5 November 2020
Diary of a Corbynista
Before the US Storm
by Don Urquhart
29 October
The Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) published its report on anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.
They started work 18 months ago and so were dealing with a moving target.
It is damning about the Party’s complaint handling, training and resourcing and points out that the problems are still there after 7 months of Starmer leadership.
The story before the General Election was that there were many hundreds of complaints, but according to their report the EHRC looked at 70. Only Ken Livingstone and Pam Bromley were named as miscreants. The rest were anonymous with sketchy descriptions. I guess they have evidence to back these up.
Chris Williamson, a notorious jew-baiter according to Margaret Hodge, was completely exonerated by the report.
The former Leader of the Opposition gets stick for the interference of his team in the disciplinary process. There is nothing specific and it is disturbing that the EHRC specifically did not use the “leaked” report on the toxic nature of opposition to Corbyn within the party hierarchy. To what extent were the testimonies of these people regarded as reliable?
The document is thin on facts and highly repetitive on admonitions to better behaviour in future.
The ramshackle nature of the party’s processes is no secret. Also it is clear that there was a conspiracy to discredit Corbyn from the top down.
So while you have to say that Corbyn’s Labour was poor at enforcing administrative processes it was an uphill fight.
I cannot condemn this report as a failure. Its main function was pre-election to fan the anti-Labour flames as a cataclysm in the offing. And it succeeded admirably.
Incidentally there is a definition of racial harassment which perfectly describes utterances of the Prime Minister in respect of Muslims.
30 October
Sir Keir Starmer has stated that he will be removing anti-Semitism from the Labour Party.
Clearly this does not fit with the narrative beloved of the Conservative Party so The Sun, Michael Gove and Dominic Raab were quick out of the traps yesterday to claim that Starmer was complicit in the sins of his predecessor:
Tories blast Keir Starmer’s ‘lack of backbone’ for failing to fight anti-Semitism under Corbyn as party faces civil war.
31 October
The Prime Minister turns up late at the lectern and issues garbled ill thought out edicts which seem to involve some sort of lockdown for a number of weeks. What that number is we do not know and nor does he. How long will we be stuck with this person?
1 November
The Hope not Hate organisation commissioned a Yougov poll of Conservative Party members. The conclusions are reflected in the title of their report:
“THE DEEP ROOTS OF ISLAMOPHOBIA IN THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY”
Meanwhile the Labour Party leadership cannot tell you often enough about alleged institutional racism in their own party and how it is all down to Jeremy Corbyn.
2 November
This week’s Message Board focussed on Corbynista’s pro-German sentiments in Shaw Sheet 253. This selection illustrates the impact of lockdown on the nation’s mental health.
Womble: I was at University in Germany for a month in 1976.
Do I have a pension forthcoming?
Also the Luftwaffe bombed my Dad’s street in 1940. He had his windows blown in. Will they compensate for that?
Cockney: Our plumber’s Dad was bombed out. Said Hitler was the only person who remembered it was his birthday.
Flyboy: I’ve got a German car that’s broken – any chance I can get a refund? Only 15 years old so practically new
Womble: Warranty is only valid to 31st of December this year Flyboy.
So hurry.
Raver: I think an Elizabethan ancestor of mine was pressed into John Hawkins’ navy in Plymouth. Any chance of an apology and a bit of dosh? Would it help if my ancestor was not white British?
Raver: Sorry, I promise this is my last lost cause of today, but being of Huguenot ancestry (Incidentally you can tell it by the way I walk) I wonder whether President Macron, that renowned Anglophile, just after loaning us the Bayeux Tapestry, will look shamefully on his predecessor’s (Louis XIV I think) renunciation of the Edict of Nantes And DO THE RIGHT THING!
And another thing:
Hæstingas “The Hastings; settlement of the family or followers of a man called *Hæsta;” literally “Hæsta’s People.”
Haesta was a nasty piece of work, driving out lovely Riverdancing Celts from my part of East Sussex, probably quite rudely. I’m wondering about starting a campaign to remove him from my town’s name, Hastings. Anyone know the name of any of the Celts who preceded him locally so they can be honoured? It might help if they were gay or transsexual. In anticipation.
3 November
That noted psephologist Joseph Stalin is reported as observing:
It’s not the people who vote that count; it’s the people who count the votes.
Much shaking of heads on Newsnight about the fragile state of US democracy. What rang a bell with me was the possibility of voting fraud. I was reminded of the UK’s very own brush with this issue at the 2019 General Election.
While Sir Bernard Jenkin was continuing yesterday to castigate the chumocracy that currently has our Covid-19 testing regime in tatters, he might well reflect on the awarding of an electoral services contract last year. Here’s a link to David Hencke’s article in Byline Times.
