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That’s it? After all the digging they’ve doubtlessly done, all the Daily Heil could could come up with is ‘man buys a field for his mum to keep some donkeys in’?
Not exactly Watergate, is it?
Well it is one of your Binbin Bingo top 5 slurs against Corbyn so...
Competency is everything for Labour. Labours recent policies of nationalising everything were not hated (in the main) because they were socialism but because they appeared to be reckless spending of money. Labour need to look competent and win over the voters who don't trust them with the countries finances.
@ctk - Magic Grandads problem wasn’t so much keeping donkeys in his mums field, it was that he’d appointed them all as shadow cabinet members.
Seriously, if that’s all they’ve got on Starmer and they still published it, that’s pretty desperate.
I can’t see it making much difference to Boris being comprehensively dismantled again on Wednesday. Unless he sends Patrick Bateman in his place again. But he seems to have disappeared too as another member of our absentee government
Competency is everything for Labour. Labours recent policies of nationalising everything were not hated (in the main) because they were socialism but because they appeared to be reckless spending of money.
100% this.
Was happy to see:
Which is similar to what was proposed in the 2019 manifesto, but it's now nicely framed in a way it applies to real people and real solutions.
Competency is everything for Labour. Labours recent policies of nationalising everything were not hated (in the main) because they were socialism but because they appeared to be reckless spending of money.
It wasn't reckless.
Like you say - appeared to be reckless. There's no money in the economy because of austerity.
Why do you think the Tories have pumped so much in recently? (Echo-ing some of Labour's spend.) 200 Billion using the ways and means facility. Basically - printed money - although I don't like that term. There will be no interest and it's a debt by the government that won't be paid back.
When we get used to the idea a red in the government's spending is black in the private sector. There is no balancing of the books. This causes so much hardship.
That said Labour didn't and won't continue with this argument - they also talk of balancing the books because they're terrified of the media reporting the finances as the household analogy.
Repeat after me the government's finances are not the same as a household. They are the issuer and we are the user.
As for Career Starmer's recent headline - I'm guessing this is the start. And who didn't expect it? For all his 'forensic' courtroom dramatics - it won't matter a jot in terms of Labour's popularity. (Maybe his own clearly.)
The war for government is fought on emotion not forensic analysis - this just satisfies the pedants. What we want is progressive policies - and Labour need to capitalise on this now.
Anyone seen our glorious leader of late? No. Because he’s hiding under his desk again, dreading next Wednesday where he will be dismantled at PMQs again.
He's been hiding since he was elected - clearly doesn't do well with pressure in my book. He's not going to last. Being dismantled by Starmer doesn't account for much at all. PMQ's have always been overrated as evidence of a parties' success.
– it won’t matter a jot in terms of Labour’s popularity.
With Starmer in charge me and Mrs zip will both vote labour for the first time in our lives. ( I’m a lib party member )
What more can the Labour Party want out of him?
Votes win prizes.
Lucy Powell on Sky aligning herself with government's attitude towards schools. And walking exactly the same line.
I love New New Labour (so far). They are just a polite version of the Tories.
Kier Starmer
tee hee
Lucy Powell on Sky aligning herself with government’s attitude towards schools. And walking exactly the same line.
Interesting - it seems at odds with what Rachel Reeves said yesterday, again on Sky. Can't find anything yet on Lucy Powell's comments - have you got a link?
@Rone, yes I think if Labour got into power and nationalised water or the railways and it was successful then they could talk about the rest. Trying to convince people before they were elected was a losing battle- especially when they "crashed the economy and sold all the gold" last time they were in power.
Labour have a job to change the language around economics and spending- at the moment they are trying to fight in the Tories back yard. eg They should talk about the NHS as a % of GDP. There basically is a magic money tree and
Repeat after me the government’s finances are not the same as a household. They are the issuer and we are the user.
Labour need to look competent and win over the voters who don’t trust them with the countries finances.
