| No words 11:25 - Sep 9 with 5004 views | Darth_Koont |
So NOW it's all in the past and we need to get the deal over the line. And all I'm seeing is former Remainer centrist politicians and journalists calling it smart, sensible politics.
WTAF!? |  |
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| No words on 15:56 - Sep 9 with 1137 views | GaryCooper |
| No words on 12:09 - Sep 9 by Darth_Koont |
Well, the Change grifters have now ended up in exactly the sort of jobs that they should have been in before ever considering a career in politics.
And it wasn't all about Brexit. Even Brexit itself wasn't - as the underlying disillusionment and disenfranchisement before and after the referendum was still the major driver.
But the pressure to fight on these narrow terms was immense - the PLP and the press were utterly insistent. If that was a matter of principle then I'd expect to see some continued fight about making that point. But no, let's just move on.
Sick and tired of this performative, self-serving bobbins. They're as big an obstacle to actual change as the Tories (perhaps bigger because of where they pretend to sit). |
You and those like you, those who have hijacked the Labour party with your ideology of never being elected are the real obstacle of change.
KS may well win the next GE, then he can change something, unelected he can change feck all. |  | | |
| No words on 16:01 - Sep 9 with 1128 views | Darth_Koont |
I get that but it's clearly been a trap ever since the referendum.
Now the same people who spent 4 years ignoring all this and using Brexit/Remain as a big, binary stick to hit Corbyn with are telling everyone to see the bigger picture and play it smart. | |
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| No words on 16:04 - Sep 9 with 1115 views | hype313 |
Because they took a bloodbath in their heartlands due to Brexiteers, and if they want to have any chance of winning them back, shouting from the rooftops that we should remain will mean another 5 years of the Tories.
I think he's playing a smart long game, he realises regardless of his views that having a dogmatic approach to Brexit won't move the party on, or win back lost votes. |  |
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| No words on 16:11 - Sep 9 with 1101 views | Darth_Koont |
| No words on 15:56 - Sep 9 by GaryCooper |
You and those like you, those who have hijacked the Labour party with your ideology of never being elected are the real obstacle of change.
KS may well win the next GE, then he can change something, unelected he can change feck all. |
Call me radical but I think social democracy and socialism really should be part of the UK political debate. And I hope that if Starmer sweeps to power it will be.
But if you and him are promising Blair 2.0 in 4 (!!!) years' time. Then I'll give it a miss.
It's through the lack of genuine alternatives over the past couple of decades that we've got such crap politics and such a crap government now. Let's not keep making the same mistakes again. | |
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| No words on 16:13 - Sep 9 with 1093 views | Darth_Koont |
| No words on 16:04 - Sep 9 by hype313 |
Because they took a bloodbath in their heartlands due to Brexiteers, and if they want to have any chance of winning them back, shouting from the rooftops that we should remain will mean another 5 years of the Tories.
I think he's playing a smart long game, he realises regardless of his views that having a dogmatic approach to Brexit won't move the party on, or win back lost votes. |
Not disagreeing. But that was surely the same issue pre-election and which caused the bloodbath?
I'm disturbed by the hypocrisy. | |
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| No words on 16:49 - Sep 9 with 1050 views | manchego |
| No words on 13:14 - Sep 9 by MonkeyAlan |
Starmer is even weaker than l thought he would be. |
I didn't know much about Starmer before he became leader and thought he was very dull when I heard him speak on anything.
I happen to think he's way, way better than I thought possible. He's obviously cleverer than most people in the HoC. And he understands tactics way better than most. He makes Corbyn looks like a complete dope at PMQ.
The fact that bojo doesn't / can't answer anything only makes one person look bad.
He is boring but if you want a clown then you will get a circus.
If you want stable Government you need the boring guy. |  | | |
| No words on 16:50 - Sep 9 with 1045 views | GaryCooper |
| No words on 16:11 - Sep 9 by Darth_Koont |
Call me radical but I think social democracy and socialism really should be part of the UK political debate. And I hope that if Starmer sweeps to power it will be.
But if you and him are promising Blair 2.0 in 4 (!!!) years' time. Then I'll give it a miss.
It's through the lack of genuine alternatives over the past couple of decades that we've got such crap politics and such a crap government now. Let's not keep making the same mistakes again. |
Blair's government had real talent, Blair got religion and power mad granted, but his government was the best in my lifetime.
