31 October 2019
Diary of a Corbynista
This time please…
by Don Urquhart
24 October
The black propaganda and bullying coming out of Number 10 and its endless repetition by the Billionaire Press, craven broadcasters like Kuenssberg and Peston and the wooden Tory members and apologists has much in common with authoritarian regimes.
Tory MP Charles Walker was sent to Politics Live today to miserably parrot the lines given him by No. 10.
25 October
Peter Oborne’s article in Open Democracy expresses in more detail and better style what many including Corbynista have been saying for some time:
British journalists have become part of Johnson’s fake news machine.
From the Mail, The Times to the BBC and ITN, everyone is peddling Downing Street’s lies and smears. They’re turning their readers into dupes.
Perhaps most chilling is this coming at the end of the article:
I’ve found it hard to get this article in print. One editor explained reluctance to publish on the grounds that the newspaper’s political team had cultivated excellent insider sources and publishing my piece would invite charges of hypocrisy.
26 October
Hopefully it’s just me, but surely there is a big difference between 15th November and 31st January as Brexit extension expiry dates. If it’s the earlier date I see no barrier to a no deal Brexit on that date, beyond Parliament taking back control again and introducing an updated Benn Bill.
27 October
It is ironic that while Labour MPs get all unnecessary about reduced workers rights when we leave the EU, ASDA and its workforce are in dispute about their new contracts which they had better sign or be dismissed before Christmas. It seems that being in the EU is neither here nor there; it is about the licence our domestic legislators give to employers.
28 October
We are on the brink of setting an election date so BBC’s Newsnight throws its weight even more obviously behind the Tories. In the panel discussion Conservative MP Mark Harper regurgitated the usual old tosh about Labour running scared and blocking the wonderful Withdrawal Bill and boy was he grinning as anti-Corbyn Labour MP Owen Smith agreed that his party was indeed unwilling to vote for an election because they were way behind in the opinion polls.
To top it off Sienna Rodgers told us that Labour now had run out of excuses for voting against an election. It is notable that her Labour List organisation has gradually moved in an anti-Corbyn direction and this is doing wonders for her broadcasting career.
29 October
The Daily Telegraph was quick to assign blame this morning:
Grenfell Tower report: fire brigade condemned for ‘systemic failures’ as chief accused of ‘remarkable insensitivity’.
They focussed on one issue leaked from Sir Martin Moore-Bick’s 1,000 page report on the tragedy which is due to be published tomorrow.
One wonders to what extent cuts in the fire service are mentioned.
We shall have to wait for the next phase of Moore-Bick’s report to see whether he has spotlighted or played down the culture of light touch regulation explicitly advocated by the Tory Government. This in many people’s view was the root cause of the disaster.
30 October
The election campaign started yesterday. In the Commons the party leaders laid out their stalls. The “debate” on the date amendment was notable for the emergence of a plethora of dull Tory MPs to talk up their constituencies, explain how upset they were with the Opposition for obstructing Brexit and just about anything except the matter in hand. God help us if this bovine lobby fodder fills the government benches in the next administration.
