‘But hey ho it’s up to us to get the truth out’ – presenter’s arrogant condescension doesn’t age well…
Condescending LBC presenter James O’Brien told a listener that only ‘weirdos’ and ‘clowns’ think that Keir Starmer won’t repeal the Tories’ anti-democratic new law against protest. David Lammy said Labour won’t do it – but that was the weirdos taking him out of context.
The arrogance didn’t age well even to the end of the day – Keir Starmer duly appeared on ITV and admitted that he has no intention of repealing the law if he gets into government. Instead, he wants to let it ‘bed in’ – because hey, just because police have a power doesn’t mean they’ll use it (talk about clowns!):
Starmer is a Tory. O’Brien is the clown.
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“Starmer is a Tory. O’Brien is the Clown.”
You got it in one Skwawkie
Lammy sounded absolutely ‘clear,’ as does Starmer. O’Brien acts as if he holds the keys, unlocking truth for the nation. Sounds okay when he’s got Nazi Braverman in his sights but all the wind slips from his sails when it’s Starmer, reverting to playground name calling. Much like the Guardian, JO is there for a reason and it’s not protecting democracy.
SEVEN times keef refused to rule out the possibility (probability) of coalescing with the libtards on sky news yesterday.
What an utterly spineless arsehole he is.
Toffee, I have suspected for a while that Starmer next project is to merge Labour with the LibDems. In order for the project to work, Starmer needs to get ride the Labour Party of any vestige of socialism.
Remember Milliband introducing the “register supporter”? Labour was trying to copy the US model of selecting candidates in order to weaken Labour’s link with the Trade Unions.
Since it didn’t work the way Labour’s PLP wanted, now they have got ride of the “register supporter” Starmer &co wouldn’t want someone like me and others to pay the fee for “registered supporter” and be able to vote for the next leader of the Labour Party.
A ‘centre party of permanent government’ was Mandelson’s plan in 2010 (as detailed in Tribune by ? Mark Seddon). Hence, the sabotage of Brown’s election campaign, with David Milliband as the putative head of a Liberal-Labour coalition. He was only thwarted by Nick Clegg but the end goal was the amalgamation of the LDs and RW Labour. The total exclusion and expulsion of the Left was a prerequisate.
Mandelson has worked every day since to achieve his fantasy.
Not another Social Democratic Party, after amalgamating with the Liberals and becoming the liberal democrats they still remained the third party.
O’Brien believed it was going to be a “People’s Vote” before a General Election and Brexit was going to be stopped. We all know how that worked out.
The man didn’t have a clue them and it doesn’t have a clue now.
O’Brien is a good example that in Britain today you don’t need to be intelligent to get a top well paid job, nepotism is alive and kicking far more than in Southern Europe.
The only different is that south Europeans recognised and called out when we see it while the British public just ignore it.
Reply to Maria
Completely agree with your comment about not needing to be intelligent to get a top paid job . You just have to be nasty and unprincipled and willing to toe the line without caring about the hurt and damage you inflict on others.
You have to be happy to pillory the selected target with unfounded smears and propaganda so that gullible people are brought to believe without a single shread of evidence that e.g. Jeremy Corbyn hates Jews,is unBritish, is a threat to National Security etc, repeat these lies at every available opportunity , add mockery and ridicule to the mix and Bobs your uncle – you will have a brilliant job for life.
Ring in at 3pm and tell him you would like to help him get something right for once
Then ask him what’s going to win the 2.30 at York
Meanwhile, yesterday (9 May) saw the third reading in the HoL of The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill which the TUC estimates will deny 5.5 million public sector workers the right to strike.
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2023/05/09/the-governments-plan-to-restrict-the-right-of-state-employees-to-strike-is-another-nail-in-the-coffin-of-public-services/
Given Starmer already has recorded and documented form on:
– breaking his pledges to members;
– attacking his own members;
– pushing the Party towards bankruptcy;
– throwing 51% of the populace [ie biological women] under a bus;
– openly stating he won’t pursue any other economic model other than the failed neo-liberal one;
– openly declared he won’t repeal the draconian anti-protest legislation
….the odds are not favourable that this legislation will be off the statute book under any administration run by Starmer. Whatever its name or the colour of the rosette pinned on the chest.
Assuming, reasonably, that all those 5.5 million public sector workers have at least one other voting family member who will also be adversely affected that’s another 10 million votes being potentially put at risk in addition to those of biological women, the non-zionist Jewish community, much of the BAME community, tens of thousands of former Party members and their families, and anyone to the left of Vlad the Impeller.
Tell us again, steveH if you have the brass neck, how this represents your criteria of ‘success.’ We could do with a good laugh.
But but but… “green paper”
The London based political commentariat believe Starmer is a liberal. They know he’s certainly not a socialist, but they’re doubly wrong because he’s not even a liberal, as in, he doesn’t believe in libertarian social policies or any progressive reform.
These people don’t get that Starmer is just a damn Tory plant, sent to destroy/end the leftwards drift first seen under Miliband then doubled down upon under Corbyn, that drift started in reaction to New Labour.
Starmer sees the world through a right-wing reactionary prism, he’s happy mingling with US neocons, the Davos jet set; overreaching ‘security services’ and military folk. And will leave the unions and Labour members equally furious and frustrated, if he becomes PM.