Strange that you would rather another 5 years of the Tories than a Blair 2.0, surely that makes you a Tory? [Post edited 9 Sep 2020 16:51]
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| No words on 16:55 - Sep 9 with 1041 views | Darth_Koont |
| No words on 16:50 - Sep 9 by GaryCooper |
Blair's government had real talent, Blair got religion and power mad granted, but his government was the best in my lifetime.
Strange that you would rather another 5 years of the Tories than a Blair 2.0, surely that makes you a Tory? [Post edited 9 Sep 2020 16:51]
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If you say so.
Personally I think Blair and New Labour dropped the ball on the major structural inequalities that have come home to roost in the past few years.
Better than the Tories is a very low bar. | |
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| No words on 16:56 - Sep 9 with 1037 views | HARRY10 |
The glaring problem for the surrender monkeys as they tug at their forelocks is that to all intents and purposes the UK is still in the EU. 0 and whatever deal is agreed the UK has not the facilities, customs staff or computer software to deal with millions of extra forms per week, in regard to freight.
All I see at the moment is Johnson and the other liars sat in a car as it rolls towards the cliff edge assuring each other that at some point the EU will rush over and stop the car going over the cliff.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/24/irish-sea-border-chaos-bre
"Since his father founded the company 45 years ago, inside the then European Economic Community, “we’ve had no experience whatever of customs”. He runs through just some of the certificates required for every trip his 200 lorries will take, “the weight and cost of every item; the number of pallets; all ingredients and their origins for maybe 3,000 different products. If you’re a few cases short when you arrive, everything is rechecked.” He can hardly believe the madness of it. The Brexiters’ claim to escape “Brussels red tape” has created this instead — even with a deal, let alone without."
That last sentence seems to be completely ignored as people, usually after mainlining of the Express, bleat out that the UK has left. To them I would say, read the article, read again the words above from someone who has experience and knows how this is going to cause chaos.
The blunt truth is whatever happens, the UK will not be able to cope and ports will snarl up within hours, not days.... hours. |  | | |
| No words on 17:16 - Sep 9 with 1008 views | GaryCooper |
| No words on 16:55 - Sep 9 by Darth_Koont |
If you say so.
Personally I think Blair and New Labour dropped the ball on the major structural inequalities that have come home to roost in the past few years.
Better than the Tories is a very low bar. |
By the way, I owe you an apology for my outburst on Saturday, it was unnecessary. | | | |
| No words on 17:27 - Sep 9 with 1000 views | manchego |
| No words on 16:55 - Sep 9 by Darth_Koont |
If you say so.
Personally I think Blair and New Labour dropped the ball on the major structural inequalities that have come home to roost in the past few years.
Better than the Tories is a very low bar. |
It's not a low bar. It's the only bar.
Dropping the ball on major structural inequalities is something we can talk about.
That's a moot point. And you need include all the positives of which there were many.
Comparing Blair to Haybale is laughable. | | | |
| No words on 17:28 - Sep 9 with 1001 views | Darth_Koont |
| No words on 17:16 - Sep 9 by GaryCooper |
By the way, I owe you an apology for my outburst on Saturday, it was unnecessary. |
Thanks and no probs.
And I certainly didn't intend it to be taken personally or have another layer of meaning. So sorry for that. | |
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| No words on 17:32 - Sep 9 with 987 views | jaykay |
| No words on 13:14 - Sep 9 by MonkeyAlan |
Starmer is even weaker than l thought he would be. |
i thought the standard reply. was he's a good egg really. |  |
| forensic experts say footers and spruces fingerprints were not found at the scene after the weekends rows |
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| No words on 17:40 - Sep 9 with 981 views | Darth_Koont |
| No words on 17:27 - Sep 9 by manchego |
It's not a low bar. It's the only bar.
Dropping the ball on major structural inequalities is something we can talk about.
That's a moot point. And you need include all the positives of which there were many.
Comparing Blair to Haybale is laughable. |
It may be the only bar, but I want a new one.
Labour have lost Scotland and the supposed Red Wall because people there want something else. It's just a shame that Labour didn't do enough in the 13 years of government to halt or reverse the growing regional inequalities. Brown to his credit has at least admitted they should have done more.
