Alastair Campbell’s overdue ejection from Labour divided opinion almost exactly between socialists and anti-socialists.
Immediately post-ejection, support for Campbell was informed by anti-Corbyn opportunism but it also elucidated the rancid stink of the relationship between politicians’ PR teams and newspapers and broadcasters.
Veteran BBC reporter Jon Sopel displayed that disreputable relationship brazenly:
“I’ve known Alastair Campbell for 25 years. A more tribal, Labour to his finger-tips person you would struggle to find, yet expelled from Labour with lightning speed brutality. But anti-Semites? Hard to avoid conclusion Labour is making deliberate choices…“
What Sopel should have said is that both he and Campbell worked in their respective professions – reporter and communications confidence trickery – for the last twenty-five years. Sopel’s familiar phraseology showed how the relation operated: He admitted that Campbell’s PR skills had worked on him. In 2007 Sopel’s usefulness and acquiescence was recognised by the public affairs industry (the industry wherein Campbell worked) with the title of ‘political journalist of the year.’
Jon Sopel acquiesces
The deliberate ignorance of Sopel’s analysis was partly a consequence of having “known Alastair Campbell for 25 years.”
Since the day Jeremy Corbyn was elected as leader of Labour, Campbell sought his removal and campaigned relentlessly to achieve that aim; Campbell’s behaviour contradicted Sopel’s claim of “tribal” support.
Sopel repeated the purposeful misunderstanding of the difference between Campbell’s ejection (rule-breaking that he admitted) and Labour members being accused of rule-breaking but not immediately ejected because of their denial and subsequent investigation. Clearly, Sopel disapproved of due process. His conclusion, including general libel, was disgusting and unprofessional.
Regardless of whether Campbell’s decision to use a fake wealth-driven legal route to get his membership back will succeed, Labour made a strong point with his ejection. Those who he manipulated over the years – twenty-five years – revealed themselves as worthless and unreliable.
Former adviser to Tony Blair Alastair Campbell was finally ejected from Labour today.
Campbell’s most notable contribution to life on earth was to concoct a false report on the military capabilities of the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein; Campbell’s invention led directly to hundreds of thousands of deaths and the destruction of Iraq.
Campbell’s immediate response to his ejection was typical of his character: Petulant, haughty and full of distractions and false equivalences.
All italicised text below are exact quotes from Campbell today.
“Sad and disappointed to receive email expelling me from Labour – particularly on a day leadership finally seems to be moving to the right place on Brexit, not least thanks to tactical voting by party members, including MPs, councillors and peers who back a People’s Vote.”
Labour voters can switch to voting for another party but Labour members are required, in order to remain members, to not vote for another party. That is a party rule. Campbell deliberately chose to pretend to confuse voters with members in his comment above. In the EU election last week many voters switched (perhaps temporarily) from Labour to Green party or Liberal Democrat; there was a difference between the choices of those voters and the actions of Labour members.
“I was not intending to publicise this at this stage, but have had calls from friends in the Party telling me it is now widely known and likely to be leaked.“
Campbell is a former communications adviser and, thus, nothing he says publicly is not done on purpose. His decision to state in advance of the election that he was going to vote for a different party was a deliberate act to try to persuade others to do likewise. Such an act is in breach of party rules.
“I have been advised by lawyers with expertise in this field I have grounds for appeal against expulsion and shall do so.”
Campbell’s motivation for legal action is to maintain his public visibility while causing disruption and cost to Labour. The rule he broke is very clear. Campbell did not state whether these “lawyers with expertise in this field” are Margaret Hodge’s favourite Mishcon de Reya.
“I am and always will be Labour. I voted Lib Dem, without advance publicity, to try to persuade Labour to do right thing for country/party. In light of appeal, I won’t be doing media on this.”
Campbell lied above about no “advance publicity.” No-one believes that Campbell will disappear from TV, radio and newspapers. He will continue to appear, spouting tripe about Labour, but he will dodge questions on his ejection.
“But hard not to point out difference in the way anti-Semitism cases have been handled.”
The libellous comment above was woefully false for many reasons. Most notably, ejection requires proof unless the accused admits the crime. In Campbell’s case he stated his wrongdoing proudly so the decision was easy. Clearly, Campbell would want other people to be ejected based only on accusation and not admittance of guilt as is the case with him.
