Mad and totally unethical
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/23/dominic-cummings-launch...
United Kingdom 2
Sat, 2021-04-24 03:39
#1102
Sat, 2021-04-24 03:58
#1103
Unlike the EU which is doing so marvellously right now...?
The EU's Democratic Deficit: Why Brexit is Essential for Restoring Popular Sovereignty (2018)
https://www.thefullbrexit.com/the-eu-s-democratic-deficit
"...The European Union is an affront to democracy. The EU is better understood as a network of national governments that have retreated from their own populations into secretive agreements among themselves, insulating themselves from democratic accountability. Restoring popular sovereignty therefore means withdrawing from the EU." (2018)
That the CONs and failed Labour ultimately delivered a 'Boris'Brexit' doesn't negate the political and democratic necessity for the real thing.
Sat, 2021-04-24 04:02
#1104
The UK is so hooped!
F*** Business
The Story of how Corporate UK got Screwed by Brexit
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/brexit...
Sat, 2021-04-24 04:12
#1105
Sat, 2021-04-24 15:05
#1106
'Without working people on our side, what does Labour even mean?'
https://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/without-working-people-on-...
"Regrettably, little progress appears to have been made, and it seems like many lessons have not been learnt. If Labour were to abandon the working communities from where its values were born to win back power, it would be a Pyrrhic victory at best - a total betrayal of the party's very soul..."
NDPization. 'A party of the working class led by the middle class in the interest of the ruling class.'
Mon, 2021-04-26 01:32
#1107
Wed, 2021-05-05 02:22
#1108
Political disaster on the UK horizon.
Wed, 2021-05-05 10:32
#1109
Labour could very well lose a seat they've held since 1964 tomorrow. A pro-Corbyn Labourite running as an independent is taking 6%, although according to the poll the Labour candidate is trailing by far more. By all rights, Starmer should step down if he loses this seat.
In the English elections, the big prize is Hartlepool, a struggling northern port city and Labour bastion where a new poll suggests that the Conservatives could win a bellwether seat in a parliamentary by-election.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/05/world/europe/uk-election-boris-johnson-scotland-independence.html
https://www.survation.com/new-phone-poll-places-conservatives-on-course-for-hartlepool-win/
Wed, 2021-05-05 13:54
#1110
Josh, you are quick to call for Starmer's resignation as leader if Labour loses in Hartlepool.
Somehow I don't recall you calling for Corbyn to resign after getting thrashed in by-elections in seats Labour held since the '30s, in the locals or the Euro's.
Or after Corbyn's negatives soared to minus 65%. Starmer's approval is actually a little better than Johnson's at the moment.
Perhaps if you had called for Corbyn's departure he may have heeded your advice and spared Labour its worst general election defeat in 85 years.
Losing Hartlepool would be terrible for Labour but the overall results may not be that bad. Polling this week has Labour within 1 or 2 % of the Cons in the whole country. It stands to win London and Wales in a walk and may claw back to 2nd place in Scotland.
It barely won Hartepool last time because the Brexit Party drained off 25%, most of which is going Conservative in the by-election..
So let's wait for the results before calling for Starmer's head.
Fri, 2021-05-07 06:02
#1111
Labour loses Hartlepool in a landslide.
To be clear, this was a seat Labour held since 1964, and won it under Corbyn twice.
Momentum, the Labour group set up to support Jeremy Corbyn and his agenda when he was party leader, has released a statement describing the Hartlepool result as a “disaster”. Andrew Scattergood, the Momentum co-chair, said:
This result is a disaster. In 2017, we won over 50% of the vote in Hartlepool.
67% of voters in the constituency want to increase investment in public services, 57% agree with taking Royal Mail into public ownership, and 69% support free broadband.
A transformative socialist message has won in Hartlepool before, and it would have won again.
Starmer’s strategy of isolating the left and replacing meaningful policy with empty buzzwords has comprehensively failed. If he doesn’t change direction, not only will he be out of a job - but the Labour party may be out of government forever.
