The Chairman Mao resembling, Monarchy hating, threat to Britain, Labour Party thread

[bickster]

2 hours ago, ml1dch said:

Political analysis that aged badly.

 

 

His main redeeming feature is that anything he says is usually wrong. He is the anti-barometer of the left in this country

[HanoiVillan]

Fun little snippet from a Times article (behind the paywall) this morning:

 

[Panto_Villan]

2 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

Fun little snippet from a Times article (behind the paywall) this morning:

 

I mean, does anyone actually care what Tony Blair thinks any more? Doubt it’ll affect Starmer much whatever Blair thinks of him.

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, Panto_Villan said:

I mean, does anyone actually care what Tony Blair thinks any more? Doubt it’ll affect Starmer much whatever Blair thinks of him.

In the Labour party, yes.

[Panto_Villan]

20 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

In the Labour party, yes.

Really? Are there are actually any figures to the right of Starmer in the Labour party that aren't already behind him?

Given the party's leftward drift since Brown lost power I'd imagine they all already know that Starmer is their best hope of a return to anything like New Labour, irrespective of whether Blair is singing his praises or not.

[blandy]

28 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

In the Labour party, yes.

I agree.

And to an extent, they're right to at least listen to what he thinks. Yes he did a very, very, bad thing. Extremely bad. Horrendously so, and he should be nowhere near having any direct role or whatever, for ever and beyond.

But that doesn't mean that from time to time he might be someone worth listening to their thoughts. He was (whatever we think of him) successful in getting a Labour government elected, and re-elected, twice afterwards. He has (obviously) long experience of being PM and of the HoC and all the circus that surrounds it. About dealing with all kinds of domestic national issues and crisis, about keeping a party together and loads of other stuff.

So I think Labour people can listen to what he thinks, and then consider whether he's talking sense or nonsense. But keep him well away from any actual leverage or whatever. He is rightly utterly toxic, because of Iraq.

[HanoiVillan]

5 minutes ago, Panto_Villan said:

Really? Are there are actually any figures to the right of Starmer in the Labour party that aren't already behind him?

Given the party's leftward drift since Brown lost power I'd imagine they all already know that Starmer is their best hope of a return to anything like New Labour, irrespective of whether Blair is singing his praises or not.

The initial reaction to Starmer from the party right was caution. He served in Corbyn's shadow cabinet; he ran for the leadership as a 'socialist in a suit', with a variety of leftwing pledges to appeal to the membership; when he took over the leadership, he made a sort of half-assed gesture at balancing his shadow cabinet with people from different wings; he still hasn't recanted every one of his left-wing positions or pledges (he is still in theory committed to scrapping tuition fees and ending zero-hour contracts, for instance). Of course he has also done a huge amount to reassure the right, and in particular has now got the shadow cabinet looking as New Labour as possible, with about half of them having backed Jess Phillips for leader.

You are of course right that Starmer is 'their best hope', though that makes it sound as if they are in some kind of desperate position, which they aren't. However, having lost control of the party recently, they are paranoid about any possible backsliding from Starmer.

[HanoiVillan]

7 minutes ago, blandy said:

I agree.

And to an extent, they're right to at least listen to what he thinks. Yes he did a very, very, bad thing. Extremely bad. Horrendously so, and he should be nowhere near having any direct role or whatever, for ever and beyond.

But that doesn't mean that from time to time he might be someone worth listening to their thoughts. He was (whatever we think of him) successful in getting a Labour government elected, and re-elected, twice afterwards. He has (obviously) long experience of being PM and of the HoC and all the circus that surrounds it. About dealing with all kinds of domestic national issues and crisis, about keeping a party together and loads of other stuff.

So I think Labour people can listen to what he thinks, and then consider whether he's talking sense or nonsense. But keep him well away from any actual leverage or whatever. He is rightly utterly toxic, because of Iraq.

Yeah, I mean in practice Blair will have his well-publicised say anyway, as he has clearly decided in the last five years to return to an active role in politics and he has not been short of avenues to share his thoughts (not surprisingly). I agree with you that Starmer would do well to avoid openly embracing Blair per se, as he polls extremely badly and is widely reviled. This article quoted above is talking about a private event of course, rather than any sort of public embrace, but it just made me laugh at the image of Blair annointing his successor in private (in seemingly pretty skeptical terms, to his face).

[OutByEaster?]

I think Blair is associated with the centrism that people so firmly rejected in electing the complete arsehole we've got in place at the moment - I think business would love for people to go back to that centrism, but 'people' are still pursuing some sort of change from neoliberalism. Starmer promises a warm welcome for banks and the corporate sector in exchange for some sort of leeway on social issues, it's a horrible bargain, but one that's supported by the newspapers and the wider media. The good news for Starmer and the banks is that the electorates experiment in electing a maverick who they'd been misled into thinking might disrupt things went so badly that they might just be ready to settle for being back under the familiar heel of the boot they know.

