The Corbyn Conundrum

Labour's attempted coup shows the sad disconnect the party has with it's supporters.

Jeremy Corbyn has been slowly regaining a section of the working class voter-ship that 'New' Labour has been steadily losing over the past 40 years. The insurmountable evidence of Labour's distance is present in the millions of people who voted for Brexit and dismissed Labour's stance to remain.

Corbyn, of course, as the party leader takes the brunt of the blame - but the subsequent traitorous actions of Labour's party members show that they do not represent the people who voted for them and less so the Labour supporters who overwhelmingly voted for Jeremy Corbyn. 

What is sad is that these Labour MP's are intrinsically not working for their peoples interests and instead looking to further their own careers, or distance themselves from the train-wreck that is Corbyn's leadership struggle.

Diane Abbot, a long standing member of parliament and heavily criticised advocate of Jeremy Corbyn has described the media as ignoring Jeremy Corbyn's reserved and nuanced stance on the remain campaign - a stance which focused less on arguing either cause, but stood far to the left, recognising the issues with the EU and asking us to stay and fight for reform. Instead mainstream media focused on political conflict within the Tory party and selling the drama that was laid bare there.

Now the media has turned it's attention to Corbyn, furthering the schism within the Labour party as a large majority, including the Prime Minister David Cameron (who called the referendum as a power play) are telling him to go, blaming him for the Remain loss and the lack of faith in British politics, forgetting that Corbyn's leadership campaign championed a revitalization of politics. In fact, Corbyn's first speech in the House of Commons as Labour leader is quite a strange one when looking in hindsight - Angela Eagle to his right, Tom Watson to his left as the party cheers him on - as he speaks at length about how parliament is too 'theatrical', much to the pleasure of his labour supports. Corbyn represents a movement, away from the childishness of our House of Commons and into a mature and reserved way of dealing with issues that effect the entire country. A movement that is now being dismantled from within by his own party, by people who stood with him in vigilance against the childish acts that they perpetuate today.

I feel sorry for him.

It must be hard to sit in the House of Commons, between two sides acting like children and all directing their aggression towards him.

My local MP, Heidi Alexander, the ex Shadow Health Secretary was one of the first to enter into this coup, only shortly after voting to bomb Syria - and presumably using her previous role as Chief Whip to ask many other MP's to follow her lead, despite the party's official stance on the Syrian crisis.

I ask her and all the other MP's involved in this betrayal to stop, at the least and stand down at the most. Ms Alexander, you no longer represent me or your constituents and you should feel ashamed of your actions at a time of strife within the Labour party. I am by no means a Corbyn supporter, or even a Labour supporter any more - but the values you hold, of selfishness and short-sightedness have left you as nothing more than the Conservatives Part Two.

The media rules politics.

If you look at a country like Australia you can see objectively how the media bleeds opinion into the minds of voters. Most recently with the rise to power of Tony Abbott and the unflinching and unsubtle biased opinion of the Australian media.

This didn't really come as a surprise to anyone as the monopoly on Australia's media is held by Rupert Murdoch, a homophobic and racist dinosaur - oh and also an avid supporter of Tony Abott, who has since been ousted from his position as Prime Minister of Australia for doing such an awful job.

You may wonder where I'm going with this. Well, the world was already aware of the biased media in Australia and indeed in the US, but something striking is how what used to be much more subtle media bias in the UK has turned into full blown tabloid nonsense from news outlets that should know better.

The most recent evidence of this is Jeremy Corbyn's bid (and subsequent victory) for the position of Labour leader. I myself am not a huge supporter of Corbyn, much like any other politician I find that they are all undesirable, but in the few days that Corbyn has been in power over the labour party, media attention as been fraught with negative thoughts lambasted at him like crashing waves. The media acts as if David Cameron and his Tory majority are the saviours of our country whilst Corbyn's policies get ignored and news stories like this are peddled by the once great BBC.

Even today, as the Conservatives push a plan through the commons for tax credit cuts, Labour's new leader is described as 'not getting in the patriotic spirit'.

This most recent election made me sick with its propaganda:

Oh look, the Sun, hi Murdoch.

Ultimately the media should really be staying unbiased, but what can you do when the people with the most power support those who benefit only them.

Jeremy Corbyn and the failure of Labour.