New Labour did well on civil liberties but that was literally half the job of tackling inequality and injustice. I would have expected Cameron to do much the same.
It's the bigger more transformative policies and investments in UK society that have been missing. The idea that neoliberalism can (or even wants) to save the day is at least 20 years out of date - as it's entirely dependent on unsustainable growth but also because it wrongly assumes that growth will lead to increased health and wellbeing. You just have to look at the US to understand how loony that belief is. | |
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| No words on 17:43 - Sep 9 with 971 views | GaryCooper |
| No words on 16:49 - Sep 9 by manchego |
I didn't know much about Starmer before he became leader and thought he was very dull when I heard him speak on anything.
I happen to think he's way, way better than I thought possible. He's obviously cleverer than most people in the HoC. And he understands tactics way better than most. He makes Corbyn looks like a complete dope at PMQ.
The fact that bojo doesn't / can't answer anything only makes one person look bad.
He is boring but if you want a clown then you will get a circus.
If you want stable Government you need the boring guy. |
KS understands that more can be said by saying less, I am hopeful that the middle ground can be claimed. | | | |
| No words on 18:07 - Sep 9 with 952 views | HARRY10 |
| No words on 16:56 - Sep 9 by HARRY10 |
The glaring problem for the surrender monkeys as they tug at their forelocks is that to all intents and purposes the UK is still in the EU. 0 and whatever deal is agreed the UK has not the facilities, customs staff or computer software to deal with millions of extra forms per week, in regard to freight.
All I see at the moment is Johnson and the other liars sat in a car as it rolls towards the cliff edge assuring each other that at some point the EU will rush over and stop the car going over the cliff.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/24/irish-sea-border-chaos-bre
"Since his father founded the company 45 years ago, inside the then European Economic Community, “we’ve had no experience whatever of customs”. He runs through just some of the certificates required for every trip his 200 lorries will take, “the weight and cost of every item; the number of pallets; all ingredients and their origins for maybe 3,000 different products. If you’re a few cases short when you arrive, everything is rechecked.” He can hardly believe the madness of it. The Brexiters’ claim to escape “Brussels red tape” has created this instead — even with a deal, let alone without."
That last sentence seems to be completely ignored as people, usually after mainlining of the Express, bleat out that the UK has left. To them I would say, read the article, read again the words above from someone who has experience and knows how this is going to cause chaos.
The blunt truth is whatever happens, the UK will not be able to cope and ports will snarl up within hours, not days.... hours. |
Further to the above we have this from a report to a Parliamentary committee today
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/business
"Road haulage bosses told a House of Commons committee ministers had failed to deliver the necessary computer systems, lorry parks and customs agents for a smooth transition and seemed to be relying on “self-belief in their own rhetoric that everything will be OK”."
"The chief executive of the Road Haulage Association Richard Burnett told the Commons Committee on the Future Relationship with the EU that the sector was “a long way off” recruiting the 50,000 customs agents needed to process the 200 million additional forms generated annually by Brexit. "
".... still waiting to be provided with “full functionality” of IT systems which will be central to the post-Brexit operations, he said. Meanwhile, the UK does not have sufficient supplies of the heat-treated pallets which will be needed to export to the EU from 1 January."
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-kent-passport-uk-eu-withdr
And before the witless few start bleating about scare mongering the shortage of staff, the absence of any computer system to deal with an extra 4 million forms a week are real. Given how much of UK food is imported via lorries, how much car parts are moved via a just in time system this will be a massive disruption to food and medicine supplies
Tome for some to read up on thus because far from going way, the clock is ticking as it has been, with nothing happening still | | | |
| No words on 15:35 - Sep 11 with 828 views | itfcjoe |
This is good, as usual, from ian Dunt
We have the basic picture now. For as long as they are in power the Boris Johnson-Dominic Cummings administration will seek to divide us into warring tribes to sustain its electoral support. If it keeps politics fractured along cultural divides it thinks it can maintain the 40% support it enjoys, composed of Tory and Leave voters.
This week's events are the latest iteration of that. The clear plan was to present the internal markets bill and accept - even promote - that it would break international law. Labour would then attack the government and the EU would kick up a storm, perhaps even walk away from the talks. No.10 could get into its safe space - fighting the Europeans abroad and Remainers at home.