Politically, Starmer is doing a really good job of not being anything, it's hard to be in opposition to him if there's nothing to particularly tie him to and right now, with a nation finally ready to string up the evil berk on the other side of the house, just not being the scum of the earth could be enough to see him through.

 

 

[Davkaus]

Starmer is happy to publicly nosh off an opportunistic Tory rat jumping a sinking ship. Pretty **** grim.

[markavfc40]

3 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

Starmer is happy to publicly nosh off an opportunistic Tory rat jumping a sinking ship. Pretty **** grim.

I get what you are saying but if Starmer had told him to go swivel what kind of a message would that send out to those who have voted Tory whose votes Labour may well need to win an election.

[Davkaus]

Just now, markavfc40 said:

I get what you are saying but if Starmer had told him to go swivel what kind of a message would that send out to those who have voted Tory whose votes Labour may well need to win an election.

What message does it sent witch hunting people too far to the left, while welcoming Tories into the party? If the only way to bring some voters over is welcoming backbenchers happy to wave through everything Boris did for the last 2 years, what's even the point of the Labour party.

[Rodders]

seems a perfectly pragmatic decision, better than pursuing project purity which gets out the youngsters and sees existing labour strongholds grow larger whilst making no ground elsewhere. Until we can escape the clutches of FPTP and into a PR system, the leader is going to need to balance his appeal broadly.  And that means taking these PR boosts - whatever the realities of the opportunism of the switcher is when they come around. 

[markavfc40]

11 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

What message does it sent witch hunting people too far to the left, while welcoming Tories into the party? If the only way to bring some voters over is welcoming backbenchers happy to wave through everything Boris did for the last 2 years, what's even the point of the Labour party.

Maybe he is a reformed character and seen the error of of his ways. There will be plenty of people who have voted Tory and therefore who will have supported some abhorrent policies who Labour will need to help see the light. 

If Labour is going to win another election in my lifetime then they are going to have to convince a fair few who voted Tory in the last election to vote Labour. 

Edited January 19, 2022 by markavfc40

[Davkaus]

Just now, Rodders said:

seems a perfectly pragmatic decision, better than pursuing project purity which gets out the youngsters and sees existing labour strongholds grow larger whilst making no ground elsewhere. 

Of course, there is project purity. It's just to kick out people associating with the wrong sort of socialists. Far left? You're not welcome in Labour. Vote for benefit cuts and in you come, lads.

Starmer stands for pretty much nothing, and will happily let in anyone as long as they also stand for nothing, but will spinelessly vote for what he tells them to in order to secure their seat.

I wasn't voting for Starmer's Labour party anyway, so I'm not the kind of person he's worried about alienating, just sad that he's pulled the party so far over that tory defects are considered allies but socialists aren't. If this is pragmatism, **** pragmatism.

[HanoiVillan]

4 minutes ago, markavfc40 said:

Maybe he is a reformed character and seen the error of of his ways.

It would be a lot easier to accept this if his floor-crossing were accompanied by any kind of public embrace of left-wing ideas, or doubt about right-wing ones, but as far as I can see there is literally nothing, just a party-line voting Tory MP who decided one day to join Labour to save his seat.

Anyway, this made me laugh:

 

[Chindie]

It's very simple. A career Tory elected into a long held Labour seat by the skin of the skin of the skin of his teeth has seen the way the wind is blowing and realised his principles are definitely negotiable and deferential to his salary, so therefore he's now a dyed in the wool Nothingist.

An empty suit with a wallet puts on a red tie. Victory.

[chrisp65]

Regardless of which party to which party, it simply shouldn’t be allowed.

If I was a voter that got someone elected as a rep of a party with a set of views and principles and policies and that MP then decided to switch to something else entirely, then he no longer has my vote. But there’s nothing I can do? Can’t even try a recall petition.

It’s a poor system.

Westminster isn’t working.

[Rodders]

I'll assess Starmer's electoral capacities in the month or two before the election, because frankly, until then determining what Starmer or whoever stands for at this point is a waste of time. The whole a week's a long time in politics aphorism is never more relevant in the constant 24/7 cycle. If Boris goes, the whole pandemic and lying leader will still have next to no relevance come election time for the undecideds. That applies to Mr invisible too. 

I just hate the tories, but there are a lot of people who keep voting for these clearings in the woods. By the time of the election, we'll have had 15 years of these arseholes. I am conceding, perhaps defeatestly so,  we might have to go through step change to get a better future rather than a wholesale shift in attitude. I would and did vote for Corbyn btw.

[desensitized43]

46 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

What message does it sent witch hunting people too far to the left, while welcoming Tories into the party? If the only way to bring some voters over is welcoming backbenchers happy to wave through everything Boris did for the last 2 years, what's even the point of the Labour party.

I think all you're doing here is playing into the Tory hands. They'd want an action like this to cause discontent and infighting about left and centrism in Labour.

See it for what it is, Johnson and by extension the Tories getting a kick in the shins by one of their own. That can't be a bad thing.