| Anas Sarwar, Labour leader in Scotland 13:34 - Feb 9 with 6785 views | GlasgowBlue |
About to call for Starmer to resign. He'll be gone with days imo [Post edited 12 Feb 10:57]
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| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 07:39 - Feb 12 with 390 views | The_Flashing_Smile |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 07:11 - Feb 12 by DJR |
As a former Labour member, this article perfectly sums up my view.
https://www.theguardian.com/co
Here's an extract.
"Finally, there is of course the landslide of 2024: a historic and remarkable turnaround, yet not the triumph that McSweeney and Starmer hoped for. They believed that flags and tanks might win over “hero voters” who had once been red but then turned blue. It didn’t. Labour’s overall vote share only rose by 1.6 percentage points on the great wipeout of 2019. The person who actually won the 2024 election for Starmer is clearly Liz Truss, a disaster in office while splitting the rightwing vote.
The net result is that Starmer has a bigger majority than Clement Attlee in 1945, but a platform closer to Sunak’s. In a forthcoming textual analysis of the manifestos of the two parties down the decades, York University’s Kevin Farnsworth observes that Starmer’s manifesto for “change” was strikingly similar in language and positions to Sunak’s manifesto at the same election. It was, he writes, “a decisive embrace of positions historically closer to Conservative than Labour platforms”.
Politicians and journalists love myth-making, but the danger of preferring legends to history is that you have no guide to take you forward. One of the guiding attitudes of Starmer and McSweeney’s regime has been that grave danger lies in looking even a few millimetres left, which is why he and his team have felt no compunction in taking pops at Andy Burnham and Sadiq Khan, and trying to kick out of their party anyone who even looked like a dissenter. Not just Jeremy Corbyn but peaceable figures from the soft left such as Neal Lawson (threatened with expulsion for endorsing a call on Twitter for cross-party cooperation).
I’ve watched every minute of the hour’s worth of footage of the former Labour metro mayor Jamie Driscoll getting browbeaten by party bureaucrats for simply sitting on stage with the legendary leftwing film-maker Ken Loach. I’ve also read the accounts of long-serving councillors and community figures barred from even being considered as a Labour candidate for parliament for such apparent misdemeanours as “liking” a tweet from Nicola Sturgeon saying that she was free of Covid.
This is McCarthyism dressed up as election-winning politics and it has failed. The result is not much of a government, and barely even a party. It’s a faction, a nasty narrow rightwing faction of what was once one of democracy’s great pluralist traditions. In place of real politics, it has office politics. The refrain that Starmer is a “decent” man does not fit his record of deceiving his way to the top of the Labour party, sitting on his hands during the massacre in Gaza or clamping down on protest against it.
This government is already toast, one Labour heavyweight told me this week, but the Labour party – a 125-year-old political project – may not survive Starmer and McSweeney. The diminution of the party’s horizons is clear when one considers the leadership election to come. Fifty years ago, the battle to replace Jim Callaghan drew heavyweights from Tony Benn to Roy Jenkins. In 2015, the range went from Corbyn to Liz Kendall. This year we are likely to have Streeting, a former student politician, versus someone from the soft left. There are no ideas in contest here, little semblance of a plan for change.
Now the shrinking is being done for them by us, the voters. Labour’s polling is disastrous. At each election, leftwing voters ask: who is the candidate to stop Farage’s candidate? In Caerphilly, it was Plaid Cymru. In Gorton and Denton this month it may be the Greens. But it rarely seems to be Starmer.
Voters are actively searching out alternatives. Because why should they settle for less?"
The worrying thing for me is that the entire political and media establishment went along with what was going on, and look where it has left us. [Post edited 12 Feb 7:13]
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That's a very one-eyed piece, by one person who clearly doesn't like Starmer.
As I've posted before, there are plenty of good things this government have done, but people prefer to not talk about them. |  |
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| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 07:56 - Feb 12 with 367 views | WeWereZombies |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 07:39 - Feb 12 by The_Flashing_Smile |
That's a very one-eyed piece, by one person who clearly doesn't like Starmer.
As I've posted before, there are plenty of good things this government have done, but people prefer to not talk about them. |
It's an opinion piece and I'm not for suppresssing opinion although I did find the statement about Blair being a political heavyweight at the time of the election to replace Callaghan surprising as that happened two years before Blair became an MP... |  |
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| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 07:59 - Feb 12 with 356 views | DJR |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 07:56 - Feb 12 by WeWereZombies |
It's an opinion piece and I'm not for suppresssing opinion although I did find the statement about Blair being a political heavyweight at the time of the election to replace Callaghan surprising as that happened two years before Blair became an MP... |
I think you must have misread Blair for Benn.  |  | | |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 08:00 - Feb 12 with 349 views | GlasgowBlue |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 07:56 - Feb 12 by WeWereZombies |
It's an opinion piece and I'm not for suppresssing opinion although I did find the statement about Blair being a political heavyweight at the time of the election to replace Callaghan surprising as that happened two years before Blair became an MP... |
It says Tony Benn, not Blair. | |
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| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 08:03 - Feb 12 with 341 views | WeWereZombies |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 07:59 - Feb 12 by DJR |
I think you must have misread Blair for Benn. |
Ah, this is what comes of reading articles that have you dropping off to sleep after the first paragraph.
