After spending the last couple of days playing hard to get with the massed ranks of the UK press, Jeremy Corbyn has finally let the world know what’s going to happen with the Labour shadow cabinet reshuffle. You might think that the rearrangement of chairs on a ship that’s sailing straight to the bottom of the electoral ocean is not an event that should occasion much in the way of emotional involvement from the rest of the world, all the more so when the bums on those seats are bums who struggle to be recognised in their own shaving mirrors, but the Blairite wing of the Labour party are as sensitive as a freshly slapped face and they’ll squeal like Cameron’s pig if they think they’re about to be slapped again.
Getting slapped is precisely what happened. Some people that no one has heard of got demoted, and a couple of others got sacked. In the normal run of things, in the business world that the managerial wing of Labour have sold what passes for their soul to, publicly undermining your boss is grounds for a sacking. However now the heirs to Blair are squealing that the business rules that Labour’s right wing wants to impose on the rest of us shouldn’t have to apply to Labour’s right wing.
Mike Dugher, who no one had heard of before he was sacked, didn’t take his sacking well. Mike recently claimed that Corbyn’s supporters into a religious cult, presumably because he thinks it’s ridiculous to imagine that a political party ought to have some sort of guiding moral principles. Jezza was not best pleased, because of course he believes that the SNP has the cultishness business pretty much sewn up. But Mike wouldn’t stop running his mouth off, criticising his boss in public, and generally undermining the new direction that a large majority of ordinary Labour members had voted for. Then after getting sacked for being an out of control disloyal loudmouth, he went and proved the point by changing his Twitter profile to advertise the fact that he’s an out of control disloyal loudmouth. Pat McFadden likewise got his jotters for undermining his boss’s foreign policy. Corbyn’s foreign policy is predicated on the radical notion that the world is a complex place and that the actions of nations like the UK or the USA can have unforeseen consequences. Pat doesn’t believe this, he prefers to believe that bad things happen because of bad people being bad. And the best thing to do with bad people is bomb them. Pat’s views have the subtlety and nuance of a Twitter rant, but it’s Pat who is hailed in the media as Mr Sensible.
Mike and Pat’s disloyalty doesn’t count. Disloyalty only counts when you’re being disloyal to the establishment, and since Jezza is decidedly non-establishment you can’t be disloyal to him. The fact that he’s now acting like a party leader and not an indulgent geography teacher who doesn’t give a toss whether his pupils pass or fail is causing a media feeding frenzy. It’s mayhem, reporters that no one trusts writing for for newspapers that no one reads are interviewing politicians that no one has heard of about a reshuffle that no one cares about in a parliamentary party that no one believes in.
The shadow cabinet isn’t even real, it’s the fantasy football of politics, although to be fair British politics ceased being about reality a very long time ago. The shadow cabinet serves no real purpose other than nominating someone in the official opposition as the person who will trade non-points with the relevant government minister in parliament as both sides seek to avoid answering any questions. It’s an exercise in irrelevance.
Labour’s right wing are for some odd reason are described as moderates in the media. We live in a country where moderation is regarded as having a propensity to go to war, selling out workers’ rights to big business, and putting the interests of the state, the security services, and the City before those of the people. The modern right of the Labour party is more right wing than the Tories during the 70s. Labour’s right wing owe their allegience to a higher principle than the Labour party. That might be fine if that principle was equality, truth, and social justice, but the principle they owe their alliegence to is the supremacy of the British establishment. The collective responsibility of the shadow cabinet has been sold to the City of London. That’s precisely why the party was kicked in the collective nads in Scotland in May.
The reason that the public lost their faith in Labour was because of the party’s hypocrisy. The Tories are basterts but make no secret of being basterts, Labour is the Uriah Heep of politics which pretends to be so terribly umble but then out-basterts the Tories. The oppressive rules and regulations which Labour wants to inflict on the rest of us shouldn’t apply to the princes and princesses of the party. Responsibility is for the little people, not for the jumped up rightist entryists who’d be far better off as assistant managers in a branch of Iceland.
However the jumped up ones are jumping with anger right now, and Jezza’s minor reshuffle threatens to tear the party apart. Three more people you’ve never heard of resigned today, one of them during a BBC interview, and now the papers are full of headlines about Stalinist dictators and purges. Those of us who aren’t fully paid up members of Labour’s mini tent tendency might fondly imagine that the purpose of the party is to oppose the Tories, Labour’s right know better. They are convinced that the purpose of the party is to adopt Tory policies then present them to the public as sensible moderation.
