The manufactured furore over the SKWAWKBOX’s emailed question to Labour MP for Walthamstow Stella Creasy continues – and continues to become more bizarre.
Ms Creasy herself has never actually addressed the question, which was about the appropriateness of a Labour MP’s apparent cosiness with an MP of the party under whose policies millions are suffering. Instead, she has preferred to claim the issue is about almost anything but.
The first tack was to claim that it was an attack on her musical tastes, which were never raised.
Then she claimed it was misogyny, even though her gender was not mentioned and had no relevance to the question.
Later – and even more bizarrely – she claimed it was an attempt to divert attention from ‘her’ campaign on PFI (‘Private Finance Initiative’ funding), which the SKWAWKBOX has criticised since its inception five years ago. Apparently our ‘antics’ – in reality Ms Creasy’s own decision to publicise our press enquiry – were clogging her Twitter timeline.
However, the supporters she triggered to ‘dogpile’, the friendly media who have leapt her defence and even Tory MPs have largely focused on accusing this blog of trying to ‘control’ or ‘police’ her social habits – again a gross misrepresentation of an emailed question.
But interestingly, Ms Creasy herself has stated that the issue of the people with whom a politician chooses to socialise is a matter of interest and a legitimate basis for judgment.
In a 2009 interview with the Guardian – in which Ms Creasy incidentally praised a PFI-funded project – she was asked by her interviewer for her views on then Tory leader David Cameron.
Her response?
It’s unclear whether this opinion has anything to do with Ms Creasy’s seeming determination to make the issue about anything except what was actually asked. But it’s certainly inconvenient for those who’ve supported her by claiming it’s irrelevant that a Labour MP is happy socialising with the very people whose policies have been linked with the suffering of millions and the death of many tens of thousands.
The question we put to the Walthamstow MP is of justified interest to many Labour members – and no doubt to many of those suffering under Tory policies or lamenting of politicians that ‘they’re all the same’.
Those who’ve been leaping in faux, straw-man outrage about the supposed impertinence of the question have done little more than reinforce the importance of the question.
Other than to raise the question of why they’re so keen to perpetuate a ‘straw man’ in order to attack the site that asked.
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This story alludes to PFI projects starting 5 years ago which is incorrect. PFI contracts have been around well over a decade and most of them are boondogles, I think the PFI SCAMS were introduced by Blair.
‘its inception’ – the inception of the blog, not of PFI
Oh and they were introduced by Major – but Blair was a fan
PFI @ 7.50.
http://www.selloff.org.uk/nhs/default.html
Quoted in this documentary Thatcher said ‘Blair and New Labour were her greatest achievement.’
This is when the cross party neoliberal/neocon ‘privatise the world’ political ‘centrist’ consensus, that is destroying societies, economies and democracy, comes to the fore. Lib Dems also got on board and it looks like many Coop MPs did as well.
Lets hope her constituency chooses a new candidate who supports the 2017 manifesto.
The mechanism now appears to be there for her CLP to do so in the revised new edition of the Labour Rule book .
Yes, but still at the discretion of the NEC
Skwawkbox strikes again.
Not that it will shut them up, but that’s tories for you.
There is only a handful of Labour supporting media outlets in the U.K.
It is simply inexplicable why the Cooperative Party MP, Stella Creasy, who owes her entire political career to the Labour Party, spends such a great deal of her time attacking one of those outlets.
It is almost as if she wants Labour to lose elections as she seems obsessed with constantly briefing against the Labour Party and its supporters in the media.
While I know a few who have joined the Coop Party (to try to restore the political balance there) it seems high time the Labour movement has a long hard think about these MPs, and our resources spent getting them elected. Personally I was happy with the Coop as a retailer and for “doing a nice funeral”.
Stella Creasy is typical of those Labour MPs who seem to have forgotten that the Labour Party is a SOCIALIST Party.
When confronted with questions which may lead to them having to defend Socialism and their commitment to it they see the pitfalls ahead and introduce tangential arguments to try and take the subject off into the long grass. This is not done accidentally, it is a well practiced tactic and is totally deliberate.
Creasy is annoyed because in this instance she has not been able to shake off SKWAWKBOX or those who try to keep her from making detours until she answers the question.
I find it concerning that every criticism is rebutted as being misogyny. Not only is there the danger of crying wolf but Stella Creasy, Jess Phillips and co. are inviting a backlash. Already, some on the Tory Right are suggesting not employing/promoting women because of the danger of misinterpretation or false accusation.
