Who, politically and intellectually, is Owen Jones?
Owen Jones is one type of creature that I cannot bear. It is not because he claims to be a “socialist” idealist (yet seems very interested in money and careerism); not because he likes to give out the impression that he comes from humble origins (though his mother is a university professor); not because he talks constantly about the (mostly) Northern working class and industrial culture of the past (when he himself is a narcissistic gay who lives in a gentrified part of East London and makes a rather comfortable living by scribbling and being a TV talking head); and so on. It is because, overall, he strikes me as being a £3 note, and I cannot tolerate fakery.
Owen Jones comes from a background of Marxist politics: a grandfather who was apparently a fellow-traveller of the CPGB (the Communist Party) and parents who were Trotskyists and members of Militant, the extreme socialist group founded by, inter alia, a Jew called Isaac Blank, who took on the protective colouration of a British-sounding name (“Ted Grant”) .
Owen Jones graduated from Oxford University in 2005, and was awarded a Master’s degree (M.St: one requiring time in class and a thesis but no exam) in 2007. After that he worked as a researcher for John McDonnell MP and started to write for a number of paper and online publications. He also wrote a book called Chavs: the demonization of the working class.
I am at a disadvantage here, not having read Jones’s book, but it seems to me that he is probably making a cardinal error in confusing the proletariat with the lumpenproletariat (if such terms any longer have meaning).
At any rate, it seems to me strange that Owen Jones did not move on from being a Parliamentary researcher to active politics as a Labour MP. It may be that, at that time (pre-2010), he would not have found favour in what was still very much a Blair-Brown Labour Party.
Jones used his profile as a radical Labourist to try to oppose the Con Coalition of Conservative and LibDems, and their “austerity” policies. He founded, with other high-profile Labour persons (and a few others, such as Caroline Lucas, the Green Party MP), The People’s Assembly Against Austerity. That failed, inevitably. Marches rarely achieve anything. About 50,000 (its supporters said 150,000) marched, on a date in 2015, a smaller number having gathered in 2014 outside BBC HQ. Result? Nothing.
Speaking for myself, I can agree with some of what Owen Jones says and writes, such as his words contra the appalling policies of the Con Coalition. However, he really has nothing much to say in a positive way. Jones seems obsessed by the kind of issues which permeated institutions such as Collet’s London Bookshop in the 1970s: the rights of ethnic minorities, gays etc.
As for Jews etc, I was rather surprised, in 2015, to see Jones tell the Blairite MP John Woodcock (now not a Labour MP, following sex pest scandals) to block me on Twitter. Woodcock and Jones were at opposite ends of the Labour Party, so that was unexpected.
@JWoodcockMP That guy is a neo-Nazi. https://t.co/ZbFD4nY9ON Block him.
— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) August 18, 2015
(FYI, “That guy” was me! Oh…and, yes, sex pest mental case and paid Israel tool Woodcock did block me!)
However, I now see the connection: Woodcock is very pro-Israel and has received funding from Israeli sources. Jones, it now turns out, is himself part-Jew! See the tweets and photograph below…
Jones was rather hostile to Corbyn as Labour leader, writing that no-one would vote for him, but changed his tune once he saw that Corbyn was firmly seated as Labour leader and, moreover, that Labour had done better than expected in the 2017 General Election. However, he has at the same time now begun to tweet and write against “anti-Semitism”, though characterizing it as a function of the “hard Right” rather than Corbyn-Labour “Left”. Like most contemporary scribblers, Jones finds it impossible to ditch the outdated “Left/Right” dichotomy.
Conclusion
Owen Jones is a bit of a political butterfly. He speaks and writes eloquently against the trashing of the welfare state and UK society generally, yet seems sanguine about mass immigration by backward peoples, does not like it when people notice that not a few of the worst finance-capitalist exploiters are Jews, and he seems to have poor political judgment generally.