It's still wrong though as Tony Benn didn't run, the candidates were Michael Foot, Denis Healey, Peter Shore and John Silkin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ | |
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| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 08:08 - Feb 12 with 335 views | GlasgowBlue |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 08:03 - Feb 12 by WeWereZombies |
Ah, this is what comes of reading articles that have you dropping off to sleep after the first paragraph.
It's still wrong though as Tony Benn didn't run, the candidates were Michael Foot, Denis Healey, Peter Shore and John Silkin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ |
Yeah I think Benn only ever ran for deputy leader but I could be wrong. Lost out to Healey in 1979 or 80 when Foot became leader. | |
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| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 08:25 - Feb 12 with 296 views | DJR |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 08:03 - Feb 12 by WeWereZombies |
Ah, this is what comes of reading articles that have you dropping off to sleep after the first paragraph.
It's still wrong though as Tony Benn didn't run, the candidates were Michael Foot, Denis Healey, Peter Shore and John Silkin:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ |
There was method in your madness.
But leaving aside sloppy journalism, if you substitute Foot for Benn, I think the point he makes still stands. | | | |
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| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 09:30 - Feb 12 with 247 views | DJR |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 08:57 - Feb 12 by Pinewoodblue |
In a way Labour Together has achieved success but in the short term only .
They have changed the dynamic of the party, at least in the HoC, and they have made it more difficult for the left to make a comeback. The election campaign was light on policy and based on time for a change. It worked perfectly look how many didn’t vote for the Tories, voted Reform, split the right and gave Labour a majority that was undeserved.
When Starmer stands aside it maybe difficult for what’s left of the left wing of the party in parliament to get the necessary votes to be on the ballot when members get to vote.
There are two likely outcomes. A choice between two current Cabinet member or choice between a Together candidate and a charismatic candidate who manages to scrape together 81 supporters from the parliamentary party.
It is possible the next Prime Minister will be as unelectable as Starmer in which case expect a new party of the left to emerge from the ashes.One with long term socialist values. |
The issue I have is that they had a strategy for winning the election but not a strategy (or a winning strategy) for what to do once elected.
And their Ming vase strategy didn't even work in terms of popular support, something that was astonishing given how unpopular the Tories were.
It also lacked a compelling narrative which has followed them into government.
And it is the factionalism that really stinks to me because it means those in control regard Burnham, Rayner and Khan as raving lefties.
Indeed, Michael Crick said 3 years ago that the purge had gone so far that Angela Rayner, Robin Cook and Neil Kinnock would not now be able to gain selection as Labour candidates.
And I think it was him who said that selecting candidates from such a narrow pool would mean that the essential discussion of different ideas in a party would just not take place.
At the end of the day, control freakery was always going to fail because even the most compliant of Labour MPs could only be pushed so far. [Post edited 12 Feb 9:31]
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| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 09:36 - Feb 12 with 238 views | DJR |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 08:08 - Feb 12 by GlasgowBlue |
Yeah I think Benn only ever ran for deputy leader but I could be wrong. Lost out to Healey in 1979 or 80 when Foot became leader. |
Benn stood to replace Wilson as leader but just look at the political giants in this list of those who stood to succeed Wilson.
Michael Foot, James Callaghan, Roy Jenkins, Tony Benn, Denis Healey and Anthony Crosland.
Where are such characters now in both parties? | | | |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 09:40 - Feb 12 with 217 views | The_Flashing_Smile |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 07:56 - Feb 12 by WeWereZombies |
It's an opinion piece and I'm not for suppresssing opinion although I did find the statement about Blair being a political heavyweight at the time of the election to replace Callaghan surprising as that happened two years before Blair became an MP... |
Also, what does he mean by the comment that Wes Streeting is "a former student politician"? Not sure how that's meant to be a slur. | |
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| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 09:42 - Feb 12 with 211 views | itfcjoe |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 09:30 - Feb 12 by DJR |
The issue I have is that they had a strategy for winning the election but not a strategy (or a winning strategy) for what to do once elected.
And their Ming vase strategy didn't even work in terms of popular support, something that was astonishing given how unpopular the Tories were.
It also lacked a compelling narrative which has followed them into government.
And it is the factionalism that really stinks to me because it means those in control regard Burnham, Rayner and Khan as raving lefties.
