Theres a Tory MP presently on Five Live. On answering the question as to why the Torys have done so well in the 'Red Wall' seats, he said that it was because... "the labour party had set fire to itself"
I used to read/watch Novaramedia content a lot. I don't click/share/engage with it anymore.
I have no problem with their "bias", it was a very good fit for me. I'm part of the target audience. None of that negates my current opinion about how they work, and why I don't want to be one of their eager, or even occasional, consumers from here on. They thrive on "Labour eats itself" content, it drives clicks and engagements very successfully.
Agree about the Sunday Times. They are smart enough to have a very wide range of columnist, and reasonably (compared to much of the other print press) straight forward news coverage.
I have no problem with their “bias”, it was a very good fit for me. I’m part of the target audience. None of that negates my current opinion about how they work, and why I don’t want to be one of their eager, or even occasional, consumers from here on. They thrive on “Labour eats itself” content, it drives clicks and engagements very successfully.
I'm still struggling with your notion that Novaramedia are 'part of the problem'. Do you not think that being critical of how the party is run, and what direction it is taking, is essential in the debate about how wider politics is being formed and enacted? There have always been internal divisions within Labour; it's a very 'broad church'. But the left of the party have been systematically hounded and demonised by what is actually a small minority of rich, powerful right-wing figures who seem to want the Labour party to be the vehicle for their own political ambitions. Labour are increasingly not seen as the party for the 'people', and the real problem, which you either cannot see of choose to ignore, is that further movement in this direction will ultimately render the party utterly irrelevant (as per the LibDems), and cause it's political destruction. Yet Novaramedia are 'part of the problem'?
“the labour party had set fire to itself”
He's right isn't he? How else do you describe smearing your own leader and most of the membership as racists with the same sentiments as the nazis?
I don’t think he himself cared or knew he was Jewish until he realised he could use it for political ends to help his billionaire friends.
Given that his grandfather founded a synagogue and his dad edited the Jewish Chronicle, I think your character assassination may a bit wide of the mark there.
Those jews eh, what are they like.
The little scamps. God only knows what they get up to that we don't know about
Makes you think....
I don’t think he himself cared or knew he was Jewish until he realised he could use it for political ends to help his billionaire friends.
Wow. That feeds right into actual anti-Semitism. To suggest a Jewish person could use their 'Jewishness' for political and financial gain? I think you need to seriously rethink what you just said there. Yes, he is as guilty as any of weaponising anti-Semitism against Corbyn and the left, but that's an entirely separate matter, and has everything to do with his increasingly right wing leanings, not because he's Jewish himself.
I think you need to apologise, and at least explain yourself there, dazh.
I think your character assassination may a bit wide of the mark there.
I think I'm fairly safe in my assessment of his character.
He's not very good at flower arranging, is he?
And back onto Starmer - hopefully the Queens speech will give labour something to oppose and get their teeth into!
Unfortunately the gammony bastards will probably love the thought of voter I/d's and reigning in the judiciary so it'll be a hard sell 😕
I think I’m fairly safe in my assessment of his character.
That's fine; he is truly vile, no question. But why did you feel the need to comment on his cultural heritage in the way you did?
Because he's worse than Hitler! That's why!
hopefully the Queens speech will give labour something to oppose and get their teeth into!
It appears to be an open goal really, Voter ID, unpopular protest reform, judiciary reform, and no mention of social care reform, which given the calamity our appalling provision proved to be during COVID seems to be a bit more pressing!
hopefully the Queens speech will give labour something to oppose and get their teeth into!
Optimistic. That's assuming Labour actually had any teeth...
Because he’s worse than Hitler! That’s why!
Who, Dazh? That's a bit strong.
You don't know him. Beneath that cuddly vegan, tree-hugging, anarchist, environmentalist exterior lurks the dark soul of a monster
Who, Dazh? That’s a bit strong.
It's true. When I saw binners in the pub a couple of weeks back I spent the whole time quoting passages from Mein Kampf at him. Sadly I failed to convince him.
But seriously; you've made quite an offensive comment there, yet seem completely unapologetic. You may well not care at all, but I, and I'd imagine others, do. I'd really like you to explain your comment.
How else do you describe smearing your own leader and most of the membership as racists with the same sentiments as the nazis?
You can't keep blaming Labour's poor electorial showing on sabotage from the Blairite right. It's been well over a year since they have stopped trying to cripple Labour's electorial chances.
Other factors must explain why there was a ten percent drop in Labour support in Hartlepool compared to 2019.
A lack of vision perhaps. An inability to understand what they would be voting for maybe. And to be perfectly honest I'll be ****ed if I know what the people who voted Labour in Hartlepool last Thursday were voting for - an MP who on their behalf would go to Westminster and abstain from voting?
