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EDIT or to kids who play unusual instruments for the school orchestra
Tromboning with the older boys?
Players of the pink piccolo
Good grief. After Jackie Walker’s history of antisemitic pronouncements and the reason for Abbott’s suspension you’d think she’d have the brains to choose different company
https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1795880768721531354
After 37 years in pin a red rossette on a donkey Hackney, shouldn’t she give someone else a go?
Same old Labour
Harry Cole works for the S*n, doean't he?
Jackie Walker is Jewish (but black).
Players of the pink piccolo
Pink oboe wasn't it?
Owen Jones runs through the utter hypocrisy with Diane Abbott and racism as outlined in the Forde report regarding the Labour Party, outlines everything in 10 mins.
Wow, Jess Philips is a bit of work aint she?
edit...hang on a min....****ing stw copy/paste shit
Don't know what she's done to merit that comment but Jess is my favourite Labour MP. 🙂
Edit: I see you've managed to add a Youtube. I hoped Jess would win the Labour leadership race, it would be very different party if she had, and survived in the role. It would be the Labour party rather than what it is now.
watch the vid, about 2 mins in
And Wes Streeting gets it too (he sooo deserves it) at 13mins
The video isn't very helpful as there is no context:
"Phillips verbally clashed with fellow Labour MP Diane Abbott on 14 September 2015 over the gender composition of Jeremy Corbyn's first Shadow Cabinet. After she asked Corbyn why he had failed to appoint a woman to shadow the great offices of state, Abbott accused her of being "sanctimonious" and said that Phillips was "not the only feminist in the PLP [Parliamentary Labour Party]". Corbyn did not intervene.[65] Owen Bennett wrote in The Huffington Post that Phillips recounted: "I roundly told her to **** off." When asked what Abbott did after that suggestion, Phillips replied: "She ****ed off."[66] According to Abbott in a January 2018 Guardian interview: "Jess Phillips never told me to **** off. What was extraordinary is that she made a big deal of telling people she had."[67] Phillips later apologised.[68][69]"
There are about 7% if UK children at private school (compared with 40-odd% in Aus, interestingly).
I assume that 40% includes Catholic schools, which charge a very low school fees because most funding still comes from the state budget.
@somafunk For reasons I don’t quite follow the Scots appear to have a different attitude to this, and the proportion of kids at private schools in Scotland is lower
lol! 13% of London schoolkids are in private schools. 25% of Edinburgh schoolkids are in private schools. No true Edinburgh schoolkid fallacy inbound...
https://www.thenational.scot/news/23709036.private-schools-one-four-edinburgh-students-attend/
A question: Would now be a good time to ‘grass up’ / make public some really shitty Tory behaviour around enabling the selling off of national assets which were provided for the benefit of children? Just wondering whether to speak to an appropriate journalist, or if it would be lost in the election stooshie
What would you like to achieve by doing this? For the common good, your organisation, the people who did it? Punishment, redress, consequences through side effects, loss of respect? Currently you have options, once it's out you no longer have those options. If you've just found out about it now, think back in say two month increments and consider what effect it would have had then, would any of those times have been better for your desired outcomes, now well when might such a time come again? Also you may well have options other than grassing up and causing one more shitty Tory story behaviour in the news. Do they know you know, do they care, are they worried about what you might do?
Sir Kneeler: 16 and 17 year olds should get the vote.
Why would Labour say that, one wonders...
Three weeks ago there was 'uproar' about Natalie Elphicke crossing the floor to join Labour. Now, that's not even yesterday's news; it's ancient history.
Diane Abbott is, rightfully, an iconic figure; the current frothing about whether she can - or can't - stand again will last longer than the noise about elphicke but will also die away without having a significant impact.
There will be attempts by owen jones, momentum and others to keep this in the headlines but it will have little impact.
For clarity - I am in no way at all attempting to make any comparison between Diane Abbott and Natalie Elphicke; the latter isn't fit to clean the shoes of the former but the truth is...no individual is bigger than the party and the news cycle will roll on, regardless.
