Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
A free article on Starmer in the London Review of Books
Farage has a positive role in our right wing party politics. Making Starmer look least worst.
Meanwhile yet another traditional Labour member urged me to take a fresh look at the London Review of Books.
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v46/n14/james-butler/what-s-a-major...
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Andrew Stillman on
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Maybe enough of your anti-Starmer vendetta fro a while, now? (please...pretty please......on please oh please, oh please)
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Permalink Reply by Anonymous Bosch on
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Hear, hear
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...pleeeeeeeeeeeeease....!
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Permalink Reply by Mavic Starfish on
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with sugar on top
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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JamesN - "We're all quite aware of Starmer's faults".
Are we all? Well perhaps not everyone. Including the man himself? On the plane to Washington why did he say he was be shocked by the state of our prisons?
https://www.itv.com/news/2024-07-10/starmer-says-state-of-prisons-i...
Prison overcrowding and poor conditions was on Sue Gray's "Shit List" at least since April reportedly as potential disasters for the Labour Government. Gray was hand-picked by Starmer as his Chief of staff.Starmer's plane was probably packed with journalists and maybe he said a lot more than was in the few lines in the ITV link above? Or maybe he hasn't yet got out of election mode and didn't tell those journalists the truth? Or maybe he actually did say and they didn't report what Starmer said because of the paper's owners?
My imagination/hope tooStarmer: "Look I'm not shocked. Do I look stupid? Neither do you lot. Prison overcrowding is as bad and worse than most people could imagine. Shit-blocked toilets; rats; violence; drugs; mental illness; racism, and more and more.
It was on Sue Gray's "Shit List" at least since April/May and I wanted it there. Me and my colleagues - and not just on the Labour benches - have been raising and feeling angry about it for years. Including when I was a prosecutor. Any MP who didn't know has probably not been doing her and his casework. Or maybe not even watched TV and radio Do you journalists listen to BBC radio? If so you know there's lots of gritty stuff there. You didn't know? Then just google something like "Radio 4 young people describe conditions in prison."
After that we'll start to tell and then show you what we're doing."
Vendetta? No. My hope that with five years in office Starmer can make a start with truth-speaking. In Washington I hope he finds more allies in truth-telling about Gaza. And you know what? There may be aspects not entirely dissimilar to breaking the cycles of violence and addiction to violence in our prisons as in the closed prison of Gaza . . .
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Don't let the buggers get you down Alan!
Starmer is simply Blair's puppet and you're right to call him out. Labour used to be a party for the working classes.
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Someone made this point in the office before the election.
Angela Rayner is working class!
No, she's underclass replied a young woman in my team.
There is hope for the future after all!
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Esther Cohen, could you please explain what you think that comment about Angela Rayner being imderclass means? Why you repeated it here? And why it gives you: " hope for the future after all".
I'm genuinely and sincerely puzzled, Estther. I don't object to open-minded, friendly and mutually respectful discussion about social class in Britain. Or come to that, adopting the same values, about the wide range of other aspects we now recognise as "identity" politics.
~ ~ ~
I do wish I'd bought a few more copies of Gary Younge's book:
Who Are We? And should it matter in the 21st Century?
Now a treasured paperback which I pounced on in a remainders bookshop for a couple of quid. Gary Younge places a John Donne poem before the book begins.No man is an island,
Entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,Europe is the less,
As well as if a promontory were:
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were.
Any man's death diminishes me,Because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
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Permalink Reply by Martin (Woodside) on
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Interesting article in the Daily Telegraph: 'Angela Rayner is already being frozen out, allies fear'.
“Angela has been frozen out of everything. She was sitting in the front row of a speech about her own department,” said a source.
I wonder if she was being used as a token northern working-class firebrand, and will soon be jettisoned to keep the decision making within the North London elite.
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So Daily Mail, Telegraph, Daily Express, and GBNews are pleased to report some imagined slight given to Angela Rayner? Does that make some people feel better about the drubbing their favourite right-wing Party suffered? Or is it simply class snobbery; accent snobbery; town snobbery? And perhaps a touch of misogyny? Or just simple hair envy?
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Permalink Reply by Straw Cat on
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A pedant writes:
It's not actually a poem as presented by Yonge who has quoted someone's ignorant rewrite. It's a very poetic sermon (Donne being also a priest as well as a poet). As these famous lines are often misquoted and modernized, here is how it actually begins
No man is an Iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a Clod bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. [Donne's original spelling and punctuation]
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"Someone's ignorant rewrite"?
Or perhaps someone's attempt to share the joy and beauty and wisdom of the words with others.
Including others like me - with no teaching in the writing and poetry of that era. But who could and did respond to a sight reading of a modernised version. Responding many more times since.
And though it was a long time ago for me, I speculate that a modernised version might have avoided a feeling that these lines were from a secret garden not intended for youngsters like me.
Now I like to imagine John Donne re-reading his lines with a slight smile of pleasure. And self satisfaction. Perhaps even with the tiniest ridiculous inkling and hope that his words might one day criss-cross the globe.
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