He’s a cock, but his election will certainly annoy all the right people.
Update: ‘Pete’ at Little Green Soccer Balls says, "The East End has embraced a racist, fascist admiring creep. This says a lot about the people who have moved into the East End, and their moral compas[s]". And he probably doesn’t get the irony, either.
Annoy is not the word, not the word at all. Disgust is more like it. Oh well, at least Nick Griffin lost, even if he got 4000 votes alarmingly close to my constituency.
You’re not often wrong John and you’re not wrong this time. Intellectually I am aware that GG is the most horrendous crook and knobber but you would have to have a heart of stone not to chuckle.
Heart of stone duly declared here then. And John, don’t pay attention to the right-wing trolls in the Harry’s Place comments boxes, it just encourages them.
In fairness to "Pete", he might be referring to the City-boy/Shoreditch Twat demographic who are quite well-represented in BGB rather than our mates the Muslims.
"the City-boy/Shoreditch Twat demographic" – Dsquared
I’m afraid to say that while I understand each word of that, the whole thing means absolutely nothing to me!
Basically the area round Spitalfields market has become (a bit) gentrified. There have been loads and loads of new flats developments. These are snapped up by 1) workers in the City of London looking for a pad within walking distance of work, and 2) trust fund kids and their parents who "work" in the arts-and-new-media cluster around Hoxton square. Group 1) are the "City Boys" and group 2) are the "Shoreditch Twats", named after the satiric lifestyle magazine of that name. Sorry if that was a bit gnomic; I’m still hung over.
Nathan Barley is the traditional example of someone in Group 2.
I guess I’m another candidate for cardiac petrification, D2. (I didn’t find much to chuckle about in Oswald Mosley or Guy Burgess, either.)
Fair does, but I’d expect that both groups would vote mainly for the Tories. Or maybe not vote in the case of 2).
Little Green Soccer Balls? Fantastic, you nailed it. (And GG nailed them!)
I didn’t find much to chuckle about in Oswald Mosley or Guy Burgess, either
Me neither but I suspect that if Oliver Kamm had been around in those days things might have turned out differently.
A colleague of mine said earlier that she was glad Galloway had won because he was a thorn in the side of Tony Blair. I replied that any BNP wins would also have been thorns in Blair’s side, but that was no reason to wish for them. And there, I’ve just said it again.
For the matter of that, D2, I’m sure BNP gains would piss Oliver off just as much as the Bow result, if not more. Can we conclude that part of you was secretly longing for that as well? Go and have a look at Lenin’s Tomb — check out your fellow-chucklers.
What a stupid bloody series of comments from Jimmy Doyle.
Oswald Mosley arrived in the East End to attack immigrants. Galloway arrived to defend them. See the difference?
Oh right Meaders; my mistake. Thanks for setting me straight.
For the matter of that, D2, I’m sure BNP gains would piss Oliver off just as much as the Bow result, if not more
Really? I’ve not seen much textual evidence for this. Going by the ratio of posts on his website, I would assume that a Galloway win would piss him off approximately ten times as much.
In any case, I’m apparently much less scared than the rest of the blogosphere by the Big Bad BNP. As far as I can see, of all the things that British fascists might be doing with their time, electoral campaigning is about the least harmful. Furthermore, it’s not just a matter of people off; if Mrs Kamm turned out to be shagging the milkman then I would imagine that would piss Oliver off greatly but would give me no particular pleasure. The point about Galloway winning is that those people who it winds up are, in general, being wound up for the right reason; that reason being that they had invested a great deal of their self-esteem in a particularly irritating and self-righteous approach to a contentious political issue, and backed the wrong horse.
I’ve got a post up on Crooked Timber if you want to be a bit more saddened and disappointed, btw, Jimmy.
Jimmy – no problem, I imagine you had just been lead astray by foolish remarks from the likes of Nick Cohen. That various apparent liberals can’t tell the difference between racism and opposing racism is a little worrying.
Worse yet when they contrive to present the only significant party standing in BG&B not playing up to "communalism" as doing precisely that. Compare any of Respect’s public statements or its literature with, say, New Labour’s claim in "white" areas that Galloway was "stirring it up" amongst the Bengali community, or New Labour’s use of two different leaflets – one mentioning Muslims repeatedly, the other not – for different parts of the constituency. Fortunately, none of these unpleasant and divisive tricks worked.
No, Nathan Barley isn’t a twat, he’s something else …