Bob Crow on Have I Got News For You

[The Idler]

Just watched Bob Crow on Have I Got News For You. Now I know why unions are so out of touch. Watch it here (http://bbc.co.uk/i/p4j63/). Most embarrassing is the No2EU defence.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

I watched it, when did he defend No2Eu?

They took the piss out of him the whole program, felt sorry for him.

[Pogue]

What excactly is your criticism of him and unions?

[bricolage]

Moral of the story; don't go on a tv comedy show if you aren't going to make any jokes.

[Pogue]

merge the threads

[The Idler]

I watched it, when did he defend No2Eu?

They took the piss out of him the whole program, felt sorry for him.
When asked if he was a Eurosceptic, he said the EU entrenches privatisation and even mentioned Fortress Europe.

What excactly is your criticism of him and unions?
Well, he tried to criticise Ian Hislop and failed miserably. If you go on HIGNFY, you come off better if you're not using it as a platform and you're prepared to laugh at yourself. He even said he has more in common with a Chinese Labourer than he did with Ian Hislop despite the fact that Crow earns around £79,564 a year.

[Pogue]

When asked if he was a Eurosceptic, he said the EU entrenches privatisation and even mentioned Fortress Europe.

Well, he tried to criticise Ian Hislop and failed miserably. If you go on HIGNFY, you come off better if you're not using it as a platform and you're prepared to laugh at yourself.

I agree, but I can also udnerstand him being defensive, seeing as how he gets treated by alot of the establishment. it would have been better if he was more light hearted, but givent he circumstances hsi actions werent that bad.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

When asked if he was a Eurosceptic, he said the EU entrenches privatisation and even mentioned Fortress Europe.

Do you support the EU yourself?

[ls]

Yeah he's a bit of a big faffy union fatcat, then again Ian Hislop the oxford tory pisses me off nonstop with his ruining private eye and his massive fat penis head, but yeah Bob Crow looked like he wanted to punch them at some points :lol: oh well, he's not someone to be 'admired', but it was interesting to see nonetheless. I would've liked it if he punched Hislop on there nonetheless.

[Vanguard1917]

I saw it, and my sympathies were with the union bureaucrat.

[MarxSchmarx]

merge the threads


I looked around and tried to find a second recent thread referencing this film to no avail in the film and lit. So at the time it stands.

PS at the time I can't watch the film but it looks neat.

[The Idler]

Do you support the EU yourself?
I think the point is No2EU was a nationalist attempt to harness the support of nationalists, and tried and play up the threat of the EU. It failed miserably at the European elections and Bob Crow persisted with this failed strategy on HIGNFY. He came across as a classist dinosaur whereas Hislop has the reputation as being anti-establishment.

[ls]

I think the point is No2EU was a nationalist attempt to harness the support of nationalists, and tried and play up the threat of the EU. It failed miserably at the European elections and Bob Crow persisted with this failed strategy on HIGNFY. He came across as a classist dinosaur whereas Hislop has the reputation as being anti-establishment.

Fair enough on your point about Bob Crow but no, fuck that, Ian Hislop is a piece of shit, he's not 'anti-establishment' in the slightest, he even took pride in saying he was educated at Oxford. What coherent person would think of him as anti-establishment?

[rds32]

Grow up Is, "Ian Hislop is a piece of shit", what a mature and insightful statement. I went to Oxford and also went to a state school, as do a majority of Oxbridge students. Why shouldn't Hislop take pride in going to Oxford? Anyway wasn't he only pointing out Crow's mistake in saying he went to Cambridge? Hislop is anti-establishment in an intelligent manner.

[ls]

Grow up Is, "Ian Hislop is a piece of shit", what a mature and insightful statement. I went to Oxford and also went to a state school, as do a majority of Oxbridge students. Why shouldn't Hislop take pride in going to Oxford? Anyway wasn't he only pointing out Crow's mistake in saying he went to Cambridge? Hislop is anti-establishment in an intelligent manner.

"a majority"?

I think you will find the majority regardless of whether they went to a comprehensive, come from a middle-class background and their line of work will be petit-bourgeois once they finish, sorry if you felt I was including everyone who went to Oxford - that isn't what I actually meant, working-class people who feel pride in going to a good place because they worked hard is fine, posh pieces of shit showing off isn't.

Hislop is a posh piece of shit and in no way "anti-establishment in an intelligent manner", he has said things before like Cameron is better than Brown so no, he's not anti-establishment he's a posh bourgeois stooge so fuck him, I wish Bob punched him.

