How much worse can it get ...??

[french frank]

I would use "disingenuous" as a civilized way of saying that the person so described was overlooking the justifiability of his or her opponent's point of view as a whole, and that we all pick and choose,

I rush to the OED definition ("lacking in candour or frankness, insincere, morally fraudulent") and that supports my view that you can't be inadvertently disingenuous, or by overlooking a point through some intellectual shortcoming. I was attempting to answer the question as to why anyone might speak of socialism and totalitarianism in the same breath, not arguing that there was something in it necessarily leading to totalitarianism. But it can do, which is why dictators can get away with calling themselves socialists. I didn't introduce the topic: I was taking up the point about the GDR being "totalitarian". If it comes to that, German National Socialism was originally the ideology of the National Socialist German Workers' Party which embodied concepts such as the "common good". And that didn't end well.

And personally I have little difficulty with the socialism in socialism, if I can put in that way, more a scepticism that within some form of democracy there is the mechanism by which its aims can be achieved. Similary, with Corbyn, it wasn't his socialism that was a problem for me but the man himself. I didn't think he had the necessary qualities of vision and persuasive leadership. But I acknowledge that I have a much woollier, half-baked, abstract concept of what a 'socialist' society must be like. Not much to do with Marx, the class war and the means of production …

And my strong feeling about the Labour Party is that it's time to draw lines in the sand. I don't care whether Starmer's a social democrat or a democratic socialist, or even a liberal. I just want him to lead the party to electoral victory.

[eighthobstruction]

I rush to the OED definition ("lacking in candour or frankness, insincere, morally fraudulent") and that supports my view that you can't be inadvertently disingenuous, or by overlooking a point through some intellectual shortcoming. I was attempting to answer the question as to why anyone might speak of socialism and totalitarianism in the same breath, not arguing that there was something in it necessarily leading to totalitarianism. But it can do, which is why dictators can get away with calling themselves socialists. I didn't introduce the topic: I was taking up the point about the GDR being "totalitarian". If it comes to that, German National Socialism was originally the ideology of the National Socialist German Workers' Party which embodied concepts such as the "common good". And that didn't end well.

And personally I have little difficulty with the socialism in socialism, if I can put in that way, more a scepticism that within some form of democracy there is the mechanism by which its aims can be achieved. Similary, with Corbyn, it wasn't his socialism that was a problem for me but the man himself. I didn't think he had the necessary qualities of vision and persuasive leadership. But I acknowledge that I have a much woollier, half-baked, abstract concept of what a 'socialist' society must be like. Not much to do with Marx, the class war and the means of production …

And my strong feeling about the Labour Party is that it's time to draw lines in the sand. I don't care whether Starmer's a social democrat or a democratic socialist, or even a liberal. I just want him to lead the party to electoral victory.

....disingenuous is a word I use a great deal in emails to my MP....I'm convinced Mps of all complex complexions are disingenuous a least 10 times a day (more if they are replying to media)....I think I described him (julian Smith) as being part of the trooping phalanx of the jelly roll junta in a recent one....Oh Joy....

[eighthobstruction]

....disingenuous is a word I use a great deal in emails to my MP....I'm convinced Mps of all complex complections are disingenuous a least 10 times a day (more if thgey are replying to media)....I think I described him (julian Smith) as being part of the trooping phalanx of the jelly roll junta in a recent one....Oh Joy....

....Etiolation has always been one of my favourite words....all week I have been looking for a chance to use it.... feel very much it describes a lot of which is happening now/at the moment. Margaret Hodge and her cronies have purposely stuck a chimney pot over the Labour Party, and the Rhubarb of the LP is etiolating, casting around looking for light, the stems are weak, there is an attempt via long blanched stems to reach the light....there is no one strong enough to lift the pot....(with a bit more effort i could have condensed and extended said analogy -but i'm in trhe state of etiolation myself, I'm afraid.)

....I listen to current affairs greedilyand the only LP personages I have heard the names of this week are Starmer - Nandy - and McCluskey....no change there then....(and all i heard was Rhubarb rhubarb rhubarb)

[eighthobstruction]

....So....