In this interactive blog YOU are the hero(?), Jeremy Corbyn. Can you make the right decisions to steer the beleaguered Labour party to glorious electoral victory?
Page 1
You’ve been having a little run of bad luck lately, involving fluffed tax returns, lost by-elections, ill-advised whips, deserting MPs, a half-empty shadow cabinet, resignations, sackings, and so on and so on, all the way back to winning that damn leadership contest in the first place.
This afternoon’s problems start when Seumas Milne informs you that the media have spotted that you used a budget response speech that you’d carefully prepared, in November, rather than addressing the actual budget.
Once again the public’s confidence in you to win a general election has been diminished, but how do you react?
To ignore it and carry on as leader of the Labour party go to page 2
Page 2
You and John McDonnell stay up all night, formulating an alternative budget and, at 11am sharp, you send it to The Morning Star and get the computer whizzes to social media it all up.
It’s 11:45 before word gets back to you that, owing to decaffeinated tea, you and John may have got a little sleepy half way through and gone from working in millions to writing the figures out in full. Because of this it looks like either you’re only planning to invest £20,000 in the NHS, or that your total spending is in the region of £5 trillion (which John tells you might be a problem).
This is another simple error, which once again takes the news away from the government and costs Labour a point in the polls, but how will you rectify it?
To ignore it and carry on as leader of the Labour party go to page 3
Page 3
The Gorton by-election is getting closer, but in another bit of bad luck you accidentally forward an e-mail from John, saying, “If we win Gorton then the message is that Labour are still a credible party. If we lose it then the candidate was anti-Corbyn”, to a bunch of right-wing journalists from The Guardian.
It’s quickly picked up by other news sources as well, with many of them pointing out that most of the e-mail thread is John repeatedly having to drag you back to the subject of politics, after your extended and disjointed rambles about gardening and jam-making.
The whole story makes it look like you’re just a puppet leader, with John pulling the strings. On the plus side, hardly anyone knows who John is, so it doesn’t really seem to matter that much.
How do you reassert your authority?
To ignore it and carry on as leader of the Labour party go to page 4
Page 4
The Manchester Gorton by-election went well, you thought, with you managing to retain a solid majority of 6 votes, only slightly down from the 24,079 majority in the 2015 general election.
The general consensus is that if the Conservatives had selected any candidate other the one they did, the opera singer from the Go Compare ads, then they might have won.
Seumas is slightly grumpy that you didn’t stay “on message” during the campaign, twice saying how saddened you were by the death of Andy Kaufman (which was true, but not “timely”, apparently) and consistently forgetting the name of the Labour party candidate. He’s also complained that talking to the press about your love of the Madchester scene came across as insincere, and keeps asking you what your favourite “Inspirational Carpets” song is.
Coming so close to defeat in a seat that Labour has held for over 100 years has, again, led to the Blairite members of the party to call for your resignation. How do you handle this tricky situation?
To ignore it and carry on as leader of the Labour party go to page 5
Page 5
Another day, another coup. More members of your shadow cabinet have resigned, led by arch-Blairite Diane Abbott.
John says that it’s not a problem; it makes the ‘coup’ story easier to sell and that you, him and Andy Burnham can split all of the shadow cabinet jobs between the three of you.
“Won’t that make a lot of work for each of us?” you ask him.
“Don’t worry,” he replies, “none of them were doing anything useful anyway…we lost all of the competent ones with your first shadow cabinet.”
Some days you wonder if it’s all worth it, but what do you decide to do?
To ignore it and carry on as leader of the Labour party go to page 6
Page 6
At last, a bit of good news! The Tory’s terrible mismanagement of Brexit has seen the economy tank and unemployment and social deprivation soar to levels not seen since the great depression. That has translated to a 4 (FOUR!) point bump in your polls, putting Labour back into double figures for the first time in 18 months.
You’re still 40-points behind the Tories, but John says that’s a strong position to be in this far out from a general election (3 weeks).
It almost makes up for that scathing article about you by Paul Mason in The Sun, and the turd in a shoebox that Liam Young sent you.
So, what’s your plan for the up coming general election?
To ignore it and carry on as leader of the Labour party go to page 7
Page 7
Well, people said you couldn’t win a general election…and so far they’ve been right, but Labour kept hold of 23 seats, so you certainly beat the pollsters on that one.
You miss John and Andy now, and you’re not really sure you can run this party all by yourself. All of your fellow Labour MPs are Blairites, and the SNP won’t let you sit with them.
This isn’t just a low point for Labour, it’s a new low for you. Still, there’s only one thing you can do, really…
To ignore it and carry on as leader of the Labour party
Never fear, here’s a special, interactive blog where YOU are Nicola Sturgeon and make the decisions that she has to make every day, as First Minister of Scotland.
You, pictured right now
Simply make the choices that you want to in order to make Scotland a strong, proud and prosperous nation of 5 million souls, living together in perfect harmony.
Page 1
It’s another beautiful day in Scotland, the temperature has soared to 4 degrees and the sun is shining on the lochs and hills, as McDonald calls to McDonald across the valleys.
Unfortunately the referendums in 2014 and 2016 have caused deep divisions within the nation, which you as First Minister must heal. There are so many competing financial priorities, so many areas that urgently need your attention that, some days, it’s hard to know where to start.
To have another crack at independence go to page 2
To mitigate some of the effects of Tory austerity go to page 3
To decide that maybe Scotland should leave the United Kingdom go to page 4
If you fancy having a crack at improving NHS Scotland then go to page 5
To focus on setting a realistic and adequate budget go to page 7
To listen to your people, who are crying out for another independence referendum, go to page 8
To log into Twitter,to let off some steam go to page 9
If you decide to pursue a policy of Scottish independence today then go to page 10
Page 2
You see that a Twitter poll run by a pro-independence supporter has racked up 112 votes, with a whopping 93% wanting to be free of England. Is this the sign you’ve been waiting for?
To decide that it is, and call a referendum, go to page 13
To decide that the Scottish people have had enough talk of independence go to page 11
Page 3
“Och, I can use my devolved powers to offset the cuts that those evil Tory bastards have imposed on Scotland’s fair citizens” you think to yourself.
You spent the next few hours coming up with a plan to offer supplemental benefits to those hit by austerity.
Then you realise that this might involve increasing taxes, which would mean that all those rich, unionists would leave Scotland, to enjoy England’s low-tax regime.
Can you think of a way to make it harder for them to leave?
If you think you’ve hit a dead-end and want to have a look NHS reform instead then go to page 5
To realise that independence will solve this problem then go to page 13
Page 4
Your eyes come to rest on a newspaper headline say that oil is up 0.3 cents/barrel.
Could this be the sign that the time is ripe for independence?
To decide that it is, and call a referendum, go to page 13
To decide that the Scottish people have had enough talk of independence go to page 11
Page 5
“The health of Scotland must be my top priority!” you think, and you set about creating a bold new agenda for the NHS.
