Analysis comment

While the media spent the time attacking Labour, here’s the first month of Tory ‘achievements’

List of shame has been largely ignored as ‘MSM’ continue to attack Corbyn and Labour

Boris Johnson’s first month in majority government has seen:

• retail sales fall to 1995 levels
• 300 steel jobs cut
• A&E performance worst since records began
• 4 Britons killed in Iran
• NHS contracts awarded to USA
• £3bn British firm taken over by a US hedge fund

Since the election, Jeremy Corbyn’s has:

• worked with the homeless Christmas Day
• been the only party leader to condemn antisemitic attacks in London
• attacked the government over the Tories’ ongoing cladding failures
• called Iran correctly, warning violence would escalate

Yet the Establishment media have continued to attack Corbyn and the Labour Party, giving Johnson a free pass as he disappeared on holiday during a major international crisis and the collapse of the NHS.

As Peter Hitchens presciently said in 2018:

The Tories and their media allies have broken the UK’s democracy.

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26 comments

  1. There is no accounting for the stupidity of a substantial proportion of the electorate.

    1. And the determination of the British media, particularly the BBC, to demonise Jeremy Corbyn

    2. It’s obviously the case that there is now no pretence by the media of fulfilling any genuine journalistic function. The vast majority is propaganda and/or clear bias. (I still haven’t seen any reviews of the two substantial academic works covering the antisemitism scam)

      I’ve always said that the BBC is a vehicle for the establishment in many aspects. But, listening to a recent program that contained reporting excerpts from the 1970s onwards, it is clear that the bias has become far worse and more deeply embedded.

      1. RH, I remember decades ago the BBC being substantially left of centre in its programming and its news output – the Tories used to constantly rage about it.
        They still accuse it of being full of lefties but nowadays it’s just a giggle between them and their media mates doing lines in Tramp’s toilets.
        Wasn’t it Joseph Cummings who said,
        “Accuse your enemies of that which you are guilty of”
        and
        “We’ll start with racism/antisemitism, useless leader, economic incompetence, law and order breakdown and screw-ups in the Middle East. Stay off the NHS and patriotism until it’s sold and the money’s stashed abroad.”

      2. RH and David, you are both absolutely spot on. Well said. Sad but true.

    3. What an arrogant thing to say. But then you are obviously superior to them all aren’t you Steve?

      1. Poor people voting for greater poverty for themselves and their children are by definition stupid.
        I’m superior to them in that respect, no question.
        They’re better footballers though.

      2. Yes David, I’ve known for a long time how arrogant YOU are, and how superior you think you are! The point is of course that if the black propaganda lies and smears and disinformation DIDN’T work, the propagandists obviously wouldn’t do it. But it DOES work AND is effective as such – ie has the desired effect.

        Anyway, I knew just as soon as skwawkbox posted another article about the Tories backtracking on this or that or whatever, that the shills on here – yet again – would be spouting about how stupid people are – and specifically working class voters who voted for them – for voting for the Tories.

      3. Allan Howard 12/01 at 9:09 pm

        Ask yourself Allan, were you stupid enough to be taken in by the Tories and the MSM.

      4. Allan, stop littering your comments with “as such” and “of course” and inappropriately PLACED caps if you want to be taken seriously.
        Not by me obviously, but maybe by your target audience.

      5. Afterthought: And David, if these ‘poor people’ you refer to thought and believed for one second that by voting Tory they would be voting for greater poverty for themselves and their children, then needless to say they OBVIOUSLY wouldn’t vote Tory. BUT if they DO vote Tory, it’s because they’ve been conned and duped and deceived, and NOT because they are stupid!

        ___________

        I just looked up a skwawkbox article that was posted just a week after the GE (Tories break another election promise), and did so precisely because I knew that the ‘stupid’ label was being disseminated in the comments, and in this case it was timfrom who was coming out with it (see his 4.51pm post, for example), and in one post he says how people should see past the smears, but of course DOESN’T elaborate as to how ordinary people even KNOW that the smears ARE smears, let alone see past them!

        https://skwawkbox.org/2019/12/19/tories-break-another-election-promise-within-first-week-on-minimum-wage/

      6. Allan Howard 12/01/2020 at 9:58 pm · ·
        “it’s because they’ve been conned and duped and deceived”

        Allan – Can you explain why you weren’t conned, duped and deceived?

      7. Can I just say to people who read and follow skwawkbox – and particularly to younger people who are relatively new to politics – please don’t be taken in by the shills on here who try to divide us, in this particular case by denigrating people as being stupid. In a survey that the authors of Bad News For Labour commissioned last year, for example, participants believed, on average, that 34% of LP members had been reported (to the Labour Party/NEC) for anti-semitism. Now they didn’t just happen to believe that that was the case for no reason, but because for the past four years or more they have been bombarded with lies and falsehoods by the MSM AND the likes of Margaret Hodge and Ruth Smeeth and John Mann etc alleging that they have received hundreds – and in some cases THOUSANDS – of abusive anti-semitic comments on twitter and facebook etc.Then you have groups like the Campaign Against Antisemitism and Labour Against Antisemitism and the Jewish Labour Movement alleging that they TOO have submitted thousands of antisemitic posts they’ve found on twitter etc to the NEC.

        So are these people ‘stupid’, or have they just been duped and deceived by the propagandists? (I think I’m right in saying that seven hundred and something people took part in the survey). Needless to say, to attack them as being ‘stupid’ is itself a smear!

        And to answer your point Steve, I was fortunate enough to have a father who was wise to the Establishment and their propaganda techniques AND to read a book many years ago entitled The Press and Political Dissent by Mark Hollingsworth, and then there was and IS the likes of John Pilger and Noam Chomsky etc. The point is that once you are ‘awakened’ to the Dark Forces, then you can see through their propaganda lies etc.

