Corbyn 15.5 - the so-called pro-Corbyn echo-chamber

[Zetetic]

I feel that using phrases like putting the rent on the credit card are part if the problem we have - the economy of a nation isn't the same as a household pantry money, because spending affects income.

And, to be clear, that's Richard Murphy's underlying complaint (which is what Trenter is trying to make clear as well).

[Johnny Yesno]

Hopefully he's using that language in order to turn it around later.

I think that's a bad idea. One of the reasons McDonnell and Corbyn appealed to me in the first place is that they were saying things that were counter to the narrative. They were ahead of the game on austerity and they can now say 'told you so'. This is incredibly valuable when challenging a failed ideology.

[pancreas]

Just watched the Mitchell talk. Very good. It should be compulsory viewing for all Labour members.

But there is one thing he doesn't cover his back on, other than to say 'it depends'. He makes it appear that a government is entirely at leisure to create as much money as it likes for the purposes of helping its citizens. This isn't quite right, because there isn't one single government and the creation of currency will devalue it relative to other currencies. When you import as much as the UK does, that could be a disaster, making food more expensive, for which you are dependent on other countries. That said, the amount of flak aimed at Corbyn by members of his own party, for wanting to have a people's quantitative easing (which is precisely what Mitchell is arguing for) was an astounding example of the sort of brain-washed thinking that Mitchell is railing against. I don't know for sure but I would expect that e.g. printing the £8-10 billion the NHS needs is mere noise in the grand scale. Neoliberals response to this is usually along the lines of 'we must preserve the independence of the bank of England, which is there to prevent inflation'. It would have been good if he had explained what sort of response he would expect to make to that.

Having said that, I would imagine the eurozone is under no such constraint at all, being entirely capable of self-sustenance. But Germany won't allow the currency to devalue because for all those things it does import (probably largely plastic/electricals from China) the standard of living would go down. Which is why Germany should not be in the Euro.

[HappyTree]

in a nutshell

Ah right, cheers. I can climb back down from my lie outrage cushion :-D

[StewartLeehaslethimselfgo]

https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/817757686586601472

NOW THIS IS GOOD

[HappyTree]

Was just coming to post this! Full text from Facebook:

The crisis in our NHS is unprecedented. People are lying on trolleys in corridors waiting to be seen.

Hospitals have had to close their doors, unable to admit patients.

The health service is at breaking point.

But this crisis is not due to an outbreak of disease. It is a crisis made in Downing Street by this government – a crisis we warned them about.

The Red Cross yesterday announced it is providing humanitarian assistance to NHS trusts that simply do not have the resources to cope.

This is a national scandal – and Theresa May and Jeremy Hunt have to take both responsibility and urgent action to tackle it.

I'm grateful to the Red Cross volunteers who have stepped in during this emergency, as well as the hard working NHS staff who are being let down and undermined by this government.

But we should not have to rely on the Red Cross to provide the basic care the people of this country need.

The fact is this government have repeatedly failed to put the necessary resources into our health service, while they have cut social care and wasted billions on a top-down reorganization to accelerate privatization.

And despite finding billions of tax giveaways for big business and the richest, Theresa May's Conservatives failed to find a single penny for the NHS in their autumn statement.

Our NHS cannot survive if this government does not change course.

Labour is calling on the government to cancel their tax breaks for the wealthiest and fund our NHS instead.

The people of this country need an explanation for the state of emergency in our hospitals, and an account of what action will be taken to end it.

The only person who can do that is the Prime Minister.

So I am demanding that the Prime Minister comes to the House of Commons on Monday and sets out to the British people how she plans to fix her failure on the NHS.

[Buelligan]

That's great stuff.  Hopefully people will share it as widely as possible. 

[Mr_Simnock]

Excellent stuff, a big step in the right dierection. I hope Labour push this as much as possible all weekend.

[Barry Admin]

Lead item on the 5pm BBC News 24 update.

Edit:

"For the first time for... probably thirty years, school budgets are falling, our NHS is in crisis... We're campaigning on all of those issues; we want real social justice in this country."

Clearly stood outside a hospital.

Another edit; 5:30 update has mentioned it in the headlines, but then ran an item about how disabled kids are being given sports-blades and stuff by the NHS so they can participate in sport. I'd expect Corbyn to feature again on the 6pm round-up.

Edit: yeah, he's on the hourly updates. 6pm update included an interview with him as well.

[HappyTree]

He's said it again, with video on FB.

I am demanding that Theresa May comes to the House of Commons on Monday and sets out to the British people how she plans to fix her failure on the NHS.