But hang on! If you create a beautiful, state of the art, NHS then won’t you get health-tourists flooding in from England, swamping the system?
“How can I stop those English bastards from coming here?” you think, as you tap your teeth with a pencil.
If you can’t think of anything and decide to have a crack at writing a budget instead then go to page 7
To realise that independence will solve this problem then go to page 13
Page 6
As you look out of the window you see that two chemtrails have crossed in the vivid blue sky, creating a celestial Saltire.
Surely this is the sign you’ve been waiting for that the time is ripe to again ask the Scottish folk for their view on independence.
To decide that it is, and call a referendum, go to page 13
To decide that the Scottish people have had enough talk of independence go to page 11
Page 7
You immediately get to work on a proper budget, that sets realistic targets for Scotland and promises something better for its people. After a little while, however, you start to get frustrated that you don’t have control of all the economic levers.
You wrack your brain, trying to think of some way, without the hassle of becoming PM, that you could give yourself the power to set a budget.
If nothing springs to mind then log on to Twitter for a break and go to page 9
If you realise that independence is the answer then go to page 13
Page 8
Somebody on the telly just said ‘indy’…or it might have been ‘indeed’. Either way, it must be an omen than the time is ripe for another independence referendum, mustn’t it?
To decide that indy it is, and call a referendum, go to page 13
To decide that Scotland doesn’t want another referendum go to page 11
Page 9
As usual your Twitter feed is absolutely full of people demanding another independence referendum and pledging you their full support for it. In fact, thinking about it, since your wise decision to let Natalie McGarry run your block-list opposition to an independence referendum seems to have dropped right off. What a star she is, undoubtedly a true hero of the SNP.
Of course, you do have that “other” Twitter account. The one that nobody knows about. The one where you can let off steam and say whatever you want. A few minutes spent there couldn’t hurt, could it?
To decide to listen to the voices on Twitter go to page 13
Page 10
You silently pray, asking God to give you a sign that the time is right for Indyref 2. A sound like millions of people moaning with anguish and hunger fills your office, your Saltire bursts into flames, there’s a sudden total eclipse of the sun and the word ‘NO’ appears, written in blood, on your carpet.
To decide that these are positive omens and call a referendum, go to page 13
To decide that, maybe, this isn’t the way go to page 11
Page 11
You type a quick e-mail to all SNP party members, saying that you believe that the time isn’t right for another call for independence and calling upon them all to work together to make Scotland a better and more prosperous nation.
Your finger hovers over the ‘Send’ button, do you…
To delete it and call for another referendum instead go to page 13
Page 12
Suddenly your door is kicked open, and there stands Pete Wishart, backed by a mob of joyous and civic nationalists, brandishing pitchforks and burning torches.
“NICOLA STURGEON, YOU’RE A TRAITOR TO SCOTLAND!” he yells at you, in his disarmingly charming way, specks of spit flying from his lips.
His baying mob drags you away and throws you into the dungeons beneath Edinburgh Castle.
A particularly sadistic guard leaves a copy of The National in your cell every day, and from the bits of it you can decipher you learn that Scotland, under the command of Wishart, has unilaterally declared independence.
The friendly nationalists have rounded up the hated English, unionists, Tories, journalists and anyone with an IQ over 85, and have either executed them or expelled them to England.
The rest of the UK, caught up in its own problems with Brexit, has offered not to take Scotland by force, providing that Scotland agrees to readmit Wings. Naturally they’ve refused and are now preparing for war.
Small parts of Edinburgh are still held by forces loyal to J K Rowling and, on quiet nights, you can hear the fighting, even through the thick, thick walls.
After a while you lose track of how many days you’ve been locked up, and you can’t bear to look at the Nat Onal to find out, as the last time you checked the front page was crowing about how the brilliant performance of the New Scottish Pound meant that everyone was now a millionaire, or even a billionaire. You did notice that the paper was priced at 3 trillion NS£s.
One day the guard tells you that your trial for treason has been held, you were found guilty and are to be executed.
The next morning you are taken from your cell to a hastily constructed gallows on The Runrig Mile. A huge crowd awaits and a tear comes to your eye as you seen thousands of Saltires blowing in the alcohol haze.
Matthew Fitt reads out what you think are the charges against you, although it could just as well be his shopping list, and, with one voice, the crowd starts chanting for your execution, throwing bottles and spitting.
As you step on to the trapdoor you’re just glad that you’ve lived to see a free Scotland.
Your term as First Minister is over. To try again go back to page 1
Page 13
It’s time for another independence referendum!
All work on governing the country stops (turns out nobody had actually thought to restart it after the last indy ref, so that was a time-saver), a new white paper is rushed through the random number generator, meme production is quadrupled and three men in a van are sent out to sever the broadband connection outside Stephen Daisley’s house.
Scotland unites with one focus – to become more divided. The first referendum was only ‘Yes’ vs ‘No’, this time ‘Leave’ and ‘Remain’ are in the mix as well. ‘Yes’ battles ‘Yes’ over whether to remain in the EU or leave, Leaver kills Leaver over the issue of Scottish independence and Scottish Labour recognises it was wrong to try to take 2 sides in the first indy ref, and tries instead to take all 4 in this one.
But, at long last, the day of the decision arrives, but what is it?
If Scotland voted YES to being an independent country then go to page 15
If Scotland voted NO to being an independent country then go to page 14
Page 14
Oh noes, once again the Tories, the unionists, the Murdoch press, the BBC, J K Rowling and expectations of competent governance have poisoned the minds of the good people of Scotland and turned them away from the true path of supporting Scottish independence.
As a solid supporter of left-wing politics I have been dismayed by the left’s knee-jerk reaction to Theresa May’s continued pursuit of her plan to reintroduce grammar schools to England. The sad truth is that this is simply yet another false consciousness that we’ve been conditioned to accept. As a very senior civil servant confessed, in the 80s…
It’s time for the left to look again at grammar school education.
To start we should dispel the myth that it is elitist. If one is to object to meritocracy then the whole of the Labour movement is undermined, unless they can prove that they do not have a 100-year history of moving their best and their brightest to the top, that they can show that, say, Emily Thornberry is the rule, rather than the exception.
Even the ultimate hero of the left, George Orwell, was a supporter of selective education, writing…
Hardly the voice of a man who’d be objecting to government plans to reintroduce grammar schools. You may argue that society has changed a great deal since Orwell’s time, that we no longer have the heavy industries of coal-mining and ship-building to swallow up the millions released from secondary moderns and, on the face of it, this is true. Were Orwell to visit us in 2017, however, his keen writers ear would see that customer services representatives and shelf-stackers are our coal-miners, security guards and cold-callers our ship-builders.
We have not moved away from industry which demands little or no education, we have renamed it, expanded it, removed the dirt from behind its fingernails and directed all of its energy at the goal of acquiring a 3-bedroom Barratt semi and a nearly-new Ford Mondeo.
