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why introduce race into this discussion?
Because it is the main motivation behind northern areas voting for Brexit and then Tory in the 2019 GE. It is this context that Johnson will operate in and appeal to.
It is relevant even if you personally don't want to confront it.
Also, Burnham's response to that crook Jenrick saying he never wanted to reach agreement should be:
"Well, that £45m that Robert Jenrick illegally helped his mate Dirty Desmond to personally trouser could have plugged the gap in compensation funding for my city, so he can **** right off with his opinion".
If Burnham, Starmer et al have decided that this is the time, they need to get properly dirty now. Look Johnson in the eye and kick him in the balls repeatedly. If they are going to do this, now is also the time to say openly that Brexit is a massive fail and is a terrible idea and all the resulting damage can be squarely blamed on the Tories.
This could be 'the moment'.
Looks like Sheffield are next...
Because it is the main motivation behind northern areas voting for Brexit and then Tory in the 2019 GE. It is this context that Johnson will operate in and appeal to.
It is relevant even if you personally don’t want to confront it.
That's a grand claim that you will struggle to back up, there are plenty of Tory voters in the north (I even know some) who had very different motivations. A lot is to do with the demonisation of Corbyn by the press, admittedly not helped by Corbyn himself.
A lot of people try to ascribe very simplistic reasons why people vote the way they do, truth is that a) it is much more complex than that and b) there often isn't a main motivation, but a multitude of factors
I'd agree that a combination of Brexit / Corbyn / lack of clear direction from Labour pretty much gifted many seats in the North to the Tories. What happens at the next election may well be very different...
If Burnham, Starmer et al have decided that this is the time, they need to get properly dirty now. Look Johnson in the eye and kick him in the balls repeatedly. If they are going to do this, now is also the time to say openly that Brexit is a massive fail and is a terrible idea and all the resulting damage can be squarely blamed on the Tories.
This could be ‘the moment’.
I think 'the moment' passed some time ago TBH.
Using Covid to overtly leverage another Brexit debate will easily get twisted in the press and by Gove in interviews to create a negative narrative about "bitter remoaner Labour not caring about the NHS", or words to that effect.
They've just tried that on Andy Burnham and it has stuck in some people's minds already. It's not worth the blowback now TBH...
The topic of the day really seems to have come down to something as simple as negotiating a price per-capita for any region that is put into "Tier 3".
And it seems from the outset the government didn't want to just set a "fair" number across the country, instead they've managed to turn this into a divisive process by separately agreeing a number with Liverpool and other areas and then going on to lowball GM. They then found the ensuing negotiations difficult for some reason... TBH I'd be appalled at my own local representatives if they didn't push back when told the local economy would be shut down and the support package will be proportionately less than a nearby city with a smaller GDP...
I honestly don't now know if the alluded to "gap" between the two parties was as narrow as the reported £5m by the end, to my mind that is now relative pocket change in the context of wider CV19 support and contract spending. I find the coverage in various press to be either horrifically partisan and/or just confused. Leaks, midnight briefings and contradictory statements don't help. I believe AB has been pretty straight forwards with his statements, while I struggle to keep track of the government account, but that could easily be my own lefty bias...
The other thing is timescales and where the bar is set for release from Tier 3?
Anyone got any clues yet? What is Bozza's £60m actually paying for and for how long?
Anyway this seems to sum it all up best:
My other thought is that this situation is basically a small victory over Dom and Bozza. Their goal was (as I read things) to simultaneously downplay and ignore the scientific advice for a national lockdown on the basis of them being "Freedom loving" libertarians, while also trying to appear proactive and diligent in applying local measures under their clever little 3 tier system...
It's backfired quite badly though as you can't go imposing your will, and be seen to stamp on a region for the sake of 5 million quid, that you'd happily bung to your chums, while also saying you "love freedom"...
What this might do is erode support amongst the "Red wall" voters, assuming their memories last until the next election and they can't be swayed with a free pint, a spitfire flyby and Boris putting on another clown in a digger show or something...
Look out Sheffield, you're up next!
A lot of people try to ascribe very simplistic reasons why people vote the way they do, truth is that a) it is much more complex than that and b) there often isn’t a main motivation, but a multitude of factors
There's other threads to expand this issue on, but yes - most Brexit voters can tell me a reason why they voted that way and it wasn't racism. It was generally because either they'd fallen for a pack of lies about what they EU did, or because they were so despondent about politics that the chance to vote for any change seemed a good idea at the time, which links to the first point.
dannyh is blinded by his own experiences growing up in the North unfortunately and that clouds/spoils every interesting contribution he makes to these threads.
Not everyone who voted for Brexit was a racist, but all the racists voted for Brexit.
