Labour - the party of Remain

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 08:01 AM

Err... like Boris Johnson you mean? I agree.

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 08:03 AM

We should have been much richer if we had not sat down at the table.

Pure speculation Al. The only known fact is that we, as individuals and as a country, are far richer now than we were when we joined. Yes, some people lost their jobs. Some industry was lost. Many got new jobs. We got new industries. Overall we are better off now than we ever were and had it not been for unregulated banks, austerity and Tory mismanagement, it would be even better.

But let's suppose for a minute that you are right and, had we have not joined the EU, we would have been not just richer but absolutely rolling in it. Would we have had the cultural links we now have with Europe? The scientific cooperation? The combined security? I am not even going to try a guess. We have what we have. It has faults but is good. Rather than throw it away, why not fix it?

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 08:21 AM

"In forty years we have been sat at the table - we have lost the fishing industry, the textile industry, the car industry, the steel industry, the ship building and repair industry, the motor bike industry, the dumper truck industry, the hosiery industry and so on."

But to what extent have those old industries and technologies also been in decline
around the rest of the world...???

Now in 2019, in a world facing imminent ecological crisis,
the writing should be on the wall for most if not all of them...

Clinging onto the ancient belief in "our nationhood" is a damaging impediment
to peoples of all the world co-operating and coordinating the continued survival of both our species and planet...

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: Mr Red
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 08:48 AM

But to what extent have those old industries and technologies also been in decline
around the rest of the world...???


I bet Max could tell us how buoyant, or to put is more accurately, non-existent the steel industry of Allegheny, Pittsburgh is. And Detroit residents could tell you something too. The only thing keeping the car industry solvent is the Chelsea Tractor (or should that be Manhattan Tractor?)

We are a nation much like Texas regards itself, maybe moreso. Outside of Europe we will be ................. YEA, watch this space, but don those rose coloured specs - I have countless pairs of them you can borrow - but not the 4 prescription ones - I want to see clearly with a hint of optimism.

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 08:57 AM

A statement by Momentum, endorsed by Jewish Voice For Labour.

As a public broadcaster the BBC has a duty to be impartial. Yet it has employed the former Sun journalist and Corbyn critic John Ware to direct tonight’s documentary. His greatest hits include:

The widely criticised 2015 Panorama documentary that made false claims about Jeremy Corbyn.
A documentary described by the Muslim Council of Britain as “an anti-muslim witch hunt” and in the Guardian as “McCarthyite”.
Another documentary about British muslims that the BBC had to apologise for and pay compensation.
A film about the ‘hard left’ running local schools which was criticised in the BBCs own magazine for abandoning “any attempt at a reasoned, detached, analytic or investigative programme”.
It’s clear John Ware has an anti-Labour agenda and he should not have been employed to direct a ‘fair and impartial’ documentary about Labour."

I'd also reiterate that Ware sat quietly nodding his head at each "whistleblower," failing to make a single challenge or ask for relevant details of any of the accusations. Whatever kind of journalism it was, the word "investigative" would be the least appropriate description.

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 09:17 AM

”And if I have a chip on my shoulder - Ithink some people have a block of wood more centrally located.”

I won’t dignify that little gem with a response, other than to say I hope it’s made you feel better.

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 09:23 AM

Is this what happens when the beeb is forced to sub-contact program making
to independent production companies...???

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 09:42 AM

More likely part of a campaign to bring about a one-party State.

Presumably the BBC don’t have to show any programme they’re not happy with. One can only assume they were happy with a one-sided programme in which accusations against the party of Her Majesty’s Opposition went unchallenged.

Strange thing is, it seems to be an issue almost completely confined to the Westminster Bubble - people I’ve discussed ‘Labour Anti-Semitism’ with, of all political persuasions, don’t seem to care a jot, other than as a means to unseat Corbyn. No real sympathy for the complainants, most see it as just an anti-Corbyn, anti-Labour Point-scoring opportunity.

It really is time for the LP to man-up and do whatever’s necessary to put this issue to bed. Then they can get on with their day-job of opposing and challenging the worst government I can remember since I achieved voting age - including The Beast of Grantham’s bunch.

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 10:21 AM

BBC have put Fiona Bruce in charge of question time, of course they are happy with a one-sided programme.