A coal-miner, pictured yesterday
What we have done is removed the ‘heavy’ from heavy-industry. The modern employment of those who can’t tell “your” from “you’re” carries little physical risk, has no heavy lifting, is devoid of dangerous machinery. One needs only a drop of cynicism to see that Labour’s drive to increase school leaving age was nothing more than a Trojan Horse to sneak children out of dangerous employment. Now that the danger is gone, and that the ubiquity of the Internet and subtitles has lowered the age at which children become functionally literate, there is no need to retain the artificially high, and very expensive, school leaving age.
At present total UK spending on secondary education is around £26.5bn per year. A straightforward 80/20 split of that funding between new secondary moderns and grammar schools would see £21.2bn spent on the less able and £5.3bn on the brightest. Even those who’d fail an 11+ should see the enormous error in spending four times as much educating the thickest kids as you do the brightest. It’s no wonder our place in the world is slipping.
Simply accepting that the vast majority of ordinary children are physically and intellectually mature enough to leave school and begin work at 11 would free up 80% of that spend. In return for this huge saving the left could demand that the government increase the threshold for grammar school entry, so that the cleverest 30% qualify for it. What a boost for Labour to be able to claim that they’d increased equality of education by 50%.
Additionally, a generous spending increase, to help improve the facilities and quality of teaching, would bring the total cost of grammar education to £8.3bn. We could both improve education and free up a whopping £18.2bn – £350m per week – which we could spend on the NHS.
There is a hidden bonus for the left as well; in The Road to Wigan Pier Orwell foresaw that increases in universal education would birth a socialist revolution, as the working classes eloquently demanded an equal say to that of their capitalist overlords.
Clearly that hasn’t worked. Labour was a more attractive electoral proposition when the underclass were poorly educated. Now the Tories are handing us an opportunity to return to the glory days of the 1930s. Labour can reconnect with its working class roots by recognising that the majority of Britains neither desire nor require secondary education, by accepting that the Brexit vote was every bit as much a howl of anguish against the unwanted burden of learning as the General Strike of 1926.
At Labour’s time of need we are being handed a lifebelt, with which to climb to safety, by the Conservative party, and it is our duty to take it in our teeth and mouth platitudes of support as we lead them into our trap.
A grammar school programme is better for those who are educated past 11, better for our nation’s finances, better for employers, better for the NHS and better for the Labour party. If ever there was a system from which everybody wins then this is it and, correspondingly, we should grasp the opportunity. It’s a no-brainer.
[Note: As Paul Mason is a very busy man, having to split his time between fighting off the forces of darkness and their soft coup, and having to spend hours on the Autotrader web-site, spending his fantasy budget on sports cars and over-powered motorcycles, I’ve taken the liberty of drafting his response to today’s polling of Labour party members]
Paul Mason: Journalist, man, hero, legend, jacket-wearer
It will come as no surprise to those of us au fait with the tactics of the soft coup to find that Blairite front, YouGov, are behind today’s figures. After trying for months to topple Jeremy with increasingly unbelievable voting intention figures YouGov are now clearly trying to strike closer to home.
Make no mistake, this is a government (1997-2010) sanctioned plan to sow discord amongst the opposition party and, as such, should be treated as nothing less than high treason. That Blair is prepared to go to these lengths to discredit Jeremy – dear, saintly, Jeremy – can be read as nothing other than a damning indication of how terrified he is of Jeremy taking power and ending the reign of his far-right protege, May.
I spend the vast majority of my time with honest, salt-of-the-Earth, Labour people – like my good friend Ken Loach – and I can assure you that this survey is not at all indicative of the views I choose to hear. And I doubt the 200,000 people who turned out to help Jeremy save the NHS this weekend would find themselves reflected in the figures, either. They’re the real Labour party members, because they support those of his views that Jeremy still talks about, whether they’re card-carrying members of the party or not.
Speaking of card-carrying members, one will search in vain for any members’ contact details in YouGov’s hatchet-job. There’s no names and addresses for the 1,096 “Labour members” who’ve taken party. There’s not even a simple list of their membership IDs. Without that identifying information can we really be sure that this was even a poll of Labour members? That only 87% of them say they would vote Labour in a general election should set alarm bells ringing. I don’t have any proof that YouGov fraudulently generated these numbers randomly from a weighted computer algorithm, but neither can I prove that they didn’t, so it’s a 50:50 case.
If (and I use the word in its precise, legal sense) this is a real survey then its bias is easy to spot. From its “sample” of 1,096 “Labour party members” a whopping 826 are from the ABC1 socio-economic group. In other words the wealthy, metropolitan, elite, who hate Jeremy’s working class affectation and his almost imperceptible influence on the ordinary people. It would be a tad conspiratorial to suggest that Blair himself hand-picked the people to be interviewed, but he probably did.
Naturally the right-wing press will snap up this data, without subjecting it to my detailed analysis. A march of 200,000 people trying to save the NHS, through the democracy of the streets rather than the Westminster bubble politics of the House of Common, are barely worth a couple of column inches, but we can be sure today’s figures, representing only 0.5% of the number on the march, will be everywhere. It’s no wonder that that the poll finds that 47% of Jeremy’s supporters blame the loss of Copeland on the media.
Yet, in response to that same question, we’re expected to believe that 41% of all respondents blame Corbyn, compared to only 20% correctly blaming Jamie Reed (as I exhaustively covered at the time). It takes only a few minutes to work out that 47+41+20 = 108%…how easily the centrists create a false consciousness and with such disregard for those they seek to fool that they don’t even bother to hide basic errors like that.
Ultimately, of course, this poll is just that, it’s not real life. Were there to be another leadership contest, or a general election, then we know that, like the man who constantly fantasises about leaving his wife and buying a classic Lotus Elan but lacks the courage to actually do it, the voters would flock back to Jeremy. No amount of polling will tell us what we already know; that if it came down to the choice between backing twinkle-eyed Jeremy or putting our support behind an NHS-wrecking, migrant-killing, austerity-loving, freedom-hating, royalist, imperialist, satanist, neoliberalist party or candidate then 100% of Labour party members would, at the moment of truth, be behind our glorious leader.
And that is why, Mr Blair, your coup-supporting, false-number-packed, lying, fake news poll only really manages to get one thing right…
This is a special kind of blog. It’s a story where YOU are the hero!
You are Donald Trump, leader of the free world, billionaire, raconteur, genius and four times winner of Mr Normal-sized Hands.
In this blog you will have to make decisions, just like the real Donald does, to try to make America great again, or, you know, whatever.
At the end of each page you’ll be asked to make a decision about what to do next, when you’ve spent 0.3 seconds considering how a dim-witted narcissist would act simply click on the link to make your decision.
Good luck!
Page 1
It’s 10:30am and you’ve just arrived in the Oval Office. You were up late last night, watching YouTube videos that prove that your predecessor, Barack Obama, was a Muslim, and you’re still a bit tired from a busy weekend of golfing.
On your desk is a note that says your approval ratings are still slipping. As you’re reading it your secretary, Titzi, buzzes through to remind you that your security briefing is about to start.
