Paul mason

Will Paul Mason miss his own protest?

Last night, hundreds of people gathered in Parliament Square to vent their fury at Boris Johnson and his decision to prorogue parliament for several weeks in September. The crowd were in a raucous mood, but none were in finer spirits that the left-wing journalist Paul Mason. In a video published online, Mason could be seen (with added special effects) leading a chant among the crowd, where he issued a threat to Boris Johnson and promised to protest outside his Downing St home at the weekend, exclaiming: ‘We, the British people, will be outside Downing Street and 12 o’clock on Saturday. We are coming for you Boris Johnson, ready or f****** not.’

Corbynistas turn on one another over EU election meltdown

There’s a lot of soul-searching in the Labour party after Sunday’s abysmal results in the European elections. On Monday, Corbynista commentator Paul Mason was one of the first out of the blocks, with a lengthy autopsy of Labour’s electoral failure. He placed the blame squarely on Corbyn’s Brexit-leaning advisors, and urged those responsible to be fired. ‘Three point plan for Labour. 1. A members ballot on Remain/Reform as the new line. 2. Sack the officials responsible for this fiasco. 3. Defend Corbyn against the inevitable coup. More from me tomorrow – sign our petition here https://www.left2030.org/petition/ ‘ https://twitter.com/MarkDiStef/status/1132940829335654400 Unsurprisingly, the column didn’t go down well in all quarters of the hard

Paul Mason changes his tune on Ukip ‘toe-rags’

The local election results have raised questions about both Labour and the Conservatives’ viable route to a majority at the next general election. In that vein, Paul Mason – the Corbynista former broadcaster – has written a piece for the i paper explaining why Labour must win former Ukip votes: Alas Mr S suspects Mason hasn’t helped much here himself. Just last year, he described most Ukip voters as blokes who would steal your bike: ‘Most of the UKIP people are either people who haven’t voted or have flipped in a radical way from Labour. They are toe-rags, basically. They are the bloke who nicks your bike.’ Can Mason win

Paul Mason’s elite panic

Oh dear. After three Momentum candidates – including key Corbyn ally Jon Lansman – were elected to Labour’s national executive committee on Monday, the NEC swiftly moved to oust Ann Black as chair of the Disputes Panel in favour of Christine Shawcroft. Given that Shawcroft was previously suspended by the party in 2015, the move has raised alarm bells in the Labour party. However, should you be concerned that Shawcroft is now responsible for deciding whether to investigate sexist, racist, homophobic and anti-semitic abuse, you’re probably just a member of the elite. Or at least that’s what Paul Mason thinks. The journalist-turned-revolutionary took to social media to cause an elite panic*

Why I’m a target for the twitchfork mob

Shortly after midnight on 1 January my phone began to vibrate repeatedly. Happy New Year messages from absent friends? No, I was trending on Twitter — the third-most popular topic on the network after #NYE. The cause was a story about me in the next day’s Guardian that had just gone live. The headline read: ‘Toby Young to help lead government’s new universities regulator.’ Now, that is wildly overstating it. I’ve been appointed to the board of the Office for Students (OfS), the new body created by merging the Higher Education Funding Council for England and the Office for Fair Access — one of 15 people! But the Guardian’s spin

Paul Mason turns on the ‘Stalinist left’ over Iran

With the death toll in Iran thought to sit at 21 following a series of clashes between protesters and security forces at nationwide demonstrations, many politicians have been quick to express concern over the regime. However, Jeremy Corbyn has intriguingly gone quiet on Iran. Happily, some on the left have proved more willing to comment. The Guardian‘s Owen Jones has expressed ‘solidarity with any Iranian protestors who are fighting for democracy and freedom, both from a vicious regime and from US domination’. Meanwhile, Paul Mason – the journalist turned left wing revolutionary – has used a blog post to criticise the ‘Stalinist left’ for trying to ‘smear the protests as

Paul Mason’s guide to ending neo-liberalism: talk to Pret workers

This year’s Labour party conference saw a more radical approach adopted by the leadership. In his leader’s speech, Jeremy Corbyn called for an end to neo-liberalism – describing his party’s pitch as 21st century socialism. So, how best to bring an end to neo-liberalism? Happily, Paul Mason – the Channel 4 journalist-turned-left-wing-revolutionary – was on hand at Momentum’s festival to offer some tips on how to put a stop to the scourge of neo-liberalism: talk to Pret A Manger workers. ‘I think everyone in this room could imagine a small way to action that you have in your life. I try and talk to Pret workers and talk to McDonalds