The Tories know that the British state and establishment functions to protect the interests of the rich and the powerful. Labour’s right wing don’t want to change that system, they just want to extend its privileges to Labour’s managerialists and during the Blair and Brown years that’s exactly what they did. Their screams of protest are a sign that they’re not going to give up their corpse-like grasp on politics in the UK. The screams are warnings to the little people not to get ideas above their station. Don’t dare imagine that anything can change, don’t dream, don’t imagine a better future. That’s the British way. A minor reshuffle isn’t going to change anything in a marked deck of cards. The game is still rigged against you.
BARKING UP THE RIGHT TREE Barking Up the Right Tree has now been published and is an anthology of my articles for The National newspaper. You can submit an advance order for the book on the Vagabond Voices website at http://vagabondvoices.co.uk/?page_id=1993
Price is just £7.95 for 156 pages of doggy goodness. Order today!
A limited number of signed copies of the two volumes of the Collected Yaps is also still available. See below for order details.
Donate to the Dug This blog relies on your support and donations to keep going – I need to make a living, and have bills to pay. Clicking the donate button will allow you to make a payment directly to my Paypal account. You do not need a Paypal account yourself to make a donation. You can donate as little, or as much, as you want. Many thanks.
Order the Collected Yaps of the Wee Ginger Dug Vols 1 & 2 for only £21.90 for both volumes. A limited number of signed copies is still available, so get your order in now! P&P will be extra, approximately £3 per single volume or £4 for both sent together. If you only want to order one volume, please specify which. Single volumes are available for £10.95 per copy.
To order please send an email with WEE GINGER BOOK ORDER in the subject field to weegingerbook@yahoo.com giving your name, postal address, and email address and which volumes (1, 2 or both) you wish to order. I will contact you with details of how to make payment. Payment can be made by Paypal, or by cheque or bank transfer. Get your order in today – an ideal Christmas present!
Wee Ginger Dug 
That’s that then, it’ll be the Tories for the next twenty years. Time for Scotland to get the hell out of this bloody union.
I agree totally, Labour could not run a bath without instructions and the Tories, aka the stoopid party have managed to run rings round both them and the Lib Dems so what does that make them.
J & A
They are all bloody Tories amongst the WM Unionist ranks; so, next 20 years needs a swift conversion to mortally perpetual passed down over their generations if they are given half a chance.
Thus, out asap: Post-Holyrood and subsequent local elections looking good.
Result? Abrogate this appalling state of affairs and walk away with a clear conscience squared with a clear and composed mind.
A bas
Daibhidh
I know they’re all Tories, but I mean the genuine “Bastert” variety.
The red variety, in the guise of, Labour are now the party of ZUGZWANG;
preferring to miss their turn pretending to run the country lest they, once again, make an arse of it, thus letting the genuine Tory basterts make an arse of it instead.
The looks of barely concealed glee of the BBC talking heads on the one o’clock news was very revealing.
It all looks very scripted – Corbyn’s either very naive or in on it..
Agree Paul. Labour can tear itself to shreds for all i care. SNP x 2 in may.
Reblogged this on pictishbeastie.
‘It’s mayhem, reporters that no one trusts writing for for newspapers that no one reads are interviewing politicians that no one has heard of about a reshuffle that no one cares about in a parliamentary party that no one believes in.’
Jose Saramago couldn’t have said it any better.
SNP x 2.
Well said both of you.
The Tories under Lang and Forsyth destroyed themselves in Scotland a generation ago.
The Lib Dumbs lost the plot in 2007, then again when propping up Cameron. + Carmichael.
Now, the Labour Party in England are tearing themselves to pieces, to the delight of the right wing media. In Scotland we saw the true nature of Labour when Murphy got the nod.
Bye-bye, Ukazia.
Honestly – I’ve seen more rational behaviour in a primary school bun fight than how (Not) Labour at Westminster are conducting themselves. And as (Not) Labour in Scotland are part and parcel of the same party they are tarred with the same brush.
I simply cannot see how the shenanigans of Corbyn and Co can do anything to help (Not) Labour’s cause in May’s Scottish Parliament elections at all.
Frankly I don’t care.
But what I do care about is that privileged MPs (that’s now Moron of Parliament in my book by the way) can honestly believe what McFadden allegedly believes.
Every act of terrorism ultimately has its origins in the actions/inactions (both past and present) of other Governments or countries. I am not an expert of course but I cannot think of one substantial terrorist event or group that doesn’t.
That is in NO WAY condoning violence by anyone against anyone. But to deny the basic premise means we can never hope to solve the problems of terrorism.
“Every act of terrorism ultimately has its origins in the actions/inactions (both past and present) of other Governments or countries.”
That is substantially correct, however, the root cause of the problem, in the post war era, lies with America and its claim to be exceptional. This claim of “American exceptionalism” is, in fact, a claim to be the “master race”, which results in the Americans thinking that they can do what they want with any country in the world, and force other countries to obey their diktats by either force or bribery.
