NByNW Diary: UKIP's Implications Leave us Little Room to Infer

Friday 4^th December

1.00am

In the end, it wasn’t a catastrophe for Labour. Not even close. Jim McMahon held Michael Meacher's long-held seat of Oldham West and Royton comfortably with a majority of 10,811 (given the reduction in turnout, that’s broadly the same result as in May 2015).

This was contrary to the reports which had been put about by many of the perennial arms of the Murdoch and Right Wing Press, namely The Guardian and The New Statesman.

Ultimately, no-one expected Labour to lose, but no-one can use this result (as they expected to be able to) to claim that Jeremy Corbyn is a doomed prospect.

However, UKIP will use any fact to prove anything, and what this result apparently shows is that a bunch of people who look different have imposed their will on people who don’t look different. If UKIPers get upset with me when they infer that that was what I thought their Deputy Leader Paul Nuttall was implying when he said that Labour had engaged in “dangerous identity politics”, then let me say that he implied and I inferred. And I inferred from his implications that the phrase "identity politics" was undoubtedly attempting to divide people on the grounds of race. Which is, if I am right in this assessment, entirely shit.

Furthermore, Mr Farage says that the Postal Vote was bent. He claims this comes from an impeccable source. Easy to tweet, but you better substantiate it you frog-faced divisor.

Evidence from an impeccable source that today's postal voting was bent.

— Nigel Farage (@Nigel_Farage) December 4, 2015

Have I got it wrong? If so, please explain to me how? I’d so hate to think you’re bigots simply because you’d left some grey area on that matter. I normally like my non-bigots to be unequivocally non-bigots, and explicitly non-bigots. But, you know, maybe that’s too much for me to expect from a 21^st century multicultural democracy.

P.S. If you didn't want me to misinterpret, you might have tried speaking clearly rather than insinuating. After all, if you're not bigots, why would you feel the need to obfuscate.

NByNW Diary: Beating Drums

Monday 30^th November

Drums. Drums in the deep.

Today, drums in the deep for Jeremy Corbyn. He walked in confident into his Shadow Cabinet meeting. After all, he had received a 3-to-1 measure of support from party members and was sure that the mood had swung behind him.

But he thought this was about the debate over the war. He was wrong.

Shadow Cabinet Members both for and against airstrikes said that they thought that the leadership could not impose its will on this, taking particular ire against the Labour Leader’s infamous letter on Friday – whilst internal party discussions were ongoing.

According to The New Statesman, Corbyn was adamant until he realised that Hilary Benn would retire to the backbenches to voice his support for strikes, and that significant numbers of his Shadow Cabinet would perform their own strike by refusing to leave the room until he relented and gave them not only a free vote, but also leave Labour’s official position unaltered.

Corbyn foiled by a sit-in protest. Even he must see the irony, but he must also know that his assassins are just waiting and waiting and waiting for Corbyn’s very own Ides of March.

Drums in the deep too for Labour in general. None of them comes out well from this, and on Thursday they face a by-election in Oldham. They are still favourites to win but with a majority down from nearly 14,000 to just 2,000. It is easy to just blame it on Corbyn, but this sort of division and adolescent infighting from all sides in the party surely have not helped their electability.

Finally, drums in the deep for war. At least, that would be the dramatic way to conclude this. The truth is that not just a war but war upon wars have been raging for years now. Nor are we seemingly about to join it. We already have. We are potentially about to expand our operation from Iraq to Syria. This is not the crucial moment but a prequel to it.

The drums in the deep shall beat for a good while longer yet.

More content from North by North Westminster is abundant. Below is a story on Philip Hammond's extraordinary excuse for accepting a gift some £1,810 above the government limit.

Follow North by North Westminster on Twitter: https://twitter.com/NByNWestminster

Like our Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/northbynorthwestminster?fref=nf

Follow us on SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/north-by-north-westminster