Watch: Paul Mason says Kim Jong-un has ‘done the world a favour’

Oh dear. With North Korea threatening to detonate a nuclear bomb in the Pacific Ocean, world leaders are left scratching their heads over what to do about the rogue state’s penchant for nuclear weapons. But has North Korea actually just done the world a favour by threatening to bomb Japan, South Korea and the US? That’s the claim Paul Mason tried to peddle on last night’s episode of Question Time. The journalist-turned-left-wing-revolutionary argued that Kim Jong-un has ‘done the world a favour’ by putting Donald Trump ‘on the back foot’ through his nuclear game plan: ‘In a way, Kim Jong-Un has done – only in this metaphorical way – the world

Katy Balls

And from left to left we have…

Corbyn’s allies on the hard left are lining up to reform the Labour party. Some make him look like a moderate. Here are the most notable, from the least to the most radical… Owen Jones, 32, is a Guardian columnist and former poster boy for the left. Jones suggested Corbyn could do more to appeal to the masses and, as a result, was one of the regime’s first casualties. Throughout the Labour leadership election, Jones has become increasingly vocal about Corbyn’s limitations as leader. He is now an unperson. James Mills, 32, is head of communications for both John McDonnell and Corbyn’s leadership campaign. Mills is less of a purist

Watch: Paul Mason turns on the Blairites at Progress event – ‘form your own party and get on with it!’

Well, that didn’t last long. The uneasy peace between the Blairites and the Corbynites since the snap election has come to an abrupt end. At today’s Progress conference, Paul Mason sat on a panel chaired by Progress’s Richard Angell, alongside fellow Corbynite Emily Thornberry and centrist MPs Wes Streeting and Liz Kendall. The guests attempted to discuss – in a comradely manner – how best to build on Labour’s snap election result and win the next election. However, things soon struck a sour note when an audience member challenged Mason over a tweet he had sent claiming Labour could have won if it wasn’t for the moderates running a defensive campaign.

Will the BBC election debate prove ‘a bridge too far’ for Corbyn?

Oh dear. Although a YouGov poll out today suggests a hung Parliament is a very real possibility in this election, Mr S suspects that some Corbynites are still getting slightly ahead of themselves. With Jeremy Corbyn making a last-minute decision to take part in tonight’s debates, Paul Mason has taken to social media to praise his comrade’s decision. The former Channel-4-economics-editor-turned-revolutionary tweeted a video clip of the wartime film A Bridge Too Far. In this, Lt. General Horrocks — played by Edward Fox — briefs his XXX Corps on Operation Market Garden: ‘Now, gentlemen, I’m not saying that this will be the easiest party that we’ve ever attended, but I still wouldn’t

Masonic bodge

Left-wing groupie Paul Mason has written a costume drama about the suppression of the Paris commune in 1871. We meet Louise Michel and her all-female gang of arsonists as they’re carted off to jail for setting fire to the Tuileries. After a harsh stint in the cells, they’re shipped out to the French colony of New Caledonia, in the eastern Pacific, where they live in an open prison. Things aren’t too bad. They mingle with the natives, enjoy the local hooch, and sing comradely songs about ‘spilling the blood impure’. Escape is on the agenda. A committee of anarchists is said to be making swift progress across the ocean in

Watch: Paul Mason has doubts about voting Labour

With Labour firmly on the back foot over Theresa May’s call for a snap election, many MPs tonight used a meeting of the PLP to raise concerns over their prospects in an early election. So, surely the Corbynites are doing everything they can to help their comrades cling on? Well, perhaps not. Tonight Paul Mason — the journalist-turned-left-wing-revolutionary — appeared on Newsnight to discuss Labour’s prospects in a snap election. Although Mason said he was confident that Labour would win an early election, he came across rather coy when it came to whether his own vote would go towards helping the party achieve victory. Speaking of the need for tactical voting, Mason said

