Awkward medical condition

Some show courage by immolating themselves to protest against injustice. Others face the oppressors’ hangman with defiance. John Prescott reveals to the world that he suffered from stress induced bulimia. The living incarnation of the Marxist theory of bureaucracy didn’t turn out to out to have been completely useless after all. Lots of us suffer…

Liam

April 20, 2008

1–2 minutes

The living incarnation of the Marxist theory of bureaucracy didn’t turn out to out to have been completely useless after all. Lots of us suffer from medical conditions that we find difficult to talk about even with our closest friends. Prescott has helped break a taboo and I’d like to follow his example and share with you my own distressing medical condition.

For some years now I’ve been afflicted with stigmata. The wounds that Christ received on The Cross manifest themselves on my body. It’s impossible to believe that I’m alone in this and by sharing my silent pain with you I hope that other materialists, atheists and Marxists feel that they too can let their loved ones know of their condition.

In the next volume of my biography, which is on sale next week, the squalid story of how Margaret Thatcher gave me pubic lice will be revealed.

26 responses to “Awkward medical condition”

Jon

April 20, 2008 at 10:55 pm

That’s not funny. Admitting he has bulimia is about the only thing Prescott has done which I respect. It’s very important to change the perception that eating disorders are not ‘proper’ illnesses.

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Raptis

April 20, 2008 at 11:12 pm

Well Liam lots of people have speculated that you thought you were Gods Gift … I guess now we know why. Look closer, the Stigmata are probably sunburn marks left from one of your expensive foreign holidays.

I think this is nasty little entry on your blog and you should take it down. The mental health crisis in the UK is a blight that affects the working class more than any one else, and trying to make Bulimia into a joke puts you on the wrong side.

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Lobby Ludd

April 20, 2008 at 11:40 pm

Raptis, is there a ‘mental health crisis’?

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Liam

April 21, 2008 at 7:03 am

The man is using the “revelation” to plug his biography. It’s part of his marketing strategy and it definitely got him a lot of free advertising yesterday so I’ll carry on being nasty to one of the most useless parasites ever endured by a political party or taxpayer.

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Muon

April 21, 2008 at 8:25 am

You’d better not put a post like this on the SU site you’ll be banned for life

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twp77

April 21, 2008 at 8:59 am

C’mon guys – Liam is right on this one. Prescott is a pompous ass. I mean it is really rather disgusting to use something like bulimia to sell your book! I don’t think Liam was intending to insult people who suffer from this but which is more insulting – Liam piss-taking a self serving politician or that self-serving politician using a serious issue to make some cash after his lifelong career of selling out the class hits the pan?

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Andy newman

April 21, 2008 at 10:21 am

lobby Ludd, yes there is a mental health crisis.

Layard’s group at the London School of Economics observed that “ crippling depression and chronic anxiety are the biggest causes of misery in Britain today”, with one in six so suffering. This is the view not only of this one group. You can tell a lot about a society from the health of its children. According to another recent appraisal, there are “ sharply rising rates of depression and behavioural problems among under-17s. This year, the British Medical Association reported that more than 10% of 11- to 16-year-olds have a mental disorder sufficiently serious to affect their daily lives. At any one time, a million children are experiencing problems ranging from depression to violence and self-harm. What is truly sobering is how abruptly these problems have arisen. The incidence of depression in children was almost flat from the 1950s until the ‘70s. A steep rise began in that decade, doubling by the mid-80s, and doubling again since. The rises have affected both sexes and all classes, although children in the poorest households are three times as likely as wealthy ones to be affected.”

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Andy newman

April 21, 2008 at 10:25 am

For the record, I think Liam’s post is in poor taste.

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Louise

April 21, 2008 at 11:19 am

Why did Prescott mention the bulimia now? Is it a marketing strategy? Who knows…. I am kinda erring on the cynically minded concerning Prescott.

The problem is bulimia is a form of eating distress experienced by many people usually women and many suffer in silence and it is still hidden. The government doesn’t have official stats on how many people experience anorexia and bulimia.

I don’t know, but rather like the time Princess Di admitted to having an eating distress on Panorama (again I was erring on the cynically minded then…) it encouraged many women esp. contacting the org. I was involved in to talk about their eating distress.

Yes Liam is right, Prescott is/was indeed a self-serving parasitical NL who maybe is trying to get the sympathy vote but then methinks attack his politics not a personal condition that affects many other people in society. He probably is using bulimia to sell his bk but we don’t have to stoop to his level either.

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Geoff Collier

April 21, 2008 at 3:22 pm

Obviously we have to respect Prescott for this. Futhermore it explains why he hurried off after some Stop the War supporters spotted him in a Hull chippie some years ago. It wasn’t that he was too scared to speak to us – he obviously had to find a toilet.

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Prinkipo Exile

April 21, 2008 at 3:34 pm

For the record, I think anything in relation to John Prescott and poor taste is fine.

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Ray

April 21, 2008 at 5:30 pm

Erm..is this two jags Prescott we’re talking about? Has the tax payers money dried up and is he in need of a little pocket money so he wrote a book?

