Well as I said, Labour in the UK got 41% and almost 13m votes last time and their manifesto proved very popular
Blair’s Labour got under 10m votes in 2005
Ed Miliband ran on a centrist platform in 2015
This was the exact platform that conventional wisdom now says would sweep an election
I don’t believe that’s true at all - he was subject to widespread media vilification and his platform, while certianly better than the alternative, did not really engage the young or the disenfranchised
Somebody has to drag the Overton window back towards the left and make people re-engage with the concept of society rather than economic individualism
If Labour don’t do it, nobody will because that’s the way the electoral system is, in fact if they don’t, they may well be outflanked on the left by the Green Party because the green agenda will be massive going forward
The Tories and Republicans have dragged the Overton window far to the right and nobody called them unelectable, because they have the media in their pocket
Nobody ever calls far right parties “unelectable”, they only say it about parties of the perceived left
Labour is in fact dragging the Tories back left as regards their manifesto, though we all know the Tory manifesto will be nothing but lies
They will adopt the clothes of social democracy in order to implement a radical slash and burn regime
But if the Labour manifesto is as crazy as some people make out, why will the Tories try to copy it?
The media is the biggest problem - they control the means of information, and they are owned by the rich
That goes back to what I said about the eco-system of democracy
Democracy is not merely an electoral system, it depends on a free but responsible press and good levels of education so as to enable it to take placee in a world where objective truths matter
The media landscape we now have is increasingly dragging us into a world where objective truths no longer matter
Phrases like “the marketplace of ideas” have made this possible
If lies cannot be called such, andthe BBC may claim such but in practice they stop the calling out of lies, the world of objective truth ceases to exist, and you are on the road to a Russia model where reality is literally turned on its head and lies become accepted as truths and truths become accepted as lies
This is no exaggeration - one only has to look at the US where they now have that exact situation
Britain is rapidly getting there and it has been enabled in that by a widespread failure of journalism and media
Mobilisation of hatred, lies, propaganda, the deliberate changing of politics into a culture/race war - ie. political technologism
Transferring blame onto those who do not deserve it, the manufacturing of imagined threats and the airbrushing of real ones
This can only be achieved with the help of media - in the UK, the US and Russia, the media is on board with it
The likes of Richard Litteljohn, Katie Hopkins, Rod Liddle and the former Tories in charge at the BBC like Robbie Gibb, etc. are as much political technologists as the likes of Dominic Cummings
That’s how Brexit won
How has Polish politics been turned into a conspiracy based world where reality is a rapidly dimishing currency, by the likes of Antoni Macierewicz and the Law and Justice party?
Theresa May got 13.6m in a climate which was immensely favourable to her, where the media was telling her to crush the saboteurs and the judiciary was the enemy of the people
What Theresa May didn’t have that Boris Johnson has is a teflon shamelessness, for all her roboticism she portrayed an outward weakness and vulnerability that Johnson doesn’t portray
The public, no matter which country it is, have always liked people they perceive to be charismatic strongmen, who are in fact lazy bluffers and charlatans
Well the manufactured anti-Semitism crisis is classic political technologism
It’s a hit job the Russians would be proud of - even if the Russians themselves are raving anti-Semites who portrayed Ukraine as part of a global anti-Russia conspiracy organised by the Jews and the gays, in order to manufacture a reason to invade
The biggest factor in PIS holding power in Poland is introducing 120 euros a month children’s allowance. Redistributive capitalism you might call it. Fortunately Morawiecki is much more rational than the likes of Macierewicz who is rumoured to be a Russian agent. And the electorate were smart enough not to give them a majority sufficient to permit constitutional change.
My understanding is that Macierewicz while rumoured to be a Russian agent or asset adopted heavily anti-Russian rhetoric, such as claiming that the Russians were to blame for the 2010 air crash, though they obviously weren’t
Is that correct
Some questions about Poland:
Is it true that it is now a criminal offence to say that any Polish people were complicit in the Holocaust
Did the murder of that liberal mayor of Gdansk have any impact on the way people see politics
To what extent is the press clamped down on in Poland
To what extent is the judiciary compromised or influenced by the ruling party
Are there fringe groups pushing anti-Ukrainian sentiment, I’m sure I heard about that
Is there any realistic prospect of the ruling party being turfed out in the foreseeable future or is Poland increasingly moving towards what Hungary is like, or is it even already there
I read a fairly frightening article by Anne Applebaum about a year ago in The Atlantic about Poland and Hungary
I generally get my views on Poland and Hungary from Jewish commentators
Thought Corbyn was really good there, you would say that, says you
But I did think he was very fluent and looked very energised and is good in that sort of a format - he is persuasive when speaking in fornt of an audience like that
He announced he’d remain neutral in any prospective second Brexit referendum
Harold Wilson did the same in 1975
I think it’s a more than reasonable position personally and respects all sides
Guardian verdict below
Jeremy Corbyn – Snap verdict
Often the best way to seize the initiative on a programme like this is to make news, and that’s what Jeremy Corbyn did tonight. He gave us a story, confirming for the first time that he would be neutral in a second Brexit referendum. The Tories will criticise him for this – they’ve started already (see 7.24pm) but at least now Corbyn will not have to put up with headlines like the ones he faced on Saturday, when he was criticised for refusing to say nine times what he would do in such a referendum. Tonight his answer seemed to close down some of the criticism he was getting from the audience over Brexit.
Otherwise he faced quite a lot of hostility, which he handled reasonably well. The most aggressive questioning came from the man who asked about Corbyn’s failure to intervene at a press conference to protect the Labour MP Ruth Smeeth from a heckler. Corbyn’s resort to a stock answer was not impressive, but the anger of the questioner sounded contrived (even by the standards of this programme) and of the two men in the exchange, Corbyn sounded the more reasonable.
The Lib Dems can’t be taken seriously as regards what they say about Labour’s Brexit policy
As recently as six months ago the Lib Dems were a second referendum party, which presumably would have been a referendum against May’s deal, there was even talk of a three way referendum with a crash out on the ballot
Now Labour are offerIng a second referendum on a softer Brexit than May’s versus Remain and suddenly it’s not good enough for the Lib Dems, because they want the pie in the sky of revoking Article 50
