Boris Johnson’s Incredible Landslide
Catte Black
There’s an orgy of election post mortem going on at the moment. A lot of people in the mainstream and the alternative media are bringing their own certitudes about ‘what went wrong’ yesterday and how the UK has somehow ended up with an elitist clown and his party of sleazy greed-merchants returned to office, after nine years of misrule, with a landslide majority.
The preferred explanations divide fairly predictably along ideological grounds.
The ‘liberal’ media – as in the person of repulsive champagne/Mi5 ‘socialist’ Polly Toynbee – naturally – blames Corbyn. They would, wouldn’t they?
With a lot more justice the alt-media blames bias in the mainstream. Well – yeah.
Brexiters blame Labour’s admittedly appalling performance on this issue. They claim the vote was swung by disgruntled Leavers in key seats. This is declared by many to be Corbyn’s fault, even though he seems pretty clearly to have been pressured into a muddy pro-2nd referendum stance against his own Euro-sceptic instincts.
Remainers also blame Labour’s Brexit performance, but they think Labour didn’t send a clear enough message on the issue (whatever that means). This is also largely declared to be Corbyn’s fault.
Views are tending to the absolutist and binary. There’s not much room at the moment for nuance or debate.
No one feels like recalling, for example, that more people voted against the Tories than for them (13.9mn for and 16.2mn against).
Or that 10.3 million people still voted Labour despite the entirety of the unprecedentedly vicious and Stalinist hate campaign conducted against them – and Corbyn in particular – since the latter became leader in 2015.
Which fact, along with Labour’s near-win in 2017 and the surprise Brexit victory in 2016, implies the mainstream media’s ability to direct and manipulate public opinion is a lot less wholesale and guaranteed than we oftentimes assume, and that this is unlikely to be a single explanation for yesterday’s result.
More importantly, no one – even those who are boggling at the implausibility – is questioning the validity of the result.
No one.
It’s as if even suggesting election fraud can happen in a nice majority-white western country like the UK is improper and disrespectful. Election fraud is – as every good racist knows – done by brown people or Orientals, or ‘corrupt’ eastern European nations, not by fine upstanding empire builders like the British.
This seems to be so much of a given that the results of any vote are simply accepted as 100% valid – no matter how improbable they may seem.
And apparently even in the face of clear evidence for at least some level of shady activity.
Remember this? It only happened on Wednesday but it’s already some way down the Memory Hole.
Laura Kuenssberg, being the true idiot she really is, blabbing off on prime time telly about apparently institutional election malpractice – and not even having the basic brains to see the import of what she’s letting slip.
There’s been a lot of effort expended in minimising the significance of this in social media and in the mainstream press – and indeed by resident trolls on OffG. There have been claims it’s ‘routine’ – as if that somehow makes it ok. Or that Kuenssberg was misinformed, or ‘tired’.
Beyond the smoke, though, things remain starkly clear. There are three choices.
- Someone illegally and improperly accessed ballot papers prior to the count and before close of poll.
- Someone pretended they had and fed disinfo to Kuenssberg who committed a felony by broadcasting it.
- Kuenssberg lied.
It obviously must raise the question – how do we know the ballot papers are just being looked at? Are we supposed to just take it on faith that these people allegedly “routinely” breaking the law to look, will feel obligated to stop there?
But that’s just an intro to a much bigger question. The question. The one we are not supposed to ask.
Before going there let me put a case to you. A thought experiment as ‘twere.
Imagine that Assad had behaved like Johnson during the last presidential election. Imagine his bizarre election ‘campaign’ consisted almost solely of photo-ops and interviews in which he and members of his family display their evilness and idiocy over and over and over again in an almost ritualistic statement of contempt for their voting public.
Imagine he offered no plans or policies or even hope, but just rolled about insulting people, stealing their phones and hiding in fridges.
But still got elected. On an increased majority.
Imagine the day before polling day in Russia a journalist from TASS accidentally lets slip that the postal ballot papers have already – and illegally – been seen, and predict a landslide for Putin. A landslide then transpires, despite the fact he has become universally despised.
What would our own state-controlled and corporate media be saying about this?
More important, what would you feel perfectly free to say about this?
So why don’t you feel free to say it now?
Please don’t get me wrong here. I am not by any means claiming the December 12 election was rigged. I’m not equipped to make any such claim. I have seen very little hard evidence to suggest it and I don’t even know, currently, if it would even be possible.
My point is the double standard and elision.
Vladimir Putin’s election is automatically dismissed as fixed by the entire western media, even though it shows far fewer irregularities than many recent US presidential elections. Assad’s election likewise. If the events of the last few weeks in the UK had been happening in Russia, we all know what the media would be saying, and what many of our readers would be saying too.
What would be taken as clear fraud (even if it actually wasn’t) if it happened in a non-imperial state is not subject to the same analysis when it happens here. For some reason, we are debarred, and debar ourselves, from even considering this possibility in relation to western countries, even when it looks more than plausible. And this censorship seems to be based simply on geography and race.
Signs that societally would be read as clear evidence of a rigged vote in Syria, Russia, Venezuela or Iran, are not seen as such when they happen here in the ‘civilised’ western world.
Laura Kuenssberg’s idiotic announcement of casual criminality in the electoral process might have been just a stupid lie, hers or someone else’s. But even if it was it betrays a disturbing lack of respect for boundaries and legalities behind the scenes. And if it wasn’t a lie then – what?
As I mentioned once already – if people can and do illegally access ballot papers prior to the close of polling and commencement of the count, how far does this access go? Who actually counted those postal votes? Where did they do it? What happened to the ballot papers after having been illegally viewed and counted? Do we just assume they eventually found their way to a ballot box as they should?
We all saw the piles of ballot papers left uncounted during the Democratic primaries. We know those discarded votes could have made the difference between a Sanders victory or defeat. We all heard the stories of registered Democrats denied the chance to even vote by ‘bureaucratic oversights’. And we know the DNC basically rigged the primaries for Hillary Clinton.
We also know the 2000 presidential election was – at best – concluded dubiously when the count in Florida seems to have been interfered with.
Again, if we’d seen something similar unfold in Russia, the unavoidable conclusion would have been electoral fraud.
Despite all this though, and due to our own innate pro-western bias, we still refuse to acknowledge the bare possibility of electoral corruption.
This is not a natural limitation on debate, imposed by reason and analysis. It’s a form of censorship or self-censorship rooted in, what? A lifetime of subliminal propaganda about the West’s free and fair elections? An atavistic colonialism that still operates and makes us convinced beyond reason that wholesale corruption of that magnitude is simply impossible in the Mother of Democracy?
Consider the facts…
Labour’s socialist policies are known to be popular. Poverty has increased so much under the Tories that 22% of the country now lives below the poverty line, including 4 million children. 200,000 people have died as a result of austerity-driven cuts, foodbank use is increasing by tens of thousands year on year. The mortality rate is going up and up. And Boris Johnson was caught in a direct, proven lie about “protecting” the NHS.
And after all this, Labour heartlands – red since World War 2, through Thatcher and Foot and every anti-Labour hate campaign the media could muster – all voted Conservative?
Does that seem likely?
I don’t know, all I do know is I think that discussion needs to start. I think it’s time to think the unthinkable, and at least open the prospect of electoral fraud up for real discussion.
How secure is our electoral process? Can results be stage-managed, massaged or even rigged? What guarantees do we have that this can’t happen here? In an age of growing corruption and decay at the very top, do the checks and balances placed to safeguard our democracy sill work well, or even at all?
This Friday the Thirteenth, with BoJo the Evil Clown back in Downing Street, looks like a good moment to get it going.
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This article makes a strong case to question the lopsided outcome of the recent election. The cover story in the British media goes something like this: A large group of loyal Labour voters decided to vote with the Johnson cult due to their revulsion at Corbyn and their recognition that the nonbinding Brexit vote must be honored to move things along. To believe this, you need to believe that the voters found the destruction of the NHS to be an acceptable policy, greed that crashing out of the EU and the economic calamity was just fine with them, and that they think that the odious Johnson is fit to rule.
The discussion and debate wills take hold if there’s enough research to make a preliminary case. This article, Election 2004: The Urban Legend takes publicly available polls and election data to show the absurdity of the Bush victory. In essence, the only way to account for the victory was to rig the exit polls to show the Bush victory margin occurred in large cities, New York for example. It may provide some ideas on how to start a investigation in the UK
My sympathies to the British people and the ordeal that lays ahead. We’ve lived your future for three years with Trump. It will not be pretty and it’s never to early to start resisting.
The Tories murdered 200,000 untermenschen with ‘austerity’ since 2010, and I confidently expect BoJo to surpass that figure.
In 2005 Deputy High Court Judge Mawrey in a case involving election fraud in Birmingham in a local election criticized the government’s insistence that the postal voting system and said:
What is bizarre about the postal voting system is the scale of variation between constituencies and the lack of a rational explanation for the constituencies where there is a high level of postal voting.
In the 2017 general election 22% of the electorate chose to vote by mail.
In Eastbourne, where 44% of the population is over 60, 26% voted by mail.
In Middlesbrough only 18% of the electorate chose to vote by mail and only 30% of the population is over 60.
In nearby Sunderland Central 52% of the electorate voted by mail and yet only 35% of the population is over 60.
While Penrith and the Borders a rural constituency where 43% of the population is over 60 only 21% of the population voted by mail.
So what is going on in Sunderland Central, why are over 50% of Mackem voters unable to walk to the polls? Geordies by the way are hardly any better and 47% of the electorate in Newcastle upon Tyne Central voted by mail in the 2017 general election.
Now of course if you are going to fiddle an election you would not fiddle the constituencies with the highest percentage of postal votes, but the constituencies where you had a base to build on, such as Bishop Auckland (26% postal votes in 2017), Darlington (27% postal votes in 2017) or Sedgefield (28% postal votes in 2017).
Of course if your real agenda was Brexit and a hard Brexit, you still might fiddle the Sunderland referendum results.
Do you know how many registered postal voters there were as opposed to how many actually voted?
The Election Commission website provides the total number of postal ballots issued and returned in the downloadable data for the 2015 and 2017 elections
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/who-we-are-and-what-we-do/elections-and-referendums/past-elections-and-referendums/uk-general-elections
Overall UK turnout for postal votes in 2017 was 84.6%. Overall UK turnout in 2017 was 68.8%. Overall postal votes were issued to 18.1% of the electorate in 2017 and overall postal votes represented 21.7% of the valid vote turnout.
In Sunderland Central postal votes were issued to 40.7% of the electorate in 2017
In Bishop Auckland postal votes were issued to 19.6% of the electorate in 2017
In Darlington postal votes were issued to 21.2% of the electorate in 2017
In Sedgefield postal votes were issued to 22.2% of the electorate in 2017
However in 2017 all these seats stayed Labour.
Thanks. Do you know how many registered postal voters there were as opposed to how many actually voted in different constituencies in the 2019 general election?
now we see why the reason for all that procrastination, the madness of Inverted Command…. A Remodeling, a Party Cleansed, Roots Poisoned….It’s a twisted Game – but can”t be played alone.
The total conservative/remain vote increased by 1.4% from 2017. The ‘landslide’ is in seats, not votes.
Why? The electoral system is absurd. First past the post is an embarrassment.
Many of you will have studied queuing theory: to serve customers in turn there can only be one head of queue, no matter how many checkouts/service points are fed from it.
Similarly, to achieve a fair & representative allocation of seats, there can only be one electorate, with seats allocated AFTER votes are cast, in proportion to votes won. Voters would not be represented by a single member; they would have a selection of representatives whom they might approach.
For related reasons, voting should be compulsory (shock, horror: like paying tax, attending school, driving on the correct side of the road, having a licence to do so etc.). It’s a reasonably requirement of civic participation, not a pop quiz.
If we want ‘democracy’, we need to slaughter a few sacred cows.
In a lot of European countries there are single member constituencies but two rounds of voting. If no-one gets over 50% in the first round the leading two candidates go into the second round.
Local parties and politicians cut deals with each other on policies to deliver their voters in the second round.
Of course in the UK party central offices and the Treasury and the rest of the civil service hate the idea. Too expensive is the excuse. Imagine if every MP had to ensure he was backed by a majority of the voters.