“Plenty of precedent of members voting for other parties/causes. Some are now senior Party staff. Approach also contrasts with our era when TB was being pressed by whips to withdraw whip for JC and others for persistently voting against Labour in Parliament, and he said ‘No.’“
As Campbell was aware, votes in parliament that are not in line with the party’s direction are not sufficient for ejection from the party. The entirely different act that Campbell committed was sufficient. He knew this. His false comparison was just a technique of his job as a professional bullshitter.
“An excessive predilection for welfarism has created a peculiar and deeply unattractive psyche among many Liverpudlians. They see themselves whenever possible as victims and resent their victim status; yet at the same time they wallow in it. The deaths of more than fifty Liverpool supporters at Hillsborough in 1989 [actual figure was 96] was undeniably a greater tragedy than the single death, however horrible, of Mr. Bigley [murdered by terrorists]; but that is no excuse for Liverpool’s failure to acknowledge, even to this day, the part played in the disaster by drunken fans at the back of the crowd who mindlessly tried to fight their way into the ground that Saturday afternoon. The Sun newspaper became a whipping-boy for daring to hint at the wider causes of the incident.”
Boris Johnson and friend
Venal, stupid, racist Boris Johnson is not as inevitable a winner of the impending Tory leadership contest as he and many thinly astute commentators might think. The MPs will whittle down the number of candidates via repeated votes until two remain who will then face a vote from the party’s members. Clearly, MPs could engineer their votes carefully so that Johnson is not one of the final pair; if he is then the members will certainly elect him. (Update: Johnson won the leadership contest.)
Johnson’s careers are exclusively a consequence of two features of his life:
He attended Eton College
He has no concept of shame
That is all he has. There is nothing else that has been necessary or useful for him. Johnson is unintelligent; his knowledge bank is near empty; he is unable to learn anything; he is very lazy; he has no self-awareness; empathy and sympathy are foreign concepts for him; he has no understanding of the existence of society or community; he is devoid of humanity; he has no allegiance to anyone or anything; he cannot differentiate between truth and lies; he cares for nothing and no-one; he is a sociopath.
The two useful features of his life were sufficient for continuous financial success in his life. Eton College on his CV opened doors that opened other doors and so on, with no check ever on whether Johnson deserved those doors to open for him. The gilded conveyor belt from Eton to politics, military and judiciary, transporting slack-jawed hooray Henrys to places of power, is a rancid stain on Britain that needs to be annihilated. Johnson’s absence of shame, a necessity, allowed him to never be distracted by self-reflection, by consideration of consequence and by human concerns.
As an MP, Mayor of London, Newspaper editor, newspaper columnist and Foreign Secretary Johnson stumbled along gormlessly, avoiding acquisition of knowledge and skill-set to assist him in the various roles. He couldn’t care less about the quality of his work or the consequences of his actions or inactions. Accumulation of personal wealth was his single professional axiom and his decisions, if one can call them decisions, were directed by others from the seedy world of corporate finance or its representatives at various right-wing think-tanks.
While Mayor of London, Johnson pursued policies that enriched the exploiters and gave nothing to the people of London. Two particularly corrupt endeavors were the handover of more than £50 million pounds to fake companies for the (now abandoned) fake Garden Bridge and the closure of vital central London fire-stations with handover of property and land to developers and investors.
Johnson is thick. Doubly opposite to John Lydon, Johnson knows what he wants but he doesn’t know how to get it. He relies on guidance from the gofers of thieves of fiscal income and exploiters of workers’ toil. Last year, alongside Michael Gove and Jacob Rees-Mogg, he met Steve Bannon to receive advice on presentation and tactics of con tricks. Unlike Johnson, Bannon had a vision of the process of executing extreme capitalism where Johnson could see only the pay day.
One of Bannon’s mantras for politicians he advised is that they should be willing to promote racism and prejudice. Bannon knew the usefulness of division as a distraction. Of course, as an Etonian, Johnson did not need a refresher course in how to be a racist but Bannon reminded him to be proactively racist rather than relying on spontaneity. Soon after their meeting Johnson wrote an article that randomly accused veiled Muslim women of looking like pillar boxes.
Johnson is a puppet and a dancing clown. He is almost the perfect product of the Eton machine: Persistent and relentless dishonesty, single-minded pursuit of personal gain, obsequiousness toward the relevant advisers, and the immorality of a sociopath.
In a few weeks Johnson might be prime minister. If so, hopefully it will not be for long. He is the least able and least desirable candidate in Britain to be prime minister.