Fri, 2021-05-07 19:14
#1112
Fri, 2021-05-07 20:51
#1113
Exclusive polling for @Channel4News by @JLPartnersPolls shows the top reason given for not voting Labour in elections in England yesterday was Sir Keir Starmer's leadership.
https://twitter.com/Channel4News/status/1390724467383472130?s=20
Fri, 2021-05-07 21:55
#1114
What happened Thursday- massive Labour losses all across the country-other than places where the party had a left leader who couldn't be forced to reduce the party to standing for nothing, such as in Wales and in the local elections in Preston- prove, beyond a doubt, that Starmer's obsession with purging the party of everyone even remotely associated with Corbyn, refusing to offer policies, and creating the universal impression that the party was going to be "centrist"(i.e. Tory) has been an absolute failure.
Corbyn is not the issue, he's been out of the leadership for over a year and none of his ideals, or any other principles at all, survive in Starmer's "Labour"- there is no way what Starmer is doing, if he's had this result this week, can ever reap benefits for the party in the future.
He needs to stop treating socialists as the enemy and socialism as poison. And the suspension of Corbyn needs to end- nobody was demanding that the man be made into a pariah.
Sat, 2021-05-08 03:00
#1115
The Conservatives could run a buffoon and win. Actually they did and he won. The right is so much smarter politically than the left. The infighting within Labour has basically destroyed them as having any kind of political relevance for the indefinite future
Sat, 2021-05-08 12:08
#1116
The fact is, under Keir Starmer’s leadership the party has lost more than 100,000 members. It has waged a war on party democracy, shut down internal debate, and suspended not just activists but CLP chairs and secretaries en masse. It has closed Labour’s Community Organising Unit and sacked its community organisers. And it has landed Labour in a funding crisis which hamstrung campaigns across the country by driving away the army of small donors which sustained it in recent years . . . .
But despite this, the Corbyn-bashing isn’t likely to end anytime soon. In fact, Starmer’s failure in these elections and his dismal poll ratings will only make him lurch further rightwards still. His leadership team are convinced that the best thing they have done in the past year has been marginalising the Left, and the problem in these elections has been that the Left hasn’t been marginalised enough.
https://tribunemag.co.uk/2021/05/labours-election-defeats-are-keir-starmers-disaster
Sat, 2021-05-08 16:31
#1117
“You don’t say, ‘I take full responsibility’ and then sack your deputy [as party chair].”
- the guardian
Sat, 2021-05-08 18:57
#1118
As mentioned above, Starmer will use his miserable performance in a seat Corbyn carried twice to try to move the party further right. Sacking Rayner is just an indication of that.
Sat, 2021-05-08 19:45
#1119
Jon Trickett and Ian Lavery, both former Labour campaign co-ordinators, told the Sunday Times: “We face total obliteration if a cabal of middle-class remainers continue to treat what was once Labour’s core support with contempt. https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/breaking-angela-rayner-sacked-rol...
Sun, 2021-05-09 09:15
#1120
The UK is done. Time for Scotland to go (and Ireland to reunite, probably).
Sun, 2021-05-09 09:52
#1121
Agreed.
Thu, 2021-05-13 12:51
#1122
Michael Walker and Ash Sarkar discuss the latest polls, which show that Keir Starmer is even less popular than Corbyn was at the same stage of his leadership. This despite the fact that Corbyn was relentlessly smeared by the media, while Starmer has been treated with kid gloves. What a loser.
Thu, 2021-05-13 14:34
#1123
Michael Walker and Ash Sarkar discuss the latest polls, which show that Keir Starmer is even less popular than Corbyn was at the same stage of his leadership. This despite the fact that Corbyn was relentlessly smeared by the media, while Starmer has been treated with kid gloves. What a loser.
Yet Starmer and Mandleson are STILL pushing the "it's all Corbyn's fault" canard.
