Labour suspends 11 councillors over offensive WhatsApp messages
Labour has suspended 11 councillors from the party following an investigation into offensive messages in a WhatsApp group.
Andrew Gwynne, the MP for Gorton and Denton in Greater Manchester, was sacked as health minister on Sunday and suspended from the Labour Party after messages were leaked.
Another MP, Burnley’s Oliver Ryan, was suspended on Monday,
The most striking aspect of this latest embarrassment is how it reveals yet again how many members of the political class prefer pub banter to the dull grind of professional behaviour and acquiring expertise. We've known it forever of course, it has been an issue for a very long time.
Perhaps the trick is to be occasionally amusing but always professionally competent, but at the moment most of us would probably settle for competent, or even occasionally competent.
And therefore if the more foolish a man is, the more he pleases himself and is admired by others, to what purpose should he beat his brains about true knowledge, which first will cost him dear, and next render him the more troublesome and less confident, and lastly, please only a few?
Desiderius Erasmus - The Praise of Folly (1511)
And therefore if the more foolish a man is, the more he pleases himself and is admired by others, to what purpose should he beat his brains about true knowledge, which first will cost him dear, and next render him the more troublesome and less confident, and lastly, please only a few?
Desiderius Erasmus - The Praise of Folly (1511)
8 comments:
Sadly it probably goes beyond just the Labour Party. There appears to be a recent 'totalising' mindset in politics which is "My party contains all the good (nice, virtuous, deserving etc.) people and so all the people outside my party are bad (stupid, gammons, corrupted etc.). It's called polarisation in America and is probably where we got the 'totalising' mindset from.
Since Labour have been alleged as the 'Party of Envy' they were off to a flying start, although I can think of similar outlooks in the Lib Dems, Reform, and the independence parties. The Conservatives are not immune but why flog a dead horse?
DJ - yes, it seems to keep loyal voters voting loyally too, as if switching parties like dropping friends and taking up with that horrible lot in the next street. It's silly because it wrecks political parties.
I like the hypocrisy angle here. If they don't believe in all the caring stuff about pensioners and gays and women, then what do they believe in? Perhaps - just perhaps! - all of them are just power-hungry midwits who have selected an ideology they don't believe in so they can feel important.
Sam - they seem to treat it as on a par with office politics and pub chat, with no strong ideas that it goes deeper than that. As if they choose an ideology as they choose a pair of trousers - to make an impression at the office or the pub.
I looked at it and thought it was largely the sort of harmless, silly stuff that my friends and I might have said at age 16 or 17 or even 18.
How old were they?
dearieme - Andrew Gwynne is 50, Oliver Ryan 29, so no age excuse for either, particularly Gwynne who is old enough to be a grandfather.
As is most often, the Marxist ideology applies.
Groucho Marx.
"I have these principles. And if you do not like these, I do have others."
Anyhows, Gwynne's maturity has led him to believe that having got away with it for so long in the pre soshul meedja years it is business as usual. He only needed to have one upset acquaintance.
Doonhamer - yes it's a major difference. In the past he could deny it, but now it's recorded and political acquaintances tend to be temporary.
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