Social Murder exponent and gleeful destroyer of Windrush citizens’ lives Theresa May finally sodded off. The wall of filth candidates’ list to replace her is populated exclusively and exhaustively with venality, heartlessness and well-schooled stupidity.
Mugshots of possible candidates for Tory leadership
Above are ten possible candidates: So much corruption, so much hatred of society and of humanity. Highest-bidder-wins Johnson is the favourite to win the contest and to be as calamitous a prime minister as he was mayor of London. Every town will give away £50 million to Johnson’s friendsfor fake garden bridges and store unusable water-cannons in a yard.
But, fear not, because centrists, forever frightened that Jeremy Corbyn will be prime minister soon, concocted support for imaginary moderates in the Tory party as potential leaders.
Rory Stewart Pictured above (far left, bottom row) Stewart is the most visible of the pretend Tory moderates to be a possible leadership candidate and desperate centrists hurled themselves at the opportunity to deliver their “he’s not as bad as the others” routines.
Run-of-the-melt satirical comedy show The Last Leg celebrated Stewart as if he was a great achiever because, for no apparent reason, Stewart once walked across a desert.
People’s Vote protagonist Femi Oluwole reacted with pretend straw clutching when Stewart claimed he wouldn’t accept a job in a Johnson cabinet: “At this point, I really don’t care whether Rory Stewart is being genuinely decent or just positioning himself as a reasonable alternative. We need as many Tories as possible taking this stance!” It wasn’t clear if the “we” that Oluwole mentioned was his fellow anti-socialists or the general public.
Notorious absoc Ian Dunt’s straw clutching was real: “I am going to spend the leadership contest thinking a) it’s a shame Rory Stewart isn’t doing better and b) I hope Rory Stewart doesn’t get it because Brexit would ruin him just like the others.” But, on Stewart’s proposals on Brexit, Dunt said “I obviously like the sound of what he’s selling.”
“Editor-in-chief” of New Statesman Jason Cowley struggled to contain his excitement: “Stewart is a genuine original. He also has limitless self-belief. Spurned by David Cameron, he has been waiting a long time for a moment to introduce himself to a wider public. This is his moment…and he’s seizing it.”
In desperate Guardian columnist Martha Gill stated firmly that “[of likely candidates] Rory Stewart would best serve the interests of the country as Tory leader.” Presumably, Gill meant Stewart was the least Tory of the Tories?
After claiming the only reason May failed to reach a Brexit conclusion was a lack of intelligence, Gill said “of all the virtues we could wish for in our next prime minister, intelligence is the most important. And this is Stewart’s strength. He is clever, he was a Harvard professor.” By “clever” Gill meant Stewart’s Etonian education had acquired him roles he didn’t deserve to enhance his CV. (80% of people in Britain think Stewart is clever.)
Even if Stewart is clever, which is very doubtful, he is still a Tory. Stewart’s commitment to Social Murder was as fervent as any other Tory.
Penny Mordaunt In the same desperate Guardian article Kate Maltby proposed Mordaunt because the latter “believes seriously in tackling the climate emergency, is a social liberal and is experienced in global governance as UK governor of the World Bank.”
In its own words “the World Bank’s mission is to end extreme poverty and promote shared prosperity,” but only within the exploitative restrictions of the capitalist system: “Hundreds of billions of dollars are needed for countries to provide critical services to their citizens to end poverty. Debt financing is crucial to meet these needs but borrowing countries must be prudent and transparent in taking on debt.” That is, huge debt or die are the options the World Bank proposed to “end extreme poverty.”
How committed was Penny Mordaunt to “ending extreme poverty?”
Penny Mordaunt was not only wholly uncommitted to ending extreme poverty in Britain, she actively created extreme poverty. Perhaps, Mordaunt’s experience at World Bank encouraged her to think that the poorest in Britain should borrow from a loan shark or die, in accordance with World Bank philosophy.
How committed was Penny Mordaunt to “tackling the climate emergency?”
Not much.
Amber Rudd In the same Guardian article Polly Toynbee said “Amber Rudd would be best at leading the party back into the realms of ordinary Conservatism.”
What is Amber Rudd’s “ordinary Conservatism?”
Rudd was Home Secretary when Windrush citizens were deprived of healthcare, the right to work, access to welfare, access to pensions and, consequently, became destitute and homeless. Many were deported. Some died prematurely. All are waiting for compensation.
