Interesting Links for 25-09-2016

[andrewducker]

Thelonious Monk Creates a List of Tips for Playing a Gig: "Don’t Listen to Me, I Am Supposed to Be Accompanying You!" (tags: music jazz advice ) Corbyn wins: what next? (tags: labour politics uk ) To ship bikes safely put a picture of a tv on the box (tags: bicycles shipping transport safety ) US Naval Academy to name its cyber building after

Comments

[gonzo21]

You know it's the self righteousness of the anti-Corbyn brigade that annoys me the most, the way they think they are the One True Labour Party and everybody who disagrees with them is an evil Trotskyite infiltrator from hell (tm) who should be spat upon and purged from ~their~ party. That they are somehow the ones fighting the good fight, despite the fact they have destroyed the opposition to the Tories over the past year with their constant disloyalty and selfish power-mad game-playing

[danieldwilliam]

If Corbyn has exactly the appeal people are looking for why are his personal approval ratings so bad?

[gonzo21]

If Corbyn has no appeal why is the Labour party membership at a historic high?

[danieldwilliam]

I think because those who like that sort of thing like that sort of thing. They have made the mistake of thinking that because Something must be done and that Corbyn in something so Corbyn in the Something that must be done

[danieldwilliam]

I have a number of problems with Corbyn which taken together I think make him unable to win an election in 2020 or 2025 and probably make him unable to buld the sort of social movement he keeps talking about

[danieldwilliam]

Yes, I think you are right

[andrewducker]

"Power abhors a vacuum. Those on the traditional left of the Labour Party, both old hands and new, realised that with the right having run out of oomph they could have a go."

I think it's more that the Left had been feeling, for 15 years, that things were going the wrong way, but that they couldn't object too loudly, because it was working. As soon as it (inevitably, of course) stopped working they felt justified to point out that capitalism was a rotten edifice kept aloft on the backs of the poorest, and needed to be torn down.

[danieldwilliam]

I think those statements are two sides of the same coin.

[gonzo21]

Ah shit, sorry, I just spent 15 minutes typing out quite a long and thoughtful response to you, clicked post, and LJ ate it, and it's vanished into the aether. Nuts. This is happening a lot this past week.

[danieldwilliam]

Nuts indeed. If you can face the agony of re-writing I shall look forward to it.

[gonzo21]

I was looking at Labours poll numbers now compared to where they were a year ago, adn expressing surprise that they are a little bit up on where they were, despite all the awfulness. And reflecting just where Labour could be today if they'd been a unified party of opposition.

Because I think there is one thing voters like to see, parties that are unified. And competent. Two things. Both that the Labour party has not exactly been shining with on either side of the divide of late.

[danieldwilliam]

Where do you think they *ought* to be for a Party that is on course for a narrow but certain win in 2020?

In the context of a government who is profoundly divided and has just lost a key referendum provoking the biggest national crisis since the Second World War.

[gonzo21]

Given what has happened over the course of the last 12 months, I'm genuinely surprised they're not 20 points behind

[danieldwilliam]

Yeah, so far the Tory's have managed to keep a facade of unity. I expect this will start to break down once they start actually having to put their policy in to practice and therefore decide what their policy is. Not all of them can be winners once Brexit means A Detailed Plan for the UK's foreign and economic policy and constitution after we cease to be members of the European Union

[gonzo21]

Oh yeah, so far after months of government strategy meetings, apparently all they're able to tell us is still 'brexit means brexit', and a sort of.. stony silence when anybody asks yes, but what does that actually mean? I agree, as soon as it starts to get out what, exactly, it means, the wheels are going to come off many many wagons.

(The other worrying thing is most of the smart people in the foreign office have apparently taken early retirement over the last few years, and there's not much functional efficient and capable civil service left in some really key parts of government.)

I really hope you're wrong about Corbyn too, because I genuinely do think he's our last best hope of saving British politics, and averting what I see as the almost-inevitable rise now of English Fascism.