Ok Jeremy. I let it slide the first time because your idea was good. But please learn the use of the subjunctive.

"I demand that TM come to the HoC and set out..."

[olliebean]

He's said it again, with video on FB.

Ok Jeremy. I let it slide the first time because your idea was good. But please learn the use of the subjunctive.

"I demand that TM come to the HoC and set out..."

I don't think "I demand" would be appropriate unless addressing the person/people of whom you are demanding it, would it? He isn't demanding it of his Twitter followers; rather, he is informing his Twitter followers that he is demanding it.

[StewartLeehaslethimselfgo]

https://twitter.com/paulmasonnews/status/817856674799190016

Not even on the front page of right wing papers, our media is a bias joke, its free tho so yippie

[ZoyzaSorris]

Has the new Al Jazeera undercover documentary exposing Israeli interference in Labour and (as prominently covered in tomorrow's Mail - boo hiss etc) the Conservatives been mentioned yet? Apparently they spend a ton of cash on jollies for any mps that show public pro-israel sympathies whilst working behind the scenes to undermine pro-Palestinian politicians (here pro-Palestinian means anything not slavishly following the Likud line). Of course, with all the craven shite we've seen over the fake anti-semitism row (standup woodcock, streeting et al), none of this probably comes as any surprise to serious watchers of the Corbyn situation, but interesting to see it getting prominent coverage in the mainstream media anyway. Maybe because it's the Cons getting fucked up too.

[greencalx]

Hmm, looks like Corbyn's campaign for the NHS has been blasted off the front pages by some speech May is giving tomorrow where she pretends to care about social justice.

[Buelligan]

It's really awful isn't it?  Makes it even more important that people share this information, push it, discuss it, don't let these dreadful people win.

[TrenterPercenter]

Sadly it is inevitable that May would try something like this, it really should be up to our press to call this rubbish out, has anyone read what she is going to say, it's diabolical:

It means making a significant shift in the way that government works in Britain. Because government and politicians have for years talked the language of social justice – where we help the very poorest – and social mobility – where we help the brightest among the poor. But to deliver the change we need and build that shared society, we must move beyond this agenda and deliver real social reform across every layer of society so that those who feel the system is stacked against them – those just above the threshold that attracts the government's focus today yet those who are by no means rich or well off – are also given the help they need.

So basically, sod the poor, sod the brightest of the poor, social (not economic) reform for "those who feel the system is stacked against them" and help for those for those that are by no means rich or well off.

What a cluster fuck.  So the idea is beginning to crystalise now, make life hard for the layer above the very poorest try and attach that to previous administrations then renegotiate with said layer.  This is completely reliant on everyone forgetting that the Tories have been in power for 7 years.  There is progress here is Corbyn can get this right.

Questions that the press should be asking but Corbyn should do when they don't.

"Under your government can you explain why people are still just managing 9 years on from the GFC?"

"You refer to previous governments language of social justice, you used this language in your first speech when you spoke about job security, why then has your government presided over the biggest increase in unsecured working in modern times and what do you propose above the language of social justice to deal with that?"

"Mrs May in relation to those just about managing, sorry to remind you again that it is your government has in effect been shaping welfare policy for 7 years,  do you recognise that your government is responsible for people at struggling at these thresholds? Therefore was this a mistake in the last 7 years of government thinking and are you are now keen to address these families directly for the pain inflicted by these mistakes"

"You say "shared society", can you confirm that when Margret Thatcher said "there is no such thing as society" she made a mistake?"[nb]The is argument that she was alluding to a society of individual families but even if this is true it is nonsense in practice as soon as you have non-individualised policies for individual families they are not individuals anymore[/nb]

[Mr_Simnock]

'The shared Society' fucking hell what a load of empty piss, just like 'brexit means brexit' and 'the big society' another completely meaningless statement and I can guarantee no-one will ever find out exactly what the shared society will be about, it's just a mantra doled out to make it sound like the gov has some sort of plan, it is the very worst form of modern politics.

[Replies From View]

Only a Tory would need to add the qualifier "shared" to "society". 

Next month:  "communities that contain more than one person each".

[HappyTree]

Twitter comments: "Where the fuck is Labour? Why won't Corbyn react to this NHS crisis!!!? He'd rather make jam in his shed. Terrible!"

Yeah. We live in a propaganda state, full-on. Well, you live. I fucked off many years ago.

[TrenterPercenter]

Corbyn is on Andrew Marr next week btw

[TrenterPercenter]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/laura-kuenssberg-bbc-political-editor-jeremy-corbyn-bbc-row-impartiality-a7514581.html

Not sure if this has been posted.

