The best leader Labour never had according to the immediate post mortem as Chuka Umunna ducks for cover having had a taste of the limelight.
Will the BBC be chasing him for his response to accusations that this shows that Labour is a shambles, the leadership contest a farce and him a dithering pathetic wannabe who couldn’t hack it?
Not so far….all very respectful and sorrowful that Labour has lost such a high quality (?) candidate….the BBC is quick to reassure us that ” there was no scandal that lay behind his decision to step aside.” How very different to their response to Nigel Farage’s saga.
However the blame is already being apportioned…Labour’s Ben Bradshaw was given a platform on 5Live to blame the Press and the dreadful intrusions in to a politician’s personal life…….but it wasn’t ‘The Press’ that thrust Chuka’s girlfriend front and centre onto the political stage as he announced his leadership bid was it?
I imagine he is trying to blame Murdoch and the Mail….the Mirror and the Guardian never stoop to such levels of course.
Unlike Ben Bradshaw himself who proclaimed that Eric Pickles was too fat and launched an attack on Cameron and his ill son….one response to which was “using the death of a child to make a political point? Shame on you Ben Bradshaw.”
Nick Robinson has spoken to his sources, wonder who that could be, and he can reveal….“I am told that this includes reporters waiting outside the houses of relatives late at night.” So following the Labour spin on this then.
“Nick Robinson has spoken to his sources, wonder who that could be, and he can reveal….“I am told …”
One is sure he has been. Now, wonder if he ’..might like to provide evidence for his assertions..’?
Or might that line founder on ‘purposes of’ exclusions that apply to paid professional journos following political spin lines?
If the left are trying to blame Tory black propaganda about Chuka being gay I can’t say I’ve ever heard those rumours….Umunna was too far up his own backside for anyone else to have the pleasure….that is the real reason he’d never make leader…or should be.
http://order-order.com/2015/05/15/disingenuous-left-pushed-chuka-rumours/#_@/ho1VTaIje9boNQ
they will try to blame the right but this is where it all really started
I’ve never heard that rumour either. Still why stand and then withdraw? No matter what is said the conclusion to draw is there may be skeleton(s) in the cupboard. What would have happened if he had been elected? Or was it all just an ego trip.
Me neither…
But I did read, some time back about his family’s tax arrangements – that they allegedly benefited from a number of LEGAL tax planning strategies, that (generically) Labour now frown on.
If that’s true it’s really unfair on poor Chukka, especially as the Stansgate family (sorry, Wedgewood-Benn’s) managed to organise their tax affairs to their advantage….as did the Milibands (whatever became of those itinerant International Socialists as they made their way around Europe spreading their Marxist ideology, trying to destroy the counties that sheltered them?)…as did Ed and Yvette Balls when they flipped, and flipped again, like one of McDonald’s finest, to avoid Capital Gains Tax.
And guess what?…Yvette’s still in the running despite all of that. As I said, poor Chukka. It all seems so unfair.
Never mind, the BBC will investigate.
No he reeks of camp, and he’s thirty seven years old and still single without a serious long term girlfriend (or indeed any at all until this latest wheeled out).
It would be shameful for a would be Labour leader who is homosexual or bisexual not to be ‘out and proud’!
Alan,
A bit of a Freudian slip here:
“Umunna was too far up his own backside for anyone else to have the pleasure.”
Can’t say I’d want the pleasure of him or you, but nice to see you coming out at last.
leftwing = hypocrite. It is the main trait of anyone on that side of the political spectrum
right wing = idiot if you are anything to go by. I presume you cant start a proper discussion since you are not capable of it.
‘I presume you can’t* start a proper discussion since you are not capable of it.’
Provide the evidence please. If you can’t the(n) you will be reasonably regarded as delusional.
*Now with a free apostrophe!
You have already provided the evidence.I merely commented on it. You can’t discuss anything even if your life depended on it.
‘You have already provided the evidence.I merely commented on it. You can’t discuss anything even if your life depended on it.
Hard to be totally sure the way these threads run, especially without sample quotes, but MOCO commented on Simon’s post and I commented on his.
Then in reply, for some reason it’s ‘Sharon on the ferry’ who seems to be channelling their inner MOCO on the topic of discussion technique using ‘I merely commented on it’.
Also ironic as in my reply about evidence, it was simply a cut and paste from a previous MOCO one liner.
Manonclaphamomnibus May 8, 2015 at 9:35 am
Provide the evidence please. If you can’t the you will be reasonably regarded as delusional.
Oh, what a web is woven….
What’s on at your theatre tonight sweetie ? Are you going to give the leading man a big thumbs up? Wonder what you want for it….
Left wing = Mass Murder on a post-industrial scale.
