I wish I could draw.
My crude attempt to show what the once admirable Labour party has become after it has been hijacked by the loony left who have no other home to doss down in.
Jeremy Corbyn was put in there by the rabble and they are still pulling all his strings.
Squatter’s rights I suppose.
During the early days of the labour movement and the growth of industrial Europe, it was not only the right-wing view that Jews were grasping trades-people to be looked down upon which fuelled anti-semitism. In the beginning of the 20th century, Jews were identified with banking and finance and epitomised the Great Enemy in the class struggle against capitalists. A strong strain of anti-semitism was nurtured within the hard-left as being an integral part of the class-war.
The hard-left (the loony left) core at the heart of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour party still believe that capitalism is the religion of the Jews and they are all fundamentally and ideologically anti-semitic. That group traces its history of Jew-hating to the rise of capitalism and long before the creation of Israel. After the First World War, the anti-semitism that was part of the class-war became associated also with a racial opposition to Jews. The hard-left version of UK anti-semitism thus shares the same roots of Jew-hating as that which fired up the National Socialists in Germany and which was exploited by Hitler. After the Holocaust and WW 2, anti-semitism was politically incorrect everywhere. The collective European guilt allowed – and encouraged – the robbing of the Palestinians and the creation of Israel. It was only 2 generations later – and since the 1980s – that the new strain of anti-Israel, pro-Palestine anti-semitism could grow. This strain of the disease is automatically carried by any Muslim who supports Palestine or Palestinians. In recent times the hard-core, loony left in the UK have found it convenient to cloak their own anti-semitism, which originates from class-war roots, under the guise of being pro-Palestine and in support of all things Palestinian.
Nowadays the UK Labour party contains many Muslim (mainly of Asian origin) members. A large section of these newer members (though not all) have little knowledge of the rise of the labour movement and the identification of all Jews with the Great Enemy – Capitalism. These members trace their antisemitism to their support of Palestine and the consequent opposition to anything Israeli (including the Jewish population of Israel). They are engaged in a religious war – not a class war. The UK Labour party contains many anti-semites of these two strains; a newer religious strain and a classic class-war strain which hides under the religious strain.
Jeremy Corbyn is trying to revive the class-war. That also provides an environment for the class-war based strain of anti-semitism to prosper. It still has to be hidden under the cloak of being pro-Palestinian. But that, in turn, allows the religious strain of the disease to grow. So when the UK Labour party MP, Naz Shah (of Pakistani origin and a somewhat lurid background), expressed her anti-semitic views she represented the new religious strain. She was suspended from the party for that. But she was suspended by a very reluctant Jeremy Corbyn. But then Ken Livingstone (“Red Ken”, “Loony Ken”) came out in her support and Corbyn was forced to suspend him as well. He actually suffers from the class-war strain of the anti-semitism disease, though he too conveniently hides under the pro-Palestine version of the disease.
Now Jeremy Corbyn himself is a closet anti-semite of the class-war kind. Before he became leader of the party he came close to coming out of the closet when he supported radical and even extremist proponents of the Palestinian cause. Now, as leader, he cannot afford to be so politically incorrect. Nevertheless he could not just suspend his long-time friend and class-warrior, Ken Livingstone, for saying what he himself believed. To try and create a balance he got the chief whip to give the MP who publicly confronted Ken Livingstone a real dressing down. Corbyn did not do it himself of course.
class warriors (incidentally anti-semitic) image Daily Mirror
But the message was clear.
So when Jeremy Corbyn says that the Labour party “does not support any form of anti-semitism”, he means except when it is the class-war kind and it is kept hidden under the guise of something else.
With the new, Jeremy Corbyn led, Labour Party, the UK needs no external enemies. An indigenous fifth-column. A few days ago Jeremy Corbyn felt that Jihadi John should not have been killed but arrested to face a court of law. He also declared that he would never use nuclear weapons in any circumstances. Now his Shadow Foreign Secretary, Hilary Benn, has also demonstrated his own fifth-column credentials in an interview with The Independent.
(It should be borne in mind that The Independent is far from independent and is essentially a socialist propaganda sheet, and its reports must be appropriately discounted. Hilary Benn has no particular claims to fame except that Tony Benn was his father and he is a friend of Jeremy Corbyn. He tries to be further to the left than his father to get out from under his shadow. So his pronouncements are even more extreme than Tony Benn’s but he is not half as likeable. He is not much liked by the farming community either since, by not permitting badger culls, he bears some responsibility for the spread of bovine TB in the UK).
Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn said the co-ordinated attacks on the French capital, which left at least 127 dead, were an “act of war” – but all but ruled out backing UK air strikes in response.
He said that the idea of British action against Isis in Syria should be put to one side until the country’s civil war had been brought to an end.
Mr Benn, speaking exclusively to The Independent on Sunday, said that the Government should drop plans for a new House of Commons vote authorising military attacks in Syria to concentrate on peace talks and providing humanitarian support for refugees.
His intervention dramatically undermines David Cameron’s hopes of joining the United States-led action against Isis in its Syrian heartland. The Prime Minister, who insisted the French fight against IS was also Britain’s, has maintained he will not ask MPs to authorise RAF bombing raids in Syria until a “political consensus” has been reached.
It can only be concluded that even if it had been London that had been attacked by ISIS rather than Paris, Benn, Corbyn and the Labour party would be advocating a softly-softly approach and entertaining negotiations with ISIS. There is, no doubt, a little bit of a reaction to Blair’s war-mongering in Iraq in all this, but the naivety of Corbyn and Benn is astounding.
ISIS must feel that it must be the will of Allah that they have the unwitting support of the dupes in the new Labour Party and especially in its child-like, simple-minded leadership.
I like this cartoon from Schrank which I think captures my image of Corbyn.
Left – no matter what — from schrankartoons.com
I can’t help comparing Jeremy Corbyn to Michael Foot and finding Corbyn a pale imitation. Foot caused the Labour Party to split and his 1983 election manifesto was called the “longest suicide note in history”. Foot lost the election in a landslide. Corbyn is now attempting to follow that route. If his acolytes succeed in removing some of the more centrist Labour MP’s, I suppose new, new, Labour could split again. It will be interesting to see if Labour keeps him for the next election and by how much he can lose. Especially since Corbyn is not of the calibre that Foot was. Foot wins in intellect, in charm, in leadership qualities (however misguided the direction), in rhetoric and above all in having some class. Compared to Foot, Corbyn seems almost boorish.
An Army general has just pointed out that committing not to use your most potent weapon, if it was ever needed, was not a very sound defence strategy or policy. Corbyn is enraged at this incursion of military servants into his politics.
His latest debacle is his reluctant attendance at the the Remembrance Day ceremonies. He did wear a poppy after threatening not to, but the depth of his unwilling genuflection is now causing comment. As I was once instructed in Japan, the Emperor commanded 60º, ancestors about 45º and the CEO got 30º. I would have expected honourable dead soldiers of the Great War would have been worth at least 30º. Corbyn managed about 8º.
A very stiff neck indeed.
Corbyn’s 8 degree genuflection – original photo from daily mail
Jeremy Corbyn does not wish to kneel in front of his Queen. He went hiking rather than meet with his monarch. A dastardly act. So he is not yet a member of the Privy Council.
In Parliament he will now have to be referred to as “My Left Honourable Friend/Member”.
The Queen’s advisers told Parliament to strip Jeremy Corbyn of his “Right Honourable” status after Number 10 wrongly implied the Labour leader had joined the Privy Council, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
Mr Corbyn was described on Parliament’s website as “Right Honourable”, which denotes membership of the centuries-old Privy Council, until late last week.
The Labour leader was also described as a “Right Honourable friend” by Prime Minister David Cameron when they faced each other in the Commons last month, days after he was voted in as Labour leader.
However, after Mr Corbyn failed to attend the first meeting of the Privy Council since the summer holidays with the Queen last Thursday, the “Rt Hon” title was removed from Mr Corbyn’s page on Parliament’s website.
The Left Honourable Corbyn (photo Irish Times)
It might seem appropriate, but, of course, there is some difficulty in being both Left and Honourable simultaneously.
Unless Corbyn is also schizophrenic.
The clowns have it so far.
Donald Trump is being taken as a “serious clown” and so is Jeremy Corbyn in the UK Labour party. Even the Democrats are beginning to realise that they need to lighten the staid, boring and almost too earnest bill of fare they have to offer. They need a clown.
In the US, Donald Trump is setting the agenda from the front and his act is beginning to attract even his rivals. Scott Walker and other Republicans are jumping on Trump’s immigration train (children of illegals born in the US should not have automatic citizenship and The Wall). Former senator Rick Santorum (Pa.) and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal have also hopped onto this train. Even the Washington Post is beginning to analyse Trump’s positions – as they gather flesh – a little more seriously.
