... the elephant in our room

[Mandryka]

So you admit then that not all forms of left wingery are ultimately dstructive?

By no means: had the kind of root and branch transformation you describe taken place, Britain would have entered the 1960s a peculiar, sneered-at and looked-down upon little European state that neither the Soviets nor the Americans would have wanted because it would have been of so little value. Its only value, in fact, would have been to historians as the best cited example of how quickly an Empire could shrink into irrelevance.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

visiting London yesterday i was struck by just how configured for the plutocracy central London has become ....and how expensive it is to breathe there ...


where i met an old colleague for lunch held a surpise; Yentob at one table, Dyke at another; ... on different expense accounts no doubt [Dyke was in the Cafe next to us, Yentob was in the Restaurant spending the license fees]

it was in Portland Place so a tad handy eh ....

first person to guess where gets a free seat for the People's Assembly

[eighthobstruction]

I think Yentob could very easily be a verb or noun....to Yentob...."He's a Yenob!" (of course in the case of Alan Yentob, he IS a Yentob)....

[Simon]

It's a shame, Calum, that you view is so coloured by the class prism. I've rarely come across anyone who in one medium length post can provide so much that I wholly agree with alongside so much that I see as total rollocks.

[Serial_Apologist]

I think Yentob could very easily be a verb or noun....to Yentob...."He's a Yenob!" (of course in the case of Alan Yentob, he IS a Yentob)....

How about, "to yentamob", for how to overthrow the BBC plutocracy?

[vinteuil]

first person to guess where gets a free seat for the People's Assembly

... RIBA restaurant?

( I confess to eating there at expenses-paid events... )

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

It's a shame, Calum, that you view is so coloured by the class prism. I've rarely come across anyone who in one medium length post can provide so much that I wholly agree with alongside so much that I see as total rollocks.

..that is because ...

[teamsaint]

Class is a huge determining factor in how the world runs. How anybody can fail to see that completely defeats me.

Powerful people usually come from powerful backgrounds.
The rich usually.stay rich.
the poor usually stay poor.

Social mobility can transform individuals, sometimes,but at a level that will transform society it is a lie.

And Tom Petty is one of the good guys. Goodwill manifest.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

For Graeber, the emblem of our impoverishment of expectations is the massive recent expansion in student debt. Being a student should be one of the few times in your life when you don't have to be fretting about money, but can experiment with other ways of thinking and of living. Instead, students are now forced to think about their degrees in terms of what they can be traded for. Graeber recounts meeting recent graduates who are selling their bodies to pay off their loans: a PhD has become the path to prostitution, not intellectual reward.

a David Runciman review of Graeber's new opus

[Bax-of-Delights]

It always makes me chuckle whenever I hear this "class" argument - and I see it with some of my more political author friends on Facebook who continue to post images from 50 years ago or even earlier about union "fights" with the "establishment". Bob Crow could be a doppleganger for Fred Kite - the words and mindset are interchangeable, except of course that his salary is over £130,000 pa. Christine Blower, NUT's general secretary and a former member, like Crow, of London Socialist Alliance is on £140,000 pa. Both of them are prepared to bring their members out on strike which effect doesn't strike at the heart of the "establishment" but only serves to seriously inconvenience the ordinary working people trying hard to get by on their average £23,000 a year. By their actions, designed to prop up what some might argue are already fairly well financed pay and pensions, they are prepared to stand on the necks of the very people who provide their salaries and in so doing further impoverish the less well off. It all chimes with those batallions of Labour MPs and left-wing commentators who pay lip service to their constituents and readers but are busy feathering their nests and ensuring that they, at least, will have a good retirement.

[Serial_Apologist]

It always makes me chuckle whenever I hear this "class" argument - and I see it with some of my more political author friends on Facebook who continue to post images from 50 years ago or even earlier about union "fights" with the "establishment". Bob Crow could be a doppleganger for Fred Kite - the words and mindset are interchangeable, except of course that his salary is over £130,000 pa. Christine Blower, NUT's general secretary and a former member, like Crow, of London Socialist Alliance is on £140,000 pa. Both of them are prepared to bring their members out on strike which effect doesn't strike at the heart of the "establishment" but only serves to seriously inconvenience the ordinary working people trying hard to get by on their average £23,000 a year. By their actions, designed to prop up what some might argue are already fairly well financed pay and pensions, they are prepared to stand on the necks of the very people who provide their salaries and in so doing further impoverish the less well off. It all chimes with those batallions of Labour MPs and left-wing commentators who pay lip service to their constituents and readers but are busy feathering their nests and ensuring that they, at least, will have a good retirement.

It'd all be right if all those union bosses were on the average wage, wouldn't it, BOD?

[teamsaint]

I am certainly no apologist for those on unreasonably high salaries, but, in the scheme of things , I don't think that £130 k for the head of an organisation with 215k members is off the scale.
Ideally, I think she should be on no more than the best paid head, but I guess they are well north of £100k anyway.

[Serial_Apologist]

I am certainly no apologist for those on unreasonably high salaries, but, in the scheme of things , I don't think that £130 k for the head of an organisation with 215k members is off the scale.
Ideally, I think she should be on no more than the best paid head, but I guess they are well north of £100k anyway.

You're too generous, that's your problem, teamy!

[teamsaint]

You're too generous, that's your problem, teamy!

Ah but that was yesterday.
as of today, I think they should all be on median wages for the profession.
i retain the right to alter my unsubstantiated opinion!