Pray for grimep - no ones really biting tonight are they?
Keep trying though - its good entertainment!
Why would Labour say that, one wonders…
Because one believes in the concept of democracy, doesn’t one?
@politecameraaction As a good Glaswegian I am clearly not going to object to any criticism of the other city, but I’d understood that across the whole of Scotland, a lower proportion of kids were at private school. Is this incorrect?
Thanks for clarification re: Aus.
watch the vid, about 2 mins in
I would literally rather remove my own kidneys with a teaspoon than watch a15 minute YouTube vid of Owen Jones banging on about Diane Abbot
Well I reckon reckon that 17 year olds are at least as able to make sensible choices as the 90 year-olds who postal vote from their care home where they spend their days watching GB news and talking about the 50s or the war which is still their world (don't ask me how I know this).
Anything written by owen jones needs independent citations.
To say he has an agenda would be like calling the great Wall of China a line of bricks
lol! 13% of London schoolkids are in private schools. 25% of Edinburgh schoolkids are in private schools. No true Edinburgh schoolkid fallacy inbound…
Very clever eh?, selective reporting per chance?, There are 28,876 pupils in 71 independent schools - 4.1%of pupils in Scotland.
IFS report on private schooling in the UK, long read so I'm working through it
The private schools in total are quite small, if measured by the proportion of the pupil population (6.4% in England in 2021, some 4% in Scotland, 2% in Wales and less than 1% in Northern Ireland).
binners, if I could give you 10 likes for your latest post...I would!
There are too many posts on which I would summarise as saying...I want a Labour government but only on my terms.
Sorry to piss on your chips, chaps - you will get either Labour or tory; best to just accept it's going to be Labour - on their terms, not yours.
Back to electoral calculus now.
Currently given some of the opinions floating around online, I reckon my 8 yr old has a much nicer view of the world and would trust his judgment more
I would literally rather remove my own kidneys with a teaspoon than watch a15 minute YouTube vid of Owen Jones banging on about Diane Abbot
Good boy.......You'll have a merit badge in the post from labour head office for that one
@frankconway Yep. Are Lab going to be massively disappointing on the environment/active travel/whatever issue you feel strongly about? Probably.
Are they going to be less of a horror show than five more years of the Tories? Absolutely yes.
There’s only one game in town, however much we all might wish otherwise.
Thankfully the current generation of 90 year-olds struggle with smart phones and computers but when my generation get there the comments sections are going to be something to behold.
Diane Abbott should be allowed to stand as a Labour candidate. Simple as that and that easy to defuse by Labour. It's also the right thing to do which helps.
I agree on Diane Abbott. But looking at the video of her in the news, is she unwell? Massive shaking hands and being guided around the podium, not saying that to be nasty more out of concern
Thankfully the current generation of 90 year-olds struggle with smart phones and computers but when my generation get there the comments sections are going to be something to behold.
What worse than we get on STW today? The horror!!!
😉
Just for clarification. I think Peter Cook asked Billy Connolly backstage at the secret Policeman's Ball for a poetic description and got 'pink piccolo' but Cook delivered the much better line of 'a self-confessed player of the pink oboe'.
However, I think that both secured a music scholarship.
Good boy…….You’ll have a merit badge in the post from labour head office for that one
I reckon if you gave most people the option of listening to Owen Jones rattle on about Diane Abbot or removing their own kidneys with a teaspoon, the A&E departments would be pretty busy tonight
Binners - when he was on the newsagents i had to turn it off. Just totally single minded to the exclusion of any other views.
The charitable status of public schools is mainly based on their granting of subsidised places.
Another category being exceptionally bright & thus bring up the schools average results.. My nephew got a scholarship on that basis but his brother only got a discount on account of not being so bright 🤔
While Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbot (somewhat inevitably) running as independents might fill the waking hours of a certain type of person in North London, in between their Gaza protests, and despite the best efforts of Owen Jones and our totally London-centric media, 99.9% of the population couldn’t give a flying **** about it
A total irrelevance
grahamt1980
Full Member
I agree on Diane Abbott. But looking at the video of her in the news, is she unwell?