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 11:10 AM

And that’s the main reason I never watch it nowadays.

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 11:18 AM

What's so confusing is why the far out far right are so entrenched in their hatred for the beeb,
which they accuse of being so PC/SJW/marxist
that it must be run by Lenin and Stalin from the grave...!!!???

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 11:29 AM

'The labour party may be in a dire condition,
but abject negativity like yours won't help heal it for us and the next generation...'

well we can agree about that.
But I really don't know what the answer is...   They're chucking out and de-selecting anyone who won't toe this latest party line. I think to be honest - We just have to let Corbyn take the party to the iceberg and down to the seabed. Perhaps theres a John Smith character hidden somewhere in the wings.

As for Tommy Robinson being beloved of working classes - I think its a bit like football hooliganism. I think you might be surprised how many posh boys like that sort of rumble.

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 12:05 PM

Al - I'm just an outsider with opinions on the Labour party..
..besides, my vote for 'em is always futile in Scrumpyshire...

I'd suggest the Labour broad church has become far too broad,
and needs reigning in a fair bit..

There are too many factions of single issue pressure groups cluttering up and festering inside the party.
They need pruning back, or told to shut up...

Labour needs to concentrate again on it's roots and essential reasons for being...

Folks who become members of the Labour party should be only that,
not a member of a group within a group, etc, within the party,
prioritising their obsessive single issue over the well being and success of the Labour party acheiving government...

If I joined Labour to become an activist for 'fat balding scrumpy drinker friends of Labour',
and spent all my time moaning to the press that Corbyn
is biased and hostile to my special needs group.
That the more I make myself a pain in the arse disrupting the party and creating division,
the more nasty tweets I unfairly get.
Then demand everyone in the party who don't like scrumpy should be expelled..
That don't really make for a healthy electable opposition party...

They should join to be Labour members first and foremost,
and leave their extra curricular obsessive side issues outside in the bike shed...

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 12:17 PM

Absolutely spot on, pfr.

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 12:18 PM

ooh.. I just remembered some words.. "unity" and "solidarity"..

There were other words a bit like that, also forgotten and lost in the mist of time....

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 12:25 PM

I'll add "self discipline" and "self restraint"...

No individual's obsessions should be imposed on the smooth running and order of Labour
as a mass collective striving for a better life for all us ordinary folks...

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 01:07 PM

Well the problem with your anaysis - so sycophantically endorsed, is that one of the reasons we have a stable society in England is that both major parties are broad churchches.

General elections are decided by the winning or losing of forty three marginal constituencies.

Pruning away your support ....well its a policy that could only recommend itself to the wood burning brain cells of the middle classes.

However nothing succeeds like success. If Corbyn is successful having pruned away his support, I will be intrigued.

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 01:29 PM

Al - you seem too keen to find fault and sneer at other people's ideas,
if they don't correspond to your distorted perspective of how things are and should be..

I'd have thought you'd be happier if fewer middle class academic fanatics
were holding back labour by the short and curlies...???

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: Iains
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 01:44 PM

and now Diane Abbot is calling for the resignation of Mr Watson. This would suggesr that both she and compo are in complete denial of the allegations of antisemitism. Thus would seem an exceedingly bizarre attitude in light of the fact the party is under investigation by the EHCR. £ Labour peers have resigned the whip, panorama has 30 whistleblowers and the official line of the party would seem t obe a rerun of Canute!
As an opposition party they are more suited to a circus.

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 01:47 PM

Iains - thanks for another list of 'breaking news' to regard with cautious suspicion,
until more evidence comes to light...

you are an invaluable resource...

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 02:13 PM

By no means. Possibly I am totally wrong - a Brexshitter with a chip on my shoulder.

I loved that bit in wolf Hall

Thomas More: Are you threatening me....?
Thomas Cromwell: My turn...don't you think?

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 02:22 PM

...eh...???

If I may call you Al.. I'll call you Al...

We can leave the playground insults to to other folk's who enjoy them...
Nothing to be gained from bitter internecine disputes with other Labour voters,
current or former...

I'll reserve my fullest sarcasm for tories...
a more deserving target...

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: Iains
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 02:33 PM

Pfr you know I only post facts,
You will find the proof on guido as video and retweeted tweets.

