20 January 2022
Diary of a Corbynista
Guns before Vibrators
by Don Urquhart
3 to 19 January
In Parliament the Government is pushing on with its agenda. Sadly it does not involve improving Health, Education, Housing or Levelling Up, whatever that is. No, it is about putting protesters in jail and making it harder for poor people to vote.
This comes at a time when the Prime Minister appears to have broken the law on multiple occasions without the police showing much interest.
With Sue Gray’s report hogging the headlines the Labour leader might now feel that it is safe to publish the Forde Report covering the activities of Labour officials and MPs during his predecessor’s term of office and it has been flagged that Sir Martin will present to the National Executive Committee on Friday January 21st.
I wonder if the bookies will be quoting on the relative volume of whitewash and number of redactions in the two documents.
Many thanks to the readers who responded to Shaw Sheet 307. Here’s the Bulletin Board:
Walsall
For once, I don’t have any namby-pamby liberal disagreement. Absolutely agree that we need to take an “anybody but the Tories” stance. It requires, from all sides, an adult stance. However, I will, at this point, suggest that we need to break the “duopoly”, as you have mentioned, which allows our rich political diversity proper exposition. This cannot happen under our current antediluvian approach or with the current Labour view that they are able to take them on singly.
Sunlounger
Good luck with that. Some of the left leaning FB group members are saying that they’d rather vote Tory than for a Starmer led Labour party. Because, as we all know, Starmer is a Tory. It would appear that the left prefer the real thing.
Smoothie
I think the 65% are just fed up with politicians full stop.
Sunlounger
I could not agree more.
Walsall
I guess the question is when did this malaise set in?
Is it a recent phenomenon?
There is also another dimension in that, in general, we have a population generally disengaged with politics anyway.
There is little or no education in how the systems work, so people just rock up and put a cross where they always did, get particularly aereated by the latest campaign in the tabloid press, or show abject apathy.
We need a system which helps people see that there are people who are actually operating on their behalf. What we have now is too polarising, and has degenerated into left/right, right/wrong, rich/poor, etc.
Real life isn’t like that.
Sussex
I have been avidly following all of these posts, and whilst I am certainly part of the 35% whilst occasionally putting in a Monster Loony party vote (god bless them), my concern about the state of politics comes from a different angle.
FlatGate / JohnLewis Gate / PartyGate / Shagging away from home / Barnards CastleGate. In the greatest scheme of things the only relevance is to that of the elected MPs and choice of aides’ personal integrity, and if anybody thought that Boris had even a modicum of even the lowest standard / any personal integrity, then shame on them as his baseline has been public for years. Having said that, this is what is making the national headlines driven by the press (and I am sure they have so much more dirt on BoJo) and the opposition. Even valuable parliamentary time is being wasted on this not to mention the costs of enquiries, PR, making apologies to the Queen etc. When everybody knows they are all as guilty as sin why bother, nothing good will come of it. An outside possibility is BoJo loses his job before the next election (which I think he would see as a thankful blessing), the opposition aren’t going to become more effective nor will Starmer win an election. So absolutely call poor behaviours out (press and politicians) and prosecute for substantial criminal wrongdoing (police). But please please do not make this the full focus of national politics.
I did poll my builder, cleaner and personal trainer on their views last week with regard to the current Westminster noise. In summary: all they would do next time is not follow the rules. Yes there was a bit of anger about being deceived but that’s about it. The more disturbing convo was with a deputy head of an inner city when we discussed yet another small child being killed by parents / carers. To say I was shocked when I heard that in his school they had far more high at risk children (albeit secondary school) than they had teaching staff would be an understatement.
At the outset of the pandemic a father murdered his wife and two preteen children less than 300 yards from my house in posh, non-racially diverse, wealthy, rural West Sussex: Very disturbing to say the least for me and my two small boys. Since then in the press there have been more and more child murders or horrific abuse. Of course the pandemic has caused difficulties for all people responsible for safeguarding, I get that, but……., we know only what has been publicised which is usually the tip of the iceberg (and that tip has become a mountain in the last couple of years). Stopping this trend in its tracks should be a fundamental concern for any responsible politician but that ain’t getting any real air time and that really pisses me off….
So here are my total beefs with modern day politics – deal with the real issues:
(A) Protect and reduce the at risk population – that doesn’t necessarily (but may mean) more funding but more probably effective use of the available resources and less woke agendas
(B) Whoever is in opposition, be effective not idealistic / self serving
(C) Move on from minutiae that only affect the Westminster bubble
(D) Grow up and recognise your responsibilities to represent the total population not your self-interests or academic ideals.
(E) Make us all proud to be British
(F) Stop wasting, time, money and effort on stupid, political serving enquiries – let the press do their job.
I do believe we have a systemic failure across all the political spectrum and only a smart, humanitarian, fiscally responsible and pragmatic agenda will course correct it…
Massachusetts
Wow … at least you all can still have an intelligent conversation.
We have 42% of the population going bat-shit crazy. They believe Trump is baby Jesus and going to rid the country of a cabal of paedophiles (i.e. Democrats). The Democrats worry about our democracy being at risk when we have never had any such thing. In voting for President, somebody in Wyoming has a vote that counts four times as much as my vote from Massachusetts. And the Senate is worse … their representation is 5-6 times my representation. Add to that an omission in the constitution regarding closure on debates …that led to filibusters … that led to a 60% majority required in the Senate to pass any legislation.
Tyranny of a 42% minority so gullible that they are taken in by a ridiculously transparent grifter. If Canada weren’t so cold…
Smoothie
Well we all know that there are only 2 issues in American politics:
1. How many guns can I own?
2. Roe Vs Wade
It will get entertaining when you elect President Markle and Harry, the First Man .
Massachusetts
I was looking at answers to a poll question, “What do you keep by your bedside?” 99% of the answers were a 357 magnum, a Glock, or some other kind of gun. Only about 1% responded vibrator. Disappointing how our priorities have changed.