Yes, I know this. In Australia we have preferential voting, in which voters indicate their second (& subsequent) preferences in the initial ballot which achieves much the same thing. Both add cost but you’re right: objections to seeking majority support for elected members are just excuses for half-hearted electoral systems. Both US & UK are laughable approximations of their claimed ‘democratic’ ideal.
Our Public (Civil) Service thoroughly endorse both compulsory & proportional voting as practised here. Perhaps best of all, the Australian Electoral Commission, a body independent of government, is responsible for all aspects of electoral conduct, from electoral boundaries (which must comply with legistlated limits to within 5% of equality & similar protections against gerrymander) to polling & counting. The AEC conducts all elections, even for unions. Similar bodies exist in each of our six states for state government & state registered bodies.
Even so, Australian democracy is still a rough approximation & our Constitution is ridiculous. We’re better off than US & UK, by a long margin, but have nothing about which to be complacent.
You also have a small nation’s worth of donkeys. And god knows how many dispossessed and effectively disenfranchised.
We do have wild donkeys; they’re exported to India.
Seriously, you are right to refer to the ‘donkey vote’… voters who simply vote 1, 2, 3 … etc. down the ticket. This is usually a result of ignorance about how to vote, apathy about the result, or a protest. In any case, they are always a small percentage of total votes. Some commentators ascribe meaning to fluctuations in this fraction, from one election to another, but none argues its significance for outcomes. It’s just too small.
Your claim about dispossessed & disenfranchised is more serious. The only group systematically excluded from voting is prisoners; in my view, a shameful injustice. It’s true that our Aboriginal people have been thoroughly dispossessed; they can all vote though (since 1967).
The truth is that the Australian Electoral Commission is charged with making sure that every person entitled to vote, both inside Australia & internationally, is not only able to do so but does in fact comply. Small fines apply if one fails to vote without reasonable excuse. I believe conscientious objection is accepted.
Your reference to donkeys, dispossessed & disenfranchised followed mine to preferential voting. Far from producing donkey representatives, it tends to favour the two main parties, an obvious negative. Hence, my insistence on a single national electorate with seat allocation after vote counting, according to support gained, & to multi-member electorates capable of delivering choice of representatives to voters while ensuring that all elected do have adequate voter support.
AUD 20 to AUD 120 plus possible cancellation or suspension of your drivers’ licence or cancellation of your car registration, depending on local state law and the degree of recidivism. The glibness of your sentence-opening adjective is indicative of the extent to which your perception of the intentional, increasing reimpoverishment and remarginalization of the already-poor and already-marginalized has been eroded by the amount of disposable income in your complacency pocket.
And who determines ‘reasonable’? The demented protectors of a 99.9999% demented electorate’s end-times panic?
Accepted at what stage? If it isn’t the default presumption at the close of polling, with no further explanation by no-shows required, then it’s not only not worth a tin of shit, it’s not even worth a tin of bullshit.
So then, how do you register apathy, the legitimacy of a government, the legitimacy of the system, etc? On some counts, simply spoiling votes is an inadequate register of anything except coerced acquiescence. If it’s OK for a government to abstain in international matters, howcome you want to deny the same right to its subjects (who may have had no practical say in that status). Any other authoritarian Catch 22s you’d like to add to the powers of ‘the state’? Any other rights you’d like to give the Palestinians, the Lebanese, the…? At least dictators don’t soft soap.
Do the Palestinians have any rights under Israeli military rule?
My rhetorical pre-emptive answer to that rhetorical question was obscured by the ambiguity of my phrasing: for ‘Lebanse’ read ‘current Lebanese government’ and for ‘Palestinians’ read (at least for the moment) ‘government of Palestinians in the now-annexed Syrian territories’. Any reference to ‘military rule’ is unnecessary as Israel is a democracy.
In the West Bank the illegal Israeli settlers are under normal Israeli law whereas the rightful owners of the land, the Palestinians are under Israeli military law. How can Israel who are genociding the Palestinians and are operating an apartheid regime possibly be regarded as a democracy?
What is it you do not understand about the official construal of the word ‘democracy’?
‘Official’ is it? According to whom?
Israel is a fascistic and highly aggressive ethnocracy, not a ‘democracy’ in any meaningful sense.
‘Any reference to military rule etc’, is garbage. What do you think that those racist thugs with Uzis and assault rifles brutalising the captive Palestinians are? Pacifists? Democrats?
The obligations of nation states in international fora are not analagous to those of citizens within nation states. One obvious difference is the possibility of coercion.
Conversely, such things as birth registration, attending school, paying taxes, obtaining licences etc. are analagous; all are obligations of citizens to the state (& to each other). I believe voting is simply another one of these.
Why does one want to ‘register apathy’? Surely someone apathetic could not be bothered.
More realistically, one might want to challenge the legitimacy of government or ‘the system’ (presumably referring to state institutions & structures such as laws, courts etc.). Good luck with that. Best to just ignore them where possible, comply minimally where not.
Requiring any of these things is not ‘authoritarian’ & certainly nothing to do with Mr Heller. It is recognition that individuals exist in & depend upon groups, the survival of which require participation. Cave dwellers knew this.
I simply do not understand your reference to Palestinians, Lebanese or perhaps other Semitic people. They are all human groups with the same rights that are well codified, if not well respected anywhere. If you care to explain your meaning on this point, I will try to respond to it.
Thank you
Oh, right. I forgot that it is not possible for any one nation state, or ‘a coalition of those so willing’, to coerce another. Silly me.
The perception of the nature of others’ understanding is in general constrained by the distortions in and limitations of the understanding of the perceiver.
The geometry of right-angled triangles is independent of the elegant formulation by Mr Pythagoras.
Cave dwellers didn’t codify it.
Bingo!
I doubt that many have studied queuing theory and even fewer made use of it. Your comparison with queuing theory makes no sense at all. It reminds me of a young Australian waitress in Perth who had a degree in French but could not speak French.
One of my full names is “Robboberlangbobin”. Erlang is also the name of a pretty impressive programming language, but I am a too old to have have had the opportunity to make use of it. In any sense–I have never WhatsApped either. But some aspects of queuing theory are contained within the Erlang language, of which many readers here–like me–may have had some passing acquaintance. Otherwise David Lee ANDREW’s reference to and pretty good explanation of queuing theory is well exemplified by some actual and some theoretical (i.e. unimplemented) forms of “proportional representation”. Does any of that count?
You cannot have ‘democracy’ in any meaningful sense under capitalism. Under capitalism, particularly its most malignant type, neo-liberalism, all real power is in the hands of the owner class who own the brainwashing apparatus, the economy, finance and politics.
The allegation that somehow postal ballots could be rigged would need some evidence.
How about the fact that in the 2017 general election, when the predicted Tory landslide turned into a hung parliament, nationally in the United Kingdom 18% of the population cast a postal vote, but in Northern Ireland only 1.8% of the population cast a postal vote.
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/who-we-are-and-what-we-do/elections-and-referendums/past-elections-and-referendums/uk-general-elections/results-and-turnout-2017-uk-general-election
Of course in order to rig an election you need to corrupt a lot of people. I note that Cook County (i.e. Chicago where Obama was from) were experts.
People in the North-East tell me that the local Blairite Labour Party officials in some constituencies refused to set up the normal exit polls. Too cold was the excuse.
Can you explain why ‘ ….in order to rig an election you need to corrupt a lot of people.’? To me that’s nonsense. All the intelligence services need to do is have access to council computers, printers and be able to gain access to the council offices.
But your point about local Blairite Labour Party officials in some constituencies refusing to set up the normal exit polls is very interesting.
The procedures from the moment a ballot goes in a ballot box are pretty tight.
Take a look at:
https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/
The area where fraud is possible is in postal voting where the ballot leaves the control of the election officers until it is mailed back.
If the postal vote was not rigged how could Dominic Raab know the results of the postal votes in Esher on December 3, 2019?
https://twitter.com/michaellcrick/status/1201816616532631552?lang=en
Exit polls are set up and run by private companies. Some officials of parties with the majority of members in some local governments might have tried to refuse permission to use local streets, etc., because they are exit polls, but that’s unlikely to survive legal challenge and, thence, legal precedent.
Ah the English language … I should have said the normal tellers at polling stations.
Of course the vote was not fixed. Who needs to fix the vote when you have the Chief Rabbi and the Archbishop of Canterbury, plus Sky, the BBC, the Daily Mail, The Sun etc. on your side, plus the Royal family under the threat of Epstein as a back up.
The next leader of the Labour party could be appointed by a poll of Daily Mail readers organized by the Integrity Initiative she/he would still lose if Langley wanted it.
The only hope for Britain is for the British elite to realize as Charles de Gaulle did in 1966 that Washington does not have their best interests at heart.
This is a comprehsive and worthwhile read.
https://joequinn.net/2014/09/28/scottish-referendum-rigged-mi5s-phony-postal-votes-and-ballot-boxes/
My thanks to the commenter much earlier who pointed the way by posting this.
http://www.thescottishstandard.scot/scottish-politics/the-postal-ballot-at-the-scottish-independence-referendum-fraud
Yes, but prior to the 2017 election the polls showed the Conservatives’ lead narrowing drastically:
The polls were also pointing to a narrowing of the Conservatives’ lead in the run-up to the election this time, even if far less drastically, and the result this time round confounded all the polls in a totally unprecedented manner.
We must have been reading different newspapers, because that is not how I remember it.
The Independent June 7, 2017:
https://www.independent.co.uk/News/uk/politics/election-poll-latest-tory-win-results-corbyn-theresa-may-a7777781.html
The Guardian June 7, 2017:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/07/tories-on-12-point-lead-over-labour-in-final-pre-election-poll
OK. This is a public apology from me to Catte for my previous post which incurred much wrath. My post was partly tongue in cheek. However it looks that suspicion of the results is becoming more widespread and to be honest the results of the elections stunned many people and especially me. Some of us were prepared to face defeat but never on this scale and the orchestration not only of the whole pre-election fiasco, including Johnson’s non show and escape to the fridge were the stuff of comedy and not serious politics. Moreover the orchestrated aftermath judgement by the Blairites and the usual suspects just added salt to the wounds.
My original point was that the manipulation was out in the open by the very obvious bias and therefore no hidden manipulation was needed, but now I am not so sure. After all Pompeo promised as much. But whether any of this will ever be exposed or even openly discussed is questionable.
When the BBC’s political editor said that people had seen the postal votes.. and the results looked good for the Tories..
She was not saying the Tories had a lead… Kuenssberg was giving credence to the fact the postal votes were genuine.
This is a critical distinction.
“The Electoral Commission is clear. No-one should see or attempt to see the postal ballots at this stage. This process is about verifying that the votes are genuine, not counting votes.”
https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2019/12/11/theres-something-extremely-dodgy-about-the-claim-laura-kuenssberg-made-on-live-tv/
Cobblers’ awls.
As a freelancer, I have been contacted a couple of times in the past few days with job offers from a person who used to be on the staff of a British agency that has been a major source of work for me in the past. This person is now working for a US agency in the same line of work, and was presumably poached from them to subsequently help poach the British agency’s clients and also use its data base of contacts to place work. Is this just a coincidence, or a sign that the floodgates have now been opened for US corporate interests to come in and dominate British markets following Johnson’s victory (as per the official results)?
Most instrumentaly by McDonnell, who has been damn near as good at knifing Corbyn in the back as Watson and others have been at shooting him in the face, for the entire period of his leadership. Jeremy’s main problem has his ideology of inclusivity.
That means that he didn’t start telling everyone that he finally saw remaining in the EU as being the best thing since Wonderloaf first sliced bread, only much better.
It is possible and has been possibled, particularly in local elections. However, the Electoral Commission are acutely aware that preventing it is their primary function and have no hesitation in reporting proven discrepancies affecting as few as four or five votes and ammending or strengthening their procedures accordingly.
Postal voters get two separate but related (numerically linked) documents to complete, one verifying their identity and the other a ballot paper. The two are physically separated at “opening sessions” where verification of voter eligibility is determined from the former. Candidates, their representatives, etc., are present and must be shown the decisions and allowed to contest them. (The same information is publicly available after the results have been declared.) The ballot papers corresponding to eligible voters’ verified identities are put into regular ballot boxes, sealed and held in secure locations until the count of all votes after close of polling, where they are treated alike as in-person ballot papers for which eligibility has been verified before entry into the voting booth.
