Two left wing loonies are due to meet at City Hall in London this morning when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez visits Ken Livingstone. City Hall security staff have apparently banned Chavez opponents from City Hall. The news came after leader of the London Assembly Conservatives, Bob Neill, refused today's lunch with President Chavez and instead invited Venezuelan refugees to City Hall. The meeting between Bob and the refugees was due to start at 9:00am, but security are refusing to admit the dissidents. Bob Neill said: "Ken Livingstone says that part of the purpose of this visit was to learn from the 'Venezuelan Experience' particularly in the field of 'democratic participation', it seems he has already learned a few tricks!" Ken Livingstone always did have a tenuous grip on what democracy means. Remember his putsch in the mid 1980s when he overthrew Andrew McIntosh?
Monday, May 15, 2006
Red Ken Shows His True Colours
Two left wing loonies are due to meet at City Hall in London this morning when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez visits Ken Livingstone. City Hall security staff have apparently banned Chavez opponents from City Hall. The news came after leader of the London Assembly Conservatives, Bob Neill, refused today's lunch with President Chavez and instead invited Venezuelan refugees to City Hall. The meeting between Bob and the refugees was due to start at 9:00am, but security are refusing to admit the dissidents. Bob Neill said: "Ken Livingstone says that part of the purpose of this visit was to learn from the 'Venezuelan Experience' particularly in the field of 'democratic participation', it seems he has already learned a few tricks!" Ken Livingstone always did have a tenuous grip on what democracy means. Remember his putsch in the mid 1980s when he overthrew Andrew McIntosh?
Chavez has been overwhelming democratically elected about 7 times (despite fierce local media opposition) and Ken Livingstone enjoys the largest personal mandate of any British politician.
ReplyDeleteYeah, right. And Saddam Hussein won elections with 99% of the vote too. It's not hard to win elections when you control the media, the polls, the judiciary and the security forces!
ReplyDeleteHey Iain
ReplyDeleteGo steady with the Chavez demonisation stuff. The guy does have a massive popular mandate in his own country; likewise Evo Morales in Bolivia - and as far as I can see the West has only itself to blame.
Let's face it - nobody, including the US would give a toss about Venezuela if it weren't for its oil. Similar story in Iraq.
It's high time the West recognised that no sovereign states is obliged to subscribe to the globalisation orthodoxy that REQUIRES them to engage in trade on terms that they consider unfair.
Blairs finger wagging at him to behave 'responsibly' over oil is simply code for "maximize your production; forget about depletion; and don't worry about foreign control of your assets - after all we have your interests at heart". Chavez can be forgiven for responding 'Pull the other one it's got bells on". Chavez, Putin, the world and his dog see quite clearly the bind that the West is in over production limited energy supplies and depletion. They are going to use that knowledge to further their own interests, not ours - and why shouldn't they? It's what we've been doing for the best part of a couple of centuries.
I don't think demonisation is the most effective way to counter those inconvenient facts.
But then again I suppose none of that plays too well with UK self-interest does it?
Red Ken is another matter
Sabretche, I'd love to know where I have demonised Chavez. I was making the point that Livingstone is denying his political opponents fredom of movement and speech. Do you support that?
ReplyDeleteKen has such disregard for the institutions of democracy that we have no option but to mount a coup and bring Steve Norris to power. Perhaps Pinochet could lend a hand?
ReplyDelete" I'd love to know where I have demonised Chavez"
ReplyDeleteYep, fair point; except that "Two left wing loonies" does rather set the tone.
Granted, it's likely to be a popular one here too; but like I say, Chavez does have huge popular mandate, achieved in the face of enormous covert efforts by the US to thwart him - hannibal's comment notwithstanding.
I reckon the West is going to have to learn to deal with inconvenient things like that some other way, that's all
Ken Livingstone became GLC leader in 1981, hardly the mid-1980s! The "putsch" was a constitutional leadership election for a newly-elected Labour Group.
ReplyDeleteThe mid-1980s was when Margaret Thatcher arbitrarily abolished an institution that was voted in by a large democratic mandate.
With their less than nuanced attitudes to Israel and Jewry, Chavez and Livingstone make fine ideological partners.
ReplyDeleteI've no time for Livingstone, but by your reckoning John Major and Michael howard also came to lead the Tory Party via a "putsch" - what goes around comes around.
ReplyDeleteIt says something about the left that when Latin America is electing numerous constitutional left wing leaders such as in Brazil and Chile, they choose to fetishise a Castro wannabe thug with no respect for democratic methods.