Tony Blair's warning and the Blairite agenda to push the Labour party into the centre territory proves just how out of touch with the votership the Labour party has become. In recent years the Labour party has attempted to steal Conservative voters, meanwhile alienating the unions and the base of the working class that drew them to power in the first place. Blair's government won a landslide victory for it's left wing promises, 'Education, Education, Education!' but instead delivered the right wing bullshit we are used to from the Conservatives. The disappointment with the 180 turn of the Labour party is part of their failure now, combined with the uncharismatic leadership of Ed Miliband and the lack of faith in him compared to his more right wing brother.

Labour faces another turning point in it's history where it could either go back to it's roots as the party for the left wing or face another loss trying to appeal to right wing voters. The former was on the cards in recent weeks, with Jeremy Corbyn, an outspoken left wing Labour representative, who has gained traction with his quick wit and ripostes towards Conservative 'statistics'.


Unfortunately, supporters of Corbyn have reintegrated the Labour 180 into their internal politics, and claimed that they 'nominated him because they wanted the wider debate' and not because they wanted to vote for him.



It is no coincidence that this turnaround seems to have stemmed from Tony Blair's opinions on the matter and it is ridiculous that the former prime minister can still make Labour party members quake in fear at the thought of voting for someone he doesn't support. Labour's internal politics are becoming more ridiculous than Blair's appointment as peace envoy (where he achieved nothing) in a region that he continuously worked as Prime Minister to destabilize.

Labour continues to amaze me with it's bad decisions and with no clear left wing, the only thing that is clear is that the UK will have another Conservative government. For some it's a good thing.


For the rest of us, not so much.

The 'changing political landscape': Why I'm angry and why you should be too.

We thought that Great Britain was changing, that this election would be the catalyst in a Britain that would finally work for the good of the people. We were wrong, instead we are lumbered with a Conservative government that has already, in the 4 days since the election, appointed Michael Gove, a man who believes in capital punishment as the Justice Secretary. Not only has David Cameron appointed this man who made the teaching unions so angry he was removed as Education Minister, he has already pushed his agenda to abolish the human rights act in the UK, and replace it with a sinister 'British Bill of Rights.' 

Protests have ensued, unplanned, large and loud. These protests are controversial, I myself don't know exactly where I stand. On the one hand, I am fiercely opposed to any type of Tory government, but on the other hand, they were 'democratically' elected. We shouldn’t be protesting the Conservative government as a whole, but instead we should be seeking to reform the ridiculous first past the post voting system that exists in this country. Many are calling for a system of proportional representation, but even that is flawed and ludicrous. Many people I’ve spoken to are fed up and at a loss with the current system and there is growing fear that democracy really doesn’t work. We as a country have had so many bad governments of late that we don’t know who to vote for. This election was meant to change that.

I've had many conversations with young people, completely incredulous at the Conservative win and their demographic tends to be far more liberal, but as with the last general election, there is a strange and sneaky Conservative majority that brings itself out of the woodwork only to disappear as they've established a government.

What didn't help the left wing in the latest election was the entirely unfair tactic of paying off newspapers to try to convince voters. Strategies like that should be illegal, and it only goes to prove once again that Conservative tactics are dirty.

Maybe all of these people are wrong though, maybe the Conservatives really do care about a common good in the UK, maybe they care about helping the poor and not the rich.

Don't hold your breath though, it's incredibly unlikely.

In the end all that matters what we do about it.

I leave you with undeniable proof of the true Conservative agenda.

Black Lives Matter

If you type 'blacklivesmatter' into the search function of Twitter you will come upon a huge group of people fighting for racial equality in America. Most news outlets seem to be glancing over this movement, a movement that is reminiscent of the original civil rights movement in America. The media was interested however when there was violence, anger and hate. At the beginning of these protests all we saw was the worst, the frustration and the discontent, but now those feelings have died down, we hear nothing of it.

What these people are fighting against is the obvious institutionalised racism of America's governmental and judicial systems. Sparking these protests are the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases, both of which I'm sure you've heard much about. Whatever your opinion on these men, the fact that two police officers were able to viciously murder two people and face no consequences is a huge miscarriage of justice.
The police in America seem to be looking out for each other, rather than for the people they are meant to protect.

These policemen who murdered Michael Brown and Eric Garner were individuals, they do not represent the entire police force in America, but where the police as a whole fails is their blatant, feigned ignorance when treating these men like any other murderer. The judicial system in America fails in sentencing these people and what we get in lieu of actual justice, is an 'Us vs Them' attitude, where the police see the protesters as a violent mob and the protesters see the police as a group of racists.