If it works as described in your final paragraph, then how was Laura Kuenssberg able to pronounce on the way the postal vote was going before the count? This is the crux of the issue.
Indeed. I suspect Laura has not only leaked some potentially actionable information but also an insight into the vapid, mindless bint sides of her inner self.
Isn’t that ‘antisemitic’?
I forg
et what I was going to post there.
Any system created by humankind can be corrupted by humankind.
For anyone interested, here’s Public Service Broadcasting on the miners’ strike…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mScesON6Kx4
You no longer get anything near this kind of creativity.
Because we now live in a corporate nightmare world. Bland. Dead. No society. Everything for profit.
Step over the dead and dying on the pavements tomorrow, as you go to your zero hours crap job.
Yes, I am very, very angry.
But there is a better world out there…
Do you mean like this: https://youtu.be/mns9VeRguys ?
No , he’s commenting on reality, not some stupid film for which they were probably well paid, why is it so hard for people like you to grasp the seriousness of the situation?
I don’t know what you see in the video, but I see long tracking shots of a very well off jongleur with an entourage of sycophants and aides, walking along a Los Angeles boulevard, interspersed with sequences of a much poorer young man, flawed with the infatuations and carelessnesses of youth, being shunted thereby onto the wrong side of the tracks, ending with the musician’s coterie stepping around and over his body, for them just that of some beat up nonentity lying dead or unconscious on the pavement, without their even being really aware it’s there. Seems like a pretty straightforward summary of what Edgerton had in mind and Dylan approved, as well as a far more literal comment on modern socio-political excess than most popular artists, a few–mostly minority rappers–excepted, even come near.
Care to name a few other “people like me”?
If I had some boys with baseball bats to send around to your ladder of imperious presumption I’d not only instruct them to knock you off it and beat the self-righteous crap out of you, I’d suggest they take inspiration from the shape of their weapons and pre-censor in a gratituous cacophony of agonized caterwauls as well.
He’s certainly well-liked.
https://twitter.com/evertonfc2/status/1203420262055714817
Glorious Boris
Fantastic Trump
Now we need the icing on the cake, US/UK mega trade deal and f@#k the rest of the world into the next phase of capitalism just like Ronnie and Maggie did back in the eighties
We’re at the forefront of a new and amazing phase of the Anglo sphere, true leadership, true freedom and f#*k Putin and China!😉
There is plenty of evidence that Putin is the puppet master of the alt-right.
Putin takes advantage of the red-brown coalition of anti capitalists/anti war/anti globalist to create discord in the West, his RT International propaganda channels are at the forefront of creating division
Putins basically weak, and a new special relationship between UK and USA/ five eyes is his worst nightmare
Anyways the West can outlast Putin and will, because it understands the basic principles of freedom and thankfully so do the good citizens of old Blighty bless ’em
There is plenty of cirumstantial evidence that the current occupant of the White House is Putin’s patsy or is at the very least beholden to him, perhaps through blackmail, as the following example shows:
https://www.businessinsider.com/dumbfounded-diplomats-say-trumps-comments-about-embassy-cuts-make-him-putins-patsy-2017-8
Of course there is. Our dog bit the postman last week and he only did it because Putin put him up to it. Putin probably slashed the tyre on our car a few weeks ago as well.
That is you, Rachel, isn’t it.
As to Johnson, you only have to look at the huge contributions made to his election campaign by people with close ties to Putin to wonder where his true loyalties lie:
https://www.businessinsider.com/boris-johnsons-conservatives-receive-surge-in-cash-from-russians-2019-11
G”day; (yawning already 😉 ) Trump, Putin’s patsy ? and the rest . . . ?
C’mon tim, we have enough jokers in politics: this is business, tim, meaning corporate & military intelligence wholly harmonised with “Parallel Platforms, transcending any democracy, get the drift? in choice jurisdictions like Intel. inside Israel, today and Monsanto is now Bayer, get my drift? >>> do forgive me, but you seem somewhat incapable of comprehending the DS teamwork in networking & computing, presently &
Might i add, Gaslighting something, apparently … to a crispy crescendo.
(Yawn, wake me when you have something serious to add: meanwhile,
search Tareq Haddad, Newsweek & OPCW, fascinating accusations !!! 🙂
I believe Johnson is descended from doenmeh.
Dear me that is rubbish. Anyone who watches RT particularly RT America knows that it is pretty tame and mainstream, if far more broadminded than MSNBC, BBC, CNN, Fox etc. Oh, I see-you’re taking the piss. Sucked me in, well and good.
Only in your mind, Rachel-sorry. Tim.
the campaign against corbynism also drove vans around polling stations and put up posters illegally outside them.
Do they teach them at Eton to show their knuckles at every opportunity?
That’s approximately the 11,000th photo of de Piffle doing so that I’ve seen over the last couple of weeks.
Well, yes, but let’s not forget that the billionaire-owned right wing press that championed Boris Johnson and the Conservatives in the election also supported Brexit with great fervour, indeed having softened up the electorate with years of slanted reporting of EU matters including downright lies about EU legislation, so one section of the media does appear to be strongly in control of public opinion.
https://twitter.com/FlagBlyth/status/1206262596925566976
I thought some would be interested in reading this – forget its WUWT and about climate just concentrate on Monkton
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/12/15/what-the-boris-landslide-means-for-the-climate-debate/
This guy Monkton is completely mad like a box of frogs and then some
Funny how the “hard Left” media gave Jezza sh*t 24hours a day, 7 days a week 365 days a year since he was voted leader of Labour.
Hows this for “hard left” from Sky News Australia.
Sky News Australia blasts ‘simpleton’ Jeremy Corbyn and congratulates Brits for turning against ‘hard-left terrorist sympathiser’
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/sky-news-australia-general-election-jeremy-corbyn-conservative-party-victory-a4312736.html
Monkton is soooooo right wing he makes Hitler look like Castro.
The comments are interesting also as most suckle poison from the teat of Breitbart.
WYSIWYG
Thyrotoxicosis.
Always good for a cheap jibe.
To be able to understand Labour’s ‘historic loss’ we need to place it in a global context, it is the inexorable rise of neoliberalism. Any gains that have been painstakingly made are being eroded. Socialism and social democracy is on the retreat everywhere. But we must not hide from the fact that we all need to hone in our lines of argument and develop tactics that bypass the traps set for us.
We were all lulled by the fact that Corbyn achieved the supposedly unachievable and got a respectable result in 2017. It showed that this can be done and it incidentally proves to those that now have gone back and accused Corbyn of being the main problem with the loss of the election. The loss of the election was caused by lies of the Tories and media bias but also by the fifth columnists within Labour and by insufficient attention to how to deal with the Brexit dilemma.
Our worst enemies is complacency, and also in living in our own echo chamber.
Your worst enemy is believing that ‘democracy’ in any true form, can exist under capitalism. What you have is neo-feudalism, mass delusion and five-yearly bunraku puppet plays called ‘elections’.
As the greatest election fix in modern western history gets it’s feet under the table the cover stories are flooding out.
Like all good lies they are mostly true! It is just further gaslighting.
The explanations of the Durham/Sedgfield vote volte face is a doozy – ‘it was down to Corbyn being a sissy because in the north they were proud to be canon fodder when they weren’t being slaves down a deadly dark hole!’ and such variants.
When discussing this weeks ago with friends and strangers, as traditional Labour voters were holding onto the AS lies about JC we settled on why?
I give you the red-wally’s Stockholm Syndrome.
——————
The victim sees the abuser as the “good guy” and those trying to win his/her release as the “bad guys”, as this is the way the abuser sees things.
The victim resents outsiders’ attempts to free him/her from the abuser.
Over a period of months or years, the victim’s entire sense of self may come to be experienced through the eyes of the abuser.
The victim denies the abuser’s violence against him/her and focuses on his positive side.
The victim may have extreme difficulty leaving the abuser, if the opportunity arises, because s/he no longer sees a reason to do so.
————–
Winning the war while losing battles is what the implaccable global robber barons and their establishment did – even as they used a ‘strategic weapon’ postal vote rigging – to guarantee it illegally.
The cover stories will continue and be repeated by the queen and the monarchy saved. She, her heirs and the aristos who long ago stole Scotlands wealth and land will NOT allow it to be returned to the Scottish people – as they didn’t before.
To you who will attempt that independence, I say learn the lessons of the evermore all powerful masters and their weapons. The Irish got freedom, India and other British Empire conquests did … it will come down to extreme localism. Know yoyr neighbours and friends and be agreed. Work with such natural cells across the voting population. Guard against agitators and waverers who take the silver and status, to turn their coats.
That will ensure that you know the vote is clear. And also allow solidarity when the thugs are sent in to break heads! As in Catalonia.
———-
The various talking heads on this site are great and regrouping from the mental anguish within hours – to you all – thankyou.
To Off-G – thanks and for a site that claimed just some days ago there was nothing much to bother about in this election that required regular articles -glad that you changed your mind.
To Catte – did you see my first post on this article and the question i put to you there? Will you consider a reply?
Dungroanin, the election was a total fix. Hard evidence about this has started coming out today. I’m not going to say anything further about it all until I’ve had time to evaluate the evidence.
In the meantime, here in France we’re now into the 12th day of a massive general strike. I didn’t think this general strike would last more that a week – because people have to put bread on the table – but amazingly, almost two weeks later, it’s still holding strong; and tomorrow, Tuesday, the doctors are going on strike (does this sound familiar?).
We live in crazy times.
But I’m guessing you won’t be seeing it on the BBC. Or indeed anywhere other than the ‘crazy fringe cospiracy sites’.
Great!
Now I understand the references to Stockholm Syndrome. In a way it’s all down to a desperate desire to join with the bully for the simple reason that no-one seems able to defeat him. No-one wants to be on the losing side. And since that infestation of parasites has now penetrated all the way to the top and no-one can see any way out, it’s too much of a strain to actually hold on to the truth and take up a princiled position. So much easier to fit in to the nice little Hollywood script that has clearly been laid down. Grab the popcorn and enjoy the show. Forget the red pill and zone out.
I reckon Australia beats you in the fixed election stakes. We had a vicious, denialist, hard Right regime, led by a bunyip Bolsonaro, Morrison, who is plainly looking forward to the End Times, returned to power, after six years of losing opinion polls, under three leaders, and bitter infighting, supposedly ‘electoral poison’. After losing every poll during the campaign period. After several leading lights in the regime resigning, not being prepared for a lengthy stay in opposition. After losing the exit polls 52% to 48%. Yet the one and only poll they won, 51.5% to 48.5%, was the election. Talk about ‘God’s Will’. And this astonishing chain of events is questioned by no-one.
You lost because you lost your own heartlands in Scotland, many years ago, and now in the North, the areas where any Tory message was most likely to be rejected, the WORKING CLASS areas that suffered most from the immigrationist ANTI-WORKING-CLASS policies of a Labour Party of TRAITORS, the areas where THE WORKERS voted Brexit. You did not listen because you are immigrationist endophobic bigots, Nazis disguised as ‘Reds’. Corbyn leadership and policies, are not very different from those of New Labour (the real culprits of the defeat), and they only follow in their footsteps. Even the motto, ‘For the Many not the Few’ is the one that Tony Blair used. Corbyn is just a slimy, gushy and wet-hand version of Blair and the Milliband Brothers, the logical consequence of Blair and his immigrationist, ethnic, LGBT and Feminazi policies. You wanted to destroy the Working Class and the Working Class has, deservedly, knifed you…!!!
If that were true they might have just won.
espartaco, I’m not sure what planet you are on. The Battle for Orgreave was one of the most vicious episodes of the 1980s miner’s strike.
We are now told that the north of England seat, in which Orgreave resides, has now gone totally Tory.
Do you really believe such nonsense?
Likewise with Blyth Valley, also in the north of England, which has the highest poverty rates in the country, also went Tory.
Again, do you really believe such nonsense?
It goes on and on.
I wouldn’t even bother RG. Espie has a totally scattershot approach which could go here there and everywhere. I have the feeling that his (I assume it’s a ‘he’, if not a piece of malfunctioning software) keyboard must be permanently floating in spittle. Perhaps maniacal chuckles echo around his bedroom at odd hours?