As a special bonus you will find that Mr Banks is going ahead and taking action against the Gruniard hack.
"Last month Arron Banks warned Carole Cadwalladr that he was initiating libel action against her over her claims that he had a “covert relationship” with and had been offered money by the Russian Government. Over 14 days have passed and Carole has failed to respond – Banks has now formally initiated proceedings in the High Court. Banks insists that there is no truth to her claims whatsoever, and he’s had enough…

Banks is suing Carole on two grounds over two separate speeches she made, Carole’s claims are expected to be giving another airing in an upcoming Netflix documentary called The Great Hack. If Netflix repeat the claim Banks will, according to Andy Wigmore, be suing them too…"

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 02:42 PM

Iains - I regard you as two entities..

the upstairs Iains who sounds like an interesting bloke,
a mine of information..

and the BS Iains who is a blatant propagandist and unintentional source of chuckles..

I'll even give you, some of your sarcasm, your intentional humour, gains a smile sometimes...

Facts/guido...??????????????????? cue audience hysterics..

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 02:56 PM

Al, you’re wasting your time - you won’t provoke me with your nasty, spiteful little schoolgirl jibes and judgmental attitude, because you know very little about me to judge me by, and anyway I don’t give a FF what you think of me. Your extremely wide-of-the-mark judgments say far more about you than they do about me.

Now, you keep rattling on about ‘the middle classes’, and you’ve accused me and others of beng ‘middle-class’ and ‘hating the working class’ - hilarious in view of my identifying as ‘working class’ having been born to parents who were engineering shop-floor workers, growing up and living the first thirty years of my life in a council house, a house which my parents lived in the whole of their married life, being a trade-union member for many years and still supporting the trade-union movement,

You have a habit of judging others based on very little knowledge of them, other than the fact that they disagree with you, and classifying them, presumably, according to a set of arbitrary ‘rules’ known only to you and completely unknown to those whom you set yourself in judgment over.

So let’s knock this jusdgmental bullshit off - let’s have your definition of ‘the middle classes’, Tell us what are the attributes you believe makes an individual ‘middle class’, and I’ll tell you whether I qualify in each case.

I’ll start you off - I don’t have, nor have I a desire for, a wood-burner.....

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 03:18 PM

When I was a kid, my mum used to take the piss out of pretentious neighbours down the road,
who boasted about their fitted carpets, and telly that could pick up BBC2...

I now have fitted carpets.. and a big color telly with gazillions of channels..

.. oh dear...

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 03:27 PM

A sign of the changing times, pfr, and an indication that, despite the efforts of those nasty foreign johnnies in the EU to do us down, as a nation we’re far better off than we were back in the ‘good old days’ of the ‘50s and ‘60s.

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 03:45 PM

I forgot to mention.. our aspirational lifestyle neighbours
had the house at the end of the terrace..
A semi detached council house, with a far bigger garden than all the others...

Well, at least I still live in the middle of a terrace,
with no gardens at all...

You won't find me out mowing a lawn, washing the company car,
and moaning about immigrants buying the house next door, lowering property values.........

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: David Carter (UK)
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 03:45 PM

Of course we are BWM. I am truly gobsmacked by the claims that the "working class" have lost out over the last 50 years. Everybody is much better off. The argument that is that others have gained more than you.

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 04:35 PM

'Al, you’re wasting your time - you won’t provoke me with your nasty, spiteful little schoolgirl jibes and judgmental attitude'

Says the man who drops Brexshitter into the conversation at every opportunity.

I can see that a lot of you aren't aware of are the fact, but there is a lot of profound poverty in our society. The poverty traps are deeper the distances you and your children fall are probably the worst in a hundred years, All of it due to the hard drugs industry that has taken root because jobs for the uneducated are not so plentiful.

I can see why you feel the way you do - how can someone with access a colour television be poor?

All I can say is I don't think its me who is being judgemental and failing to see why we need to face up to our problems and do something about them.

Is Boris the answer. Of course not. But sadly neither is Corbyn.

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 05:09 PM

”I can see that a lot of you aren't aware of are the fact, but there is a lot of profound poverty in our society. The poverty traps are deeper the distances you and your children fall are probably the worst in a hundred years, All of it due to the hard drugs industry that has taken root because jobs for the uneducated are not so plentiful.”