There is a big reed button on your desk, with a post-it note stuck on, reading, “DO NOT PRESS!”
That seemed to go well, and it only took you an hour to write, so you’re really storming through your workload. Maybe the American people need to know that, or maybe you’ve earned a break.
To tweet about how productive you’ve been go to page 11
To go for a game of golf to celebrate go to page 5
To press the big red button, out of boredom, go to page 13
Page 3
Now that you’ve started thinking about Mexico you’re pretty angry about the whole thing.
Maybe it’s time you sorted these bad hombres out for once and for all. The American people would like that…but what can you do?
To phone some builders, to get a quote for the wall, go to page 7
To talk to the AG about rounding up some illegal aliens go to page 6
To press the big red button, and make sure Mexico never bothers anyone again, go to page 13
Page 4
You head along to the top secret, highly secure situation room. They have a big table and a map of the world on the huge screen.
The only person in the room is Steve Bannon, who’s dictating an article to a copy-writer at Brietbart, over the iPhone knock-off he got cheap from Chinese eBay.
“Where’s all the intelligence guys?” you ask.
Steve puts his hand over the mouthpiece of his phone and tells you, “We stopped inviting them, their intelligence was insulting our intelligence. It’s just me and you now, Don.”
“OK,” you say, “Well you better tell me what’s a threat to our security.”
“Muslims, immigrants, journalists and black people,” says Steve, then goes back to dictating his article.
That all sounds pretty scary, and a presidential decision is needed.
To phone the AG, to ask him to start rounding up Muslims and immigrants, go to page 6
To remind the people how great your victory was go to page 8
To decide that dealing with threats is a job for tomorrow and go golfing instead go to page 5
To phone the AG to ask how an immigrant like Nigel got into the country go to page 6
Page 6
You phone Jeff Sessions, your attorney general, to ask for his legal advice.
“I’m glad you phoned, sir,” he says, before you can even get a word in, “We need to talk about the P-U-T-I-N problem.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my putting,” you tell him, 4 minutes later.
“No, not PUTTING, PUTIN!” he yells down the phone at you, “I was spelling it out in case the FBI were listening!”
“The Fibby?” you ask, ready for his tricks this time.
He sighs. “Look, just don’t say anything to anybody about the Russians, OK?”
“Which Russians?” you ask.
“That’s the spirit…but if you could organise something to distract the media then that would good. Say, can you hear a noise like a tape-recorder running on this line?”
You both go silent. Somebody else on the line muffles a cough.
“Got to go,” says Jeff hurriedly, “Remember, not a word to anyone!”
“Wait, Jeff! I don’t understand,” you say.
“He’s already hung up, doofus,” says a voice you don’t recognise, and then the line goes dead.
The phone call leaves you feeling vaguely unsettled, partly because you can’t remember why you phoned Sessions in the first place. How do you react?
To press the big red button, as a show of strength, go to page 13
To press the big red button, to distract the media, go to page 13
To press the big red button, because you’re curious about what it does, go to page 13
To write a brilliant Tweet, dispelling all rumours about the Russians, go to page 12
Page 7
“I want a quote for a wall 100 feet high and 2,200 miles long,” you bark into the phone, getting right down to business.
“Yes, sir, but this is Titzi…your secretary. You have to dial 9 for an outside line, remember?”
Ten minutes later you’re on the phone to a Washington builder.
“I can pop round and give you a quote on Friday, mate,” he tells you.
“I’m in Florida on Friday,” you say, “Pretty much every week. Most Wednesdays and Thursdays as well.”
“Well are you back in Washington on Monday?”
“Yes,” you sulk, “I have to back at my desk.”
“You ought to go self-employed, mate,” he tells you. “Look, I’m in Sunderland doing a garden wall on Monday, but I’ll call in on my way back. What time do you finish work?”
“Just after lunch normally. Or just before. It depends when I get sleepy.”
“Smashing. I’ll be round about 6. What’s your address?”
“1600 Pennsylvania Avenue,” you tell him.
“Champion, I’ll just bang that in the sat-nav and see you on Monday night, mate.”
Getting your border wall project underway gives you a real sense of achievement, and you feel that you should keep going and get some more done.
To phone the attorney general about getting some illegals deported go to page 6
To tweet about how rubbish Hillary Clinton is go to page 11
To go for a game of golf to help you relax go to page 5
To press the big red button, and bring God’s cleansing hell-fire to the whole of the Earth go to page 13
Page 8
There, that should silence your detractors.
You’re still worried that people don’t respect you enough and make fun of you in the news and, more importantly, on Twitter.
How can you win their respect and make them realise what a really great guy you are?
To declare war on somewhere that can’t defend itself, like Scotland, go to page 10
To find somebody to build your border wall for you go to page 7
To get in the zeitgeist by watching some TV go to page 15
To demonstrate your strength, by pressing the big red button, go to page 13
Page 9
As soon as you’re back at your desk you make the call.
“Your majesty,” you open, in deference to her regal pussy, “I demand a knighthood for my caddie, Norman Fowler!”
“I’m not the Queen, Mr Trump. I’m Theresa, the Prime Minister. Do you remember? The nice lady who came to visit you? We held hands and went for a walk, do you remember that?”
“Cut the bull-crap, lady,” you bark, using your Art-of-the-Deal voice, “Can you get Norman Mailer a knighthood, or do I have to go over your head?”
“The truth is, Mr Trump, I need your help,” Theresa tells you, “People are getting a bit worried about our Brexit thing – do you remember that – and we need a big trade-deal to calm them down a bit. If you can push one through from the US then you can ask for whatever you want.”
“You’ll get your trade-deal,” you tell the PM, “but in return I want…”
To demand a knighthood for Norma Major go to page 16
To insist that Steven Bannon is allowed to marry into the royal family go to page 16
To suggest that the UK becomes the 51st state go to page 16
To ask if you can hold Theresa’s hand again blush and go to page 16
To cut the crap and launch a nuclear attack on her limey ass go to page 13
Page 10
Eight seconds after you send the tweet there are half a dozen generals in your office.
“You need to make a formal declaration of war,” one of them tells you.
“TITZI! GET GLASGOW ON THE PHONE!” you yell.
When the call is connected you bellow into the receiver, “We’re at war now, Scotland. Prepare to be Trumped.”
“Way ta fuck, ya fuckin orange ba’bag!” comes the reply.
You’re not sure if that’s a formal acknowledgement or not.
To get some advice from Jeff Sessions go to page 6
To go nuclear on their tartan asses press the big red button and go to page 13
To forget about it and watch some TV instead go to page 15
To tackle the serious business of running the country go to page 404
Page 12
You expect that to be the end of the matter, but – almost immediately – a Twitter user, with an egg for a user picture – mentions you and says you are a Russian spy.
To go Defcon-1 on him press the big red button and go to page 13
To behave like a proper president would go to page 404
Page 13
As soon as you press the button the lights turn red and sirens go off, just like you always imagined they would.
A squad of secret service guys run in.
