Who is this "Keir Starmer" person you are talking about? Is he on the telly or something?
I think he's a character from Viz........ Starmer the Farmer.
Something about his unfeasibly large cucumbers
Nevermind the boring fact that sentencing is nothing to do with the DPP, so not exactly Starmer sending people down
Never mind the boring fact that I didn't actually say Starmer sent anyone down. As DPP, he OVERSAW the prosecutions of those arrested for 'rioting', where the CPS pushed for maximum sentences for serious crimes.
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2011/dec/22/england-riots-all-night-courts
https://www.rs21.org.uk/2020/06/14/whose-side-are-you-on/
Odd to see Starmer as DPP criticised for sentences handed down to offenders – don’t people realise sentencing is the responsibility of the courts, not Prosecutors?
As DPP, Starmer had influence over sentencing, yes:
https://www.sentencingcouncil.org.uk/sentencing-and-the-council/who-does-what-in-sentencing/
"The Director of Public Prosecutions, who is the head of the CPS, is a member of the Sentencing Council."
Obviously wanted to make a bit of a name for himself. I think it's pretty clear now that Starmer is most definitely nothing more than a right-wing stooge, intent on ensuring the UK retains right wing governments for eternity. But; he could bum a pig live on TV, and still some on here would think the sun shines out of his arse.
Is it? The bit Starmer can do something about the front bench seem to have diversity of race and class
Significantly more diverse than most unions leadership
Lol! I love this kind of rubbish on a Monday morning... 😀
right-wing stooge
When people write things like this it immediately makes me question the validity of their other points. Don't like Starmer - fine, especially when reasons are backed with facts. But concluding he is a "right wing stooge" is just nonsense.
Don’t like Starmer – fine, especially when reasons are backed with facts. But concluding he is a “right wing stooge” is just nonsense.
If you bothered to actually do your own research, you'd find plenty to back that up. I've provided plenty just myself. Others have too.
He's a right-wing stooge; end of. And he'll probably bum a pig.
except he really isn't.
You can have an opinion that he is useless, should be replaced etc and that's fine.
Calling him this makes me less likely to listen to your point of view on other points as I am more likely to just assume its nonsense.
I think maybe right wing of the Labour Party stooge would be apt - I think that could probably be fairly classed as centre-right in overall political terms.
I know I keep harping on about it, but pretending to be a unity candidate in the leadership election while keeping secret his blairite funding was a very duplicitous move.
That is a reasonable point of view to have and one that I would listen to. I don't know enough to argue if he is centre left or centre right. One thing for sure though is that he is clearly not doing as well as a lot of people hoped.
Part of me thinks things are going to have to get really bad before people stop voting for the tories, the disaster of Brexit needs to be really felt and fully pinned on this disaster of a government. I don't think it would matter who the Labour leader is/was for just now it would be an extremely difficult job to unite the party and move forward. Its a crap state of affairs, and unfortunately one we are going to have to live through.
His spy photographed attendees at a Labour In Exile Zoom meeting and ex post facto proscribed the organisation and retrospectively threatened expulsion to anyone attending. I paid attention as I worked with one of the characters involved in the early 80s and then and ever since he was a loyal and active LP member. Pretty shabby behaviour in my book.
except he really isn’t.
Except he really, really is. If you haven't realised this by now, then quite frankly you're deluded. Or in denial. Or stupid. Or perhaps even all three.
I don’t know enough to argue if he is centre left or centre right.
Yet you feel qualified to dismiss the fact he is a right wing stooge as 'nonsense'? In spite of plenty of evidence to suggest the actually is? Lol! Ok then.
Pretty shabby behaviour in my book.
Standard behaviour from a right-wing authoritarian. Starmer is destroying the Labour Party, and manoeuvring to completely demonise the Left. The neoliberal project is in full swing. Thatcher must be smiling in her grave.
If you bothered to actually do your own research, you’d find plenty to back that up. I’ve provided plenty just myself. Others have too.
Pretty much puts into context everything you write on here. As soon as that phrase is used you know where it's going.
Lol! Yes dear.
@bridges - your attitude completely puts me off listening to anything you have to say. The concept of him being a right wing stooge is ridiculous, its tin foil hat nonsense.
I generally read and don't comment on this thread because its interesting to see what peoples opinions are. There are some comments I go and research because I find it interesting others I don't.
What I mean by not knowing enough about centre left/right is its quite hard to pinpoint exactly what that is. If you have some interesting articles for me to read send them through. Or should I do like you say and "do my own research" might find some convincing anti vax stuff while I am there...
Ranting angrily and being abusive is not generally a good way to get people to come round to your way of thinking.