For competent read 'won't change anything'. I'm not interested in the sort of competence which results in the state subsidising rich corporations and defending shareholder income whilst imposing austerity and cutbacks on taxpayers. It's the same when people use the 'responsible management of the economy' argument. All this means is maintaining the system where money flows upwards to a tiny few whilst the general population are left to try and survive with shrinking incomes and rising prices. Even now with the pandemic you can see the message emerging of 'be thankful you have jobs at all'. Well that's not the sort of competence I'm looking for, and Starmer will be constantly reminded of that by those of us who voted for him every time he's tempted to side with the landlords, spivs and CEOs.
What more can the Labour Party want out of him?
Someone who will retain those people who voted Labour in the past possibly?
Appealing to Libdem voters means excluding quite a few Labour voters.
Someone who will retain those people who voted Labour in the past possibly?
Retain them? You mean getting those who used to vore labour to do so again after they deserted the party in droves last December to elect Tory MP's instead?
You mean getting those who used to vore labour to do so again after they deserted the party in droves last December?
Well the Tories are going to lose them soon. They are there to be snapped up. For a good % of them the non-appearance of deportation buses looking for anyone with a suntan will come as a shock.
It appears from around here that Starmer is upsetting the far to extreme left nearly as much as the hard to far to extreme right. As far as I am concerned that is a result in itself.
Starmer is upsetting the far to extreme left
He's upsetting the 20th century state socialists, which isn't hard because they'll be upset at anyone who doesn't use the word 'bourgeois' on a daily basis. Doesn't really matter though cos there's not many of them left.
You mean getting those who used to vore labour to do so again after they deserted the party in droves last December to elect Tory MP’s instead?
He's not going to win them back. If there's one thing I know about the heroic white working class northerner it's that they put pride before reason and aren't in the habit of admitting their mistakes.
Magic Grandads
(sic)
Corbyn gets it in the neck for his age but never Hodge who's 5 years older. Curious.
Corbyn gets it in the neck for his age but never Hodge who’s 5 years older. Curious.
Age discrimination is ok if it's someone you don't like.
Some of the really magic commentators on the current crisis have been of the great-grandad variety: David King, Michael Marmot, Richard Wilkinson, Paul Nurse.
Eh?
I'm no fan of this constant appreciation of courtroom PMQs - but the way the RW press and the likes of JHB (M&S Katie Hopkins) jumped on him yesterday for a bit of vocal contortion was ridiculous but not unexpected.
Looks like Sir Kier "won" yesterdays PMQ's after all. Nice U turn Boris.
What’s interesting is whether Starmer and labour had had any previous contact with the less unhinged elements of the Tory party before they raised this at PMQ’s.
Joris backed down because his own (sane, non-ERG headbanger) backbenchers made it clear this morning that if Labour tabled an amendment then they’d vote with them against the government.
That raises a very interesting dynamic, going forward. There are many Tory MPs who despise Johnson and the lunatics he’s surrounded himself with and certainly don’t share their rabid Brexity agenda.
Keep going Keir.
non-ERG
remind me, does ERG stand for 'extreme recession group'?
anyway.
Maybe it's my imagination, maybe something I drank last night, but it does appear sections of the media I would not have expected (as well as some Tory MPs, ye gods what is going on) are showing support for Starmer.
I think that Dom and Dommer are paying the price for leaving their usual press lap-dogs looking like idiots over the lifting of lockdown.
Even the Torygraph has been having a pop at Boris. And the Mail - THE MAIL FFS! - published an article by Piers Morgan (who seems to have become Boris's nemesis) absolutely lambasting Boris and the government.
And Boris arrogantly pissed off one hell of a lot of Tory MPs when he sidelined all of them to exclusively appoint his useless Brexity nodding dogs to the front bench. I don't think many will be feeling that loyal to this particular leadership given how they've dealt (or rather failed to deal) with all this.
