fahrenheit451:131

There is something singularly maudlin when something or someone you knew had no chance in succeeding, fulfills that premonition. Two short years ago,the tribalist petty demagogues and largely ineffectual activists from across the far left spectrum danced around the totem poles of their own ancestral delusions. They'd paid their £3 and had voted for Corbyn and lo and behold the great non-hope had won! Then the scurrilous,mendacious cynical hypocrites of mainstream Labour set about spending over a year conducting a putative Party civil War that ended with Corbyn getting re-elected with a larger mandate than previously anticipated. The truth of all of that is that History has passed all of the Labour Party by.The Men of Action who've so dramatically reappeared on the centre stage of History are not from the ranks of the antideluvian Left. Two years on from Corbyn's corporeal manifestation in front of his newly acquired acolytes, The Independent opines :-

The only way Corbyn can succeed, is by taking the sharp left turn that he was elected to do. The people also need to see an authoritative and relentless streak that has so far been absent from his leadership. In short, Corbyn must fight back. He needs to take control of the party before he can take control of the country, otherwise he is nothing but a sitting duck.

One of the ways this can be achieved is through enabling the democratic right of CLPs to reselect and deselect their parliamentary candidates, and organising in order to ensure that young, up and coming, “fire in the belly” left wingers replace those who are actively seeking to undermine the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn.

...........................................................................................................................................................................................................................

" Need to see an authoritative and relentless streak that has so far been absent.." 

The actual reason for this noted absence of such a streak is simply that it isn't in his character let alone his ideological DNA.

Corbyn is a metropolitan flaneur,a weedy disingenuous understatement of a corporeal non entity.Then again, the rest of Labour's 200+ antidemocratic seditionist parliamentary rabble don't even make it past the amoeba stage.

Left and Right dissolved a long long time ago. And Labour along with them. Amen.

fahrenheit451:083

A flurry of social and mainstream corporate media activity accompanied Jeremy Corbyn's  recent launch of his " Digital Manifesto ". One paragraph in particular struck me as more than just a little sinister in its implications.

 

" We will develop a voluntary scheme that provides British citizens with a secure and portable
identity for their on-line activities. The Digital Citizen Passport will be used when interacting
with public services like health, welfare, education and housing. "

 

Clearly we're deep inside Humpty-Dumpty territory where words mean precisely what those who use them want them to mean, no more and no less. " We will develop a voluntary scheme.." The use of the royal " we " in this particular context refers to a notionally future Labour Government where Corbyn, presumably is Prime Minister. Repeat apres moi develop a voluntary scheme.Presumably participation in the development of the scheme itself will be voluntary, as will the actual participation once this scheme is implemented. This scheme, " The Digital Citizen Passport " will be used when interacting with various public services. Where does that place the,currently estimated, 6 ,000,000 digitally excluded citizens? Surely the customary face to face interpersonal, over the counter transactions will be allowed to continue, won't they? In which case why introduce a digital citizens passportat all? Is the current blight of mass digital exclusion to be tackled first and every household and every citizen included via a government backed programme?

There will have to be either a very steep learning curve or a very long lead time ahead of implementation. Then again virtually all politicians of all persuasions adopt that insufferably haughty manner whenever trumpeting the next big thing that they'll be involved in bringing to pass.

Can't wait for the, what was it again? oh yeah, digital citizen passport..

 

fahrenheit451:079

The western " Left ",such as they are, were long ago  comprehensively ideologically emasculated. Over 50 years of unadulterated petty-bourgeois liberal indoctrination has ensured that the Left's fundamental position on the Ownership and control of the Means of Production,Distribution and Exchange got taken down. An engineered deluge of effete bien pensant ephemera such as the intellectualised, pseudo-moral sophistry of being Politically Correct; the espousal of meta-fictions such as multiculturalism and the (from a Class Conscious revolutionary position ) incongruous and ultimately incomprehensible support for mass immigration have proven all too effective against the Political representatives of the proletarian cause. The principles and objectives of the Ruling Elites-the owners and controllers of the Means of production et al. have endured. Trades Unions, for example, whose first organisational principle is to defend, maintain and seek to improve the wages and working conditions of their members, were transformed by their passive acceptance of an aspect of the dominant ideology.The Trades Union movement and their political representatives have long since welcomed, supported and still advocate intensive competition in the national labour market. The objective Class purpose of Competition is to lower the price of that good,service or commodity around which competition takes place. Global Corporate Usurer-Capitalism is not some uniquely quasi-moral, do-gooding phenomenon that strives to bring about universal peace and brotherhood.The Ruling Elites and their satrapies within the political class, have managed to reify the otherwise rationally preposterous fiction of immigration, as some intrinsically noble and worthwhile,life-affirming expression of the human spirit. Why would they want to do that other than as a useful and necessary tool to maintain downward pressure on wages? Given the objective Historic materialist developments and prevailing conditions, accusations of treachery or cowardice or opportunism or collaboration with the Class enemy would of course be perfectly understandable; however I think that the Trades Union and Labour movement as a whole, and not just its ephemeral " Right wing " ( as some would have it) are shills for the dominant ideology, accomplices to the exploitation and pauperisation of the majority of mankind. It therefore follows that all their fixtated, pseudo-leftist/liberal  prattle about imagined phenomena such as Racism, Islamophobia , multiculturalism, immigration, equal rights for this that and t'other are complete and utter bollocks ,always were ,always will be.