[rds32]

"a majority"?

I think you will find the majority regardless of whether they went to a comprehensive, come from a middle-class background and their line of work will be petit-bourgeois once they finish, sorry if you felt I was including everyone who went to Oxford - that isn't what I actually meant, working-class people who feel pride in going to a good place because they worked hard is fine, posh pieces of shit showing off isn't.

Hislop is a posh piece of shit and in no way "anti-establishment in an intelligent manner", he has said things before like Cameron is better than Brown so no, he's not anti-establishment he's a posh bourgeois stooge so fuck him, I wish Bob punched him.
Firstly, why are you advocating violence against someone whose ideology you disagree with? Secondly, yes the majority of Oxbridge students are middle class, as the majority of people in this country now are, and, whatever class you come from you still have to work hard to go to Oxbridge. Thirdly, I think you need to move beyond attacking people because of the particular background they happen to be born in to.

[Pogue]

I think the point is No2EU was a nationalist attempt to harness the support of nationalists, and tried and play up the threat of the EU. It failed miserably at the European elections and Bob Crow persisted with this failed strategy on HIGNFY. He came across as a classist dinosaur whereas Hislop has the reputation as being anti-establishment.

It didn't try to win over 'nationalists', it tried to talk in a language expressing alot of the fears that working class people would have over the EU in a language that was somewhat poorly picked at worst.

The EU is a threat. It weakens the position of the working class in real terms.

I wouldn't say it 'failed miserably'. It was a rushed effort and it still got about 150,000 votes.

[ls]

Firstly, why are you advocating violence against someone whose ideology you disagree with?

Because he is a snide little shit, if he wasn't and he was simply middle or even upper-class I wouldn't have a problem, prince charles is ok with me for example because of the disunity he's caused within the royal family so it's not just something against every single middle or upper-class person.


Secondly, yes the majority of Oxbridge students are middle class, as the majority of people in this country now are

What? :confused: I agree that there has been a significant shift in what people perceive themselves as, since new labour et al, but this simply isn't true if you look at it objectively. GB as a whole is more than three quarters working-class, you just have to look at the definition differently, a lot of the traditional lines between the sociological working and middle-classes are now blurred.


and, whatever class you come from you still have to work hard to go to Oxbridge.

It helps having a very stable background and lots of money no.. hence why most people at Oxford are middle-class.


Thirdly, I think you need to move beyond attacking people because of the particular background they happen to be born in to.

I would say roughly 70% of middle-class people are undeniably scum and also petit-bourgeois, so while what you're saying has a tiny bit of merit, it's not really correct.

[rds32]

"GB as a whole is more than three quarters working-class, you just have to look at the definition differently"

You can look at the definition in many different ways and the % of working class can will vary accordingly from 1% to 99.9%. Self identification studys show tend to show around 20-40%.

"but this simply isn't true if you look at it objectively"

I am delighted that you have found an objective way of defining the working class, if you could articulate it to me then I would be very glad.

"since new labour et al".

There was a recent study (search it on bbc news) which suggested that social mobility had declined under our current gov.

"I would say roughly 70% of middle-class people are undeniably scum"

Doesn't even merit a response.

[ls]

"GB as a whole is more than three quarters working-class, you just have to look at the definition differently"

You can look at the definition in many different ways and the % of working class can will vary accordingly from 1% to 99.9%. Self identification studys show tend to show around 20-40%.p

Zactly, then I have had undeniably working-class friends (by any definition) telling me they are middle-class. ;) It doesn't make them middle-class though but whatever.


"but this simply isn't true if you look at it objectively"

I am delighted that you have found an objective way of defining the working class, if you could articulate it to me then I would be very glad.

Well, as I said, the lines are pretty blurred nowdays, but there is still a definitive difference. It's not something I (or anyone else) can detail with ease either.


"since new labour et al".

There was a recent study (search it on bbc news) which suggested that social mobility had declined under our current gov.

And that kind of 'social mobility' is a false prophecy, becoming middle-class is not a particularly good or desirable thing from a class-struggle perspective.

[Lyev]

I would say roughly 70% of middle-class people are undeniably scum and also petit-bourgeois, so while what you're saying has a tiny bit of merit, it's not really correct.
I apologise I was born into the wrong family, how very stupid of me!

Anyway why not 70% of blacks or jews are undeniably scum?

[ls]

I apologise I was born into the wrong family, how very stupid of me!

Anyway why not 70% of blacks or jews are undeniably scum?