Supposedly in the UK, there are publicly owned, publicly paid for, institutions having a duty to investigate fraud…
“ I’m from Newcastle, living in Stockton with family all over County Durham and North Yorkshire.
We have a bloody Conservative MP now in my constituency. Margin of about 5,000 votes. But I literally don’t know anyone who voted Tory on account of Brexit. Not one soul. The Labour tradition up in the NE is deep and solid. The idea whole communities would vote for the fucking Tories for any reason ever is laughable to most of us here.”
Someone in the boozer last night said he thought the election result had been nobbled. Some people laughed.But a lot didn’t. I agree with him. “
They didn’t need to vote Tory to end up with a Tory majority of that size. They just needed to stay at home, along with 4,990-odd mates.
I haven’t looked at them all, of course, but in those “Labour heartland” results I have looked at, the Labour vote went down by about as much as the Tory majority, plus the change in votes for LibDem & Green, plus the Brexit Party votes, plus a few thousand. And usually, the turnout was down.
Not that many former Labour voters “lent” their vote to Johnson in such areas, I would suggest. And possibly, they won’t bother voting for anyone at all, any time soon.
It’s so amusing seeing people over and over using the published voting stats as ‘proof’ the result is kosher.
Do you think they’d be stupid enough to fake the result and then go ahead and publish the realstats? Of course not. If the election was rigged (and I think that’s a real possibility for the first time in my life) then the stats are obviously faked to fit the rigged result.
Sheesh, just do a bit of basic thinking.
It was nobbled. I and others will show that over the coming days; for those who want to listen.
Yes. Agree, 1,000%. Rigged. Fiddled. Defrauded. Stolen. Why? Because “Big Brother” can. Bring on more empty stooges.
Thank you Catte for helping to place Off Guardian squarely as a conspiracy theory site. This is exactly the sort of thing that the MSM love because most of what you say is not only difficult to prove but involves a huge number of people in a conspiracy. I recommend the first part of Rhys Jagger’s post below in his analysis of why it would be near impossible to rig the vote, although I do not agree with the rest of his post.
Now the only real proven fact we have in your post is what Laura Kuensberg did, the rest is pure speculation in the realm of ‘unknown unknowns’. [there is no speculation in this article, merely the observation of a double standard in generally acknowledged possibilities -ed]
The problem with this analysis is that it produces a sense of smug complacency, one of the major factors why we lost this election. We can blame everybody else but stop looking at our own weaknesses. Of course it is true that there was a conspiracy against Corbyn, but that was over the last 3 or 4 years and was open. We do not need to search elsewhere for hidden conspiracies when the BBC and the media including the Guardian, which suddenly turned in favour of Corbyn after the realisation that they will loose any pretences at being progressive if they supported Johnson, constantly demonised Corbyn. The picture was set in stone and the election was called on purpose now because they have realised that the population had now become indoctrinated to saturation point. All of this should not stop us from soul searching and looking at the shortcomings within Labour.
1. The labour leadership did not deal effectively with the fifth columnists and I do not need to cite instances as readers of this blog will know.
2. Yes of course we know that the antisemitism smear was just that, but labour did not face it squarely and deal with it. It should not have been avoided and waiting for the chief rabbi to make it into an election issue, it should have been highlighted at the outset as a positive way by which labour has had a chance to reinforce its antiracial credentials. I would also make the very important point, actually made by Lady Warsi, that there is no hierarchy in racism and the Tories were actually much more racist than any other party.
3. Foreign interference: why have Labour not pointed out three very clearly documented episodes of foreign interference in the internal politics of UK? Donald Trump very clearly endorsed Johnson and Farage. In fact he seems to have given away the fact that there was collusion between the two.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/jun/01/trump-backs-boris-johnson-tory-leadership-calls-duchess-sussex-nasty
And then Pompeo promised push back if Corbyn won or even thought of winning
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/jun/09/mike-pompeo-leaked-recording-corbyn-labour-jewish-leaders
As for Israel, this is also well documented:
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/yes-course-israel-interfering-british-politics
and off course the Al Jazeera series about the lobby.
4. Labour instead wanted to play on a sort of clean campaign but why? How can you do that even without exposing the filth on the other side.
5. The bias of the media initially was met by Corbyn’s avoidance of the media but this meant that he was effectively deplatformed. I am surprised that someone like Seamus Milne who knows how the press works, had a very low profile in all of this behind the scenes.
6. Labour as a party played the conservative game of making this into a sort of presidential style election Corbyn vs Johnson, something the lying Johnson relished because he is used to telling in-your-face lies. Why did Labour not counteract this by increased media exposure to other very good figures in the party?
7. There is no question that Brexit was badly handled. I think this was due to the belief that Swinson posed a great threat to the leave vote but she was so not credible she even lost her seat. This perhaps should have been sussed out and dealt with more effectively. What Labour did not consider is that even remainers were getting fed up with the uncertainty. A clearer message would have been to concede that Brexit will happen but that it is best for it to happen under labour. I owe an apology to Chris Rogers who argued for this in an earlier pre-election blog.
Editor: We thank this contributor for offering a perfect example of the article’s central point, which is NOT, of course, that this election was definitely or even probably rigged, but that the mainstream considers election-rigging to be plausible, even probable, in ‘other’, non-NATO or ‘enemy’ nations, without the need for any solid evidence, but dismisses as ‘conspiratorial’ any suggestion the same might be true of ‘civilised’ nations such as the UK, even in circumstances that appear to demand at least the question be asked. We note this contributor doesn’t even attempt to deny the double standard, and presumably considers it appropriate. The colonialist and racist overtones need no further development -ed
Ha! Of course there is rigging and of course there are double standards but forgive me for not saying so at the outset and for then being accused of colonialism and racism. That takes the biscuit.
The gist of my message is that there is no need for rigging in a clandestine way, it is all out there in full view all the interference. The problem is that we did not know how to play this game and we did not expose these things so reverting to rigging as a possibility when there is so much else can serve as a distraction and prevent future corrective action.
In a previous post, OG suggested that the establishment is now so relaxed about Corbyn that they may let him get in.
How do you know there was “no need for rigging in a clandestine way”? If Labour had a majority, and going by the utter shamelessness of the anti-Corbyn manoeuvring, then rigging would only have been logical.
Editor – your response should better have been a reply to that poster, rather then addendum?
I’d add to the list Katya Adler being disappeared on the 9th when she tweeted her explosive response to the ‘get brexit done’ lie.
I too have a sense of unease about this unexpected landslide. The polls were predicting a smaller majority and were showing Labour’s support increasing closer to the election. The polls are not usually this far out. The exit polls did predict the actual result quite accurately, though. Something doesn’t feel quite right, but in the absence of any hard evidence, the claim that the poll was rigged remains within conspiracy theory territory.
If there indeed was electoral fraud, this would offend the proud little Englander deep within me who thinks this could never happen in the “mother of all democracies”. In terms of bourgeois morality this would be an outrage. In Marxian terms, however, it would indicate that the ruling class’s hegemony has become a little less secure. Orthodox Marxism considers the kind of parliamentary system we have in the UK to be “bourgeois democracy” and that there is no parliamentary road to socialism – the system simply exists to serve the ruling class’s interests. Within this paradigm, a genuine socialist like Corbyn cannot be elected on the kind of manifesto Labour was championing. Even had he been elected, some kind of crisis would have been concocted to bring about his downfall. Under normal circumstances, the main tool a ruling class uses to further its hegemony is ideology, and the way this works under bourgeois democracy is that the media with the ideology it manufactures persuades the masses to elect governments that then act in the interests of their masters. If the ruling class has to engage in electoral fraud to achieve this end, this points to a breakdown of the ideological mechanisms underpinning its rule which then need to be supplemented using other tools – in this case the illegal act of vote rigging – which is a sign of weakness not strength.
I think the uneasy feeling that something was wrong about the election result is producing a cocktail of all three of the above thoughts.
It’s definitely the socialism aspect but there’s also another. The Establishment/deep state have been engaging in massive illegality including organising VAT carousel fraud. I suspect they may actually run/control organised crime in the UK. Although not involving the PM he would have some knowledge of such activities and be expected to turn a blind eye. Someone like Corbyn would not.
” The exit polls did predict the actual result quite accurately, though”
If the election was rigged, the BBC and Sky who collated the exit polls would likely have been in on the act.
Not that accurately. It (the exit poll) overstated Tory gains, SNP gains, and Labour losses. It did correctly predict a tragic loss by Labour, however.
I agree with your misgivings regarding the pre-election polls – the difference between those and the final result. And the fact that Labour seemed to be closing in on the Tories.
However, I think elections are carried out by, on the whole, honourable, unglamourous, by no means overpaid, local government employees, and if large scale fraud was going on, a lot of people would have to be bribed, and it would be hard to cover it up.
If there is any fraud going on, it’s much more likely to be by the opinion-polling companies.
(Plus some postal vote fraud, involving a small number of dodgy party agents. Note that the voter-id requirements at polling stations being trialled, would not help combat postal voter fraud).
It’s also worth remembering that the relatively good results for Corbyn in 2017 also came as something of a surprise.
Private company administers postal votes. Not sure if the local council still runs the standard ballot. Probably shouldn’t just take it as a given in this day and age.
Well, let us delineate the ways you can in theory rig elections.
1. Rig the electoral register – by ensuring that ‘undesirables’ are not registered (undesirables do not vote the way you want them to vote).
2. Carry out postal vote fraud through securing postal votes for a group who will all vote the way you want them to vote.
3. Identity theft leading to voting using someone else’s ID in a way they would not have voted themselves, allied to preventing people casting their votes on the day.
4. Brainwash the voting public using state sponsored bias in media reporting.
5. Commit electoral crimes by major overspending in constituencies.
6. Stuff postal vote ballot paper boxes with predetermined votes.
7. Switch ballot boxes for prestuffed false boxes between polling stations and counting centres.
8. Miraculously call 100 ballot papers containing 80 enemy votes and 20 desired votes as 100 desired votes.
9. Miraculously mislay piles of enemy votes at the count.
10. Bung international observers wads of cash to ensure they overlook gross breaches of electoral probity.
Now some of these are pretty crude and can be checked pretty easily, so I think criminal malfeasance during actual counting processes are very unlikely unless every single candidate is in on the fraud. That would require payoffs of all concerned and lifelong threats to keep their silence. It seems extremely far fetched.
Switching ballot boxes also seems tricky, as you need to know how much to alter boxes by without arousing suspicion. You also need duplicate ballot boxes, forged ballot papers. But the way to check on it is to get 100 voters to check their ballot papers remain true: electoral procedures identify your ballot paper number as you receive it and it is noted. That is how MI5 can blackmail you. So it can also be used to check voting was fair at the count….
We know postal vote fraud has occurred in the past as Labour committed it in Tower Hamlets nd Birmingham. So no reason to suppose that Conservatives could not do it too. Evidence?
We know that Hector Bellerin, a Spanish footballer with over a million Twitter followers, urged them all to Fuck Boris. Was he even entitled to vote? How many of those followers were entitled to vote I do not know, but a Spaniard was certainly interfering in the UK General Election. Any other tweeters guiding their followers?
My view is that the London bubble, who live utterly separate lives from those in the regions, are completely out of touch as to why people might vote the way they did. The people in the regions do not in any way benefit from EUs Freedom of Movement. No amount of media insults will change that fact.
My view is that a lot of people saw zero hope from status quo and a five percent chance of change by voting for Brexit. So they voted for Brexit.
They were then called ignorant racists by the London media and London Labour, putting their backs up even more. They saw a Parliament stymie Brexit for three years, the Labour Party explicitly say they wanted to reverse Brexit and so they voted accordingly.
By all means investigate potential fraud. Investigate the media coordination of message, for it was crystal clear that that was coordinated, prepared in advance and uniform across channels.
But be in no doubt that a decade ago, ordinary voters told me that uncontrolled immigration was top of their worry list and that has neither changed nor was any action taken.
When voters are not listened to for a decade or more, they will take extreme action.
They are on the path toward civil disobedience if this time their voices are ignored. They have used democracy in the limited way they can, but sooner or later they will conclude that it does not serve their purposes.
Then all bets are off, including extreme violence against the Chief Rabbi, the Archbishop of Canterbury and leading UK Muslim clerics….
So in other words the UK voting public is thick, dumb and blind. Simple explanation .