Rudd lost that job but a few months later she was appointed as chief Social Murderer at Department of Work and Pensions (DWP). Thereat she continued and enhanced extremely vicious policies against people in need of financial assistance, particularly people with disabilities and chronic or terminal illnesses. She remained committed to Universal Credit, a change to welfare provision that was designed to cause destitution, debt, homelessness and death.
A United Nations report by Philip Alston exposed the effects of DWP policy. Rudd’s response to the report was contemptuous denial. On the same day of the publication of the report the DWP had a wraparound newspaperadvert that promoted fake representation of how Universal Credit operated; the advert was designed to not look like an advert in order to try to con readers. That was the “ordinary conservatism” that Toynbee wanted to see prevail.
In the same Guardian article Gaby Hinsliff said “Rudd is the only remain candidate with the courage for the job.” How much courage did it take to deliberately make and enact policies that destroyed people’s lives and livelihoods?
Sam Gyimah Femi Oluwole interrupted his campaign against Labour for the Peterborough by-election by adding Gyimah to his list of Tories he supports. “YES! YES! YES! THANK YOU Sam Gyimah!!! Oi!! Tories! You now have a contender who isn’t going to “f*** business” (Boris) via no-deal or turn the UK into a “slave state” (Mogg) via the deal. If you want ANY chance of saving your party, Sam Gyimah is your Obi Wan!”
But Gyimah voted against UK’s membership of EU more often than he voted in favour.
Gyimah’s voting record on Social Murder was as consistent as any other Tory.
Desperation Centrists are desperate for something, anything, anyone, that would prevent a Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn.
Notes absocn. Centrist politician, activist or journalist who opportunistically supports any political viewpoint or action in order to oppose socialism; acronym of ‘anything but socialism’
Theresa May will resign on 7th June (2019). Below are her main achievements and her biggest failures during her tenure as prime minister.
Achievements
Enriched herself and her husband via brokerage of arms deals for arms manufacturers with whom her husband has considerable share-holdings
Enriched herself and her husband via wealth generation for customers of Capital Group for whom her husband works and receives a substantial salary
Failures
Rapid decline of NHS due to handover of services to privateer vultures and to departure of medical staff as a consequence of Brexit
Rise in unsolved crime due to huge cuts to police budgets and numbers of officers
Decline of state education due to budget cuts and theft of public funding by academy and free school “owners”
Collapse of privatised probation system
Decline in prison management due to privatisation and concomitant theft of public funding by “employers” of prison staff
Museum-level rail system caused by privatisation of rail network and consequential theft of income by “owners” of rail companies
Stole six years of pension from every woman in Britain
Deliberate policy decisions inspired by racism caused Windrush generation to be stripped of citizenship, livelihood, access to healthcare and access to welfare, deported and left for dead
No social or affordable homes built
Brokerage of arms deals with Saudi Arabian government to enable carpet-bombing of Yemeni civilians and civilian infrastructure
Collapse of manufacturing industry (steel, cars, etc.) as a consequence of Brexit uncertainty
Access to justice removed for less wealthy via removal of legal aid
Imposition of fracking on communities
Cessation of funding for renewal energy sources
Huge cuts to welfare provision for people with disabilities and chronic illnesses, including terminal illnesses, leading directly to thousands and thousands of deaths
Imposition of Universal Credit designed to cause destitution, homelessness, debt and death
Removal of central government funding for councils leading to huge cuts by councils of vital services
Rapid decline in social care caused by privatisation of services
Students from less well-off background saddled with a lifetime of debt due to removal of financial support for degrees
Access to the right to vote restricted via a variety of schemes including voter ID requirements
No action taken to stop unscrupulous employers in the so-called “gig economy” leading to below minimum wage employment with no workplace rights
Invasion of privacy via Investigatory Powers Act
Summary Driven by a singular desire to support wealthy corporate tax-dodgers, May destroyed vital public services leaving a trail of bodies in the streets. She accompanied her annihilation of society with relentless dishonesty, evasion and cowardice and laughed her head off when confronted with the consequences of her actions and inactions.
Today, Philip Alston, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Extreme Poverty and Human Rights, published his report on the devastating and fatal effects of Tory policy of Social Murder including the imposition of Universal Credit.
