Yawn

Conspiracy nut convert.
At my traditional Grammar School, back in July 1969; witless pupils' pupils were frogmarched by their Masters to witness Neil Armstrong setting foot on the moon. 'One small step for man and one tall story for humanity.' Stanley Kubrick did a good fake job but he was no match for BBC charlatan Jane Standley and her hilarious 9/11 commentary. The TV is the most dreadful, deadly, domestic device imaginable. Turn it off and --You'll be happier and wiser. Trust me!

It's said the Tories gained voted from Labour ,due to the Falklands in 1983, Yes Labours vote fell by 3million form 1979 to 1983, But the tory vote fell by nearly 1million too, and the Liberal vote with the SDP went up from under 4 million to just under 8million, So If 1million votes went from Labour to the Tories and the tory vote fell by 1 million that means that 2 million Tory voters went to the SDP adn 2 million labour voters went to the SDP,
Ia ctualy feel that some of the Poeple who voted Labour in 1979 and went to the tories in 1983 went there even if tehy were unemployed due to the right to buy Council houses, By 1987 Labour had accepted the Right to buy policy, plus long term unemployemnt Up North Including In Mining towns (where several miners in those towns had voted Tory in 1983) were now seeing teh effects of unemployment and went back to laobur in 1987 As such Labours vote went up by 1.5 million in 1987, Yet Labour actually did worse in London in 1987, thatn in the 1983 (longest suicide speech in History), the Idea that people didn't vote laobur in1983 as It wasn't left wing enough,seems odd as it was their worse result, similar yes the Flaklands may have casued even 1million people to vote tory, but it was the Fact that laobur lsot millions of votes that did it, and the SDP for every vote it took off laobur took one off the Tories too,

Geroge & eric Brown ex labbur meembers who voted tory in 1979 ,said Voted sdp in the 80's some of the young SDP meembers in the 80's Included Andrew Cooper,Andrew Mitchell, Chris Grayling,Danny Finklestien, Paul staines, Danny cooper, Plus David OwenWho now supports labour, who left Labour for the SDP in the 80's said Vote tory in 1992, Plus half the cabinet include former SDP members like Vince cable, Plus some Lib dem cabinet ministers in the Lords are Ex SDP. Also Shirley Williams and Roy jenkins had both left the Labour party at least A month beofre the SDP had formed and were both in talks about joining the liberals In 1980, The only real Ex sdp epople who rejoined alobur were Polly Toynbee, Lord Adonis and Roger Liddle all Blairites

Don't you just love a good cat fight.

I think a dignfied silence from Mehdi on this matter would have been more mature - unless he done of course.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4hpfqFt-0Q&feature=related

I'll throw him a bone Stuart in case he's short of ideas.

Tower Hamlets try to ban strip clubs - how is that anything to do with my religion?

Imran Khan is brilliant - how on earth is that anything to do with my religion?

I use the NS as a mouthpiece to spout on about my chosen religion uder the guise of calling myself Senior Editor (Politics) - how on earth is that anything to do with my religion?

That should give him a few ideas!

@ PikeyMikey

Lol!!!!!

I am so glad to see the back of that bitter Blairite. The Labour Party and the New Ststesman are better off without that Tea Party Tory!

A self-aggrandising storm in a meeja teacup, with the faint whiff of narcissism all round.

Guilty conscience, much?

No one believes you Medhi.

As I said at the time, I for one will miss him. Where will I go now to be aggressively patronised by someone regurgitating the received wisdom in a smug, macho tone of voice?

But the greater scandal of course is the ongoing persecution of the Labour right wing. Are there any media outlets left that are willing to lend a little space, just to let these people speak? Does the New Statesmen not realise the cruel blow it has dealt to democracy by ...um....allowing Hodges to stop writing for them? What of pluralism? What of free speech? Oh, the humanity.

I for one am glad to see the back of Hodges, his dreadfully below-par musings, and his primary school standard of English. Blogger he may be; enlightened, intelligent journalist he is not.

@AF
From your comment you clearly haven't read my comment properly. Or perhaps you have and choose to extrapolate wild hypothesise for your own devices?

I'm sure there are many great political journalists who believe in a religion - it's just that we don't know if they do because they don't constantly lace their articles in reference to it?

To be honest I don't think the problem is whether or not Dan resigned or was pushed. I think the problem is one of the left wing media, being pretty much the same as the right. Cut throat, disconnected and existing in a little bubble where snidey wee boys compete with other in trading fantasies about the world that exists outside Hackney. And how that world can be manipulated into believing the latest absurd missive from whoever. From the earnest discussion about the absurd attempts to reimagine the 'working class' so economic policies dont have change, to the Hari-gate mess and this little pantomime.

