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Wednesday 25 November 2015

Dan Hodges Sees Red

Most people will not have noticed, but today the Rt Hon Gideon George Oliver Osborne, heir to the seventeenth Baronet, stood up in the Commons to give MPs the dubious pleasure of listening to his Autumn Statement, the detail of which has been lost in the clamour to heap disdain on his Labour opposite number John McDonnell by the assembled punditerati, and in which they are at least party right.
He's desperate, Dan

McDonnell had made a half-decent fist of responding to Osborne, especially given his lack of front bench experience and that this was his first Autumn Statement or Budget response. But referring to Mao Zedong is best avoided, and brandishing his Little Red Book is a no-no, even though McDonnell was using it to make the point that Osborne is happy about nationalisation, so long as the Government is in countries like China.

This cut no ice with the Telegraph’s not at all celebrated blues artiste Whinging Dan Hodges, who had made his mind up beforehand that Labour were rubbish, and whatever recourse to Phil Space journalism would fill his next column. “Why doesn't John McDonnell just sit down … This has to be the most embarrassing response to a government statement in the history of parliament” he carped plaintively.


And, for the Colonel Nicholson of the Labour Party, the mood was about to darken. “Stop. Please. Just stop … Labour has ceased to exist as a party of opposition”. Then came McDonnell’s “Mao moment”, and he was off. Somewhere. “John McDonnell pulled out Chairman Mao's red book and quoted it from the despatch box. That happened. I saw it. I sat here. And I saw it”. Yes Dan, there is a live TV feed. You were not uniquely privileged.
Soon, Hodges had journeyed even beyond Mao, to Pol Pol, although that name went unmentioned: “Corbyn and McDonnell want to destroy the Labour party don't they. [Question marks still a problem, I see] They literally want to destroy it and start again”. There was more: “Osborne announces £20 billion cuts in departmental spending. Labour turns it into a political triumph for him”. Aren’t we missing something?
Tax credit cuts at least re-thought, if not totally backed out. Police cuts - trailed for some days now - abandoned. And while Hodges was having his mardy strop, he seems not to have noticed that the Junior Doctors’ dispute has been taken off Jeremy Hunt and sent to ACAS. But that doesn’t count: “Seema Malhotra sent out instead of John McDonnell. He's not just an idiot he's a coward as well”.
I’m sure Osborne never did that (don’t mention Chloe Smith or Newsnight, folks). But now he had the inside track: “Labour MP texts me. ‘I'm in tears in my office’”. Laughing at Dan’s Twitter whinge, perhaps. And then a last, desperate appeal to Look Over There: “Don't forget, the John McDonnell red book fiasco is all the fault of the Tory press and disloyal Labour MPs”. But Hodges will never get a Labour leader he can back.

Even though he is a loyal party member. And if you believe that, you’ll believe anything.

14 comments:

PhilD said...

Hate to say it, but Hodges has a point. This is a massive clusterfuck, god alone knows why McDonnell thought this was a good idea. Yes, the Tory press are going to machine gun him, but there's a difference between the usual vitriolic bias, and handing them the gun and the ammunition. Utter, utter incompetence.

Jonathan said...

Quoting Mao will go down as one of the most stupidest, ill judged decision in British politics apart from it being morally offensive to quote from a man who murdered between 18-45 million people. It has also provided enough material to distract from Osborne so well done John and don't go blaming it on the Blairites it's whoever thought this was a good idea in the first place's fault. I know this will upset some people on here but Corbyn has to shape up

Tim Fenton said...

@2

I'm sure you were equally harsh on the Tory MP who got out a Little Red Book and quoted from it in the early days of the Coalition Government.

Also, commenters, this post is not blaming anyone else for what McDonnell did, and nor is it (@1 take note) saying to quote Mao was A Good Thing.

Anonymous said...

Hodges isn't "...the Colonel Nicholson of the Labour Party..."

He's a Vidkum Quisling, a gutless traitor to everything the Labour Party was founded to do.

Osborne's scam is the tenth rate move of a twelfth rate Canary Wharf spiv, once again kicking the most vulnerable while they're on the floor. Hodges is in the appropriate far right gang of thieves.

McDonnell shouldn't have just brandished Mao's Little Red Book at the Bullingdon mob. He should have grabbed one of them by the scruff of his/her neck and wedged it firmly in his/her arse.

This is just another econofascist larceny. And it's going to get worse, all of it aided by Quislings like Hodges.

Ross said...

Regarding Hodges, I think his animus towards Labour needs to be put in context for people to really grasp what a sad little man he is.

So, it all starts when he think that being the son of Glenda Jackson should make it easy for him to rise high within the ranks of the Labour party. Alas, he is quickly revealed to be a useless shite with no talent, spectacularly disloyal, and resentful that merely dropping mummy's name didn't get him a lucrative sinecure within the party.