It’s a shame this ‘fake Labour’ farcical pantomime has to play out because many can’t or won’t wake up to the fact they’ve been scammed by a bad actor.
because hey, just because police have a power doesn’t mean they’ll use it
Just because they have camera phones does t mean they’ll violate the dignity of murder victims by sharing photos amongst themselves on WhatsApp or Instagram or Facebook etc.
Just because they have tasers doesn’t mean they’ll use them ..on blind people who they somehow mistake their sticks for samurai swords ffs.
Or guns…On unarmed civilians
Or batons…on anyone they f***ing well feel like.
Nor will they lie in court. Nor will their colleagues lie for them in court. Or beat the living shite out of someone for questioning their authority. Or rape and murder. Or steal money & drugs from raids. Or kill pedestrians and other road users when they put their foot down without their blues n twos on in a hurry to get to Morrisons because the donuts are on offer.
Or get junkies to confess to crimes they never committed by stringing them out for their next hit.
Nah, not the good ol’ British Bobby…
Put their lives on the line every day, they do…
“Condescending” is probably the best way to describe O’brien.
And he, as well as most writers with the Guardian and Byline Times, irritates me to the highest degree. They are always spot on in pointing out at the flaws in the system but will always shoot down anyone who has the will and workable solutions to the problems they describe.
An interesting observation much in tune with the analysis – complete with a number of relevant links – found here:
https://www.palladiummag.com/2023/04/27/britain-is-dead/
The bottom line – particularly for those who push the Official Narrative line that what Starmer represents is some kind of viable alternative within the confines of a largely successful paradigm – is that to know where you are going you need to know where you are now and just as important how you got there.
And the system we have does not do competence. Because competence requires expertise ,experience and specialist knowledge.
The links in the third paragraph detail the cold hard grim reality of what some people here delusionally think is a successful operating model compared to everywhere else in the world. Because, as we all are instructed from birth, Britain is the bestest there can ever be.
A staggering level of hubris succinctly summerised by James Schneider:
“The British state is not very effective. It’s been actively dismantled to a greater degree than comparative European states…There is a debt mountain that is based on the idea that we will have strong growth going forward, which doesn’t seem to be the case. We have incredibly fragile supply chains that are pushing up the price of production. The parties don’t have the first clue about how to deal with what’s coming.”
And, considering the general levels of apathetic response to a rapidly deteriorating situation in the Country, along with that of the general discourse, the same could be said of much of the Country thanks to a supine,useless and captured Corporate media which pumps out historically unprecedented amounts and levels of propaganda more powerful than Huxley’s Soma.
The chickens, in the form of hard, objective reality, are most definitely coming home to roost.
Dave as a non British, I totally agree. The British make a virtue of the “strong upper lip” but have too weak a neck and are too ready to put their heads down and ignore reality.
Take the coronation for example paid at tax payers expenses, I have British neighbours telling me that the coronation has generated revenue. I am sure it has, but is the revenue generated coming back to the tax payers?
I haven’t been in London since 2020 but, at the time all I could observe in central London was Starbucks, Costas, McDonalds and similar and we know these business don’t pay a proper rate of tax but, rather a reduced one. I have not reason to believe it has changed in the last 3 years. If anything it is possibly worse with independent small business going under.
The trains that have take the people to London are run by private companies, that depend on state subsidies. Hence, were is all this profit to the tax payers?
Italy and France are republics and generate more income from tourism that Britain does. The idea that tourist would stop coming over if we didn’t have the monarchy is bonkers. However, try to say that to the proud British to the hilt that are some of my neighbours: they wish to protect the NHS while at the same time attacking its junior doctors for daring to demand a proper pay.
Their argument is that the country cannot afford it, that everybody has to tight their belts etc. I don’t see the Royals and the billionaires going short, but they are keeping their stiff upper lip and put their heads down no to see, God bless Britain!!
The like of O’brien really grates on me (and I’ll put most of the Guardian and Byline journalists as well as Ian Hislop in the same bag). One moment, they expose the political problems we face very accurately and propose sensible solutions… but as soon as someone turns up saying “yep, I’ll do it” they shoot them down with more voracity than they would to any tory. And then throw their full support behind some empty political figure who say so little that they can project their own progressive fantasy on… Just perpetuating the self destructing status quo.
The worse part: they don’t realise they’re doing it cause they’re just self righteous idiots.
246
Starmer is innumerate
With no prospect of a pact with the SNP, Red Tories are not in the game of forming a coalition without the support of the Socialist group
So what then
Starmer and Reeves would probably prefer a coalition with the Tories. As virtually no compromises would be required. Starmerism is, if anything, ‘continuity conservatism’
This seems to sum up FPTP and the aims of the ‘big two’ parties perfectly :
‘Everyone’s herded into two mainstream factions who both serve the interests of the powerful, while those few who can’t be herded are marginalised into political impotence.’
O’Brien has a point, Stammer says he won’t end the anti-protest law. Only clowns take any notice of anything Stammer says.
If this government is fortunate to avoid mass protests, then if the Red(Blue) knight manages to get the Labour Party(sic) into power, he might need the legislation, when the general public realise they have been duped.
A potential scenario the possibility of which, on the present trajectory, may not have a very long shelf life:
https://gilbertdoctorow.com/2023/05/12/uk-shipment-of-long-range-cruise-missiles-to-ukraine-radically-chabges-the-conflict/