“We have to get you to the command bunker, sir,” they explain, virtually dragging you out of your chair.
“Don’t I need to give a press conference or something?” you ask, as you’re whisked through the halls, your feet barely touching the floor. When they don’t answer you ask, “Shouldn’t I at least tell somebody who I want to nuke?”
“That’s all taken care of, sir,” they assure you.
A few minutes later they push you inside the nuclear bunker. Mike Pence, Steve Bannon, Jeff Sessions, Sean Spicer, Kellyanne Conway and other familiar faces are already inside, all looking a bit worried.
“Wait here, sir. We’ll secure the door and then engage with the enemy, sir.” says the head secret service guy. He flips you a salute and adds, “It’s been an experience serving you, sir.”
He closes the heavy bunker door and you hear many, many locks sliding into place.
Everyone sits in silence for a long time, surrounded by thousands of tins of beans and a million rolls of cheap toilet-paper.
“I though nuclear war would be louder than this,” says Spicer, “But it just sounds like someone welding a door shut.”
There’s a much longer silence, while everyone takes this in.
You try to put a brave face on it.
“Hey, guys, if I’ve got to spend the rest of my life here then I can’t think of a more terrific group of people to have with me. We’re the best!”
There’s another long silence. Eventually Steve Bannon says, “This is all his fault!” and points at Ben Carson.
Your presidency is over, but, in the end, you made America slightly better. To try again go back to page 1
Page 14
YOU DID IT! YOU MADE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!
Thanks to your inspired leadership America is a happier, stronger, richer, my vibrant and better place. Gun crime has fallen to almost zero, everyone enjoys universal healthcare, schools turn out the best educated children in the world and you have unparalleled freedom and opportunity for all.
Barack Obama, speaking at the ceremony to award you the Nobel prizes for Peace, Economics, Literature and Tweeting, describes you as the greatest human who has ever, or will ever, live.
Hillary Clinton retires from public life, to travel to Africa on missionary work, to try to atone for her great sin of nearly stopping you from becoming president.
Everywhere you go huge crowds – the biggest crowds ever – turn up to see you in person. Everyone cheers. There are no protest banners.
The other nations of the world agree, unanimously, to form a world government, so that you can be elected president of it, and bring your wisdom and intellect to bear on all the problems of the world.
You have won. To try again WITHOUT CHEATING go back to page 1
Page 15
You sit back and put on Fox News, for a well-balanced insight into how well you’re doing. Instead it seems to be showing British news, and it looks like zombies have taken over London.
From what you can gather Londoners are heading to somewhere called ‘The Winchester’ until it all blows over, but surely this requires presidential action.
To sleep on it and come up with a plan go to page 18
To take out those zombies before immigrants bring the plague to America press the big red button and go to page 13
page 16
“Done!” says Theresa, even before you’ve finished speaking.
A tweet, a game of golf and a trade deal seems like a lot of work for one day. It’s probably time you took a break.
To ensure his threat is neutralised press the big red button and go to page 13
Page 18
You call it a day and head to the residence, where your beautiful wife, Melania is waiting for you…to make sure you sleep on the couch, don’t get any ideas and aren’t trying to sneak a camera into the bathroom again.
Settling down, with your hair as a pillow, you soon fall into a deep sleep.
You, and America, have survived another day of your presidency.
To see if you can survive tomorrow as well go back to page 1
Page 19
You were pretty sure that would be clinching argument, but only seconds later @trump_haterrr quote tweets you, saying, “Look at the fucking idiot”.
The sad death, last month, of Sir Gerald Kaufman means that, hot on the heel the 1-all defeat of Labour in Copeland and Stoke-on-Trent, another by-election looms, most likely on May 4.
Manchester Gorton, Sir Gerald’s seat, was formed in 1916 and, since then, Labour have old failed to hold it once – in the 1931 general election, following Ramsey MacDonald’s Labour government collapse in the face of the great depression.
Manchester, pictured yesterday…or any day, really
In the 2015 general election Labour took 67% of the vote, giving them a majority slightly over 24,000; their 13th safest seat by majority, and the 15th by vote share. The Conservatives, UKIP and the Lib Dems combined didn’t even reach 10,000 votes.
As by-elections go this should be one equivalent to an FA Cup qualifier between Manchester United and some no-league side whose striker is 63 and whose goal-keeper is off his narcolepsy meds. The problem with those, of course, is that unless Manchester drive home a 30-nil victory it looks like their hearts weren’t really in it.
This is Corbyn’s problem…OK, sorry, it’s Corbyn’s problem for this particular by-election; he has many other problems beyond it. It may be inconceivable that he could lead Labour into defeat at Gorton, but he could fail to win convincingly and find that just as damaging.
In 2015 the (distant) runners-up to Labour were the Greens, taking just shy of 10% of the vote. If the mating call of the Corbynite, “people had stopped voting Labour because it wasn’t left-wing enough”, is true then that 10% of the electorate should now be rushing to vote for Corbyn’s Labour. The party should be looking for a repeat of their by-election success in Oldham West and Royton in December 2015.
Just a few miles away from Gorton, Oldham was the first by-election test of Corbyn’s leadership, and saw the party increase their vote share by 7 percentage points. Nobody really expects that to happen, of course. The political landscape has shifted quite a lot in the past 15 months; Britain has voted to Brexit, May has taken the Conservatives rightwards, UKIP appear to be a spent force, and Labour have slumped in the polls. Corbyn himself has gone from being the unknown newcomer, promising to inspire millions to return to Labour, to being the most unpopular Labour leader since polls began, presiding over a party in turmoil.
A straightforward application of current polling data would see Labour slipping by 7 points with, assuming a turnout of about 80% that at the general election, their majority falling to around half of its current level.
This is bad, but not necessarily catastrophic. However, their are two other factors in play.
Unlike Copeland, where Labour were able to spin a ‘Labour’s vote share has been slipping for years’ story (by using 1997 as the baseline, rather than the high-point), the 2015 election saw Labour’s vote share increase by 17 points. This was mainly at the expense of the Lib Dems, whose own share fell by an incredible 28 points, as voters punished them for the actions of the coalition government. Like most large cities, Manchester supported remaining in the EU, by 60% to 40%. With Labour now backing Brexit, and actively helping the government get the Brexit bill through parliament, we might see a lot of those erstwhile Liberals returning to their party.
At the other end of the spectrum, it’s uncertain what UKIP will do. The party is tearing itself apart, its leader was disgraced in the Stoke-on-Trent by-election, and they know they have nothing to gain by throwing everything at a remain-supporting Labour stronghold. A couple of thousand UKIP voters with no-candidate, or a very low-profile one, may be gift to the Tories, possibly even pushing Labour’s majority below the 10,000 mark.
A perfect storm of a strong Liberal Democrat candidate with a weak or no-show UKIP one might even see Labour’s majority reduced to just a couple of thousand. Where Corbyn to come so close to losing such a safe seat it would, surely, be a blow beyond spinning and the final nail in his coffin.