Throughout the Tories’ enactment of Social Murder policy DWP denied all accusations, facts and analysis of the consequences of the policy. Relentless denial continued in response to the UN report. DWP could not refute the facts and conclusions of the report; thus, its response was yet more lies, misrepresentation, spurious statistics and inventions.
Deliberately on the same day as the report’s publication, DWP used public money for a wraparound advertisement with the Metro newspaper. The advert included alleged examples of how Universal Credit has “helped” people. Almost every example of Universal Credit in action in the real world revealed it as utterly inadequate causing destitution, homelessness, debt and death, and the process of applying for it was shown to be purposefully deceptive and misleading. DWP’s selective examples are unlikely to survive investigation as genuine.
DWP’s Metro advert was designed visually to not look like propaganda from the government. It had the appearance of an investigatory report. Aditya Chakrabortty had reported in Guardian that DWP’s Director General of Universal Credit Neil Couling sent a memo to senior staff that described the plan for the Metro advert:
“The features won’t look or feel like DWP or UC – you won’t see our branding … We want to grab the readers’ attention and make them wonder who has done this ‘UC uncovered’ investigation.”
An intentional con-trick to deceive public and media was DWP’s reaction to a thorough report from the United Nations. It was a display of contempt for the UN, for the victims of Social Murder and for the public.
According to Robert Booth in Guardian, DWP minister Amber Rudd will lodge a formal complaint with the UN about Alston’s report. Her department said the report was
“A barely believable documentation of Britain based on a tiny period of time spent here and a completely inaccurate picture of our [Tory government] approach to tackling poverty.”
The Tory government’s approach to “tackling poverty” was to create and enhance poverty and blame the poor for the poverty while stepping over the bodies in the streets. There was not a honest word in the government’s response to Alston’s report. It was a contemptuous response.
DWP is the Social Murder department of the Tory government. All its policy changes were created with the intent of causing abject misery. Philip Alston’s report for the UN reiterated many well-researched accounts of how Tory Social Murder, including Universal credit, destroyed lives systematically. He confirmed what was already known. But, the Tories carry on lying and deaths keep mounting.
Immediately after being shook up by a caramel milkshake on Monday (20th May 2019) Farage complained to his security staff. He wanted preemptive strikes against potential hurlers of soft drinks.
The day after, complicit broadcasters and journalists lined up excitedly to give Farage airtime where he expressed his feigdignation and he vomited hypocrisy. (Quotes below taken from New European report.)
“I just think we’ve reached a point where normal campaigning is becoming very difficult, and that in a democratic society cannot be a good thing.”
Farage never campaigns “normally.” In the EU election campaign,
He is always surrounded by his hired goons.
He banned Channel 4 from Brexit Party events because of a programme about the party’s dubious funding mechanism.
He and his party refused to state any policy intent (other than supporting brexit).
He lied frequently regarding his previous statements on how brexit should proceed.
He refused to answer any questions about Brexit Party funding and dodged queries about inconsistencies between his comments and facts related to funding.
None of the above was “normal” campaign behaviour in a democracy.
Farage at the Ritz Hotel with foreign contacts fundraising for the EU elections
When asked if he was scared Farage claimed
“It takes a lot to frightenme.”
But, at an event in Wakefield later on the same day as the (milk)shake-up he refused to get off his bus.
If he isn’t frightened why does he surround himself with professional thugs? Why were Channel 4 reporters banned? Why did he refuse to answer direct questions about Brexit Party funding?
Farage’s demeanour is constant fear.
Fear of criminal prosecution for severe electoral rule-breaking
Fear of the tax man
Fear of source of income disappearing at the drop of Steve Bannon’s hat
Fear of milkshakes
Fear of foreign languages
Fear of foreigners
He is awash with fear.
Farage pretended to blame establishment remainers for the milkshake attack.
“Ever since 24 June 2016 [EU referendum] we’ve had senior members of the British establishment literally refusing to accept the result. And that gives people on the other side of the argument [remainers] a sense of moral superiority. If you think you’re better than everybody else that then leads, I’m afraid, to a breakdown, not just in democracy, but in the civilisation that goes with it.”
The word salad above appeared to be comically absurd but Farage was simply using the airtime handed to him to denigrate remainers.
There is nothing “civilised” about Farage. As a hate-riddled sociopath he is a useful tool for extremist corporate vultures who seek to destroy public services, workers’ rights, health and safety regulations and the whole of civilised society. Farage is permanently outside of “civilisation.”
