Comments on Tory Bear - right-wing political gossip: Movement for Strange

"every single Future Leader(it's just a c...

2010-09-16T09:14:09.980+01:00

"every single Future Leader(it's just a collective name - no big deal!)"

Sounds very Hitler Jungen, but then is that a surprise as we are dealing with but another cheek on the red arse of socialism.

@ Liza "Elitism's out wherever David Mil...

2010-09-09T13:12:00.316+01:00

@ Liza
"Elitism's out wherever David Miliband's concerned!"

Haha! Do you really beleive that? Oh my... DM is only an MP becuase his father was a marxist intellectual. His own BROTHER will get the ledaership if he doesn't. Wise up.

@ Liza "Elitism's out wherever David Mil...

2010-09-09T13:09:30.731+01:00

@ Liza
"Elitism's out wherever David Miliband's concerned!"

Did you really say that? Oh my.. DM is only an MP becuase his father was a marxist intellectual. His own BROTHER will get the ledaership if he doesn't. Wise up.

TB - are you sure you attended the correct meeting...

2010-09-09T11:45:25.883+01:00

TB - are you sure you attended the correct meeting? - sounds like you wandered into an Alpha Course get-together by mistake.

@ Liza
"Plus, jealousy is an ugly trait"

So says the brainwashed, middle-class hating Socialist.

"I can assure you I am nobody special,..."

Well, at least we can agree on something.

@ Rachel
"Am I being used?..."

You bet...

FB

Very entertaining post - you deserve a mention in ...

2010-09-09T07:33:34.568+01:00

Very entertaining post - you deserve a mention in despatches for putting yourself through that - must have been some schadenfreud involved.

Interesting to hear that Milliband is trying to grab the big society narrative. 13 years late.

Also paints a depressing picture of the 'cult' techniques that have crept into British Politics, we shouldn't pretend the Tories are entirley immune from that either.
Anyway - good stuff.

Very entertaining article. Quite illuminating, th...

2010-09-09T07:26:43.672+01:00

Very entertaining article. Quite illuminating, though sadly not surprising. The cult style tactics are becoming a depressing feature of politics (and we shouldn't pretend that we're entirely immune from all of that in the Conservatives). Does look like he is trying to claim the 'Big Society' narrative and I like your metaphor about us not really pulling the pin on that grenade. Good Stuff.

Not every single Future Leader(it's just a col...

2010-09-09T01:12:27.621+01:00

Not every single Future Leader(it's just a collective name - no big deal!) attended because we are allowed to have our own lives at the same time and be away on the last Bank Hol of the Summer! Loads couldn't make it such as 6 of my CLP members of ALL ages who'd done the training also! Stop being so pathetic/negative.
And no we don't have snr,jnr,execs - everybody's the same it's no competetion! Elitism's out wherever David Miliband's concerned, think you may have to read up on his campaign! This is why he's the Uniter of the Labour Party, and why it's all working!
Very well said Rachel btw - the truth!
@Tory Bear LMAO "name-checked"! I can assure you I am nobody special, just an enthusiastic supporter who will always fight for what I believe in.
It's not bullshit, it's genuine support from people who believe in the Movement For Change and have huge gratitude towards David because he made it accessible to the many not just the elite few < DM quote and true.
And he's bringing people together - which is another unbroken promise from his campaign.
The event was probably strange to you because you only went for the day and hadn't actually experienced the training months prior to it and seen the potential of just how much anyone can do.
To Ash, pyramid selling is one way to describe it I suppose but a "movement" fits it better cos it's coming from the people completely voluntarily.
Yes David's street-cred is doing very well out of it all, but he was gobsmacked when he walked in - I don't actually think he envisaged such a great response tbh, but was overwhelmingly inspired by us all, you saw the passion and fighting talk come out in his speech. So what if the audience got excited, better than being a miserable sceptical Tory Party, eh!
@Tory Bear do check my pictures on FB/Twitter all ages were present - where were you sitting?
Back tomorrow no doubt, after my first day at college.
Liza :-)

I've looked at the Church's website. That ...

2010-09-08T22:07:34.112+01:00

I've looked at the Church's website. That is as new age as you get. Granted, new age churches claim they are reverting to the practice of the primitive church, but last time I looked this was equally claimed by the Lutherans, Baptists, Calvinists and Orthodox Churches. They can't all be right.

Oh, and I clicked on the "Doctrinal basis" section. Have they rewritten the Apostles' Creed in management speak? And the rest of their website; Cell based church? Trans-denominational? And is that the word FISH I see along the side of their Vision statement (it was a bad enough pun in the original Greek.)?

Yet you have the nerve to wonder why people at this event seemed so enthusiastic. These are the latter day Pharisees; what else do you expect from an event at the self-important Emmanuel Evangelical Church.

from Rachel "Every single photo discredits w...

2010-09-08T20:15:41.545+01:00

from Rachel

"Every single photo discredits what you said. Look at the albums on facebook and flickr from the event and you shall see the age of the people attending."

Well, clearly, your definition of "old" and my definition of "old" are very different. If you were expecting a room full of teenagers then, well yes, people were "old". If, on the other hand, you were expecting a cross-section of Labour Party activists then your portrayal of the event as being somehow packed with geriatrics is very wide of the mark:

https://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/photo.php?pid=558096&fbid=1285310871306&op=7&o=global&view=global&subj=136513229694935&id=1786189312

https://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/photo.php?pid=558074&fbid=1285304391144&op=7&o=global&view=global&subj=136513229694935&id=1786189312

https://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/photo.php?pid=557967&fbid=1285285230665&op=7&o=global&view=global&subj=136513229694935&id=1786189312

https://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/photo.php?pid=557960&fbid=1285282870606&op=7&o=global&view=global&subj=136513229694935&id=1786189312

https://www.facebook.com/home.php?#!/photo.php?pid=557911&fbid=1285265630175&op=7&o=global&view=global&subj=136513229694935&id=1786189312

In 1997 the AVERAGE age of tory Party members was 65. I'd put the average age of this audience at less than 40.

