Don’t expect any help from this man if you are a Waspi, anti EU Federalism, opposed to HS2, think corporations should pay more tax, believe Civil Service feather-bedding should be stopped, want more control over lobbyists, or think good manners are important
Owen who?
Last night, Owen Smith called Jeremy Corbyn “a lunatic”, having once accepted a Shadow Cabinet role from the bloke. This morning he apologised. It’s a bit late for that, Owen – I think we’ve got you sized up already, chum. The Slog takes a look at the men behind Smith – and the track-record guide to who is really vying to overthrow Corbyn and win the Labour leadership.
Tony Blair thinks the only reason Britain voted for Brexit was because there are too many ‘uneducated’ Britons. When Blair was trying to get into power during the late 1990s, he said he would put “education, education and education” as his top three prorities. So if the nation is ignorant, one might think he was in some way implicated in the outcome.
But no, you see it was we the nasty old folks who were uneducated. Yes, it was us: the very same folks who marched against the war in Vietnam, legalised homosexuality, ended the death penalty, got the Race Relations Act on the statute, and overwhelmingly voted for liberal causes when young. We’re ignorant.
In fact, according to Moral Tone, we’re so ignorant we can’t see how the UAE is a model State in the way it chops off limbs and executes women for alleged infidelity. Mind you, he would say that….he’s their image consultant.
Still, in some ways he has a point. For in 1997, my generation gave Blair a landslide victory (I went abroad and abstained) and then returned him twice more to power. And you’d have to be pretty incurably dense to do that.
What’s more, in the 2016 referendum, the generation he educated either didn’t turn up, or demonstrated how Labour has deserted them by voting UKIP. And on balance I’d say that was evidence of well-informed behaviour.
Tony sums up by saying we’re just not waking up to a world in which stone age social policies exist alongside neanderthal economics. We need…..modernising. So we can better understand that female pensioners should foot the bill for his greatest ego-trip, Connecting for Health: £22 billion pissed away on an IT programme that never connected, and nearly bankrupted our system of health provision.
The moderniser Blair (and his consultancy partner/shareholder Alastair ‘I made it all up’ Campbell) are supporting this time around is Owen Smith. Owen Smith has selflessly thrust himself forward in a determined effort to overturn the overwhelming election of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader by yet another stupid mob of ignorant voters.
And Smith now offers a double-whammy of courage in that he has this morning vowed to overturn the decision of all those scumfascistracistoldbigots to leave the European Union. Owen’s a game boy, you have to give him that: if elected leader, he is personally going to ensure that any attempt by the Mayflower crew to do the Will of the People will be blocked. Pretty much, by the sound of it, the way Nicola ‘Clitheroe’ Sturgeon said she was going to do it.
But Owen Smith is a tad vague about how he proposes to ensure that the will of the educated élite will prevail through the medium of his body here on Earth. His rhetoric is good: the rhetoric I like, it’s a very good rhetoric for the role:
“We will vote in Parliament to block any attempt to invoke Article 50 until Theresa May commits to a second referendum or a general election on whatever EU exit deal emerges at the end of the process.”
Er, that’s it. And the Conservative government has a majority of, um, 100 over Labour. Even if Smith got Sturgeon onside (and I for one would love to see him try) that still leaves 46 more votes for Mrs Mayormaynot.
But hey, maybe Smith is SuperpolMan. Maybe he can also manage to get what nobody has yet managed: the DWP and the Treasury to even engage with the Waspi women about the blatant theft of their 60-years promised State pensions. Because that’s how powerful he’s going to be if the sadly ignorant stupid Labour Party electorate is deranged enough to support his candidature above that of the 2015-elected Jeremy Corbyn.
Owen Smith has pledged to scrap the controversial ‘fit-for-work test’ for sick and disabled people if elected to government….but not for SPA victims denied their pensions
Owen Smith is not just pro-EU….he is in favour of more EU integration
Owen Smith wants a new and better way to kill people with nuclear weapons, and has thus consistently voted to replace Trident with ‘something better’.
Owen Smith has consistently voted against the encouragement of occupational pensions, but has no recorded view on what to do about SPA reforms
Owen Smith voted against all measures designed to reduce tax avoidance
He has always voted in favour of HS2
He has always voted against a cap on Civil Service redundancy payments
He has always voted against a cap on legal fees
He has generally voted against a statutory record of lobbyists and their interests
Was a huge fan of Brown’s disastrous Private Finance Initiative for the NHS
A very clear picture emerges here, and it’s called Blair2. Superstate, weapons sector, offshore wealth, private sector ripoffs, lawyer privileges bureaucrat perks, lobbying graft* and élite rail links….Owen’s very relaxed with all of it.
The bloke is standard issue, privilege-seeking corporate Statist. He has just four years experience as an MP.
*There are good reasons for this – Smith used to be a lobbyist for Pfizer.
The Slog 