Letters to the Canary: give Sir Kid Starver a break, Huw Edwards, interest rates, and the death of Twitter
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This week’s letters
This week we have people’s thoughts on Keir ‘Sir Kid Starver’ Starmer, the Guardian‘s coverage of Huw Edwards, interest rates, and the ‘death’ of Twitter.
Sir Kid Starver: give him a break…?
As someone else has said, lets get Labour in and then start challenging them. Too much criticism now will feed into the Tory agenda. No, Labour are not perfect but they are the best hope we have to return this county to something approaching one that people can live in.
Anonymous, via email
I agree that the 2-child policy is a terrible policy, but if Starmer commits to abolishing it:
- Magic money tree headlines;
- What about the NEXT time Laura Kuenssberg asks the yes or no question about another horrible Tory policy, and the left then jumps on him for abolishing THAT?
And so on…
Read on...
Support us and go ad-freeI continue to trust that if Starmer gets in, he will take steps to mitigate child poverty.
The danger is that you will persuade enough people not to bother to vote, and we will end up with another five years of the Bastard Party.
Anonymous, via email
I know what I am posting is old news, but I cannot resist this opportunity to tell the once Red Wall – now Blue Wall – working-class Tories and the rest of the English voters “I TOLD YOU WHAT WOULD HAPPEN” when you listened to Labour’s right-wing and ‘Boris the Mad’.
Jeremy Corbyn has been vindicated on every libelous slander made against him; Margaret Hodge should be thrown out of the Lords; Maureen Lipman should never be heard from again, and there should never be a right-wing faction in the Labour Party or trade unions. Labour was not formed to join hands with big business and pander to the rich. Good, decent, hard-working people have died fighting for the workers cause. Great people have given this group of islands named Britain the most precious gift: the NHS.
Now, at 71 years old I look on horrified as first Blair, then Brown, then Cameron and Clegg, then May, then Johnson, and finishing with a Tory Leader who is ‘Richy Rich’. All of them have told poverty-stricken families and individuals they will have to tighten their belts – and all of them have played their part in the privatisation of the NHS. Blair, Brown and Darling also presided over a criminal raid on private pensions.
I take great pleasure in telling all you English working class who voted Tory, and voted to leave the EU, and all you Scottish unionists who voted to remain in the dis-United Kingdom: I TOLD YOU SO!
Patrick Mcqueenie, via email
The Guardian: selective outrage?
Guardian typically getting into a lather about the injustice of the Huw Edwards persecution, whilst blithely drawing a veil over leading the witch hunt that destroyed Jeremy Corbyn’s opposition. What was it about the 2017 manifesto that the Guardian disliked? After the EHRC report found little evidence of antisemitism in Labour, why did the Guardian continue with its unfounded and bigoted campaign?
Alan Marsden, via email
Bank of England: illiterate capitalism?
Can anyone, politician, economist or journalist, please explain why the Bank of England and the government insist on raising interest rates to reduce inflation when that inflation is currently driven by high interest rates? And perhaps explain at the same time how raising interests rates, effective only against excessive money supply, is expected to control high energy and other commodity prices, none of which are the result of excessive money supply?
Andrew McLauchlin, via email
Reaction to a Canary Lowdown on the ‘death’ of Twitter
This is the shittest mailout I have ever read.
Are you literally unable to be exposed to a platform where there are various view points shared, or where you may actually be accountable for what you write or what articles you share?
You and publications like yours, and the Guardian, allow no comments and no discourse. You exist in an echo chamber where you think you are an alternative. Meanwhile, being totally unwilling to be exposed to anybody that might disagree with you.
Twitter is fully open and available for all people to post from all sides and have their ideas exposed and responded to in an unfiltered way.
In that, you may see that you are not actually so alternative and you may have to be accountable more for what you share.
In the past I appreciated left-wing publications such as yours – but none of you are willing any longer to actually stand up and be accountable.
Anonymous, via email
ED: Erk. That’s us told.
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“You and publications like yours, and the Guardian, allow no comments and no discourse”
Well, your letter was published here.