Yeah, it could have been pent up emotion I suppose but it liked like something more concerning unfortunately.
Never been bothered by Corbyn, Abbott, McDonnell, etc, as it's up to the party and their popularity, but i do think there's a lot of septuagenarians in politics who should be taking a sidestep for the next generation to step in, and i don't mean career politicians who have done nothing but Uni then joining a party and never working outside of politics a day in their life.
On a different topic, I see there will be a continuation of doctors strikes upto 2 days before the election.
Putting aside the human cost of this for one second, this must be bad news for the Tories... as well as an incoming labour government. Or rather, an early test of just where labours "heart" really is.
Again though, it's patients that will be paying the price of this dispute not being resolved an age ago.
I reckon if you gave most people the option of listening to Owen Jones rattle on about Diane Abbot or removing their own kidneys with a teaspoon, the A&E departments would be pretty busy tonight
Possibly not if they are Guardian readers and perceive themselves to be caring liberals just like Owen Jones.
The Guardian even managed to dedicate an editorial to address their concerns:
I loved the final sentence btw:
But it is a strategic error of judgment to believe that purging the party of dissent will help him connect with voters.
As a dedicated hardcopy Guardian reader did you manage to read their bleeding heart editorial about Diane Abbott without reaching for the spoons in the kitchen drawer binners?
The Tories have made zero effort to resolve any of the strikes as their philosophy is that if there’s strikes then that will make their racist pensioner base believe it’s the 1970’s again so get out and vote for them
Just yet another example of the future of the Tory party in power being their one and only consideration, to the total exclusion of everything else
Your mum won’t get her chemotherapy? We don’t ****ing care as long as it gives us some perceived electoral advantage
They’re the very worst people. Psychopaths
Victoria Atkins will explain all - I'm sure (?) - on Peston...tune in to ITV now.
Owen Jones thinks Diane Abbott is right Glad? Phew! Glad that he could interrupt his busy schedule of inciting Twitter mobs against female Guardian staff and Londonsplaining to the Scots about how Scottish politics is really all about Palestine.
My mate works as the secretary/receptionist in the estate agents in town (kirkcudbright), she gets folks from down south all the time asking her about the choice of private schools in the area and they are always surprised that the nearest would be 100 miles away in Glasgow/Edinburgh area, I guess the private school idea is pretty much an English thing.
🤣
Maybe the reason that Dumfries and Galloway isn't knee deep in private schools is because it has a small population, low population density, and the lowest wages in Scotland?
https://www.dng24.co.uk/dumfries-and-galloway-has-rock-bottom-wages/
Yvette Cooper has promised to “take Britain’s town centres back from thugs and thieves” by putting 13,000 bobbies back on the beat in communities across the country.
The shadow home secretary lashed out at the Conservatives after a “decade of dereliction” on law and order, laying bare the damage done to policing and the criminal justice system.
And she unveiled plans for a visible army of neighbourhood police and PCSOs with tough new powers to “crack down on those causing havoc on our high streets”.
This is something I would welcome, it's something the conservatives seem to be against, given thier 'fingers in ears' stance on petty crime.
Thirteen thousand 'bobbies' though, how quickly? Sounds a lot like a wish rather than a plan if they are all to be vetted and trained correctly.
Still, at least they are making the right noises... from the conservatives we have "something something boats, something something rwanda, something something"
I reckon if you gave most people the option of listening to Owen Jones rattle on about Diane Abbot or removing their own kidneys with a teaspoon, the A&E departments would be pretty busy tonight
Possibly….I’ll give you that one but his factual statements and what the forde report outlined in his video still stands.
Owen Jones thinks Diane Abbott is right Glad? Phew!
What does he think that she is right about?
At the end of the day, completely unsolicited, Diane Abbot wrote a letter to a national newspaper for them to publish that was so mind-bendingly stupid and offensive to so many people on so many levels that I’d question why anyone would want an MP who demonstrates such absolutely appalling judgement
Yeah.. MPs are very low quality these days.