        NB I just did a search on Amazon for the above book, which was definitely available on there the last time I happened to check less than a year ago, but now nothing is coming up (through Amazon itself), but here’s an alternative link:

        http://markhollingsworth.co.uk/books/the-press-and-political-dissent/

        And even though it was published in 1987, it’s still worth reading, as nothing has changed, and if anything, it’s got worse.

        PS Oh right, and the shills – as per usual – are manipulating the ‘Likes’ again so as to try and manipulate readers! They’re so transparent it’s a joke!!

      8. Allan, it could be argued that to be conned/duped/deceived a person must either:
        have been denied access to information that would have enabled that person to see the con for what it was (ie deaf, blind, non-English speaker, no TV, no radio, no internet, living abroad)
        or:
        have had access to sufficient information yet failed to understand its import (ie stupid).

        Testing potential voters for a minimum level of comprehension and a basic knowledge of current affairs wouldn’t be unreasonable given the importance to society of selecting the best managers to run it.
        Of course voting while stupid isn’t a crime but is democracy being served? I’d argue not 🙂

      9. David, don’t dictate to me how I write my posts you LITTLE piece of fascist unowhat. Cheers mate.

      10. David, you are talking out of your backside (re your 2.47am post), as you so often do.

        I mean your ‘argument’ is so illogical it’s beyond absurd. If people don’t know that they are being lied to and mislead or that what they are being told is complete fabrication, then what possible reason would they have to think to research it, whatever it was. But anyway, are you saying – in respect of these ‘poor people’ you initially mentioned – that they DO know that the Tories will make their reality and that of their children worse, but they voted for them anyway, and did so because they are stupid, cos if SO, you should perhaps seek help.

        Why on earth are you persisting with this totally asinine discourse David when you know damn well that the corporate media and the BBC have just spent the past four years plus smearing and demonising Jeremy Corbyn on a daily basis, with some ten thousand articles (let alone news broadcasters TOO) in respect of the A/S smear ALONE, and probably twice as many again in respect of OTHER smears and falsehoods and disinformation. Oh right, but they weren’t churning it all out because they thought it would be effective, but just for fun, hmm.

        As George Bush Senior said: ‘If the people knew what we get up to they would chase us down the road and lynch us’, and his point was of course that the vast majority of people DON’T know what the psychopathic Elite(s) get up to, precisely because it is inconceivable to them.

        And the following is the mindset of ALL fascist Elites (and they are ALL inherently fascist):

        “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”

        Former CIA Director William Casey

        And in the process of searching for the above quote I came across the following article, much of which is also applicable to the British Establishment etc:

        https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-propaganda-how-corporate-america-manipulates-the-american-public-into-unwitting-support-for-corporate-fascism/5408445

      11. PS In the article I linked to above it says that 20,000 American military personnel were killed in the Vietnam war, but it was actually 58,000, and tens of thousands more were maimed and lost limbs etc, and tens of thousands more suffered from PTSD for many, many years afterwards.

      12. Allan – you may be right that ‘stupid’ is too harsh a term and consigns people to a class of unchangeable personal characteristics and abilities.

        However, it is clear that wisdom, insight and educated reasoning are foreign to a large section of humanity,let alone the British electorate.

        So let’s settle on ‘ill-informed gullibility and lack of judgment’. …?

        Now – what to do about this bleedin’ obvious fact?

      13. RH 13/01/2020 at 12:17 pm · ·
        So let’s settle on ‘ill-informed gullibility and lack of judgement’

        I can live with that. 😀

        However my original comment intentionally made no reference whatsoever to any particular section of the electorate and it is notable how many other commentators have attached their own particular prejudices to my original post.

  2. Meanwhile the mainly Tory Jewish Board of Deputies is focusing the Labour leadership on their demands for the party over the antisemitism non crisis. We are in the brink of a one party totalitarian state and the party are still navel gazing.

    The party needs to get a grip and quickly..

  3. Please pledge something if you can and share far and wide (there’s only a few days to go to reach the target):

    The criminal justice system currently imprisons young women found guilty of impersonating men in a sexual relationship. But, when male undercover police have sex with women in order to gather intelligence on social justice and environmental movements, they have committed no crime.

    Help us challenge this sexism and clarify the criminal law.

    https://www.crowdjustice.com/case/undercoverinequality/

    PS It is nothing less than state-sanctioned rape!

  4. I could almost swear I remember years ago Christopher Hitchens being the hard left one of the two brothers and Peter being the dyed-in-the-wool Thatcherite – but I keep seeing stuff that makes me doubt my memory.
    Maybe age has softened them both.

    1. I think that what it is, Thatcherism is in no way as extreme as what the conservatives practise today, which is more akin to hard right fascism. (Just look at the way the dwp operates, sanctions, people dying etc)
      Thatcher knew that to operate in such a manner would be disastrous but she didn’t have the gigantic propaganda machine spreading smears and lies as it runs today.
      Her conservatism was tame compared to today. Thats probably why you remember Chris Hitchens being left leaning.

  5. Christopher Hitchins died several years ago. Both brothers were hard right Tories as I recall but Peter did change his opinions quite a bit over the years and he no longer supports them.

    1. Just looked on Wiki – Chris was definitely a socialist until “9/11” changed his view, which I hadn’t known.
      I hadn’t known either that Peter was Labour for a couple of years in the 1970’s but left for journalistic independence. Turned hard Tory in 1997 apparently.
      My memories of them are based on TV appearances at different times.
      Glad to know my memory still stumbles on.

  6. Peter Hitchens was a ‘Trot’, but still produces copy that is always interesting & thought provoking. I may not always agree with him, but I have to work hard to question why, unlike most drivel posted here that even the Guardian wouldn’t accept.

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