Welcome to Casting the net, Liberal Conspiracy’s daily web review.
Alex Kid
Alex Hilton has caused a shitstorm over at CiF with this polemic, which basically calls all young Tories spotty-faced goons. The great pretender to the thrown of British Blogfather, Iain Dale, asks if Hilton is, like, 12? And Gracci isn’t impressed with Alex, who he claims is “so swallowed up in the bile of partisan hatred, trade union war mongering and spite for ‘hoorays’ that he has lost his sense of proportion.”
Highlights
Crooked Timber - A big win for the planet, and others
John Quiggin considers the recent “breakthrough” in the Bali Climate Talks.
Westmonster - All bets are off
Lots of blogs have picked up on the latest YouGov poll, which puts the Tories in a commanding position. Lloyd Shepherd points out that Ed Ball’s Children’s Plan has made zero impact.
Big Sticks and Small Carrots - Dean Godson: “Research Director”
Garry Smith has more on the man behind last week’s Policy Exchange scandal.
Ken Livingstone/CiF - Sack Andrew Gilligan
London’s beloved leader is on Gilligan’s case over an “extraordinary series of stories” the hack produced for the Standard.
Antony Hook - American Gangster: a true political film
Hook looks at Director Ridley Scott’s new politically charged flick.
Elsewhere
Tobias Jones/CiF - Frank about Franco
Anthony Barnett/OurKingdom - Labour is worse than it looks
Question That - Common Censorship
donpaskini - I looked to the government to help the working man
Shiraz Socialist - No, Mr Porter: class is the ‘great divide’
PoliticalBetting.com - Is Hillary set to join Gord in the losers’ club?
Liberal England - The state can be the worst parent of all
If you would like your blog or site to be considered as source material for future reviews, drop me an email at aaronh [at] liberalconspiracy [dot] org with the relevant url. I can then enter it into my RSS reader and monitor it for suitable content to be included. Likewise, if you have a specific article/post you feel deserves a little more traffic, get in touch.
Perhaps, for the sake of imbalance, I should point out that Iain Dale is, in fact, eleven.
This is the man who gave Nigella Lawsons’ dad time to express his ludicrous views on climate change. Without a Jeremy Paxton moment to be seen.
I really don’t get this anti-BBC sentiment on the subject of their sympathies to individual religions. It all seems so poorly based on a limited scope, and seems much more like a platform for trying to put a religion down rather than an organisation.
Bill Paxton perhaps?
The CiF thing, is that a shitstorm? I try not to write there if I don’t think it will stimulate some debate.
Tory ideologues know that poverty and inequality is perpetuated by the systems they promote. Making 3 million people unemployed, stripping them of their dignity so that you can manage wage inflation in sectors where wages are low anyway - well I think that goes beyond “a bit naughty”.
Toryism is, at its core, inhumane. It may not be diplomatic for me to use this language but do you really believe it is not true? That they’re just “nice guys trying to do their best for everyone”?
“the systems they promote”
What “systems” exactly do you have in mind?
And precisely what alernative “system” does Labour promote?
Crikey - i have already engaged quite extensively over at CiF.
I’m not comparing Tories with Labour but Toryism with Socialism.
Put it this way. We bugger up from time to time - all governments do - all organisations do so; but what we stand for is fundamentally good.
In a dog-eat-dog world, a lot of dogs get eaten.
But they’re not dogs, they’re people - with families to look after.
“what we stand for is fundamentally good”
Perhaps that could become the Liberal Consipracy motto?!
7. Sounds very wishy washy to me, where’s the substance? Your “engagement” on CiF is little more than the regurgitation of sound bites and avoidance of answering questions while attacking the “other side” that we’ve all come to be bored of when the PM displays such “qualities” at PMQ’s.
Alex Hilton’s piece warranted most of the vitriol Iain Dale and other hostile commenters (particularly Heresiarch) threw at it.
If you call those politicians with an opposing ideology to yourself “evil”, and actually reiterate that statement after it has been pointed out how ridiculous it is, you deserve everything you get.
The people in modern British politics who Hilton was railing against are guilty of nothing more than having a differing view to him on what makes and keeps people poor.
Like I was getting at in my response on the CiF thread, the way I see the tory/right-wing/individualist view in summary is something along the lines of “people should take responsibility for their own lives rather than relying on the State to help them no matter how badly they f*ck up”. Now I agree that this argument is flawed, but it is far from anything I would describe as evil!
I wish some of you socialists would actually try to see things from the right’s point of view once in a while. Anything to get a bit less of this destructive essentialism that Heresiarch referred to. How the heck do you think you are going to bring a ‘Tory’ round to your point of view if this is your attitude?
Ian
“How the heck do you think you are going to bring a ‘Tory’ round to your point of view if this is your attitude?”
Do you really think he cares?
This is all about “look at me, look at me, look at me me me”.
OK,
I’m giving up on ‘facts’. I’ve already had the arse ripped out of me over Humpty Dumpty and now this. Jeremy whassisname off Newsnight. But you all knew that anyway, didn’t you?
The point still stands, fact free of course. Iain Dale has an agenda, and it ain’t that nice.
Oh, I just spotted your post (#4) Lee. I assume it refers to my ‘Common Censorship’ post?
It’s not intended as a “platform for putting a religion down”. All religions have extreme, out-there elements ready to take offence at the slightest perception of an insult. ‘Christian Voice’ is one example of that element
But of the major religions in this country, the BBC is prepared to risk conflict with those elements of one, but not the other. That is what my post was about
13. Yes that it does, though more at people like Ian Dale who really want to use it as such…I don’t really agree with your end standing on your post and feel that the subject isn’t broad enough, but at least is more of a conversational piece. I’ve posted up a reply to your article on my blog now as it happens, maybe that will be a better indication of my point.
At the end of the day though, I think there’s a lot to be said for recognising the “ages” of different religions in this country in decisions such as those the BBC makes, and certainly there should be a greater expectation of tolerance from Christians I feel…especially when the two programs in question are both underlyingly pro-Christian despite how they go about their broadcast.
maybe I should clarify…pro-Christian in a moralistic sense
What is Iain Dale’s “nasty” agenda - other than being a Tory?
He once let Nigel Lawson spout off on 18 Doughty Street?
Wow - evil incarnate!
Oh stop being such an arse-licker Chrisc. For Iain Dale to accuse others of being partisan or being tribal about politics is absurd and downright hilarious.
This is the guy who’s been promoting Nadine Darries’s “the abortion industry” mantra and called Greenpeace ‘environ-fascists’
http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/1174
As for his constant mantra that the BBC is biased against the Tories or generally a leftist organisation… sheesh
http://www.pickledpolitics.com/archives/1383
Ah that reminds me - weren’t you going to give some examples of where the BBC is to the right of average UK opinion?!
They were arse-licking Castro this morning on Today.
It’s one thing to be tribal - another to be simply juvenile!
Though I wouldn’t use the term “enviro-fascists” myself…
Ah, “an agenda”.
Time to conjugate:
I have principles;
You have interests;
They have an agenda.
- direct link -
chrisc