They don't care that what happened last Thursday proves that the voters were not demanding that Labour repudiate everything it supported from 2015 to 2019 or make a fetish out of anathemising the person who led it in those years.
It's time to move on on that and admit, purging everyone who won't denounce Corbyn on command, a return to "the centre ground"- a centre ground the stagnation of LibDem support on Thursday proves no longer exists- or taking a hardline, right-wing Unionist stance on Scotland are never going to produce a Labour comeback.
They further prove that the "Labour would be twenty points ahead with ANY OTHER LEADER" claim was bullshit- and probably, that everyone who endlessly chanted that phrase knew it was bullshit when chanting it.
If Starmer actuall WANTS a Labour victory- he may not; his actions suggest he was put in place as leader specifically to destroy the party as an electoral force- these are the things he has to do:
1) Keep his pledge never to move the party to the right of the 2017 manifesto;
2) Keep his pledge to support and EXPAND internal party democracy, rather than continuing to suppress it;
3) End what is clearly a deliberate ban on left-wingers of any sort being nominated as Labour candidates anywhere- the party only won with an increased plurality in Wales because it's leader there, Mark Drakeford, defied Starmer on that and on Starmer's insistence that Labour campaign WITHOUT offering policies;
4) Readmit Corbyn to the PLP. He should never have been suspended; he did nothing to deserve the suspension; what happened on Thursday proves that suspending him was never going to increase Labour support at the polls; and even if he did make some mistakes as leader- nobody ever claimed he was flawless, including himself- he's been punished enough for whatever mistakes he made;
5) Reverse the purges and reach out to the 100,000 former party members who tore up their cards in disgust and despair about a leader who did nothing in his first year but attack them and everything they stand for. It is not a crime to be a left-winger and there is no decent reason for what is supposed to be the left-of-centre party ever to make people unwelcome just for BEING left of centre;
6) Admit that the PLP was wrong for spending four years refusing to accept Corbyn as leader, that they did nothing but damage in doing so, that there was no justification for their relentless accusations of softness on AS towards him and his supporters- as events now prove, non-Zionism has NOTHING in common with AS and as events now prove, it is now all-but-impossible for a decent human being to support Zionism in the permanently right-wing form it has corroded into;
7) Stop refusing to offer policies. Starmer should have known Labour could never do well in the local elections OR in the Holyrood elections by refusing to offer policies during those election campaigns- it was never going to be possible for Labour to win simply by saying the Tories were sleazy or corrupt, especially when Labour itself was back under the iron fist of its own right wing, the only sector of the party where corruption and sleaze ever dwell.
Thu, 2021-05-13 16:25
#1124
If they're pushing that canard, they'll have to explain why Labour won the seat twice with Corbyn at the helm.
Fri, 2021-05-14 12:02
#1125
Ah yes, if only Labour were to return to the agonies of Corbyn's leadership evverything would be good...
Starmer has had his travails, no doubt. The North of England is a problem as the working class is drifting to the right as it has in any number of other democracies. But Labour did quite well in Wales, London and the South.
And yesterday Labour got 7% more in a Scottish by-election that it got with Corbyn in that same seat.
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/05/14/lab-gets...
As for the return of Corbyn, here is a poll out today that shows that 62% think he would be a worse leader than Starmer. 15 % think he would be better.
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/05/14/one-in-n...
When broken down only 7% think Corbyn would be "much better" than Starmer and 52% think he would be "much worse."
I surmise, Josh and Ken, that you and a few of your friends comprise that 7%.
Fri, 2021-05-14 21:36
#1126
I wasn't saying Corbyn should be leader again...by "reinstate", you knew perfectly well I was simply saying his suspension from the PLP needs to end...and you have no reason to keep acting as if that's even a possibility...but clearly what happened last Thursday proves that the voters are never going to reward the party for abandoning the policies of his era-all of which were popular in the polls, btw.
