@DrAdrianHeald@foggybrain This is a really unfair and sadly rather ignorant response to the thoughtful, carefully explained messages you're getting, none of which you're engaging with. π
@DrAdrianHeald@foggybrain I was a member for ten years, campaigned hard in three elections, fundraised, leafletted, door knocked, donated my own money. Am on the left but was ready to support Starmer based on his ten promises. But since he became leader....
@DrAdrianHeald@foggybrain leaked report revealed bulling, sabotage, misappropriation of funds by right wing staffers on an eye watering scale, RLB sacked for no reason, local parties taken over & funds seized by unelected bureaucrats, Corbyn whip removed for stating the truth...
@DrAdrianHeald@foggybrain Socialists & left wing Jewish people expelled, gagging orders block discussion, donations to foodbanks banned, abstention after abstention, teachers ignored. All this done by right wing of party. What has the left done? It's wrong to characterise this as "both sides in-fighting".
@DrAdrianHeald@foggybrain We begged, pleaded with the right wing MPs & staffers to help us, just like many of us had voted for Brown, Miliband etc., we asked them to get behind Corbyn. Not only did they remove support, they actively & relentlessly sabotaged & are now carrying out an authoritarian purge..
@DrAdrianHeald@foggybrain Why would I campaign for or support a party that's just a paler shade of blue & doesn't defend any of my values? What does Starmer's Labour stand for? I'm a teacher. I & my colleagues & students have been totally let down by them. It breaks my heart.
@DrAdrianHeald@foggybrain The only acceptable reason for you to characterise this as "in-fighting" & to tell those who challenge you that they're "helping the Tories" is if you're genuinely unaware of what's gone on. But maybe now, after this thread, you know better.
Just went down a Wikipedia wormhole about the problem of warning far, far future generations about our nuclear waste. Never knew about this before. Fascinating.
"This place is a message... and part of a system of messages...pay attention to it!...
Sending this message was important to us.We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.This place is not a place of honor..no highly esteemed deed is commemorated here..nothing valued is here. What is here was dangerous & repulsive to us.This message is a warning about danger
...The danger is in a particular location...it increases towards a center... the center of danger is here...of a particular size and shape, and below us.
The danger is still present, in your time, as it was in ours. The danger is to the body, and it can kill...
I've always been an activist. I've got an extensive criminal record across several counties & two countries to prove it. 10 yrs ago as a "respectable" parent & teacher I thought my direct activist days were over, so I joined the Labour party as a place to channel my energy(1)
I knew it wasn't really my bag but I can't stand doing nothing, so I thought this was better than nothing. It was something. I felt bad for Gordon Brown. I didn't share his politics, but could see he was never judged dispassionately, fairly. Obvs that got worse for Miliband (2)
Miliband had leftist leanings so I began to actively campaign. I just found 2015 old leaflet in which I featured, helping the right wing PPC of my constituency to push austerity-lite message. Pic of me & her, drinking tea, in earnest discussion about need to cut the deficitπ(3)
Does Owen Jones ever stop to wonder why the media has permitted him to become the "voice of the UK left"? I'll give him a little hint, it's because he's a nice, safe pair of hands.
If the best hearing the left can hope for is Jones popping up on newsnight to respectfully disagree with Caroline Flint then we're fucking doomed.
We spent years buying his books, retweeting him, backing him against the far right, I know someone who physically intervened when he was being targetted irl. When it really counted he let us down. That's why I'm almost more angry with the likes of him than with right wingers.
So journalists like Owen Jones, & to some extent Michael Walker, have, undeniably helpfully, carved themselves a place in the mainstream media & are working hard to try to make left politics respectable after the concerted right wing & liberal project to delegitemise socialism(1)
Their politics are largely actually not radically different from the vast majority of the so-called "crank left" (anti imperialist, anti war, pro public ownership, etc.) but it helps them to be able to fabricate & perpetuate the existence of so-called "disreputable" leftists (2)
against whom they can define themselves, & in doing so reassure the mainstream that they are the respectable, optics Left that won't frighten the horses and know which fork to use at dinner parties (3)
Mhairi Threlfall was deemed good enough to be a PPC & Lesley Mansell good enough to be mayor candidate before. They're experienced, got lots of CLP noms, are popular/well known across SW CLPs. I conclude they were left off ballot cos they're Left & would have won members' vote.
So now we get to choose between Blairite relic Dan Norris who has grubby hands from expenses scandal & a person few seem to know outside her own area, except she's been a councillor for less time than Threlfall. & the only PoC has also been passed over. Equal ops recruitment? π€