On reflection perhaps that's what happened in Hartlepool last Thursday - many Labour voters took a leaf out of Keir Starmer's book and decided to show their opposition to the Tories by abstaining from voting?
Plus of course imposing a short list of one wasn't exactly a genius strategy, especially when that one person had already lost a seat a year earlier for being pro-Remain in a pro-Leave constituency. Perhaps that's what they meant by Labour setting themselves on fire.
I reckon accusations of anti-Semitism against Corbyn must have been very low in people's minds last Thursday.
You can’t keep blaming Labour’s poor electorial showing on sabotage from the Blairite right.
Don't worry it's mostly tongue in cheek. I just feel duty bound to remind everyone of what a despicable and self-defeating strategy it was, and how it exposes the right wing as the real 'enemy within' rather than those on the left. I think you're right in that AS wasn't high on the agenda in these elections, but that being said, the damage to labour's brand inflicted by it is still there and will be for a very long time.
As for what happened in Hartlepool, I think it's a straightforward lesson that when politicians lose sight of what they're supposed to be doing, the electorate will eventually cotton on and kick them out. Labour have been taking working class votes for granted for 20 years in places like Hartlepool. All it needed was someone on the other side to do something they liked. Boris did that with brexit, and that's why they voted tory. As I've said before, it's not rocket science.
Plus of course imposing a short list of one wasn’t exactly a genius strategy
Some-one certainly needs to having a chat with whoever decided that Labour's candidate would be a remainer-supporting doctor who was on an NHS panel who decided to close Hartlepool's maternity ward. I think the local paper ran a headline that said something along the lines of "Labour's candidate is the reason no-one will have Hartlepool on their birth certificate"
And I think the local Labour council have been fighting like rats in sack for years now with expulsions and resignations...One was recently up on assualt charges and another tweeted that being in Labour wasn't good for your mental health.
Plus of course imposing a short list of one wasn’t exactly a genius strategy, especially when that one person had already lost a seat a year earlier for being pro-Remain in a pro-Leave constituency. Perhaps that’s what they meant by Labour setting themselves on fire.
Shooting themselves in the foot head more like. I don’t think anyone will be arguing that his selection made sense to anyone on the outside of the decision making. Baffling.
When I saw binners in the pub a couple of weeks back I spent the whole time quoting passages from Mein Kampf at him. Sadly I failed to convince him.
You must have fitted in very well with the racist regulars that frequent the pubs that Binners chooses to go to.
It appears to be an open goal really, Voter ID, unpopular protest reform, judiciary reform, and no mention of social care reform, which given the calamity our appalling provision proved to be during COVID seems to be a bit more pressing!
Sure. You can point all this out, but even when the popularity of the Furlough scheme finishes, when the vaccine bounce ends, when they will inevitably start gerrymandering the election boundaries, there will probably still be enough people who will not give a monkey's about the above, or either think this is still the conservative party of old, and vote for them.
You can’t keep blaming Labour’s poor electorial showing on sabotage from the Blairite right. It’s been well over a year since they have stopped trying to cripple Labour’s electorial chances.
The sabotage started in 2010 with the election of the wrong Milliband, and continued in 2015 with Corbyn. At some point you are going to have to take some of the responsibility for this Government with a large majority.
Ten of those years under the aforementioned leaders, though they are not totally at fault as they weren't in Government.Labour have been taking working class votes for granted for 20 years in places like Hartlepool.
I suppose the inevitable answer from you will be the way to win back these voters who have just voted for an increasingly right-wing authoritarian regime is to take the Labour party further left?
And back onto Starmer – hopefully the Queens speech will give labour something to oppose and get their teeth into!
You would think so, but Starmer needs to grow a spine. If you are going to sack people, do it properly. Labour can do without the luxury left getting suckered by vote leave divide and conquer tactics and do their dirty work for them.
At some point you are going to have to take some of the responsibility for this Government with a large majority.
Is that directed at me?
Can I expect a call from Andrew Marr sometime soon asking me to come to the studio to explain myself?
The Independent: Keir Starmer’s leadership ratings now worse than Jeremy Corbyn’s, polls show.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-polls-corbyn-labour-b1845588.html
I can't deny it I'm starting to feel guilty, Starmer's leadership ratings are now worse than Corbyn's, I've clearly got a lot to answer for.
Luckily only the Independent appears to have reported this pretty earth-shattering revelation, no one else seems to feel that it's newsworthy. So I'll just try to keep my head down for a while.
