Weekend Edition - Saturday/Sunday 8th/9th August

[AngryAsWell]

The Telegraph ‏@Telegraph · 11m11 minutes ago
Tomorrow's Daily Telegraph front page: 'Tesco can see your medical records'

https://twitter.com/Telegraph" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[AngryAsWell]

Stella Creasy takes the lead in the deputy leadership race, according to latest LabourList survey

http://labourlist.org/2015/08/stella-cr ... st-survey/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Tubby Isaacs]

Scientists here less than impressed with the SNP on GM foods.

http://www.sciencemediacentre.org/exper ... -gm-crops/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Gesture politics that makes Scotland look stupid, it seems.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Is it me or is this just a bit too convenient?

The Guardian did an article with Maajid Nawaz (Quiiliam Foundation) and used anonymous sources for some comments about him - one from a prominent LibDem. In the article there was a comment BTL which wanted the paper to justify their use of same.

This comment has since been picked up in two article about the row - one from Nawaz himself and one on Harry's Place (which ironically is anonymous...)

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... amism.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://hurryupharry.org/2015/08/04/the- ... jid-nawaz/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The comment itself came from this profile.

https://profile.theguardian.com/user/id/15201554" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

One single post. None before, none after. Deliberately set up to post that one comment. I thought at the time it was odd and it looks even more so now - esp. as it's been referenced in two articles.

Sock-puppety?

What a bizarre article. It mentions all the injustices that he's suffered, and then accuses people who speak up on behalf of British Muslims of wanting to stick it to Israel.

[HindleA]

The Telegraph ‏@Telegraph · 11m11 minutes ago
Tomorrow's Daily Telegraph front page: 'Tesco can see your medical records'

https://twitter.com/Telegraph" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/ ... cords.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[HindleA]

"Summary care records are held on all NHS patients, unless they specifically opt out.
The data from them will be sent on to all pharmacies, starting this autumn, but pharmacists have to ask patient’s for “permission to view” the record during any encounter
Latest figures show such records are held on 96 per cent of patients in England.
They include all medication prescribed over the last six to 12 months, and any personal information, such as diagnoses or patient preferences added to the file by GPs."

[pk1]

Stella Creasy takes the lead in the deputy leadership race, according to latest LabourList survey

http://labourlist.org/2015/08/stella-cr ... st-survey/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Those surveys are as useless as the 'polls' run by the Graun because they are not guaranteed to be answered by only Labour supporters, let alone Labour supporters with a vote in the election.

Betas me why they continue with them nor why they bother collating the results then publishing them. They are as worthwhile as the Scum - suitable to wipe your arse on, nothing more.

Edit: beats, not betas ! Bloody predictive text...

[pk1]

"Summary care records are held on all NHS patients, unless they specifically opt out.
The data from them will be sent on to all pharmacies, starting this autumn, but pharmacists have to ask patient’s for “permission to view” the record during any encounter
Latest figures show such records are held on 96 per cent of patients in England.
They include all medication prescribed over the last six to 12 months, and any personal information, such as diagnoses or patient preferences added to the file by GPs."

Funny how the Torygraph has suddenly picked up on this. I remember banging on about the (flawed) care.data scheme early last year/late 2013 !

Needless to say, Christina Paterson and the ex-Downing St mouthpiece on press preview knew sod all about it but good old Paterson (leftie my arse !) thinks it's a brilliant idea to have even more centralised data, even if that does mean the private medical records of the entire population !!!

Give me fucking strength.....

[onebuttonmonkey]

The man elected eight times who we're supposed to believe is unelectable

http://www.virtualeconomics.co.uk/2015/ ... table.html

It is the last resort of a political elite, terrified that they are about to face an actual dissenting voice. "You can't vote for that, no-one wants that, you're wasting your vote". I think, perhaps, that we are not. Lots of people want that. A whole country, offered that, just voted for it. Islington North has voted for it eight times in a row. Corbyn is perfectly electable. We're just not supposed to believe it in case we elect him.

Of course it's not as easy nor as credible as this post says. But neither is it as impossible as the assumption it can't happen makes it to dismiss and erase the possibility for change.

As for Corbyn making our opposition too weak to oppose Cameron? I have no idea. None. How does refusing to abstain make it harder to oppose? How does - for the first time in years - having a clear and differentiated position with a different narrative make it harder to oppose? Isn't the Corbyn campaign an absolute example of the desire for an opposition? And, for that matter, how can Cooper give the opposition we need over fit-to-work assessments when she introduced them? How can Kendall refute the Tory cuts when I've watched her give interviews saying we spent too much? How can Burnham - a nice man with good enough ideas - do that when he uses the word radical rather than ever being it?