As for The Guardian, that’s partly true. I’m temporarily under pre-moderation for commenting more than once under George Monbiot’s articles drawing attention to his refusal to write a single word about Julian Assange. The Guardian, as is not widely enough known, played a central role (along with Sir Keir Rodney Starmer KCB KC) in helping Mr Assange move home into his present location in HMP Belmarsh.
And yet my letters and comments are not only not published, they’re removed. Don’t pretend that the Canary accepts critical comments and discourse. It doesn’t. Just like the Guardian. You disagree with the Party Line, you’ll get censored. Just like Labour.
I would tend to agree, even though your comments are filled with hate; you should be allowed to express your hatred. All political sides like to censor those who disagree with them – Open Democracy banned me for disagreeing with its pro-NATO stance on Ukraine; the ‘socialist’ Rainer Shea banned me for querying his pro-DPRK government claims…
By “filled with hate”, I take it you mean “filled with arguments you have no answer to, and so try to divert attention from that by smearing me as a bigot”. As is usual with TRAs. You have no arguments that a sane person can accept, hence you always go for ad hominem attacks. You have nothing else.
Anyway, thanks for agreeing me over The Canary‘s use of censorship, despite our disagreements on other things.
This letter may have been published, but it’s not about a specific topic. A few weeks ago I read a fine comment on one an article about Tran’s rights which was removed the next day. It leaves me wondering what other comments were removed before I saw them.
Having noticed comments related to Tran’s rights being removed, I wonder what the Trans rights activists are trying to hide? I also wonder what comments relating to other topics are being removed?
Andrew McLauchlin, fine comment.
Airlane, I’ve had comments removed as well, enough to write stinky comments back and have the finger hovering over cancel subs. It’s only genuine liberals who avoid censorship religiously. The left as well as the right have the Xian notion that denying a voice to those who disagree removes the disagreeability.
What happened to Andrew McLauchlin’s Comment? Was it removed?
“Twitter is open to everybody” my Arse.
I’ve been using it for years and only weeks after its multi-billionaire takeover I was permanently suspended.
Appeals requesting evidence of what tweet/rules I’d broken/posted were ignored. Just the repeated Bot response “after careful consideration you have been..blah blah blah”
Even worse subsequent attempted appeals responded to with the childish picture of a rubber plucked chicken dog toy.
I have renamed it Twatter after the twst that bought it
“Twitter is open to everybody” my Arse.
I’ve been using it for years and only weeks after its multi-billionaire takeover I was permanently suspended.
Appeals requesting evidence of what tweet/rules I’d broken/posted were ignored. Just the repeated Bot response “after careful consideration you have been..blah blah blah”
Even worse subsequent attempted appeals responded to with the childish picture of a rubber plucked chicken dog toy.
The joke is a sick one, and sadly so is Twitter.
The reason central banks raise interest rates to control inflation, is to reduce money supply in the economy. In very basic terms, too much money chasing too few goods, leads to inflation. I would admit it’s a very crude tool, but it’s the only one available to central banks at times like this. Printing more money is hugely inflationary, we are now suffering the consequences of quantitive easing, which is effectively the printing of money. Large wage increases for large groups of workers is also very inflationary, which is why pay increases must be below the prevailing rate of inflation. I’m afraid if it isn’t hurting, it isn’t working.
You sound like a Tory government minister. It won’t be hurting them, they are all millionaires.
“Give Kid Starver/Starmer whatever a Chance”
Give him a chance? He’s HAD his chance. He’s broken all his pledges to members.
The main thing imo is that he treats people badly. His treatment of members is inconsistent, he has allowed a culture of bullying and (going on the Labour files) a kind of thuggery. Releasing of Forde on the hottest day last year, seemingly pompous, self important pronouncements by certain NEC members, the gloating over Left Jewish ppl being suspended, I cd go on forever. Today’s treatment of members, the silencing, the pure nastiness of some of his louts, would be his treatment of dissenting ppl tomorrow. As I say, he has had his chance.
So, no thanks Keir. My vote has to be earned. A politician’s job to attract, it’s not a voter’s job to be attracted. Yes, the tories treat ppl badly, but treating your own badly isn’t the answer.
Go now.