Some people, I’m given to understand, get up in the morning and go for a run. I don’t, because I’m lazy and unfit and, frankly, people near where I live see cleaning up after your dog as one of those metropolitan elite lifestyle choices.
Instead I follow Godfrey Bloom, formerly of UKIP. I do this for two reasons.
He almost always tweets first thing in the morning, so there’s always something to read while I eat my cornflakes.
He’s wrong about everything. Literally everything. Politics, economics, climate change, taxation, the works.
Hence, without me having to run anywhere at all, I end up red-faced and with my soul stained.
Sluts! Sluts from Bongo-bongo land!
There must be a polar-opposite to genius; a genius can look at a problem and see it in a way that’s eluded everybody else. An anti-genius must be able to come up with a new view on an issue that’s simply so terrible nobody has thought it before. Which brings us to Godfrey’s view of Scotland…it’s his opinion that Scotland should be an independent country, but only if the SNP are deposed first, because their socialism is ruining Scotland.
It’s a tribute to Godfrey’s anti-genius that probably nobody else alive could come up with a position on Scottish independence that both sides of the Scotland question would hate equally (albeit for different reasons).
If there’s a third reason I follow ‘Godders’ it’s because of a secret, shameful delight in his ability to continually fool his readers. He leads us to believe that he is about to summit Mount Ignorance, only to reveal it was a false peak, and that there are new, unimagined, heights of wrongheadedness to be scaled.
So it is with his view on Scottish independence.
He tweeted this on February 11th and, ever since, it’s been playing on my mind.
Primarily because I can’t stop myself thinking what the ‘Yes’ campaign would be like. Mainly it would be unique political marriage of the Scots who hate the English with the English who hate the Scots.
It would be possibly the only political campaign in history where half of its literature was directly contradicted by the other half of it. In fact, it’s hard not to imagine it as a hapless character in a farce, who is trying to maintain the illusion of being two different people. “Wastemonster’s stealing the wealth of our country!” would bellow ‘Yes’, but a vault over Hadrian’s wall would hear their allies describing how the Scots were living large at the expense of the English tax-payer.
GERS would be held up as fictional, and also used as proof-positive that Scotland was a burden on the English state. Scotland’s economy would be big enough to go it alone, yet small enough that its departure wouldn’t be noticed by the rest of the UK.
Maybe even the Loch Ness monster of Scottish politics, the whisky export duty, could make an appearance to demonstrate both how the English rip-off the Scots, and how the Scots happily buy any lie about the English.
The only option would be to have two campaigns,.Yes (S) and Yes (E), with firm instructions that the two should never meet, lest, like matter meeting anti-matter, they completely cancelled each other out in an orgy of destruction.
Scottish polling adds complications to an already fraught situation. It’s tempting to say that support for Scottish independence hasn’t changed since the EU referendum, but it’s actually changed a great deal. A good many people have decided that they’d rather be in the EU than the UK and have moved over to the ‘Yes’ side, during which journey they must have studiously avoided eye-contact with virtually an identical number of people who’ve decided they want no part of independence if it means sticking with the hated EU, and have correspondingly moved to the ‘No’ side. The end result is that the Yes/No vote has stayed where it was in September 2014, at around 45/55.
This suggests that to win independence the Scottish Nationalists would be dependent on the English flocking to their cause, and forced to defend rUK’s right to determine the future of Scotland. Meanwhile, in the ‘No’ camp, a win for ‘Yes’, against the will of the Scottish people, would give the Unionists a legitimate grievance against the English, which should help them fit right in to the newly-independent Scotland.
England, of course, is crying out for another decisive referendum. I don’t have any polling on this, but I suspect that, other than in Bath, hardly anybody in England thinks about Scottish independence on a regular basis. Scotland doesn’t really bother anybody. It’s a bit like the Lake District; a nice place to visit, with plenty of souvenirs to buy, but vague suspicions that all the inhabitants belong to a strange cult and that if you’re there on a Sunday there won’t be any petrol stations open.
A nationwide referendum would change all that. If last year showed us anything it’s that once you’ve picked a side, often fairly arbitrarily, those on the other side become your life-long enemies. We can pit brother against brother over the EU – which, until 2 years ago, nobody in the UK had the faintest idea about – so we’re all bound to suddenly have a lifelong opinion on Scotland and whether or not it should fuck off.
In what future historians will surely look back on as the defining moment for anti-genius, Godfrey Bloom as proposed the single most political divisive and damaging political campaign possible.
And that’s why I don’t run. Although if his plan is adopted I might well start.
[Note for younger readers and non-nerds: Before Alan Moore became famous for genre-defining graphic novels, such as V for Vendetta and Watchmen, he worked as a writer for the beloved 2000AD comic. He wrote many Time Twisters stories for them; standalone comic strips, of 6 or so pages, with a twist at the end, often, as the name suggests, involving some time-travel.
As part of this series he created the story of Waldo DR (Diminished Responsibility) Dobbs and his “barely sentient” friend, Ernest Errol Quinch – two alien juvenile delinquents who, in their first outing, used a time machine to shape all of Earth’s history, as part of an elaborate revenge scheme aimed at the dean who’d had them both suspended from college.
DR & Quinch proved so popular that Moore resurrected them to “go straight”, “go girl-crazy”, “get drafted”, “go to Hollywood” and “get back to nature”. Each of these series is a sparkling gem of near-perfect story-telling, written and visual humour, and satire that probably sailed straight over the heads of 2000AD‘s teenage audience (me, for example).
I really can’t recommend strongly enough that you invest the few pounds needed to read their collected stories.]
[Note for lawyers: DR & Quinch aren’t mine and I lay no claim to them. This is merely poor fan faction. Why not go and pick on 50 shades of grey for ripping-off Twilight instead, eh?]
Part 1
Frame 1: Black
DR [Narrating]: Every college student knows that the greatest horror in the universe is when your alarm goes off too early on a Monday morning.
Frame 2: Int. DR & Quinch’s dorm-room, early morning. The room is a mess, much of it detritus from a party, but also some building rubble. DR is lying on the floor, in his underwear, surrounded by empty beer cans. Through an open door we can see into the adjoining bathroom, where Quinch is lying half-in and half-out of the shower, face up and mouth open, with the shower running into it.
Voice [from outside, over megaphone]: This is the galactic police! We know you’re in there! We have authorisation to mega-nuke this town if you do not surrender within 2 minutes!
Frame 3: DR is sitting up, nursing his head. Quinch is standing, looking at the (now very flat) person who was apparently trapped underneath him while he was passed out.
DR [narrating]: This totally unwarranted police brutality was down to an ambitious new police chief and a complete misunderstanding involving us, her 40th birthday party, her prize-winning collection of Arcturusian carp and an over-enthusiastic sushi chef.
Frame 4: DR is hopping one one leg, pulling his jeans on. Quinch is rolling up the flattened person.
DR [narrating]: Honestly, man, it could have happened to anyone.
Frame 5: From a different angle we see DR, now dressed, studying a large hole in the wall, while Quinch is trying to flush away the rolled-up corpse.