The most likely place to fix the ballot is within the private company that counts the postal votes.
Corbyn’s weakness was always the elephant in the room but was fully revealed when he had to step up to plate and fight. No leader can survive without being able to fight his enemies and no country should be led by such a person. Saddly he squandered the enormous opportunity handed to him in the last election: in hindsight, that opportunity was handed to him by an electorate steeped in wishful thinking. Should he apologise to his supporters, probably not, they backed the wrong horse but the limp was visible from day one.
Mate, fuck off with the ‘Corbyn didn’t fight’ bullshit.
Unfortunately, that’s true. He should have just gone into attack mode, like Trump.
Except that Trump had Israel on his side.
Corbyn did not fight where it mattered-against the vilest campaign of entirely mendacious slander ever mounted in the UK, the ‘antisemitism’ slur. It was easy enough to do. Declare his history of very good relations with Jews, his numerous Jewish friends, his opposition to all racism and his support for the Palestinians in their unending suffering under the religious fascist rule of the Zionists. And then sue every lying, racist, bullying thug who traduced him. By surrendering, by stabbing Livingstone, Williamson et al in the back, he got, as you could have bet your life on, no succour from the hate-crazed Zionist thugs. What’s more, he has helped make phony accusations of ‘antisemitism’ the new tactic of choice for Rightists everywhere, thereby sabotaging BDS and the Palestinians, and has ensured that many will become Jew-haters because some lying Jews have ended the best hope for an end to forty years of neo-liberal Hell. Most will, hopefully, understand that it was just the evil and corrupt Jewish elites who were responsible, but others may blame all Jews, particularly as the MSM sewer totally suppressed all those Jews who supported Corbyn. But that is OK by the Zionists-they live for, by and through hatred, and the more Judeophobia the better for them.
NHS in for a rough ride.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JpseLa9_txw
To the slaughterhouse.
Sorry, have to edit my last post. I meant to say the references to possible voting irregularities do NOT necessarily constitute evidence of widespread fraud.
So Dominic Raab made similar but milder remarks about postal vote tallies to those made by Kuenssberg the previous week. In that particular case, the Returning Officer saw fit to request clarification as to Raab’s meaning and in response, he told them his comments about a strong Tory performance in postal vote tallies had been based purely on info gleaned from conventional doorstep canvassing techniques. The Returning Officer subsequently issued a press statement confirming that it accepted Raab’s explanation and his remarks about a strong Tory postal vote showing were in no way related to prior knowledge of the ballot papers at any point before polling day.
Well maybe that’s a perfectly serviceable explanation but a week later, the Electoral Commission showed very little curiosity about Kuenssberg’s more detailed and direct references to prior knowledge of postal ballot content. As far as I know, their response has been restricted to evading any direct responsibility to investigate by suggesting any suspicions be referred directly to the police and suggesting it was more a matter for Ofcom, anyway, and the EC had no jurisdiction to adjudicate on broadcasting matters. Bit of a fudge to say the least.
Like the original poster said, I agree that these irregularities constitute evidence of widespread electoral fraud but I am deeply suspicious about the EC’s apparent lack of interest in what Kuenssberg actually said. Her comments implied that prior knowledge of postal vote tallies was a nationwide phenomenon and was coming from “both sides”. Surely this should have triggered further direct investigation.
Take a look at the statement issued by the Returning Officer (see below) relating to the comments Raab raised, especially the second paragraph. If the required procedure described therein is the minimum expectation of the regulator, why does it have so few concerns when presented with information suggesting wholesale breach of those same regulations? Why request clarification from Raab but not from Kuenssberg? Why take an interest in one but not the other? Does not compute.
https://www.elmbridge.gov.uk/news/statement-for-esher-and-walton-constituency/
Statement from the Acting Returning Officer for the Esher and Walton constituency
There has been growing speculation on social media that brief remarks made by Dominic Raab in an interview with Michael Crick yesterday imply knowledge of the postal vote returns in the Esher and Walton constituency. I have clarified with Mr Raab’s Agent that Mr Raab was referring to his Party’s own canvas responses derived from conversations on the door step.
This has nothing whatsoever to do with the official election process. Postal votes are not separated by candidate and counted until after the close of poll on 12 December so it is impossible for anyone to know the result until after that time.
Robert Moran, Acting Returning Officer
Date published: 4 December 2019
I for one don’t buy Raab’s explanation. First, is he saying that at doorstep canvassing they enquire as to who people are likely to vote for AND ask them whether they will vote in person or will be using a postal vote? Why make the distinction? And, second, even if they do this, what would be the purpose of subsequently making a statement referring only to what they ‘gleaned’ regarding postal voters’ inclinations? Why wouldn’t he just refer to the overall picture they were getting from doorstep canvassing?
To question Kuenssberg would be unforgivably ‘antisemitic’.
The last time we had a “surprise” result like this was in 1970, when Ted Heath came from behind in the last week of polling and pipped Harold Wilson at the post. Heath’s government went on to take us into the EEC, so yeah, hmmm (strokes chin).
This time around the government is allegedly going to take us out of the EU.
We’ll see if it is anything more than an over-hyped Brexit In Name Only, either way a cynical mind might think that dark forces are putting their feet on the scales.
No, wait, there was one other “surprise” election result in my lifetime – the 1992 result.
Where John Major won an unexpected victory after 11 years of Thatcherite misery and with large parts of his own party refusing to campaign for him. It was ascribed to mysterious “quiet” Tories who did not register in the polls but magically turned out to vote on the big day. Of course that government was responsible for signing us up to the Maastricht Treaty which converted the EEC into the EU with all of it’s neo-liberal and later neo-con horrors.
I think a repeating motif may be beginning to emerge here.
I have no idea what dirty deal round the back may be coming down the pile with BoJo, but for sure we will be stuck with him for another five years and his deal indefinitely…
Noises coming from the Brussels lizards are seemingly OK with the result, which can only be bad for us humans.
As for the call to stop paying the licence fee on this board (nearly 2 years for me).
Well that should be a NO BRAINER for anyone with a monthly payment or a renewal – the PM promised to do it just a few days ago! And many obviously wanted that more than free broadband and changed their vote accordingly- especially the redwall.
Just do it and repost all demands to No10.
Lol.
Being way down here (Australia) and being a NZ citizen, I havn’t greatly followed the ins and outs of the UK elections, however, was quite shocked to see in West Bromwich East someone as well known as George Galloway got just 489 votes, below that of even the Lib Dems and the Greens.
I held out a very slim chance that if Labour was elected, Julian Assange may have been released from Belmarsh. Maybe that was clutching at straws?
He’ll now be extradited for certain.
Given the full blown adherence to Austerity and slash and burn, the grotesque levels of inequality and poverty and the enrichment of a few at the expense of the many will only worsen. That’s the logical outcome of Neoliberalism. That’s what the outcome will be everywhere.
In a few words, in fact just one. Weird
How do you mean… ‘weird’?
That inequality and poverty will continue increasing under neoliberal economic policies, and the majority of us will continue being ground into the dirt, or that Julian Assange will end up in the U.S for certain to face a Stalinesque show trial, or the observation about George Galloway.
The obeservation about GG.
Okay, fair do Butties. I said it coz I have quite a lot of respect for Galloway, mainly round his anti war, and anti imperialist stance.
Admittedly, I don’t know much about his recent activities.
As I keep posting on here I was a very avid supporter of Galloway until he comes out with ‘her majesty’ ‘the holy father’ but more importantly his wanting for an international law forbidding anyone to have a revisionist review on the holocaust, what happened to free speech, it’s another issue where people have to whisper their thoughts about it,why? why was that war chosen to have special status over all the other wars we CAN debate?
Geoff… Thanks for enlightening me about Galloway. I didn’t know that. As I said, I don’t know about what he’s been up to recently.
Sometimes there seems to be so much going on, you miss other things that are happening also.
Yes it’s a pity I really liked him, but I got fed up with ‘her majesty shite, it made me think differently about him. why would you regard another person as ‘her majesty’ would he curtsy in front of her @ yes I think he would
I used to listen to his radio programme (via the recordings on Youtube, preferably the ones with the jingles and the crap edited out). Often very interesting and entertaining, especially when he was calling out the likes of Owen Smith, and the other chicken-coup-ers. I also liked the way he would have people on as guests with opposite viewpoints, and let them speak uninterrupted.
But he does/did have some odd quirks, like you mention, and some odd history, like his weird performances on “Celebrity Big Brother” (I think it was), and his embarrassing trip to (apparently) kiss-arse Sadam Hussein. It’s a shame, because he could have been an asset to the Labour party, but all in all, just has too much baggage, and probably too much ego.
‘Her Majesty’s X’ is in common usage in the UK, as in ‘Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs’ (HMRC), ‘Her Majesty’s Prison Service’ (HMPS), ‘Her Majesty’s Government’ (HMG) and even just “‘Her Majesty’ (the Queen). It’s on signs and stationery, etc., everywhere, along with ‘Royal’ this and ‘Royal’ that (e.g. Royal Mail). Nothing to get snotty about. Similarly ‘Holy Father’ is a synonym for the Pope, head of the Holy See, used by Roman Catholics, Protestants and atheists everywhere simply as an honorific title. And as Galloway has said, his personal religious views are none of anyone else’s business anyway. Or are you interested in setting up a coercive pseudo-theocracy, united in the name of ‘freedom of speech’ against the expression of anything it believes to be ‘unscientific’?
As for his advocacy that Holocaust denial (denial of the historical veracity of the Jewish “Shoah”) should be a criminal offence in the UK as it aready is in most of Europe: Abba Eben, a senior Israeli politician and diplomat from the 1960s to the 1980s, noted that there’s “no business like Shoah business”. Perhaps George has just been over-influenced by the strongarm PR division of the militant brownshirt crypto-Nazis behind the Jewish Holocaust industry?
Well you’re entitled to you view as regards to his religion, I couldn’t give a shit about that either being as I’m an atheist, I would neither bow , or refer to another ‘human being’ with hose adjectives .
Fraud?
p.s. “They” (the PTB) want you (60% of the electorate) to think XYZ failed to get elected because of any propaganda-ised, binary & divisive bullshit.
As the facilitators and the apathetic always say, ‘‘twas ever thus”.
In fact, a crime against humankind (committed by “elite” war crims) that Assange is in Belmarsh.
Well and good. The only hope for human survival is for the genocidal parasites to be removed from power, once and for all, and voting will never do it. They keep on pushing the plebs into the shit, because that is what they were born and bred to do.
Was taking a few days off from commenting…. But you prompted me!
As I said elsewhere, havn’t voted for over 20 years.
By voting, you’re giving away your power, and, giving your stamp of approval to the whole fecken system: to Neoliberalism in all its depraved, cruel, dog eat dog glory.
I absolutely believe, real, systemic change cannot come about thru voting.
Number one example: Syriza.
And then there’s always the Army and Police, if, by some miracle, a genuinely radical political party somehow was elected.
Read another excellent article today on The Art Of Annihilation blogspot (Cory Morningstar).
Yes, I agree with you, it’s wrong to trust anybody 100%, but Morningstar is one of my ‘go too sources’ for what the Billionaire parasites have planned, and the amount of detail CM goes into is quite jaw dropping.
Anything to make more billions. For them. And only them…. Psychopaths.
I know it’s bad for my health but …oh I just can’t stop myself. Had another Groan trip. Here’s one from that good time gal Jess Phillips:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/14/working-class-voters-didnt-trust-labour-jess-phillips
I only supply the link to see if anyone can see any actual content in this. I suppose it must be a real cushy number to get paid for pitching in a lot of foaming waffle that feels purposeful but remains totally non-commital. That and those nice cheques rolling in from that Hyslop and Merton quiz fluff.
George, You remind me of a former housemate who would always read Miranda Devine when she was still with the SMH and go apoplectic. I’d be like, “Why do you read her?”
I notice the Observer is touting Phillips as a potential Labour leader. Such a thought just beggars belief – big time!
You have to understand that it’s all showbiz. Why did the Tories prefer Boris to Jeremy Hunt? Because Hunt looked and sounded like the oily little tyke everyone wanted to kick. Whereas Boris was the cutesie country womble from a Two Ronnies sketch. When Boris appeared on his test outing as host for Hignfy, all he had to do was to be incompetent i.e. all he had to do was turn up. Oh how we all laughed.