[Mr_Simnock]

Twitter comments: "Where the fuck is Labour? Why won't Corbyn react to this NHS crisis!!!? He'd rather make jam in his shed. Terrible!"

Yeah. We live in a propaganda state, full-on. Well, you live. I fucked off many years ago.   

The best thing to do with comments like that is just send them a link to Corbyn's demand for an emergency session on monday at the commons.

[greencalx]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/media/laura-kuenssberg-bbc-political-editor-jeremy-corbyn-bbc-row-impartiality-a7514581.html

Not sure if this has been posted.

I like the fact that having won some 'journalist of the year' award is grounds to revisit an impartiality investigation... notwithstanding the possibility of bias (which may or may not be real), Keunssberg is a terrible journalist (and that's already by the low standards set by the profession as a whole). I've never heard her challenge May, for example, on the 'no running commentary' bullshit, and I won't hold my breath waiting for her to get to the bottom of her commitment to social justice either.

[Twed]

I like the fact that having won some 'journalist of the year' award is grounds to revisit an impartiality investigation... notwithstanding the possibility of bias (which may or may not be real), Keunssberg is a terrible journalist (and that's already by the low standards set by the profession as a whole). I've never heard her challenge May, for example, on the 'no running commentary' bullshit, and I won't hold my breath waiting for her to get to the bottom of her commitment to social justice either.

It's the neoliberal get-out. It's always enough to have won some schmoozy award, or attended a comfortable event to raise money for a corporate charity, whatever. In this case, the journalist is credited by an award from the industry that must be railed against for a journalist to do their job properly.

[HappyTree]

Glen Greenwald is good to follow on Twitter. Hardly a day goes by without him pointing at stenographic journalism.

I don't know whether the BBC is biased towards any particular side as I don't watch enough of it to determine. But, being "the state broadcaster" I guess they would be biased not towards a side but towards whoever is in power. Add in being scared of defunding by the Tories and you have Kremlinesque levels of propaganda.

[TrenterPercenter]

Glen Greenwald is good to follow on Twitter. Hardly a day goes by without him pointing at stenographic journalism.

I don't know whether the BBC is biased towards any particular side as I don't watch enough of it to determine. But, being "the state broadcaster" I guess they would be biased not towards a side but towards whoever is in power. Add in being scared of defunding by the Tories and you have Kremlinesque levels of propaganda.

Of course it is fully expected that the BBC will provide some bias to the state, it is the state broadcaster, but HM is actually part of the state as well so there is some unspoken rules of what they should and shouldn't do.   In this we can expect high quality investigative journalism with a whiff of bias around this.  What troubles me about their frankly abysmal behaviour for the last couple of years (it actually stepped up a massive notch when they started doing bulletin after bulletin of Eds supposed capitulation to the SNP, it was literally a mouthpiece for the Tories) is the degradation of faith in the BBC from the population undermining their ability to inform from real outside threats.

[3D]

Bump.

[Petey Pate]

Good read on the history of the coverage of Corbyn in The Guardian, think you lot would be interested:

http://novaramedia.com/2017/01/08/how-the-guardian-changed-tack-on-corbyn-despite-its-readers/

[Mr_Simnock]

That is a good read and it produces this gem of a quote -

Even Martin Kettle, the Guardian's associate editor who would go on to be Corbyn's coldest critic, echoed the editorial line when the deadline for nominations arrived on 15 June: "The good news is that there is a decent range of candidates to choose from... a spectrum of views from old left to Blairite." (Burnishing his credentials as an astute reader of Labour politics, Kettle also asserted that "Jeremy Corbyn's nomination has helped Burnham because it means he can't be so easily cast as the leftie in the race" and Liz Kendall "has proved that there is a sizable level of support" for a Blairite analysis.)

what the fuck gave him that idea...

[HappyTree]

My reading of what is going on, and has been for quite a while, is that journalism is being used not to report but to try to create reality. I don't know how much the individual contributors actually believe what they say, but certainly on a general editorial level these people have been so off target so often not because they can't see what's going on but because they desperately want to change it.

And it doesn't work. Well, not as quickly as they hope. No matter how much propaganda you pump out to the contrary, if someone looks at their life and says "This really isn't working" then they'll continue to feel that inside no matter how many newspapers claim everything's hunky dory.

What this propaganda is effective at is persuading people not to bother banding together. But we've now reached the point where they will do so anyway out of sheer shared reality. In a way, Theresa May is a great choice for PM because she seems to be accelerating this process quite dramatically.