Cometh the man, cometh the beard.
No, not him!
No not him
This one!
Here is Caro’s understanding of UK politics at the moment. I
know nothing but neither does anybody else….
Labour was unelectable. Because they had a muppet in charge.
The Lib Dem vote collapsed because they had a muppet in charge. The only real
alternative was the Tories because although everybody hates them, they seemed
to know what they were doing at least. North of the border, the nice mildly left
social conscience vote jumped into bed with the Nats after only 34% of us had
voted for independence a few months earlier.
Yvette or Liz
So now there is an election for the new leader of labour. Three
were standing ….and I confess I had to look their names up because I don’t
think anybody cares. (Yvette, Liz and Andy). Andy is a shiny bloke, like all politician
nowadays. He looksd a bit posh and buffed up. Like he’s never cleaned out the
cat litter tray in his life.
Liz or Yvette
At the last minute a fourth person joined the leadership
battle after a last minute scrape round by the trade unions. Beardy was a rank
outsider but he got late votes taking him up to 36 nominations, one more than
was needed to qualify. 24 of them meant
it, and the other 12 actually supported
other candidates but voted for him to widen the field. One of them, Margaret
Beckett, now describes herself as "moron" for doing it.
Andy Burnham (shiny)
So who is Beardy..briefly….
He’s Member of Parliament for Islington North Incumbent
Assumed office 9 June 1983, 60% majority at the last election.
A member of the Socialist Campaign Group
The Palestinian Solidarity Campaign
Amnesty International
The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Stop the War Coalition
Anti-poverty campaigner
Supports the renationalisation of railways
Introduction of a living wage
A higher rate of income tax for the wealthiest
Increase in corporation tax to fund public services such as
free higher education
Served on the National Executive of the Anti-Apartheid
Movement (and was arrested in 1984 for protesting outside South Africa House ...so
was I actually)
Re Human Rights Issues he was once reportedly punched by the
horrible slimy MP Robert Kilroy-Silk.
(He denied it but there was a scuffle!)
Huge campaigner on animal rights issues
Signed motions calling for a ban on the importation of foie
gras into the United Kingdom
Sponsored the motion opposing the Yulin Dog Meat Festival
People's Assembly Against Austerity
He rides a bicycle ( he doesn’t have a car)
He is teetotal
And a vegetarian.
He backed an Early Day Motion in the House of Commons
expressing admiration for Arsenal which was of the opinion that it is the best
football team in the world.
He has been awarded Gandhi International Peace Award for his
"consistent efforts over a 30-year Parliamentary career to uphold the
Gandhian values of social justice and non‐violence.
He has won the Parliamentary "Beard of the Year
Award" a record five times.
So after the usual TV
debate nonsense where .. the four candidates Shadow Health Secretary Andy
Burnham, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and Shadow Care Minister Liz
Kendall, it was beardy who ‘won’…. And his popularity keeps growing. The more people
hear him, the more we like what we hear. Nobody is more surprised than he is.
(which makes him more popular!). When he was personally attacked during a
debate he just shrugged and said, smiling, ‘I don’t do personal, I just do
politics.)
So what is happening now is that Labour MP’s are now
attacking him and the more they do it – guess what? The more popular he
gets. Just read this, quoted from a national paper….
“During the 2009 expenses scandal, “Beardy” was revealed as
claiming one of the lowest amount of expenses of any Member of Parliament. In
2010 he claimed the smallest amount of all 650 MPs; in an interview with the
Islington Gazette he said: "I am a parsimonious MP...I think we should
claim what we need to run our offices and pay our staff but be careful because
it's obviously public money...in a year, rent for the (constituency) office in
Finsbury Park is about £12,000 to £14,000." He rents his constituency
office from the Ethical Property Company.
“
You can see why he’s unpopular with them, but popular with
us.
It seems the Labour front line are terrified of one thing.
Democracy.
The newspapers are having a field day. There is a chance,
just a slim chance that a nice, committed, old, non shiny, bloke might get to
lead one of the biggest political parties in the UK. And it will be interesting
to see what happens to the Nat vote north of the border, if the General
Election result was a revolt against the right rather than a vote for
nationalism.
So ladies and gentlemen, I give you Jeremy Corbyn. I don’t care
that he might not be right/correct. He’s
a breath of fresh air. And no you can’t have him.
Caro 14 08 2015
Caro 14 08 2015
What a brilliant summation, Caro. Bravo the Beardy one!
ReplyDeleteWell, he makes things interesting if nothing else!
ReplyDeleteYou broke my heart with that last line, Caro. Until I got to it, I was going to ask him to marry to me.
ReplyDeleteI've never had a beard in my life (other than a 2-week scruff once or twice), but I'd vote for that one. A seemingly honest and earnest politician, what's the world coming to???
ReplyDeleteI've never had a beard in my life (other than a 2-week scruff once or twice), but I'd vote for that one. A seemingly honest and earnest politician, what's the world coming to???