Farage’s political career is based on hatred. His hatred drives and guides him; the key tactic of his propaganda is the promotion of hatred. But,
“I am concerned about the sheer level of hatred coming from those who think they’re better than me.”
“Hatred” for his politics and for his behaviour is very tangible hatred. Almost everybody is “betterthan” Farage.
Referring to remain criticism of and opposition to Brexit he said
“I think we’re in a very bad place with this.”
Farage abhors political criticism, debate, discussion, analysis, facts, accountability, justification, electoral rules, expenses regulations, transparency, honesty, integrity, consistency and democracy. His campaign for the Brexit Party is secretly funded, secretly supported by overseas actors, hollow and bereft of substance, contradictory and imbued with persuasion of bigotry, xenophobia and prejudice. It is filth.
Farage is a racist and a sociopath. He hates and he is hated. He views law as optional and easy to dodge. He is a relentless liar. In a just society he would have been incarcerated a long time ago and left to rot.
Notes feigndignationn. Fake indignation, used to alter the direction of an argument (c. David Whittam)
The recent trend of extreme-right candidates for the European elections getting a milkshake shower continued today with a creaming of The Brexit Party’s Nigel Farage in Newcastle-upon-Tyne. A strike from distance showered his suit.
Farage’s comment immediately after impact, directed at his gang of thugs who accompany him whenever he is in a public place, was to state that security had been
“a failure.”
That comment expressed Farage’s view that one or more of his goons should have acted before the milkshake had been propelled. Such an assessment by Farage was deeply disturbing: He wants his thugs to violently attack anyone they might suspect of possibly about to hurl an object at Farage.
Farage was in a public place, a street in a city centre. When he walks along a public street he should not be allowed to be surrounded by hired thugs who have no visible personal identification and no words or emblems on their clothing to indicate that they are security staff. But, Farage believes that his thugs should pounce on any random person on a public street if they feel like it.
Farage’s fellow far-right extremist (and European election candidate) Stephen Yaxley-Lennon encountered similar incidents while campaigning and Yaxley-Lennon’s hired thugs beat up several people, in separate locations, while police officers looked the other way. That is what Farage would like to happen to people who oppose him.
Farage wants to march down streets freely proclaiming offensive dishonest tripe and he wants anyone who gives him a funny look to be given several slaps.
Trumpist, Murdoch-backed Liberal Party led by Scott Morrison retained power in Australia today. By ‘liberal’ the party means the right to defecate over everyone and enact an anti-human ideology.
Scott Morrison and Donald Trump
The reason for Morrison’s success was the abject lack of any alternative. The main party of opposition, Labor Party led by Bill Shorten, typified drab centrist non-politics that are being rejected in every democratic country. Australia’s Labor Party had no cohesive plan and no consistent policies other than saying that they were not the Liberal Party. Every Australian has to vote and, for those who couldn’t decide, and who would normally not vote, the only option was to vote for the party in power given that the main opposition party had nothing.
Centrism is the death of opposition to conservatism and it was designed to be so. It is simultaneously the death of and the killer of opposition. Trump’s election in USA in 2016 was a consequence of Hilary Clinton’s campaign’s vacuity and his potential re-election in 2020 is possible due to an array of inconsistent Democratic Party candidates all of whom are too scared to be an alternative. In Britain, Tories won in 2015 general election because Ed Miliband failed to define his political position robustly enough.
UK’s Labour Party changed since 2015 and does offer an alternative. Centrists, in Labour via Progress, in Liberal Democrats and in Change UK, know that Labour offers a genuine alternative to vicious extreme free-marketeer conservatism and that is why they attack Labour constantly. Like Clinton and Shorten, the woolly centrists in Britain have no capacity to challenge the Tories’ destruction of society, they have no desire nor will to develop a challenge and they will do everything they can to disrupt a challenge.
Centrist is in its death throes, slumped on the floor quivering and panting for breath. It needs to be stamped on and eradicated. The only way to defeat extreme exploitative conservatism is with socialism.
Ian Austin’s presence in the House of Commons is an indictment of the lack of democracy in Britain. In February 2019 he resigned as a member of the Labour Party and became an “independent” MP but, following the example set by democracy thieves in secretly funded Change UK, he did not call a by-election for his constituency of Dudley North. He is stealing a seat in parliament from voters in Dudley who voted Labour.
