8 July 2021
Diary of a Corbynista
Ruled by a Tin-Pot Dictator
by Don Urquhart
1 July
Message Board responses to Corbynista in Shaw Sheet 284:
Sunlounger:
The government knows three crucial facts:
- all the opposition parties are more interested in fighting each other than holding the government to account;
- most voters don’t care about corruption because they think all politicians are corrupt;
- the voters will keep voting Tory because of points 1. and 2.
IMHO, when all opposition parties finally figure this out, work together and offer a credible alternative, the UK may have an effective opposition.
If I am wrong, the Tories will not win Batley and Spen.
Walsall:
The Progressive Alliance has already identified this and sent information out to their supporters. The point does need to be made that the only way the Tories can be beaten, under the current voting system, is for each party that is not #2 for any given Tory-held constituency to lend their vote to that 2nd placed party. However, that would also need there to be a commitment from all of them to scrap FPTP and put in some proper form of PR (there are several). The major sticking point in this is the Labour Party, though that seems to be gradually changing from what I read about the CLP views. Would be really helpful if Starmer would come out and say it though.
Sunlounger:
Unfortunately the Progressive Alliance is a think-tank. For Starmer to agree to this type of voting pact he would have to openly admit the obvious; Labour is no longer the main alternative to the Tories and on its own is incapable of beating the Tories. That admission is a strong message that some people may take badly and mount a leadership contest in favour of someone who is anti-pact. A pact and a transition to PR is a great idea, but is the UK ready for it?
2 July
Question Time had on a Telegraph journalist, a Regional Mayor, a young entrepreneur, a Tory MP and a performance poet. One thing they had in common was ignorance of the consequences of releasing lockdown on July 19th. Also they were all prepared to talk about it with assumed authority.
Where were the scientists? Perhaps hiding in their labs after Chris Whitty’s recent experience?
I would like to ask the experts whether they will be going into pubs, letting their children go to night clubs, shopping where social distancing and masks have been discarded.
3 July
A teacher’s reaction to last week’s Message Board:
I do not recognize this characterisation of education. At my school the hard working are rewarded and are well respected by all students. I’ve never heard the word swot used by students. Ignorance is not celebrated. Not in any school I’ve worked in. This seems like a very Grange Hill understanding of school culture and youth culture. You should have heard the cheers from the entire year group when one of their peers received a platinum award in the maths challenge. They were very proud of her. And I was very proud of them all for uplifting and celebrating each other for their different strengths.
4 July
There is a gradual recognition that beating the Conservatives in a General Election will only be possible by cooperation among other parties. The Progressive Alliance is probably the most prominent organisation working on this. My concern with this grouping is that they seem to be forming themselves into a party agreeing a range of policies they will implement if they achieve their electoral goal.
I cannot see this as in any way realistic and am urging them to focus only on electoral reform to Single Transferable Vote (STV) as a single policy on the basis that, once in power they set up a PR election then go back to their parties and knock spots off each other and the Tories.
5 July
I have two cats with whom I have a continuous and interesting dialogue. However I often have the sense that they are not listening when I urge them to come in out of the rain or to get off my computer keyboard for example. Intellectually I realise that there are language limitations on both sides and I suspect that whatever I say all they hear is “Food” or “No food”. To them my every utterance is gibberish.
That’s how I felt watching the Prime Minister telling me what is good for me in relation to the Covid-19 pandemic.
Whatever came out of his mouth all I heard was:
No more f*cking lockdowns – let the Bodies Pile High in Their Thousands.
6 July
On Politics Live Tory Lord Finkelstein responded to a Labour MP who had campaigned for Corbyn, “As a Jew I find that a very troubling stance”.
0Here’s what The Guardian has to say about the Prime Minister:
Boris Johnson has invoked some of the oldest and most pernicious anti-Semitic stereotypes in a book he wrote when he was a Conservative shadow minister. He describes “Jewish oligarchs” who run the media, and fiddle the figures to fix elections in their favour.
He portrays a Jewish character, Sammy Katz, with a “proud nose and curly hair”, and paints him as a malevolent, stingy, snake-like Jewish businessman who exploits immigrant workers for profit. There is nothing subtle about this. We know what anti-Semitism looks like.
Johnson has come for immigrants, gypsies, travellers, the NHS, the vulnerable and the poor as well as the integrity of the Electoral System.
German Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller wrote this of his experience under the Nazis:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.
Think on Lord Finkelstein.
7 July
Sid is not politically active but is in despair at the iniquities of Johnson’s government and the absence of viable opposition.
I suggest to him that the Progressive Alliance, led by Caroline Lucas, Layla Moran and Clive Lewis might have the answer. He discards this:
What we need is a Popular Front against Fascism modelled on the resistance to the Dictators in the 1930’s!
I am still mulling this when Ian Blackford stands up in the Commons to describe Johnson as a tin-pot dictator.