As for Jess – well, she’s the ballsy fake prole tomboy – like a WOKE verson of Thatcha. I doubt anyone is “buying this” (to use one of the Americanisms we’ll all be spouting as we become the 51st state) but it’s all part of “the movie”.
We (at least my children’s generation) became Americanised years ago. I blame “Friends”. Or possibly South Park or The Simpsons. Still, we’ll always have “Family Guy”.
And the Guardian has been (over)-using Americanisms for donkeys years. And their Weekend colour comic often has features about American subjects, and of course the regular columns by Hadley Freeman and Tim Dowland. At least the Graun’s American obsession gave us “Doonesbury”. (Pity it’s no longer funny).
And decades ago, I remember David Dimblebey boasting that he felt more at home in New York than in Manchester.
Hignfy is the bbc hothouse for growing the depfeffle genus commonly known as B***s on the street gangs of marauding marauding wanabee bourgeoisie gangs who run citylines of oldies bringing it to the vulnerable metropolitan ghettos.
This latest version is expected to be as addictive and can be deadly if pricked by its sharp thorn anywhere near the heart. Don’t know what the street name will be for it but it has two current codewords i heard ‘stellar’ & ‘jessa’.
FUCK LABOUR… AND THEIR ‘NEW LEFTIST LABOUR’ CORBYNITE SHIT…!!!
WE TOLD YOU SO…!!!
This astounding and wonderful Tory victory, not for being expected, is less marvellous, beautiful and Earth shattering. Finally, the TREACHEROUS AND BOURGEOIS Labour Party has been BROKEN by its own supporters, the workers of Britain… IN THE NORTH EAST, of all places…!!! The message cannot be clearer, this FAKE socialists have been utterly rejected by those who voted for them for generations. We have been warning about this, the brutal immigrationist policies of a FAKE Labour Party, for years now… TODAY we can say with a HAPPY SMILE… WE TOLD YOU SO MOTHERFCK…. TRAITORS… LONG LIVE BORIS JOHNSON AND HIS RADICAL TORIES…!!!
So you come clean at last!
We are not dirty communists… WE ALWAYS HAVE BEEN CLEAN COMMUNISTS… and wwe said:
… WE TOLD YOU SO MOTHERFCK…. TRAITORS… LONG LIVE BORIS JOHNSON AND HIS RADICAL TORIES…!!!
When I said “come clean” I meant as in “reveal yourself”. I really think you should calm down. Take some deep breaths. Have a nice cup of tea.
No sense of humor uh George… you don’t know the joke about commies… drop the vodka…
Still – it’s nice to see you’ve calmed down enough to STOP SHOUTING!
Your stiff upper lip will not make your catastrophic defeat less painful…
WE TOLD YOU SO MOTHERFCK…. TRAITORS… LONG LIVE BORIS JOHNSON AND HIS RADICAL TORIES…!!!
No more caps lock rants please. You seem deranged and it doesn’t help your argument.
We are your DOCTORS… trying to take out of the ward…
I just can’t understand the extreme regional thickness of the people of the North East, being so obsessively in favour of Brexit. Their combined IQ must be less than 100. Do they not realise that Brexit means continuing and persistent economic decline, not to mention the break-up of the Union (which, to be fair, they probably don’t care about).
NOW they have shown that they have not only a BRAIN, but GUTS too…!!! Well done the North East…!!!
I wonder what they’ll make of it when Nissan ups sticks and sets up shop in France?
It’s that a threat?… cause it did not work. You sound like that bully capitalists that threaten the poor little workers with punishment if they don’t comply… the Master of the Glen…
Not a threat, a prediction.
They’ll whinge and blame Corbyn, the Greens, Greta Thunberg, immigrants, ‘do-gooders’, or whoever their Tory MSM Thought Controllers tell them to.
Best not to blame North Easterners because it’s highly likely the vote was rigged
Alan,
By all means comment, but when you slander those who actually felt it important that their vote counted, that their opinion mattered and then were told to fuck off by the very people asking them for their opinion, its expected you get blow back, which is what has happened.
Now, may i enquire, do you have a belief in democracy and upholding democratic outcomes, do you believe that Russian interference actually resulted in the Brexit vote itself, and do you believe that the working class is so fucking pig ignorant that it should never be allowed to vote.
In summation, are you a Blairite by any chance as they way you communicate shows an utter contempt for those poor sods slagged off by Remainiacs for so long to just fuck off.
As for economic decline, strange, but the UK is one of the top 10 wealthy nations globally, much of said wealth now from the FIRE Economy, which means its extractive and put to no real purpose, whilst the break-up of the Union is up to the constituent parts itself – as i support Irish reunification, i don’t weep for Northern Ireland, whilst the Scots have every right o be free of Westminster, its not as if they held an actual Referedum on it prior to the signing of the Act of Union is it.
And as for wales, well, here’s a small country who’s political establishment are incapable of recognising it elected to Leave the EU, which sometimes has aspirations itself to Independence, an Independence it will never gain due to the fact nearly 800K English live within our lands, but the fantasists persist none the less.
Now, as the EU, via the Treaty named after Lisbon is very much a neoliberal organisation, one that puts monetary union above the welfare of its own citizens, please explain why I must support such an Institution that does not benefit the average Joe in most member States?
Steady in there bonny lad. How do you know anyone from the NE is obsessively in favour of Brexit?
Because your telly told you.
And you believe it just like any unenlightened thicko who hasn’t caught on yet that the media lies to him?
Maybe you need to rethink.
After all if they’re going to rig a vote they need a cover story to make it plausible.
I’m from Newcastle, living in Stockton with family all over County Durham and North Yorkshire.
We have a bloody Conservative MP now in my constituency. Margin of about 5,000 votes. But I literally don’t know anyone who voted Tory on account of Brexit. Not one soul. The Labour tradition up in the NE is deep and solid. The idea whole communities would vote for the fucking Tories for any reason ever is laughable to most of us here.
Someone in the boozer last night said he thought the election result had been nobbled. Some people laughed.But a lot didn’t. I agree with him.
For the record – I live in Yarm.
That’s nice Alan, I’m from Pontypool, which is now part of the Torfaen Constituency in South Wales, and, putting it bluntly, I don’t like twats calling me and my community thick racists – now, I happen to still be working class, despite spending several years in Uni courtesy of Thatcher who did not know what to do with the unemployed, I hold an MA in Politics, and my MA funnily enough was in Federalism, with the EEC/EU being a core study unit, so I’m hardly pig ignorant, i’m also married to an Asian woman, so hardly a racist and I voted to Leave the EU due to it not being a Club I actually desire to be a member of, and that very much for economic reasons, which were discussed at length with several economics and finance Professors, none of whom happen to be on the Right of the political spectrum, are they too pig ignorant Northern oiks may I enquire, as they’d eat you for breakfast.
You seem to have extended the definition of a racist – care to explain? BTW – Yarm is in the NE.
Why extend it to Racism Ted, quite simple really, those that call Leave Voters thick, usually like to play the racism card as well, particularly the Remainiac within the Labour Party and other under liberal progressives that ain’t got a fucking clue, you then wonder, why after being vilified year after year by a majority of fake socialists within the PLP why the working class decided enough really is enough, its staring you in the face, look at the buggers on the benches of the PLP, look a Ms Cooper Balls and all the other women liberal scum on our benches, not a bloody socialist among them, so, why should us thick oils continue to vote for a Party that detests us, at least the W/C know the Tories detest us as they don’t hide the fact. Oh, and many actually did want to get Brexit done, even me, but I wanted it done under Jeremy Corbyn, alas this was not to be.
Okay, let’s take a step back. I’ll withdraw my comment about leave voters being thick. However, a very large number of them – maybe you as well – have just not thought this through properly; in my view. I stand by my comments about how this will lead to a continuing economic decline. One day, as a nation, we may see sense and rejoin, but it might be a long time coming.
Small world. Did you vote Tory? I know a good many pro-Brexit types.Most of them traditional dyed in wool Labour voters. Don’t know one who switched to the blue due to Brexit. I know one who wanted to vote Brexit party, but don’t know what he did in the end. His wife was mad at him for thinking about it. Just saying
No. I have on occasion voted Tory, but not this time. Funnily enough I said the same about Labour when they tried to bring in ID cards, but this time I found myself voting tactically for them (to no avail). So no – my intention is to never vote Tory again, after the Brexit catastrophe they’ve wreaked on us.
Because they VOTED…???
Because they didn’t think long and hard enough first, and didn’t see the bigger picture.
Ah… and you did, so they should not be able to vote cause they are not intelligent enough, only superior being like you can do that. Of course, they will be other superior beings that will think the same about you and so on… until only the Queen or the PM are left, cause they probably have the ‘bigger’ picture, to decide whatever in their wisdom is right for those annoying and ignorant people down there. Déjà vu… That’s why you lost.
What you must remember is that a democratic decision isn’t always a good one. In my view, the current one concerning Brexit, is a bad one. The fact that a majority support it doesn’t make it good or right. We just have to live with it. Consider the death penalty. I’m sure the vast majority of voters in this country would vote in favour of it. Would that might it right?
Couldn’t agree more, the Sun is the best selling ‘newspaper’ that doesn’t make it the best, bu the example of the death penalty is one I always use in argument about the majority being right.
How do you know the Sun is the bestselling paper? Because the telly told you! I don’t see any more reason to believe that than anything else coming out of the 24-hr Orwellian mind control matrix
I don’y watch the TV and I don’y BUY ‘newspapers, that’s why I read articles on this site,having pointed that out I thought it was common knowledge that the right wing rag was the top selling newspaper, but if you want clarity on it , it would take you less than two minutes to find out
Then you do not know what is DEMOCRACY and you don’t want anything to do with it. You just want to WIN because you say so, without even thinking that the same ‘argument’ could be used against you. As we said… that is WHY you lost.
Who doesn’t want to win? I – or should I say, we – lost for two fundamental reasons. 1) A Tory hatred of the EU, Europe, and foreigners, that’s been apparent for about 30 years. This hatred finally rubbed off on the majority. 2) The election of Ed Milliband rather than David Milliband as Labour leader in 2010.
Not so. You lost because you lost your own heartlands in Scotland, many years ago, and now in the North, the areas where any Tory message was most likely to be rejected, the WORKING CLASS areas that suffered most from the immigrationist ANTI-WORKING-CLASS policies of a Labour Party of TRAITORS, the areas where THE WORKERS voted Brexit. You did not listen because you are immigrationist endophobic bigots, Nazis disguised as ‘Reds’. Corbyn leadership and policies, are not very different from those of New Labour (the real culprits of the defeat), and they only follow in their footsteps. Even the motto, ‘For the Many not the Few’ is the one that Tony Blair used. Corbyn is just a slimy, gushy and wet-hand version of Blair and the Milliband Brothers, the logical consequence of Blair and his immigrationist, ethnic, LGBT and Feminazi policies. You wanted to destroy the Working Class and the Working Class has, deservedly, knifed you…!!!
Perhaps they thought longer, and harder, than you did,and saw the even bigger picture.
Don’t blame them. In all likelihood they had their votes hijacked by MI5
Perhaps you haven’t noticed that the EU generally is in economic decline at the moment.
But apart from that, you’d think the right-on, woke people would at least be in favour of one part of the Union getting its freedom from British imperialism, i.e. that part of Ireland which has been suffering from English domination for all these years.
By definition 50% of a population are of below median intelligence, many far below. Others below that.
All this anti-Semitism stuff – anyone know what it’s about? I assume it had zero influence on the electorate. Just how does it manifest itself? Is most of it – maybe nearly all of it – concerned with criticism of the state of Israel? If so, it’s not anti-Semitism ….
Of course it’s criticism of the state of Israel. And of course that’s not anti-Semitism. But the label “anti-Semitism” is the kiss of death to the executive class i.e. that middle layer who “inform” the masses. If you are one of them and you get called “anti-Semitic”, it’s the equivalent of your boss saying, “I want a word – and bring your coat!”
If you want to know who rules over you, ask who you are not allowed to criticise.
