Blairism

Today Blair wrote a piece defending Blairism, apparently he couldn't find anyone else to stand up for Blairism.

As usual, Blair was as modest as ever:

"I consciously moved us away from a ‘civil liberties’ paramount approach, to one that started with the rights of the victim, their pain, their suffering, and put first our moral responsibility to stand with them. Of course the two shouldn’t be in conflict. But nonetheless – tonally at least – I shifted our position and did it for moral as well as political reasons."

But the part of his article that really got my goat was this:

"I also revitalised the notion of community, of the importance of family ties, which in the 1960's had become more associated with the Tories"

Now I am not usually one for standing up for the left, but whenever you talk to someone about the 1984-85 Miners Strike, they all mention the sense of community, how they all banded together in order to defeat Thatcher.

In fact, if you were to listen to any speaker at a protest or strike today, you'd hear the words "Together", "Community", "Brothers and sisters."

After Corbyn won his Labour leader election bid, he went to a pub to celebrate with his supporters, and he spoke to them saying:

"United together wanting to achieve something better, and something decent, a society based on socialist values. Together we are very, very strong."

So please forgive me Mr Blair, but you're talking utter tripe when it comes to a sense of community.

As some say on the right, being a left winger is like being part of a religion, and as a religious man, you should know that religion is based around community.

Bombs Away

As we all know, MPs last night voted for airstrikes in Syria, but even before the vote was passed, Labour MPs who backed the governments motion had abuse hurled at them from their own side.

Stella Creasy, MP for Walthamstow, was trolled by misogynistic, sad trolls, who cannot accept that we live in a democracy, which means not everyone within the same party, necessarily have the same views on everything.

Hilary Benn, who gave the most impassioned speech of the debate before the vote, has also had abuse hurled at him, one of the abusers was ex-SNP leader Alex Salmond, who dared use Benn's fathers legacy against him.

But the abuse wasn't just from other MPs or the electorate, it was from Corbyn himself, who tried to intimidate his MPs into voting against the government by threatening deselection if they defied him.

This from a man who has spent the last 30 plus years rebelling against every single Labour leader up until he had been voted in as the new leader after Ed Miliband.

The left has shown it's ugly head again, the abuse they've dished out is nothing short of sad, and unsightly.

By all means, disagree, argue, debate, get passionate, but hurling abuse like you're throwing confetti at a wedding is pathetic.