Overall, I think we could be witnessing the slow detoxifying of the labour brand, post-Corbyn*
Fingers crossed
* awaits the usual Corbynite suspects to show up with the achingly predictable comments
* awaits the usual Corbynite suspects to show up with the achingly predictable comments
erm... ok
Overall, I think we could be witnessing the slow detoxifying of the labour brand, post-Corbyn*
Fingers crossed
Of course they're detoxified. They've gone from having self declared revolutionaries in charge who threatened tear up the corrupt old order in the interests of the working population, to a solid establishment man backed by Lord Sainsbury who will tip the balance a little bit but won't fundamentally change the system that makes the tiny few at the top rich and powerful. What a thing to celebrate.
Or you could look at it pragmatically and say; what is the least worst option here?
A Starmer-led labour government would be better than a Johnson-led Tory government in, at a conservative estimate*, about 120 million different ways.
In the same way that the Blair-led labour governments were approximately 90 billion times better than the 18-year horror show that preceded them, despite what the 'revolutionaries' would have you believe.
But by all means, you carry on agitating for your glorious socialist revolution while living under permanent Tory rule. I'm sure that will be the best option for everyone, comrade
*see what I did there?
Or you could look at it pragmatically and say; what is the least worst option here?
I'm not necessarily complaining. If he can win an election and smuggle labour policies in under the noses of the CEOs and billionaires by making them believe he's their friend then fine by me. My only worry is that he'll go the way of Blair and forget that he's actually in the labour party.
glorious socialist revolution
I'd love to know what you think this is. I don't think many on the left apart from a few socialist workers think this would be a good thing. Your view of the left seems to be as outdated as the things you think they want.
My only worry is that he’ll go the way of Blair and forget that he’s actually in the labour party.
If you believe the re-writing of history advocated by 'the Left'. We've been here countless times on this and other threads, so I won't bother listing them again (SureStart, Minimum wage, etc, etc, etc....), but the Blair government did a huge amount of good that a Tory government would never ever have countenanced for a second, and certainly won't now.
To not acknowledge this is just daft, churlish and self-defeating. You may not view Corbyn and Co's policies as particularly far left, but there simply aren't the numbers who share your view to ever make it an electoral reality. Thats the bottom line.
So what Labour has to do is have a leader who appears competent enough to be electable - which they look to now have - who will advocate policies that are popular enough to win a general election by not scaring the horses.
It's a simple enough theory. Quite difficult to achieve in reality
You may not view Corbyn and Co’s policies as particularly far left, but there simply aren’t the numbers who share your view to ever make it an electoral reality. Thats the bottom line.
There's tons of evidence to suggest the policies weren't the problem. The bottom line is that Corbyn wasn't electable because he allowed himself to be diverted from his instincts on brexit (by Starmer primarily), and was disgracefully smeared as a racist by the rightwing press and many of his own MPs.
Anyway, that's old ground. What Blair proved is that it takes more than a friendly establishment man with some competence to win. You also need to dilute the policies so that the billionaires and CEOs can be confident that their pay cheques are secure and their power and influence uninterrupted. Of course a war or two also goes down well, but lets not go there.
We’ve been here countless times on this and other threads, so I won’t bother listing them again (SureStart, Minimum wage, etc, etc, etc….)
Absolutely - Blair could've been one of the great reforming Prime Ministers, and made a great start. Then he turned his attention to bombing brown people instead.
The bottom line is that Corbyn wasn’t electable because he allowed himself to be diverted from his instincts on brexit (by Starmer primarily), and was disgracefully smeared as a racist by the rightwing press and many of his own MPs.
His instincts on brexit were muddled and wishy washy.
He allowed himself to look racist by not saying simple things (sorry!) that would have defused the situation. He was more concerned with being right.
It took the interviewing heavyweight Phil Schofield to trick him to say sorry, but it was a bit late by then.
His instincts on brexit were muddled and wishy washy.