Can you clarify what you mean by "right wing stooge".
To me it reads he is secretly working for the tory party and murdoch is some hair brained scheme to rid us of anything but far right politics. If this is what you believe then fine, but to me it is nonsense. If its as Grum says "right wing of the Labour Party stooge" then fair enough.
He's a rightwinger and seeks support wherever he can find it, sponsorship from big businesses etc. He was very much part of the AS smears to discredit the left of the LP (which isn't very left) and he's leading a campaign of fear, intimidation and expulsion going in the party. He doesn't look his own man to me and seems to have ludicrous scripts written for him, win the future, ideas in colours, military occupation as a force for good. On the plus side, if he remains LP leader, more people will begin to realise that parliament wasn't designed for radical change: 'I've got the foreman's job at last.'
your attitude completely puts me off listening to anything you have to say. The concept of him being a right wing stooge is ridiculous, its tin foil hat nonsense.
pssst - don't mention his puppet masters.
@bridges – your attitude completely puts me off listening to anything you have to say. The concept of him being a right wing stooge is ridiculous, its tin foil hat nonsense.
See, if you're going to dismiss other people's views as 'tin foil hat nonsense', whilst ignoring clear signs that UK politics is shifting alarmingly rightwards, with democracy increasingly undermined, with people's rights being eroded and even removed, then do you really think people are going to respect what you have to say? By all means; please counter anything I've posted, with intelligent, well-thought out and reasoned arguments. I've set this challenge a number of times on this very thread. So far, not a single advocate of neoliberalism has been able to do so. All that tends to happen, is pathetic, cowardly attempts at ad hominems. Such as this:
pssst – don’t mention his puppet masters.
You see? Unable to intelligently engage with any real debate, some are reduced to pathetic trolling. Very sad. The level of political ignorance and delusion in our society, as evidenced on this thread and elsewhere, is alarming and depressing. What we once took for granted in our society, such as functioning democracy, worker representation and labour power, an efficient and world-leading NHS, free and universal access to education at all levels, these things have either disappeared or are rapidly being dismantled. And it's people like Starmer, like Blair before him, that are aiding this destruction of our society, by courting wealth and corporate power, and ignoring the very people who vote for them.
BillMC has it right. Starmer isn't going to change anything; he just wants his own slice of the pie. Wake up and smell the coffee; it stinks of shit.
Ranting angrily and being abusive is not generally a good way to get people to come round to your way of thinking.
Actually, Binners hasn't posted for some time on here. A blessing. 😀
All that tends to happen, is pathetic, cowardly attempts at ad hominems
the irony runs deep.
On that note, I can think of a few people in high places who are noted for clutching buttocks with both hands.
please counter anything I’ve posted
My advice is not to bother, and to go and talk to some left wingers away from this forum thread instead. It'll be far more pleasant and enlightening.
He doesn’t look his own man to me and seems to have ludicrous scripts written for him
According to Alexei Sayle Starmer looks like a Thunderbird puppet because someone is pulling his strings.
It's now looking more and more as if that person is currently Peter Mandelson.
The stuff Starmer is coming out with these days is identical to the stuff that Mandelson told Blair to say 25 years ago.
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/modernisation-key-future-labour-success-21371875
"We have to modernise and we have to be the party of the next 10 or 20 years, not the party that simply looks back at the last 10 years"
The absurdity of that statement isn't simply because of the weird suggestion that the Labour Party is somehow some sort of old fashion party, but the supreme irony of using the same identical rhetoric and strategy which were used a quarter of a century ago, and automatically assuming that they must be just as affective today.
Labour's election strategy in the 1990s was very very simple, and extremely effective.
Convincing people to abandon their previously held positions and embrace a different political perspective is never an easy exercise for a politician. And yet that is precisely what an opposition party has to do to win power.
Unless of course the party is New Labour and the strategist is Peter Mandelson, in which case that age-old problem is simply binned and a completely new, much simpler strategy, is adopted.
Instead of attempting to convince Tory voters that they are wrong and you are right you simply convince them that they are in fact right and that you completely agree with them.
It was an election winning formula that could not fall to succeed 25 years ago, it convinced people who had voted Conservative all their lives to vote for this new Thatcherite party.
But totally central and vital to its success one thing had to be absolutely certain, that Labour's traditional core vote would, no matter how far to the right the party went, still vote Labour.
Peter Mandelson was convinced beyond any doubt that they would. He told Peter Hain in 1999 to stop fussing over the working class because they had "nowhere else to go".
And he was right of course. For sure some Labour support haemorrhaged to the LibDems but the small amount that did was more than made up by the huge amount of Tory voters who supported Blair.
