SNAPS ON SUNDAY...THE NEW ERA FOR NEW OLD LABOUR...or something

We'll have a little more fun at Jim and Kez's expense, then, we promise, we shall move on.

A good deal has already been said on these pages about the strange choice of a right wing leader and deputy leader for a party which appears to need, more than anything, to shore up its left of centre votes; about the choice of a party leader, in a branch desperately trying to show that London does not control what Scottish Labour thinks or does, who sits in Westminster and was the clear choice of the Westminster management to sort out the rebellious Jocks, and at least at this moment, who has shadow cabinet responsibility under Ed Miliband for a non devolved area.

Of course we can expect him to get an easy ride from the BBC... and from what I heard he got exactly that this morning. No-one questioned what he will do about his Westminster seat come May; no one asked what he will do if he fails to be elected to either Westminster or Holyrood.

If you want to bunk off from your job, surely the right time do do it
is when the chamber is doing something as totally unproductive as
licking Mrs Thatcher's boots. Not when they are discussing a living wage.
Of course, some people already get a living wage.
Silly me, I forgot that.

But at some stage in the future, surely someone from the BBC is bound to, even in the interests of appearing to be some sort of serious journalist... (so that means Brewer, and not Smith) ... question what his line is now on tuition fees, privatisation of health and water, post office, rail, electricity and gas; on nuclear weapons (that the Scottish branch voted against) 25 miles from Glasgow; on Palestine, MPs' expenses, the House of Lords, royals, benefit caps, Atos-style assessments, benefit sanctioning, bedroom tax, pensions; on Israel, Iraq, Syria, Scottish complicity in torture... (he was SoS when the torturees were landing at Prestwick) and why in 2009, he was allegedly involved in the setting up of a cross party coalition which wanted to stop there even being a referendum in Scotland, whilst operating a scam on his rent!

We can be fairly certain of what his views were on some of these issues last week... but it would be interesting to know what are they now, and what they might be if ever he were to be first minister of our country?

Aww isn't that nice.  Con and Lab are all friends now.
Sod the poor then?

It must be comforting though, for Jim to know, that he has already started to do what any new leader should, and attracted new members to the party....albeit from the Conservatives (their money is as good as anyone's... and there's usually a lot of it). Nice folk too... if you like that sort of thing.

Anyway... here are a few of my favourite snaps on this Sunday, celebrating Jim and Kez's crowning.

Yep! Seems like a reasonable assumption.

My ex-MP seems to have seen what Labour hasn't.

Russell Brand started a craze. 

Is that tree in London?

Seriously ...these people fund Labour.

He must be very rich by now...
Rich enough to be a Tory.

On education – “How do you get the youngsters to a better position? It’s about the mums being better readers and preparing the kids for day one at school.”

The mums? Back to nice, neat, gendered roles then? And of course playing to a ludicrous notion that working class women can’t read.

On tax relief for firms – “We also need to get better at using the tools available to our local authorities, such as tax relief for firms paying the Living Wage.”

Eh…no. Why should the public purse subsidise profit-making companies?

On the Smith Commission – “As we implement the Smith Agreement we should seek to bring these new powers as close to local communities as is possible. We should devolve not just to councils but also to local coalitions involving councils, business, charities and other government agencies like the NHS.”

That would be a postcode lottery then…and it would be a lottery that allows businesses to influence (read “lobby”) local politicians’ decisions in terms of welfare. Not a good idea.

Sarah Collins

1. Authoritarianism. In 1996 Jim Murphy graced the House of Commons for the first time when he was the subject of an unprecedented ‘Early Day Motion’ which condemned his presidency of the National Union of Students (NUS) for “intolerant and dictatorial behaviour”. He had engaged in a furious campaign of persecution against NUS officials who supported NUS policy of free education at a time when (as today) Labour Party policy was against free education. Murphy left the NUS for a job in the Labour Party.

2. Fingers in the till. In 2012 Jim Murphy was found to have exploited a loophole in his parliamentary expenses, by letting out his London address at the same time as claiming its rent. He is believed to have made anywhere up to £20,000. Incredibly, he was carrying out this scheme when in 2009 he apologised “on behalf of all politicians” for expenses theft.

3. Staunch defence of Israel. In 2001 and 2002 Jim Murphy was the chair of ‘Labour Friends of Israel’. During his tenure war criminal and architect of the massacres at Sabra and Shatila, Ariel Sharon, became Prime Minister of Israel and construction of the now infamous West Bank Barrier began.

In 2011 he attacked the Trades Union Congress for supporting the boycott, calling it “a big step backwards” and also criticised student campaigners pushing for an academic boycott. He dismissed a UN vote to recognise the Palestinian state as ‘symbolic’. He insisted that the Labour Party under Ed Miliband must remain a ‘staunch supporter of Israel’. There is no evidence that recent massacres -particularly in Gaza – have changed is attitude.

Support for the Apartheid state was once widespread in the Labour party. Following decades of genocide against the Palestinians it is now widely recognised as an extremist position.

4. Leading Membership of the Henry Jackson Society. Blairism in foreign policy terms is a form of Neo-Conservatism. But it is very rare for a Blairite to openly subscribe to Neo-Conservative ideology.

Jim Murphy is a member of the ‘Political Council’ of the HJS – he is one of a few fanatical Blairites on the Political Council which is utterly dominated by Conservative ultra-reactionary back benchers – the same ones who are now calling for a coalition with UKIP.

Henry Jackson was a military hawk and ‘anti-communist’ McCarthyite senator. The society named after him, founded in the U.S but transported to London in the run-up to the Iraq war, is the main bastion of Neo-Conservatism on these islands. 

David Jamieson RIC

Yes, Westminster knows best, Neil.
That's why they couldn't let you be leader!

If the unions disaffiliate, Labour will have to become even more
right wing to attract big business's money.

But it seems his meeting with the ex-pope has bestowed
something upon him.

Small problem!

I'd hang on to that jaicket if I were you!

But certainly a patroniser of women, none the less!

Yes Frankie, here is it.

Lewis...