If you think that most of the petit-bourgeois and the middle-class are nice people, then you are simply wrong. I don't care if you take personal offence or not. It's also got nothing to do with irrelevant strawman arguments like yours, so nice try but no cigar.

[Stranger Than Paradise]

I think the point is No2EU was a nationalist attempt to harness the support of nationalists, and tried and play up the threat of the EU. It failed miserably at the European elections and Bob Crow persisted with this failed strategy on HIGNFY. He came across as a classist dinosaur whereas Hislop has the reputation as being anti-establishment.

But where did he talk about the No2EU campaign? He just talked about not supporting the Lisbon treaty.

[The Idler]

It didn't try to win over 'nationalists', it tried to talk in a language expressing alot of the fears that working class people would have over the EU in a language that was somewhat poorly picked at worst.

The EU is a threat. It weakens the position of the working class in real terms.

I wouldn't say it 'failed miserably'. It was a rushed effort and it still got about 150,000 votes.
150,000 which translated to about 1% of the national vote and less than Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party. As the Weekly Worker said

To present European integration in itself as the problem - which No2EU had done - was a nationalist response. Even SPEW’s own slogan of ‘No to a bosses’ Europe’ implied that the bosses somehow held less sway in the individual nation-states than within the EU. It was particularly bizarre for British socialists to raise the spectre of the EU as the main enemy when successive British governments have implemented the most neoliberal policies in Europe and the New Labour government was manoeuvring within EU institutions to impose a neoliberal course on other countries.

But where did he talk about the No2EU campaign? He just talked about not supporting the Lisbon treaty.
Wasn't that the primary policy of the campaign? And wasn't Bob Crow the party's leading candidate?

[Stranger Than Paradise]

150,000 which translated to about 1% of the national vote and less than Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party. As the Weekly Worker said

Wasn't that the primary policy of the campaign? And wasn't Bob Crow the party's leading candidate?

Yep it was and he was. But you said in your opening post:


Most embarrassing is the No2EU defence.

He doesn't talk about it at all. Just about being against the EU.

[Pogue]

150,000 which translated to about 1% of the national vote and less than Arthur Scargill's Socialist Labour Party. As the Weekly Worker said


And how many people vote for the CPGB?

It was socialists trying to have a platform in the election. The only solid position a socialist could have was opposition to the EU/Lisbon Treaty, which is what No2EU did, opposed the EU from a left wing standpoint. I don't see how this is so absurd or shocking.

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

I'm glad that we can all take solace in the fact that people like Comrade Joe and Is (and many others on this site) will never have the opportunity to become involved in any meaningful politics beyond sitting in their bedrooms posting useless, ill informed messages on a poorly read forum. You seem to confuse radical leftism with an excuse to display your hatred for other human beings and take pride in your small minded politics. Your politcs don't seem to move beyond saying Fuck off to anyone with different opinions from your own. I don't think you will find too many members of the 'working classes' who will support your misanthropy and pointless aggression. You are utterley pathetic.

I apologies that I have offended you. I apologise that I have disrupted your fantasies of civilizing the barbarians of the estates who do not have the intellect of great people such as yourself and how dare we speak against the mighty cultured middle class who make up the vast majority of this country (never mind means of production proles are too barbaric to do anything other then manual labour). You are not a missionary and we are not barbaric souls that need saving, If I do not debate you seriously it is because I do not take you seriously you people are disgusting my friends , family and I are not people who need civilizing by the pesudo religious cult of half witted leftism we are people who need a real movement that takes reality by the balls and the truth is weather you like it or not that people from non working class backgrounds do tend to bring forward an awful amount of shit into any movement and understanding this does not make as hateful bastards it makes us realistic. Now fuck off.

[ls]

Darling r2d2:


Your politcs don't seem to move beyond saying Fuck off to anyone with different opinions from your own. I don't think you will find too many members of the 'working classes' who will support your misanthropy and pointless aggression. You are utterley pathetic.

Funny didn't you start with "Grow up Is" (it's LS not IS), your whole argument has been one of moral outrage and statistics being applied incorrectly as my arguments have completely dwarfed yours. Being Oxford educated means little when you're wrong. :cool:

[rds32]

Ls,

I don't want to paronize you, so I can't really think of much to say. I have a life to live in the real world and can not be bothered to debate any further at your level. Just because you think that your arguments have completely dwarfed mine does not make this true. As far as I can discern I can't make out any coherent arguments in your ramblings.

Oh dear, that was patronizing. Even my Oxford intellect could not think of anything non-patronizing. Guess my education was a waste anyway, I am off to shred all my work and suck my thumb to sleep.

