A blog by Luke Akehurst about politics, elections, and the Labour Party - With subtitles for the Hard of Left. Just for the record: all the views expressed here are entirely personal and do not necessarily represent the positions of any organisations I am a member of.

Monday, August 14, 2006

Hackney Stops The War

Anyone visiting Stoke Newington this week would assume from the proliferation of posters advertising Saturday's Stop the War demo that N16 is a hotbed of leftwing politics.

The scale of the actual demo suggests it is, in fact, merely a hotbed of a couple of Trots with wallpaper paste and a brush and too much time on their hands. (Hint to SWP: flyposting is illegal and there is CCTV all over Stokey High Street, your ASBO could be in the post).

As you can imagine I was delighted to find my Saturday afternoon shopping trip to Shaheen's Cash & Carry interrupted by the massed ranks of the proletariat (and Angus - don't worry I've not put it on your whip's file) marching northwards up the A10.

For the papersellers I encountered - I was the one with ginger hair who told you I wouldn't be buying your journal because I was a Zionist.

All 57 varieties of the Stokey radical fringe were represented there amongst the er... 120 ish protesters, from Neturei Karta http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neturei_Karta, who provide the 2 blokes that look like rabbis but carry "We Await the Total Annulment of Zionism" placards at every anti-Israel rally everywhere, through the SWP ("Why stop the war when our mates in Hezbollah are winning") to the hammer and sickle flags (how retro) of the Marxist Leninist Kommunist Party of Turkey ("Stop the War, Start Killing the Kulaks/Trots/democrats/middle classes).

Turnout was down by one as Dave Osler of Lordship Road http://davespartblog.blogspot.com/ is on a very timely holiday to Cuba ...

I was particularly gratified that some of the posters even had ideas for new wars even I hadn't thought of (pre-emptive stopping?) e.g. Syria, Iran. Where was North Korea, they must be feeling left out?

Anyway, after passing me, they turned right (surely some mistake) and held a mass (mini?) rally at that centre of the world zionist/capitalist/US imperialist power, Stoke Newington Common (well it is near my flat so maybe that counts). The usual stopping place of Hackney demos right opposite our flat outside the gates of Abney Park Cemetary seems to have been abandoned after Respect's 17 person rally during the election, which Linda & I cruelly disrupted by waving Vote Labour posters from our windows and shouting "we love Jules Pipe", then taking photos of Dean Ryan when he stuck 2 fingers up at us and shouted "come down here and say that" - childish, but fun...

Anyway, it must have gone well, because as well as increasing paper sales to each other, it stopped the war ... within hours the UN ceasefire was being signed up to by the Israeli and Lebanese cabinets... well done guys. Now please could you remove your flyposting.

P.S. to Mr Hamdy the newsagent, I am now boycotting your shop as its front window is full of STW posters ... this adds to my 8 year boycott of Yum Yum's Thai Restaurant after they advertised in Liberal Democrat Focus in March 1998.

18 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

"who provide the 2 blokes that look like rabbis"

This may be because the "two blokes" are rabbis, or merely due to the fact that your knowledge of Jewish affairs is on a par with your general knowledge of politics.

Keep on making us all laugh.
Shalom.

10:22 am, August 14, 2006

 
Blogger Luke Akehurst said...

Er... large numbers of adult men in the Chassidic community in Stamford Hill dresses more or less like that (with different hats etc. to denote Satmar, Belz etc) - not all 10,000 of them are rabbis so chances are they are not. I was making an allusion to the regular mistake that the press made in thinking Tory Cllr Isaac Liebowitz was a rabbi when he turned up at Tory conferences, when in fact he was a soon-to-be-convicted poll rigger.

10:48 am, August 14, 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Got any good quotes/links on that SWP oppose the ceasefire line?

11:46 am, August 14, 2006

 
Blogger Luke Akehurst said...

A good analysis of the SWP position on Hizbollah comes courtesy of their Trot rivals the AWL, here:

http://www.workersliberty.org/node/6765

12:07 pm, August 14, 2006

 
Blogger kris said...