Am I being used? Not really. I turned up, got some training, listened to some speeches and went away again. It was really very easy. Not every political activist is in it for their own careers y'know. Some of us just want to help our local communities.

Left-wing politics is a pseudo religion to these &...

2010-09-08T16:34:33.450+01:00

Left-wing politics is a pseudo religion to these "Community" types. Look up the cult of Gerry Healy.

@ Liza & Rachel, you are being used as a party apparatchiks to further the political career of DM and furthermore, you are not a "future leaders" despite whatever the paramilitary club you belong to has told you.

It all sounds like some sort of pyramid scheme tbh.

Ha! Comical in the telling, no doubt painful to ex...

2010-09-08T16:26:42.669+01:00

Ha! Comical in the telling, no doubt painful to experience first-hand, though.

Bless you for enduring the astro-turfing efforts, TB.

CAPTCHA code word verification = toryo

Ah the famous name-checked Liza. No one is doubtin...

2010-09-08T16:22:38.177+01:00

Ah the famous name-checked Liza. No one is doubting your enuthisam, merely questiong quite what it is you are getting excited about.

As for Rachel. Every single photo discredits what you said. Look at the albums on facebook and flickr from the event and you shall see the age of the people attending. Even DM supporters were saying it on Twitter at the time so nice try there.

And the comment about the church was not meant to be offensive, a mere observation. and it is new age.

Not one person i spoke to had been trained by DM. If you dispute that perhaps you would enjoy reliving the experience on the hours of recordings I have from the dictaphone in my pocket.

Im not trying to smear anyone, just show what was going on that strange day.

DM is going to win the leadership and he could do so without the bullshit.

from Rachel I agree with Liza. I was there. I cam...

2010-09-08T16:14:16.387+01:00

from Rachel

I agree with Liza. I was there. I came from Copeland. If you don't know where that is, look it up on an election map. It can accurately be described as a "very long way away from London".

There are numerous factual inaccuracies in your article. The one I find most personally offensive is that you describe Emmanuel Evangelical Church as "overt new-age Christianity". I am a Christian and I regularly attend churches like this. The "new-age Christianity" to which you refer were bible verses written over 2,000 years ago. The church is actually very mainstream.

Secondly, the room wasn't full of old people, though it was full of people from many ethnic minorities and there was a very large number of Africans. It became clear through the proceedings that many of them were newly-recruited members of Congolese for Labour.

Thirdly, I know for a fact that a significant proportion of those in attendance had attended #M4C training events. Why do I know that? Because I attended a session which took place 2 hours before the assembly so had some idea how many had turned out to one of many training events – about 300, I would guess. There were so many, in fact, that they ran out of "standing room only". I was in a group of 12, 8 of whom were from the Congolese community. Again, there was huge ethnic diversity in the room – and very few grey hairs.

There were obviously people at the assembly who were there because they were David Miliband supporters rather than because they had received community organiser training. Why wouldn't there be? But the audience enthusiasm was totally genuine – the African singing was unscripted.

I can totally understand why a Tory wouldn't particularly enjoy a History of the Labour Party, being amongst enthusiastic Labour supporters, or listening to authentic accounts of the impact of ConDem cuts, but this genuine attempt to smear the name of #M4C is very telling. It tells me that it is considered a genuine threat to the Tory's chosen narrative of a dead and defunct Labour Party.

Dear Lisa. 26 Future Leaders trained from a Labo...

2010-09-08T15:42:54.457+01:00

Dear Lisa. 26 Future Leaders trained from a Labour stronghold. Very impressive. There will be plenty of room for you to grow. If you recruit 5 more people who complete the course, do you become a leading Future Leader, 20 more a Senior Future Leader and so on?

I am absolutely appalled by this! How can you be s...

2010-09-08T15:09:46.402+01:00

I am absolutely appalled by this!
How can you be so disrespectful towards all the people who travelled from all over the country to attend this Movement For Change event!
Yes, I am one of the Future Leader's from Manchester - 32 of us came from the NW, the majority bar about 6 of us had actually been trained, the rest waiting for future sessions.
We were allowed to invite our friends/family/fellow CLP members even if they'd not done the training so that they could see the progress we'd been making too.
Being a Tory, perhaps you have no concept of the words community-spirit - but that was exactly what we were celebrating and all of our hard work plus the fact that anyone could get involved if they wanted to.
None of it was staged either - do you think we all made those stories up, they were real problems faced by many of us everywhere - perhaps you may not be affected by them cos you're loaded and don't care, who knows!
Do you not think most of us would have given up our Bank Holiday Monday, if we didn't think it was worth celebrating?
Try and dampen our spirits all you want - by calling us names or mocking us but at least we're being constructive. There's far too much commitment and enthusiasm from lots of people from many different backgrounds, all ages, race, religions up and down the country to stop this momentum.
You can't get excited about it because you're not actually involved (open to anyone remember!)then fine, but leave us to it eh!
Plus jealousy is an ugly trait! ;-)

It is good to know that the beating heart that has...

2010-09-08T14:33:45.501+01:00

It is good to know that the beating heart that has propelled Labour to numerous election defeats is still alive, kicking and in rude health.