Indeed, Michael Crick said 3 years ago that the purge had gone so far that Angela Rayner, Robin Cook and Neil Kinnock would not now be able to gain selection as Labour candidates.
And I think it was him who said that selecting candidates from such a narrow pool would mean that the essential discussion of different ideas in a party would just not take place.
At the end of the day, control freakery was always going to fail because even the most compliant of Labour MPs could only be pushed so far. [Post edited 12 Feb 9:31]
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Surely a big element of the popular support being lower was that they were walking the election by a landslide so getting people out to vote in areas where the vote was weighed in wasn't a priority? And hard to motivate people to get out and increase massive winning margins.
Could they have got the vote up, and focussed on 15-20 less swing seats, I'd say so but it's not what the judgement is on |  |
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| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 09:48 - Feb 12 with 189 views | The_Flashing_Smile |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 08:17 - Feb 12 by DJR |
You think the Labour Together project has been a success?
As it is, what has gone on in the Labour Party mirrors what Johnson did to people like Gauke and Hammond, and in my view represents an assault on democracy
As regards the good things you mention, their approach has been to play these down and instead try to appeal (unsuccessfully) to what the article refers to as "hero voters".
The result has been the haemorrhaging of support to other parties. [Post edited 12 Feb 8:22]
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Where did I say the Labour Together project has been a success? I merely commented that they've done some good stuff that doesn't get anywhere near the traction the mistakes get. I don't think Labour's approach has been to play down their successes, that's the right wing media's job.
People are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
This government haven't been a resounding success so far, and in fact have made plenty of missteps. But they're far more preferable to any of the alternatives.
jasondozzell can down arrow as much as he likes, it won't bring Corbyn back or suddenly make him successful if it did. The only thing his approach will bring is Farage as PM. Maybe he wants that as an eff you to everyone who didn't back Corbyn, but I'd rather not feck the country up even more just to prove a point.
Hold your nose and stick with Labour, I reckon. Things could be a whole lot worse. [Post edited 12 Feb 9:54]
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| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 09:49 - Feb 12 with 189 views | DJR |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 09:42 - Feb 12 by itfcjoe |
Surely a big element of the popular support being lower was that they were walking the election by a landslide so getting people out to vote in areas where the vote was weighed in wasn't a priority? And hard to motivate people to get out and increase massive winning margins.
Could they have got the vote up, and focussed on 15-20 less swing seats, I'd say so but it's not what the judgement is on |
I suppose the point I was making is that they didn't make a compelling case for voting for them, and the election mainly ended up being "anyone but the Tories".
In 1997, with an equally unpopular Tory party, Blair managed to get 10 percentage points more in terms of the popular vote.
And 33% of the vote was a very low starting point when (inevitably) things didn't always go smoothly. | | | |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 09:57 - Feb 12 with 170 views | WeWereZombies |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 09:49 - Feb 12 by DJR |
I suppose the point I was making is that they didn't make a compelling case for voting for them, and the election mainly ended up being "anyone but the Tories".
In 1997, with an equally unpopular Tory party, Blair managed to get 10 percentage points more in terms of the popular vote.
And 33% of the vote was a very low starting point when (inevitably) things didn't always go smoothly. |
Although the incoming Blair administration didn't achieve much apart from the hunting ban in their claims for the first hundred days.
[edit: I might be getting the first and second Blair election victories mixed up.] [Post edited 12 Feb 10:04]
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| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 10:01 - Feb 12 with 159 views | DJR |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 09:40 - Feb 12 by The_Flashing_Smile |
Also, what does he mean by the comment that Wes Streeting is "a former student politician"? Not sure how that's meant to be a slur. |
Maybe he's getting at the fact that as NUS President Streeting supported tuition fees.
More likely it's a dig at the number of politicians these days (and it applies to both parties) that seem to have done nothing in the world outside politics before they became MPs. | | | |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 10:03 - Feb 12 with 150 views | DJR |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 09:57 - Feb 12 by WeWereZombies |
Although the incoming Blair administration didn't achieve much apart from the hunting ban in their claims for the first hundred days.
[edit: I might be getting the first and second Blair election victories mixed up.] [Post edited 12 Feb 10:04]
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And I was very critical of them for not being more bold in that first term.
But electorally, it didn't start to go a bit pear-shaped until the Iraq war some 6 years later, and even after that they won in 2005. | | | |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 10:10 - Feb 12 with 139 views | DJR |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 09:48 - Feb 12 by The_Flashing_Smile |
Where did I say the Labour Together project has been a success? I merely commented that they've done some good stuff that doesn't get anywhere near the traction the mistakes get. I don't think Labour's approach has been to play down their successes, that's the right wing media's job.