This much was obvious from Johnson's visible befuddlement when Labour leader Keir Starmer did not bring the issue up at PMQs. "He is totally silent on the bill that obsesses the rest of his backbenchers," Johnson spluttered. "He does not want to offend the huge number of his backbenchers who want to overturn the verdict of the people."
It was a telling moment. Johnson's culture war gun was loaded and he had to fire it, but there was no target to aim at. And there are lessons to learn there. Specifically: when to fight the culture war, who should fight it, where we fight it and how we fight it.
There are moments when you must fight. This was true during the referendum campaign - although most of us were too slow to realise that we were in a culture war by then. It was true during the torrid years between the campaign and Johnson's election victory. Back then, Brexit could be stopped or at least made more moderate. Free movement and deep UK-EU trading and political connections could be salvaged. There was a slim Tory majority up to 2017 and a hung parliament after that. Things were possible.
The same is true now for issues like the European Convention on Human Rights, asylum policy or judicial review. We must fight to preserve people's rights where they are at risk and we can still do something about it.
But on Brexit, things are now different for Labour. Brexit has happened. There is an 80 seat Tory majority. There is nothing Starmer can do to stop it or to make it more moderate. Arguably, his vocal involvement at this stage would make the government take an even more draconian position in opposition to him. So Starmer's best bet is to sidestep the obvious Tory trap, demand the deal the government promised, and then launch an assault on them if they fail to secure it. Quite what he does if there is a deal is another matter - one fraught with difficulties that are too tortured to go into here.
This is not a matter of completely giving in. Labour should obviously be voting against the internal market bill. It should be stating its opposition to the breaking of international law. It should be asking urgent questions in parliament, which it has done, and using its shadow attorney general, Lord Falconer, to lambast it, which it has also done. But it does not need to make it the focus of the central weekly clash at PMQs.
The next question is who fights. None of these calculations affect the rest of us. People should fight for their values. Even without Labour, the battle against these sorts of provisions still takes place, in the media, online, and through lawyers. It happens in international capitals, through campaigners, through expert bodies, through constitutional advocates. You can rob No.10 of the dynamic it wants while still maintaining the ability to challenge it.
But by removing the opposition's role, the centre of political dispute shifts. The impact of that challenge takes place at a different location. In this case, it becomes internal to the Conservative party. Suddenly, figures like former Tory leader Michael Howard and former minister Bob Neill become the centre of resistance. They become embroiled in a battle with the ERG, who, as is their way, are demanding more radicalism from the bill. That battle is then informed not by the opposition party, which would prompt them to close ranks, but by figures like Nancy Pelosi in Washington, who is making it clear that the bill will mean a UK-US trade deal will never pass Congress.
The government uses culture war to consolidate its own side and divide others, as it did to great effect in the general election. But what happens when you relocate that dispute? What happens when it is shifted instead to inside the Conservative party? Then it becomes less attractive.
The final aspect is how you fight. What are the arguments you use? What do you emphasise? During the Brexit referendum, Cummings' Vote Leave campaign knew that it could bank on the quarter or so of the population who held very right wing or anti-immigrant views, but that it needed different arguments for those in the centre who could go either way - and so the NHS bus and arguments over sovereignty were given precedence in that area.
The same is true here. The basic principle of breaking international law is a key motivator to many of us. It galvanises those who believe in a rules-based international system. But to many voters that argument will not have force. What will have force is the notion of competence, an area where the government is already very weak.
It spent the last election insisting it had done a fantastic deal and wrapping support for the party around the passing of the document. Now it has turned against the document. That is, no matter how else you might interpret it, grossly incompetent. And that argument should be taking centre stage in this dispute.
These two things go hand in hand. We argue for our values, for the supreme need to maintain liberal and democratic principles. But simultaneously we should make arguments that reach out beyond our core support to a broader section of the public.
Fortunately, that is precisely the approach Starmer is following in parliament - a relentless focus on competence. And that is the one which will have most force if the government ends up with no-deal.
They did not get Brexit done. It turned into a mess that will impact for years. They did not get their own deal done. It was torn up. They did not protect the economy, let alone level-up. It was hammered by the actions they took. If that eventuality is met with people saying that it is the fault of Brexit, it will not change things. If it is met with people saying that they made a mess of it, it will. And the sooner things are changed, the sooner they can be rectified.