Man, I am SO sorry I missed that!

12:37 pm, August 14, 2006

 
Blogger Tom said...

"Why stop the war when our mates in Hezbollah are winning"

so true. Idiots.

2:19 pm, August 14, 2006

 
Blogger cymrumark said...

Very very funny post Luke...

2:43 pm, August 14, 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

" ... this adds to my 8 year boycott of Yum Yum's Thai Restaurant after they advertised in Liberal Democrat Focus in March 1998.

Note to self: Yum Yum's is not only one of the few fully-accessible restaurants in Hackney, it is also a Jed, Linda and Luke-free restaurant. Sounds like a good reason to visit it more frequently! Thanks.

2:51 pm, August 14, 2006

 
Blogger Luke Akehurst said...

Mark how come you have joined Plaid? At least when you were around the Hackney LDs used to put up a fight (when they could find the time to stop fighting each other).

2:56 pm, August 14, 2006

 
Blogger Luke Akehurst said...

Alternatively, Thai food loving Labour supporters could try Lemongrass or the Thai Cafe on Northwold Road.

3:02 pm, August 14, 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Alternatively, Thai food loving Labour supporters could try Lemongrass or the Thai Cafe on Northwold Road.

Note: Neither of which are fully-accessible, i.e. Crips not welcome!

Thanks for being so concerned with inclusion, Luke! You are nothing if not consistent!

3:11 pm, August 14, 2006

 
Blogger Luke Akehurst said...

Sorry I thought Lemongrass had a ramp.

3:12 pm, August 14, 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I thought for one moment I was reading the real Luke Akehurst's blog, not the imitator.

Good grief man; the very reason why you have a mock blog is because of posts like this. Unless of course you've started parodying yourself ... which would take it into another realm ...

Yours, a trot

3:13 pm, August 14, 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Sorry I thought Lemongrass had a ramp."
RAMP = FULLY ACCESSIBLE

With intelligence like that, from the likes of you and Mulready, we can all relax!

3:20 pm, August 14, 2006

 
Blogger Luke Akehurst said...

Er... dear Mr Trot, I am sorry that you seem to have had a sense of humour bypass.

3:54 pm, August 14, 2006

 
Blogger kris said...

Dear Guys, About lemonass- got a terrible case of the trots there. Yum Yums, good but over-priced.

As for Hamdy, I like the guy. He is the only one with the backbone to stand up to the porn industry. He manages to unite feminists and muslims on the matter.

So he's got a stop the war poster- so what. As I've said at my blog, Tony & George can't have it both ways: they can't win the war in iraq by slashing budgets. If they don't want to pay to kit out and support troops properly- then it is time to stop the war.

8:31 pm, August 14, 2006

 
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey, readers, can anyone lay their hands on a STW poster and ask Shaheen's Cash & Carry to carry it? Just imagine Luke, Linda and Jed having to do a U-turn come Saturday morning!

Of course, Cllr Luke "RAMP = FULLY ACCESSIBLE" Akehurst has a choice about where he shops or which restaurants he eats in. Shame he doesn't care two hoots about the rest of his constituents.

7:54 am, August 15, 2006

 
Blogger Luke Akehurst said...

Kris, you have won me round, once Hamdy takes his posters down I may go back there (even though his stationery is over-priced). Generally though it's a bit off-putting when shopkeepers or publicans etc advertise their politics - I stayed away from the Rochester Castle all the way through Tim Weatherspoon's anti-€uro beermats campaign.

Observer, unless you live in Chatham Ward you are not one of my constituents. I apologise for not being an expert on the DDA, which obviously means I am heartless and evil. However, I do not accept personal responsibility, despite a decade and a half of total immersion in 2 of the UK's most politically correct institutions (NUS and Hackney Council) for the design and accessibility of local restaurants and shops. Actually I don't have a 100% choice about which shops and restaurants I go to either because I have a 10 month old baby in a buggy, which brings its own set of restrictions.

9:19 am, August 15, 2006

 

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