Shades of 2009....

According to The Mail on Sunday, Labour's shadow business secretary Lucy Powell claimed her BBC TV licence on parliamentary expenses, thus charging it to us taxpayers. 

I think the very words Ms Powell began a tweet with yesterday might be appropriate here: This will, rightly, anger many. 

Pheeww! (OPEN THREAD)

A few observations, but please make allowances for someone who only managed about four hours sleep. 

Thank you for a lively open thread.  (You may use this as a new one if you like)

The magic has deserted the grandpa. The full pronunciation of ‘Party’ has resumed; Jeremy's ’T’ has been restored to its rightful place. He probably deduced that pandering to glottal-stopping troops was a waste of time if they’re going to just turn on him and kick him when he’s down.

Although I wouldn’t class Lisa Nandy and Lucy Powell as particularly disloyal, or Corbynista troops -  not by a long chalk - but don’t forget, they would have stood by him if Labour hadn’t been thoroughly trounced.  

Both of them publicly turned on him this morning, albeit in measured tones.  Lucy Powell said he could have shown some contrition and taken responsibility for Labour’s failure. He didn’t. He was irritable and he doubled down on the weaknesses in his campaign with remarkably stubborn intransigence. Sulky and, what’s the opposite of magnanimous? Mean-spirited?

I was sorry that Caroline Flint lost her seat. She was magnanimous. That's the way to do it.

What will happen next?

Where will all the antisemitism go? It’s out of the bottle and it can’t go back.

Let’s see how the BBC will adjust. Will they pretend they weren't institutionally hostile to the Tories all along?

Look at "ex-BBC" Paul Mason! I think he's completely lost touch with reality. Yet the BBC once employed him as a BBC economics expert. Look at shifty Shami Chakrabarti. She's been interviewed by the BBC's finest a few times since 'the whitewash'. Yet she wasn't even challenged on the fiasco of a report that earned her a peerage.

 But, hey. Pheewwww!

A threadbare, worthless ideology

I must say I’m disappointed in Andrew Neil. The right-wing blogosphere seems to regard him as the BBC’s only saving grace, but he has a chequered record. 

He gave Theresa May a thoroughly deserved hard time over the U-turn that she insisted wasn’t a U-turn. Repeatedly claiming that nothing had changed, when it clearly had, didn’t inspire confidence. Insisting black is white is what politicians do, I know, but we deserve better.

I was so looking forward to Andrew Neil eviscerating Jeremy Corbyn equally fiercely, but fate intervened. 

What disappointed me today was his mealy-mouthed exchanges with his guests, Lucy Powell, Hazel Blears and Douglas Murray, and later Adam Deen (Quilliam) and a chap from a counter extremist organisation whose name escapes me. 

Does anyone else remember Hazel Blears from 2009, when she was the Labour Party’s Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government? She was the lone member of the Labour cabinet who went head to head with Daud Abdullah of the Muslim Council of Britain.    He sued her.

At the time she caused a stir by wearing a badge bearing the slogan “rocking the boat”, and then resigning from the cabinet. 

Douglas Murray appeared weary and exasperated, but he’s always good value - and Hazel Blears was looking perky and bright on the Daily Politics Manchester special. 

Andrew Neil was using his cynical style of interrogation. He was probably exhausted, having expended so much energy being fierce and adversarial with Theresa May the other day. 

I realise everyone is determined not to say anything Islamophobic at the moment; each word uttered is carefully measured so as not to blurt out anything specific about Islam. Lucy Powell uttered a lot of words without managing to say anything at all. Then Andrew Neil said ( of Muslims) “I’m not ascribing it to them! I didn’t say Islam, I said Islamist, of course, which is different"

"Most of my constituents who are Muslim would absolutely disassociate theirselves from any act of violence or terror like this "@LucyMPowell pic.twitter.com/K0cZ88Mkfj

— DailySunday Politics (@daily_politics) May 24, 2017

When Douglas Murray and Hazel Blears had a chance to speak, we almost got somewhere. 

"We have done some good work in Prevent" Hazel Blears tells @afneil "...but we have not really tackled this ideology" #manchesterattack pic.twitter.com/w2Jz9iT4eq

— DailySunday Politics (@daily_politics) May 24, 2017

Hazel Blears said that Islamist ideology was ‘stupid’, “a threadbare, worthless ideology" and they nearly managed to convey that ISIS does have something to do with Islam, but the message  got lost in the fog of not wishing to paint all Muslims as terrorists. 

Adam Deen got even nearer to stating the bleeding obvious when he said that ISIS does share a strain of thought with Islam, but  as far as I could tell it fell on deaf ears. 

If Andrew Neil isn’t willing or able to grasp this most fundamental truth, I imagine a lot of his supporters will be as disappointed as I am.