Alastair Campbell famously declared on behalf of Tony Blair that "we don't do God". Jim Murphy on the other hand quite patently does and is seemingly available for Christenings, Weddings, Bar Mitzvahs, the lot.
However, his version of faith and how it fits into Politics has been dismissed in The Scotsman today by the Scottish Episcopal Church as 'shrinkwrapping' faith and 'the politics of the supermarket checkout'.
Murphy has very recent for of course and his clear attempts to gather up votes based on a person's faith does not just extend to the Christian and Catholic camps. Writing in the Jewish Chronicle (East Renfrewshire has the largest Jewish community and second largest Muslim community in Scotland), he urged people to stop blaming British Jews for what happens in Israel. Honestly, I had no idea that anyone was doing just that but apparently, according to the Secretary of State for Scotland, there is a "mind numbing stupidity" amongst us.
Fair enough if he is right and fair enough for Jim to write for the Jewish Chronicle but I just hope he doesn't feel the need to do so every 4 or 5 years when there's an election on.
In the article, where Jim notes that the SNP "have got themselves into some interesting company" in a depressing barb at Osama Saeed, he tries to finish with a funny, an apparently true story where two constituents, one Muslim and one Jewish, were complaining to Jim about the state of the roads while in the background a TV showed the latest depressing scenes from the Middle East. Jim's thoughts were 'Don't turn round'.
Very good Mr Murphy, I'm sure the Nobel Peace Prize awaits but in the meantime I would suggest leaving the cheap, brazen, even wanton overtures to the various faiths out there to one side.
Some things are better left to a higher power. And I don't mean Gordon.
Carla in bronze
5 minutes ago
22 comments:
There's clearly no murky depths to which Murphy and his chums in Labour won't dig to in their desperate scrabbling to garner votes when they start exploiting religion.
I would think that the Jewish community in Scotland would be insulted by this man's brazen attempt to claim that somehow his brand of politics is closer to their faith than any other.
I'm not sure Jim Murphy was quite so pro-Israeli as a student Labour activist...
Jim Murphy does God.
Who does he think he is? Alex Salmond?
Murphy says don't extrapolate things that are not there amongst Jews but then in the very same interview goes on to do what he condemns with a Muslim. His politics summed up.
Lets be frank, Jim Murphy is fast becoming Labour's biggest political liability with comments on immigration, only weeks before the tragic suicide of three Russians on the Glasgow North East constituency and his ill judged comments on faith and politics which has been followed bya prolonged rebuttal from all the major denominations.
Add to this the piece in the Times that actually links the two issues by citing the pressure on the UK Government Home Office to reverse a policy which may have driven the three Russian refugees in Glasgow to take their lives.
This has reportedly intensified yesterday when one of Scotland’s most senior Catholics spoke of the “anguish” of those made destitute before being expelled.
Mario Conti, Archbishop of Glasgow, demanded a “more compassionate” system, with “humane” treatment of those seeking refuge.
Murphy's coat was already on a shoogly peg and the signs seem to be pointing towards a tough election for Lang Shanks.
Greater clarification needs to be amde between Jim Murphy's comments as an MP and that as Secretary of State for Scotland.
That job entails listening to people, not preaching to them.
Murphy has demeaned the office of secretary of state with his often publicly funded attacks on opponents and causing anger amongst those in faith communities when there was none.
Anyone watching Scottish Questions (why don't you drop in for a visit Jeff?) will know just what a lightweight Murphy is.
Who will be next to have a go at Cardinal Murphy! Some lightning bolts perhaps, a plague of locusts, a veritable flood?
The best description of the Secretary of State Against Scotland that I have seen to date came from Richard Thompson who summed up Skeletor thus:
"In the end, I stopped puzzling over the nature of Mr Murphy’s dubious political attributes, and settled on his simply possessing a feral, mendacious cunning and a neck of brass;"
I heartily agree and regard him as a politician who will leave the bottom of no barrel unscraped.
New Labour needed an alternative source of financing than the unions in order to wrest control of the leadership and advance its market-oriented neoliberal agenda.
This revenue stream came from "Labour Friends of Israel" (lord Levy & Lord Sainsbury, etc) and was the "entryist" power behind the Blairites.
Jim Murphy was always on a knife edge in his constituency (he had not anticipated winning it) and one way to secure his position was through Labour Friends of Israel, because of the large Jewish population in his constituency. Therefore Murphy became a leader of Labour Friends of Israel in New Labour and advanced rapidly within the party while the Blairites were in the ascendancy. He has far less interest in muslims, as today's report observes, and his interest in Scottish Jews is based less on humanitarian grounds than on naked self-interest. In religious terms, he is of course much more interested in the papacy. As was noted in a report by Strathclyde University a couple of months ago, he is easily the most divisive Secretary of State for Scotland there has ever been, since the creation of the post in the nineteenth century.