There was a time, about 8 years ago, when Owen Jones was widely tipped to become a Labour MP and even a future Labour Party leader. One does not hear that now (well, I do not, anyway). There was once a cynical saying about Brazil, to the effect that “Brazil is the country of the future…and always will be!”. There is something like that in Owen Jones: the Boy Wonder or “Wunderkind” of UK socialist politics, always taking on the tired old System. The key word being “always”…Not many can maintain the Peter Pan effect perpetually. The gloss has become a little tarnished.
Owen Jones at 26 seemed to many Labour rank and file supporters or members to have a far greater future than he now appears to have at 34. That at least is my impression. It may be telling that his Wikipedia entry is quite packed in the years up to and including 2014; after that, nothing much. His star has definitely waned. He is on TV far less often now (at least to my mind) and only The Guardian seems to continue to await his words with bated breath. He may have missed the bus in terms of becoming an MP, though I would not rule that out if he applies for a seat fairly soon.
Not that Owen Jones is struggling. His (2015) Guardian salary may only have been around £40,000 a year (and maybe not hugely more now), but his second book, The Establishment, published in 2014, is said to have earned Jones nearly half a million pounds, which even after tax must have been worth about £300,000 or so. Chavs (2011) also sold well.
Politicians can and do write about politics. Writers can and sometimes do become active political players, but only if they chime with the times. I wonder whether Owen Jones still does.
Update, 5 January 2019
In case anyone is in any doubt about my view on Owen Jones, I can add that I view him as a “licensed Bolshie”, completely harmless to the System, which is why he is (or was, until he became a bloody bore) invited so often onto TV politics shows. Having someone like Jones (or Ash Sarkar, or various others) on a TV discussion show makes the point that “we believe in free speech! Look, we even have revolutionaries on sometimes!”, when in fact only the harmless are allowed on, especially if they make fools of themselves. That is also why educated social nationalists are not welcome…
Notes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Jones_(writer)
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/owen-jones-my-father-and-the-reality-of-losing-your-job-in-middle-age-7546015.html
https://ianrmillard.wordpress.com/2017/05/04/john-woodcock-barrow-and-furness-and-the-general-election-2017/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/People%27s_Assembly_Against_Austerity
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Militant_(Trotskyist_group)
https://order-order.com/2015/07/17/rich-and-famous-owen-jones-joins-the-1/
Update, 13 January 2019
Below, a few tweets about the “People’s Assembly”, which I thought had died off, but seems to be, notionally, still going. Here (see tweets below) we see Owen Jones speaking to what seems to be about 10 people in Trafalgar Square on 12 January 2019. His opponents should have just let him get on with it (but filmed the farcical sight). I have seen more people queuing to get into a cinema matinee on a wet Wednesday!
The online-only “newspaper”, The Independent, claimed that “several thousand anti-fascists marched”. Well, they must have…er…marched on! Jones got a little applause and a few hoots at the end. Maybe, being kind, 50 people rather than 10. I notice that his supporters on Twitter do not dare to show how few people were in the crowd, if crowd is the bon mot… “Knot” of supporters, perhaps.
Objective observers and journalists attending the “People’s Assembly” tweeted that only a few hundred were there— that is, until Jones started to speak! (then there were about 10, ha ha!)
In fact, this 3-4 minute clip shows that the audience listening to the speakers was very small, a “thin Red line” if you like…
https://www.newsflare.com/video/269657/politics-business/yellow-vests-uk-demo-britain-is-broken-general-election-now-speaker-using-strong-language-in-trafalgar-square
As a speaker, self-important Jones reminds me not so much of Lenin, Hitler or Mosley, but more of Sir Roderick Spode, leader of the Black Shorts in the Jeeves and Wooster stories, as filmed by British TV in the early 1990s! The funniest thing is that he takes himself so very seriously.
Perhaps the most hilarious aspect of all is that Owen Jones, and those few or few hundred or (if anyone believes The Independent these days) few thousand “marchers”, seem to believe that a pathetic demo/march of this sort accomplishes something. In fact, in a real civil war, Jones and his motley crew would be defeated in about five minutes.
