On Lieberty

J. S. Mll

The Liberal Party was replaced as a force in British politics in the 1920s by the Labour Party.  In an age of universal suffrage the uselessness of the Liberal Party was clear.  Its demise should have been quick and final.  But, the false self-importance of the self-anointed guardians of woolly centrist cod ideology, imbued by snobbish fake superiority toward the masses, kept the politics of liberalism awake.

Mill’s ‘On Liberty’ is a fine account of and instruction in liberal philosophy.  Its failure occurs when Mill opines his politics.  A mini preçis of Mill’s political demand is “do not allow working-class any power!”  He created an intellectual walled garden for his fellow liberals to sit in and cast derogatory remarks at the Tories, but he was careful to make the garden invite-only.  Thus, liberal politics became a con-trick.   

As a political ideology, liberalism is a subset of the capitalist class; it exclaims displeasure at the excesses of conservative exploitation but is focussed, as a capitalist supporter, on opposing a reversal in economic power in favour of the exploited.  It is a comfort blanket for the subset of the middle-classes whose members mistake education for intelligence, and, more nefariously, it is used to con voters by pretending to be an alternative to the capitalist status quo.

Since the emergence of Labour, British liberal politics was mostly dormant until Thatcher arrived and the most notable contribution the Liberal Party made was its leader’s inspiration for one of the greatest comedic soliloquies.  

Peter Cook

SDP/Liberal ‘Alliance’

The viciousness of the Thatcher government’s conservatism, destroying decades of hard-fought for improvements in living standards, access to education, workers’ rights and access to housing, encouraged a left-of-centre fightback.  The Tories’ response to this fightback was violence and denial of justice.  The liberals were frightened by the possibility of success of the appeal of socialist tendencies and their response was to re-constitute themselves as the Social Democratic Party (SDP).

The SDP was a concoction of the remaining Liberal Party politicians after the Jeremy Thorpe fiasco and a handful of careerist right-of-centre Labour MPs, the latter forerunners of today’s anti-socialist Progress MPs.  Perceived now as an absurd footnote in modern British political history, the SDP achieved its aim of ensuring that a left-of-centre government wouldn’t be elected by splitting opposition to the Tories’ assaults on British society.  The fact that the Tories were able to cling onto power until 1997 was an unfortunate consequence that did not worry the SDP; by 1997 it had disappeared, pleased with its work.

The typical Liberal Party tactic used by the SDP was to pretend to be opposed to what many other people were genuinely opposed to – namely, the consequences of rampant free-market exploitation – and then con people into moving away from the real opposition to such exploitation.  

Clegg’s Liberal Democrats

Nick Clegg and his supervisor

Tony Blair’s gleeful militarism followed by Gordon Brown’s reckless deregulation of the financial system had combined to diminish Labour’s appeal for the 2010 election.  The Tories were still not fully operational so the professional opportunists in the Liberal Democrats grabbed their chance.  One cannot deny the success of their opportunism at that election: The party’s highest number of seats for many decades and in (coalition) government for the first time in almost a century.  However, this success was based entirely on the usual liberal con described above and the extent of the con in 2010 was one of the most criminal acts in the history of British democratic politics.

The are two despicable characteristics to the 2010 Liberal Democrat election con 

1. To acquire the necessary votes the Liberal Democrats pretended that they were to the left of Gordon Brown’s right-of-centre Labour Party.
2. In the ‘coalition’ government the Liberal Democrats were entirely subservient to the Tories.

That is, Clegg’s mob not only pretended to oppose the Tories – the usual liberal con – but they also pretended that they were less right-of-centre that Labour.  Nick Clegg, as much a robot servant of capitalist establishment as Cameron, Osborne, May, Johnson, Hammond, etc., lied incessantly to the voters and a sufficient number believed him.  Blatant, unashamed LIES.  Then, after skipping over to have a laugh with his best chum David Cameron, Clegg told his MPs to just sit back and allow the Tories to wreck the country.  The best that Clegg should be enjoying now is a small, dank, dark cell.

Five years later the Liberal Democrats were almost wiped out at the general election, but the damage to the country and to many people’s lives was done and, like a fetid stench from an unknown source, the Liberal Democrats lingered waiting for another event that could feed their opportunism.

Tim Farron and Brexit

Tim Farron

The new leader of the Liberal Democrats, Tim Farron, a man with the charisma of a bass player in a Coldplay covers band, would be almost unknown now if the result of the EU referendum had not been to leave the EU.  David Cameron’s gormless decision to allow a vote coupled with the arrogance of the political and media bubbles led to the majority of voters choosing Brexit.  Ensuing worries about the consequences of departure, exasperated by the hapless disorganised preparation by Theresa May and her band of morons, switched on a flashing light labelled ‘OPPORTUNITY’ shining in Tim Farron’s face.  