fahrenheit451:058

Entirely superfluous as in fact it is,the BBC nevertheless provides the occasional moment of light relief and respite, albeit wholly unintentionally. BBC Radio 4's flagship " Today " news program, Friday 10 June afforded the attentive listener two such interludes. Andy Burnham-failed Labour Party leadership contender- and Ed " The Talking Cretin " Milliband -the former failed Labour leader. Both had on behalf of the insidious Petainist #LabourIn campaign pressed the BIG PANIC BUTTON. " OMG We're gonna lose ! " Burnham complained somewhat in a partisan manner that labour's ineffectual doorstep campaign was more " Hampstead than Hull ".goodness that was terribly Class-based and patronising toward the lazy,skiving,self-aggrandising,non-contributory denizens of that pestilential sinkhole in the capital! And Ed, well he put the icing on the Grosse torte of Schadenfreude! Not only have mine enemies been cut down in public, I could hear them crack and break apart as they hit the ground.

Schadenfreude in its original,authentic German sense is simply more than a frisson or momentary experience of inner joy and celebration. It is a phenomenon to be savoured, for it is the quintessence of what defines satisfaction in a struggle in which we are wholly dedicated to the victorious outcome of a particular Weltanschauung. Schadenfreude is distinctive because it embraces the necessary corollary of our own triumph and success - that corollary being our opponents' failure and defeat.An obvious point to exponents of mature,robust philosophical dispositions but not so to liberoid westerners who imbibe and are conditioned through insipid Anglo-Saxon empirically based philosophical dogma. Such dogma is as spineless, bloodless and ultimately lifeless as the proponents and espousers of such trite quasi-intellectual, pseudo-moral dross intended to make it. The sort of endless, piteous maundering and whining that escapes from the mouths of intellectual weaklings, whether they are officially social-democratic, conservative or liberal. The despicable conformist  intellectual/philosopher manque who spends an entire lifetime kowtowing to the apparently insuperable vicissitudes of an existence given over to surrender and compromise in place of strife and combat. The chances of any of their  misbegotten ilk ever experiencing Schadenfreude are about as remote as a person born blind being able to describe the colour purple.

fahrenheit451:053

What do liars do when the lies they've told have been found to have largely been ignored and what's worse from the liar's perspective, is that there aren't that many lies left in the locker for them to tell. Well, the answer to that is apparently, keep on repeating with ever decreasing reassurance the original Ur lie. That's what Lord, Lord? Blunkett did on BBC Radio 4's flagship " Today " news programme this morning. Hastily re-arranging the clapped out rhetoric that's been shoved down the Electorate's throat for the last 50-odd years, David, " 2 Sackings from the Cabinet " Blunkett said,and here I interpret, that all of the high falutin' dishwater polemics about migration/immigration comes down to  " it ", being " inevitable ". But the liberal/left, metropolitan domiciled,oxbridge tutored ruling elites and intelligentsia ,of course had to sympathise with,listen and recognise the worries,fears and concerns of those communities who were and still are as suddenly and unaccountably and certainly without any sliver of democratic,transparent consent inundated by the beneficiaries of Capitalist employment policies. First and foremost Inner-EU migration; Poland to England given equal status as say Cornwall to London or Manchester-Leeds. And why did lyin', fornicatin' Dave kind of own up to having had a pivotal role and influence on all this ? he's actually scared to death, frightened that the traditional,core labour vote- what they call the " Donkey Vote " in many Labour held parliamentary constituencies will, contrary to elitist expectations go off and vote  " Leave " on June 23. Now Dave, that might just be inevitable and something you'd have to get used to. Ah,the fresh smell of Schadenfreude on a morning !!