ReplyDeleteWhat's not always apparent is how divided the Venezuelan electorate is, and I'm not convinced that it's a rich/poor split. I had a conversation with a taxi driver over there, and he was virtually in tears, denouncing Chavez as a criminal. Coverage of Chavez over here is coloured by his hatred of Bush. It makes it easy for the liberal media to promote the Chavez cause, as Bush-hatred is the great fig-leaf for any dodgy regime the world over. As for Ken, he appears desperate to ratchet up his leftist credentials, partly, I think because he knows his number's up at the next mayoral election - assuming of course, the Tories can muster something approaching an electable candidate.
ReplyDeleteChavez is nothing more than a thug and a particularly lucky one at that.
ReplyDeleteIf it were not for record high oil prices, allowing him to splash money around, he would be long gone.
As for democratic mandate, does Sabretche believe that it is ok to tread all over political opponents just because you won an election?
Democracy is what the people vote for not what the western powers think the people would be well advised to vote for (even if, as occasionaly happens, the latter are right).
ReplyDeleteAnybody can support democracy when it comes up with the answers they like, as with free speech, the test is defending what you disagree with.
Of course you can always say that their media don't give the same unbiased coverage of Chavez, Putin, Milosevic that ours do?
Chavez did not win 'an' election... he has won seven of them with increasing majorities each time. As for hannibal's ludicrous point that Chavez controls the media, 95% of the Venezuelan media is privately owned and launches daily tirades against Chavez, including calls for a coup to overthrow him (see how long you last in the US if you try advocatring force against the Government). There is no media censorship; only 2 TV channels have closed in the last 5 years (by the opposition so lauded by the Tories during THEIR attempted military coup in 2002).
ReplyDeleteChavez is a threat to the US... he believes in democracy, improving education, building homes, fair trade not free trade and a just distribution of the national wealth.
Bastard, eh?
Regardless of one's views about President Chavez - surely the point here is Ken Livingstone. He cannot be entitled to ban Chavez' opponents from City Hall.
ReplyDeleteDemocracy means people are entitled to their views even if other people don't agree with them. This is the part Livingstone has trouble with, and I think that was the point you were making, Iain.
{95% of the Venezuelan media is privately owned}
ReplyDeleteThe government owns at least two television stations and the vast majority of radio stations in the country.
{launches daily tirades against Chavez}
Why shouldn't they?
{including calls for a coup}
Hugo Chavez is well known for his principle opposition to coups isn't he?
Rossf there is no reason why the virtual private monopoly of the Venezuelan Media should not call for a coup, which is why I didn't say there was. The point I was answering was hannibal's banal assertion the Chavez 'controlled the media'. If that were so, he would be even more enthusiastic for the concept of a coup than even you imagine if he was calling for one against himself.
ReplyDeleteAs for Ken, as eldude says, he was properly elected in a constitutional GLC leadership election, the likes of which take place in virtually every council group in the country after an election. since then, he has frequetly wiped the floor with every patsie the Tories, Lib dems, and yea, even Labour have put up against him, and when he rubs the Tories noses in it.... well,
don't ya just love him.
I was standing in the street when the dark cars passed by, replete with outriders. You can always tell a dodgy head of state by the amount of gold braid worn on uniforms by their officials. There was half a hundred weight of military types with meadls and ribbons.
ReplyDeleteReally do not know what Ken is up to but I am sure he somtimes does these things just to annoy as many as possible. Not sure the UK has much to learn about democratic participation from Venezuela.
Chavez won because the opposition pulled out after evidence emerged that the electronic voting was being rigged; the media in Venezuela is controlled; private property has been seized by the government and contracts ignored.
ReplyDeleteAs for Red Ken's enormous mandate, the turn-out for Mayoral elections never exceeds 35 per cent.
Incidentally, the other things Ken wants to learn from Venezuela are energy and environmental policies. That would be 3 cents for a litre of petrol (about 8p per gallon), which is being enforced on all garages and petrol stations. Is dear old Ken going to go along with that? Oh, one more thing, about half of those garages have said they intend to close quite soon, as they cannot afford to keep in business under Chavez's enlightened government.
Just in case you wanted to know who went to the rally for Chavez I grabbed a shot on the way by.
ReplyDeleteAnd now, so efficient is Chavez at running his oil industry Venezuela is importing 100,000 barrels per day of Russian oil. http://news.ft.com/cms/s/212f6658-d63e-11da-8b3a-0000779e2340.html
ReplyDeleteNo matter what people say about the merits of Chavez, or Morales in Bolivia, the fact is past governments have let down appallingly large segments of the population.
