Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Labour Party Verdict on Cllr Sheila Peacock?
How many gaffes
Can a councillor mouth out?
Before their party says: 'Whoa!!'
The answer my friend
is blowin' in the wind
Hold on till they let us know.
Replies are closed for this discussion.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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Neil, on that demonic grip:
There are some good and decent Labour Councillors in Haringey.
Too often however, this Party selects candidates largely on their ability to attract groups of voters identified by race or religion, rather than a general appeal that transcends ethnicity, nationality etc.
This is consistent with the current leader's fondness for Identity Politics.
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Neil, following Alan Stanton's reference to the Pickwick Papers and being lazy—not wishing to look up Dickens' discussion on the Eatonswill election—I asked ChatGT for a summary. Not all of the following will describe the Haringey local election in May 2026 ~
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In The Pickwick Papers (1836–37), Dickens gives a sharply comic and satirical portrait of the Eatonswill election, mocking the corruption, hypocrisy and rowdiness of contemporary English elections.
Briefly, Dickens shows that Eatonswill’s candidates are:
Party puppets, supported not for merit but because they belong to the Buffs or the Blues (the town’s rival political factions).
Shamelessly flattering, each promising whatever their supporters want to hear.
Surrounded by bribery, drunkenness and mob violence, with free beer, paid crowds and inflammatory speeches.
More interested in spectacle than substance, with insults, parades, and propaganda leaflets replacing any real policies.
Through Mr. Pickwick’s horrified observations, Dickens ridicules the entire process, implying that neither candidate is genuinely worthy — they are simply figureheads in a noisy, corrupt, and farcical system.
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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Neil could you please take a little time and be specific on your remark against councillors spending "time protesting about Palestine" [rather] "than traffic in the borough", Do you think its not possible to do both?
Is this about Independent Socialist Mary Mason joining a protest walk from Egypt to Gaza? I admired her courage. (Even if it was highly unlikely to succeed.)
Or was it an implied criticism of Alex Worrell in mentioning Gaza in her letter resigning from Labour? Again a decision of principle referring to wider key issues affecting everyone: the threat of Climate Change ; The recasting of refugees as a burden instead of a duty under international law. Plus the redefinition of social security as "Welfare" or handouts. As if we should abandon and forget all neighbourly or community ethical or religious traditions we once professed.
I don't expect everyone to join me in giving priority to Genocide - Raphael Lemkin's crime of crimes. But that's how I see it when the Political Party I once gave my energy and spare time to, is now complicit in enabling this industrial scale murder to take place.
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Neil, I keep coming back to your post above. Asking myself if there's anything I could suggest which may perhaps gently point you to an alternative route outwith what to me seems a cramped view of local democracy.
A perhaps odd thing is that from the elected councillors I once got to know, many of the best and most empathetic, interesting people brought with them into the councillor job: knowledge, enthusiasm, commitment and creativity from beyond the local area. Which meant they did a better job for their limited councillor role.By rthe way, this morning I listened to the last of this year's Reith Lectures and I'm recommending it. If you haven't already done so, please give it a whirl.
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Neil, you say you "don't understand why Palestine has always been such an obsession or rallying call for left wingers, the Corbyns or Owen Jones's".
You add that the complaint ignores others e.g. Putin's behaviour.
One question for me is why you don't recognise the whataboutery / whataboutism' here.
You can easily find examples and explanation online. I gather this was a fallacy taught by the sophists in ancient Greece.
In any case your basic assumption is untrue. The allegation that mostly people on the Left criticise Israel is refuted noting which MPs took funds from the Israel Lobby in 2024. Please see the website Reclassifieduk.org In 2024 it published a full list showing a quarter of the MPS at the time had taken cash from that lobby including some free trips to Israel.
They were so-called Friends of Israel. They included both Tories and Labour MPs.The real major issue here, in my view, is Genocide. Perhaps this is what's bothering you most?
I know that many people feel very strongly about it but also feel unable to change what the parties do. I suggest anyone who has this view can write to or email the local candidates and ask them to give a personal assurance that they are do not endorse genocide.No assurance; no vote. It may concentrate minds.
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Neil, thanks for the reference to Edward Lucas. But please let's not go down the side alley of: who first used the terms whataboutery /whataboutism. It's a fair question but not - in my view - the best route to a balanced understanding of the prison state of Israel/Palestine.
On the issue you raised of how outsiders views of that state have shifted over the years you may like to look at a current video with Professor John Mearsheimer
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Forgive me, I don't know. Partly this is because the single book you ask for covers an enormous area. Also because I am out of date and am bound to have missed something good and recently published. I don't recommend books unless I've read them
Also because I don't know you. Once long ago, I had a temporary job on a social work course. My advice to students who asked me was to borrow several books from the University Library - which was nearby and not a bad range. Then to try a few and stick with those which were well written, lively, and generally with a style and depth, and maybe even a sense of drama a and sense of humour; which appealed to the student reading them.A final thought. Books of words are losing their primacy. Socialism without song, poetry, music, plays, films, jokes, cartoons, and live people face to face, is like a lion with no roar & no rumbling...
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Neil how about we ask the moderators, Hugh Flouch and Liz Ixer to move your book request to a new topic page??
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Permalink Reply by Brian Mahoney on
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Animal Farm.