There is no massive popular demand for Labour to lower itself to Blairism again, nicky. That is the fact and you have got to accept it.
We now have proof, in the local and Holyrood elections, that Starmer's brutal, merciless vendetta against not only Corbyn but, apparently, everyone who was even tangentially connected to the man- a purge which has gone to the ridiculous extreme of entirely-Gentile Labour disciplinary bodies suspending or expelling Jewish party members for antisemitism-a crime no Jewish person can ever actually commit- has been a pointless waste of time.
Fri, 2021-05-14 13:42
#1127
Labour has problems in the north because remainers like Starmer insisted on nullifying the referendum vote. When Labour did not insist on a new vote in 2017, it got its highest vote total in 16 years with Corbyn as leader. Labour remainers acting like Trump Republicans by refusing to accept the verdict of an election has damaged the party immeasurably.
Fri, 2021-05-14 14:05
#1128
Labour has problems in the north because remainers like Starmer insisted on nullifying the referendum vote. When Labour did not insist on a new vote in 2017, it got its highest vote total in 16 years with Corbyn as leader. Labour remainers acting like Trump Republicans by refusing to accept the verdict of an election has damaged the party immeasurably.
It seems almost beyond question that this is the most important factor in Labour's loss of the Red Wall constituencies in 2019. Corbyn's biggest mistake, in my opinion, was not to have simply agreed to Theresa May's first brexit deal, and got it over with. Instead, he allowed himself to be bullied into approving a second referendum by the Starmers of the PLP.
Fri, 2021-05-14 21:59
#1129
To clarify for anyone who may have been misled by nicky's intentional misinterpretation of my post, I was not calling for Corbyn to be restored as leader- there is no chance of that and everyone knows Corbyn will never seek the leader ship again- even nicky knows that- I was simply saying he should be restored to the PLP whip.
nicky, you have no reason at all to imply that Corbyn will try and take the party away from Starmer unless he's kept in pariah status. Give that particular lie a rest.
in response to Michael's post, yes- everybody in the Labour Party knows that Starmer's insistence on forcing Corbyn to pledge a second referendum if elected- followed by Starmer's refusal to leave it at that and his further and even more unjustified push to try and make Corbyn fight for a second referendum to be held BEFORE the next election- even though nicky and everyone else knows that could never have been made to happen- was the actual reason Labour lost 50 seats in what had been the "Red Wall".
Red Wall voters are overwhelmingly and unchangeably Leave. Once Starmer forced Corbyn to accept the second referendum, once Starmer forced the party to disrespect and disregard all Labour Leave voters, the Red Wall was doomed. Neither Corbyn nor any possible replacement for Corbyn could ever possibly have been able to offer anything that could possibly have retained the votes of Red Wall voters after the second referendum pledge was made.
That is why the relentless repetition of the myth that the result was solely because of Corbyn's shortcomings and his policies-even though the polls showed that his policies were popular and that there were no possible alternative Labour policies to the right of the 2017/19 policies that could ever have been popular with the voters- remember, Labour has lost 117 seats altoghether in the 2010 and 2015 elections- including the complete and possibly permanent loss of Labour support in Scotland in 2015 due to the Westminster Labour Right's insistence on joining the essentially Thatcherite Better Together campaign in the Indyref and the same Westminster Labour Right's refusal to accept the reality that, if Labour was to survive in Scotland, it was going to have to be allowed to establish its own identity, create its own policies, choose its candidates without any interference from London and to support "Devo Max" as a viable alternative to Scottish independence.
As I've repeatedly pointed out, the 2010/15 losses prove that there is no route to a Labour revival based on moving back to the now-nonexistent "centre ground" or making it clear that young activists will no longer be welcome in the party to play any role other than doing what Starmer bloody well tells them to do- especially since what he is telling most of them to do is to just go away.
