16 September 2021

Diary of a Corbynista

Right Kind of Immigrant

by Don Urquhart

8 September

Anyone thinking that today’s Labour Party is too focussed on the interests of horny handed sons of toil should take heart from this missive:

BARNET LABOUR GALA DINNER – TUESDAY 5th OCTOBER

Tickets are now available for our Barnet Labour Gala Dinner at 7pm on Tuesday 5th October at the beautiful Anatolian Ev Restaurant near Waterloo…..

Tickets: £80 per person or £400 for a table of 6 (Ticket price includes raffle ticket, welcome drink and 3 course dinner).

Payment by BACS transfer – please include the reference “Gala Dinner”.

Account: Barnet Labour Councillors Fund.

9 September

Rosamund Lupton’s short novel Three Hours was recommended to me as a page turner which indeed it is.  I will not give away any aspects of the plot but am keen to commend her list of anti-immigrant/Muslim headlines in our mainstream press.

She lists 29, including:

1 IN 5 BRIT MUSLIMS’ SYMPATHY FOR JIHADIS – The Sun

BOMBERS ARE ALL SPONGING ASYLUM SEEKERS – Daily Express

HUNDREDS MORE UK MUSLIMS CHOOSE JIHAD THAN ARMY – The Times

ASYLUM: YOU’RE RIGHT TO WORRY – Daily Mail

BBC PUT MUSLIMS BEFORE YOU – Daily Star

10 September

The Guardian used to be a leftish paper.  Now it is just another establishment mouthpiece.  Look at this headline:

Ending universal credit boost will hit sickest areas the hardest, study shows

On the face of it reporting the dire impact of a Government austerity measure, but in fact buying into the narrative that the £20 increase was only temporary.

They say “Ending universal credit boost” which in plain English is “Cutting universal credit.”

11 September

Message Board responses to Corbynista in Shaw Sheet 291:

Polymath:

I never wish to be critical but you seem to let Boris off quite lightly in your last Corbynista rant! I understand you would prefer Attila the Hun to BJ as PM but what about D Cummings?

Walsall:

I am rather surprised that this, one of the more amusing gaffes of the week, didn’t turn up in this.

Maybe it missed the printing press.

Gavin Williamson, one of the thicker members of the cabinet in a wide field, when asked if he had spoken to Marcus Rashford, said he had had a Zoom call with him, who he found to be engaging and pleasant. Imagine the surprise when his office represented that he actually been talking to Maro Itoje, the international rugby player.

One would hesitate to call it “racist”, but one would have thought he would have some idea as to who he was talking to.

All in all, to be kind to him, it may be down to not being especially interested in either person.

It was then succeeded by a lovely post from said Itoje, saying that, “due to recent speculation, I thought it was necessary to confirm that I am not Marcus Rashford….. And, while we are here, my name is not Mario either. Just a simple Maro Itoje will do…. Much love, Marcu…. I mean Maro Itoje”

The whole event was then compounded in PMQs, by BoZo saying that Gav had done a great job in difficult circumstances.

If that is a great performance, then we are truly doomed.

Sunlounger:

I propose a serious alternative for the “Williamson of the Week Award”, Priti Patel. After campaigning to take back control of UK borders, she gave control of some UK borders to the French and promised to pay them millions without asking for results. Now that she’s found out how stupid she was, she wants to “dissuade” people from crossing the channel by what amounts to sinking their rafts, dinghies and small boats. This has amused many people who are now looking forward to watching refugees and asylum seekers drown in the channel. She has also secured their backing for future Tory governments. However, Priti is breaking international maritime law and the French have unsurprisingly told her to F off. Oh! What a tangled web we weave. Priti is not very bright but is she as thick as Gavin?

Walsall:

Certainly thick as mince, but both seem to show something akin to xenophobic tendencies, notwithstanding both Rashford and Itoje are British, but not their “kind of British”?

Sunlounger:

Emma Raducanu is Canadian Rumanian, and she is the right kind immigrant as my wife will tell you. After talking with our London neighbours after they saw my wife getting out of our XJ6, she was told to her face, “you are an immigrant, but you’re not like them.” Luckily for my wife, she was the right kind of immigrant.

Walsall:

I suspect that most of us, except those still wearing woad, are probably the “right kind of immigrant”

12 September

I get my share of jokes sent by WhatsApp and email.  Recently they have taken an anti-immigrant turn.  People have bought into the scenario that immigrants come over here and soak up the housing and health resources thus causing the “indigenous” to be disadvantaged.  They are supported in this view by the gutter press – The Sun, Express, Mail, Telegraph, Times and Star.  And they see our government seeking to deal ever more brutally with people seeking asylum on our shores.

Politicians and media define the problem as:

How do we keep out the wrong sort of immigrant?

For the migrants the problem is:

How do I make life tolerable in my homeland?

If the world’s leaders would address this latter question, the first would become irrelevant.

Here’s an opportunity for our political heroes to show leadership.  What are the chances?

13 September

Tomorrow Johnson will unveil the latest twist in Coronavirus policy.  I expect he will tell us we have to live with it and that most restrictions should therefore be removed.

Here’s how Joseph Lord has reacted:

I have resigned as a parent governor and as a director of the trust of the secondary school because government guidance has made it impossible to fulfil my duty as a governor under Health and Safety legislation to ensure that the school is safe for students from COVID-19. I will not be complicit in the government’s plans that will inevitably lead to a massive scale of infections and a great deal of harm on a national level. 

The teachers I know are expecting many cases among pupils and staff.  Who knows how serious they will be? 

And as far as Johnson is concerned who cares? 

No more f*cking lockdowns – let the Bodies Pile High in Their Thousands.

14 September

What Starmer is up against!

A conviction politician who can get them out in their thousands.

Here’s Corbyn speaking in Liverpool about Peace and Justice.