Mailwatch(ed) Forum

It's a Red Dwarf reference Abers.

davidjay wrote: ↑Tue Mar 04, 2025 7:45 pm

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Mon Mar 03, 2025 9:26 pm

Youngian wrote: ↑Mon Mar 03, 2025 8:31 pm
No shit, did Putin receive the memo?

Ukrainians don’t have agency in Jez World. Grieving mothers though. Who killed their kids?

The West.

Not Israel?

If ever you want to remember what a poisonous lot they are, read the replies.

Only managed to read 3 or 4. That was quite enough. What shits they are.

They're fantasists.
And cunts!

At least Tony Benn didn't take himself as seriously as his disciples do about him and themselves. He would note that as Hugh Gaitskell's modernising comms chief he was 'the Peter Mandelson of his day.' I was told by a Bennite I was a malicious Blarite liar when I mentioned this. Reminding the cult that Anthony W-B was a middle of the road technocratic minister in the 60s will also get you in hot water.

The thing about Tony Benn (which these cunts will never understand) is that he was a very nice man, and would never berate someone else for having a different view of socialism. Like so many of us lefties he knew that there would be huge barriers to achieving the sort of society he wanted, and that the Labour Party would be the best vehicle to get as much as possible of that vision. That would surely make him a sell-out in their eyes?

He also had a passion for parliamentary democracy which I doubt they share.

[edited to eliminate typos due to typing too fast...]

An interesting thought piece is to imagine that Benn had been elected as Labour leader instead of Corbyn (I know the timescales don’t allow this, but just suspend disbelief for a minute).

Would he he have done better than Corbyn did ? He certainly projected a more human persona, though as I recall, he was demonised throughout the 1970s and 1980s at least as much as Corbyn was in the 21st century.

Benn was on another level, and he was also a pragmatist not a doginthemangerist. But he would have been so demonised as to have been neutralised.

John O'Farrell's book about British history makes the point that Charles II was every bit as arrogant and autocratic as his father, but had charm with it, which enabled him to keep both his popularity and his head. Benn was similar, in that he knew how to present himself and avoid the traps Corbyn threw himself into. Above all, as Malcolm said, he accepted that others might have different opinions and tried to win them over rather than demonise them. In short, he was a politician rather than an idealist.

Not that I've got a high opinion of that lot, but I'm sure some of the sillier stuff from anonymous accounts is fake. If you were a Russian troll, you'd play both sides (under separate accounts).

The late period Benn was a left wing Farage in many ways, had a gift of the gab and half a dozen or so catchy slogans he could weave into any narrative. Like Farage, a fifth of the electorate thought he was marvellous and the rest suspected he was full of wind and piss.

I think that is an undeserved slur.

I can't really remember his time in government, but he never seemed to be taken particularly seriously.

davidjay wrote: ↑Sun Apr 06, 2025 12:03 am I can't really remember his time in government, but he never seemed to be taken particularly seriously.

As a minister in Harold Wilson's government he was a very serious player; Wilson was pushing technology as a way to improve the economy and Benn was the point of the spear.

Malcolm Armsteen wrote: ↑Sun Apr 06, 2025 10:47 am

davidjay wrote: ↑Sun Apr 06, 2025 12:03 am I can't really remember his time in government, but he never seemed to be taken particularly seriously.

As a minister in Harold Wilson's government he was a very serious player; Wilson was pushing technology as a way to improve the economy and Benn was the point of the spear.

That was a bit before my time.

My first election!

Malcolm Armsteen wrote: ↑Sun Apr 06, 2025 11:36 am My first election!

1964? The first one I can remember was 1979. My first active one was 1992. Just call me Mr Jinx.

Malcolm Armsteen wrote: ↑Sun Apr 06, 2025 10:47 am

davidjay wrote: ↑Sun Apr 06, 2025 12:03 am I can't really remember his time in government, but he never seemed to be taken particularly seriously.

As a minister in Harold Wilson's government he was a very serious player; Wilson was pushing technology as a way to improve the economy and Benn was the point of the spear.

How much of that actually worked? It all sounded clever, but the economic planners couldn't make the economy grow any faster than it would have grown anyway. And in that era, the rest of Western Europe was growing quicker than the UK.