What happens next is for everyone to decide. Talking about elections five years from now as if they've already been decided helps none of the candidates. Since when did defeatism win an election? Defeatism begets itself. A cause worth wanting to win for is better than a supposedly pragmatic and entirely unnecessary admission of a defeat we haven't even had yet. And the surest way to lose is to give up without even trying. "They'll never allow unions. Workers' rights? Don't worry, we've got all the money and power, it'll never happen." "Giving women the vote? How absurd." "Healthcare for everyone? Pfft." Labour is a movement whose greatest victories have never, ever been won by giving up on an election in the future - or the people who need those victories most. That doesn't change or stop being possible because of triangulation, Osborne or who owns the papers. It only changes - it only stops being possible - if we forget that.

Anyway, I hope your weekends were good. I'm off to bed.

[pk1]

Cows have been taken into a supermarket by dairy farmers protesting against the price they are paid for their milk.

About 70 farmers took two of their cattle into Asda, in Queensway, Stafford at about 12:30 BST to clear milk from the shelves, police said.

Shopper Adam Williams said "staff looked on in amazement", as the cows moved to the back of the store, "creating mess as they walked".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-st ... e-33840815" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Haha, brilliant ! I'm fully behind the farmers needing to be paid more for their milk. If the supermarkets choose to run loss leaders, that's their business. What it should not be is to the detriment to the supplier.

[RogerOThornhill]

Cows have been taken into a supermarket by dairy farmers protesting against the price they are paid for their milk.

About 70 farmers took two of their cattle into Asda, in Queensway, Stafford at about 12:30 BST to clear milk from the shelves, police said.

Shopper Adam Williams said "staff looked on in amazement", as the cows moved to the back of the store, "creating mess as they walked".

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-st ... e-33840815" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Haha, brilliant ! I'm fully behind the farmers needing to be paid more for their milk. If the supermarkets choose to run loss leaders, that's their business. What it should not be is to the detriment to the supplier.

Weren't the government supposed to be sorting out mil prices a couple of years ago?

The price I pay down my local shop hasn't changed in years.

[SpinningHugo]

The man elected eight times who we're supposed to believe is unelectable

http://www.virtualeconomics.co.uk/2015/ ... table.html

It is the last resort of a political elite, terrified that they are about to face an actual dissenting voice. "You can't vote for that, no-one wants that, you're wasting your vote". I think, perhaps, that we are not. Lots of people want that. A whole country, offered that, just voted for it. Islington North has voted for it eight times in a row. Corbyn is perfectly electable. We're just not supposed to believe it in case we elect him.

Of course it's not as easy nor as credible as this post says. But neither is it as impossible as the assumption it can't happen makes it to dismiss and erase the possibility for change.

As for Corbyn making our opposition too weak to oppose Cameron? I have no idea. None. How does refusing to abstain make it harder to oppose? How does - for the first time in years - having a clear and differentiated position with a different narrative make it harder to oppose? Isn't the Corbyn campaign an absolute example of the desire for an opposition? And, for that matter, how can Cooper give the opposition we need over fit-to-work assessments when she introduced them? How can Kendall refute the Tory cuts when I've watched her give interviews saying we spent too much? How can Burnham - a nice man with good enough ideas - do that when he uses the word radical rather than ever being it?

What happens next is for everyone to decide. Talking about elections five years from now as if they've already been decided helps none of the candidates. Since when did defeatism win an election? Defeatism begets itself. A cause worth wanting to win for is better than a supposedly pragmatic and entirely unnecessary admission of a defeat we haven't even had yet. And the surest way to lose is to give up without even trying. "They'll never allow unions. Workers' rights? Don't worry, we've got all the money and power, it'll never happen." "Giving women the vote? How absurd." "Healthcare for everyone? Pfft." Labour is a movement whose greatest victories have never, ever been won by giving up on an election in the future - or the people who need those victories most. That doesn't change or stop being possible because of triangulation, Osborne or who owns the papers. It only changes - it only stops being possible - if we forget that.

Anyway, I hope your weekends were good. I'm off to bed.

Yeah, and George Galloway has been elected six times. He must be great.

"Labour is a movement whose greatest victories have never, ever been won by giving up on an election in the future"

I wonder for which movements in any time or place this has proven a successful strategy for?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Jesus, that Nawaz article is bollocks. He's a sly one.

On 23 February this year, the paper published a column by the leader of HT’s Australian branch, Uthman Badar, in which he makes it clear that though HT does not support ISIS, “neither will we condemn them,” for to do such a thing would be “morally repugnant.”