In the UK Labour party leadership fight, Corbyn the clown is so far ahead that his nearest rival (also union supported), Andy Burnham, is now finding that he actually does not disagree with Corbyn all that much. It looks like the Unions will win and that the Labour party is starting down the road to oblivion.
But the Democrats are looking more jaded each day. Hilary Clinton, Bernie Sanders, Joe Biden and Al Gore are all coming off as “has-beens and past-its”. Sanders has tried to take on the mantle of a clown but does not quite make it. They desperately need someone to capture the Democratic imagination. Where are the clowns?
The Trump phenomenon continues and the latest Fox poll puts him at 25% and his nearest rival 13 points behind.
WaPo:
The ideas once languished at the edge of Republican politics, confined to think tanks and no-hope bills on Capitol Hill. To solve the problem of illegal immigration, truly drastic measures were necessary: Deport the undocumented en masse. Seize the money they try to send home. Deny citizenship to their U.S.-born children.
Now, all of those ideas have been embraced by Donald Trump, the front-runner in the Republican presidential race, who has followed up weeks of doomsaying about illegal immigrants with a call for an unprecedented crackdown.
On Monday, Trump’s hard turn was already influencing the rest of the GOP field. In Iowa, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker also began to call for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border, echoing a longtime Trump demand. Walker said the separation barrier between Israel and the Palestinian territories is proof that the concept could work here.
Walker also seemed to echo Trump by questioning “birthright citizenship,” the constitutional provision that grants citizenship to anyone born in this country. After a reporter asked if birthright citizenship should be ended, Walker said: “I think that’s something we should — yeah, absolutely, going forward.”
The Hilary Clinton momentum is dissipating away with her e-mails. Even the rabidly supportive Huffington Post is getting concerned:
Things are getting weird when even Al Gore is thinking of getting into the Democratic presidential race, which is turning into a last hurrah for the Baby Boomers and their tad-older camp counselors.
Hillary Clinton, permanently punctilious, has done everything right: She put her HQ in Brooklyn, hired savvy digital/social/big data nerds, raised a ton of dough, gave substantive, well-thought-out speeches and flooded early primary and caucus states with organizers. She’s still the default bet for the Democratic nomination: national polls show her with a fat 36 percent lead.
And yet all is not well in Hillaryland. Polls also indicate that voters now view her as untrustworthy. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), whose DeLorean time machine is in overdrive, is drawing colossal crowds and, according to one poll, now leads the former secretary of state in New Hampshire. Vice President Joe Biden, who had previously said “no way,” is now sounding serious about jumping in. So, we are told, is Gore, who was warning of environmental doom as far back as the ‘60s.
Meanwhile the Guardian reports:
Andy Burnham has made an explicit plea to anyone thinking of voting for Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader to pick him instead for what he described as “the worst job in politics”, saying there was “a good deal of common ground” between him and the veteran leftwinger.
Sondheim again –
Isn’t it rich?
Are we a pair?
Me here at last on the ground,
You in mid-air.
Send in the clowns.
August is silly season and most – including journalists – are on vacation. I have this perception – but no data – that even natural catastrophes take a break in August. (It might be that they just don’t get reported). In any event the political scenes in the US and in Europe are relatively subdued. Politicians have much leeway to be sillier than usual without being permanently penalised. Political polls, in August, are somewhat lightweight. Probably even those polled are inclined towards the “silly”. Too much should not be read into August poll results but of course they do have some significance.
Both in the UK and in the US, the clowns are having a field day. Strangely, Jeremy Corbyn , a clown of the loony left, has increased his lead in the race for leadership of the British Labour Party in spite of dire warnings of the imminent self-destruction of the Party. Donald Trump, a clown of the far right, has increased his lead – against all predictions – in spite of his gaffes (immigration, McCain, rape in marriage ……) in the race for the Republican nomination. It is almost as if those being canvassed have a perverse contempt for the process and are determined to clown around themselves in their responses. Or perhaps it is a deeper malaise in both the UK Labour Party and in the US Republican Party. Perhaps the Labour Party just expects to be in the wilderness for the next decade. And perhaps the Republicans see no way in which they can win next year. Perhaps they are so sunk in despair that it is only by indulging in ridiculous fantasies that they can lighten the blackness that surrounds them.
The UK race will be settled in September and there may not be enough time to “correct” the advances that Corbyn makes during the silly season. By the time September comes along, the race could be over. In the US there is ample time for Trump to be shot down or – as is more likely – for him to shoot himself. But in the very weak and uninspiring field of Republican candidates the clown may yet have the last word.