DR [narrating]: As luck would have it, last night we’d created a new garage for our rented time-flier, in what used to Dean Fusk’s son’s room.
Frame 6: The time-flier, travelling through time. Quinch is driving. DR, smiling, is standing on the passenger seat and popping the cork from a champagne bottle. There appears to be confetti in their wake.
DR [narrating]: As we made our get-away we solemnly honoured his memory.
Frame 7: The time-flier, approaching a planet, which is recognisably Earth.
DR [narrating]: Last time we visited this planet, in their year 1985, they were so amazingly primitive that the dirt-wads who lived there still thought 2000AD was an unimaginably distant future date.
Frame 8: The time-flier is now much closer to the planet.
DR [narrating]: I wonder if anything at all interesting has happened to them since then.
Frame 9: Interior, the Oval Office, day time. President Trump is sitting behind his desk, using his mobile phone.
Voice [calling into office]: 5 minutes until your press conference, Mr President.
Frame 10: The time-flier has crashed through the roof of the Oval, it’s nose and cockpit intruding into the room. The president’s desk has been blown over and Trump’s tiny feet change be seen sticking up from behind it. DR & Quinch are exiting the flier.
Frame 11: Trump and Quinch are face-to-face, in profile, creating a mirror image of each other and comparing their visual similarities.
Quinch: Huh?
Trump: Huh?
Frame 12: Qunich’s arm is out-stretched, suggesting that he has just punched Trump. Once again, only Trump’s feet can be seen stick out from above his desk.
Frame 13: Kelly has entered the room and is looking at Quinch, apparently not seeing DR, Trump’s feet or the devastation all around.
Kelly: Come on, Mr President. You have to meet the press now.
Frame 14: Kelly has Quinch’s hand and is leading him, with a puzzled expression on his face, towards the door. DR is wearing a broad smile.
DR [narrating]: This was, like, the first time in my life I realised the truth of that old saying, the early bird gets the worm, man.
Paul Mason, who used to be a serious journalist before catching a bad case of Corbynitis, has written his overview of the Stoke and Copeland by-elections. As you’d expect it’s an inconsistent, blame-deflecting piece of near gibberish. Let’s take a look.
Middle-aged man struggles to regain lost youth/talent
For socialists in the Labour Party it will be a relief that the Blairite plan to stage two electoral disasters on one night failed.
And we’re off. It was always a Blairite plot, obviously…pretty much everything is. What Paul’s missing out on from the start is that for this Blairite plot to succeed it would need Labour to be doing terribly in the polls. Which they are. Also because of Blairites, probably.
It seems to be Corbyn’s curse that he’s haunted by this shadowy group who are so powerful that they can cause the party electoral misery, yet aren’t powerful enough to oust him from the leadership.
Nobody can claim losing Copeland was Jeremy Corbyn’s “fault”
Actually, plenty of people are claiming just that. They could all be Blairites, I suppose.
However the two by-election results taken together do reveal a big and challenging fact for Labour: in these two very different working class English seats, there is a majority for Brexit, and for the right wing nationalist rationale behind it.
This is a brave paragraph to write when you’re defending Corbyn, who has supported leaving the EU for his entire political career, gave a lukewarm defence of it as part of the official Remain campaign, called for article 50 to be invoked the morning after the referendum and issues a 3-line-whip to his own party to support the government’s Brexit bill.
I wonder if all of that’s going to come back to bite Paul’s bum later in this very article. I just wonder.
Both by-elections saw significantly reduced turnouts compared to a general election — from 64% to 52% in Copeland and from 50% to 38% in Stoke. Therefore all talk of “swings” has to be tempered by the fact that, in both places, it became a question of whose vote would hold up most.
In other words, after months and months of telling us that polls aren’t accurate, Paul is adding, “…and neither are by-elections.
Paul then goes on to talk about the absolute number of votes decreasing for UKIP in both Copeland and Stoke. He literally does this immediately after saying that turnout is down, presumably to gloss over UKIP increasing their vote share in Stoke by 2%, despite their candidate being “a hapless fantasist” (ibid).
People are voting Tory in the full knowledge that the NHS is collapsing, being privatised, that refugee children are being left molested at Calais and that a bunch of Tory incompetents are in charge – because they want Brexit.
Why, oh why, won’t those people vote for a Labour incompetent who also wants Brexit? We may never know.
Copeland has been moving for more than a decade towards being a tight seat for Labour: part of the longterm fragmentation of Labour’s demographic base.
Labour has 26 seats more marginal than Copeland was,. More than 10% of their parliamentary presence!
It’s the kind of place Labour can win back at a general election, but — as with other military-industrial complex centres — that is hard with a longstanding pacifist leader.
“By overcoming our leader’s short-comings we can win back marginal seats!” is possibly the worst battle-cry for a general election ever. “Only cunts vote!” would probably work better.
Without a majority in Scotland, it can only ever form a Labour-SNP coalition, for which there is untested consent among its core English voters.
The consent is so “untested” that the Tories used the possibility of a Labour-SNP coalition government as one of their major lines of attack in the 2015 general election.
It’s also writing off Scottish Labour as irrelevant and inconvenient, which is hardly a wise thing to do to your own party.
In fact, even Corbyn is against an alliance with the SNP, so this is dangerously close to breaking ranks for Paul.
If you add to this the fact that Labour’s members have twice elected the most left-wing MP in the party to be its leader, shattering its effectiveness as an opposition (through infighting and sabotage)
And I’m not sure this was the decisively pro-Corbyn argument he thought it was either.
Paul then rattles on for a bit about the Labour need for a clear Brexit plan, which is fine, but rather too late.
My position, repeatedly outlined, is that Labour should accept Brexit but fight for Britain’s membership of the single market, via EFTA, with a temporary brake on free movement. If we don’t get that, then at the end of the Article 50 negotiations I would be in favour of a clear vote against the Brexit plan the Tories bring to the UK parliament in 2018–19.
This is the champion for left-wing Labour, a man who hates Blairites for their compromises, saying that Labour should accept something which, in same article, he describes as having a “right wing nationalist rationale”.
He also doesn’t seem to care that a vote against the government’s Brexit deal won’t mean no Brexit, just no deal – with the economic and social chaos that would entail.
He then immediately follows this up with…
In that situation (which is likely) I would also not only accept but propose Scotland secedes from the UK to save what it can of a socially just society from the wreckage that hard Brexit would bring.
Having argued, only 6 paragraphs previously, that Labour could only gain power through coalition with the SNP he now proposes a move that would remove the SNP MP’s from parliament. He’s a man whose just had one leg blown off, desperately trying to hacksaw through the branch that he’s using as a crutch.
If anything, the Labour position was not critical enough of Europe in the Brexit referendum campaign. We do not and cannot share the starry-eyed infatuation of the middle classes with the EU and we should not feed the illusion that the decision is reversible by overriding democracy.
“Labour didn’t do enough to support the right-wing nationalist rationale!”