His instincts were to respect the result and leave. Remember all the abuse he got when he suggeted invoking article 50? It was the policy that was muddled once Starmer persuaded him to water down his acceptance of the referendum result.
He allowed himself to look racist by not saying simple things (sorry!) that would have defused the situation.
So the racists in the rightwing press accuse a lifelong anti-racism activist of being a racist, and he was supposed to apologise? And you seriously think they would have just left it that? Really?
Remember all the abuse he got when he suggeted invoking article 50?
Rightly so. Even those who wanted Brexit laughed at the timing of that. Showed he didn’t have a clue about the preparations and adjustments required. In fact, with every year that passed, it became more and more clear that, while he may well have been a dedicated political activist, he had not a clue how anything works in any industry.
Even those who wanted Brexit laughed at the timing of that.
But we're not talking about whether it was sensible, but whether his instincts were correct. Given that labour lost the 2019 election at the altar of 'getting brexit done' it would seem that his kneejerk reaction was in fact what the people wanted. Had he stuck to that, he very well might have maintained his reputation for honesty and authenticity, and carried the people with him. Instead he doubted himself and allowed the only thing he had going for him to be eroded in the minds of the public. The voters didn't want 'preparations and adjustments' and weren't interested in 'how things work', they just wanted their will to be carried out. Boris promised that, Corbyn didn't.
Maintained his reputation for honesty and authenticity?
Seriously, mate? What planet are you on?
The lifelong Brexiteer who found himself, by some unfortunate accident, leading a massively pro-EU party? Who then spent the referendum campaign hiding in the shed on his allotment? Then called for article 50 to be triggered immediately? Then perched precariously and spinelessly on a fence for 3 years talking some utter bollocks about being an ‘honest broker?
Honesty and integrity?
Are you having a laugh?
He’s as much of a coward and an opportunist as Joris Bohnson. With just as many ‘principles’
Take your blinkers off FFS mate
If that useless old **** had actually done his job in reflecting the values of a massively pro-EU party instead of his own there’s a very strong possibility we wouldn’t have ended up in the midst of this car crash in the first place.
The moment he gave his typically juvenile, 6th form demand to enact article 50 immediately, everyone with anything between their ears should have seen him for the charlatan that he is
He’s as much of a self-serving chancer as Boris.
Absolutely – Blair could’ve been one of the great reforming Prime Ministers, and made a great start. Then he turned his attention to bombing brown people instead.
The first couple of years he did not have total control of the party - policy was decided by conference and he had to enact it. Once he got control he moved the party and policy to the right. Hence we had radical stuff in the first couple of years and not thereafter.
The rewriting of history is not being done by the left - its being done by the right and too many folk swallow it.
So the racists in the rightwing press accuse a lifelong anti-racism activist of being a racist, and he was supposed to apologise? And you seriously think they would have just left it that? Really?
He could and should have shown some regret for the issues in his party; apologised and made changes.
Doing none of those things does not show leadership. Probably because Lansman didn't tell him to.
The first couple of years he did not have total control of the party – policy was decided by conference and he had to enact it
One of the first things the Blair government did was to privatise (in all but name) the organisation I worked for. Just sayin’
He could and should have shown some regret for the issues in his party; apologised and made changes.
Yep. It may have ben exaggerated by the media and the problem in tory party were worse (but they are tories so low bar etc,.) but he showed no leadership at all. I would have said I am going to sort it and I would have sorted it out in a month. All complaints come to me as whatever process is in place is ineffective and only stop coming to me when I have put an effective process in place.
Yes I would have rather been doing other things but this was a priority
I do wonder about these ad hominem attacks on the young and the old. Clearly being middle aged is no guarantee against ignorance, nor stupidity.
I'm still trying to find an example of a politician who sucked up to polite society, got backing from major capitalists (was it even their money?), got elected then turned out to have progressive principles after all. His first act of backing the landlords over the renters gives us some clarity about him and his sponsors and yet we get renters rallying in his defence. Fascinating.