I’m not going into the reasons why, I’ll just tell you - do NOT lecture me, from your cosy Dorset Idyll, about the hard drugs industry - I have more experience of it, at very close quarters, and the devastation it causes than a know-it-all, know-fuck-all like you, and this is another perfect example of your utterly misplaced judgmentalism about people you don’t even know. If you did actually know me, and what my life experiences have been, you wouldn’t make up unfounded lies about me, you wouldn’t make these outrageous, unjustified judgments, and you wouldn’t stoop so low as to use the subject of hard drugs to try to provoke me.

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 05:33 PM

I have two wood burners and a half-acre garden. I am a socialist. I drink prosecco and Nero d'Avola. I'll get me coat.

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 06:18 PM

I just had a sausage sarnie, and reheated chips leftover from last night...

My Grammar school headmaster would despair how I turned out..

You can take the boy out of the council estate, but...

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 07:36 PM

Aye, well we 'ad it tough...

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 08:09 PM

I don'tr know much about the actual details of your life. I know you've had some experience - but that doesn't mean you have more than me.

I lived the majority of my life in the midlands. I've retired to Dorset, which strangely enough hasn't as yet become a separate part of the UK and shares many of its problems. The back streets and Park area of Weymouth ;;;

oh why the fuck should I lower myself to argue with such a closed bloody minded insulting high horse riding tripehound.

You see no connection with people not having employment with the drugs trade, Every sociologist since the first world war would disagree with you.

Go ahead vote for the dissolution of of our society. I'm allowed to disagree with you. I'm allowed to be better informed than you. I shouldn't have put up with your your abuse and non arguments. Perhaps we'd be better off eschewing contact with each other

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 12 Jul 19 - 09:26 PM

"You see no connection with people not having employment with the drugs trade"

errrr.. who doesn't...???

Heroin was unknown amongst our young provincial social circle before thatcher...

Up until her we were so relaxed and innocent we'd leave our guitars and amps,
and personal bags unattended everywhere.

Within a couple of years of thatcher, nothing was safe from being nicked..

Heroin made life very dark..

Even our in our small town we soon enough had friends/musicians/band members who were using...

Al - you aint got a monopoly on post thatcher misery and squalor...

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 13 Jul 19 - 04:50 AM

And that's why I've objected so strongly to the stuff Al's thrown around here - his belief that he's the only open-minded one who recognises facts, and that everyone else, especially me, is closed-minded and living in a dream world. Whereas the overwhelming evidence is quite the reverse.

For the record, my eldest son has been a heroin-addict for over twenty years and is still on methadone. His own life has been wrecked by it, and the lives of his mother, brother, and I have been a living hell.

In addition, I worked with young people from a 'tough' estate and wider for twelve years, including a significant number of substance-abusers, sexual-abuse victims, you name it, providing distraction, counselling, and friendship in a 'safe' environment.

I believe I'm as qualified as anyone here to understand the nature and causes of drug-addiction.

"Perhaps we'd be better off eschewing contact with each other"

No 'perhaps' about it - for once, I completely agree.

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Jul 19 - 10:40 AM

Iains - I voted Labour, I voted Remain.
I am not member of the Labour Party, I do not follow their position

There is no way you can possibly accuse me of supporting leave...
There is no way you can accuse any Labour voter who also voted Remain, who is not a member of the labour Party,
of supporting Leave..

Ergo, you are talking out of your arse when you infer that every Labour voter supports leave...

WE non members vote in the vain hope of kicking the tories out,
we do not necessarily support all Labour positions and directives advised to their members...!!!

You can split hairs in your realm of abstract statistical theorising,
but in the real world you are simply wrong...

But we understand how much your ilk depend on the fantasy demon of a Stalinistic Labour Party...

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 14 Jul 19 - 10:47 AM

.. and I daresay a significant number of Labour members will not take too kindly
to their party insisting that they support Leave when they decry the very idea of it..

Oh.. they didn't.. and they still don't.. and now apparently they won't have to for the next election...

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Jul 19 - 07:02 AM

Iains - what I hinted at before I went to bed, I will now make more explicit...