Lenin, Stalin, Trotsky, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, Ho Chi Min, Kim Il Sung, et al.
Khmer Rouge, Pathet Lao and all the other loveable Marxist organisations who have enriched the Earth.
What the left is really concerned about is the Muslims beating their records for inhumanity.
You missed out one of the main players – Adolf Hitler. Don’t forget his Socialist credentials.
Also do bear in mind that right & left wing only apply to Socialism in any event. Front national in France are referred to as ‘far right’ even though they are really Socialist. So are Generation Identitaire
So are the BNP, come to that, if you read their manifesto. Distinctly left of centre on employment law and finance.
Yet, like the Front Nationale, always described as “far right”.
Which, of course is lefty/BBC/NUJ shorthand for “disagrees with mass immigration, the EU, Islam, global warming and/or any of their other Holy Grails”.
Welcome back. I had thought that the election result had crushed you. You must be a Lib Dem to survive such a pasting.
Dont look at me and my family,you might find things out that i want hidden.Chucka chicken has a nice ring to it.
So Chuka not wanting to pursue being leader spells the end of the Labour party does it? Usual claptrap best coming from the handsomely paid Allan,who can make it up to custom order from his Australian boss. Presumably because he spends most of his time intellectually prostrate in front of his betters he regards the success of one person as pivotable for a mass movement. I dont support any political party but it doesn’t take a genius to see how crass the arguments are this afternoon.
So Chuka not wanting to pursue being leader spells the end of the Labour party does it?
Where did Alan write that?
Don’t expect logic from a BBC-defending, Labour-supporting leftie.
Says the biggest tosser of them all.
You made me have my first chuckle of the day… well done!
JO
Chukka(l), you missed an opportunity.
The sobfest today was in stark contrast to the hammering the BBC gave Nigel Farage. There was 5 Live’s Peter Allen, doing his deferential and sympathetic schtick and musing over the trials and tribulations of a modern day high profile politician, which was notably absent from his programme the previous day when he was as keen as anyone to stick the knife in to UKIP. If Umunna thinks he’s had a tough time since announcing his leadership bid, it is as nothing compared with Nigel Farage, who has had to put up with more than any other politician over longer, including a disgraceful attack on his family,and with good grace, and no sympathy from the BBC, unlike poor Chukka.
Has anyone actually said that Umunna was the best leader Labour never had? Really? Quite frankly, looking at the current list of hopefuls, my reaction was: is this bunch of political lightweights the best they can do? Judging by Tristram Hunt’s blustering and incoherent replies on last night’s Question time you really have to wonder.
Although not a fan myself, the only credible leader of the Labour party in recent years was the one who was shafted by the union vote in favour of his brother the last time round. If the Labour party, and their BBC propagandists believe what the country wants, is a return to good old Labour values, then look forward to many years in opposition.
And Anita Anand’s inquisatorial questioning (Any Answers) of one very articulate woman who defended the free press, and dared to suggest that there was ‘more to this than meets the eye’ was a revelation. I never thought Anand had it in her, but it just shows that when her mettle is up she can almost morph into a female Paxman! Needless to say the next caller, demanding more press regulation and gullibly sympathetic to Chuka was barely questioned.
Much humour and sneering about Farage’s “unresigning”, but much solemnity and heart-searching about Umunna’s ‘unstanding’. Farage’s “unresigning” is now in the lexicon and will be repeated ad nauseam. But as to the reasons for Umunna’s about turn, “he should be taken at his own word” (Daily Politics) and the Labour Party’s contest to choose their next loser will never be a subject for mockery.
‘Much humour and sneering about Farage’s “unresigning”, but much solemnity and heart-searching about Umunna’s ‘unstanding’.
The crucible that forges leaders of steel has already been mentioned. However, the inevitable selective dredging from HIGNFY will be a chore to withstand. Some can cope and emerge stronger. Others, clearly, cannot.
In a way the BBC provides a ‘what doesn’t kill you’ service.
Again I refer to comments here;
http://order-order.com/2015/05/15/dan-hodges-v-owen-jones-on-chuka/
hang about
Don’t remember Owen complaining about unfair
scrutiny of Farage from the nasty press or sympathising
when Farage and his kids were physically threatened and
chased out of a pub.
Don’t recall many at the BBC being too fussed either. I bet Jasmine even had a brief… ‘moment’.
There are some less than complimentary comments about the BBC Jones addiction too.
Farage leads a party. Umanna doesn’t.Whats the comparison.
I must say if he didn’t realised that the press in general are a bunch of shits then he’s not very quick. I heard one paper bugged a dead kids phone. They also wanted to expand their TV bandwidth .My how times have changed!
