We will bury you
Cynical readers may think that the Labour Party these days is populated solely by scum-sucking warmongers dead set on privatising hospitals and scaring people off claiming benefits. Did you know that sailors used to wear gold earrings so that their bodies could have a decent funeral if they were drowned at sea? From Harry's Place, we have a touching new policy from the Labour Party (not necessarily officially endorsed): We will bury you. That saves me some worry, and means I can put the money I'd set aside for my cremation into the economy and fight the recession.
Is this relevant to this blog? Nick Cohen has tweeted[1]:
Look out Nick, Harry's Place is angry at the Guardian Media Group. This will push them over the edge. Best comment so far from Bill D:
Nick's blocked me, so I can't read his tweets (if I'm signed in), but Evan Harris retweeted that one, so I saw it. I don't really understand Twitter, but I think that's a bug, not a feature.
Is this relevant to this blog? Nick Cohen has tweeted[1]:
Have praised @DrEvanHarris in pre-election column. Potential Tory gain in Oxford West in Abingdon now a certainty
Look out Nick, Harry's Place is angry at the Guardian Media Group. This will push them over the edge. Best comment so far from Bill D:
Oh dear. This really is a King Lear moment for Labour: “I will do such things, what they are I know not yet, but they shall be the terrors of the earth”. You probably don’t need me to remind you how Lear was in a considerably better condition than Labour at the time. This is more akin to the ravings of a urine-soaked tramp hurling incoherent abuse outside a railway station while waving an empty can of Tennants Super; people just give him a wide berth and feel more pity than revulsion.
While Ben rails against metropolitan elitists places like Oldham, Rochdale, Redcar and Dunfermline are tending towards the Lib Dems. Even parts of Newcastle, Sheffield and the North East are going to turn yellow on election night.
Nick's blocked me, so I can't read his tweets (if I'm signed in), but Evan Harris retweeted that one, so I saw it. I don't really understand Twitter, but I think that's a bug, not a feature.
posted by Chardonnay Chap at 5/01/2010 05:44:00 PM
10 Comments:
I've already been called a "posturing LibDem cunt" by Ben. Methinks Labour's tactics for wooing disaffected former Labour voters back into the fold leave something to be desired.
So various places 'are going to turn yellow on election night' - an unfortunate expression given that Labour is a 'urine-soaked tramp'.
I doubt many remember*, but this Ben gimp has shown up in Aarowatch comments repeatedly to tick everyone off for extremism and deviancy from party lines. His main point - and I have to respect his consistency - is that the Labour Party itself represents moderation and centrist politics, and that disagreement from said politics is tantamount to traitorous behaviour.
For instance, Tony wanted to invade Iraq, and the party broadly supported him. Hence, helping the world's only superpower invade a castrated tinpot dictatorship under the pretense of self-defence was the moderate view. The idea that it might have been an obvious, Vietnamesque disaster from day one is an extremist idea.
Simple, if you see it from a certain viewpoint.
*I've got a twenty here that says Justin remembers, though.
And a very wise twenty it is.
Don't take it personally, Nick blocked me long ago. He's remarkably thin-skinned about people who are rude about him on blogs.
If I read Nick's column of today right, he's voting Labour because of, er, Denis MacShane an' shit. At least, when he says there are still a few principled[1] people in Labour who believe in equality and internationalism, I think that's who he has in mind.
[1] "Principled" having its usual Nickspeak meaning of "dude who recently said something I agree with".
I'd imagine he's referring primarily to James Purnell, and Blears too; and MacShane yes, definitely.
it's another really poor article, I think; he doesn't seem to have anything to say whatsoever about this election.
Yes - he was building up to a big "but we should vote Labour in spite of everything because..." finish, and I was expecting something like my current position (because they're still at some level Labour, dammit, and the other lot are quite definitely still the Tories). Instead of which we get "because yay, Iraq!" Slightly worse than Norm, who is at least going to vote Labour because of poverty and Iraq.
SS - I'm not actually bothered by his blocking me. I wrote what I did on the assumption that Nick would read it, and so he'd at least know that I wasn't "stalking" him, before I was accused, again, of same.
Agree that it's a poor column. Ditto Harry's Place's and Norman Geras' reactions. (Oliver Kamm's is extremely bizarre and passes my understanding.)
It should be like a club, people who've been blocked on Twitter by Nick Cohen. Sort of a badge of honour.
But hold on, Purnell isn't standing for election. And Blears is one of the most notorious flippers, which in years gone by Nick would have gone to town on. Is being on the right side of TGISOOT the water that washes away all sins? Seemingly it is on Nickworld.
Jesus, you know I think I voted for Ben once. Scary.
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