The pressing issues for Labour’s leadership today should be to understand the long-term and grave nature of the Brexit crisis and seek to construct an alliance around the project of a soft Brexit with maximum social justice.
Compared to what the Tories and their press backers want, that will still seem like a radical project and grounds for the continued monstering of Corbyn by the right. If the rest of the hard neoliberal Blairite faction wishes to follow Jamie Reed and Tristram Hunt out of the commons, or even into the Libdems, that might actually help the situation.
So the secret Blairite plot that you started this article with was actually helping Corbyn?
I’m confused, are Blairites the goodies or the baddies?
Labour did deploy radicalism and class rhetoric in Stoke to see of UKIP, together with efficient traditional activism.
It wasn’t down to the “hapless fantasist” that UKIP fielded, then? Because before you made it sound like it was. Plus, remember that UKIP increased their vote share in Stoke…unless we’re not counting that, because of the low turnout.
Man, this is like a juggling act.
But neither in Copeland nor Stoke was Labour displaying radicalism at the level we’re going to need to take power in what’s left of the UK, after the right wing nationalist middle class has destroyed it.
Because, obviously, the traditional way of voters showing annoyance at your lack of radicalism is by voting for the governing Conservative power. After “the polls are wrong” and “by-elections are wrong” we’ve finally reached “the voters are wrong”. Paul is so convinced, so absolutely, unshakably convinced by the rightness of Corbyn’s message that even the clearest rejection of it shows only that those rejecting it are wrong.
So I will not be joining those calling on Corbyn to resign for losing Copeland. Jamie Reed lost Copeland.
Nothing up until now has led to this, surprising, revelation and it feels a bit, “It’s all my ex-wife’s fault that I’m unemployed, broke, lonely and masturbating to cartoon porn at 3 in the afternoon!”
I guess that if you really wanted to make it all Jamie Reed’s fault you’d probably want to build a narrative about how he’s let down the voters in Copeland, but Mason hasn’t bothered with that, he’s just blaming everyone and everything that comes into his tin-foil-hat clad head.
But turning 68 this year, Corbyn can only ever be a transitional figure in Labour politics.
“I will not be joining those calling on Corbyn to resign, but he is old and should retire, or die, or something.”
None of the things he [Corby] lacks — “pazzaz”, office management skills, a posh accent, an extensive network of friends in Fleet Street— would have won Copeland for Labour last night. Nor was his leftism a liability: orare we going to say Copleand voters were turned off because he didn’t attack the NHS enough, or migrants, or benefit scroungers?
No, but we might reasonably say that his Brexit stance, his well-documented dislike of nuclear power and that he’s a complete political ineptitude might have put a few people off.
On the left in Britain we need to find a way for the left and centre left to co-exist within the same Labour team, to respect each other’s ideologies and combine their strengths. And to build a Progressive Alliance to tactically manouver inside the electoral system.
Naturally the conclusion of an article that starts with a denouncement of a Blairite plot, implies abandoning party colleagues in Scotland, encourages neoliberals to leave the party and then blames one of its own MPs for losing a by-election, is that Labour should come together and respect different ideologies.
This isn’t, then, a thoughtful analysis of the results of last night’s by-elections, but an exercise in throwing every excuse imaginable at the reader, in the hope that they’ll buy one of them. As such it reminds me of nothing more than the famous scene in The Blues Brothers, where Jake is finally cornered by his ex-fiance, and carries exactly the same message.
Last night I did something I don’t normally do. I replied to a tweet by Nigel Farage.
Now there are several problems with Nigel’s tweet. For example he seems to claim that the graph shows a trebling of rapes over an 8 year period, but his graph shows only a single year, which lies outside that period.
What I chose to address is the issue that Sweden’s definition of rape is much wider than most countries, meaning that a sexual assault which would be classed as a rape in Sweden may not be so classed in other countries.
Admittedly I may have used a little bit of ‘attitude’ in my reply.
My expectation was that Farage would ignore my tweet, as he has, and that, buried as it was in his mentions, nobody else would see it or care. On that second point I may have been a little wrong.
In case, like this Tweeter, you’re struggling to keep up with the cut and thrust of this intellectual debate then, up until this Tweet, nobody had mentioned Islam, or even immigration, and certainly nobody had excused rape. As an aside, it’s genuinely amazing that at least 46 people read through Farage’s mentions, saw that tweet and thought the point insightful enough to fav. [Up to 65 favs and 3 RTs as I publish this]
I tried pointing out that I wasn’t excusing anything or talking about immigration, just explaining what the graph appeared to show.
That went well.
The conversation went on all night, although I went to bed, but broadly the lines of attack fell into 5 main categories:
I was a liberal apologist for rapists and Islam
I was condoning rape, or didn’t care about the victims
Muslims are evil rapists and Sweden’s a hell-hole, everyone knows this
Wikipedia isn’t a reliable source
Gibberish
To be fair, some of category 5 may have been on my side, but we have no way of knowing.
I’m clearly not condoning the rape or assault of anyone, simply saying that the graph that Farage presented is misleading. Nevenka and I actually had a perfectly civil conversation on that subject, with me presenting my view that Farage is celebrating rape and assault, because it suits his political message…which, I feel, is pretty despicable.
Not everybody was so open to debate.
I apologise if I insulted anybody by recognising that different countries treat the crime of rape differently. It’s interesting that nobody interpreted the graph to indicate that the UAE has a very low incidence of rape (quite rightly to, as reports of rape there routinely turn into persecutions and prosecutions of the victim), which makes it clear that the viewers are perfectly aware that rape isn’t rape the world over.
The tweets protesting Wikipedia’s accuracy were mainly terribly witty.
Although, funnily enough, nobody I challenged to find a factual error in the Wikipedia article ever got back to me (but I was told, twice, that facts have a liberal bias. Goddamn objective reality).
One challenge was just surreal.
Here somebody tries to debunk Sweden’s rape statistics using the tweets of a man wanted for rape…in Sweden. Genuinely amazing.
Now that my mentions have calmed down I’m going to look on all of the above as a learning exercise. It’s a demonstration of just how powerful confirmation bias can be; to the extent that people are willing to brand others ‘rape apologists’ (surely an accusation that you’d normally be circumspect about using) if they challenge, in any way, the validity of data.
It’s also a demonstration of just how skillfully Farage uses dog-whistle tactics. You’d struggle to find anything explicitly racist, anti-immigration or anti-Islam in his original tweet, yet people know exactly what he means and even those who can’t understand factual flaws in the graph can draw a straight line from it to Islam. Like Pontius Pilate he keeps his hands spotlessly clean.
The starkest lesson, though, is that trying to oppose Farage is simply a lot of hassle. Even a simple, factual defence fills your mentions for 18+ hours with insults, anti-Islamic memes, and accusations that you support the most barbaric crimes of humanity. Every time you see a distortion, misrepresentation or outright lie you have to think, “Do I want the hassle?”
But if we don’t then what right do we have to expect others to do so?
Excel Pope 