The May 6th results proved that every part of Starmer's "strategy" - exiling the Left, crushing every vestige of internal democracy, equating ANY criticism of what the Israeli government does to Palestinians, including the ethnic cleansing going on in Sheikh Jarrah with AS- has failed. All of it. Every bit.
It's time for Keir to admit it and either change or get out of the way. If he stays on, there is a good chance Labour will cease to exist by the next GE. The Green vote to 7% this time- if Keir keeps on this way, it could easily rise to at least 14% at the next locals(at that level, the Greens will be competitive against Labour in by-elections- and 21% at the locals after and possibly in the N.I. Assembly- at that point, you'd see the Greens start taking control of multiple councils. The only thing that can happen once that cycle starts is that Labour faces even bigger wipeouts- it lost over 300 local council seats this year; Care to see the losses get closer to 400 or 500 at the next go-round?
Fri, 2021-05-14 23:23
#1130
Labour has problems in the north because remainers like Starmer insisted on nullifying the referendum vote. When Labour did not insist on a new vote in 2017, it got its highest vote total in 16 years with Corbyn as leader. Labour remainers acting like Trump Republicans by refusing to accept the verdict of an election has damaged the party immeasurably.
It seems almost beyond question that this is the most important factor in Labour's loss of the Red Wall constituencies in 2019. Corbyn's biggest mistake, in my opinion, was not to have simply agreed to Theresa May's first brexit deal, and got it over with. Instead, he allowed himself to be bullied into approving a second referendum by the Starmers of the PLP.
I thought that too. Corbyn should have bit the bullet and struck some kind of a deal with May. I think Corbyn's biggest weakness is being a maverick who is unable to make deals and work with other politicians. I think Corbyn's a divider not a uniter.
Sat, 2021-05-15 00:35
#1131
Sat, 2021-05-15 01:28
#1132
Under Brexit the UK seems to be in disarray!
----------------
Hostile UK border regime traumatises visitors from EU
----------------
Britain’s hostile regime for potential EU migrants is traumatising visitors caught in its web and provoking further worries for European families receiving visits from relatives, according to accounts provided to the Guardian.
The slightest suspicion that someone may be entering Britain to work is often enough for them to be locked up, held at detention centres for up to a week and then expelled to wherever they have travelled from, some of those caught up by the policy have said. Complaints from relatives and host families in the UK have either gone unanswered or been ignored by the Home Office and some local MPs, they say.
An Italian NHS consultant told of his horror when his niece arrived from Italy for a short visit but ended up in a detention centre surrounded by barbed wire.
----------------
Sat, 2021-05-15 08:38
#1133
No Ken, I do not ascribe to you a desire that Corbyn regain the leadership. I accept that such an appalling prospect is too ridiculous even for you to embrace.
In citing the polling that the great majority thinks Corbyn was a "much worse" leader than Starmer it is to emphasize how utterly disastrous it would be for Labour to embrace not just Corbyn but "Corbynism." I trust you agree.
Sat, 2021-05-15 10:43
#1134
No Ken, I do not ascribe to you a desire that Corbyn regain the leadership. I accept that such an appalling prospect is too ridiculous even for you to embrace.
In citing the polling that the great majority thinks Corbyn was a "much worse" leader than Starmer it is to emphasize how utterly disastrous it would be for Labour to embrace not just Corbyn but "Corbynism." I trust you agree.
As usual, everything you write is disingenuous. This never was, and never will be, a matter of the comparative personalities of Corbyn, Starmer, or any other potential Labour leader. It has been, and will remain to be about their respective policies. It is true that Corbyn was rendered extremely unpopular by a years long smear campaign waged by essentially every powerful person and organization in the UK. Starmer has suffered no such attacks, but is even more unpopular.
That is not the point. The point is that Corbyn's socialist policies were and remain extremely popular, while Starmer scarcely has any policies except to suck up to billionaires. Now, I realize that such worship of the wealthy would seem to be the only realistic policy to someone with your (Hill & Knowlton style) views, but not to anyone left of Liberal. As always, you are an obvious fake, nicky.