He’s as much of a self-serving chancer as Boris.
The overwhelming evidence would suggest otherwise. What did he do when Starmer took over? He went straight to the local food bank and vounteered his time, with no media and no fanfare. Say what you like about his shortcomings as the leader of a political party, but please don't pretend he's the same as Johnson as he quite obviously isn't.
If you want my opinion on why he ultimately failed, it was because he fundamentally a decent, compassionate man. Trouble is that decency in the world of politics comes across as weakness, and people don't want weakness in a leader, they want strength, calculation and ruthlessness, which is why people like Boris and Trump succeed. It was this decency which inspired such loyalty in his supporters, and its the reason they'll always defend him when those traits are questioned.
Labour have called for Johnson to front todays pandemic presser to explain the position on Cummings. A very, very clever move.
oops wrong thread
Yep, without an imminent PMQ to pile the pressure on him it's the best way to give him no real route of escape.
Do the presser and he'll have to give answers which can only open up a can of worms.
Don't do the presser and he'll be labelled as aloof, out of touch and having no control.
Either way he's going to be shitting himself.
Ok, credit where it's massively due, Starmer has nailed this. it's like watching Germany vs Brazil in the 2014 world cup.
https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1264640874165743616?s=20
Christ - can we just forget about J bloody C!
He was an irrelevance then & even more so now.
At least with KS we’ve finally an opposition who can find his arse with both hands & I really hope he mercilessly skewers Blojo - preferably with a rusty, faeces smeared pitchfork.....
KS, with a bit of luck could be our next PM. Though we’re going to have be brave little soldiers till he gets his chance.....’cos quite frankly this Tory shower of shite aren’t going anywhere just yet!
https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1267216624244994049?s=19
I had forgotten we'd got a Labour part recently and then there was a small positive bump in the polls to pre-2019 election levels and then we get this.
This Country certainly knows how to self-harm.
More forensic stuff needed?
Starmer needs to start holding the government to account. There's clearly unease amongst the expert advisors as to whether we have this under control enough to be easing lockdown. Unless the figures this week support that decision, he's got to start making them justify their decisions properly and publicly.
All the other polls for the same period are on about 43 v 38%, you can check that with the same twitter account. The YouGuv one looks like an outlier, so far.
What is more concerning is that the big changes in the ratings for the leaders aren’t reflected in the voting intentions for the parties (yet).
Yes I've seen those. Outlier or not you would expect with the baggage recently things would be better.
One response to this:
https://www.thearticle.com/polls-show-johnson-has-lost-the-country-he-may-never-get-it-back
Keir is like a mini Piers.
he does do a stunning silence
unusual for someone, like many on here, who has trained at the bar
What was it Napoleon said about never interrupting your enemy while they're in the process of making a monumental ****-up?
He's allowing Boris and chums to keep digging, and perhaps handing them another shovel as they wear them out.
After the farce of the last couple of weeks, the Observer has the Tory's poll lead at +4 (down from +26 in March), and Johnsons personal approval ratings are in freefall even amongst Tory voters.
I'm thinking that the first PMQ's after recess is going to make for interesting viewing
It seemed apparent to me that Johnson et al were trying to say that everyone should unite behind the government because of the crisis we face. They then accused people of playing politics when they had issues. For example the ongoing Cummings saga. For Starmer to wade in without a lot of thought would open him up to up to the obvious "playing politics" counter. He needs to be careful to avoid this which I think he is doing.
We're not dealing with a government that want to debate facts in intelligent conversation. They exist on slogans, sound bites, ignoring difficult questions or just outright lies. One of the mistakes of the remain camp, and the Corbyn opposition was to not realise the rules of the game they were playing.
"In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." Martin Luther King
A little warm up to make sure de Pfeffel doesn’t sleep too well tonight...
Nice one Keir!
