I watched the bulk of Politics Live. Danny the Fink, Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle (aristocratic name, Labour ‘look’) Belinda de Lucy, (glamorous Brexit Party MEP) and Pippa Crerar (seemed too sensible to be ‘ex-Guardian’ and Political Editor of the Daily Mirror) were with Jo Coburn today.
In Fashion News: JoCo's hair always looks its best on Monday mornings. That must be the day she has it done.
I missed the very beginning, but the interesting part of the conversation about the 'generalection', and the bit where things got heated, occurred between Finkelstein and Belinda de Lucy - where the former said the likelihood that the Brexit Party would gain any seats at all was next to nil, therefore he wondered why Nigel would risk splitting the vote? The latter countered with “Boris only has to pick up the phone.” Then the argument segued into something that amounted to “well, they may as well stand against every Conservative seat because, in fact, their policies are entirely different”. The customary party political points were bickered over, and the concept of selling off our NHS to Donald Trump was examined but the verdict was inconclusive.
You’ll not be surprised to hear that the subject ”antisemitism in the Labour Party” was the one that engaged my attention most fully. It came up two-thirds of the way through a 45-minute programme.
Lloyd R-M, bless him, started off in full mode McDonnell. So sad, he was. (He sounded genuine before he veered off in the direction of denial) Predictably, the issue of antisemitism was duly played down on Twitter.
Fink gave a sympathetic account of the Jewish community’s fears and feelings, but it didn’t take long before Islamophobia came up. I think the culprit was Jo Coburn, but Danny Finkelstein picked up the ball and ran with it.
In my opinion, Esther Duflo, the economist who has just won the Nobel prize for the accessible-sounding book on economics she co-authored, “Good Economics for Hard Times” came in far too late in the show. She had already been on the radio this morning, and we were treated to a longer and larger slice of her wisdom then. As a bit of an ignoramus on theoretical economics, I could have done with a bit more of that and less of the other. It somehow seemed fresher and more interesting.Tory peer Danny Finkelstein on manifesto policy to “grasp” with Islamophobia— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) November 4, 2019
“I think the party has got the chance to be a pioneer, because there a lot of Islamophobia in this country, possibly even more than there is anti-Semitism”#politicslive https://t.co/dLHtKBMf1p pic.twitter.com/6OVarxGucc
Imagine that. A book on economics more interesting than Brexit.