Sat, 2021-05-15 13:39
#1135
Michael, what is "fake" is your claim that Starmer is more unpopular fhan Corbyn. The poll i cited found that C was "much worse" than S by a margin of 52 to 7. It is consistent as far as I am aware will all other polling.
If you have seen something to the contrary please provide a link.
Sat, 2021-05-15 13:39
#1136
Michael, what is "fake" is your claim that Starmer is more unpopular fhan Corbyn. The poll i cited found that C was "much worse" than S by a margin of 52 to 7. It is consistent as far as I am aware will all other polling.
If you have seen something to the contrary please provide a link.
Sat, 2021-05-15 14:17
#1137
Post 1,122:
Michael Walker and Ash Sarkar discuss the latest polls, which show that Keir Starmer is even less popular than Corbyn was at the same stage of his leadership. This despite the fact that Corbyn was relentlessly smeared by the media, while Starmer has been treated with kid gloves. What a loser.
Sat, 2021-05-15 18:08
#1138
Conservatives open up a 13 point lead on Labour.
https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1393688443620843520?s=20
Sun, 2021-05-16 13:29
#1139
Luke Savage has written an interesting analysis of Starmer's abject failure as a leader. In his opinion, it is Blair's concept of New Labour that has been found wanting, and no leader could be successful today in making that attractive to voters one more time.
Though it’s invariably tempting to put the failures and vacuousness of a political project down to individual leadership, centrist hollowness of the kind reflected in a figure like Keir Starmer is not ultimately about the personal flaws or deficiencies of a single person at the top. Starmer might have proven a better retail politician or someone quick enough on his feet to avoid cringeworthy phrasings like “changing the things that need changing,” and he’d still have been ill-equipped to offer a coherent vision or meaningful contrast with the government he’s charged with opposing.
Sun, 2021-05-16 17:58
#1140
No Ken, I do not ascribe to you a desire that Corbyn regain the leadership. I accept that such an appalling prospect is too ridiculous even for you to embrace.
In citing the polling that the great majority thinks Corbyn was a "much worse" leader than Starmer it is to emphasize how utterly disastrous it would be for Labour to embrace not just Corbyn but "Corbynism." I trust you agree.
There was never any such thing as "Corbynism"- there was simply a decent, honest, legitimate revival of genuine socialist values within Labour. For the first time in decades, Labour actually stood for something.
The only reason Labour lost in 2017 was that those of you who want Labour to lower itself to neo-Blairism went out of your wants to sabotage the party's chances.
Need I remind you that, at the beginning of the 2017 Labour campaign, there was a completely unjustified campaign of coordinated resignations by right-wing Labour MPs, trying to force Corbyn's removal- even though it is impossible for a major party to change leaders DURING a general election campaign, and even though, as the current polls prove, nobody else, and especially not Starmer, would have done better.
Labour had lost almost 120 seats in the previous elections- 2010 and 2015- on the "stay the course, change nothing, it's enough that it would be a Labour government doing it to you" policies. Those results- even though you refuse to accept it, for some twisted reason, prove that Labour COULD NEVER WIN AGAIN on bland centrist militarist policies.
There was a massive PUBLIC demand, a POPULAR demand, that Labour make a complete break with Blairism after 2015, and especially after the unforgivable and immoral insistence by acting Labour leader Harriet Harman that the PLP abstain-which was the same as voting in support of- Cameron's barbaric cuts in social benefits.
It was that, not any personality cult, that caused the Corbyn phenomenon.
Did Corbyn have flaws? Yes, and as you know I've said that on many occasions.
But his election as leader was the doing of the PLP- THEY caused it by agreeing to abstain on those cuts and therefore erase the last meaningful difference between Labour and the Tories.