This is what was actually said.

That we would support Isis is absurd. But neither will we condemn them, despite the demands made of us by the media. We refuse the superficial politics of condemnation engaged in by western states to further a pernicious agenda of more war and intervention, which, importantly, is what gave rise to groups such as Isis in the first instance.

It is morally repugnant to us to play into the destructive agendas of such states by fulfilling the demand to condemn. The fetish to oppose in a particular way, with particular words within a particular (flawed) narrative. The fetish ritual asked of Muslims in a way not asked of others.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The man elected eight times who we're supposed to believe is unelectable

http://www.virtualeconomics.co.uk/2015/ ... table.html

It is the last resort of a political elite, terrified that they are about to face an actual dissenting voice. "You can't vote for that, no-one wants that, you're wasting your vote". I think, perhaps, that we are not. Lots of people want that. A whole country, offered that, just voted for it. Islington North has voted for it eight times in a row. Corbyn is perfectly electable. We're just not supposed to believe it in case we elect him.

What it says about Scotland is utter bollocks.

Which would be debatable (not true, but at least debatable), if Scotland hadn't just elected 56 of them. Check out the manifesto that a handful of months ago wiped all of the other (indistinguishable, centre-right, neoliberal) parties off the Scottish political map. End austerity and raise taxes. Fund the welfare state and the NHS. Scrap Trident. It's not a strikingly dissimilar policy agenda to this one.

The SNP have frozen the main Scottish-raised tax for 8 years! They've spent much less than Scottish Labour/Lib Dems did on anything recognisable as welfare, and have cut the NHS in Scotland. Those taxes they wanted raising were basically cribbed off Labour.

And Islington North is a safe Labour seat. It means nothing. Frank Field's been elected 9 times.

[Tubby Isaacs]

If you want to look at constituency results like that article suggests, Field comes out incredibly well. Achieved a 4.6% swing from the Tories, and kept UKIP below 10%. He had the lefty Greens beat too- they lost their deposit.

It's nonsense, of course.

[onebuttonmonkey]

The man elected eight times who we're supposed to believe is unelectable

http://www.virtualeconomics.co.uk/2015/ ... table.html

It is the last resort of a political elite, terrified that they are about to face an actual dissenting voice. "You can't vote for that, no-one wants that, you're wasting your vote". I think, perhaps, that we are not. Lots of people want that. A whole country, offered that, just voted for it. Islington North has voted for it eight times in a row. Corbyn is perfectly electable. We're just not supposed to believe it in case we elect him.

What it says about Scotland is utter bollocks.

Which would be debatable (not true, but at least debatable), if Scotland hadn't just elected 56 of them. Check out the manifesto that a handful of months ago wiped all of the other (indistinguishable, centre-right, neoliberal) parties off the Scottish political map. End austerity and raise taxes. Fund the welfare state and the NHS. Scrap Trident. It's not a strikingly dissimilar policy agenda to this one.

The SNP have frozen the main Scottish-raised tax for 8 years! They've spent much less than Scottish Labour/Lib Dems did on anything recognisable as welfare, and have cut the NHS in Scotland. Those taxes they wanted raising were basically cribbed off Labour.

And Islington North is a safe Labour seat. It means nothing. Frank Field's been elected 9 times.

Funnily enough, I totally agree the article is bollocks; I just think that "x will destroy the party/is unelectable/will allow the Tories to do anything they want" is also bollocks.

And the idea we should be debating the electability of x or y or z based on our preferences now is mostly bollocks, too. I just prefer optimistic bollocks to defeatist bollocks. Hence the stuff after it.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Ah, sorry, OBM.

I think Corbyn is unelectable though. Where he's going to get whatever it'll cost to renationalize electricity would sink him, for starters.

[Temulkar]

The man elected eight times who we're supposed to believe is unelectable

http://www.virtualeconomics.co.uk/2015/ ... table.html

It is the last resort of a political elite, terrified that they are about to face an actual dissenting voice. "You can't vote for that, no-one wants that, you're wasting your vote". I think, perhaps, that we are not. Lots of people want that. A whole country, offered that, just voted for it. Islington North has voted for it eight times in a row. Corbyn is perfectly electable. We're just not supposed to believe it in case we elect him.

Of course it's not as easy nor as credible as this post says. But neither is it as impossible as the assumption it can't happen makes it to dismiss and erase the possibility for change.