Throughout the dark days of Thatcher and Major the Labour heartlands, now called the red wall, remained solidly Labour. They were hardly likely to abandon Labour just when it was poised to take power. The tide only slowly started to turn after Blair won his first general election (between 1997 and 2010 Labour lost 5 million votes).
Mandelson, the man who Starmer clearly listens to, thinks the formula which worked 25 years ago will still work today. Despite the talk of 'modernising' he acts like a dinosaur who doesn't accept that Labour voters can't be taken for granted anymore.
There is no reason to assume that Mandelson has any understanding at all of Labour voters, a few days before Labour's devastating defeat in Hartlepool Mandelson declared that 'with brexit done and Corbyn gone the townspeople are ready to return to Labour'. And yet this is the person who Starmer has turned to for advice.
I’ve got the foreman’s job at last.’
That was very much on my mind when I saw how quickly after winning his election Starmer dumped his '10 socialist pledges'...... the working-class can kiss my arse...... I've got the foreman's job at last.
My advice is not to bother, and to go and talk to some left wingers away from this forum thread instead. It’ll be far more pleasant and enlightening.
And yet, here you still are. 😀 Fact is, you don't have any coherent intelligent arguments. Snidey digs is all you have. How sad.
That was very much on my mind when I saw how quickly after winning his election Starmer dumped his ’10 socialist pledges’…… the working-class can kiss my arse…… I’ve got the foreman’s job at last.
I think Ernie's post sums it up pretty well; Starmer, having had a taste of 'power', has pretty much abandoned any principles that made him such a great Human Rights lawyer. In fairness, this happens to many politicians. Very few manage to stick anywhere near their principles, like Corbyn. But yes; Starmer does seem to be going down the exact same route as Blair. Which left us suffering right wing governments without any light at the end of the tunnel. Which is very depressing.
a few days before Labour’s devastating defeat in Hartlepool Mandelson declared that ‘with brexit done and Corbyn gone the townspeople are ready to return to Labour’.
He was never going to say they were going to get defeated before a poll
And yet this is the person who Starmer has turned to for advice.
Which is disappointing if true I'd have expected them to have moved on.
Mandleson can argue quite successfully that labour won with him and introduced many good things. I suppose the greatest sin for the left is that it wasn't what they wanted to see so they hate it as much as they hate it when the conservatives are in power, perhaps even more
Conference for Starmer is make or break, not looking good at the moment.
My advice is not to bother, and to go and talk to some left wingers away from this forum thread instead. It’ll be far more pleasant and enlightening.
Agree, this thread contains the very people you don't want being anything to do with Labour if they ever want to get elected again. They simply don't understand that the majority of people do not want what they think they should want.
I suppose the greatest sin for the left is that it wasn’t what they wanted to see so they hate it
Seeing what Blair is now (ultra rich PR man for Abu Dhabi and other human rights abusing dictators) doesn't exactly make you look back on his legacy fondly. Then there's the still-unfolding PFI disaster.
The sad part for me is that many of the left-wing policies are consistently popular with the electorate but either no one has the balls to campaign for them (Starmer) or when they do everyone (including many on the 'left') tells them they're insane.
Neo-liberal politics is driving us headlong into environmental armageddon but yet dissenters are the crazy ones?
There is no reason to assume that Mandelson has any understanding at all of Labour voters
There's every reason to think that after the shocking last election defeat that no one currently in Labour has any understanding of Labour voters either. Starmer tells you the reason he's got Mandelson involved. He says his number one priority in to be in Government, well, the last person to manage for Labour was Mandelson. I don't think it's any more complex than that.
The sad part for me is that many of the left-wing policies are consistently popular with the electorate
Interesting research paper I read recently suggested that when offered "blind" policies, people heavily associate with the party they last voted for. So, if you show Labour policies to folks who voted Tory, they may assume that a Labour policy is a Tory policy... and vice versa.
For example say you want strong borders, and are shown a "blind" Tory policy in immigration control, a good percentage of folk will "assume" it's a Labour policy if they voted for Labour last election.
Which is disappointing if true I’d have expected them to have moved on.
That's quite an astonishing statement considering you spend all your time dismissing the arguments of those of us who are saying the labour party needs to modernise and mobilise around the politics and economics of today, rather than rehashing outdated and irrelevant new labour strategies which were designed for an entirely different world.
I'll repeat what I've said many times. Those of us who think labour should be looking at stuff like the green new deal, MMT based economics, UBI etc are the ones looking to the future, rather than being stuck in the past. I don't want an old-school socialist state, and I don't want a kleptocratic neoliberal state as we have now.