The alternative is too grotesque to contemplate: a country becoming steadily poorer with a government which can only respond to events by trying to divide people into warring tribes. Who will they blame? Europe. Remainers. Immigrants. The young. And what will be the effect of that, as we tumble further into chaos and decline?
This is how the culture war must be fought: smartly. We have to know when to fight, where to fight, who should be fighting, and how they should be doing it. If we don't learn those lessons, things will become very ugly indeed. |  |
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| No words on 17:20 - Sep 11 with 801 views | Darth_Koont |
| No words on 15:35 - Sep 11 by itfcjoe |
This is good, as usual, from ian Dunt
We have the basic picture now. For as long as they are in power the Boris Johnson-Dominic Cummings administration will seek to divide us into warring tribes to sustain its electoral support. If it keeps politics fractured along cultural divides it thinks it can maintain the 40% support it enjoys, composed of Tory and Leave voters.
This week's events are the latest iteration of that. The clear plan was to present the internal markets bill and accept - even promote - that it would break international law. Labour would then attack the government and the EU would kick up a storm, perhaps even walk away from the talks. No.10 could get into its safe space - fighting the Europeans abroad and Remainers at home.
This much was obvious from Johnson's visible befuddlement when Labour leader Keir Starmer did not bring the issue up at PMQs. "He is totally silent on the bill that obsesses the rest of his backbenchers," Johnson spluttered. "He does not want to offend the huge number of his backbenchers who want to overturn the verdict of the people."
It was a telling moment. Johnson's culture war gun was loaded and he had to fire it, but there was no target to aim at. And there are lessons to learn there. Specifically: when to fight the culture war, who should fight it, where we fight it and how we fight it.
There are moments when you must fight. This was true during the referendum campaign - although most of us were too slow to realise that we were in a culture war by then. It was true during the torrid years between the campaign and Johnson's election victory. Back then, Brexit could be stopped or at least made more moderate. Free movement and deep UK-EU trading and political connections could be salvaged. There was a slim Tory majority up to 2017 and a hung parliament after that. Things were possible.
The same is true now for issues like the European Convention on Human Rights, asylum policy or judicial review. We must fight to preserve people's rights where they are at risk and we can still do something about it.
But on Brexit, things are now different for Labour. Brexit has happened. There is an 80 seat Tory majority. There is nothing Starmer can do to stop it or to make it more moderate. Arguably, his vocal involvement at this stage would make the government take an even more draconian position in opposition to him. So Starmer's best bet is to sidestep the obvious Tory trap, demand the deal the government promised, and then launch an assault on them if they fail to secure it. Quite what he does if there is a deal is another matter - one fraught with difficulties that are too tortured to go into here.
This is not a matter of completely giving in. Labour should obviously be voting against the internal market bill. It should be stating its opposition to the breaking of international law. It should be asking urgent questions in parliament, which it has done, and using its shadow attorney general, Lord Falconer, to lambast it, which it has also done. But it does not need to make it the focus of the central weekly clash at PMQs.
The next question is who fights. None of these calculations affect the rest of us. People should fight for their values. Even without Labour, the battle against these sorts of provisions still takes place, in the media, online, and through lawyers. It happens in international capitals, through campaigners, through expert bodies, through constitutional advocates. You can rob No.10 of the dynamic it wants while still maintaining the ability to challenge it.
But by removing the opposition's role, the centre of political dispute shifts. The impact of that challenge takes place at a different location. In this case, it becomes internal to the Conservative party. Suddenly, figures like former Tory leader Michael Howard and former minister Bob Neill become the centre of resistance. They become embroiled in a battle with the ERG, who, as is their way, are demanding more radicalism from the bill. That battle is then informed not by the opposition party, which would prompt them to close ranks, but by figures like Nancy Pelosi in Washington, who is making it clear that the bill will mean a UK-US trade deal will never pass Congress.
The government uses culture war to consolidate its own side and divide others, as it did to great effect in the general election. But what happens when you relocate that dispute? What happens when it is shifted instead to inside the Conservative party? Then it becomes less attractive.