My own view is that SKWAWKBOX has an issue with Stella Creasy. Perhaps it should ask her some more direct questions about her views in general rather than casting aspersions on her judgement on the basis of a tweet by a former right-wing Labour MP about one music concert and asking for “comments”. Whatever Stella Creasy’s position, this sort of laboured public disparagement only serves to harm the Labour Party.
Oh, really?
https://g8fip1kplyr33r3krz5b97d1-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/06/GettyImages-531365848-1160×773.jpg
I am not sure what you are basing your view on, there are hundreds of posts on this site and only a handful refer to Stella. You seem to be seeing a conspiracy where none exists.
Ms Creasy was asked a simple question. She refused to answer the question and instead responded with a rather longwinded rant unrelated to the question asked.
The question was this: is it appropriate for somebody elected under the Labour banner to socialise with Conservative MPs and journalists who are anti-Labour?
Do you think that is appropriate?
1. Bollocks – though we do have an issue with MPs of any gender who disrespect the members and damage the party publicly.
2. This blog has asked Ms C a number of questions over a considerable period – often at the request of her own local members desperate for help.
3. It’s only public because Ms Creasy publicised it. We sent her an email
Creasey’s just using a well tried tactic which is, bringing up an objection to being questioned about ones activity by directing spurious accusations at the questioner(s)! This is what all (and that’s far too many) non socialists in the PLP i.e. Tory Lites, do! They get found out and then they huff and puff about all sorts amongst which include, avoiding actually answering a direct question or using obscure rules and regulations to confound the questioner(s)! If anybody they perceive to be ‘on the Left’ has the audacity to question these Tory Lite MPs they also throw in the line whining, ‘so much for another kind of politics’ when they, with their obfustication and obscurantism and down right lying (to themselves as well as to everybody else) are the ones who are perpetuating the kind of politics which they’ve always used and been comfortable with! That is, the old type of politics which has been fed to us since Thatcher and then Blair made it almost obligatory, especially for MPs who have been corrupted by the way Parliament is used and abused, if such MPs (far to many of ’em) were and still are,willing to sell any principle for their own selfish aggrandizement! Creasey’s just another one! Get rid of them all, democratise Parliament, make all representatives open to immediate recall by the electorate and bugger ‘natural justice’ when justice has never been natural but a tool of the ruling strata to be use, every so often, to make working people feel a bit better about being kicked in the teeth more times than one can count!
Just seen Dugher’s tweet about watching the shite on the telly and finishing selection boxes…
What an arrogant prick. I’d have loved him to say that to me (Face-to-face preferably – Didn’t have the bollocks to be an MP – wouldn’t have the bollocks to say it to my face)
But my response to him would be as follows (If I bothered with twitter or other shite like that):
“Unfortunately, dugher (Pronounced by me as ‘duffer’) you craven-dull-as-ditchwater-shithouse-who’s-unsurprisingly-NOT-an-MP…not all of us an afford tickets to gigs (by bands who were hardly massive even within their own genre) at this time of year.
Probably not that you paid for your ticket & hospitality – the revolving door (that you thundercnut current & ex-MP’s have got well boxed-off) made certain of that.
(As an aside, I wonder did creasy & coffey pay for their tickets/hospitality?)
You see, some of us mere plebs have more pressing financial matters to attend to because shithouse tory wannabes like yourself have done fuck-all for our benefit – plenty for your own self-advancement, though. (Yourself a good example – You do NOT pontificate to me about the alleged ‘might’ of shed seven; music magazine twunt or not )
Did I hear that right? What stella did for me?
Oh….Wonga? Gee thanks, stella for all YOUR hard work – ffs, as if that makes up for the tax credit abstention and the workfare £130m (workfare) that you & your shithouse right-wing friends sold people like us right down the river on…but I digress
Pontificating to people like us as though you’re somebody of any consequence. Go ride yerselves. While you enjoy yer prawn sandwiches at yer cosy concert venue, I’ll just sit here watching dad’s army for the cunteenth time – debating whether to finish off this half-eaten Cadbury’s crunchie for me tea, in the vain hope that the next time stella votes – it’ll be against her ‘mate’ coffey and her welfare ‘reforms’ that have bollocksed up people’s lives, the length & breadth of the nation.”
INTERREGNUM
The old order (Neo-Liberalism) is dying.
But the new cannot be born.
Perhaps we are all being tested.
And only the Stars will ride the storm!
The debate is about neo-liberals enjoying time together. You can tell much about a person by the company they keep!