I think the Labour Party’s election strategy, and long before, was fatally flawed. I’m shocked by it. How bad it was. First they should never have agreed to an election at this time. Wait, at least until Spring. The idea, surely, was to keep weakening Johnson’s brand and splitting the Tories apart. Johnson wanted an election for obvious reasons, that alone should have meant that one did everything in one’s power not to give him what he wanted. Labour did the exact opposite of what they should have done, march onto a battleground chose by Johnson.
Of course one can argue that the liberals and the SNP had already hinted that they would support Johnson’s demand, but Labour could have ‘bought them off’ with a little effort. Give the SNP a pledge on a second referendum and give the Liberals a guarantee of electoral reform, whatever.
The Liberals actually had an even more stupid and incompetent leadership than Labour and suffered a terrible defeat too. Why is it that it’s only the Tories who know how to play the election game, usually?
Corbyn seems like a nice enough guy, an honest, yet unremarkable… footsoldier MP, but the idea he was suited to leading the Labour Party into an epic struggle with a revitalised Tory Party under a strong leader like Boris Johnson, is a fantastic notion. Johnson had to be cut down to size, before the election.
Allowing the Tories to become the People’s Party, the Brexit Party in all but name; was a catastrohic mistake by Labour; unforegivabel really.
And, finally, Corbyn could have turned the media bias against him to his advantage, only he’s not suited to the strategy that’s required. That strategy is the one Donaled Trump employed, taking on the media and identifying them as the enemy and explaining why they publish lies. Corbyn should have publically taken on both the Guardian and the BBC, rather than appeasing them, unsuccessfully, because appeasing them isn’t possible.
Why didn’t Corbyn express anger and shock when he was accused of being a paedophile, sorry, an anti-Semite? Those MPs who went along with that sordid narrative, should have been kicked out of Labour immediately by Corbyn himself. He needed to be far more aggressive and proactive, taking the fight to his enemies and using his position to crush them at once. Call me a kiddy fiddler and I’ll rip your fucking throat out! Only Corbyn was passive, defencesive, apathetic and totally hopeless when smeared so terribly. People don’t respect a coward, they do respect someone who fights back and sounds righteously angry at being smeared so falsely. Corbyn looked and sounded like someone who had something to hide and appologise about, which only encouraged the Israeli lobby to attack him even more! Un-fuckin’ believable.
What’s tragic is that the right understood Corbyn’s weaknesses and character far better than his supporters, and how to destroy him.
I agree with you about the election timing
Very good comment!
SNP wanted election.
Once the HARD brexit was voted as un lawful – the excuse for not voting for an election was removed.
I see there is a concerted move to re-write that narrative.
The Labour membership isn’t as malleable as these who rely on msm for ‘un-biased opinion’.
And, finally, Corbyn could have turned the media bias against him to his advantage, only he’s not suited to the strategy that’s required.
Yes you are absolutely right, he should have stolen a journalists phone or hid in a fridge, maybe stare at the ground when shown a picture of a child sleeping on a hospital floor.
Now that’s turning turning events to your advantage right?
He made many mistakes and you are right, but caving into “remain” the perceived overturning of the referendum by the Labour party is what dunnit, the final nail in his coffin.
I am sorry to see him go.
Sorry. Sarcasm isn’t a substitute for wit. Process of turning the media bias against people like Corbyn isn’t easy and requires time, effort and ideas; but Donald Trump has shown that it is possible to confront the liberal media, basically by showing or arguing that they are part of an Establishment that’s out to control what ordinary people are allowed to think and say.
Surely, Corbyn wasn’t completely unaware of the media forces lined up to destroy him? What then was his and his team’s strategy for fighting back effectively? Did they even have a coherent media strategy? Can anyone remember it? Shouldn’t the Left’s media strategy be at the very heart of their overall political strategy? They are faced by a massive, biased, privately owned, state-funded, conservative enemy determined to destroy them and protect the status quo, yet they seem paralised about what to do about it!
Do you really think that Labour would reveal their strategy for dealing with the media? Labour have had the media against them since 2010. Blair had Murdoch on his side as long as he agreed to fight the Middle East wars; the same applied to Brown and Cameron. All three are committed Zionists. Brown even offered the use of the RN to Israel against the aid convoys. The UK has long been arming Israel.
You are really simplifying the situation.
At least however, unlike most other commentators here, you have had the guts to mention the main enemy leading the campaign to stop Corbyn being elected, which is Israel, probably the toughest and most ruthless enemy in the world. If it was necessary to fix the election result to be on the safe side, then having powerful tentacles everywhere and no ethics whatsoever, Israel could fix that.
Perhaps you should read the recent book “The Antisemitism Wars” by Karl Sabbagh to show what Corbyn is up against.
Judging by the spelling of “Labour”, I guess an American wrote this on The Moon of Alabama’s blog. It is however very accurate and I know that MOA is a German man, running his blog from Germany. His analyses, are some of the best in the world.
Tony
“A big part of why Labor and Corbyn lost so badly is the complete abdication of “the Left” on Brexit. The left were supposed to be anti-globalists, in which case their task was to join battle offering an egalitarian, left-populist version of Brexit which would have benefited the people. Instead, faced with a real decision and a real opportunity they punted and ran home to globalist mama. This removed one of the main reasons to bother supporting them.
Posted by: Russ | Dec 13 2019 7:09 utc | 33″
I thought the left were supposed to be internationalists too? I dunno. I think they should never have supported the referendum scam in the first place. If the Tories wanted it, that alone should have made them oppose it. Look at what’s happened, the referendum and Brexit have massively benefitted the Tories and crushed everyone else. Isn’t that an objective fact, or am I missing something; seriously?
What does ‘anti-globalist’ really mean? The tragedy was allowing the Tories to blame Europe for the devastating consequences of their own ‘austerity’ policies which hit the North so hard. These policies originated in London, not Bruxelles!
The truth is harsh. Corbyn was a terrible leader with awfully confused policies that he couldn’t articulate properly and a team around him that were just as bad.
The point about the EU not being directly responsible for Tory austerity is technically true but it is nonetheless a neo liberal monster crushing the shit out of the most vulnerable. Especially when it comes to countries like Greece. I don’t understand the constant veneration of the EU. By design, our membership did nothing to protect us from the carnage of this Tory crime wave. The EUs constitutional arrangements contains baked in obligations to maintain permanent austerity in the service of ever greater corporate profit.
The merits of the EU, or otherwise, is a big subject to get into here, at this time. I live in a very successful and very rich EU country, with a huge welfare state that’s makes the UK’s seem poor and pathetic in comparison. So, I believe that’s solid proof that it is possible, within the EU, to have less unemployment, a better welfare state, less inequality and a better environment. For way too long the British left have blamed the EU for way too much, seemingly because addressing the dire domestic character of capitalism/Thatherism and home produced austerity was just too hard, far easily to blame the foreigners for Britain’s woes.
Which country?
Well, surely, the point is that supporting the EU is not a sign of “internationalism”. The EU is many things, and one of them is being a protectionist trading zone. Even if the ~EU has expanded its borders in recent decades, it is not the world.
The austerity policies originated directly in London, true. But actually were a result of the economic neoliberalism which infected western Europe and the USA, from at least the Thatcher Reagan years onward. (Some would say even earlier).
You must remember what Thatcher did – destroyed many working-class jobs, but even some working class people must have bought into her privatisation crap, (“Tell Sid” to buy shares in British Gas, etc), and many were pleased to be able to buy their own houses, especially when they shot up in artificially inflated “value”.
When Labour (now New Labour, of course) finally got control after Thatcher and Major, they could have taken the decision to reverse at least some of the de-industrialisation that had taken place, and increase public spending, but no, they made a fetish out of abiding by the previous Tory taxation and spending plans, giving pseudo-independence to the Bank of England and paying homage to the City, declaring that future jobs and growth would be in Finance.
Everything was going splendidly for a while. There were boom times, with apparently little or no inflation, reasonably full employment. What could possibly go wrong? But a lot of the apparent prosperity was built on a bubble of private debt, including a lot of unsustainable mortgage debt, here and especially in the USA, and banks and other lenders all over Europe and the USA were in over their heads, not to mention the shenanigans involving new and complex investment (gambling) instruments which nobody fully understood. It all came crumbling down in 2007 / 2008, and then the limits of neoliberalism became more apparent.
The Finance & banking system was saved by old-fashioned socialist state intervention (although not called that by most people). This could have been an opportunity for a Labour government to take all banks into public ownership, but of course, a Blairite government wouldn’t do that. But with all the intervention that it had to do, the “public finances” looked bad from a conventional point of view, even though there was absolutely zero possibility of a currency-issuing country like the UK going bankrupt for “debts” in its own currency. In any case, these were “debts” that it owed itself. The whole basis for austerity – paying down the national “debt” was false from start to finish. We were all conned. We allowed ourselves to be conned. By the Tories, by the Lib Dems, and also by Labour, who were also in favour of austerity, just a slightly “liter” version.
Fast-forwarding by a few decades, Corbyn and McDonnell had sort of learned the lesson, at least I thought they had, when I realised that they were planning to increase public spending in order to re-build the economy on behalf of the people. But when I heard about their “Fiscal Credibility Rule”, I realised that they were still bound by the neoliberal thinking and framework that had allowed austerity to take root. Yes, they were planning to combat austerity, but were also planning to allow themselves to be unnecessarily handicapped by agreeing to balance the budget over the fiscal cycle (as Brown had promised to do years earlier). For more on that, and much more, see (for example):
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=43678
But back to the EU briefly: during the boom years of the “noughties”, the EU and the new Eurozone appeared to be getting on splendidly. But their boom too was based on unsustainable private debt, and it too, came crashing down in 2007/2008. And the Eurozone has basically been limping along ever since, with pathetic growth rates, and of course, in extreme cases like Greece (who should never have been in the Eurozone), appalling unemployment and destruction of infrastructure. Neoliberalism reached its nadir in the treatment of Greece by the Troika. Austerity on stilts.
Anti – globalists!
Is buying bananas and expecting the farmers to be paid fairly, that?
Is demanding an end to apartheid and supporting human rights?
Pathetic tosh.
how many of the oldies who could not vote
because of death or medication hypothermia
or just poor immune system from 13 doctors big farma slow grow
cull pills a day.
how many old dead soldiers
how many lonely captured souls
reanimated like mick jaggers
and keith richards
for one last shit show
operation postal vote
stuff it
stuff it
stuff that ballot bollox box
until it groans.
here here 3 cheers for
m15
the new paxo
poxo
fully chabad approved
I love Paxo
‘Incredible’ is the word. We’re expected to believe that for all his personal and intellectual flaws, Johnson achieved a landslide on the scale of Blair and Thatcher; that he drew in Leave supporters from traditional Labour voters while holding on to Remain Tories; that all three major UK opposition parties flopped, including the one party pushing for outright Remain; and that turnout fell even though millions registered just before the election. Sorry, but it doesn’t add up.
What just happened was an inverted U.S. selection.
In the U.S., a confused rich man got elected, because the alternative was a psychopathic war criminal.
In the U.K. a confused upper class twat got elected, because the alternative was too good to be true.
Something like that?
But the confused rich man had Israel on his side and supported the Palestinian genocide.
Something strange going on in Sedgefield. What the hell is Boris Johnson doing there today? Tony Blair Labour, Boris Johnson Tory. What’s the difference? Same neocons. Same sh1t?
Stopped reading at “obligated”. The correct word is “obliged”. If the author gets this basic fact wrong, how can we accept anything else he says?
buy bye deer
doo drop bye again reel soon
No, ‘obligated’ is the correct usage in this instance, as being morally or ethically or legally required to do or not do something. ‘Obliged’ means to be in debt of some kind to an individual or collective. ‘Obligated’ means to have a moral or legal responsibility.
Looks like you stopped reading for nothing.
I agree that it was not a reason to stop reading, but I do not think it is normal British usage nowadays, although it may be catching on (again) from American influence. I do not (with great respect) agree with your differentiation of meaning between “obligated” and “obliged” – not in British English, anyway. It may be a generational thing. I am a product of Clement Attlee’s post-war government, and an early beneficiary of the then brand new NHS, so you can get a rough idea.
But see here:
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/obligate
Joe, consider this on top of Sonia’s comment, ridiculing you >>> Joe: “He” is a She, in fact, so straight back at you, you failed professional pedant, that failed to read the most important part of the article or the author’s name: “If the author (of this comment) gets this basic fact wrong, how can we accept anything else he (/ she) says ?” Seriously !