If you are trying to kid yourselves that the main motivation behind 'Leave' wasn't a gradually built and deliberately cultivated sense that the country 'is not being run for us any more' then you are wrong. To be clear, the 'us' referred to here is white and >3 generation british. This sense of being robbed to give to 'less deserving' people was what Leave was all about. The irony being that in global terms, the very people nursing this sense of grievance are in fact in the top 15% of wealth.
To bring this back to Manchester and other towns and cities, there was much mention of eid on social media in the early days of this. It will be back again soon, along with diwali.
Enforce a lockdown before eid/diwali/any other 'foreign' festive period and you get:
"We only had to go into lockdown now because it is nearly 'x' festival and they can't be trusted".
Enforce a lockdown just after and it is:
"They left lockdown until after 'x' festival because of 'political correctness' and now we all have to suffer because they can't be trusted".
Prejudice really is a wonderful reservoir to tap into politically. You can have the same people criticising other people from polar opposite standpoints in the space of two minutes. The issue at hand, of course, not being relevant when prejudices are in play.
dannyh is blinded by his own experiences growing up in the North unfortunately and that clouds/spoils every interesting contribution he makes to these threads.
I grew up in the Midlands but have lived a few years up north and a couple darn sarf. I am now back near where I started.
The prejudice you can get out in the open very quickly by having a haircut or getting a taxi or chatting at the bar in a pub in market towns the length a breadth of England is astounding. It was always there, but Leave gave it a new legitimacy. To pretend otherwise is to commit the same error that rightwingers use about political correctness - not seeing what we don't want to see.
The creation and demonising of a 'them' isn't restricted to race, though, there is also an easy win in demonising the 'benefits cheats' too. But the biggest and easiest prejudices to pander to are ones that exploit obvious differences in dress, culture and skin colour. That populists seek to exploit these really shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.
@dannyh - one of our near neighbours is, by his own admission, right wing. His comments have been along the lines of "OH, Eid is coming, there'll be extra restrictions."
If you are trying to kid yourselves that the main motivation behind ‘Leave’ wasn’t a gradually built and deliberately cultivated sense that the country ‘is not being run for us any more’ then you are wrong.
I'm not, but the root cause behind that... poverty, lack of social mobility, lack of opportunity, access to edcuation, poor health... you describe the end effect of that, and I don't think labelling all those people as racist is constructive.
And all this has nothing to do with Andy Burnham.
Why the quibbling over £5million? There is no plan to get Tier3 regions back to Tier2, never mind down to Tier1. So, the funds agreed now won't last very long, when regions are stuck with restrictions all winter... so more will be needed. They are trying to shut things down without suitable support... and hoping that if the Home Counties aren't effected, the "country" will back their economically flawed penny pinching plan.
duplicate post.
And all this has nothing to do with Andy Burnham.
Not directly. But that is the art of insidious nudge-nudging.
If you seriously think that Johnson and Cummings won't sink to the level of a bit of nudging and winking about eid etc to undermine Burnham with their RWR support then you haven't been paying attention the last four and a bit years.
But even I am losing my original point now - which was that Burnham might well be playing into Johnson's hands by being easy to portray as a 'metropolitan liberal' who will give the cash to the 'less deserving' against the 'national interest'. Cummings will already be onto it.
TUFAC are donating seven quid from each Northern Repulic T to Manchester foodbanks. You can help help a little bit and also get a smart new tshirt.
Shirt ordered.
Watching the news last night was as depressing as hearing ****'s "This is our Independence Day" speech the day after the referendum.
Short ordered here too. Wearing it in the Midlands I'm going to have to go with 'solidarity with our brothers in the north' as my line.
Just ordered one. Manchester foodbanks are going to be bloody busy over what promises to be a long bleak winter.
I've not felt this angry for a long time, watching this utterly corrupt gang of shysters dishing out billions to their mates while knowing full well what we've got coming over the winter months.
Just nipped into the post office this morning and the bloke who runs it was equally apoplectic and delivered an absolute tirade about Boris and chums while singing the praises of Andy Burnham. We went for an #inbeforethelockdown couple of pints at our local last night (which with full covid-secure measures in place, felt considerably safer than the local supermarket) before they're closed down on Friday, probably never to re-open, and you can imagine the sentiments being expressed in there
Boris truly has united everyone in this entire region in complete outrage at the actions of this government. And Andy is definitely just vocalising the feelings of his constituents
I've only just woken up to the fact that a huge chunk of the money heading to the regions is earmarked to do the Track/Trace/Isolate work! So... the private national TTI has cost £13billion... yet a third to a half of the money heading to Manchester and Sheffield as they go into Tier3 is to be spent by the local authorities doing the TTI work the expensive national scheme is failing to do...