While I think it’s important to help people with bulemia wasn’t he part of a government that has sold off the NHS lock stock and barrel? I wonder if he is going to book himself into the Priory or some other £12000 a week sanctuary? The rest of the bulemics will just have to make do I suppose. Pity there isn’t a drug that NICE can fob them off with or perhaps a bit of CBT (cuts based therapy.)

As someone who has worked extensively in NHS mental health trusts and has suffered mental ill health I’m fed up with New Labour tinkering with labels while the NHS burns. I note that johng got banned from SU for calling someone a, “political nutter”. I’m sure he wasn’t provoked (not) yet it seems quite odd when blatantly homophobic comments on SU are left untouched.

I remember a locum worker sitting in with me during a counselling session. She rounding on me when I discussed the clients, “eating disorder.” She quickly corrected me and claimed this client (sorry, “service user”) was experienceing eating distress. The client in question looked at her and laughed, “So that’s what it’s called now!” Needless to say it didn’t make one bit of difference to the long wait my client had before she could receive treatment. Excuse my cynicism but in my expereince as a mental health worker in the NHS a lot of this relabelling is an excuse for doing absobloodynothing for people experiencing ill health.

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Ray

April 21, 2008 at 5:31 pm

Don’t ask me how that smiley got in there!

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Ray

April 21, 2008 at 5:32 pm

I must’ve had a turn!

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Jason

April 21, 2008 at 5:42 pm

Yeah but we should in my opinion attack Prescott for being an anti-working class career politician, for being a traitor to the working class, for being a right wing shit etc not for admitting to having bulimia.

I do however take TWP’s point about the timing- and I think she’s probably right. So attack him on that as well if you like. But the original post is in poor taste- and that’s not about Prescott who is an evil piece of scum not worthy of any taste but about people suffering from bulimia.

In the same way we wouldn’t attack a class enemy for being gay, Black or a woman not out of any sensitivity towards the class enemy scum but because to attack someone on those grounds bolsters oprresssion of those groups in capitalist society.

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Liam

April 21, 2008 at 5:46 pm

Again. The piece is about his use of the condition as part of the plan to sell a book. That’s all. Some celebs reveal child abuse, alcoholism etc. That cynical twerp, who never expressed an idea worth hearing, is using this and it’s grotesque.

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modernity

April 21, 2008 at 6:00 pm

I was distressed to see JohnG banned from the SU blog, so have joined the “Justice for JohnG” campaign

for more information, see http://shirazsocialist.wordpress.com/2008/04/20/playing-a-dangerous-game/

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Andy newman

April 21, 2008 at 6:01 pm

No ray

JOhn G was temporarily banned because he repeated language after we had asked him not to use it.

And he was NOT provoked, he was insulting someone totally outside of the RR/SWP debate.

Where homophobic, or any other type of abusive comment is noticed or pointed out to us we delete it. There have been some 30000 comments in the last few months, and some of them get past us.

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Carlo

April 21, 2008 at 6:37 pm

Politically Prescott has many things wrong with him. I worked on his leadership campaign, and saw him pretty close and personal. He is not a monster. I struggle to think that his bulimia is being used as a marketing ploy. Either way, Prescott is still doing a service in bring bulimia out in the open.

Liam’s post may correctly suggest that Prescott has bad motives. However, the comparison with stigmata trivialises bulimia. Prescott is not doing that, and neither should we socialists.

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Spartacus

April 21, 2008 at 6:58 pm

I AM JOHN G!

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Liam

April 21, 2008 at 7:01 pm

I’ll delete any further references to the John G row.

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Spartacus

April 21, 2008 at 7:09 pm

To Big Brother Andy N: You can delete our posts – but you can’t delete our minds!

You can’t delete the revolution!

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Ray

April 21, 2008 at 7:53 pm

What I think is sickening is Prescott using bulemia to promote his book when his government have made despicable cuts in the NHS services that bulemics and other ill people are able to access.

Prescott was part of a government that is attacking sick and disabled people and using them as scapegoats in the media. The changes to incapacity and disability benefit are designed to force sick people into work.

Basically he is using bulemia to sell his book while other people with his condition are being demonised by New Labour and left untreated because of cutbacks. We should be challenging Prescott for his outrageous hypocrisy. Why didn’t he speak up for his fellow bulemics when New Labour were cutting NHS services and planning their benefit cuts? He’s left it until he has a book to sell, the self-serving bastard! (can we still use, “bastard”?)

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Jason

April 21, 2008 at 8:51 pm

Ray- spot on on the hypocrisy. As for ‘bastard’ probably because it is no longer really a mark of oppression or stigma it once was- I’m a bastard in the technical sense (i.e. my parents were unmarried when I was born) though I’m an exceeedingly nice person- and very modest too!

Liam you say ‘Again’ but actually it doesn’t come across like that – however I will accept that as your explanation and also leave it there I think.

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charliemarks

April 21, 2008 at 11:49 pm

Note well: Brown’s in the doo-doo and Prescott comes out about his struggle with an eating disorder.

And the next volume of my autobiography will include unseen photos of the love-bite Norman Tebbit gave me…

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jim jay

April 23, 2008 at 1:14 pm

You be interested to see Mark Steel has written on this in the tIndependent today.

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