The nature of the crisis the world is in at the moment, and the type of squabblng, misinformation and backbiting that characterises our left wing media, has left most publications unable to even begin to discuss what is actually happening.

As time goes on, and people watch how this teeny cut throat bubble operates, questions are raised beyond Dan Hodges.

I think until the labour supporting media and the lefty media in a wider sense, examine the way they are perceived from outside their bubble- and address not whether Dan walked or resigned, but the culture that ensures wee boys squabbling is synonymous with the definition of 'politics'- this will continue. Which is a shame, because left wing media are quite necessary at the moment, and resembles little more than a circus populated by boys no more mature than the average year 9.

Lisa Ansell - but none of this is 'left'. Left posits an alternative to capitalism, not a career pretending to reform it.

Then Freeman- we have no left wing media. Because the New Statesman, The Guardian and others- still have a Labour who have discredited economic dogma at their heart, and as such any one asking that we address it's failures, is on the extreme fringes. A problem in current circs, don't you think? Dan is a snidey sod, that's why he is hired. That's politics. Sod all to do with offering an 'alternative' to anyone.

Its a difficult one, this. On the one hand I thought Dan Hodges was a pretentious New Labour drone. On the other, the NS has horrible tendency to support rather, er, reactionary religious sects because they are not American, Western or white.

I'm all for a plurality of views on the left, but neither Dan Hodges nr Mehdi Hasan represent much of what I think is progressive.

Good Riddance!

David Wearing
20 October 2011 at 12:33

As I said at the time, I for one will miss him. Where will I go now to be aggressively patronised by someone regurgitating the received wisdom in a smug, macho tone of voice?

* * *

The Daily Telegraph blogs.

Mehdi, I believe you. From the very start it was obvious both parties were telling the truth - albeit from their own perspective and with their own characteristic... well, let's be generous and say, flair. You've confirmed that.

But what you fail to realise is that it's entirely possible for me to accept everything you've written above, and still think your behaviour has irrecoverably wrecked your credibility - in my mind, at least.

So, well done. Well done for devoting the majority of your post to a petty, pointless character assassination. Well done for confirming Hodges was indeed asked not to write another criticism of Ed Miliband. And well done for pleasing those readers who find opinions that challenge their own so unpalatable and who hold those who dare speak differing viewpoints with such contempt.

As they say, there are no flies on you, but this whole thing still stinks of sh... garbage.

from much earlier up the thread:

''none of this is 'left'. Left posits an alternative to capitalism, not a career pretending to reform it.''

great comment. If I didn't know Hodges was in Labour I would assumee he was a Tory. I have no idea what he is doing in the Labour movement. I just watched him patronising the Occupy LSX protestors on Channel 4. He said antipathy for the banks was universal although I note that he didn't say he shared it. He then went on to claim that the protestors were inviting antipathy on themselves - why? Because basically he like all the other Blairites are still in love with the City and all its fraudulent activities?

If ever there was a man on the wrong side of history it was Dan Hodges.

I am so glad the NS has decided to bin him - let's have alternative viewpoints, we really do need them to refine our arguments against - but not mendacious types like Hodges.

Each time I read a Hodges piece I get the feeling he had more fun writing it than my neighbour with her rabbit. He whips one out fast and furious and does not even bother to wipe away the stains with some wet wipes. Now he can enjoy his literary self-pleasure over at the Telegraph with others who would join him in a ring over a biscuit. They deserve him.

Hassan
i think people know what REALLY happened, especially after this little sad piece.
Your standard? first noticed u whan u politicised the grief of the fatjher in the riots, whils no one else was doing so- cheap i thought. Then u disrespected war dead by banging on about the outrage of having to register tp vote.
And now, this... it's like when u write the objective has been set down for u and u then construct any old nonsense to arrive at said goal.
In doing so you bring the level of debated down in the left.
Dan Hodges made this place a little more intesting, gets less so daily....

Lisa Ansell has it absolutely spot on in her first comment. I'll only add three points:

1. Dan Hodges is a buffoon. The question is not so much whether you sacked him, but why on earth you let him write such tripe for so long.

2. Whenever anyone resorts to smearing their accusers as 'conspiracy theorists', it's odds on that some raw nerve has been hit. Why do you see the need for such hyperbole?

3. Guido Fawkes is a scurrilous rumour monger, so why do you care what he says? I certainly don't. David Ray Griffin, however, is a distinguished academic and intellectual who is used to being smeared and arrogantly dismissed by precisely the kind of ignorant, self-important wannabes (e.g. Dan Hodges) that tend to end up writing for magazines like NS these days (with a few honourable exceptions). Oh well, I suppose you think that total ignorance of a subject is a good basis on which to write about it and that, in a nutshell, is the problem with a lot of modern 'journalism'.

The only good thing about NS these days is Laurie Penny.