ReplyDeleteEncounter a Bolivian child of about 10 off to get the goats. We're at 4200 metres, it's winter there, though it's just north of the tropic, and so it's cold, but he's wearing beach flip flops which are disintegrating and is dressed in rags. Earlier that day, we'd left the border with Argentina. At the crossing point are thousands of Bolivians 'trans-shipping' cargo from trucks in Argentina on their backs. They get a Boliviano if they're lucky. And sweeping through the tide of 'indigenos' is a large, plush Mercedes, off-roader - a Chelsea tractor even - bearing the white, european elite, up there from Santa Cruz for who knows what reason.
Our 'alternative' has patently failed the vast majority of people in these countries. Our anti-Chavez arguments are rendered bankrupt even if they have some merit, as a result. We can't criticise the populations of Bolivia or Venezuela for their choice, and if they believe in the (myth?) of Chavez, it's much more our fault than theirs for our ignoring them and failing them for at least half a century.
eu-serf: "As for democratic mandate, does Sabretche believe that it is ok to tread all over political opponents just because you won an election? "
ReplyDeleteMy life and the community I belong to is practically defined by hunting with hounds which is far more integral to both than, for example football is likely to be to Iain, or the most ardent football fan. So don't talk to me about being trampled all over by an elective dictatorship. I reckon I've probably had far more first-hand experience of that than most.
It never ceases to amaze me the way political debate in this country degenrates into tribal right/left animosity. I'm clearly pigeon-holed as an ally of Bob Piper for example. Yet the implacable hatred I have for the Labour party, and in particular it's vacuous Pontius Pilate of a leader and the corrupt Scottish Mafia that control it, because of what they have done to my life and the farming community, is now visceral. It will never be forgotten and unlikely ever to be forgiven.
So just be a bit careful with your petty-minded assumptions.
Ken- you really can't make it up.
ReplyDelete1)"Ken Livingstone enjoys the largest personal mandate of any British politician"...Ken polled 685,000 first choice votes out of London's 5.2 million electorate. Even including second choices, he still only got a "mandate" from 18% of the electorate.
2) WTF is he doing spending our money entertaining Latin American presidentes? How does that help Londoners?( see- http://www.mayor-of-london.co.uk/blog/2006/05/what_benefit_to_londoners_is_t.html )
He already spends £100 grand a year on his St Patricks Day nonsense and £30 grand a year on cabs and....grrr.
sabretche - I thank god, or whoever, from the bottom of my heart... you are not an ally of mine. I've enough problems with those who think they are, without other tosspots jumping on the bandwagon.
ReplyDeleteBloody hell, Bob Piper. Bet you're a bundle of joy to work with.
ReplyDeleteGood to see I pulled Bribe Pop's chain then. That bandwagon of yours is clearly overloaded with wannabe Bribe-Pop fans. You'll just have to get a bigger and better one to accomodate them all eh?
ReplyDeleteAnd talking of Toss-Pots, shouldn't you be having second thoughts about Aston Villa?
Ken Livingstone always did have a tenuous grip on what democracy means. Remember his putsch in the mid 1980s when he overthrew Andrew McIntosh?
ReplyDeleteCome again?
Ken was elected leader of the Labour Group on the GLC because more people voted for him than voted for McIntosh. Isn't that exactly what democracy is?
I support Chavez for one reason and one reason only - he is prepared to stand up for his country's best interests. That's something I wish Blair would learn to do.
ReplyDeleteI support Chavez for one reason and one reason only - he is prepared to stand up for his country's best interests. That's something I wish Blair would learn to do.
ReplyDeleteMake that:
he is prepared to stand up for Hugo Chavez's best interests.
He is completely screwing up his country on the back of an oil windfall. When the price falls, which it certainly will, the nation whose best interests he is standing up for will be completely bankrupt.
"He is completely screwing up his country on the back of an oil windfall."
ReplyDeleteOr, re-phrased, "She is completely screwing up the country on the back of an oil windfall."
Now... who could that be.
I am puzzled by the ridiculously named kingbongo's assertion that I like chips as much as Ian McCartney (which I seriously doubt looking at Ian's waistline). What in god's name has that got to do with anything... I think it shows that kingbongoman has a very high nastiness factor.
I think I'll go home and cry now I'm not liked by a bongoman.
I presume these are the adjectives that spring to mind when you look in the mirror every morning.
ReplyDeletekingbongo... now, that's what a call a shining wit... or was it a whining....