Legislation to enable an early election to be brought forward this parliamentary session as well. Labour don’t have the time to wait and see how it works out for Starmer, and nor do they have someone suitable ready to replace him imminently. Checkmate.
Labour don’t have the time to wait and see how it works out for Starmer? He's been leader for over a year and he's now apparently even less popular than Corbyn was. How many years do they need to be sure?
Johnson is outmanoeuvring Labour on many fronts. The proposed animal welfare legislation is clearly designed to broaden Tory appeal to bearded vegan cyclists.
Labour needs to sort out its act out sharpish
He's been there a year but it's not been a normal year and the Parliamentary process has been far from normal.
Well as long as the excuses keep rolling in I guess it's okay..... it's Corbyn's fault, it's Angela Rayner's fault, it's Covid's fault, it's Boris Johnson's fault.
When they run out of excuses they can have a rethink.
Events in the ME are leading to calls to 'boycot Labour' so the pressure will be on in ethnically diverse constituencies (Rushanara Ali eg made a statement on Palestine) whereas they got royally booted out of ethnically uniform Hartlepool. He is not dealing with AC in the party and does seem to be eviscerating the traditional LP supporters in an attempt to gain votes. Whose bright idea was that?
Labour needs to sort out its act out sharpish
It won't, obviously. Thats simply not the way the labour party conducts its affairs. When the Tory's move, its quick, brutal and ruthless. Labour will dither and delay, as always, and indulge in endless naval-gazing, blame-storming and factional warfare. All while the Tory's laugh in grateful disbelief from the sidelines
Grandad should have been history after one election defeat, but was allowed to declare it a victory instead. Can you imagine the Tory party allowing an election-loser to continue in post as their poll rating plummeted further and further? Not a chance! It'll be the same now.
No wonder Boris is looking so pleased with himself. I bet that pre-vaccine he couldn't see himself being safe as houses like this. I bet he never thought he'd be listening to another queens speech, riding high in the polls.
The one thing I think we can absolutely guarantee is that whatever the Labour Party decide to do, it'll be the wrong move, and make things even worse.
It's getting to the point where the party just needs putting out of its misery. At a national level it's a basket case that looks totally incapable of modernisation or reform. A 20th century anachronism, adrift in the 21st, with no idea what its meant to stand for
The only question it presently seems to be asking itself is who to blame. The voters? Corbyn? Blair? Ed Milliband? Peter Mandleson seems a popular bond villain.
How about 'all the above'?
I despair
And when it does decide what it stands for that needs to be something that people actually want.
They seem quite happy with Johnson and the tories at the moment.
Labour needs to be a coalition of two different political groupings, but there have always been significant numbers in both those groupings that would rather force out the other group than get into government and make (compromised) changes for the better for the people of the UK. The noise made by those who are more focused on battles between those groupings than beating the Tories is only getting louder and louder, and the voters aren't coming back while that is the case.
The one thing I think we can absolutely guarantee is that whatever the Labour Party decide to do, it’ll be the wrong move, and make things even worse.
Well you've certainly changed your tune binners. I thought Keir Starmer was the Messiah who would save Labour?
The people who are crippling Labour are the "centrists" who are determined to stop Labour offering a radical alternative to the Tories.
They did everything they could to sabotage Labour's 2017 manifesto and will continue to fight any attempt to offer a radical alternative, whoever the leader is.
This plays right into the Tories hand. The Tories can propose radical policies because they are Tories. The animal welfare legislation is actually quite a good example of this.
The "centrists" in the Labour Party would never have agreed to policies as far reaching and as radical as is being proposed, they are simply scared of such radical policies.
Boris Johnson however can get away with it because he's a Tory. Being both radical and Tory is apparently just fine.
Labour don’t have the time to wait and see how it works out for Starmer?
I don't think swapping leaders is going to anything for Labour's fortunes. Johnson is (at the moment at least) v popular. I just need to go to the vaccine centre of down to the waiting room, and I can hear how people are connecting Johnson's govt directly with the vaccine rollout. They don't care about Labour. And this where the local MP Afzal Khan is hugely locally popular, and our surgery extension was opened by Gerald Kaufman, the previous MP. This is Labour heartland...Still Johnson is popular.
Johnson's luck won't last forever, politics isn't like that.
Apparently the message from last Thursday's elections was that many people saw the Tories as the party of change.
You have to ask yourself why.
Johnson’s luck won’t last forever, politics isn’t like that.
This is absolutely true. Politics isn't like that.
But does it matter though?
Thatcher won 3 elections for the Tories. Eventually her luck ran out and they sacked her.
Does it matter though?
Well you’ve certainly changed your tune binners. I thought Keir Starmer was the Messiah who would save Labour?
