Scrutable

It would seem that this is from Austin, or it's fraudulent. Hard to see a middle ground.

Interesting there's no signature.

Maybe see if the Grauniad are interested in it.

Seeing as Ian Austin did, in person, urge people to vote for Johnson, it's probably not fake.

GeenDienst wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2019 10:25 am But there is no ability - none - in the Shadow Cabinet.

Long-Bailey will be leader by the end of January, as Momentum will fix it for McCluskey. Duuuulllllllllzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Who else? Starmer? Ah, the little wannabe fixer scuttling between the big beasts with his cunning plans, which they roundly ignore. Not leadership material, nowhere near. White van hater Thornberry?

Stella Creasey seems to have been the only Labour politician who has been working hard to make good things happen in recent years. if the Comrades had chosen her, she'd be PM already. But, as a group, the Comrades are clearly fuckwits.

Didn't she go for deputy? I'm pretty sure I remember voting for her as deputy leader

Having checked, yes she did.
She came 2nd to Tom Watson.

El Pollo Diablo wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2019 11:25 am Seeing as Ian Austin did, in person, urge people to vote for Johnson, it's probably not fake.

I've asked him. But how unsure of your own parties appeal must you be if you can't ask people to vote for your party without pretending to be someone else...

RobS wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2019 1:00 pm I've asked him. But how unsure of your own parties appeal must you be if you can't ask people to vote for your party without pretending to be someone else...

Don't see why it has to do with that. Having the previous Labour MP campaigning for Johnson (assuming it is genuine) in a seat he won before with a majority of 22 is just too good an opportunity to miss.

GeenDienst wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2019 10:25 am … Stella Creasey seems to have been the only Labour politician who has been working hard to make good things happen in recent years. if the Comrades had chosen her, she'd be PM already. But, as a group, the Comrades are clearly fuckwits.

I think the Comrades have Stella Creasey marked down as one of the Real Enemy. Counterrevolutionary thoughts or not a True Believer in magic grandpa's magic or something like that.

Boris Johnson has prompted widespread ridicule after claiming he has never told a lie during his political career in a televised interview.

Appearing on ITV, the prime minister was asked whether he could look the presenter “in the eye” and say he had never lied in his career – spanning back to 2001 when he was first elected as an MP.

“Absolutely not, absolutely not,” Mr Johnson replied. “I have never tried to deceive the public and I’ve always tried to be absolutely frank.”

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/p ... 25601.html

He was sacked twice for lying. So when he says he has never lied, he’s literally lying,' says Jo Swinson

How did I miss this?

Yes, it's amazing.

An actual correct usage of "literally".

Of course we are talking about a man who over this weekend alone has claimed he had to call an election because Parliament wouldn't pass the Queen's speech and disgustingly politicised murder by claiming a man imprisoned under a Conservative lead government, who's incarceration was reduced due to a Conservative led government, who was released under a Conservative government, was imprisoned in a prison service subject to Conservative 'Austerity' cuts, released into a heavily privatised, by the Conservatives, parole system and commited this atrocity under a police force that the Conservatives have cut by 21,000 officers committed his crime thanks to Corbyn and Lefties.....

NB. I actually think this could have happened under any PM and if he'd served the full term it may well have delayed rather than preventing it. It's the blaming this, and everything else, on the government of a decade ago.

Martin Y wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2019 2:34 pm

GeenDienst wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2019 10:25 am … Stella Creasey seems to have been the only Labour politician who has been working hard to make good things happen in recent years. if the Comrades had chosen her, she'd be PM already. But, as a group, the Comrades are clearly fuckwits.

I think the Comrades have Stella Creasey marked down as one of the Real Enemy. Counterrevolutionary thoughts or not a True Believer in magic grandpa's magic or something like that.

I doubt it.
Having spoken to many momentumites, nobody ever had anything but praise and admiration for Creasy.
If she had been an MP for more than 5 years in 2015, I'm sure she would have been elected deputy leader.

There was a momentum effort four years ago to try to deselect her.

El Pollo Diablo wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2019 3:17 pm There was a momentum effort four years ago to try to deselect her.

Interesting. Then again that was in the febrile and ludicrous atmosphere of 2015. And seems, from this article, to have partly been about a councillor getting his sister Creasy's seat and also partly about a Unite member gunning for it & maneuvering for a mooted boundary redrawning & the seat technically becoming open.
2.5 years ago when I did a load of campaigning for my local MP, london momentumites and many others all admired her.

Yeah, I think particularly with the effort to decriminalise abortion in Northern Ireland, they've backed off. I'd had it in my head that the effort against her was more recent than that, but obviously not.

GeenDienst wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2019 1:32 pm

RobS wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2019 1:00 pm I've asked him. But how unsure of your own parties appeal must you be if you can't ask people to vote for your party without pretending to be someone else...

Don't see why it has to do with that. Having the previous Labour MP campaigning for Johnson (assuming it is genuine) in a seat he won before with a majority of 22 is just too good an opportunity to miss.

The letter mentions Derby North, Ian Austin was the MP for Dudley North.

Oops, yes. But similar follows for having an ex-labour MP (apparently) now supporting the Tory side. They are going to use it to pick off Labour voters who don't want Corbyn as PM.

