20 May 2021
Diary of a Corbynista
Hail the new Chamberlain
by Don Urquhart
13 May
I have been reading The Glamour Boys, a book by Chris Bryant that tells of the contribution made by gay politicians to the demolition of the appeasement policy before the war. One thing that struck me was that our current Prime Minister’s attempts to identify himself with one of our leaders at that time is inaccurate only in that his modus operandi is far from Churchillian but very like that of Neville Chamberlain. Nev had a subterranean operation run by Sir Joseph Ball and his magazine Truth which aimed to foster relations with Hitler and Mussolini while discrediting Churchill and others warning about the dictators. How like Johnson’s fan club among the supine journalists of the Mail, Sun, Telegraph, Times, Sky and the BBC.
14 May
Coming soon to a legislative chamber near you!
Take a look at this Mother Jones video alleging that Heritage Foundation people claimed to have drafted US legislation aimed at suppressing voting rights while increasing the integrity of the electoral process.
The theme is very similar to the planned introduction of photo id. as a voting prerequisite in the UK.
Priti Patel has just appointed Robin Simcox as an adviser. His previous job was as Margaret Thatcher Fellow of the Heritage Foundation.
15 May
I watched as much as I could of David Cameron being questioned by the Treasury Committee. Greater minds than mine can pronounce on his motives for pushing Greensill products so aggressively to his Tory chums. What I did not see was examination of the end goal of his activity. To me it looked very like the marketing of credit derivative products very like those that caused the 2008 crash.
16 May
Sophy Ridge questioned the Health Secretary on the Sophy Ridge and the advisability of lifting restrictions on May 17th. Then she moved on to the Prime Minister’s holiday in Mustique and whether he had broken rules by not declaring the full value of the benefit, or the identity of his benefactor. Hancock gave a clear statement of government policy in this area.
On the doorstep nobody has raised the issue of Johnson’s refurbishments at No. 10.
So if the voters don’t care government ministers have carte blanche to extract as much benefit for themselves and their friends as time and opportunity allow. This seems to be of a piece with the observed behaviour of the front bench.
17 May
Martin is my goto expert on everything, so I asked him how he would fix the Middle East problem given that innocent people are being killed with no solution in sight. He took the view that there would be a one state solution imposed militarily. Shouldn’t the two sides talk? Martin explained that Netanyahu and Hamas need each other to justify their own existence. I thought back to Any Answers which should be renamed The Weekly Bigot. One ranter had it that the leaders of Fatah and Hamas had become fat and wealthy on the conflict with Israel and it struck me that Jews/Arabs is just another of those siren dichotomies. What’s really going on there is a classic rich exploiting the poor operation on both sides.
18 May
Message Board responses to Corbynista in Shaw Sheet 278:
Walsall:
I get the comment that the old divisions, left/right, etc, seem not to apply anymore and that Brexit has changed the landscape.
However, if I understand your new addition of rich/poor, the implication is that the poor are gullible and the rich are complicit, especially where the MSM is concerned. However, I think that there are a large number of “not poor” people who were gulled as well. Of course, there were also a lot of people, on both sides of that divide who understood the implications, but either did not care or truly believed the “sunlit uplands” were there to be had.
Now that we are where we are, I sincerely hope that the benefits of Brexit will be realised, but just as sincerely think that either it will not happen at all, or that the point at which our new situation gives us the same benefits as the EU inclusion is so far in the future that it will be immaterial to us. In the latter case, the economic loss over that period of time is unlikely to be recouped in a timeframe which is meaningful at any level.
Re Eddie Mair, not so much disappeared, but living an uncensored life on LBC, where he continues to be a voice of reason alongside James O’Brien and Shelagh Fogarty (late of BBC FiveLive). If you want a station that gives you some balance, listen to LBC. You can get my version of a sensible opinion from Mair, JOB and Fogarty, and the diametric opposite on Nick Ferrari. It is a sad loss for balance that Farage left last year (not).
Scientist:
Loved the comment:
Allegedly one Johnson voter from the area commented that he voted Tory because they had set up quite a few foodbanks whereas Labour hadn’t set up any.
It reminds me of the Tory supporter in Clacton some time back, when asked about his vote stated that “he was not going to vote for that turncoat Tory, but for the new UKIP candidate” — this is when a Tory MP had resigned as a Tory and was standing for UKIP.
And these people are allowed a vote! (My observation, not my policy.) I have reached a point where I laugh at these people, rather than cry. We have our very own Trump and our very own Trump supporters.
Corbynista:
I blame our education system. Just watch Pointless and see the chaps doing Masters degrees who cannot think of a country beginning with B and similar. On balance though I am a fan of universal adult suffrage. The alternative is worse. We just watched Chernobyl.
Scientist:
I still support universal adult suffrage, as I (almost) believe in the wisdom of crowds. However, I think it is not just education, but our media system that allows bulk ownership of TV and newspaper channels. There should be some sort of rule about only being allowed to own one channel at a time (in the sense of one newspaper, or one TV channel group.) Murdoch and similar should have their companies broken up and split. Also owners should be at arm’s length, and not allowed to dictate editorial policy. But that has not worked for the BBC which is in theory at arm’s length from its owner (the government) but dares not bite the hand that feeds it. I have no obvious answers to this problem.
19 May
In the last century or so we have seen two world wars and several dock strikes which should have persuaded us of the dangers of being dependent on others for food. Now Johnson is telling us that Australian beef and lamb will be tariff free when coming here. I do not have a view on the integrity of Australian farming methods but I know that we have no control over them. And Australia will be the least of our worries from that point of view. Meanwhile Johnson is planning the phasing out of farming in the UK to some extent. He will throw money at the problem and if he runs true to form little of it will end up in the pockets of the people hardest hit.