Maybe they always were but it's just way more visible now with new technology.
that I’d question why anyone would want an MP who demonstrates such absolutely appalling judgement
I imagine there’s quite a lot of folk in Hackney
And we have the likes of Luke “Nuke’em” Akehurst, member of Labour’s National Executive Committee, imposed by National Executive Committee as candidate for safest of safe seats, North Durham. Luke is ex National Secretary of Student Labour, PR consultant by trade. Current job is Director of advocacy group We Believe in Israel. Key organiser on the right. Will be good to have him in the public eye, so that people can see what they’re dealing with.
‘Plotting to suspend a democratically selected Muslim candidate for liking a tweet acknowledging the existence of an Israel lobby, while imposing the director of “We Believe in Israel” as a candidate elsewhere. All in a days work. Labour aren’t being subtle!’
https://twitter.com/LabourNorth/status/1795903561076711692
https://twitter.com/twuntastical/status/179591309345465968
Thirteen thousand ‘bobbies’ though, how quickly? Sounds a lot like a wish rather than a plan if they are all to be vetted and trained correctly.
Whilst I totally get why Cooper made a statement about bobbies on the beat etc. (election talk during an election...) I doubt it holds much water.
I'm sure in some scenarios a visible police presence, on foot, can be handy but It's not great when something kicks off 3 miles down the road and said Bobby has to leg it there.
That's when id preferto have a couple of cops in a nice fast response car.😁
Like I said though, I get why she said it.
We all know how to cut crime down in reality and that's to reduce inequality, give better access to mental/ addiction services and give younger generations hope.
That's a hard message to get across in sound bite politics though. It's also going to take many years to achieve. ☹️
I imagine there’s quite a lot of folk in Hackney
Fine. Let her stand as an independent, just like Magic Grandad. She’s an irrelevance at best and a liability to the Labour Party nationally.
Anyway… back to more relevant points that matter to people outside Hackney,
Farage was interesting on Peston. Actually worth watching. He’s predicting Reform bringing about a Canadian style wipeout of the Tory party as those voters who’ve moved to Reform won’t be coming back to the Tories ever.
I think he may be right on that score.
Rishi is basing all policy* announcements on chasing the far right, racist pensioner nutter vote, but it’s already gone and it’s never coming back
The rest of the stuff Farage was on about is absolutely hatstand, Nick Griffin/BNP level racism
* the word policy is used figuratively in this instance
Meanwhile, the woman who beat Rishi in an election but then lost to a lettuce has been doing her bit for the election campaign
I’d question why anyone would want an MP who demonstrates such absolutely appalling judgement
The widely held consensus now appears to be that Starmer's handling of the Diane Abbott crisis, a crises of his own making, is his first major blunder in an otherwise faultless first week general election campaign.
But perhaps the most interesting aspect of this is that Starmer appears to have united the various wings of the Labour Party as they express their outrage over Diane Abbott's treatment, even blairite politicians are now publicly expressing support for her.
Opinion pieces in both Sky News and the Statesman have suggested that Starmer might have done long term damage to himself. The suggestion is that this might well blow over and be forgotten fairly quickly but that at some point in the very near future things are going to get pretty tough for Starmer and this crisis will have cost him good will which he can ill-afford to lose.
The suggestion is that Starmer does not enjoy strong personal approval from voters, and when coupled with the fact that he will likely make some politically unpopular decisions will probably deny him any sort of honeymoon period.
This will make him politically vulnerable quite early in his premiership so strong parliamentary support and loyalty will be crucial to his political survival.
Denying Diane Abbott parliamentary candidature does not appear to be popular with Labour MPs right across the party, if Starmer wants to maintain the goodwill of the PLP it should be hoped that Morgan McSweeney and David Evans, the two people who probably make all these decisions, will tell him to allow Diane Abbott parliamentary candidature.