Fast forward some years, having struck up a friendship with David Miliband, upon whom he heaped endless praise in an attempt to ingratiate himself, there was a promise of a senior job with David once he secured the Labour leadership. Hodges would be set, a very well paying job, and a huge amount of political influence. He was delighted. Unfortunately, Ed Miliband took a shit on Hodges's dreams.

By way of therapy, Hodges began writing ever more deranged articles attacking Ed Miliband. These came to the attention of a sub editor at the Torygraph who saw Hodges as a useful idiot who could be marketed as the Labour left-wing guy who could tell everyone just how awful Labour really is now the Blairites no longer run the show.

Over the next 5 years Hodges's mask continues to slip further and further, and it becomes more and more obvious he was never politically aligned with the Labour party, he just thought it could be his meal ticket.

So Dan is basically a concern troll. He claims to lament Corbyn's election as leader because he thinks it makes the Labour party unelectable. In truth, he's rooting for team Tory now, and his daily drivel is written based upon the talking points he is emailed by his editor.

Which raises another issue. If Corbyn is such a disaster, why is one of the Torygraph's chief propagandists so desperate to see him ousted as leader?

Dan attacked Ed Miliband from the off, but he didn't really call for him to be replaced as leader. Why? Because it was clear to the people Hodges works for that keeping Miliband as leader was a good thing. His half-hearted austerity-lite message put no pressure on the coalition. Ed Miliband was a disaster, and as you would expect the Tory press wanted him to stay very much where he was.

Contrast this with Corbyn. A near universal chorus from the centrist and right-wing press that the Labour party should oust Corbyn. This despite the fact that Corbyn's mandate as leader is far more robust than Miliband's ever was.

Anonymous said...

@ Jonathan.

There's only one thing wrong with your post: It's all bollocks.

The fact that the Little Red Book flushed out people like you makes it all worthwhile. So was the affect on the tories and the Blairite warmongers and neocons. They were kicked out of their smug corrupt cozy parliamentary club far right thievery.

If people like you want to start kicking casualty figures around try totaling the numbers of deaths caused by three centuries of nationalist wars, imperialist invasions, religious wars, genocides and ethnic mass murders, to say nothing of induced starvation, famines and poverty caused by the brutal thievery that is capitalism.

The fact that you "quote" 18-45 million casualties in the Chinese civil war demonstrates just how warped people like you are. You'd probably settle for the upper figure to suit your "argument." Revolutions and civil wars always lead to extreme cruelty by BOTH sides - that applies to our own and the US versions. None of it is excusable any more than your tenth rate far right effort to discredit McDonnell.

I don't doubt you'd also fail to see what developed in China and Russia was an attempt to leap from feudalism to state capitalism. Karl Marx long ago forecast such a development would lead to the same kind of disaster as undisguised capitalism. Which it has. Look around you for the results: War, mass poverty, theft of national assets, attacks on our most vulnerable citizens, corruption, media hypocrisy. All of it will get worse. It will never end unless it is confronted by genuine democracy. The lessons of history - which plainly you have never learned - show what the future holds if matters continue as they are.

McDonnell has warned against sale of national assets to anti-democratic international capitalism, whether it be China, Russia, the USA, Europe or any other mass murdering gang. That's all the Little Red Book thing was about. But I don't expect far right apologists like you to understand that.

Jonathan said...

Anon 10:46 Oh shut up you tedious arm chair revolutionary. At least have the balls to use your own name. During the election when I was working my backside off trying tom oust the Coalition where were you?

Anonymous said...

Jonathan @ 18:43.

Oh well SAID, armchair warmonger and election loser - did a bang up job there didn't you. Well done. The Sun and Daily Heil will LOVE you.

Jonathan said...

At least I tried to make a difference unlike you who probably hadn't heard of Corbyn until June.

Anonymous said...

Yes, Jonathan, you made a BIG difference. You got rid of the Coalition and put the tories in. Well done. Now about confronting the issues instead of doing the tories and Sun's jobs for them........

Jonathan said...

Ah I got it any criticism of our great and glorious leader is forbidden. You should have said so from the start.

Anonymous said...

Ah, yes. The fuhrer shtick. It was only a matter of time.

You need to consult Snow on C4 News who last night bleated about LACK of leadership (according to his "inside" information). Funny that: you bleat about a "great and glorious leader" while the rest of your Blairite (you remember them...warmongers, selling off national assets, PFI etc.) pals say exactly the opposite.

Now....about those ISSUES.....which you and your type keep dodging.....

Jonathan said...

I don't have to justify myself to an armchair critic like you your sort are ten a penny online. Come back when you've been out on the doorstep for Labour

Anonymous said...

That about sums up your "arguments." Christ, no wonder Labour got slaughtered at the last election.

But you're obviously a last word freak, so go on have it....but an indication of substance and ISSUES might make a difference.....