ReplyDeleteHe is a genuinely honest man. I mean how rare is that (in a politician I mean!) Today the other three are talking about tactical voting to block him from leadership while he is up in Scotland talking to the masses. And being true, he is saying that the IndyRef was a once in a lifetime vote. So he's not playing the popular card while he's... errr popular.....
ReplyDeleteAnnamarie? To break your heart further, he is married to the South American Fair Trade Coffee lady! And he likes dogs.
A consistent, honest politician is a rarity in this world. Are there any others that will join him? As a bearded guy myself I would fully support him.
ReplyDeleteFrom the partial headshot I thought at first it was Quentin Bates, another honorable fellow...also unavailable AmA.
ReplyDeleteAmazing isn't it how desperate the world's electorate is for fresh, honest thinkers. You seem to have found one, whereas the US--whether Democrat or Republican--doesn't even have a bearded candidate.
There is Bernie, Jeff. His ideas are a pretty perfect match to Jeremy Corbyn's. Bernie may not be a vegetarian, though. And he does not have a snowman's chance. But still--there is Bernie!!! (We all do realize that Mr. Corbyn's initials are J.C., right?)
DeleteBut Bernie doesn't pass the beard test...at least as far as I can tell. On the initials point, from what I'm hearing from the Republican candidates, they all seem to be claiming JC as one of their backers.
ReplyDeleteFrom John Lawton:
ReplyDeleteCaro – just a couple of things.
First, about the Muppet. When did it become de rigeur for a party leader who has lost an election to fall on his sword? Winston did not resign in 1945 after the biggest arse-kicking in electoral history, Wilson did not resign in 1970 after a losing an election every pundit thought he’d win, the Grocer waited to be ousted, Kinnock at least waited until he’d lost two elections … then all those Tory leaders in Opposition who fell like ninepins after every new Labour victory.
I wrote to wee Ed the day after, a short e-mail he will open one day soon I’m sure, saying “Don’t do it!” But he did.
Did Ed really think that election was about him? Such vanity. It was never about him. The Labour Party could have been led by a Vogon poet. It was about two things. Scotland and that slimy bugger Nick Clegg.
Twosies – Clegg. Many people registered in constituencies where the Lib Dribs ran second to the Tories in 2010 voted Drib in the hope of keeping a Tory out. Tactical voting – in which I do not indulge. By the time the coalition was formed most of them were in cardiac arrest, as, it seems, it had not occurred to them that Slimy would do a deal with Lord Snooty and his pals. Five years of hair shirt and breast-beating followed. Whatever happened in 2015 they would never vote Drib again, so the ‘natural’ (it isn’t, but I’m stuck for anything less Darwinian) order resumed and Tories took back seats back they had previously lost to the Dribs. The Dribs now sank back to a position comparable to the early 60s under Jo Grimond – enough MPs to meet in the back of a cab. I hope they tip well. It was nothing to do with Ed, and did not mark a rejection of him or Labour policy.
Thriddies – Scotland. The quick summary goes like this … Keir Hardie, James Maxton, Manny Shinwell, Gordon Brown … and I omit MacDonald, Macmillan, Douglas-Home and Blair merely out of bias (although I quite liked Mr Macmillan, the last PM with any wit.) Scotland made Labour and kept Labour. I don’t know exactly (see below) how Labour lost Scotland, but I was in Edinburgh last November, had lunch with an old friend from the BBC, who I will do the courtesy of not naming, and who would not tell me how he’d voted in the referendum under pain of death. He asked me what I wanted of a British politician. I replied, “I won’t vote for anyone who has no experience of, no memory of poverty or hunger. I won’t vote for anyone who’s never had to skip a meal because they needed the money for something more important.”
He replied, “Then if you lived here you’d be voting SNP.”
At which point I began to realise that Labour would get stuffed next May.
‘Exactly’ … did Labour lose Scotland for the same reasons it lost the rest of the UK? Because you couldn’t drive a playing card between new Labour and the Tories? Because they imposed candidates on constituencies from central office, creating a void between their ‘natural’ (again) voters and their MPs. It seems to me that the void has found a voice, that the support for the beardy bloke has fukkall to do with entryism and a lot more to do with people being heard whom new Labour had silenced. On message or off message? It doesn’t matter anymore. They were never the ones with the beepers.
The biggest let-down in all this is Brown’s re-emergence yesterday … ending his silence to drop an anvil in the pond. He has endorsed the idea that Labour is ‘unelectable’ if it has any policy remotely resembling the Socialism to which Gordon himself subscribes. The ‘longest suicide note in history’ (Labour’s left wing manifesto circa 1983) did not cost Labour an election. The Falklands did. Insanely misplaced patriotism did. What does Gordon think Labour should do, keep Socialism in the closet and then spring it out with trumpets and party hats once they finally have won an election? So, if by some odd, minor miracle, you are reading this Gordon, I say to you … in bold …
“Have the courage of your convictions.”
Hooray, he won!
ReplyDelete"LONDON — Jeremy Corbyn, for decades a left-wing rebel who was relegated to the margins of British politics, became on Saturday the leader of Britain’s Labour Party in a landslide vote" -- The Washington Post"