As for Corbyn making our opposition too weak to oppose Cameron? I have no idea. None. How does refusing to abstain make it harder to oppose? How does - for the first time in years - having a clear and differentiated position with a different narrative make it harder to oppose? Isn't the Corbyn campaign an absolute example of the desire for an opposition? And, for that matter, how can Cooper give the opposition we need over fit-to-work assessments when she introduced them? How can Kendall refute the Tory cuts when I've watched her give interviews saying we spent too much? How can Burnham - a nice man with good enough ideas - do that when he uses the word radical rather than ever being it?

What happens next is for everyone to decide. Talking about elections five years from now as if they've already been decided helps none of the candidates. Since when did defeatism win an election? Defeatism begets itself. A cause worth wanting to win for is better than a supposedly pragmatic and entirely unnecessary admission of a defeat we haven't even had yet. And the surest way to lose is to give up without even trying. "They'll never allow unions. Workers' rights? Don't worry, we've got all the money and power, it'll never happen." "Giving women the vote? How absurd." "Healthcare for everyone? Pfft." Labour is a movement whose greatest victories have never, ever been won by giving up on an election in the future - or the people who need those victories most. That doesn't change or stop being possible because of triangulation, Osborne or who owns the papers. It only changes - it only stops being possible - if we forget that.

Anyway, I hope your weekends were good. I'm off to bed.

Yeah, and George Galloway has been elected six times. He must be great.

"Labour is a movement whose greatest victories have never, ever been won by giving up on an election in the future"

I wonder for which movements in any time or place this has proven a successful strategy for?

The Labour movement has been around a lot longer than the labour party. The first labour government was in 1924. By then the labour movement had won, Pensions, Labour exchanges, national insurance, anti union laws repealed, free education, free school meals, child labour banned, and multiple extensions of the franchise. All won by a movement with no hope or evven a dream of a hope of political power, but won because they stood for their principles and went into their communities to educate and support.

Vote for who you want in your leadership election, but dont lie about the movements history. Personally a labour party that abstains on retrospective legislation, and wont oppose crippling inhumane welfare cuts, has precious little claim to teh Labour movements past achievments.

[SpinningHugo]

The man elected eight times who we're supposed to believe is unelectable

http://www.virtualeconomics.co.uk/2015/ ... table.html
Of course it's not as easy nor as credible as this post says. But neither is it as impossible as the assumption it can't happen makes it to dismiss and erase the possibility for change.

As for Corbyn making our opposition too weak to oppose Cameron? I have no idea. None. How does refusing to abstain make it harder to oppose? How does - for the first time in years - having a clear and differentiated position with a different narrative make it harder to oppose? Isn't the Corbyn campaign an absolute example of the desire for an opposition? And, for that matter, how can Cooper give the opposition we need over fit-to-work assessments when she introduced them? How can Kendall refute the Tory cuts when I've watched her give interviews saying we spent too much? How can Burnham - a nice man with good enough ideas - do that when he uses the word radical rather than ever being it?

What happens next is for everyone to decide. Talking about elections five years from now as if they've already been decided helps none of the candidates. Since when did defeatism win an election? Defeatism begets itself. A cause worth wanting to win for is better than a supposedly pragmatic and entirely unnecessary admission of a defeat we haven't even had yet. And the surest way to lose is to give up without even trying. "They'll never allow unions. Workers' rights? Don't worry, we've got all the money and power, it'll never happen." "Giving women the vote? How absurd." "Healthcare for everyone? Pfft." Labour is a movement whose greatest victories have never, ever been won by giving up on an election in the future - or the people who need those victories most. That doesn't change or stop being possible because of triangulation, Osborne or who owns the papers. It only changes - it only stops being possible - if we forget that.

Anyway, I hope your weekends were good. I'm off to bed.

Yeah, and George Galloway has been elected six times. He must be great.

"Labour is a movement whose greatest victories have never, ever been won by giving up on an election in the future"

I wonder for which movements in any time or place this has proven a successful strategy for?

The Labour movement has been around a lot longer than the labour party. The first labour government was in 1924. By then the labour movement had won, Pensions, Labour exchanges, national insurance, anti union laws repealed, free education, free school meals, child labour banned, and multiple extensions of the franchise. All won by a movement with no hope or evven a dream of a hope of political power, but won because they stood for their principles and went into their communities to educate and support.

Vote for who you want in your leadership election, but dont lie about the movements history. Personally a labour party that abstains on retrospective legislation, and wont oppose crippling inhumane welfare cuts, has precious little claim to teh Labour movements past achievments.

What a peculiar response.

Assuming everything you say to be true and that it was the labour movement that won these things in the teeth of opposition from, say, Llloyd George and Churchill, why would anyone think that anything I said doubted it?

My one and only point that no electoral movement achieves success by giving up on an election. It is a truism of no profundity.