If Jim Murphy speaks for Scotland in the Cabinet, how can he also promote the UK Government's policies in Scotland.
Exactly who in Scotland does he speak for?
If he is only accountable to Gordon Brown and the Scottish Select Committee which is dominated by Labour how do the public find out what he's telling the cabinet about Scotland?
Where are the consultations launched by Jim Murphy to hear what messages / issues Scots want him to get across at the UK Cabinet?
State of Scotland, as much I enjoy indulging in The banter that is Murphy-bashing, I agree with your more serious point. What is Murphy there to do?
I'm a self-confessed Politics nerd and even I don't know. Is there a mission statement on the Scotland Office website?
Religion and politics: an idiotic mixture.
We should leave the superstitious and "religious" to their scriptures and various skywizards. They are the last people we should be consulting on anything, with perhaps the exception of delusion.
he urged people to stop blaming British Jews for what happens in Israel. Honestly, I had no idea that anyone was doing just that but apparently,
Maybe he's thinking of Cllr. Terry Kelly. Or that place Joe90 hangs out. Or that piece of human dreck, John Pilger.
http://www.newstatesman.com/international-politics/2010/03/pilger-israel-rami-nurit
However, his fellow Jews in western countries, such as Britain and Australia, whose influence is critical, are still mostly silent, still looking away, still accepting, as Nurit said, the "brainwashing and reality distortion".
And yet the responsibility to speak out could not be clearer, and the lessons of history - family history for many - ensure that it renders them culpable should their silence persist.
The man is filth.
according to the Secretary of State for Scotland, there is a "mind numbing stupidity" amongst us.
Ably helped by someone who implies he was directing this against any population group, let alone Scots. What Murphy actually said was:
There is a kind of mind-numbing stupidity which says British Jews are somehow responsible for what happens in Israel.
Not remotely the same thing.
I am disappointed that Muslims do not criticise the extremist actions in briotain and abroad, and jews in britain by their silence condone what has happened in Israel and Palestine, ignoring the rights of millions of people.
Crazy that LEBENSRAUM is being carried out with such guile by Israel, with few complaints from the rest of the world. Somebody did similar 70 years ago in Czechoslovakia and look what happened.
They are big enough and ugly enough to big housing complexes in east Jerusalem, with little comment from the U.S. and their Zionist agenda politicians for the last 15 years.
I am sure many muslims are annoyed at the actions in pakistan where a christian man and a woman were jailed for 25 years for touching akoran without washing their hands, but the evidence is at best sketchy.
Tacit support in both communities means that yes, we do query the attitudes of both British Jews and British Muslims on some matters, albeit by their silence we assume tacit support, as we should.
You don't know what Lebensraum is, or sanity for that matter.
Are you any relation to Herman Goedsche, who used the pen-name of Sir John Retcliffe and wrote openly antisemitic novels which contributed to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion?
He has a point that too many people equate being Jewish with being Israeli. And of course many Israelis oppose the actions of the Israeli Government.
Example - Esther Sassaman, who is Osama's campaign manager. Not sure if she is Israeli or American. But she's Jewish.
And she's obviously doing rather too good a job for Labour's peace of mind, hence the dirty tricks campaign in Central.
He has a point that too many people equate being Jewish with being Israeli. And of course many Israelis oppose the actions of the Israeli Government.
By and large, they remain in support of the state of Israel, and don't fudge the difference between defense forces and terrorism.
Example - Esther Sassaman, who is Osama's campaign manager
That lunatic? Her only claim to any authority is her status as a Jew - in other words, she has none but merely thinks her opinions outrank those of everyone else.
Alec
Do you believe that Israel has commited any acts worthy of criticism?
I must admit there are not too many people gie me the heebies, but the opportunist Murph's glib knowing sneer as he tries to spin yet mair shite.........well how much kin a Koala bear?
I agree with Indy. To be a Jew does not mean that you are a Zionist, and even many Israeli citizens oppose the actions of the Israeli Government.
''Jews'' are not a homogenous group any more than ''Muslims'' are and we should stop using language which implies that they are.
Yes, Tony. D'you believe that British Jews are culpable, and that Pilger's unambiguous reworking of the dual loyalties, Wandering Jew calumny is appropriate?
This is what was behind Murphy's brainfart (to give you an idea of what I think of him). I follow these politics quite closely. I don't expect others to, but I do expect those expressing an opinion on them to have a working knowledge.
The great majority of Jews are Zionist to some extent. If those who ain't - and, boy, do they make it known - bases this position simply on their being a Jew (such as the nice-but-dim Alexei Sayle, whose Asajew speech was news to a lot of people), it points to a shallowness and self-regard.