To re-iterate, the whole Diane Abbott issue will blow over - not as quickly as the frothing about Natalie Elphicke but it will soon be history.
From Peston, the most interesting piece was the answer he got from both Mhairi Black and Lee Cain to his closing question - which way will the tories move if (when) they lose the GE?
Both said, unhesitatingly...to the right.
So that's the tories making themselves irrelevant for decades to come.
At the end of the day, who gives a flying **** whether Diane Abbot or Magic Grandad is a Labour MP or an independent MP or voted out and gets an allotment to keep them busy.
These people were the past in the 90’s, should have been nowhere near the front bench of the party, due to their general political hopelessness and will spend their days (if they’re lucky) as irrelevant backbenchers, like they’ve always been
The only people getting anything out of this are the Tory party (as usual) and the limitless narcissism of Abbot and Corbyn
With their endless stupidity, they’ve been a plague on the Labour Party and an absolute gift to the Tories for the last ten years and it appears they’re planet-sized ego’s aren’t about to stop them now
The slightest element of self-awareness would inform them that an extended period of STFU would be in order for both of them. Not that they care.
Who needs a Labour government when you get to be worshipped like gods by 6th formers and Owen Jones. A Tory government is something to wave placards against and get some sweetly paid gigs on Russia Today and Iranian state TV
I imagine the likes of Josh Simmons is more “New…….New Labour” , he’s certainly got a few ideas
https://twitter.com/StephenFlynnSNP/status/1795915296173170788
At the end of the day, who gives a flying ****
Well currently the whole of the media I would say. Right now it appears the general election campaign story and is overshadowing everything else, from the way Diane Abbott has been treated to the way Starmer has handled the whole issue.
I have just heard Wes Streeting, of all people, give an interview in which he pours praise on Diane Abbott emphasising the deep respect he has for her.
Does that answer your question?
As for the claim that 'the whole issue will blow over', of course it will. That is what the term "news" means in this context. Does anyone know of any news which hasn't blown over?
The issue is how damaging it is likely to be to both Starmer and the Labour Party. Since it is a major news story and any potential damage is dependent on how it is resolved it is probably not too clever to dismiss it as unimportant.
On another note I mentioned yesterday that I expected to see Rishi get on a bike and take it off a “sweet jump”, it looks like Ed Davy (the Mr Bean of politics) jumped on one today, he didn’t take it off any “sweet jumps” and he didn’t fall off.
I was sorely disappointed, still………I expect we’ll see him down the skatepark tomorrow so that’ll be good for a laugh
In my canvassing on Wednesday Diane Abbott's name wasn't mentioned once on the doorstep, talking with voters of different political persuasions.
Out in the shires - where this election will be won or lost- there is absolutely no interest in the Hackney/Stoke Newington/metropolitan frothing about perceptions of how Diane Abbott has been treated.
There has been no reference to her in my CLP and branch social media
If there are any comments about her in my door knocking campaign or any reference to her in my CLP and/or branch social media feeds over the next few days I'll post about on this thread.
Ernie, it's tiresome reading many of your posts which attempt to denigrate and/or imply a sense of superiority on your part but if that's what gives you a frisson - crack on but do tell me...what are you hearing on the doorstep when you're out canvassing?
Diane Abbott should exit stage left gracefully now - and preserve her legacy; if she doesn't, her name and reputation will be much diminished.
Some matters are really important and are worthy of serious and extended discussion; this is not one of them
I do wonder about the apparent focus of some posters which appears to be rooted in notions of ideological purity with no reference to the real world; good luck with that.
Don't forget to take your pragmatism pill - you'll feel much better for it
The labour party moves on with new focus and the news cycle just keeps trundling on
This is more a point around what Starmer is and how he has acted and will continue to act when PM. The way he has handled/allowed the Abbot issue to be handled is crap by any measure.
People on the doorstep may not be interested but that doesn't mean those who are interested cannot discuss it on a forum. You don't get to decide which matters are really important in an open discussion I'm afraid.
