of us at some stage have used casual language like this (“lunatic”, “insane”), to describe those whose rationality we don’t share or understand. I’ll admit to having done so myself. But it is wrong. It perpetuates a stigma around mental illness and damages peoples’ chances of getting the care and support they need from society. We should all cut it out, especially those of us who aspire to high public office.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/owen-smith-labour-leadership-kezia-dugdale-laugh-entryism-a7211131.html

OH THE IRONING

How is it possible for this to get any worse? But here we are..

Yeah, being concerned that Scottish Labour members should show total support for the leader of the SLP doesn't look good from someone who called the leader of the Labour Party a lunatic yesterday.

Seems fair.

http://i.imgur.com/67KiWi1.png

fair enough tbh :p

yeah I think we can come together as a party to ban Grohlite entryists

iain mcnicol is red hot chili peppers to the core

Labour demanding ideological purity for a change

there's some Eagles of Death Metal quip not worth making in here

Red Hot Chilli Pipers are an ensemble consisting of pipers, guitarists, keyboards and drummers formed in Scotland in 2002.

McNicol is married and has a son and daughter.[citation needed] He holds a blackbelt in karate

do labour expect all these people it's refusing membership to to vote for them in future

yeah, as well as all the people who voted in the referendum that Owen Smith wants to ignore

They are too busy chasing that UKIP racisty gold to care about a few hundred thousand members.

it is almost strange how sanguinely the media watches these tools rail against democracy, against mass engagement, against the intrusion of the unwanted governed into the sovereign territory of those who govern. almost strange. aristocrat recognise aristocrat, I guess.

it's like a supercharged extension of peter mandelson's "they have nowhere to go" thesis

But along with the beating of official breasts and the show of distress at the hollowing out of mass politics, there exists in the practice of organized democracy a clear tendency to match citizen withdrawal with elite withdrawal. That is, just as citizens retreat to their own private and particularized spheres of interest, so too the political and party leaders retreat into their own version of this private and particular sphere, which is constituted by the closed world of the governing institutions.

Disengagement is mutual, and for all the rhetoric that echoes on all sides, it is general.

Peter Mair, calling it.

Just come acro0ss the quote from Yesterday where JC says he doesn't consider himself wealthy or highbrow that has since been contextualised with his £138k salary. I'm assuming he was trying to highlight that art was supposed to be for everybody but wonder what mileage is going to be made by his critics and for how long.

I WONDER HMMM MAYBE A LOT WILL BE MADE OF IT, MAYBE NOT SO MUCH WHO CAN SAY

please god let this be true

https://twitter.com/charlotte2153/status/769965335411847170

at least gove's 'nubile young girl' moment was 25 years ago right

a Smith supporter who attended the event is on twitter saying that Smith did respond to someone asking if they could ask him a personal question by saying "29 inches - inner leg measurement of course", but didn't actually point to his groin. The Smith supporter is complaining that "they can spin anything"

https://twitter.com/Rachael_Swindon/status/770001414978433024

Wait, Smith was within heckling distance yesterday?

Mr Balls offers his reflections as MPs prepare to return to Westminster, and he prepares to appear on Strictly Come Dancing.

wasn't he considered "devoid of connection to the reality of people's lives" in the Labour stronghold he contrived to lose last year?

a Smith supporter who attended the event is on twitter saying that Smith did respond to someone asking if they could ask him a personal question by saying "29 inches - inner leg measurement of course", but didn't actually point to his groin. The Smith supporter is complaining that "they can spin anything"

― soref, Sunday, August 28, 2016 8:57 PM (yesterday) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I can't see how that would make the quip that much less sleazy.

Unless it's understood that things are getting that bad in the Smith camp that he's relying on donations of trousers.

Did the actual question get asked. It wasn't something more along the lines of 'Now that your career's over what are your plans?' or something was it?