You are Bunny and I claim my five pounds
Yes, how quickly times have changed – at least in your world.
I’d like to say ‘Never mind, things will improve’. But for you, it’s difficult to see how.
Still, there’s always ‘Woman’s Hour’.
Radio 4 on the other hand savaged him, bringing on a Labour supporting businessman, presumably one they went and found after the ‘Bill someone’ catastrophe!
He said the Unmmuna was all style over substance and that he could talk the talk, but when it came to actually doing something he was useless.
It nearly went so far as a character assassination, not quite though, they clearly have the knives out !
I heard the interview – I think the businessman in question was the Iceland guy. The more I listened to his story about Miliband’s cluelessness and Umunna’s arrogance the more I thought ‘And you STILL supported Labour?’
He made Mike Ashley look sound and logical.
I see Katie Hopkins is saying that Tristam Hunt is going to win….you heard it here first folks !
It’s a shame he’s quit – because as leader he would have ensured they lost the next election as well…
And Yvette Cooper would have the positive effect of proving the irrelevance of the Labour Party!
He is not quitting because of the pressure. There is either something nasty in the woodshed or he thinks that with the permanent loss of 50 Scottish MPs, Labour cannot win in 2020 and he does not want to perish as leader in that loss and fade into obscurity as a result.
Steven Nolan on 5Live has assembled a suitably funereal cast of talking heads to mull over the tragic loss of Chukka’s candidacy. Didn’t the press think of the consequences of hounding this stellar but fragile political genius? Did no-one think of the his poor dry cleaner and his dreams of riches coming crashing down? Could no-one give him Nigel Farage’s phone number for some advice on how to cope???
A list of Umunna’s achievements so far……
Er….
Um….
(Sound of retreating footsteps and door closing)
So why all the fuss?
X-Factor politics in all its vacuous glory.
Don`t know about you-but I will never foget where I was and what I was doing when Labours “Stars In Their Eyes” Tribute Act to Barack Obama was cut down in his prime.
Yay…future generations will wonder at the grassy knoll, the book suppository( now a chillzone of lurnin` innit?)-and the trajectory of spitballs and bad body language at the greatest leader that the Left never had.
Only the BBC would give a flying f888 about this pointless donkey derby of aimless privilege and useless union halitosis kisses.
We turfed the buggers out last week from any sensible public discourse-how come the Left still presume to have hold of the conversation stone?
They have f***all to say-yet on they go, still saying it.
Secateurs please Mr Whittingdale…quickly!
…how come the Left still presume to have hold of the conversation stone?
They have f***all to say-yet on they go, still saying it.
And the BBC keep endlessly broadcasting it.
It’s like being chained to chair and forced to observe an interminable self-help group meeting.
And to have to pay for it, whether you choose to “observe” it or not.
You didn’t turf anyone out except the
Libdems. As for the left or right I’m not sure you actually know anything about politics. You may be a rich non dom in which case apologies because you clearly understand that pulling the wool over the eyes of thickos is key to your continued success.
Beautiful!
The people of England have spoken, you still refuse to listen so you’ll keep on losing. Shouting mantras at people and denying them free speech and open debate doesn’t work.
For there is, of course, another Britain. This is the country that the vast majority of people inhabit — a country very far removed from the gloomy Orwellian dystopia portrayed by Mr Miliband and his admirers, or by those BBC journalists who love to paint our country in the worst possible light.
This is the Britain of the silent majority — a decent, tolerant but quietly conservative bunch, horrified by the antics of the anarchists, scornful of the entreaties of demagogues such as Russell Brand, and much more interested in bread-and-butter issues than in the smug sixth-form pretensions of the former Labour leader and his Oxbridge chums.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3083976/The-incredible-sulk-week-Left-frothing-fury-fellow-Britons-wicked-stupid-vote-Tories-better-shows-contempt-ordinary-people.html
But Kipling’s admirer Margaret Thatcher, who learned his poem by heart and won her first election in 1979 with a massive swing among Labour voters and union members, put it slightly differently.
This, she said, was ‘a Britain of thoughtful people — oh, tantalisingly slow to act, yet marvellously determined when they do. It’s their voice which steadies each generation, not by oratory or argument, but by a word here or there, a sudden flash of truth which makes men pause and think and say: “That makes sense to me.” ’
Thoughtful, quiet, pragmatic, cautious — this is the real Britain, a long way from the hysterical stridency of the student union Left.
Wonderful stuff.
with chuka obama gone, the best news is yet to come,arch whitey hater hard left diane abbott i send my boys to private school has put her name into the hat with the rest of the losers to be the new leader of the labour party,for once only, i wish dianne abbott the best of luck in her quest to be the new leader of the labour party.