The Americans, and their tame poodles in the English government (among others), believe it is their right to suborn, invade and annex any country, regardless of how many millions of civilian men, women and children they murder in the process, and to replace the governments of these countries with puppet regimes. The next step is, of course, to exploit these countries and steal their natural resources.
Any peoples of any country treated like this by the Americans would, quite naturally, object to the subjugation of their country, and would react accordingly. If, for example, the brain dead Americans stopped to consider this, they would realize that if America was invaded and subjugated, the American people would object and attempt to fight the invaders with any means available. However, being totally brain dead, they seem to think that other countries have no right to fight back against American “master race” subjugation.
Thus, the American Crusader “master race” has to accept that the “terrorists” fighting them have, in general, every right to rise up against the Americans rather than accepting an Hawaiian type Bayonet Constitution which would subjugate and impoverish them for the rest of their lives.
I feel some sympathy for the Anerican people in the sense that they have been largely deceived by the most efficient propaganda machine the world has ever known since the 1940s.The same can be argued for the wider British poulation too, whose leaders have been dancing to Uncle Sam’s tune since 1941. We in Scotland have woken from that malevolent spell as can be seen by our burgeoning democracy movement. We see the irrelevance of the situation so succinctly described by Paul and so many others and we see the corruption and abuse swept under the carpet. We see the slaughter of innocents carried out in the name of the wealthy and we refuse to accept that this is the way.
The old parties stick to the tired, lifeless doctrines that no one with an ounce of intelligence or common decency believes in any more.
Scotland’s people are more than half awakened now and increasingly realise that we can have a major part in bringing this centuries long Circus of Death to a halt. May other nations follow.
Well said, Max. We are awakening. Let’s keep the momentum going.
I must say not all Americans are happy with their country’s recent political manoeuvres. Many are highly critical – just as we are when considering the WM Tory tactics and their pretence that the “British Empire” is anything other than a joke.
Paul, I thoroughly enjoyed your description of poor Corbyn. But I can’t help feeling sorry for him.
McFadden “Believes” whatever McFadden thinks will advance his career – the truth or the facts are of no interest.
By the way, the “the truth and the facts” surrounding the Paris “Event”, are extremely interesting but only if you have an open mind!
That’s pretty much it in a nutshell Paul.
As for anger? They have no fucking idea.
A wee message for those politicians or precious artistes in the media that think the ordinary humdrum world and its ordinary humdrum rules shouldn’t affect that closed bubble of self righteous, self entitlement they live in. Those rules are about to apply to everyone, and no one, but no one, is above being held to answer for their actions.
Not just for years, but generations these bastards have been beyond the rules of normal society and most times beyond the law. If your ordinary Joe public stole from his employer, lied to or about his employer, betrayed the trust of his friends, peers or community, then such an individual would have his arse handed to him on a plate and feel the full weight of the law and public disgrace drop on them from a great height. They’d lose their job at the very least, go to jail at worst and somewhere in the middle might receive the odd harsh word or two from said peers.
How many politicians have brought disgrace to their communities, parties and fellow members through their actions only to escape jail just because? How many in the media have thrown the mightiest of strops when being caught out and called out on a lie? They hide behind some fucking nonsensical idea that freedom of speech, is the freedom to lie your arse off, mislead, manipulate, compromise your ethics and ideals for cash or political patronage and that somehow the freedom of speech part is a one way street. These hypocritical shysters apparently don’t believe that the public are also free to voice their opinion in answer.
At least with the media people do have some redress. The public can simply put them out of a job by keeping their hands in their pockets, deprive them of financial support, or the oxygen of publicity and tell them to take a hike. They may have the backing of a publisher or broadcaster with deep pockets to hide behind on a day to day basis, but when enough folk don’t buy their wares, even the publisher or the broadcaster will feel the need to cut dead wood.
We’ve watched them do this for years. They’ve manipulated, lied, stolen, driven our opinions by telling us who to love and who to hate. They’ve split and destroyed communities, taken us to war and come dangerously close to pulling our society apart at the seams. All for their own selfish ends.
So they’re angry, outraged, upset that their wee privileged world is beginning to shake?
They should try being helpless and sick with rage for a few years like the rest of us.
Don’t miss them and hit the wall, mac. Brilliant. You have expressed, certainly my feelings, in one of the best comments you have ever written. Keep it up.
I couldn’t have put it better and I’m not going to add a single word. I’m sharing your post on FB if that’s OK because more people need to read it.
Great comment Macart. You have summed up journalists and their employers perfectly.
great post as usual Paul and great comments from all the people who posted. Here in this post from some time past is a wee video of why ordinary people no longer support labour.