Shame he only gets 6 questions at PMQs but I'm sure he will slide the stiletto in nicely.
Binders keeps quoting that Napoleon reference as if we're winning a battle.
Its our people dying by the thousands.
Somehow, Napoleon would not be standing by if he was losing people like this.
ooff, he's almost got Johnson losing his temper... awesome
What would you have him do then @loum? He has to tread carefully at the moment, and that’s just what he’s doing.
I don’t think many people want a confrontational yaa-boo approach to politics at the moment.
This is a long game. To use your own parlance; it’s a war, not a battle. The government will be held accountable for this shambles at the imminent public inquiry. And Starmer has repeatedly got him to commit to giving answers to what are surely going to be pertinent questions at the point.
Maybe a shouty 10-second soundbite to put out on Twitter would be a better approach? It was brilliantly effective in the past!
SKS on perfect form, I thought. Johnson is just a frickin' clown.
SKS on perfect form
The look of disbelief over the confidential letter response, then the "No problem, I'll just make it public" approach. He manoeuvres Johnson very well.
Johnson is just a frickin’ clown.
Absolutely true, but I still worry that, for Joe Public, he has an answer to everything, and a lot of fans will hear the response to "I haven't had a reply to my confidential letter" as "but I phoned you about it, so what's the problem...", without any more thought.
Edit: Kryton makes a very good point, but soooo many people aren't interested enough to then read the letter when it's published, or even think much more about it
Somehow, Napoleon would not be standing by if he was losing people like this.
In the closing actions of Waterloo, as his elite troops got torn to literal shreds by massive concentrations of allied firepower. Napoléon turned and said (I’m paraphrasing here) “we’ve lost, let’s get the” then ran away as his army collapsed into disarray.
It also transpires that formations put together to cover such a rout fired into their own retreating men for fear of being overrun by those pursuing them.
Would've been nice if he'd got a Cummings question in just to watch fat boy flounder a bit but I suppose he's had ample opportunity to rehearse his evasion what with the liaison committee and soft soap BBC questions
Boris didn't like the track and trace accusations did he!! Do they know the questions before hand?
Starmer owns johnson - again.
Anyone else think johnson looks rough? He is being shown up as ill-prepared, a liar, dim, detached from reality.
eskay - no, questions not made known to PM before PMQs but standard practice has been for support team to brief and school PM on likely subjects and suggested responses; johnson is not known for doing any preparation - for anything.
Might just be me being dim but...
"World leading" Test Track and Trace system by 1st June blah blah blah....
If the App that was developed/being developed isnt in use with the population yet, how exactly are we doing the Track and Trace part of this? Forgive me if I'm wrong but asking "who have you been close to in the last 2 weeks?" cannot be a reliable method to say we've even got a Track and Trace system, let alone a World Leading system.
Or am I just missing something?
If you're missing it, then so am I. It seems what limited capability we've fudged into place isn't being used, and it's a manual process exactly as you've described above, I think.
Almost completely useless, and utterly indicative of what we have in our government.
One of the journalists reporting on PMQs did make the point that we're not hearing much on what the Labour government would do differently - I suspect that's deliberate, so that we're not seeing too much of anything but cooperation and gentle holding to account, but that will need to come at some point in the not-too-distant future, I think...
Human led processes are more important than the mobile app (according to studies in South Korea etc, where mobile apps were identified as a useful addition rather than central to the success of TTI there) but the idea that our ‘manual’ system was properly up and running, and world class, on 1st June, is just pure bullshit. Most people know that.
Of course, you can page back through other threads to see why we don’t have the mobile app to use… and even if we did why it wouldn’t be as useful as it could be… many of us pointed out the mistakes made by the government with the app from the very start… why the wrong approach was taken, and the wrong people used to deliver it… and, of course, the NHS branding was used as cover for all that, again.
The YouGuv one looks like an outlier, so far.
That maybe due to the way it is funded and run! 😉