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Permalink Reply by Mark Michaels on
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Come intellectual fraudster
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
The battle outside ragin'
Will soon shake your windows
And rattle your wallsYour old road is rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'____
["T]his Party selects candidates largely on their ability to attract groups of voters identified by race or religion, rather than a general appeal that transcends ethnicity, nationality etc."
And that tribalism is thanks to people like you and your voting practices. Although to be fair, in instances when you don't ramble off on a tangent and write coherently, it's more "global warming, global warming, the sky is falling" than "white, white, white", "islamophobia" and on and on. But it's all cut from the same Marxist-Islamist cloth as far as the party's selection of candidate's goes.
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"Independent Socialist".
Ha ha ha ha. Maybe the greatest oxymoron I've ever read.
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"I don't care that much for peoples' affiliations so long as they do a decent job taking up local issues and defending their wards."
You see Neil, running for office on one's record and actual qualifications is vastly more difficult than running for office against straw men like Donald Trump/Nigel Farage and exploiting the emotions of the irrational electorate by stirring up racial and ethnic hatred with sexuality thrown in. That sort of rhetoric works well.
Just look at how in politics the most incompetent people soar to great heights of power merely by stirring up race and class hatred, e.g, David Lammy, Sadiq Khan-man; and the latest entry to the list Zohran Mamdami. Anyone can tell you what Lammy thinks of Trump and Farage, but they couldn't tell you what he has actually done while in office for decades besides enrich himself.
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"[C]ould you please take a little time and be specific on your remark against councillors spending 'time protesting about Palestine" [rather] "than traffic in the borough', Do you think its not possible to do both?"
I am happy to pull out the bouncy ball that moves on top of the words for you:
-The councillors are elected to represent constituents.
-Those constituents live in various neighbourhoods in a given area. In this instance, the given area is situated in a city named London, which is geographically located in England.
-Those neighbourhoods, therefore, are not located in Gaza or Judea and Samaria and the councillors are not elected to represent those places.
Is that exercise in the axiomatic specific enough for you? Probably not, because you weren't really looking to have something clarified to you; you were just looking for a springboard to make yet another proclamation of "genocide, genocide, genocide".
But I responded anyway because I don't make my rare appearances here for you; I make them for third parties to help ensure they are not seduced into believing that your ability to post anyone you might disagree with into oblivion in no case means you have something reasoned and empirical to say.
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"Can you recommend a decent history of left-wing political thought?"
I prefer the actual sources. Plato (in an archaic way), Rousseau, Hegel and Marx & Engels will give you the foundational understanding of the madness. Then a little Trotsky is worthwhile. (Heck, maybe he is an "independent socialist" because he showed what happens to party apostates.)
Then come the ones I think are the most diabolical to the modern world-because what they advocated has come to pass: Gramsci and Woodrow Wilson. Gramsci wrote about revolution not with guns but by taking over the institutions methodically--today a mission fully accomplished. Wilson's focus was on using the judicial system to "legislate from the bench". 100 years on you can see his writings in practice every day when one of these District Court judges block the president's orders on wildly unconstitutional grounds (which is why invariably they have all been overruled on appeal).
There is John Dewey who recognised the value of Leftist indoctrination via the educational system - very successfully so. Then Cloward & Piven who advocated overwhelming the welfare benefits system. Look what that has become - a couple of weeks ago the Chancellor destroyed an entire industry to finance the further extension of benefits to her base. I have mentioned previously that in this country 2/3rds take out more in benefits than they pay in. Permanent underclass = permanent political power.
Finally, if you want just one single not so long book that is the tactical playbook for the posters here, I highly recommend Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. Or just read the Wikipedia summary of it. That book will help you really see the strings behind the most incessant posters here.
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Neil, a good friend of mine saw your request and emailed me this list.
George Orwell- Road to Wigan Pier
Michael Foot – Biography of Aneurin Bevan
E P Thompson – The Making of the English Working Class
G D H Cole – A history of British Socialist Thought
Raymond Williams - Culture and Society
Jon Cruddas – A Century of Labour
David Torrance - the Wild Men – a history of the first Labour GovernmentFilm – Ken Loach – Spirit of '45
Having a rethink I came up with a different suggestion. This is for you to look at the lists of two left wing publishers: Verso and Pluto. They have a wide variety of books and most available as ebooks. Their lists have descriptions. You are perhaps more likely to come across stuff you might read for pleasure. Most books in their catalogues are not authored only by white males.
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Yeah second hand bookshops, lucky us. Once I filled my shelves from the Oxfam bookshop in Crouch End! But my eyesight got worse and it was ebooks and a Kindle. Then the KIndle stopped working, so now I read on the screen.
Thanks for the link to the Empire videos.
Initially I had to smile when I saw what it served up as similar videos. But of course that was simply algorithms - stuff linked to Gaza which might interest me: Ilan Pappe, Norman Finkelstein, Sara Roy, Chris Hedges, Amira Hass, Gideon Levy. Luckily, it won't serve up Mark Michaels with these video options. I don't wish anyone Christmas tidings of discomfort.
I think I've given away both of my Saul Alinsky books. But I've still got an e-copy of articles he wrote for Playboy. It covers some of the same stuff when he claimed to be researching Al Capone. A lot of it is sexist too.
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