YOU are a good 30 to 40 years behind the times...
Your use by date has expired.
Educated people have been well aware of your propaganda methods
since they were closely studied by young students
way back in the early 1980s.
Since then such studies filtered down from higher education into schools.

You ae so blatant and identifiable in your motives, methodology, and objectives
that you cancel yourself out.
What's most comical is how ineffectual you are by choosing mudcat
as your soapbox.
Whatever you think you are achieving with your anti-left propaganda
is wasted here.
We are not thick enough to fall for it.

You insult our intelligence, but make up for it by being a daily source of chuckles...

If you were a Russian backed 'bot', as some here seem to believe,
you're not very good at it.
If you are, as seems just as likely, an 'influencer' mouthpiece of the internaionally organized campaign
for spreading of right wing ideology
on the internet.
Then by all means carry on wasting your efforts here...
At least you are not abusing vulnerable young minds elsewhere...
..well.. I hope you are not...???

If given a choice between keeping you or Jim [for all his faults..] it's an easy choice to make...
..and that is not just about politics.
Jim is a valuable expert on the primary subject matter of mudcat - folk music -
You are only here to spread negativity and hostility...

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Jul 19 - 07:46 AM

Jim - here's an interesting news item, fairly local to where I live...

targeted by a suspected pro-Brexit troll farm

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: Jim Carroll
Date: 15 Jul 19 - 08:20 AM

I realise full how the press has taken sides in all this and, as most of them are of the right persuasion, it's pretty easy ot sort out what's what
I get the Times (for Codeword) and I have never seen a once reliable source of news plummmet into an openly extremist hate=-rag the way it has.

Nie bit of 'fake news' this morning
Theresa May has accsed Donald Trump of open racism for telling the black women Democrats that they should "go back and help fix" their own "broken and crime infested countries"." - I wonder which side our resident Trumpeter will take on this one (I don't really)
Jim Carroll

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Jul 19 - 08:20 AM

I don't know if you remember, PFR, but a while back right wing trolls got hold of many people's profiles from Mudcat and elsewhere and created false Facebook profiles in a feeble attempt to fight back against the "Folk against Fascism" movement. The whole thing backfired. Nick Griffin, who instigated it, crawled back into the cesspit he came from. His attack dog, a folk musician known to some on here, got caught and I believe did some time for it. He occasionally still comes on here and uses other people's names to try and shitstir but everyone is wise to it now. It seems that right wing extremism is on the rise everywhere and its fanboys on here try to join in with the big lads but fail miserably. You have the right idea. Just point and laugh :-)

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Jul 19 - 08:43 AM

DtG - vaguely remember all that.
It was around the same time one of the B'n'P fancied himself as a wannabe folk singer.
British folk as they saw it being the true music of nationalists.
They organized at least one 'family friendly' nationalist music festival
to try to win over hearts and minds...

When I first joined mudcat, I also tended to associate factions of folk music with the reactionary right..

But I'd hope that any still breathing have grown too old and feeble to any longer be such a real problem...???

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Jul 19 - 08:45 AM

whoops.. accidently presssed enter before finishing off that scrappy 1st draft...
but it'll have to do...

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Jul 19 - 08:51 AM

Aye, that was the one. Chumbawamba did a brilliant song about when Griffin tried to dance Morris.

Dance, Idiot, Dance

Enjoy :-)

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Jul 19 - 10:31 AM

There's an intersting online review of the new documentary movie "The Brink"...

I'd suggest watching the relevant part of this first..

[because if I remember correctly the clip is a bit diffeent and includes extra footage...???]

Then the more in depth review ...

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: punkfolkrocker
Date: 15 Jul 19 - 10:39 AM

"Over 200 current and former Labour staff and supporters write to condemn Labour’s handling of the Panorama documentary"

out of a very approximate total of over half a million... approx 0.04%...

So even if we gave the 200 benefit of the doubt about their motives,
there are far worse problems's for Labour to prioritise
in the real world outside of media outrage,
and far right cynical opportunism.....

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 15 Jul 19 - 10:44 AM

Lots of chumming the waters with weasel words and trumped up "facts." Stop feeding trolls and the thread may last.

Subject: RE: Labour - the party of Remain
From: Dave the Gnome
Date: 15 Jul 19 - 12:19 PM

Change hands...