Update, 24 May 2019
Fair’s fair. I can agree with Owen Jones here [see clip below], with the exception of the bit about the Windrush people (who should all be repatriated):
and here (see video report linked below) is Owen Jones at the recent Olympia rally of the Brexit Party. Very amusing. What would he not give to have a tenth of that audience at one of his speeches?!
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/video/2019/may/25/a-bitter-and-divided-nation-owen-jones-goes-to-a-brexit-party-rally-video
Update, 28 May 2019
Owen Jones [below], once more playing the poundshop Lenin, who thinks that he can shut down the political expression of those opposed to him.
Update, 18 August 2019
It seems that Owen Jones has been assaulted by some people in London.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2019/aug/17/guardian-columnist-owen-jones-attack-pub-london
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-49381944
He comments:
“I’m obviously very concerned and worried – not simply about my own personal safety, but of others, and the fact that the far right feels increasingly emboldened and far right-types are feeling increasingly prepared to resort to thuggery and violence.”
A few points come to mind:
- Jones may have been attacked for some other, some non-political (or even personal), reason (it seems that the attackers made no remarks during the attack);
- Jones talks about “far-right” violence, which in fact scarcely exists in the UK, but fails to mention the extreme violence perpetrated by the anti-British groups such as “antifa” idiots and Jewish extremists (see the links about the “43 Group” and the “62 Group”, below);
- Jones has always supported “no-platforming”, i.e. the sometimes violent refusal to let so-called “far right” people speak, write, or even comment on social media. Jones might like to reflect on proverbs or sayings such as “what goes around comes around” and the Biblical comment that “he who lives by the sword dies by the sword” (an old saw that has certainly stood the test of time);
- Jones certainly stays up drinking late (by my standards, anyway!); 2am/3am?
Links
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/43_Group
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/62_Group
[note that the above two links only tell part of the story, because Wikipedia has been well and truly infiltrated by Jew-Zionists in terms of those exercizing monitoring and editorial functions: for example, the latter article, about the “62 Group” does not mention Jew-Zionist criminal Gerry Gable’s conviction for having broken into the apartment of historian David Irving in the 1960s; Irving of course was never engaged in “violence” against Jews or anyone else].
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2015/07/what-is-it-with-the-far-left-and-violence/
https://unitynewsnetwork.co.uk/antifa-arrested-for-weapons-and-violent-offences-at-brexit-betrayal-march/
https://www.politicalite.com/exclusive/exclusive-msm-ignores-violence-by-masked-antifa-thugs-at-labours-counter-protest/
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2017-02-15/why-is-owen-jones-helping-to-subvert-corbyn/
https://voiceofeurope.com/2018/12/owen-jones-calls-working-class-brexiteers-fascist-weirdos/
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/tory-deputy-chairman-james-cleverly-14085124
https://quillette.com/2019/05/29/its-not-your-imagination-the-journalists-writing-about-antifa-are-often-their-cheerleaders/
…and freeloading grifter Mike Stuchbery, a sacked temporary teacher who now poses as both journalist and historian, tweets, below, about the reported attack on Jones:
but many people have exposed the hypocrisy of both Jones and Stuchbery. See below..
Here’s Stuchbery again, tweeting from his armchair or dining chair and supporting “justified” use of violence by “antifa” thugs (idiots):
Owen Jones has a few things in common with grifter Mike Stuchbery. “They don’t like it up them, Captain Mainwaring!”. When Stuchbery planned a stunt involving the invasion of the home of Tommy Robinson’s family (and I myself am no “supporter” of Robinson) and that stunt backfired, the brave “antifa” keyboard warrior, Stuchbery, who incited German “antifa” to “crack skulls”, break bones and “punch them, keep on punching, never stop” etc quickly became a “victim”. He has learned much from the Zionists, it seems…
I dare say that Owen Jones will monetize his bruises from the recent attack for years ahead, talking in print and on TV and radio about that terrible time when the “far right” attacked him etc…
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Ian Robert Millard 