I've never said anything of the sort. What I've said (more in hope than anything) is that I thought he might lend some gravitas, professionalism and credibility to the party after 5 years of almost comedic amateurism and ineptitude
They did everything they could to sabotage Labour’s 2017 manifesto and will continue to fight any attempt to offer a radical alternative, whoever the leader is.
And there you go. The reason labour is ****ed. Still banging on about some ridiculous tinfoil-helmetted conspiracy theory from 4 years ago. It seems more people are interested in endlessly feeding some mythical betrayal than taking on Boris and co...
The labour party really is well and truly screwed
You have to ask yourself why.
Because that's how the Tories win elections, they're very good at being "establishment" but at the same time "radical" it's the reason they're one of the most successful political parties ever, Lots of wildly different groups of folk think the Tories stand for them.
Still banging on about some ridiculous tinfoil-helmetted conspiracy theory from 4 years ago.
Oh I'm sorry binners it's just a "conspiracy theory" right-wing MPs didn't do everything possible to undermine the party leader? They didn't stage coordinated front bench resignations, brief against him, denounce him as a racist, etc etc?
In fact they were four-square behind him and took every opportunity to sing the praises of his radical vision. Gawd bless em all.
Anyone who can't see that is obviously some sort of conspiracy nut.
It’s getting to the point where the party just needs putting out of its misery. At a national level it’s a basket case that looks totally incapable of modernisation or reform. A 20th century anachronism, adrift in the 21st, with no idea what its meant to stand for
The only question it presently seems to be asking itself is who to blame. The voters? Corbyn? Blair? Ed Milliband? Peter Mandleson seems a popular bond villain.
How about ‘all the above’?
Corbyn attempted the necessary reform. The wealthy right of the party deliberately sabotaged him at every turn. The Blairites, Mandelson, etc. So blame them.
And there you go. The reason labour is ****ed. Still banging on about some ridiculous tinfoil-helmetted conspiracy theory from 4 years ago. It seems more people are interested in endlessly feeding some mythical betrayal than taking on Boris and co…
But it's fact. Not 'mythical'. You have it in black and white, from Mandelson. Ask your friend Dazh why Mandelson is so bent on screwing over Labour voters; he might have an answer. The real reason Labour is ****ed is because the wealthy elite of the party want it as their own political vehicle, to serve their own ends. Hence the failed neoliberal project. Trouble is, that's now a busted flush and they are offering no effective opposition to the tories. These are the people you seem to support. That's where the problem lies; I know you want to blame Corbyn/the left/anyone else etc, but the real reason is right there, staring you in the face. And you know it. That elite don't want change; this is the situation that suits them best. They get to stay wealthy, to have others subservient to them in order to do their bidding. To continue to enjoy privilege, to holiday in Tuscany, to send their kids to posh schools, to live in nice areas without any 'undesirables' spoiling the view. Nah; the status quo suits them down to the ground, they don't want anyone upsetting the applecart.
The labour party really is well and truly screwed
This, I think we can all agree upon. Unity for once.
It turns out that the Independent are in on this ridiculous tinfoil-helmetted conspiracy theory...
You know where your elaborate conspiracy theories fall down, don't you? And its all pretty bloody obvious...
Ask yourself... if you were a member of some shadowy rich and influential cabal, hell bent on having governments bend to your will, and sabotaging democracy for your own evil ends, why on earth would you bother with the labour party? What on earth would you hope to gain by that?
You'd have to be a pretty shit bond villain to think that your ends are best served by HM opposition at present or any time soon.
Why even consider those serial losers when you've got the Tory Party in power that have spent the last 12 months dishing out billions and billions in taxpayers money to their mates without even attempting to hide it? Boris might as well have stuck a billboard on the side of number 10 saying GOVERNMENT FOR HIRE! ENQUIRE WITHIN! BRING YOUR CHEQUE BOOK
They're literally begging for your ill-gotten gains. They've even now launder it for you. And if you've got the cash, nothing is now off limits. Just leave a list of your demands with a blank cheque and we'll sort out the rest
You know where your elaborate conspiracy theories fall down, don’t you?
I notice you dont actually counter the statement but just rant on and on producing some childish images to prove that you are far above those six formers.
I would say its amazing that you actually try and argue the right wing of the labour party didnt do their best to undermine Corbyn but then again I recall you actually believe a public inquiry would be effective.
And its all pretty bloody obvious…
This should be worth a giggle and yes it fails on the obvious basis. Leaving aside the inane attempt to smear the person you are arguing with you dont even manage to put forward a coherent argument. I mean even a secondary school kid could see the obvious gain in nobbling the opposing team.
