Corb Blimey!

[Tubby Isaacs]

Corb Blimey!

I hadn't thought of the connection with the current controversy, but I'm reading Richard Evans' excellent book about the Irving Trial.

One point Evans made jumped out of me. He told Irving (politely) that if he'd merely got stuff wrong, he'd just be shit. The point is there's a consistent pattern to the mistakes. There were few, if any, that overestimated the horror experienced by Jews.

Somebody might get something badly wrong about Jewish involvement in slavery on Facebook. But if that's all there is, then to pronounce somebody anti-semitic is amateur psychology as far as I'm concerned. Not good enough for kicking somebody out of a party, not by a long chalk. And I think a comptetent barrister would tear it to shreds.

[Duncan Gardner]

Corb Blimey!

Apologies for the NI diversion. It's on this thread rather than the dreary steeples one because Labour are acting the cunt to their activists locally, rather than patronising/ ignoring them as they would in any other part of the country where they're electorally irrelevant.

Calvert has a point about Arlene. Effective machine politician but no imagination. The most rattled I've heard her was when Fatboy Nolan asked how she might react if one of her kids came out as gay. I believe they're all teenagers so surely it must have come up in conversation. Arlene herself did a first couple of TV interviews as an A Level student, after the school bus into Enniskillen got torched by the Provos.

[GCostanza]

Corb Blimey!

Because they're wholly irrelevant.
And virtually no-one is interested in voting for them.

Lucy Waterman wrote: You're shitting me. They're putting out a blue poster that says the Tories have come up with 6million new jobs? Are they pissed?

No, not what it says at all.

[N est à?]

Corb Blimey!

Yeah, not sure there if Lucy is joking or if obsessive Corb-hatred has caused his IQ to halve.

[GCostanza]

Corb Blimey!

Tbf, probably just mis-read it.

[Wouter D]

Corb Blimey!

Seriously? The sign reads:

under the TORIES
the NUMBER OF JOBS
paying below the living
wage has INCREASED to over
6 million

Sure, if somebody carefully reads the whole text, it becomes pretty clear that the message isn't positive about the tories. But the vast majority of the people won't. They drive by the big billboard while sitting on the bus, not reading the thing, but faintly registering something about tories and increased jobs, which neatly ties in with the tory self-promotion as job creators.

If a Labour billboard contains half of a subliminal message dovetailing with tory self-promotion, Labour are shooting themselves in the foot.

[N est à?]

Corb Blimey!

Ah, well, the random capitalization that you've just made up makes all the difference, of course.

[N est à?]

Corb Blimey!

The... tories: teaming?, no, tearing... Britain... apart.

Yay! Go them!

[Wouter D]

Corb Blimey!

N est à? wrote: The... tories: teaming?, no, tearing... Britain... apart.

Yay! Go them!

And if Labour would have consistently used those exact words as a stick to beat the tories with over the last decade, then using those words in a campaign would be a bad idea for the tories.

Why use their language? Why give them even the flimsiest chance to spin something positive out of it? How many people are going to read five lines of text on a billboard?

[N est à?]

Corb Blimey!

Well, I'm glad the issue is second-guessing what goldfish-minded proletarians will make of it, rather than a failure of comprehension anyway.

It's not actually that outlandish a political tactic, to attack on what your opponent is claiming as their own strengths. It's why Cameron keeps slagging off the NHS in Wales, for instance, to some effect electorally.

[Wouter D]

Corb Blimey!

I mean how hard is this? Simply say something like:

"Over six million people are paid below the living wage for their job.

The Tories: Tearing Britain apart"

Why on Earth use language that has been framed in a very positive light by neoliberals such as "the number of jobs has increased"? It's not that hard to rephrase that poster without using language that superficially sounds positive.

[Lucy Waterman]

Corb Blimey!

N est à? wrote: Well, I'm glad the issue is second-guessing what goldfish-minded proletarians will make of it, rather than a failure of comprehension anyway.

If you're going to bother advertising, you absolutely need to "second guess" how people are going to react to your ads. Otherwise you might as well just throw a couple of hundred thousand quid in a bin and set fire to it.

[Lucy Waterman]

Corb Blimey!

Mouton D wrote: I mean how hard is this? Simply say something like:

"Over six million people are paid below the living wage for their job.

The Tories: Tearing Britain apart"

Why on Earth use language that has been framed in a very positive light by neoliberals such as "the number of jobs has increased"? It's not that hard to rephrase that poster without using language that superficially sounds positive.

I'd take out "for their job" but yeah, that's much better.

[E10 Rifle]

Corb Blimey!

Only Jewish candidate in NEC elections denied place on ballot after local CLP vote, on grounds of antisemitism

[Lucy Waterman]

Corb Blimey!

Ha, and I thought I had cause to be worrying about CLP democracy...

[E10 Rifle]

Corb Blimey!

Democracy's fine, it's just a bit of an unusual, and shitty, trick to pull. Especially as it's based on a dishonest smear.

But that's Jim Murphy, political genius and proven election winner, for you.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Corb Blimey!

Yeah, fair point about him and keeping her off the ballot.

She might not have done all that well anyway. Unless she's been egregiously misrepresented, I wouldn't think her comment in a blog that she didn't see winning in 2020 as a priority won't have gone down well.

[E10 Rifle]

Corb Blimey!

She was on the Centre-Left slate, there'd have been a well-organised mobilisation for the vote. She's young, new and female. She had a very good chance of being elected - that's why Murphy moved against her.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Corb Blimey!

Ah ok, cheers.

[johnr]

Corb Blimey!

Slightly lost amid all the terrible news has been the very impressive (decent turnout, trebled majority) Tooting by-election victory yesterday. Even a few hours before some thought it might be a bit tight, but I think that's 'unelectable under Corbyn' Labour's 3rd or 4th straight by-election win. Add that to the Mayors' elections, and a decent local election result across the country, and it's not as catastrophic as some predicted - and, at this stage, better than I'd hoped if I'm honest.

I know that Momentum were out in force again, and I genuinely think that they're making a difference on the doorstep that isn't reflected much in the press/psephology. This happens to be one of the reasons why I'm more optimistic about the EU ref. than some.

[Satchmo Distel]

Corb Blimey!

Tubby, I would strongly recommend this book on the Irving Trial:

https://www.amazon.com/Holocaust-Trial-D-Guttenplan/dp/0393322920

[Tubby Isaacs]

Corb Blimey!

Thanks.

The Evans book is very good. Does it add much to that?

Amazed to see no Nazis have shown up with one star reviews of it.

[E10 Rifle]

Corb Blimey!

I don't know whether it's an appropriate point to make or not, but the hope that the internal squabbling might be reined in a bit after what's happened is something we might cling to.

[johnr]

Corb Blimey!

That might be optimistic, but I can't see how the moaners can keep moaning when Labour folk keep getting elected on increased majorities.

[johnr]

Corb Blimey!

Various reports of a coup being planned by Labour MPs against Corbyn, which should be fun.

I thought he made sense this morning, but then I would say that.