People are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
This government haven't been a resounding success so far, and in fact have made plenty of missteps. But they're far more preferable to any of the alternatives.
jasondozzell can down arrow as much as he likes, it won't bring Corbyn back or suddenly make him successful if it did. The only thing his approach will bring is Farage as PM. Maybe he wants that as an eff you to everyone who didn't back Corbyn, but I'd rather not feck the country up even more just to prove a point.
Hold your nose and stick with Labour, I reckon. Things could be a whole lot worse. [Post edited 12 Feb 9:54]
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Given the split in the vote between the Greens, Labour and the Lib Dems, the problem it seems to me is that it is going to be very difficult to know at the next election which is the party to vote for to defeat the Tories/Reform.
By-elections are slightly different because there is a greater focus on one particular election, but it will be interesting to see how the up-coming Parliamentary by-election pans out. [Post edited 12 Feb 10:17]
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| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 10:12 - Feb 12 with 133 views | The_Flashing_Smile |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 10:01 - Feb 12 by DJR |
Maybe he's getting at the fact that as NUS President Streeting supported tuition fees.
More likely it's a dig at the number of politicians these days (and it applies to both parties) that seem to have done nothing in the world outside politics before they became MPs. |
He was a councillor, head of education at Stonewall and a public sector consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers, so although short stints, not strictly true. | |
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| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 10:30 - Feb 12 with 115 views | WeWereZombies |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 10:10 - Feb 12 by DJR |
Given the split in the vote between the Greens, Labour and the Lib Dems, the problem it seems to me is that it is going to be very difficult to know at the next election which is the party to vote for to defeat the Tories/Reform.
By-elections are slightly different because there is a greater focus on one particular election, but it will be interesting to see how the up-coming Parliamentary by-election pans out. [Post edited 12 Feb 10:17]
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Just vote for the candidate closest to your beliefs and values, if they don't win this time then the winning candidate will clock that there is a groundswell and should be thinking ahead to form policies that will gain your vote next time. | |
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| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 10:33 - Feb 12 with 108 views | SuperKieranMcKenna |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 09:48 - Feb 12 by The_Flashing_Smile |
Where did I say the Labour Together project has been a success? I merely commented that they've done some good stuff that doesn't get anywhere near the traction the mistakes get. I don't think Labour's approach has been to play down their successes, that's the right wing media's job.
People are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
This government haven't been a resounding success so far, and in fact have made plenty of missteps. But they're far more preferable to any of the alternatives.
jasondozzell can down arrow as much as he likes, it won't bring Corbyn back or suddenly make him successful if it did. The only thing his approach will bring is Farage as PM. Maybe he wants that as an eff you to everyone who didn't back Corbyn, but I'd rather not feck the country up even more just to prove a point.
Hold your nose and stick with Labour, I reckon. Things could be a whole lot worse. [Post edited 12 Feb 9:54]
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“ Hold your nose and stick with Labour, I reckon. Things could be a whole lot worse.”
I think you’ve just gone up with a great tagline for their next election campaign 😀 |  | | |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 10:35 - Feb 12 with 107 views | DJR |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 10:30 - Feb 12 by WeWereZombies |
Just vote for the candidate closest to your beliefs and values, if they don't win this time then the winning candidate will clock that there is a groundswell and should be thinking ahead to form policies that will gain your vote next time. |
That has always been my philosophy, and I will continue it at the next election because the Tory is a shoe-in despite how well Reform are doing nationally. [Post edited 12 Feb 10:50]
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| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 10:45 - Feb 12 with 91 views | Pinewoodblue |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 10:10 - Feb 12 by DJR |
Given the split in the vote between the Greens, Labour and the Lib Dems, the problem it seems to me is that it is going to be very difficult to know at the next election which is the party to vote for to defeat the Tories/Reform.
By-elections are slightly different because there is a greater focus on one particular election, but it will be interesting to see how the up-coming Parliamentary by-election pans out. [Post edited 12 Feb 10:17]
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Re electing a Labour government is dependent on Conservative Party taking votes off Reform.
Labour’s stance shouldn’t be about why people shouldn’t vote Reform it should be about why we should vote Labour.
We need a growing economy to stand any chance of achieving that. The economy needs to be strong enough, for example, to be able to increase tax codes. Currently, as a pensioner, every year my tax code goes down. Some call it a stealth tax but it is visible. |  |
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| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 10:49 - Feb 12 with 84 views | leitrimblue |
| Anas Sawar, Labour leader in Scotland on 10:33 - Feb 12 by SuperKieranMcKenna |
“ Hold your nose and stick with Labour, I reckon. Things could be a whole lot worse.”
I think you’ve just gone up with a great tagline for their next election campaign 😀 |
It's gonna look great plastered on posters
Better then like last election strategy- 'Slightly less useless and corrupt then Boris' |  | | |
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