I’m thinking of placing another ‘jinx bet’ on the next leader of the Labour party, just like I placed a £200 bet on Nick Palmer (LAB) winning the Broxtowe seat in the general election (Anna Soubry (CON) won, so my jinx bet was successful in that I lost £200 but gained a Tory MP).
This time I’m going to place a bet on the Labour leader candidate who I think would be the most threatening to the Tories. If it wasn’t for her close association with Ed Balls, I would bet on Yvette Cooper, and judging by all the other possibilities I can only come up with one worthy candidate, and that is Mary Creagh.
MSSSSS Cooper a wonderful leader for labour.
1I switched my radio on today to be greeted on the BBC to a tirade by some clown from the self appointed press hating group Hacked Off screaming that Chuka had been forced out by the scandalous behaviour of the out of control press. It seems they have ceased hacking phones but are still hounding poor innocent people without any concern of the affects on their poor families and children and that they really should be put under the most severe restrictions to stop them publishing things the BBC would rather we were not told about. OK, the last bit I invented but it didn’t take a genius to work out that the whole farce was nothing but the BBC using any opportunity they can to attack those sections of the press who do not slavishly follow the BBC’s very PC view of the world and contradict the BBC’s propaganda output of what they wish to indoctrinate the public to believe and accept. Oh how they would love to become the British Pravda where their, and only their, version of events would be permitted.
‘…..to be greeted on the BBC to a tirade by some clown from the self appointed press hating group Hacked Off screaming that Chuka had been forced out by the scandalous behaviour of the out of control press.’
Common Purpose…..speed dial…..emergency interview.
And that would be this Hacked Off:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/leveson-inquiry/9963263/The-truth-about-Hacked-Offs-media-coup.html
‘ Their key skill was in presenting the crimes of some newspapers as the responsibility of all, and defining the issue as what Gerry McCann, on the Hacked Off website, called “a binary choice: the newspaper barons or the people they abused in search of profit. It is as simple as that.”
It is of course nothing like as simple as that.
But though Hacked Off acts in the name of victims of the press, victims are not its central concern. Unknown to most of the people it lobbies, Hacked Off is a campaign not just to tame the press, but to claim the country for the authoritarian Left. It does want to stop newspapers victimising individuals. But it also wants to force the press to serve defined social and political objectives – at the expense, if necessary, of the right to free expression……’
……Jacqui Davis, from Keep our NHS Public, said the media should be obliged to “stand up for the NHS”. Jacqui Hunt, from Equality Now, called for the regulator to ban Page 3, impose compulsory training for male journalists and require all reports on domestic violence to be “sensitive”.
Other groups described as “partner organisations” by Hacked Off’s website include the newly-established Youth Media Agency, which complained that the media’s “discriminatory” coverage of the August 2011 riots “singled out children and young people as the rioters” (72 per cent of those arrested were under 25) and Trans Media Watch, which condemns newspapers for “stigmatising” transsexuals. Alleged examples of discrimination, which Trans Media Watch wants to ban, included a reference to the Bois de Boulogne, a park in Paris, as “containing transsexual prostitutes”.
Another Hacked Off “partner” is Engage, an “anti-discrimination” group including Islamist sympathisers and whose staff have justified the killing of British soldiers.’
That’s the real Hacked Off – but don’t expect the BBC to inform its listeners anytime soon.
sadly it is as simple as that. The issues you raise relate to the incorrect stereotyping of certain groups. Many people may have other views in relation to political institutions and world affairs but that is hardly relevant to the aims of Hacked Off. I think you probably view these issues in the way that you do because of the very strange way you conceive notions of justice free speech and democracy ,none of which appear to be particularly prevalent in our country these days.
Perhaps you write for the gutter press in which case you will enjoy a particular insight into how you are destroying the fundamental essence of British culture.
No, I just value freedom of speech which Hacked Off and its associates want to curtail so their far left view of the world always prevails – ‘Islam is beyond criticism’ would be one such view.
Perhaps you write for the gutter press in which case you will enjoy a particular insight into how you are destroying the fundamental essence of British culture.
Funny, I thought it was the Left who have just been given a lesson in ‘the fundamental essence of British culture’. My God, you are so out of touch. Keep digging, though, it’s a joy to behold.
So Chuka is homosexual as well as black…. not that it bothers me whatsoever ( apart from the labour bit ), but trying to woo back lost northern labour voters, it’s probably a bit of a bummer really.
Depends on where he sticks his whippet!
I think the problem with Chukka is he is just thick have you ever really listened to what he says when interviewed it is vacuous drivel . I think I read somewhere he is a lawyer too or something gawd help us what has happened to the education system