PS It’s on the skids in the republic of ireland too. It doesn’t exist in Northern ireland though its sister party the Social Democratic LP has 3 seats in Westminster all the while claiming to support Irish Reunification
I watch with interest as this whole fiasco slowly unraveled. I have never and will never vote labour but I feel sorry for Corbyn. I believe he is an honest man with good policies and England need an opposition to the Torys. The right wing press are hanging on every tiny word that is said or in most cases not said and the Blairites waging war against him as everyone revels in this insane circus. He was dammed if he had a big reshuffle and dammed if he didn’t. Watching every news programme run him down, the PM make fun of him at question time, the ridiculous BBC political correspondent Laura Kuenssberg laugh out loud and the indignant sacked opposition ministers running him down in their hissy fits makes me wonder what chance the masses of his labour supporters have in getting their democratic voice heard. How long will it take for the establishment to squeeze the last bit of conviction from Corbyn and he resigns to be replaced by a right wing establishment puppet. The whole fiasco is a disgusting disgrace, with a complete lack of respect for the people who voted for him and expected to see the policies he stands for be brought to fruition. They have no chance. The establishment are winning. Its the same crap Scotland has endured for years. Independence cannot come quick enough.
As you say Lizzie, it’s the same crap that Scotland has be forced to endure for years. The demonisation of Alex Salmond and the SNP, their members and supporters was incessant. It still is but they can’t yet quite paint Nicola Sturgeon as evil as they did A.Salmond, so they are going for SNP MPs.
I remember friends and family visiting from NE of Engerland, in the run up to the Indy ref. “Oh mind I don’t like that A.Salmond”. “No I don’t trust that A.Salmond”.
Why I asked, is it because they tell you to hate him on the telly? It was. ‘What is it about him that you hate?’ They couldn’t answer.
Now they say, ‘So what do think of Jeremy, do you think he will save us?’
They have to put some faith in him and all voted liebour, no other choice. I just shake my head.
I say to them, so you know what it feels like when A. Salmond was portrayed as an evil guy and incompetent politician, and also how much the SNP are demonised.
I do however doubt they will see the connection, or that the gutter (ie all) press, and their beloved EBC, (still something they believe in) are all pulling the wool over their eyes big style.
I met that attitude a few times while canvassing during the referendum. Angry face would loom at you, vein throbbing in forehead and grind out through gritted teeth, ” I can’t stand Alex Salmond.” Or words to that effect!
It dawned on me that this was only an excuse and far better expressed by those who would push past, with stony faces, saying nothing. It was actually me they couldn’t stand, or rather those of us out making ourselves visible on the street, supporting independence. Alex Salmond was simply our avatar, a convenient person to abuse while actually directing their anger at us, the threatening presence in front of them. They could be rude about Alex Salmond seemingly, without feeling that they could be accused of abusing a mild-mannered distributor of leaflets.
On one occasion when a man had actually crossed the street to confront me and began loudly declaring how angry ” that Salmond ” made him. I asked him out of interest, why, if he was so enraged by Salmond, was I the only one hearing him shouting?
As to seeing the connection, Helena, I doubt that Corbyn or McDonnell could see the connection either. You might think that politicians of their age and experience might get it. The media storm of denigration that descended on Foot was witnessed by them and they must have known that it was to avoid the destroying angels of the media that the Blairites sold their soul. How much sweeter must it be to sit in a studio and have a nice fireside chat with Auntie than be subjected to media scorn – and there are often nice little sinecures to be had if you are a good little establishment lackey.
Corbyn should have the cojones to kick the Blairites out of the Labour Party.
We can recognise tories of all colours, whether they call themselves tories or “moderate” labour, and will vote against them all. Until they realise that, they will have no chance in Scotland.
A great post Paul. Thank you.
I agree with most comments but I have no sympathy for Corbyn. He is opposed to Scottish independence and he actively co-operates with the British establishment in sidelining Scotland’s MP’s. I cannot have any sympathy with someone who does that.
He is old Labour and completely committed to the control freak principles of old Labour collectivism, that cannot begin to tolerate or understand the notion that Scotland has any right to choose independence. To choose not to be subordinated to the greater good – the greater good of British socialism. That is why he and those south of the border CHOOSE not to see any relation between his being demonised and Alec Salmond being demonised.
Mr Corbyn is selective when it comes to understanding the rights of other ‘countries’. Scotland doesn’t qualify as a country in his book and he will do all he can to ensure Scottish independence never happens.
Arthur I am of the same mind, he took his advice regarding Scotland from his failing Scottish Branch instead of doing his own research. Hell mind him.
He has come over as weak and vacillating and his reshuffle sealed that though for me. Seems only 4,000 people thought he might make a difference, I wonder how long they will remain.