That is, an opportunity to shift opposition focus away from the left-leaning Labour leadership just in case the latter succeeds in its aims.  For Farron and the Liberal Democrats their continuous campaigning against Brexit is a lever to maintain the invention of the fraudulent view that they are the main political opposition in Britain after the EU referendum.  They may care for membership of the EU, but they know the vote has been made and it will not be reversed.  Therefore, their anti Brexit campaigning is mere posturing and they know it is.  By positioning themselves at the forefront of anti Brexit activism, the Liberal Democrats are in a safe political place because there is no expectation of success.  They can prance about as much as they like because there is no pressure to succeed.

The Liberal Democrat anti Brexit campaign is another chapter in the Liberal/SDP/Liberal Democrat con trick.  Their main objective, as always, is to con the voters into believing that liberals are an opposition to conservative capitalist exploitation and destruction.  The fact is they are a deliberate distraction from real opposition.  From John Stuart Mill to Tim Farron, liberal politics exists to stifle revolutionary politics.  

• Liberal philosophy is fine
• Liberal politics is a con

Socialists and communists have always recognised the intrinsic obstructive nature of liberal politics and have always proclaimed the following:

Step aside or you get moved aside

 

 

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Nick Cohen carefully arranges his toys by the pram and pretends he threw them there

The oft-repeated whinings of the dying centre of British politics directed at Jeremy Corbyn, his like-minded colleagues and their supporters, have decayed into a murmur in the background.  The manufactured smear campaigns have been debunked, the challengers in elections – Owen Smith and Gerard Coyne – have dissipated in their respective vacuums and the invented political analyses have been dealt with studiously.

Corbyn’s opponents at the centre of British politics – Progress MPs and liberal journalists – have no strategy other than continuing to repeat what they first uttered clumsily when it became clear that he would win the leadership election in 2015.  (I mentioned this in 2015 in Election Despair and Labour’s Death in the section ‘The horror of popular support.’)  They have to keep going because the main political objective they share is to try to ensure that socialism does not become popular.

Today, the self-appointed critic-general of left-wing politics, Nick Cohen, preached his hollow polemic yet again.  In Cohen arranges his toys in The Observer, Cohen pretends to state that he is speaking directly to Corbyn supporters.  He isn’t and nor does he expect the readers to believe that claim; it is just a pointer to indicate a possible semi-comical essence to his article so Cohen can, if necessary, respond to inspection by post-presenting his comments as humourous.  The insurance policy of a nod to humour continues throughout the article.  

The style Cohen has chosen is to mimic a stereotypical excited blogger who thinks he has many worthless cod-peremptory “points” to make, none of which have been researched, fact-checked or logic-checked, but who possesses no skills that could coalesce these random thoughts into a coherent structured didactic narrative.  Cohen is a better writer but he has chosen to write like that for this article; that is, he pretends that he is so “exasperated” that he is metaphorically throwing his toys out of the pram when he is actually arranging them carefully around the room to give the impression of a toddler tantrum.

There is only one “point” that Cohen makes which is that centrists were right to say that a left-leaning leader of the Labour party would reduce the party’s appeal electorally.  He doesn’t seek to prove this.  Of course, it cannot necessarily be proven nor rebutted with confidence.  However, the accompanying analysis from Cohen, that he, presumably, thinks will solidify his point, is just more of the absurd commentary and downright lies that characterise the centrists’ anti-Corbyn polemic.  

“Corbyn’s victory has allowed the right to run riot” proclaims Nick Cohen.  But, the Tories acquired a majority at the 2015 general election because Ed Miliband’s (not-left) Labour had nothing to offer.  Prior to Corbyn’s election as leader, Labour abstained on some far-right Tory bills in parliament.

“Corbyn is so unpopular even Scottish Tories can walk all over him” is Cohen’s analysis of Labour in Scotland.  But, Labour’s rapid decline in Scotland occurred as a direct result of the Tony Blair’s disciple Jim Murphy’s incompetence and arrogance.

“In an election, they – [the Tories] – will expose the far left’s record of excusing the imperialism of Vladimir Putin’s gangster state , the oppressors of women and murderers of gays in Iran, the IRA, and every variety of inquisitorial and homicidal Islamist movement” is Cohen’s prediction for Tory strategy if and when a general election is called.  So many cuddly toys and rattles were put down on the rug while he wrote that garbled sentence.  Cohen’s “proof” of the Putin claim is the employment of Seamus Milne, his “proof” of the Iran claim is that Corbyn was interviewed by Press TV and Cohen fails to acknowledge that the sight of Tebbit being stretchered out of the Grand Hotel after the Brighton Bomb was met with many cheers.  During an election campaign Labour could highlight, for example, Theresa May’s obsequious meeting with Trump, her endorsement of Erdogan’s attacks on freedom and the Tory government’s military support for Saudi Arabia’s carpet-bombing of Yemen but Nick Cohen can see only in one direction.