The final aspect is how you fight. What are the arguments you use? What do you emphasise? During the Brexit referendum, Cummings' Vote Leave campaign knew that it could bank on the quarter or so of the population who held very right wing or anti-immigrant views, but that it needed different arguments for those in the centre who could go either way - and so the NHS bus and arguments over sovereignty were given precedence in that area.
The same is true here. The basic principle of breaking international law is a key motivator to many of us. It galvanises those who believe in a rules-based international system. But to many voters that argument will not have force. What will have force is the notion of competence, an area where the government is already very weak.
It spent the last election insisting it had done a fantastic deal and wrapping support for the party around the passing of the document. Now it has turned against the document. That is, no matter how else you might interpret it, grossly incompetent. And that argument should be taking centre stage in this dispute.
These two things go hand in hand. We argue for our values, for the supreme need to maintain liberal and democratic principles. But simultaneously we should make arguments that reach out beyond our core support to a broader section of the public.
Fortunately, that is precisely the approach Starmer is following in parliament - a relentless focus on competence. And that is the one which will have most force if the government ends up with no-deal.
They did not get Brexit done. It turned into a mess that will impact for years. They did not get their own deal done. It was torn up. They did not protect the economy, let alone level-up. It was hammered by the actions they took. If that eventuality is met with people saying that it is the fault of Brexit, it will not change things. If it is met with people saying that they made a mess of it, it will. And the sooner things are changed, the sooner they can be rectified.
The alternative is too grotesque to contemplate: a country becoming steadily poorer with a government which can only respond to events by trying to divide people into warring tribes. Who will they blame? Europe. Remainers. Immigrants. The young. And what will be the effect of that, as we tumble further into chaos and decline?
This is how the culture war must be fought: smartly. We have to know when to fight, where to fight, who should be fighting, and how they should be doing it. If we don't learn those lessons, things will become very ugly indeed. |
I think the idea that Labour can game politics with the tactical/performative stuff is where we completely disagree.
Whatever happens with Covid-19 and Brexit, I predict 4 years is plenty of time for the Conservatives to move the goalposts and set the agenda again unless the opposition takes the lead.
The Tories are just better and more shameless at it. And the bigger problems of the world give them all the ammunition Labour could be using to even greater effect.
Because if this is about some long game that's paving the way for progressive "Corbynist" policies, which I'm less and less convinced is going to happen despite Starmer's pledges, then I can see the Conservatives stealing that thunder as well. It'll be obvious and straightforward stuff like the furlough scheme that every country also introduced but they'll package it well while calling out Labour's policies as the politics of envy.
Either that or a proper oppositional movement will legitimately fill the gap like BLM or the environmentalists in their areas. In fact, the Scottish independence movement is all ready to go. | |
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| No words on 22:58 - Sep 12 with 721 views | ArnoldMoorhen |
| No words on 16:01 - Sep 9 by Darth_Koont |
I get that but it's clearly been a trap ever since the referendum.
Now the same people who spent 4 years ignoring all this and using Brexit/Remain as a big, binary stick to hit Corbyn with are telling everyone to see the bigger picture and play it smart. |
You do understand that Jeremy Corbyn lost an election against Teresa "Running through wheatfields" May, don't you?
She was the equivalent of Wigan 2020: utterly out of touch, floundering, and unable to control her own MPs.
And Corbyn couldn't beat her.
And, having failed to beat her, he failed to have the good grace to step down at that point (as Ed Milliband had done after his GE defeat) and proceeded to be unelectable for the next few years.
Robin Cook, a far, far brighter, more experienced, and actually more principled politician than Corbyn, once said, when asked if he would stand for leader: "No, because I am ugly, ginger and have a beard."
Cook understood the reality. It wasn't fair, but he got it. Corbyn never did. The British public had been asked once if they wanted him as leader and gave a resounding "No!" It was possibly unfair, and definitely personal. But he didn't get the message and so we now have this sh1tshow.
The British public had given their answer and they really, really didn't like being asked twice.
Corbyn was terrible at PMQs, terrible at gaining the confidence of the public, terrible at using the breadth of skills and experience of many in the PLP, preferring to alienate talented MPs for ideological reasons.
He would have been a terrible Prime Minister.
