Alex Nunns quotes

Writing a book about Jeremy Corbyn, set out with two objectives. The first was simple: to explain how he became the leader of the Labour Party. I was disappointed - but not at all surprised - at the complete absence of intellectual curiosity on display. The second objective I had to try to capture for posterity the excitement and spirit of the first Corbyn campaign. Those moments when the impossible suddenly becomes possible are so powerful to those who experience them. I think it's politically valuable to relive such moments, to learn the lessons of what went right.
-- Alex Nunns

#Powerful #Party #Book

Jeremy Corbyn couldn't have won without Labour changing its leadership election rules in 2014, but which more importantly got rid of the electoral college that had given MPs a third of the say over who leads the party. That's why Diane Abbott came last when she ran for leader in 2010, even though in the absolute number of votes she came third out of five. It's one of those wonderful historical ironies that the change to the rules was a victory for the Labour right, the result of a push back against the unions who had been asserting themselves more forcefully within the party.
-- Alex Nunns

#Party #College #Mps

When the economic orthodoxy can no longer deliver, political turbulence follows. That doesn't mean the left will win, but it means there is an opportunity to be seized.
-- Alex Nunns

#Mean #Winning #Opportunity

You may be sitting in a room reading this book. Imagine one note struck upon the piano. Immediately that one note is enough to change the atmosphere of the room - proving that the sound element in music is a powerful and mysterious agent, which it would be foolish to deride or belittle.

If you want to shine like the sun, first burn like the sun.

A new, a vast, and a powerful language is developed for the future use of analysis, in which to wield its truths so that these may become of more speedy and accurate practical application for the purposes of mankind than the means hitherto in our possession have rendered possible.

Behave in life as at a dinner party. Is anything brought around to you? Put out your hand and take your share with moderation. Does it pass by you? Do not stop it. Is it not yet come? Do not stretch your desire towards it, but wait till it reaches you. Do this with regard to children, to a spouse, to public post, to riches, and you will eventually be a worthy guest at the feast of life.

He considered the Rvolution a victroy for the Jews, which opinion, he said, prevailed on the East Side where rejoicing knew no bounds. We felt, added Mr. Cahan, that this is a great triumph for the Jews' cause. The anti-Jewish element in Russia has always been identified with the anti-revolutionary party. Jews having always sat high in the Councils of the revolutionists, all of our race became inseparably linked with the opponents of the government in the official mind.

[I]f the policy of the Government, upon vital questions affecting, the whole people is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased, to be their own rulers, having, to that extent, practically resigned their Government, into the hands of that eminent tribunal.

There are as many attitudes to cooking as there are people cooking, of course, but I do think that cooking guys tend - I am a guilty party here - to take, or get, undue credit for domestic virtue, when in truth cooking is the most painless and, in its ways, ostentatious of the domestic chores.

The main difference between the Prague Spring and the Velvet Revolution was that the former was mostly the work of Communist party members and others who wanted to bring about socialism with a human face.

And malt does more than Milton can to justify God's ways to man.

It comes back to the old question: How can the Bible be so wise in some places and so barbaric in others? And why should we put any faith in a book that includes such brutality?