I’ve not felt this angry for a long time, watching this utterly corrupt gang of shysters dishing out billions to their mates while knowing full well what we’ve got coming over the winter months.
In this regard Johnson and the rest of the cartel are just using covid as a bit of praccy before the big one next year.
Bit like Adolf and the Spanish Civil War.
Genuinely surprised there wasn't riots in Manchester last night.
Riot against who? Our arguments aren't with our local leaders. They've done us proud.
You'd have got an awful lot of volunteers for a pitchfork-wielding away day to Westminster though
yet a third to a half of the money heading to Manchester and Sheffield as they go into Tier3 is to be spent by the local authorities doing the TTI work the expensive national scheme is failing to do…
The final indignity. We've lobbed billions at our mates who have spectacularly failed to deliver, but if you could find the money to sort out their mess from the loose change we found for you down the back of the sofa, that would be grand
I see that the brave Tory MPs in Greater Manchester have written a letter to distance themselves from Burnham. Under orders or a change of (black) heart?
It goes without saying that our spineless toady, James Daly, continues his Boris brown-nosing and sold us all down the river and signed the letter that Cummings wrote for them.
I saw your nodding dog did the same
She'd get away with "sentina" I suspect.
Much easier to avoid saying scum, than to avoid calling someone a liar in the chamber.
Come to think of it... I've head the PM use "rabble" and "riff-raff" from the front bench recently.
Isn't Sentina one of Rees-Mogg's offspring ?
Well said Angela Rayner.
I thought that was a pretty reasoned response by Angela Rayner to the chinless wonder that is Clarkson.
I particularly enjoyed his indignation about being called scum. Poor little Chris.
I particularly enjoyed his indignation about being called scum.
He'll get over it like all the New Right will - a big stack of cash as a kickback from their mates will do it.
Under orders or a change of (black) heart?
Under orders. A yellow streak makes a nice contrast to the black heart.
It's a real shame Dennis Skinner is not there anymore. If he reacts like that to Rayner's comment imagine how he'd react to him
Well said Angela Rayner.
No, it was spectacularly stupid, because that's now the story. I speak as someone who voted for her.
No, it was spectacularly stupid
I disagree; it's nothing more than a minor distraction.
I speak as a card carrying member who voted for her and Starmer.
I disagree; it’s nothing more than a minor distraction.
To you, but it's gold to a largely unfavourable media. She showed exceptionally poor judgement.
She showed exceptionally poor judgement.
In your view.
It may make a couple of headlines on Thursday but that will be it.
The media are clearly becoming more unfavourable to johnson and his clown circus.
It may make a couple of headlines on Thursday but that will be it.
It's already featuring prominently in media outlets, so no, that's not it.
She shouldn't have lost control. It makes her the story and not Labour's message. I'm surprised that's not obvious to you.
Got to say..... Angela Rayner was simply "saying what she saw" a la Catchphrase.
Probably not well advised but if anything it will really help to show that the Tories have lost the North. The Tory MP's there are just renting their constituency for a few more years.
I suspect that the word "scum" being used in the House will seem utterly tame when we see the carnage in the streets of the UK when a few chickens come home to roost next year and beyond.
It’s already featuring prominently in media outlets, so no, that’s not it.
She shouldn’t have lost control. It makes her the story and not Labour’s message. I’m surprised that’s not obvious to you.
We disagree.
By Friday it will be old news; I'm surprised that's not obvious to you.
We disagree.
By Friday it will be old news; I’m surprised that’s not obvious to you.
Yep, we disagree, but the evidence shows that I'm right and you're wrong.
I'm not surprised that's not obvious to you.
It’s already featuring prominently in media outlets, so no, that’s not it.
Indeed commensurate coverage with anything Starmer has said on BBC website, the Guardian gives it a higher billing than anything Starmer has said. Still a few with some sense on here.
TUFAC are donating seven quid from each Northern Repulic T to Manchester foodbanks. You can help help a little bit and also get a smart new tshirt.
Mug version on its way for my desk at work.
It may make a couple of headlines on Thursday but that will be it.
As far as I can tell the 'Tory Scum' scandal didn't feature on any front pages today. Happily, the heartlessness of the vote did on a few.
As far as I can tell the ‘Tory Scum’ scandal didn’t feature on any front pages today. Happily, the heartlessness of the vote did on a few.
At the point the claim was made (that it would be limited to a couple of headlines today), it was the fourth item on the Guardian front page, and the only item about Labour on the BBC news front page. As I said, all it did was bury Labour's message, which is why it was stupid.