Many people can and would argue that the police are doing a fine job in America and would argue that these cases are individual and non representative. Yet the police never suffer the consequences as individuals for their actions. There have been plenty of cases where the police have been too trigger happy, too comfortable shooting people. These cases paint a picture of a police system that doesn't care, whose orders are to shoot first and ask questions later and the culprits of these murders are often rewarded for it. It sets a dangerous precedent at a time when tensions in America are incredibly high.

The police don't seem to cement their position as a fair system in the aftermath of these protests, and today we have yet another shocking story on the racism of the police system: Police are using mug shots of black teenagers as targets in the shooting range.
Obviously this doesn't apply to every single policeman in the American system, but it shows that there needs to be unification between the government and the protesters on this matter.
Racial tensions in America run deep, and now is more the time for a civil rights movement forever, before people get complacent and those in power think they can subjugate an entire race of people, again.

News isn't News unless it gets you views.

The news. What do we think of when we hear that? We think of an expressive, investigative and often unbiased force which delivers the truth through our televisions, through the internet and through paper. All it asks for is our continued viewership, our hashtags, our retweets and our facebook likes.
What's emerged from the growing reliance that news channels seem to have on social media, is that the news is no longer about actually bringing us the news. Moreover, the biggest news outlets, the ones we trust the most, seem to be delving further into the sensationalist garbage that we receive from the tabloids. That's not to say that all the mainstream news outlets are the same, and of course there are still some great bastions of hope that exist within the world of journalism.
This, however, is the reason that we see a journalist of many years, hovering outside of a hospital awaiting the birth of the royal baby saying to us all 'Nothing is happening.'
While that particular example is indeed quite funny, this sensationalist drama bleeds into more serious news. The most recent that I think will be in everyone's minds is the continuous reporting of the terrorist attacks in Paris where twelve people were killed. As I mentioned in my previous post, previous to this incident hundreds of Nigerians were murdered by Boko Haram, who abhorrently utilise the young girls they kidnapped from a school previously as weapons in their war.
Tragic and disgusting as these attacks on Paris were, the attacks on Nigeria are a far more important and scary topic. Our world leaders should be marching in solidarity for Nigeria, rather than France. We didn't even see this large of an outcry when one hundred and thirty two Pakistani children were gunned down by extremists in a school.

The reason is, is that our news outlets think people won't care, their main goal is to achieve views and increase their profit. The recent situation in Nigeria was only reported on once there was a huge outcry about the lack of coverage, and even then, the coverage given was incredibly lax.

It should be our media's duty to report on all aspects of the world, so as to drum up support for the correct causes. It is obviously understandable that our media will focus on issues closer to home, but the sheer scale of this most recent atrocity in Nigeria has brought to light how far the media has fallen in its efforts to report the 'news'.

Police on our streets/Justice for the Dead.

I got off at my usual stop and stepped into the dreary rainy scene that London becomes at this time of year. I've been away from University for the length of the Christmas holidays, as have most people, and I was almost looking forward to coming back, seeing my friends, learning from great people. But on this very dreary day, typical of England something shocked me.
Armed Police.
Now, those of you in America might not be at all surprised by this shocking revelation, but us Brits are a less dramatic folk and the guns only tend to come around when there's a serious threat.
I can't say I've had the luck to never see any armed police, but usually they are hidden from view, bundled in the back of a red van or even sometimes a typical police car. What shocks me about seeing a young man wearing a uniform and carrying a pistol is that the guns only tend to come around when there is a serious threat.
Does that mean I'm under threat? At my University?
I shouldn't be worried, at least they're out here protecting us right?

Whilst we tighten our protection on the streets of our own country, the hideously unreported incidents in the Middle East and Africa continue to go exactly that, unreported. We Brits, we Europeans, we The West as we've been titled, only seem to care about ourselves, and that's disgusting. Seventeen people are killed in Paris, and the outcry is huge. Hundreds are murdered in Nigeria and kidnapped schoolgirls are used as pawns in 'suicide' bombings and from the media we hear nothing, silence. In our stupidity we blame an entire religion of over a billion people, all the while our mistakes in Iraq are having repercussions across the globe.

All the while this is happening our media continues to run the story: 'Is British Islam more extreme than our government wants to admit.'
No it's not.
As I said in my previous post, two people don't stand for an entire religion, but we as The West need to stand for ourselves. Prove that we deserve the power we have, and help the people who are in need instead of ignoring them like children fighting in the sand pit.

We don't need police on our streets, enforcing a defence against a threat that barely exists.
We need to unify ourselves and think about someone else for a change.
It seems I'm always writing about the 'war on terror' nowadays, it's becoming more a war on selfish idiocy.