fahrenheit451:051

People who show great reluctance or an inability to discuss and debate embarrassing topics or perceived sensitive subject matter usually refer to such things as " The Elephant in the Room ". And it is a curious fact,often remarked upon by those  of a more gregarious and inquisitive disposition that it's the british " educated " middle classes who are the most introverted and diffident when it comes to even acknowledging that the said Elephant even exists let alone that it should be pointed out to all and sundry. Unfortunately for the rest of us,those of a truly robust,egalitarian and genuinely open democratic cast of mind,it is precisely the bien pensant,who in effect control access to the platforms and the means of production themselves, that are necessary for political discourse to take place. And for those self-referencing,venal elitists who are supposedly " educated " they  pretend to an intellectually untenable degree that basic and immutable economic laws of supply and demand do not operate when it comes to attempting to discuss the real impacts of unregulated mass immigration/transborder inner-EU migration.  Millions of eastern european workers descending in unaccountable droves upon the parlous British jobs market,has according to " The Left " had absolutely no effect whatsoever; wages according to " The Left " have not gone down as a direct result of the vast and rapid escalation in the supply of labour. Which is empirically something of an anomaly since all previous records and data from all leading industrialised nations attests to the Laws of capitalist Supply & Demand working perfectly in that regard. Competiton in the Labour Market depresses wages. Except when the British left says it doesn't. Oh,okay.. Maybe that explains Jeremy " The Great Who Am I "Corbyn's certifably eccentric and baffling remarks about the inundation and de-facto collapse of the UK's public sector infrastructure,jobs market and just about anything else that Lab/Lib/Con had in their ideologically driven sights to destroy.

Asked about those within Labour who worry about immigration undermining social cohesion, Corbyn said: “You have to ensure that communities are brought together, that people do understand the changes that are happening and actually see some plus and some benefit within it.

“You look at various towns where there’s been a big change, quite often the economy has actually begun to grow after that level of migration, there’s been actually very good levels of community understanding and integration.”

He said there needed to be greater investment in housing, schools and hospitals by central government to accommodate immigration."

 

“Migration actually is a plus to our economy as a whole, those people pay a lot in taxes, receive much less on average in benefits than the rest of the community and make an amazing contribution to our community. "

Quick ,someone call for the Nurse !!

Official Data from ONS ( Office of National Statstics ) shows that " A feature of the UK’s recovery since 2013 has been that unemployment has fallen faster than in previous recession – in the 1980s and 1990s unemployment lagged behind the recovery. This fall in unemployment is due to several factors, such as – more flexible labour markets, low wage growth and low labour productivity.". ONS  research and analysis shows that real household incomes per head have been stagnant since 2007.

In 2012 for instance the ONS found that :-.More than four years after the start of the recession, productivity remains 3.7 per cent below its pre-recession peak. At the corresponding stage of the recessions in the early 1980s and 1990s, productivity was more than 10 per cent higher than at the start of the recession. The current level of productivity, measured as output per worker, is around 15% lower than might be expected on the basis of previous experience.

The point of allowing and promoting the idea of Freedom of movement of labour,is to maximise the ensuing economic benefits for the Capitalist Ruling Elites,the owners and controllers of the means of production,distribution and exchange. Why do you think they came up with the idea in the first place and are so keen to promulgate it so fanatically ? To their chagrin,the boost they get from continuing depressed wages is off set,more than they anticipated,by the failure of overall GDP output per head to even get back to the levels of 2007/08.

Other than that,the myriad ,self-deluding fantasists of  Lab/Lib/Con whose centre and left all are of the exact same agenda perpetuate their own vainglorious failure with vacuous appeals about multiculturalism and integration that have precisely nothing whatsoever to do with nor are they connected with in any sense at all to the operations of Laws of Supply & Demand and the necessary demands of the Capitalist Economic System. It is axiomatic that were the present seemingly endless free flow of available labour to be severely restricted or altogether cut off,then quite simply the basic function of Capitalism would be impaired and the bargaining power of organised Labour would be vastly enhanced. A historic scenario that remains anathema to the British Trades Union & Labour Movement.

fahrenheit451:044

There's a little over another 8 weeks of nose to tail electoral campaigning to endure before we finally get to cast our ballots on June 23. And the blizzard of increasingly vacuous and contentious statements and reciprocal point-scoring is inexorably gathering pace. We have become unaccustomed to mature,nuanced,indeed clever political badinage and rhetoric here in the formerly " great " britain. Instead we've allowed ourselves to be alternately hectored and lectured by a seemingly endless cavalcade of preening,fatuous wannabe poseurs and parliamentary arrivistes who are for the most part are utterly devoid of even the merest scintilla of statesmanship and popular political acumen that might influence and resonate with the ordinary citizenry and electorate.