If we don't start tackling the existential issues that stare us in the face then all we'll have in future is chaos and environmental, economic and political collapse. As grum suggest, those who want to continue with the status quo are the extremists.
Agree, this thread contains the very people you don’t want being anything to do with Labour if they ever want to get elected again. They simply don’t understand that the majority of people do not want what they think they should want.
Those are the Armresters.
Mandleson can argue quite successfully that labour won with him and introduced many good things.
Please explain the many good things Mandelson introduced.
He says his number one priority in to be in Government
What's he going to do if he gets there?
big_n_daft
Free MemberMandleson can argue quite successfully that labour won with him
Very nicely worded there. Yes Labour won with him. But he was also director of communications for Kinnock, and took a back seat after Kinnock's defeat.
He had little to do with John Smith's leadership, which is what actually created the win. Blair then became PM because Smith died and left him a winning hand (and because Major's government was so unpopular).
So yeah Labour "won with him", but he didn't win it. He lost with one leader and then rode the hard work of another to victory.
So yeah Labour “won with him”, but he didn’t win it. He lost with one leader and then rode the hard work of another to victory.
Didn't he run the 2010 campaign too? So if Labour won once because of him, they also lost twice because of him.
Hardly a ringing endorsement.
Hardly a ringing endorsement.
I don't think I've met or spoken with anyone who thinks that re-involving Mandelson in anything to do with with Labour is a good idea
They're really going to win back the red wall seats now with the guy who thought mushy peas in a chip shop was guacamole (supposedly!).
I don’t think I’ve met or spoken with anyone who thinks that re-involving Mandelson in anything to do with with Labour is a good idea
There are more than a few references to the Blair era and his electoral success, as if repeating the formula would see Labour into power. 1997 was a long time ago, and is about as relevant as Harold Wilson to the current landscape. Funnily enough, bold societal changes as we saw from Attlee are actually what we need, but as no-one in the shadow Cabinet is ever going to make that argument, we'll never find out if the electorate can be persuaded.
I've given up on the Labour party: if it was a horse, it would've been turned into glue by now.
I’ve given up on the Labour party: if it was a horse, it would’ve been turned into glue by now.
I swing wildly between "Please, will someone just put it out of its misery", and "All it needs is decent leadership that everyone can get behind and ignore all their differences"
I swing wildly between “Please, will someone just put it out of its misery”, and “All it needs is decent leadership that everyone can get behind and ignore all their differences”
Yeah, it has a manager, not a leader. I don't see much talent elsewhere within the PLP, with the exception of Clive Lewis, who doesn't have the backing to succeed.
Labour's leadership isn't its biggest problem, its membership is.
It's out of touch and disconnected from ordinary folk. And that applies equally to both the left and the right of the party.
I can't see any realistic solution to that problem. To fair it reflects a global trend.
Ah ffs, there's been the occasional person on this thread getting involved and doing something positive. Then there's
the very people you don’t want being anything to do with Labour if they ever want to get elected again. They simply don’t understand that the majority of people do not want what they think they should want
...and who are happy to leave the Tories running things they hate labour so much. Sigh.
Labour’s leadership isn’t its biggest problem, its membership is.
It’s out of touch and disconnected from ordinary folk. And that applies equally to both the left and the right of the party.
So Labour's members aren't 'ordinary people'? Who are they then?
The party's problems lie with its leadership, pure and simple; they are using Labour as a vehicle for their own political, economic and in some cases, egotistical gain. Which has always been the case really, but the current Labour party are so far removed from say the post war Attlee government, it's virtually unrecognisable.
and who are happy to leave the Tories running things they hate labour so much.
It's not so much the Labour Party that they hate, it's the Left of the Labour Party.
It is now widely accepted that they did everything possible to sabotage Labour's chances of winning a general election under a left-wing leadership, from coordinated front bench resignations to colluding with the Tory press to create an "antisemitism" crisis within Labour.
It is also widely accepted that they were devastated when Labour increased its support by a third in the 2017 general election, they certainly seemed to redouble their efforts to sabotage Labour in the following general election.
In the case of Peter Mandelson he wasn't even coy about his determination to damage the party leadership as much as possible, in fact he openly boasted about it :
So Labour’s members aren’t ‘ordinary people’? Who are they then?
The sort of people who post on stw political threads.
I know quite a few Labour party members. A good few dozen at least. To my knowledge, not a single one posts on STW. They range from lawyers, doctors and university professors, to cab drivers, builders and hairdressers. Pretty ordinary in the general scheme of things, I'd say, although some are exceptional people in their own right.