You don’t get to decide which matters are really important in an open discussion I’m afraid
Great general comment.
https://twitter.com/mehdirhasan/status/1795972940850167948?t=vqUITSGz-96Yzj3ScaqCsw&s=19
Authoritarian? She 'liked' a Jon Stewart tweet for a sketch he did about Israel.
https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1795942561258889318?t=5lxYjKvCmamTNGtU3L-AuQ&s=19
(Twitter not being embedded here from the app any longer?)
widely held consensus
You mean by you and the Westminster bubble. I don't have Frank's direct evidence from door knocking, but i strongly suspect that the vast majority of normal voters outside Hackney couldn't care less about how Dianne Abbot has been treated. Nor will it impact how they vote.
The widely held consensus now appears to be that Starmer’s handling of the Diane Abbott crisis, a crises of his own making, is his first major blunder in an otherwise faultless first week general election campaign.
While I agree this hasn't been a good day for SKS, the version of the news I heard last night is that DA was going to stand down, on her terms, and then this was leaked. Even that bit is unclear, she was going to be barred (BBC was saying she'd told a BBC reporter that yesterday morning, by lunchtime it was 'there are reports' and in the afternoon it was 'no-one's said that to me and I'm not'). Who's been feeding the news and to whose benefit?
So I'm not sure how much control SKS has had over the issue - equally, how much control do we want him to have, how authoritarian do we want our party leaders to be? At the same time, DA now seems to be quite intent on causing a bit of damage to the party overall by demanding that she WILL be standing in H&SN, so much as she's been badly treated, is her big picture view correctly aligned with what the PLP and country need or is it what DA wants to do?
Also AIUI the NEC decides the candidate list in the end. And that has to be completed next week. How much say would SKS as leader have on that? Can they decide that DA is to be admitted to the candidate list without his buy-in?
So's the majority of the PLP but according to our man in the know
Denying Diane Abbott parliamentary candidature does not appear to be popular with Labour MPs right across the party, if Starmer wants to maintain the goodwill of the PLP it should be hoped that Morgan McSweeney and David Evans, the two people who probably make all these decisions, will tell him to allow Diane Abbott parliamentary candidature.
so will they hand him DA's candidature and tell him to get on, or allow him to boot her out and then gripe and moan about it later.
Probably the most telling thing is the fact DA is big news, if it were the Tory party it’d barely get a mention. In my opinion the opposition parties are under much higher scrutiny than the Tories.
A party that has room for Elphicke but not for Abbott doesn’t have room for me either.
Ernie, it’s tiresome reading many of your posts which attempt to denigrate and/or imply a sense of superiority on your part
Did you have a straight face when you typed that?
The Tories must be laughing their tits off.
Look at them all! All those old lefties wanging on about Diane Abbot again. Those sleeper cells we put in to Islington North and Hackney decades ago still just keep on delivering, don’t they?
Meanwhile, outside the north London/Westminster bubble…
Nobody cares.
A party that has room for Elphicke but not for Abbott doesn’t have room for me either
So would you rather have another 5 years of the Tories, or hold your nose and vote for a less than perfect Labour party?
Probably the most telling thing is the fact DA is big news
Because that's what the Mail and Murdoch media want. (Yes I know the Guardian are talking about it too, but it's bound too)
Not sure it's news anymore, and it'll be even less so when the next big thing is released for the election this week or next, as stated before, i think the likes of Abbott should have been bringing their candidate to the table now, MPs in their 70s going for another 5 years isn't a great thing, surely they have some protege who could take over the challenges.
So would you rather have another 5 years of the Tories, or hold your nose and vote for a less than perfect Labour party?
This is what gets me about all of this, yeah Labour isn't perfect, if we had PR I would be voting Green constantly, but how can anyone consider that a less than perfect Labour Party is worse than the money grabbing, narcissistic tory party.
"A party that has room for Elphicke but not for Abbott doesn’t have room for me either."
Me neither, I shan't be voting Labour whilst Starmer is leader. I do wonder where we would be if Rebecca Long-Bailey had won the leadership contest.