“It ought to shame you – [Corbyn supporters] – to learn that, ever since Corbyn promised to take the fight to the Tories, he and his hopeless frontbench have not forced one Tory minister to resign or even endure a sleepless night“ is a hopeless piece of trolling that would embarrass even Sean Spicer.  The current mob of Tory ministers is the most corrupt and the stupidest ever seen in parliament and, thus, to expect any of them to resign for professional reasons is laughable.  Cohen also chooses to ignore the continuous intelligent criticism of said ministers by Labour’s front bench.

“Labour politicians who want to fight rather than pose say they can see the right mobilising to demand the worst possible Brexit” is a concoction of nonsense.  Labour MPs can oppose the terms of Brexit in parliament if they wish, but Tories have a majority.  Cohen’s sentence here is particularly dumb and infused with hackneyed vocabulary.

“I accept that among you there are true far leftists who won’t care. You want, and may get, a ‘radical’ Labour party that will spend decades in opposition waiting for the glorious day when voters realise their mistake.  I don’t think your imaginary victory is worth waiting for. You don’t have a radical programme that a 20th-century Marxist or any other serious thinker would recognise. All that’s left of the far left is a babble of sneers and slogans.”  The purpose of this interlude by Cohen is to try to persuade left-of-centre Labour supporters to distance themselves from further left socialists.  Cohen simultaneously mocks the far-left while stating that Marxists are not impressed at all by Corbyn’s politics.  The latter point is true but, as Cohen knows, those of us with more left-wing aims than Corbyn can view him and his colleagues as promoting some socialist politics rather than being the complete answer for the future of British politics.  Even a sniff of socialist politics is what the likes of Cohen wish to crush.

Nick Cohen has seen the collaboration of Nick Clegg, he has seen the uselessness of Ed Miliband, he can see the careerist apathy of Sadiq Khan and he knows that the Progress MPs who infest the parliamentary Labour party fear Corbyn’s politics much more than they oppose Theresa May.  Cohen knows that the Tory cabinet is a diseased mob of criminality and stupidity.  Equally, he knows that the constant harping from him and the other centrist liars that Corbyn, McDonnell, etc. are not opposing the Tories is a blatant lie, the opposite of the truth.

Cohen might disapprove of some Tory policies but he fears socialist tendencies much more.  This article is not, as he would like it to be viewed, an emotional plea for reason; instead, it is an act, a pretence of exasperation.  Cohen climbed out of his pram, picked his rattles, teddy bears and squeaky toys up and placed them down around the pram.  “Look how worked up I am!”  

He has regurgitated the same knowingly dishonest tripe but with a false excited tone.  Indeed, that is the norm for the professional troll.  Repeat the lies and misdirection over and over with added invented emotional fervour.

 

George Osborne: A Typical Financial Gangsters’ Mascot

Today, right-wing London newspaper The Evening Standard appointed current MP and former chancellor of the exchequer George Osborne as its new editor.  Many newspapers employ one-off joke editors as marketing ploys including politicians, entertainers and even sports people, but Osborne’s appointment is permanent, not a joke.

Without doubt, Osborne is utterly unqualified to be an editor of a newspaper and possesses neither the intelligence nor the common sense to be able to learn the skills required.  The owner of The Evening Standard could not claim there exists a shortage of candidates for the role; at that newspaper, at others under the same ownership and throughout the journalist professional there are many strong candidates for the job.  Osborne’s unsuitability for the job of editor of a newspaper is surpassed in ineptitude only by his abject unsuitability to be chancellor of the exchequer.

Osborne acquired the role as a consequence of his stature in the group masturbation obligations within the financial gangster community and their gimps.  Like many in that cesspool, Osborne is simultaneously a manipulator and a gimp.  The job – or, more pertinently, its salary – may have been offered to him as a nice little thank you for all his help to the financial elite when chancellor, or he may be thanking Lebedev, (the owner of The Evening Standard), for its support for the Tories, or Osborne’s key employer BlackRock Investment Institute may want Osborne to advance its venal and disreputable interests in the newspaper.  Any or all of the above and other factors may have contributed to Osborne adding to his visibility and his unearned income.  What are definitely not factors are ability, suitability or competence.

The rampant multi-million pound tax-dodging shenanigans of Osborne’s parents created sufficient wealth for them to send their dopey son to one of the financial gangster finishing schools, St. Paul’s.  His career since has followed various puss-filled paths of the elite’s manipulator/gimp duonanism.  For the British public his tenure as chancellor was catastrophic but, for the financial elite, he did his job.  Editor of a right-wing newspaper, spokesperson for an “global fund manager” and Tory MP are merely faces on the same polyhedron of fecal matter.

Osborne is currently a favoured mascot of the most destructive components of international capitalism.  His contempt for parliament and for democracy is matched by his contempt for journalism.  He is precisely what the Tory party stands for.