Starmer was supportive of him and worked diligently as a member of his team. He was loyal. He deserves the same loyalty from the Left Wimg of the Labour Party. | | | |
| No words on 23:03 - Sep 12 with 716 views | ArnoldMoorhen |
| No words on 12:09 - Sep 9 by Darth_Koont |
Well, the Change grifters have now ended up in exactly the sort of jobs that they should have been in before ever considering a career in politics.
And it wasn't all about Brexit. Even Brexit itself wasn't - as the underlying disillusionment and disenfranchisement before and after the referendum was still the major driver.
But the pressure to fight on these narrow terms was immense - the PLP and the press were utterly insistent. If that was a matter of principle then I'd expect to see some continued fight about making that point. But no, let's just move on.
Sick and tired of this performative, self-serving bobbins. They're as big an obstacle to actual change as the Tories (perhaps bigger because of where they pretend to sit). |
If Chuka was a grifter then he would have remained in the Labour Party, with a seat pretty much Guaranteed under FPTP.
Instead he made the principled decision to leave Labour, and it cost him his cushy job. It's the very opposite of being a grifter. | | | |
| No words on 00:52 - Sep 13 with 697 views | monytowbray |
| No words on 11:39 - Sep 9 by Darth_Koont |
But it was effectively the same situation last year and we had a bunch of grifters leave the Labour Party over it as well as a pre-election insistence on a second referendum if not a Remain position.
Bunch of clowns. They sacrificed the chance to represent vulnerable people in the wider discussion to further their own soft Establishment careers. |
Starmer’s not done much to convince me yet, says very little about the pressing Russian money too.
Then he says it’s safe to go back to school and stuff like this.
I do wonder if it’s a play to keep the tabloid billionaires on side. And that’s why nothing changes and nothing ever will. |  |
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| No words on 10:14 - Sep 13 with 641 views | Darth_Koont |
| No words on 22:58 - Sep 12 by ArnoldMoorhen |
You do understand that Jeremy Corbyn lost an election against Teresa "Running through wheatfields" May, don't you?
She was the equivalent of Wigan 2020: utterly out of touch, floundering, and unable to control her own MPs.
And Corbyn couldn't beat her.
And, having failed to beat her, he failed to have the good grace to step down at that point (as Ed Milliband had done after his GE defeat) and proceeded to be unelectable for the next few years.
Robin Cook, a far, far brighter, more experienced, and actually more principled politician than Corbyn, once said, when asked if he would stand for leader: "No, because I am ugly, ginger and have a beard."
Cook understood the reality. It wasn't fair, but he got it. Corbyn never did. The British public had been asked once if they wanted him as leader and gave a resounding "No!" It was possibly unfair, and definitely personal. But he didn't get the message and so we now have this sh1tshow.
The British public had given their answer and they really, really didn't like being asked twice.
Corbyn was terrible at PMQs, terrible at gaining the confidence of the public, terrible at using the breadth of skills and experience of many in the PLP, preferring to alienate talented MPs for ideological reasons.
He would have been a terrible Prime Minister.
Starmer was supportive of him and worked diligently as a member of his team. He was loyal. He deserves the same loyalty from the Left Wimg of the Labour Party. |
This didn’t happen in a vacuum. Corbyn was briefed against and smeared more than any British politician in my lifetime - most viciously from within the Labour Party and a supposedly “Left” Guardian.
Starmer isn’t personally that complicit and deserves support but the Labour Party need to address why they were so uncomfortable with left-wing politics when the polling data says the public is largely supportive. We’ve just had 5 years where the loyalty was non-existent from some which the Forde Inquiry has to address. That’s a party where the broad church of members has been shat upon.
And if they’re not going to provide a strong enough and progressive alternative outside the Westminster bubble and represent its members and the electorate then they might as well be the LibDems. I also don’t want to see that soft Establishment stuff in government. It’s missing the point of what the country objectively needs and where we’re struggling. | |
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| No words on 10:18 - Sep 13 with 636 views | Darth_Koont |
| No words on 23:03 - Sep 12 by ArnoldMoorhen |
If Chuka was a grifter then he would have remained in the Labour Party, with a seat pretty much Guaranteed under FPTP.
Instead he made the principled decision to leave Labour, and it cost him his cushy job. It's the very opposite of being a grifter. |
Principled, my @rse.
He made a career gamble and lost. Then tried to recover something with the LibDems and lost that too. | |
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