That's why Corbyn was elected and overwhelmingly re-elected leader- it was the ONLY way for the Labour rank-and-file, a group in which Corbyn overwhelmingly defeated the three right-wing candidates- Burnham, Cooper and Kendall- by a massive margin, winning 50% of THEIR votes on the first preference-in addition to the votes he got from supporters.
This proves Corbyn's victory in the leadership contest was not illegitimate.
What that victory proved was that the Labour base, in addition to the paid supporters, wanted radical change- it proved that the base wanted a clear break from austerity and war.
Why couldn't the PLP just accept the reality that, whatever they might have thought about Corbyn, the vote for him meant that THEY had to change? Why couldn't they accept that, if they wanted Corbyn to step down, they needed to agree that the policies associated with him- policies that were and are popular- needed to be kept? Why couldn't they accept that internal party democracy needed to be revived, and that the young people who were inspired by those policies deserved to be part of Labour's future rather than treating them as a scourge?
Why are you still obsessed with erasing the Corbyn policies when nothing to the right of those policies is different than Toryism? There's nothing to the right of nationalising electric, water and the rails that could possibly be Labour. There is nothing to the right of the Green New Deal that could either be Green OR Labour. If Labour does what YOU want and reduces itself to centrism(Toryism) again, it will never get the votes of anyone under 45 again and it will never win another election- the Left are not the enemy, there was never a personality cult around Corbyn-support for him was about ideas and that is just as legitimate as any other reason to support a public figure- and here, if you're still going to claim that Starmer is an improvement after May 6th, here is a graph showing the polling trends on Starmer as leader:
It's what happens when all you do as leader is attack the voters whose support you HAVE to have to get elected.
It's what happens when you campaign under the delusion that you don't HAVE to offer policies.
It's what happens when you stand for nothing at all as a leader.
Nobody thinks Keir will change anything for the better if elected- because Keir has made it clear he won't change ANYTHING as leader. Keir has gone back to the delusions that capitalism can be humane and that nothing needs to be done besides tiny, trivial tinkering at the edges, and the graph I just showed you proves the voters don't WANT Labour to reduce itself to that.
The voters want Labour to offer something radically different than the Tories- they don't want "it's enough that it's US doing it". They don't want Labour to be lead by someone who treats its rank-and-file as Mulcair treated the NDP rank-and-file.
Sun, 2021-05-16 18:11
#1141
Michael, what is "fake" is your claim that Starmer is more unpopular fhan Corbyn. The poll i cited found that C was "much worse" than S by a margin of 52 to 7. It is consistent as far as I am aware will all other polling.
If you have seen something to the contrary please provide a link.
The issue isn't Starmer's popularity ratings, which are collapsing now, versus Corbyn's. There is no valid reason to compare Keir to Corbyn at all. What you SHOULD be looking at is where the party is in the polls compared to where the anti-Corbyn obsessives promised it would be with "any other leader".
What do you WANT Labour to stand for, nicky? It can't JUST be a party that focuses on "getting elected"-btw, it's not as though the Left didn't care about getting Labour elected between 2015 and 2019- because the voters want Labour to be a party that offers something massively different than the Tories IF elected. Voters don't vote for parties that focus on "getting elected" and nothing else. They want the parties they support to stand for something?
For once, can you tell the rest of us what you WANT Labour to stand for?
Do you want it to be socialist and anti-austerity- and therefore have a REASON to exist- or to be a party that cares only about reassuring the "successful" that they won't ever have to make any sacrifices?
Do you want it to be a party that obsesses about balancing budgets, when there's no way to bring in radical policies- or policies that make any actual difference in people's lives- without doing at least SOME deficit spending.
Do you want Labour to be a party that continues to buy into the totally discredited "humanitarian invasion" myth, or a party that, while be willing to defend UK territory from external attack- the only valid reason to go to war in this era- would be doing what governments are supposed to be doing and actually working to make war a thing of the past?
What do you want, nicky?
Do you want Labour to stand for anything?