[ls]

By all means go and live your "life in the real world", no one likes talking to you anyway. As for this forum, there are plenty more people on here like yourself who are absolute posh scumbags, such as Expropriate for example.

[MarxSchmarx]

Don't flame.


Fuck off you Prescott wanabe.


oi suck your nan

Both of you, consider this your verbal warnings.

[Pirate turtle the 11th]

RDS I have set the kindles on you , he knows where you live.

[Wanted Man]

When asked if he was a Eurosceptic, he said the EU entrenches privatisation and even mentioned Fortress Europe.

And so what? Sounds accurate enough to me.

Should he have said that struggling against the Lisbon Treaty and all its implications is useless, and that everyone with a hint of class consciousness should sit back and wait for spontaneous global revolution in all its shining perfection? Because that's the impression that I'm sometimes getting from people who suggest that it's somehow wrong to attack the EU in any way. That does not necessarily mean an endorsement of nationalist slogans, but still.

As for No2EU, they probably went about it the wrong way, and by presenting itself as purely Eurosceptic, they apparently ended up contending for nationalist votes, rather than, say, disaffected Labour votes, even though they tried to prevent this in their statements. So sure, they probably did a lot wrong, but I'm not seeing any alternatives so far. It's also pretty funny that people who should be aware of all the problems with the parliamentary system, are now like: "Haha, they only got 1%; losers!"

It's a shame. Hopefully, there will be a better-organised kind of resistance later on, because the cynics in this thread and their associated parties probably won't be able to do it as long as they keep patronising the workers about how some Oxford-educated TV host is "anti-establishment" and how we're all middle-class now, and that you should be proud if you end up in an elite university.

[MarxSchmarx]

RDS32:


RDS I have set the kindles on you , he knows where you live.

After some thought, CJKB makes a valid point: RDS32, your response was uncalled for. So were CJKB and Bailey_187's posts, but two wrongs don't make a right. Posts of the following kind are common on revleft, but after some thought, this doesn't justify them.


I'm glad that we can all take solace in the fact that people like Comrade Joe and Is (and many others on this site) will never have the opportunity to become involved in any meaningful politics beyond sitting in their bedrooms posting useless, ill informed messages on a poorly read forum. You seem to confuse radical leftism with an excuse to display your hatred for other human beings and take pride in your small minded politics. Your politcs don't seem to move beyond saying Fuck off to anyone with different opinions from your own. I don't think you will find too many members of the 'working classes' who will support your misanthropy and pointless aggression. You are utterley pathetic.


RDS32, this is a verbal warning.

Pogue:

This is totally true, comrade. Comrade Joe is a disgusting human being who can fuck off. ls is probably worse, the dickhead.


This also merits a verbal warning.

[Philosophical Materialist]

The audience was somewhat hostile to Bob Crow. To them, strikes and strikers are an inconvenience in their day-to-day lives, but to the strikers its their livelihoods at stake.

It's also difficult to get a feel for programme when it isn't live. Guests are at the mercy of the editors, and the team captains know the questions beforehand so they can prepare to give humorous answers on the day.

I think Bob Crow gave a reasonable articulation of his opposition to the Lisbon Treaty. Ian Hislop even admitted that "embarrassingly" they were agreeing on many things.

[The Idler]

Bob Crow is about as working-class as John Prescott.

[ComradeMan]

Zactly, then I have had undeniably working-class friends (by any definition) telling me they are middle-class. ;) It doesn't make them middle-class though but whatever.
Well, as I said, the lines are pretty blurred nowdays, but there is still a definitive difference. It's not something I (or anyone else) can detail with ease either.
And that kind of 'social mobility' is a false prophecy, becoming middle-class is not a particularly good or desirable thing from a class-struggle perspective.


You advocate violence against someone who you perceive to be not like you or share your ideology.
You describe someone as "posh" which implies a huge inferiority complex and/or inverted snobbery- snobbery in any form is a product of capitalism in my opinion, so in effect you are playing their game.
In the same line you say that class distinctions are pretty blurred these days but then you go on to say it's pretty definitive.
You seem to confuse level of education, wealth and class all over the place- I am beginning to notice that bourgeois seems to mean anyone you don't like.
Many leftwing thinkers would fall into your category of "bourgeois"- should we denounce them? One of the most notorious/famous KGB spies in British history, Kim Philby was a prep-school, public school son of the Indian Empire and educated at Trinity College, Oxford.
You are very doctrinaire in your opinions about people- re the other thread about Chomsky and anarchism. You denounce Kropotkin wholeheartedly from a doctrinaire anarchist point of view. Now, not that this is my belief personally, but you say your are unemployed, if you are unemployed in NE London you are most probably claiming benefits that are in themselves part of the state mechanism. Some anarchists might turn on YOU for that, you are afterall benefiting from the welfare state. Perhaps we should denounce you for benefitting from the bourgeois state and thus being counter-revolutionary.:D
Telling people to f-off, shut up, get lost etc all over the place and then denouncing them outright is not very productive.