They don't *hate* themselves (although, Gilad Atzmon as promoted on SPSC platforms is self-admitting self-hating Jew), but have a very high opinion of their right to countermand other Jews.
Right, back on topic... the rights or wrongs (or, more accurately, both) of Israeli policy were a side-issue.
What Murphy is doing is completely unremarkable for the Labour party, by seeking to bloc votes from so-called (religious/ethnic) communities. Although, this wheeze definitely is less repellent than Jeremy "I Never Met a Terrorist I Didn't Like" Corbyn, who has been doing it in Islington North for decades, depending on immigrant arrivals: starting with the Provos, then moving onto the PKK with Kurds, then LTTE with Tamils, and now Hamas or Hezbollah.
Basically, seizing on the most violent bunch of urban psychopaths he can find, and treating the various ethnic groups as ciphers. The rot there isn't in the British Labour movement - all parties attract nut-cases - but definitely is reflective of flaws in the local party systems.
A principal reason for the Tories not going down the same path is their electoral bases being outwith such areas which recently have received immigrants; and, as Mr. E suggests, a greater chance of political maturity (not necessarily the same as appropriate).
SNP-supporters shouldn't feel too complacent, considering the promotion of a Muslim Brotherhood-front organization.
I doubt this is going to make a difference, though (Jews are clever, dontchaknow). The racial arson of mince-for-brains local Labour figures like Terry Kelly aside, any electoral loses Murphy is going to take will be due to those mature politics.
Speaking of opportunism:
comments on immigration, only weeks before the tragic suicide of three Russians on the Glasgow North East constituency
Wake up and smell the coffee. That was down to a clearly psychotic individual making an entirely bogus claim for asylum in this country.
>>Alec, Do you believe that Israel has commited any acts worthy of criticism?
Yes...<<
Well well!
Seems to me that any Jews providing an opinion different to that of Zionism are either eedjits or self-haters. Alec, are you Scottish? because others may choose to test your veracity similarly as opposed to Scottish Nationalism. Not that we have stole other people's land a la Zionism, but the scope for application of the test is there.
>>..less repellent than Jeremy "I Never Met a Terrorist I Didn't Like" Corbyn..<<
Dis Jeremy actually say this or are you at the madam?
>>the Provos, then moving onto the PKK with Kurds, then LTTE with Tamils, and now Hamas or Hezbollah.<<
Are revolutionary or nationalistic groups automatically wrong in your world?
>>..Basically, seizing on the most violent bunch of urban psychopaths he can find..<<
Aye, much better to leech off the psychos who export war around the world and colonise other people's lands and appropriate their resources I reckon.
>>SNP-supporters shouldn't feel too complacent, considering the promotion of a Muslim Brotherhood-front organization.<<
I don't know about your labelling here, but don't the British government fund various dodgy Islamic groups with proven links to extremism?
>>..The racial arson of mince-for-brains local Labour figures like Terry Kelly aside..<<
whilst I don't neccesarilly agree with your take on him about Jews, I cannot fathom why people vote for this guy. Apart from the red rosette on a donkey theory.
Calamity Jim (Murphey) living up to his usual standards of inenptness.
...he urged people to stop blaming British Jews for what happens in Israel.
- Like everybody else, I don't blame British Jews for anythng.
Like everybody else I blame British Government foreign policy for what happens in Israel as they support it.
If I may, I'll address some of Alec's lies and smears on this thread, but in no particular order (much like Alec's thought patterns) -
They don't *hate* themselves (although, Gilad Atzmon as promoted on SPSC platforms is self-admitting self-hating Jew), but have a very high opinion of their right to countermand other Jews.
- It shouldn't come as any suprise that this is a straightforward lie by Alec.
The Scottish PSC invited Atzmon along to give a talk, which they subsequently denounced, and told him he was no longer welcome.
Another Alec lie is that Atzmon is a Jew. He isn't.
Alec claims,
SNP-supporters shouldn't feel too complacent, considering the promotion of a Muslim Brotherhood-front organization.
- As usual, Alec gives no proof, which makes this an islamophobic smear.
SNP-supporters don't support British Government foreign policy of supporting and enabling the violent racist war crimes regime of apartheid Israel. Alec fails to condemn the very real crimes of the British Government, opting instead, to concentrate on imaginary paranoid non-existenc islamophobic crimes.
That shouldn't suprise anyone familiar with Alec's modus operandi.
The great majority of Jews are Zionist to some extent. If those who ain't - and, boy, do they make it known - bases this position simply on their being a Jew ... it points to a shallowness and self-regard.
- Dear oh dear.
Jews who don't conform to Alec's stereotype of what it is to be a Jew are shallow and lacking self-regard.
Alec showing how antisemitic he actually is.
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