Austin opposed Corbyn’s leadership as soon as the latter was elected in September 2015. If he did not want to support Corbyn’s politics then the correct action Austin should have taken would have been to stand down before the 2017 election. Such a decision would have required integrity and honesty, qualities that are absent from his personality. He did not want to forego his parliamentary salary and expenses.
For the voters in Dudley and for Labour supporters throughout Britain Austin’s access to a parliamentary vote in the House of Commons, a vote stolen from Labour, is defecation on their right to democracy. If there is a vote of no confidence in the Tory government votes of characters like Austin could keep the Tories in power. Labour voters in Dudley voted Labour in 2017 general election to support Jeremy Corbyn’s shift in Labour’s perspective from soft conservatism toward socialism; they did not vote for a thief to protect the Tory government with a stolen vote. (Austin gave his support to the Tories when he voted for the government’s hapless Withdrawal Deal in January, before leaving Labour.)
Last year (2018) Austin tried to engineer his expulsion from Labour by following an abusive tirade against Labour MP Ian Lavery with an hilarious letter from legal firm Hamlins that complained about the party’s decision to investigate Austin for his behaviour toward Lavery. (Austin couldn’t afford Mishcon de Reya, Margaret Hodge’s favourite creator of gibberish and intimidation.) Labour’s sound professional response was to issue Austin with a dismissive reprimand and then to ignore him.
Austin is a favourite of TV producers of news and current affairs shows because he is always willing to spout utter tripe directed at Corbyn, McDonnell and the shadow cabinet. Yesterday – May 16th (2019) – he was given a platform on Andrew Neil’s light entertainment nonsense This Week on BBC2 whereat he delivered a libel-ridden garbled attack against Corbyn bereft of facts, logic and cohesion. Austin’s performance damned himself as a politician and damned This Week as a serious current affairs analysis show; it was the antithesis of intelligence and emotional maturity.
As an MP, Austin has access to the Palace of Westminster as a venue for political events organised by him. On June 11th (2019) he will host members of Israel Defence Force in Westminster where they will regurgitate propaganda designed to grossly misrepresent the actions of their military colleagues and the actions and intent of Palestinian people in Gaza. As an indicator of how despicably and inhumanely biased the event will be co-organsier (and former Labour MP) Michael McCann promoted it by claiming
“If you study any debate in the House of Commons that reacts to violence between Israel and the Palestinians it becomes apparent that some MPs seek to draw moral equivalence between the IDF and the terrorists. There is no equivalence. I can think of no other conflict on the planet where elected politicians are so unwilling to criticise terrorists.” (quoted in IDF visit Westminster)
That is, the presentation will be diametrically opposed to the truth and will revel in slaughter of civilians. Austin’s stolen seat in parliament allows such an event to occur.
Independent MP Ian Austin
Electoral success of Blair-led Labour encouraged a factory to be built for the creation of Blair clones: Vacuous, duplicitous, dim-witted and obedient technocrats whose political role is to occupy opposition to the Tories without actually being opposed to Tory policy. Progress think-tank was invented as an organisational platform and PR tool to assist the stiflers of opposition.
But, Corbyn’s fortitude and the continuing popularity of his and his colleague’s policy proposals made Progress and its members desperate. The desperation manifested itself with increasingly warped polemics from Progress members Austin, Hodge, Gapes, Streeting, etc. and with robbery of parliamentary seats from Labour (and votes from Labour voters) by Austin, fellow independent MP John Woodcock and the laughable Change UKmob. (Austin chose not to join Change UK because his constituency has a majority of people who voted to leave the EU contrary to policy of Change UK.)
All extreme ideologies are intrinsically at war with deductive reasoning and logic and, thus, require erasure of many cognitive abilities in their exponents; afterward, an ideologue’s remaining cerebral husk is limited and incapable of considered argument or even simple logical conclusions. Extreme centrism is defined by a symbiosis of deception and obfuscation. It pretends to be something it isn’t – opposition to conservatism – while obscuring real opposition. As a centrist technocrat Austin has to eradicate any deductive or analytical capabilities in order to approximate utterances to a form of spurious consistency. Hence, his behaviour and rhetoric is bizarre and obstructive to debate.
Austin is a clown. He is embarrassment for British democracy. Discrepancies in the structure and rules of parliament allow him to hang around like a persistent stink. He is popular among broadcasters because they prefer dumb entertainment to information. There is nothing positive for humanity about him. He is an awful person.
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