And Derby North has Williamson standing against Labour, so they have their own previous incumbent problem, with a majority of about 2000 to defend from last time.

El Pollo Diablo wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2019 3:35 pm Yeah, I think particularly with the effort to decriminalise abortion in Northern Ireland, they've backed off. I'd had it in my head that the effort against her was more recent than that, but obviously not.

But she has the antiabortionists on her case big time now.

Anyway, she was just an example of wasted talent.

GeenDienst wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2019 1:32 pm

RobS wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2019 1:00 pm I've asked him. But how unsure of your own parties appeal must you be if you can't ask people to vote for your party without pretending to be someone else...

Don't see why it has to do with that. Having the previous Labour MP campaigning for Johnson (assuming it is genuine) in a seat he won before with a majority of 22 is just too good an opportunity to miss.

But it's promoted by the Tories - see small print - yet no Tory logo.

GeenDienst wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2019 4:16 pm

El Pollo Diablo wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2019 3:35 pm Yeah, I think particularly with the effort to decriminalise abortion in Northern Ireland, they've backed off. I'd had it in my head that the effort against her was more recent than that, but obviously not.

But she has the antiabortionists on her case big time now.

Anyway, she was just an example of wasted talent.

She's not exactly wasted talent yet and your example was wrong - she couldn't have graduated from deputy leader to leader in the last 2 years. And she's had very significant personal problems to contend with the last few years anyway.
I hope that she becomes a very significant presence in the labour party in the very near future.

RobS wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2019 6:22 pm

GeenDienst wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2019 1:32 pm

RobS wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2019 1:00 pm I've asked him. But how unsure of your own parties appeal must you be if you can't ask people to vote for your party without pretending to be someone else...

Don't see why it has to do with that. Having the previous Labour MP campaigning for Johnson (assuming it is genuine) in a seat he won before with a majority of 22 is just too good an opportunity to miss.

But it's promoted by the Tories - see small print - yet no Tory logo.

Oh yes, and it's red, to strengthen the association with an ex-Labour politician swinging the size 11 into the danglies of his erstwhile party. But I think it's more to do with encouraging red-on-red electoral fisticuffs than any uncertainty or lack of belief about their own party. They are using this to reach and to try to split off the potential Labour voters who don't want Corbyn as PM, and we read there are more than a few of them about. I'd guess that's why they haven't put blue logos all over it.

I expect these might be going out in other Con-Lab marginals. Who knows, it could well make the difference with that 2k or so majority in Derby North, especially with Williamson attracting some previous Labour voters, although the presence of Williamson himself might be a bigger factor and enough to turn it blue. I wonder if it's a first for a GE, where a constituency has two recent ex-MPs from the same party trying to hoof out that party.

And, again, I'm assuming that Austin approved it. If not, the political intent and approach of the letter doesn't change, but the fraudytrouserness certainly does.

tom p wrote: Mon Dec 02, 2019 6:54 pm I hope that [Creasey] becomes a very significant presence in the labour party in the very near future.

She should. But those attacks from the left would start again. She is, after all, a dreaded centrist.

This is an odd one. Story today that the NHS-give-away-to-the-Trumpies negotiation documents, in the news of late, appear (not proven) to originate from a known Russki fake news spreading organisation.

Now, if these were fakes, I think we'd know by now, the Tories could have just pointed and laughed. So it doesn't look like a disinformation campaign. But why would an organisation like this seek to undermine the Tories?

GeenDienst wrote: Tue Dec 03, 2019 12:12 pm This is an odd one. Story today that the NHS-give-away-to-the-Trumpies negotiation documents, in the news of late, appear (not proven) to originate from a known Russki fake news spreading organisation.

Now, if these were fakes, I think we'd know by now, the Tories could have just pointed and laughed. So it doesn't look like a disinformation campaign. But why would an organisation like this seek to undermine the Tories?

Part of the point is division and destabilisation - two entrenched extremes fighting each other. The worse BoJo looks the better (as long as he still gets elected), because it will make the defeated centre and left even more bitter and angry and desperate.

GeenDienst wrote: Tue Dec 03, 2019 12:12 pm This is an odd one. Story today that the NHS-give-away-to-the-Trumpies negotiation documents, in the news of late, appear (not proven) to originate from a known Russki fake news spreading organisation.

Now, if these were fakes, I think we'd know by now, the Tories could have just pointed and laughed. So it doesn't look like a disinformation campaign. But why would an organisation like this seek to undermine the Tories?

Russia's interest is in unstable Western governments that can't interfere, and in undermining the faith in government institutions, not in supporting one side or the other.

Narcissists who are pathological liars often make bad liars, which is ironic given the frequency they tell them. I think this is due to them over-estimating their own charm and intelligence while under-estimating the intelligence of the people they are lying to. Their rock-solid self-belief in their own genius compared to the perceived bovine stupidity and gullibility of the schmucks they are trying to con means their lies are often feeble to the point of risible, in the mistaken belief that the targets of the lie would never be able to see through it and would never dare to call them out.

Similarly, one thing bad liars often get wrong is they over-sell the lie and so lose plausibility e.g "I would never cheat on my partner" becomes "I have never even thought about sex", they literally "protest too much".

A further common tell with a bad liar is a quick glance downwards before commencing with the lie.



In other news here's Donald Trump talking about the NHS.