Campbell in the soup...

[Nefertiti2]

Isn't what happened to David Kelly an extreme form of "reinforcing the stereotypes"?

[San Bernardhinault]

That's thunderingly irrelevant.

[Nefertiti2]

If Campbell had discussed his mental illness and stress in public life WHILST he was working as PR for Blair, and looked at what he did - and what the consequences were, then I'd have some time for his talk about mental illness.

Instead his narrative appears to be "I was mentally ill" but Tony gave me a job and then everything was OK. he shows no sign of taking responsibility.

Campbell's partial revelation of his "mental illness" has meant that his actions are not held up to scrutiny. Very convenient for a man who has many reasons to wish to avoid scrutiny.

I note that finding ways to avoid holding people account for their actions was the main focus of his job for several years.

Still it's worked

[Duncan Gardner]

@Ursus- Labour's claim to be a national party contesting everything everywhere does look a bit hollow at local govt level. They conested rather less than 92% of the available seats here in the West Midlands.

And of course there are the admittedly special circs of NI, where they've moved on from merely telling people to vote for a Nationalist/ Separatist Party, to victimising activists who want to have their own candidate

[Snake Plissken]

Well, this is fun to wake up to. When that recent thread said "things around here aren't as feisty as they used to be", it wasn't a bloody challenge.

Keep it to the subject. Campbell and his work on male mental health is one of the good things he has done. Weaponising that in this discussion to score points is out of order. If I get chance, I may well be editing some posts.

[Nefertiti2]

I think that Campbell who has shown himself to be utterly without principles and whose job was getting positive stories in the press and preventing others being printed . is quite capable of using anything ( including his mental health) in order to rehabilitate himself. I have not said that mental health is not a serious issue I acknowledge that it needs to be discussed and I have said nothing offensive about anyone on this board.

I have said - and am happy to repeat- that I have only contempt for Campbell when he discusses his own mental health without mentioning the man who he drove to suicide. I don't trust him. He;s a bully and professional liar. If that gets me banned from the board then so be it.

[ChrisJ]

Nef, most of us who suffer from depression have never killed anyone. The two are not linked.

If you want to support those of us with mental health issues, you don't use them to attack someone else, regardless of whether they're on this board, regardless of the depravity of their behaviour. You attack the behaviour, end of.

Campbell is an appalling man*. He abetted war crimes and is/was a professional liar. He helped drive a man to suicide. All true. However, you do not bring mental health problems in to this unless you have a major failure to understand said problems or you don't care.

If he was suffering from cancer, you might say you don't care, but you wouldn't say how dare he talk about his cancer without mentioning Kelly, would you? Please reconsider your position.

*And MSC has just given me pause to consider whether I should have voted for her as it's Blairism that caused me to abandon voting labour.

[Nefertiti2]

Let’s separate Campbell’s depression & his publicly discussion of it.

Some See the latter as „brave“ -I see it as a cynical attempt by an man without principles but skilled in PR to try and rehabilitate himself & make it harder to hold him to account.

In fact it was after reading Campbell’s account of his mental health that after Blair trusted him to give him the job “that it [his mental health] never was a problem after that “ that really made me write the diatribes Last night.

[David Agnew]

@Ursus- Labour's claim to be a national party contesting everything everywhere does look a bit hollow at local govt level. They conested rather less than 92% of the available seats here in the West Midlands.

And of course there are the admittedly special circs of NI, where they've moved on from merely telling people to vote for a Nationalist/ Separatist Party, to victimising activists who want to have their own candidate

I mean we *can* turn it into one of those threads if you want. Not sure how you say Labour claim to contest everything everywhere, when we fielded candidates in less than 90% of seats this year, which was one of our highest ever. Part of that reason is because there are areas of the country where Labour have little to no chance of gaining seats, and as a candidate (let alone a councillor, if elected), you're expected to do a lot of work. Given that I live in an area where Green councillors are elected, so can see how little they do, the bar is clearly a lot lower. With Labour you have to sign a contract saying you'll do a minimum amount of canvassing before the short campaign, let alone during it, to show that you're prepared to do the work.For this years election, the Greens didn't knock on a single door in our ward, despite defending a seat.

Another part of the reason at the moment is because it's not Green candidates and councillors being attacked in the street for being traitors who are stopping Brexit.

[David Agnew]

Thank you.

That seems like a weird anomaly to me, but as long as everyone is familiar with the rules, those who disagree have options.