The May 6th results prove it can never win by standing for nothing and treating the Left as a scourge, or by keeping Corbyn a pariah within the party when everyone knows he's done nothing to deserve that treatment.
Corbyn will never be leader again, but the policies associated with him are still popular, there's no good reason to renounce the policies-and Keir was ONLY elected leader because he promised NOT to move the party to the right and to expand internal party democracy, not crush it.
Are you willing to learn from that? Are you willing to admit that what Labour should be doing is fighting the Tories, not the Left?
Are you willing to admit that it was never a reasonable expectation on Starmer's part that socialists would still vote Labour after he spent the first year of his leadership persecuting them? That it was not in any universe a valid expectation that they would turn out and vote for the party when Starmer did nothing but treat them as if they had no right to even be in the party?
The chickens came home to roost on all of that on May 6th, nicky.
Starmerism- the idea that Labour can win by going to war against its own supporters- is totally discredited.
Mon, 2021-05-17 01:48
#1142
For god's sakes nicky, you can't seriously be arguing that the party needs to renounce every policy associated with Corbyn simply BECAUSE they were policies associated with Corbyn.
There are no votes to be gained from not backing free broadband.
There is no policy on rail, electric and water that's to the right of nationalising those that can be considered Labour in any real sense.
There is no decent reason to renounce the Green New Deal-and Starmer pledged himself to implementing it.
May 6th proved, once and for all, that the voters will never reward Labour for blurring the differences.
Wed, 2021-05-19 08:15
#1143
A Labour shadow minister has said he cannot reveal his party's policy platform or values because they are currently subject to "confidential" discussions.
https://twitter.com/JVoiceLabour/status/1394976090729373696?s=20
Fri, 2021-05-21 15:23
#1144
A Labour shadow minister has said he cannot reveal his party's policy platform or values because they are currently subject to "confidential" discussions.
https://twitter.com/JVoiceLabour/status/1394976090729373696?s=20
Here is a Novara Media discussion of that rather humourous incident. The clip also contains more bad polling news for Starmer. It seems he is underwater in just about all measures of how much voters like him.
Sat, 2021-05-22 07:14
#1145
Labour down 18 to the Tories.
https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/1396059852431048707?s=20
Sun, 2021-05-23 09:07
#1146
Tony Blair wants to drag the Left into his own political grave
https://jacobinmag.com/2021/05/tony-blair-british-center-left-politics-p...
Sun, 2021-05-23 21:05
#1147
That was a good piece on the repellent Blair.
Mon, 2021-05-24 03:32
#1148
He kills mosquitoes too?
Sun, 2021-05-30 21:52
#1149
It seems there is another byelection in a Labour held seat on Canada Day, July 1. George Galloway is running in a crowded field, specifically on the issue of Palestinian rights. This constituency has a significant muslim population, so he may get a few thousand votes, quite possibly enough to defeat the Labour candidate. In that case, Keir Starmer may be forced out as leader by the right wingers who put him there. Michael Walker and Aaron Bastani discuss.
Edited to add:
I did not mean to say that Galloway may defeat the Labour candidate himself, but rather that he may capture enough votes which would otherwise go to Labour that the Conservative candidate may win.
Sun, 2021-05-30 20:45
#1150
laine lowe
Is George Galloway running as an independent? He certainly did piss off Tony Blair back in the day (always worthy of merit points in my books) and I applaud him for his ongoing efforts to bring issues of justice in the Middle East to the front burner.
Sun, 2021-05-30 21:12
#1151
Here's something on that Laine...
George Galloway exclusive candidacy speech in Batley (and vid)
https://twitter.com/DerbyChrisW/status/1399104247942291456
"Good luck to George Galloway who's standing in the Batley & Spen by-election. George has made clear one of his reasons for standing is he unequivocally support the Palestinians, while Sir Keir Starmer supports Zionism 'without qualification."*
*'I am a fervent supporter of Israel in all situations and circumstances." - Tom Mulcair, NDP