Oh Jeremy

+In Scotland last week. At the V&A Dundee I was impressed by an extravagant display of Palestinian tatreez, highly elaborate and decorative women's gowns, which judging by the captions are part of a centuries old tradition. How is this possible? Haven't we been told by Israeli propagandists that there's no such thing as 'Palestinians' which must mean of course that there's no such thing as Palestinian culture? The V&A's captions referenced things like the Israeli occupation and violence. How come this provocative exhibition is still open to the public? On Palestine, Starmer and his acolytes are once again shedding crocodile tears, but resisting the recognition of a Palestinian state. Apparently this can wait until the conditions are right. Like perhaps when all the messianic Jewish settlers retire from the West Bank. Starmer knows this is not going to happen, so why does he persist in waiting for the miraculous ‘two state’ solution to emerge? He takes us all for fools.
 
+Talking of culture, the National Portrait Gallery in Edinburgh has a picture whose caption tells us that two brothers called Scott in the nineteenth century concocted a fraud which they claimed showed that Scottish tartans and their clan based patterns were first iterated in a document from the fifteenth century which they had discovered. Their fraud was unmasked by another Scott - Sir Walter - but by then the tartan myth had been truly ingrained in Scottish culture. It was a recent invention. By way of contrast, what is the great English sartorial tradition composed of? Bear skin hats? Or straw hats, clogs and little bells around the knees? 
 
+The new Corbyn/Sultana left party has been officially launched, it was originally reported that it was called 'Your Party' but this has subsequently been denied by Sultana. Sounds like it's already a mess even before it's filled its first nappy. Is the idea of discipline so anathema to any left-wing party that it can't even convey a single message about what it may be called? To be associated with Monty Python this early on does not inspire confidence. Still, it seems to be attracting a lot of attention, and it is said more people have signed up to it than Reform has members. This doesn’t mean much I’m afraid. Whilst I was still a member of the Labour Party, under Corbyn membership of my constituency party tripled. Sadly that did not translate into door knocking activists. I think the Momentum crowd had different ideas about political activism. Now I hear that a former Labour PM’s constituency meeting can’t even attract half a dozen members. Needless to say, the central party is seeking more rule changes to further diminish the role of members in decision making.
 
+A message from a friend with a deep interest in climate change informs me that global temperature rises are running ahead of predictions, which is to say they have begun rising faster than a straight relationship which the rise in CO2 emissions would suggest. In other words, feedback mechanisms are kicking in – such as the Albedo effect of melting ice caps – and a host of other chaotic responses to warmer temperatures. The solution is simple: deny it is happening. Or start a nuclear winter.