Be you a Joseph or Josephine, Joe public pedantry doesn’t wash when you make a blatant extremely basic mistake in gender terms, yourself: see ?
You just made yourself look like a right dipstick of a jane doe / deer, caught staring into the headlights of some hunter’s 4×4 , with a sign saying “professionally stoooopid dumbfuk, please shoot me”, stuck to your forehead 🙂
Thinking about it, a bit like Luke Harding, really 😉 , is that you ?
Hang on everyone (having perused the comments) – Labour haven’t lost Jezza as leader JUST yet!
I hope he stays.
He really did campaign for REMAIN don’t forget.
I’ll wait until the MEMBERSHIP decides who they WANT.
And if it is still Jezza – so be it.
By striking him down the State may have made him yet more powerful then they ever imagined!
(I’m running with the original star wars narrative …)
Especially if there are ructions in the immediate future and Bozo has to do another flit (Russians? Etc).
I’d want the Corbynites to be in position to do their bit.
Dungroanin, Jeremy Corbyn is 70 now. He’s done his bit. Now its time for him to take it easy.
Incidentally “Viscount Palmerston was over 70 when he finally became Prime Minister: the most advanced age at which anyone has ever become Prime Minister for the first time.”
I bet he’d last longer then you on a bike ride or something like that…
But your stawman stands not. He already said he wouldn’t go into the NEXT general election didn’t he?
And you think that’s a plus point.
Catte, pretty much covers it.
I stick by my missive on the pevious article, which addresses the same issues and proximate reasons for the majority of labour failures yesterday, by actual traditional dirty politics – legal though . I just want to address a couple of points of …quibble? Catte writes:
“I am not by any means claiming the December 12 election was rigged. I’m not equipped to make any such claim. I have seen very little hard evidence to suggest it and I don’t even know, currently, if it would even be possible.”
As everyone here btl may have noted – I do believe it was rigged. And YES, it is possible to prove it.
The question then is WHAT can be done about it?
Would perhaps a urgent Supreme Court nullifying illegal Prorogation, type of action be possible…hmm?
How would that end? Hmm hmm?
———–
A bigger quibble though about something missing in your narrative – the getting it done lie.
Katya Adler, a senior BBC editor, of European Affairs broke ranks on it on the 9th too and was SILENCED, her report lost in ANOTHER bozo kerfuffle.
‘also is another ‘dog barking in the night’ event from a BBC reporter and complete, deliberate avoidance of it by ALL the media.
https://off-guardian.org/2019/12/06/the-offguardian-view-ge2019/#comment-105042
I have been banging on about postal votes & the global deepstate megacorp operation that is in charge of our postal voting system, for many moons now, including this comment a few days ago, where i got short shrift and garnered a dozen down votes so far – without much feedback
https://off-guardian.org/2019/12/09/reddit-hiring-nato-shills-to-control-narrative/#comment-105071
I’ll be back in due course with more ‘proof’.
Have a nice weekend – off to the Socials xmas do night (i’ll prob do a few friendly straw polls – starting with how many voted and how many of these were postal!). Have fun weekend everybody!
I hope you gave your £1 to the Grauniad.
For what?
I linked to my comments on Off-G.
The Groan is keen to highlight the sheer thanklessness of the BBC’s undying fight to objectively bring The Truth to the masses:
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/dec/14/bbc-staff-express-fear-of-public-distrust-after-election-coverage
And for all the tireless work they do, they are open to accusations of “conspiracy theory” and worse:
Sickening social media abuse? Echoes of all those frightfully uncivil – and never verified – messages that wrecked poor little Ruth Smeeth’s delicate health.
The only way the BBC and Guardian will understand if people don’t pay the licence fee and don’t click on their articles (and obviously don’t contribute!). Hit them in the pockets.
criticism = abuse nowadays, it seems.
It didn’t take long for the Groaniad to “dissect” the Labour defeat. Here we get THE FIVE REASONS Labour lost the election:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/13/five-reasons-why-labour-lost-the-election
Interesting. Note the space given to Blairite toadies Ruth Smeeth and Caroline Flint. Note the disingenuousness of this:
It’s always suspicious when we get that expression “what people perceived”. What “people”? And note that the dubiousness relates to the absence of an apology for anti-Semitism – not the anti-Semitism itself which is, of course, taken for granted.
Also note the conclusion:
Yes – The Groaniad is yer man, yer champion, yer hero!
Wait until BoJo the Clown starts privatizing the NHS. That’s when the English will feel some real pain.
Too much of a lopsided vote for it to be for real. Someone didn’t want Corbyn at #10 and made damn sure that didn’t happen.
BREXIT IN NAME ONLY
http://aanirfan.blogspot.com/2019/12/brexit-in-name-only.html
I thought the Scottish referendum, and the EU referendum, we both rigged, though the usual suspects did not rig The EU referendum enough. This is because they were confident the “death” of Jo Cox, (who was almost certainly working for the security sevices ( and I think is probably still alive), would swing the vote for Remain enough.
Whilst it is easy to rig a postal ballot on a large scale, it must be very difficult, though not impossible to rig an exit poll, as a relatively large number of people, will be involved on the ground on the day, asking people how they have just voted. Note there was no exit poll for either the Scottish or EU referendums.
Whilst there were most certainly allegations, and some evidence of rigging the Scottish referendum, and the strong feedback from canvassers on the ground, that Scottish Independence would win, there have been no such allegations, from canvassers on the ground in this General Election of rigging. In fact no one seemed to be surprised by the result.
Of course it was rigged to some extent, by the incessant OTT propaganda denigrating Jeremy Corbyn. I thought most people would see through that, but obviously not.
I think Labour lost, because Jeremy Corbyn was too soft. He was useless at killing stone dead, the anti-semitism allegations, which a strong leader would do instantly. He also failed to defend, his most honest supporters such as Ken Livingstone and Chris Williamson, and by not supporting them, he effectively betrayed them.
He should have kicked out The Blairite Fascists, who were openly conspiring against him, and denigrating him. If as a leader, he was unable or unwilling to deal with such relatively trivial internal matters, how exactly would he deal with Leaders in an international forum?
Whilst Cameron was completely bloody useless, Corbyn would be even worse, and everyone, especially your Workington man (lovely place and people by the way), could see it.
This of course is a tragedy for the Labour Party. They have lost the best leader they have had in generations, and might as well invite the Blairite war criminals back.
I was shocked at how few votes George Galloway got, but that again is due to the propaganda, and the branding. Nothing anyone can do about that. People prefer to buy the named brand of baked beans or tomato ketchup, even if it costs twice as much, and is made on exactly the same production lines, but just ends up with different labels. I can’t tell the difference, but most definitely prefer butter to margarine, and sugar to aspartame.
Tony
Marmite?
Scotland’s 2014 independence referendum was most certainly rigged. Postal votes should never have been allowed. This Brexit referendum stinks to high heaven.
There was a video clip posted in this section about rigging postal votes. Where has it gone?
If postal votes were counted separately into the number of votes for each party and the result published, this would eliminate major rigging as the outcome would be expected to tally more or less with the polling station vote. If the votes were rigged in this way it would have a major impact in marginals.
I’m sorry, but on this occasion I’m a little confused from where caste is coming from, of course I’ll never discount Electoral fraud in the UK, on the other hand, and under the system in place Thursday’s result is not shocking, actually Cumming’s got the Tory strategy right, whilst labour’s was all over the place. How can i say this, well today we learn that Corbyn’s own policy advisors were opposed to the Party adopting a Remain position, they, like Cummings, knew where the Party’s weakness was and fought a regard campaigned to stop the Policy Labour went to the electorate with, that said policy was foisted on Corbyn by none other than John McDonnell just goes to prove how bizarre this policy choice was – Corbyn had a gun held to his head.
Further, and having studied voting tallies for all Parties i see nothing sinister, indeed, what i have found alarming is the fact that of the seats labour managed to retain in its former heartland’s, many are now marginals, Torfaen being a case in point, a once labour stronghold that had massive majorities now down to a 4K majority, not only this, the Brexit party/Tory Party vote exceeds that of the incumbent labour member, the Brexit party vote was in excess of 4K, whilst the other associated Parties were not in the running – this seat and the impact of the Tory party vote and Brexit party vote is repeated across South Wales, and probably is repeated in most traditional Labour voting Leave areas across England.
Now, the Party lost a lot of votes, many of them going to the LibDem’s, but much of this transfer was tactical voting, rather than any desire to support Swinson and her very anti-democratic Yellow Tory party.
We must face the facts, as the labour loses confirm, that more than 90% of said losses were in Labour Leave Constituencies – of course other issues played a role too, particularly the MSM vilification and AS crap, but the fact remains Labour made a strategic error of epic proportions and in so doing gifted the Tories Number 10, and to blame this on Corbyn, whatever his faults, is utter bollocks I’m afraid – a good man destroyed by shithouses in his own Party, shithouses in the media and foreign interference from across the Atlantic and Israel.
At the end of the day, the Remainiacs within the PLP own this loss – if only Corbyn would have grown some balls and taken the shithouses on full frontal we’d not be having this dialogue.
You make some good points Chris, but do you seriously believe that seats in the north and in Wales, which were part of the miner’s strike – probably the bitterest and violent strike in UK history – would suddenly vote Tory?
For me it just doesn’t stack up.
RobG,
Looking at the vote, and the way the Brexit Party cleaved votes from Labour, I’ve no doubt that Brexit was the Key issues in seats in South Wales, and have stated as much previously on these boards based on real conversations had with real persons – switching from Labour to Tory, if working class and never voted Tory previously is a hard stretch, but the Brexit Party filled the gap – remember, UKIP gained votes all over Wales and got representation in the Welsh Assembly. Further, Farage ensured Brexit Party only stood in Labour seats, so in Wales we can see its impact, and its a good region to look at as you are only looking at 40 seats and their voting patterns – of course the MSM played its part, one bus driver telling me he was not voting Corbyn as he was weak on security/defence, which i handle with grace – the Brexit about turn was hard to handle, particularly being a Leave voter myself who thought the May through September change was suicidal, as it proved to be in the seats the party needed to retain, never mind win.
You’re using the results themselves as evidence for the results being plausible! Of course the numbers given will tally with themselves!
And that’s not the point of the article as I understand it, which is to point out the prejudiced thinking that makes us see potential vote-rigging in other countries but not in our own.
I think there’s strong evidence for fraud at this point. The fact Dennis Skinner allegedly got voted out alone is suspicious enough. That and the postal vote fiasco. And Pompeo basically saying he wouldn’t let Corbyn be PM. I think we just went through a very British and silent coup.
“….. a good man destroyed by shithouses in his own Party” …who are in fact bought and paid for one way or another by the UK Deep State and MIC election riggers.
That said, only his leadership role is destroyed.
One (of very few) decent and honourable politicians, ever, in Parliament is sidelined by criminals. Criminals (brexit-divisiveness-manipulation) plainly working against the UK public.
What does it all say about the UK?
Galloway is launching a new “Worker’s Party” this evening, a party against austerity and pro-Brexit.
With Corbyn refusing to immediately resign, it’ll be interesting to see what happens.
Nothing is my guess,as I’ve commented on here many times gorgeous George believes there should be an international law forbidding any questions about the so called holocaust, that for me did it with him.
I like Galloway, the way he destroyed the US Senate inquiry on Iraq was incredible to witness. No doubt he’s been destroyed by them in return.
One observation though, he won’t be taken seriously by the working class wearing that hat!
He’s too vain to let his baldness show.
The Brexit Party vote is the diminished Labour vote…… the Elephant is in plain view…..the removal of Brexit Party as nationwide party ie from Tory held seats…..QED Labour leavers demonstrated their will for Brexit in Labour seats in a big way…..most couldn’t bare to vote Tory! It’s not likely to happen again…..this Trojan Horse is done!
Yes. McDonnell, the dangerous “Marxist revolutionary” morphed into a kindly uncle figure on BBC and Ch4.
One good thing to come out from it was the news the despicable, loathsome,repugnant, self admiring,repulsive,disgusting,obnoxious nauseous,obscene Caroline Flint got emptied out
What has she done wrong, exactly? (Serious question; I know little about her, except that she was one of the relatively few Brexit-supporting Labour MPs).