The EU Referendum debate,such as it is is being soundly buffeted by verbiage and flimsy assertions coming at it from all conceivable ideological and Party directions.For Labour it is essentially a tribal struggle vis a vis the Conservatives.Their worn out,dessicated mantras are being dusted off and brought back into circulation,wrapped in a faux-nostalgia and counterfeit,superficial class politics that long ago ceased to have any traction in the world post Thatcher-Blair. Following on from Shadow Foreign secretary Benn's wildly delusional and idiosyncratic exposition of his tenuous grasp of modern history during the " May we bomb Syria "debate ;Alan Johnson follows Benn into going over the top on an equally implausible rhetorical suicide mission underscoring the axiom that truth is the first casualty in war,but in Johnston's case as in Benn's earlier,Meaning itself is the biggest casualty of all. Gleaned from the eponymous Labour List site,Tuesday 26 April. :-

" The EU referendum is as important as the General Election of 1945, Alan Johnson says today in a rallying speech to trade unionists.

The “immediate consequences” of Brexit would harm both the country and society as a whole, the chair of Labour In For Britain is expected to warn at the Usdaw conference later today.

“I believe the vote in the referendum on the EU on June 23 is every bit as important as that election in July 1945. Perhaps more so,” Johnson will say.

“It is a vote about whether we remain or leave the EU, and there will be immediate consequences to that decision for everyone here, and every family in the land.  But it’s about more than that.  For me, it’s about what kind of country we are, what kind of society we want to be.”

“Nearly four million British trade union members are represented by unions campaigning to keep Britain in Europe this June.

“From nurses and builders, to railway workers, steel workers, postal workers and shop workers, trade unions will be campaigning for a Britain that Remains in Europe.

“The rights of working people are protected by our EU membership.."

This is absurdist installation performance art on an epic scale.Benn 's verbal necromancy sought to conjure the ghosts of a largely misunderstood Spanish Civil War of the 1930's -here Johnson trumps even that vainglorious essay with: “I believe the vote in the referendum on the EU on June 23 is every bit as important as that election in July 1945. Perhaps more so,”  The meds have clearly kicked in and someone ought to fetch the Nurse.

More important than the general election of 1945 ? The absolute zenith of Labour Party/Trades Union reformist mythology second only to the Keir Hardie Creation myth.And Johnson has gone and erased from the collective,historic working class memory absolutely everything else.The coup de grace being his repeating the outright figment of Blairite imagination,that " The rights of working people are protected by our EU membership ". Theologically this would count as Apostasy or even Heresy. coming from within the Vatican itself. And we all know what should happen to Heretics.

kulturist#15

We can't have our own Country back and that's now official.So,let's all go away and forget about it.1 in 5 of all unskilled,low-wage jobs within what's left of "great"britain is now the inheritance of a worker from the eastren frontiers of the EU (predominantly,but not exclusively from Poland).The previous Newlabour parliamentiary tyranny succeeded in virtually eliminating unemployment and the stigma of the "dole queue".Unfortunately they didn't do this here at home in britain;but boy oh boy did they eliminate mass-unemployment in Poland,Czech rep,Slovakia,Hungary,Estonia,Lithuania,Latvia,Slovenia,Bulgaria and Romania.But not in places such as (one of Labour's historic electoral homelands) Yorkshire.if only places like Yorkshire had been geographically located to the east of The Oder,then Labour could've been arsed to do something.Alas poor Yorkshire,too english,too industrial working class,too much the backbone of English history and success.Labour doesn't " do " own working class.At least not since Attlee and possibly not really since Hardie.

kulturist #4

BBC Radio4's To-day program has become the public-Confessional for members of the previous newlabour tyranny.This a.m,April 27th. it was Kim Howells' turn to launch into Mea Culpa,Mea Maxima Culpa.He went at it like a penitent before the Inquisition.According to Howells,the newlabour regime had got "it" wrong on the growth and development of home-grown Islamic Terrorism/extremism.Political Correctness,had by his own craven admission ,"caused" newlabour and the political establishment and the Media and the Security Services ,caused ALL of them to hesitate and defer and ultimately fail to make decisions on taking action against said Islamic terrorists/extremists.The heinous,murderous onslaught of 7/7(2005) though,helped the authorities,government etc.overcome such reluctance to act."Irony"doesn't quite cover the impression given by Howells' admission of guilt.