Lots of rules have changed over the years. Labour MPs didn't used to be automatically reselected for the seat (that changed some point after 1989, as there was a book talking about a challenge to Frank Field in Birkenhead around that time), now there's a recall process that needs a high turnout. Councillors on the other hand don't get this privilege, and have to be reselected every time. Due to boundary changes, one of our councillors was elected last year, had to restand in "all up" elections this year, and his seat will be the one up next year, and he'll face reselection before he can stand.

Somewhere along the line, MPs were given protections that don't apply to the other elected officials within the party. I'm guessing that came in during the Blair/Campbell era.

[ChrisJ]

Let’s separate Campbell’s depression & his publicly discussion of it.

Some See the latter as „brave“ -I see it as a cynical attempt by an man without principles but skilled in PR to try and rehabilitate himself & make it harder to hold him to account.

Let's not.

Let's think about the fact that neither you nor I nor anyone else has the faintest idea why Campbell made that programme. It may have been brave, it may have been cynical, it may have been another thing. But it's not like there's a lack of solid, incontestable ammunition to use against him, is it?

[David Agnew]

Nef, most of us who suffer from depression have never killed anyone. The two are not linked.

If you want to support those of us with mental health issues, you don't use them to attack someone else, regardless of whether they're on this board, regardless of the depravity of their behaviour. You attack the behaviour, end of.

Campbell is an appalling man*. He abetted war crimes and is/was a professional liar. He helped drive a man to suicide. All true. However, you do not bring mental health problems in to this unless you have a major failure to understand said problems or you don't care.

If he was suffering from cancer, you might say you don't care, but you wouldn't say how dare he talk about his cancer without mentioning Kelly, would you? Please reconsider your position.

*And MSC has just given me pause to consider whether I should have voted for her as it's Blairism that caused me to abandon voting labour.

As Chris says, Campbell is a professional liar. He said he voted Lib Dem to send a message to Labour. I bet he didn't even vote LibDem, because if he merely did that, he would have been just a solitary digit in a poor election performance.

[Lucy Waterman]

Campbell may be a cunt, but he doesn't have moral responsibility for David Kelly's death, any more than do (for example) Andrew Mackinlay or Andrew Gilligan. I don't think it could have been necessarily foreseen by any of the people whose actions contributed to Kelly's situation. And I don't think it's generally helpful (indeed its potentially offensive, though not to me personally) to talk about suicide in terms of other people's culpability.

A mate of mine parted company with his agent last year, she was very upset. She was found dead about a week later. Might his decision have contributed to her death? Possibly, who knows. Is he culpable? I don't think so.

[Nefertiti2]

Sorry about your friends agent, Lucy. And obviously your friend is not responsible.

If your friend had implied his agent was a traitor and given her name to the media to distract from his own culpability in telling lies to taking the country to war then I think he would bear some responsibllity, yes.

[Nefertiti2]

Let's not.

Let's think about the fact that neither you nor I nor anyone else has the faintest idea why Campbell made that programme. It may have been brave, it may have been cynical, it may have been another thing. But it's not like there's a lack of solid, incontestable ammunition to use against him, is it?

Yes that’s fair. I’m acting on
my assessment of the balance of probabilities based on my knowledge of the man.

[Duncan Gardner]

@David Agnew: I merely replied to Ursus's comment, rather than trying to divert the thread to my own hobby horse (it may have looked that way as I posted earlier this morning before all the overnight posts about David Kelly loaded on my phone).

Labour has chosen consistently down the decades to shore up an archaic electoral system which leaves millions of voters across England with no realistic chance of a Labour MP or even Councillor. Of course I understand why you (plural) do that, but gurning that it's somehow not fair given that your candidates work so hard is a bit rich. If you can't contest everywhere in rural Wychavon or wherever, don't lapse into whataboutery when others notice.

Not sure why you mention Green activists not being abused as traitors: some have been, and I doubt you have any idea to what extent.

Green target candidates (and I assume those in most parties) also have to contract to do the work . If they don't, they tend to lose

[George C.]

Pomposity alert.

[Duncan Gardner]

Afternoon Gonz. Now fcuk off back to Facebook, there's a good lad

[George C.]

Yawn.

[Gangster Octopus]

Oh, get a room you two...

[Duncan Gardner]

Leave it aht, Mockney.

Actually I may be making a fleeting visit to that Yorkshire (Scarborough) in June. Recommendations on sights, fish and chips, ale etc. welcome

[Gangster Octopus]

I haven't been to Scarborough for over forty years...

[Guy Profumo]

Leave it aht, Mockney.

Actually I may be making a fleeting visit to that Yorkshire (Scarborough) in June. Recommendations on sights, fish and chips, ale etc. welcome

You could try the Green Party conference at the start of the month?