Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
two per cent who backed In would switch sides.
Two percent of people are certifiably batfuck insane.
two per cent who backed In would switch sides.
Folks, we ay have just got ourselves a new democratic mandate.
An opinion poll does not equate to a democratic mandate.
The democratic mandate is provided by the referendum, which you want to disregard - making the whole notion of "democratic mandate" meaningless.
When I was invited on to the BBC TV news channel on Friday afternoon, it quickly became clear that... the Corbyn matter, was what they really wanted to talk about . I boggled. Here we were, facing a huge constitutional, diplomatic and political crisis....
The Prime Minister had resigned that morning. His Party was exposed as utterly divided, cloven from the nave to the chaps by discord. It was and is seriously proposing to leave the country to drift till October before picking a new leader..
A majority of the electorate, in a high turnout had specifically endorse a policy rejected and indeed sneered at for decades by both major political parties, plus the BBC and most of the media, the civil service and the whole establishment. They had done so after a fair fight, in which the other side had flung millions of pounds and a great deal of frightening propaganda at them.
(...)
And in the midst of all this the BBC wanted to talk about Jeremy Corbyn...
This odd, faintly unhinged preoccupation is also noticeable among the battalion of establishment political commentators, who also seem to have little else to talk about. I say it is unhinged because it is a failure of proportion...
The reason for this obsession is that one of the main functions of modern political journalism is to act as a sort of thought police. Anyone who strays from the 'centre' (an apparently objective term for a subjective opinion) is mocked, belittled, subjected to scandal and exposure, pictured looking foolish or eating messily, accused of ‘gaffes’ and ceaselessly the subject of stories about how he or she is being plotted against and is weak.
This supposed ‘centre’ can loosely be described as Blairism...
Mr Corbyn offends against this because he still openly defines himself as a socialist... He is also... a foolish throwback, as he has not cured himself of the 19th century socialist interest in state ownership and trade union power. And he has the usual embarrassing baggage of sympathies with various unappealing Latin American leftists. Deep down, this package makes him hugely suspicious of the Blairites, because he can see that supranational bodies such as the EU will favour the big corporations he despises against the attempts of left-wing governments (such as he dreams of heading), and that the destruction of national sovereignty means the extinction of his dreams. Only a proud and independent Britain could ever implement his desired programme. So... he is like a paraded hostage, frantically signalling to those who watch him on TV, through demeanour and body language, that the things that come out of his mouth about the EU are not in fact his real sentiments.
The Blairites return the favour. They can’t stand him. But as we know they can’t easily get rid of him either, and if they do, they can't replace him with one of their own. Mr Corbyn doesn’t owe his election to them but to the Party members, who are also Europhiles but love Mr Corbyn’s old-fashioned positions so much, and reasonably enjoy his principled and unflinching political style... that they don’t care.
The mystery is this - what are the Blairites still doing in Jeremy Corbyn’s party anyway? They were elected on the wrong ticket. They have fulfilled the great 1990s dream of forcing the Tories to agree with them, and have belatedly discovered that the same Tories are better than they are at raising money, and at winning elections....
The whole lot of them, no more than professional career politicians, would be much happier in the Cameron Tory Party....
So, in yet another illustration of Kissinger’s Law, that the fighting is bitterest where the stakes are smallest, they occupy their long-honed political skills in undermining their own leader. This is a task in which they can probably never succeed, but they have come to enjoy it in the absence of any other purposeful activity...
I’d got used to this Corbyn-obsessive rubbish, but for this to be the dominant strand of political coverage, three days after the momentous vote, is simply absurd.
The reason for this obsession is that one of the main functions of modern political journalism is to act as a sort of thought police. Anyone who strays from the 'centre' (an apparently objective term for a subjective opinion) is mocked, belittled, subjected to scandal and exposure, pictured looking foolish or eating messily, accused of ‘gaffes’ and ceaselessly the subject of stories about how he or she is being plotted against and is weak.
This is an analysis of print media’s editorial positions on the referendum and Europe. It would suggests Hitchen’s claim is wrong.
From current affairs to soft focus human interest stuff, the broadcaster was in the end literally going around with a stopwatch to ensure they weren't caught out. The same is still going on at the moment over abortion even though no referendum has been called and we're are likely two to three years away from any vote or formal campaign.