But I have a tendril of a thought that maybe it is the time of the clowns. Maybe the political process needs the Corbyns and the Trumps. Maybe they have to win once in a while.
And where are the clowns? There ought to be clowns. Quick, send in the clowns. Maybe they’re here.
The clowns went in when the Labour party in the UK and the Republicans in the US both found their own audiences were deserting them. Just some light entertainment thought the aspirants for leadership. In the UK some actually nominated the clown to “widen appeal” and liven things up, thinking he was a no-hoper.
But the respective electorates are in no mood for the clowns to be just a relieving act before the main show. They are inclined to make the comedy act the main show.
The clowns are still in the lead.
But what was initial amusement at Trump’s antics and Corbyn’s naive Marxism is now becoming a nervous panic within their respective parties. It sounds like the nervous giggling before the catastrophe. It is beginning to sink in that a Corbyn win could split the UK Labour party and keep both parts in the wilderness for decades to come. In the US, the other Republican hopefuls are all united in castigating Trump. But the disillusioned Republican voters in the country are staying with the comedy act. If the opposition to Trump continues, he could go it alone and that would fracture the Republican vote so fundamentally that they could be kept out of the White House for the next 4 terms.
Could Trump or Corbyn step aside and save their parties?
Their parties probably need them to. But that will not happen unless there are other credible and convincing candidates for the leadership position. And such figures are conspicuous by their absence, both in the UK and in the US. The Labour party only has lightweights to offer and the Republicans only some less accomplished clowns. The Republican field of candidates must be quite depressing for party members.
Still, there is little doubt that the clowns are livening things up.
Stephen Sondheim’s song “Send in the clowns” is a reference to the theatre where “if the show is not going well, send in the clowns” applied. It seems this applies to politics as well.
In the US we have a clown on the right making large noisy waves and Donald Trump is actually leading in the polls for the Republican presidential nomination.
In the UK we have a clown from the lunatic left fringe of the Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn, also in the lead for the leadership of the Labour party.
The chances of either actually winning are low, though the Labour Party leadership contest must be decided soon. There may not be enough time for the Labour Party to come to its senses and they may wake up to find they have elected a Marxist leader without really intending to. For the Republicans there is much more time available for Trump to implode. But they are both clowns being sent in since their respective shows are going so badly. In the US the Republicans are not just fragmented, they have no clear vision of where they want to go and the many candidates are struggling to find a few key issues which resonate across the country. Trump has shaken things up by focusing not on immigration broadly, but on the undoubtedly disproportionately high level of criminality among illegal Latino (i.e Mexican) immigrants. He has challenged political correctness and decorum by asking why someone who gets captured (and even if they show great fortitude in surviving a brutal imprisonment) becomes a “war hero”. He is not being very nice at all but it is not difficult to see the point he makes. that just having the ability to be captured is not the stuff of heroes. Trump the clown is having a field day as the Republicans scramble and search for what they are.
Jeremy Corbyn was not taken seriously when the Labour party leadership contest began. He was having a tough time getting enough nominations to be included. Many felt that a “token” candidate from the loony left would help to show their party’s “broad appeal” and he was included on the ballot because they were running scared of the SNP which had wiped them out in Scotland with a more left-wing manifesto than Labour had. So he just got on to the ballot. But then the Trade Union “Unite” endorsed him. Maybe they were being Machiavellian and though that by first promoting a guaranteed loser, they would ensure that their real candidate Andy Burnham would get elected. But in that case their ploy has backfired and they could get stuck with having the clown as the winner. Corbyn is a traditional, hard-left socialist. The maximisation of public spending is his solution to most economic issues. He automatically supports whoever is perceived to be the “underdog” and has had questionable links with extreme (and sometimes terrorist) organisations from the IRA and the Tamil Tigers to Hamas and other questionable Islamist groups. He is one of those clowns who is utterly convinced of his own gravitas. But now there are signs of panic within the Labour Party that Corbyn could see to complete demise of the party. Even the Conservatives are feeling just a little concerned that the meltdown of the Labour Party, which will inevitably occur with Corbyn, may not be such a good thing. Having a vacuum in opposition only leads to the devil you don’t know.
……….
Don’t you love farce?
My fault I fear.
I thought that you’d want what I want.
Sorry, my dear.
But where are the clowns?
Quick, send in the clowns.
Don’t bother, they’re here.
Isn’t it rich?
Isn’t it queer,
Losing my timing this late
In my career?
And where are the clowns?
There ought to be clowns.
Well, maybe next year.
Send in the clowns.
Maybe they’ll win.
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