Question Time’s golden moment

As David Dimbleby decamped to Solihull for the first Question Time of the year, it was Donald Trump’s washing habits that were top of the BBC news agenda. With an ‘unverified and potentially unverifiable’ document suggesting Russian spies have compromising information on the President-elect, Dimbleby began by asking the panel — comprised of David Lidington, Gisela Stuart, Arron Banks, Paul Mason and space scientist Monica Grady — whether Trump was fit to be president. Alas Dimbleby struggled to keep a straight face as he asked Banks about his trip to the golden lift in Trump Tower: DD: I’ll be careful what I say here, the golden lift… AB: If you could not

Greece is the word for Paul Mason and Labour

When Paul Mason was covertly recorded by the Sun newspaper divulging his private view that Jeremy Corbyn does not appeal to the working classes, there wasn’t much surprise in the Labour leader’s office. The relationship between Corbyn and his celebrity guru has always been complex. Kremlinologists point to a meeting of Corbyn’s closest comrades earlier this year at Esher Place, a £6 million, Grade II country house in Surrey owned by Unite. The guest list was a who’s who of the hard left: John McDonnell, Diane Abbott, Len McCluskey, Labour strategy chief Seumas Milne and Momentum boss Jon Lansman were all in attendance. Corbyn had also invited Mason to join

Paul Mason fails to win an election

Oh dear. Paul Mason has spent the past few months telling anyone who will listen that Jeremy Corbyn can — and will — win an election. Discussing the Labour coup, he claimed that the ‘guardians of elite power inside the Labour party’ were so scared by Corbyn’s electability that they text each other and arranged a coup to thwart him. Alas, it now seems that Mason — too — is suffering problems in this area. His journey from Channel 4 economics editor to a fully fledged Corbynista revolutionary hit a bump in the road last night after he attempted to get elected as a branch delegate to Vauxhall Labour. He was unsuccessful in his

Paul Mason turns on Jeremy Corbyn

Since stepping down as the economics editor of Channel 4 News, Paul Mason has become a key cheerleader for Jeremy Corbyn. Mason has used media appearances — along with his social media — to campaign for the Labour leader and call out MPs who fail to show Corbyn sufficient loyalty. So, Mason today finds himself in a curious position after the Sun published a video which shows him suggesting Corbyn does not have what it takes to be leader. In the video, the former broadcaster confides to a comrade that Corbyn needs to be replaced by someone like Clive Lewis as Jezza ‘doesn’t appeal to the mainstream working class vote’.

Paul Mason vs the MSM

With Seumas Milne rumoured to be on the way out, Jeremy Corbyn could soon be on the prowl for a new Director of Communications. Although Paul Mason has denied that he is interested in the job, he is still a favourite to join the Leader’s Office. So, with that in mind, Mr S was curious to hear his views on Fleet Street and the Mainstream Media (better known as MSM among Corbynites) at a Momentum talk on ‘radical media’. It turns out that the former Newsnight economics editor isn’t such a fan. While he promised to ‘try and be strained in my vitriol and personal views’ in the discussion, Mason went on to say

Paul Mason lifts the lid on Labour’s guardians of elite power

After the nation voted in favour of Brexit in the EU referendum, Jeremy Corbyn faced a coup from Labour MPs left unsatisfied with his efforts for Remain. Leading the charge, Hilary Benn sparked a round of mass frontbench resignations after he said there was ‘no confidence’ in Corbyn’s ability to win the next election. However, could it all have been part of an elaborate trick? Mr S only asks after Paul Mason appeared on Broadcasting House to discuss the situation. The former Channel 4 economics editor turned revolutionary said that he was certain Corbyn would win a general election: ‘I think Jeremy Corbyn will win. Or let’s put it this way, he will be

Paul Mason’s Brexit Bulletin fails to make the cut

It’s not a good time to be a member of the MSM, aka mainstream media. A quick look at alternative news outlets like the Corbynista Canary will tell you that reports from the MSM are frequently inaccurate. What’s more, the Guardian now appear to have joined the cause. On Monday, the paper published an article by Piers Robinson suggesting Russia Today, al-Jazeera and Press TV should not be off-limits as while they may be biased so is much western media. So, what are the alternatives? Mr S was intrigued last month when Paul Mason — the former Channel 4 economics editor turned revolutionary — announced to much fanfare that he would be launching a public service ‘Brexit Bulletin’. The daily