What concerns me here is what I'm sensing from the words some are using that we are confusing some kind of inverted snobbery for class conflict. In a British context I can perhaps see this as the British are traditionally obsessed with class anyway :) and class hostility has always been evident the "hoi poloi" or the reverse "not for the likes of us" kind of mentality. Both are erroneous.

Come on people- divide et imperat- If we constantly seek divisions all over the place and attack people we are never going to get anywhere!!!

[Revy]

No2EU was not a "socialist" campaign. The idea of socialism was never mentioned on their site. Furthermore, they blamed foreign workers for unemployment. Sure, they tried to come off as sympathetic to those workers (by calling them exploited), but the fact is, they implied that British jobs were being threatened by the free movement of labor.

There is no excuse for that rhetoric, at all. And if that's the leadership the left would have, the CPGB is right about criticizing it. Last time I checked open borders was a basic socialist demand, not something to be thrown in the gutter for populist BS.

The CWI in the US also kept supporting Ralph Nader despite Ralph Nader's opposition to the idea of open borders, his scapegoating of immigration as a factor in unemployment, they looked past that, only because it was an "alternative", bullshit, just because something is an alternative doesn't mean it's worthy of our support, have some damn standards.

[BobKKKindle$]

Secondly, yes the majority of Oxbridge students are middle class, as the majority of people in this country now areIf you did go to Oxford then they should have taught you at least a bit of Marxism, so I'm wondering where you got this nonsense from.

I'd also say that the majority of people who go to Oxford are a bit wealthier than middle class, or towards the upper end of the middle class.

[The Idler]

You advocate violence against someone who you perceive to be not like you or share your ideology.
You describe someone as "posh" which implies a huge inferiority complex and/or inverted snobbery- snobbery in any form is a product of capitalism in my opinion, so in effect you are playing their game.
In the same line you say that class distinctions are pretty blurred these days but then you go on to say it's pretty definitive.
You seem to confuse level of education, wealth and class all over the place- I am beginning to notice that bourgeois seems to mean anyone you don't like.
Many leftwing thinkers would fall into your category of "bourgeois"- should we denounce them? One of the most notorious/famous KGB spies in British history, Kim Philby was a prep-school, public school son of the Indian Empire and educated at Trinity College, Oxford.
You are very doctrinaire in your opinions about people- re the other thread about Chomsky and anarchism. You denounce Kropotkin wholeheartedly from a doctrinaire anarchist point of view. Now, not that this is my belief personally, but you say your are unemployed, if you are unemployed in NE London you are most probably claiming benefits that are in themselves part of the state mechanism. Some anarchists might turn on YOU for that, you are afterall benefiting from the welfare state. Perhaps we should denounce you for benefitting from the bourgeois state and thus being counter-revolutionary.:D
Telling people to f-off, shut up, get lost etc all over the place and then denouncing them outright is not very productive.

What concerns me here is what I'm sensing from the words some are using that we are confusing some kind of inverted snobbery for class conflict. In a British context I can perhaps see this as the British are traditionally obsessed with class anyway :) and class hostility has always been evident the "hoi poloi" or the reverse "not for the likes of us" kind of mentality. Both are erroneous.

Come on people- divide et imperat- If we constantly seek divisions all over the place and attack people we are never going to get anywhere!!!
Too right! Inverted snobbery is an awful substitute for serious class analysis and you usually come unstuck when examples are given like the "class" origins of Kropotkin (son of a Prince), Bakunin (from nobility), Alex Callinicos (grandson of Lord Acton, who went to Oxford University) etc. Former Deputy PM John "Two Jags" Prescott did a programme on class recently, but was strictly the pie and mash, flat cap view of the working class rather than the exploitatitive wage-labour relationship.

Back to the point, saying Ian Hislop went to Oxford as an attempt to undermine his anti-establishment reputation isn't enough. Nor is it enough to defend Bob Crow's cringeworthy comments about Hislop eating lobster.

[ls]

All I can say is .. :laugh: fail, absolute fail. This is why I set ComradeMan to ignore.