Monday, August 21, 2006

Nick Cohen is in the bar

The Eustonites want people to share a glass of chardonnay with them (or maybe five or six glasses). From the text of the flyer:

Politics or Polenta? What are you here for?

Come & talk politics with the Euston Manifesto Group

Join us for a drink & a chat. Discuss left internationalism, human rights, global labour, two states , humanitarian intervention, the Euston Manifesto and what we should be doing next...

In the bar will be Nick Cohen, Gisela Stuart, Greg Pope, Lord Soley, Norman Geras, Eve Garrard,Alan Johnson & Jane Ashworth.


Two states? Inebriation and sobriety? Madness and sanity? Barbarism and civilization?

The text on the back explaining the EM is curious too:

This alternative left remembers the heritage of anti-Stalinism that kept critical discourse alive in the 1930s and 1940s.

Which translates as "some of us used to be Trots."

It also tells us (in the space of one side of A4)

We took differing views of the war in Iraq.

Around half of us opposed the Iraq war.

and

Many of us opposed the war in Iraq ....

Why on earth do they need to tell us that three times?

And there's a curious semi-reference to Amartya Sen:

We take seriously the idea that development is freedom.

Sen's title, of course, is "Development as Freedom". The claim that development simply is freedom is not one that he'd agree with for a moment.

If any Aarowatch reader fancies going down to "Beluga", 2 Mount Street, Manchester
on Wednesday 27th September from 7pm onwards, we'd be glad of a report.

9 Comments:

Blogger Matthew said...

It's almost as if her conscience kept niggling away at her:

"We took differing views of the war in Iraq."

Mmm...might be more true to say "Around half of us opposed the Iraq war"

Ah, in fact:"Many of us opposed the war in Iraq"

If she'd had not run out of space I suspect she would have finally owned up to reality, which is of the 8 people mentioned as being in the bar, six supported the war and two didn't (assuming Eve Garrard did, it's hard to tell).

8/21/2006 11:53:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Gisela Stuart and Lord Soley are the first indications of Parliamentary support for Eustonia.

For those not familiar with Ms Stuart, she is a very, very right-wing Labour MP who recently praised the Geoffrey Howe budget of 1981 (see), argued that the modifications to the recent Education Bill were the only parts of the bill she didn't support, and was the only Labour MP to publicly back George Bush for re-election in 2004.

From the linked article:

"In a sense, the operation of the markets is a peaceful way of facilitating revolution whereby outsiders are allowed in, vested interests are challenged and the old is replaced by the new. That is why our Prime Minister faces such opposition to his - in my view, too tentative - reforms to education, health and other areas of the public sector from the unions."

8/21/2006 12:25:00 PM  
Blogger Matthew said...

And Greg Pope.

Eve Garrard unsurprisingly did support the war, so it is 6 for, 2 against.

She must mean the signatories, though if the ratio of war supporters to opponents in those is not higher than 6:2 I'd be very surprised.

8/21/2006 01:04:00 PM  
Blogger Captain Cabernet said...

Indeed. On Stuart see:

http://tinyurl.com/qhunj

"Miss Stuart claimed that a Kerry victory over President George W. Bush would prompt "victory celebrations among those who want to destroy liberal democracies".

Writing in The House Magazine, the parliamentary journal, the Labour MP for Birmingham Edgbaston wrote: "More terrorists and suicide bombers would step forward to become martyrs in their quest to destroy the West.""

8/21/2006 01:41:00 PM  
Blogger Simon said...

I've just looked at the flyer. *Far* too much text on the back, and the content itself is the sort of horrible verbose rubbish which characterised the manifesto itself. At least the leaflets produced by the Stop the War Coalition actually make tangible statements about events happening in the real world. Perhaps the Eustonians should ask them for advice.

8/21/2006 06:13:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh come on FB, free chardonnay. And I want to ask Jane Ashworth what she ever saw in Paul McCartney.

8/21/2006 08:02:00 PM  
Blogger Sonic said...

Here is the bar

http://www.belugaonline.co.uk/online/index.php?site=manchester§ion=user_section0&page=23

Looks like an ideal place for horny handed sons of toil like Nick.

8/23/2006 12:40:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

It's not far off the Marble ARch on Rochdale Road. Now there's a pub...

rioja kid

8/23/2006 06:21:00 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

is anyone up for organising a rival event?

8/27/2006 12:31:00 AM  

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