Sir! Keir! Starmer!

I never voted for Labour under Blair, but that Labour opposition was a long way from the Tories of even those days, never mind this lot.

Do we reckon we could do something original by not repeating the same tired Tony Blair arguments again? If others can, I promise I won't mention Iraq on this thread 🙂

Back to Keir, there was a report the other day saying he was lining up Rachel Reeves as his shadow chancellor. I think it's probably likely as she's been more vocal recently on econonic matters which will be no coincidence. Big mistake though, especially in the current environment with her pro-austerity background. It sets up a battle with the left who will demand/expect RLB to succeed McDonnell. Much as Binners wants a Kinnock style purge the hundreds of thousands of pro-Corbyn members are not going away and it makes little sense to start a new civil war.

Its the perfect time to get rid of all the idiots. Long way from the net election, low down news priorities and contrary to what folk say there is no huge Corbynista movement and they do not hold power. What there is is a desire for the party to be actually left of centre in the grassroots. corbyn was who they gathered around but as we can see from the voting intentions Long Bailey has NOT got the same groundswell

Binners - accept that labour MPS were constantly briefing against Corbyn? Or do I need to go and search the gutters of the tory press?

I cannot remember when any opposition party held the government to account

One of the ways an opposition does this to to have a strong enough voice and strong enough policies that the party in power copies them. New Labour did that with the Tories, and arguable Cameron did that with New Labour.
When the opposition are so far away from the party in power, which is where we are now you lose that.

it makes little sense to start a new civil war.

Actually, if you're going to start a civil war, now is exactly the right time to do it. With no election on the horizon, no is the time to be doing the internal dirty work allowing a more united party to be ready to fight an election in 4 and half years time.
Getting Starmer in to do the nasty work now is very good timing indeed.

Do we reckon we could do something original by not repeating the same tired Tony Blair arguments again?

Which “centrists” were you on about then Dazh? My reply to you was literally a request to stop with that boring stuff.

especially in the current environment with her pro-austerity background

Try looking forwards, not backwards.

It sets up a battle with the left who will demand/expect RLB to succeed McDonnell.

Forwards.

What there is is a desire for the party to be actually left of centre in the grassroots.

Absolutely. And hopefully it will be. For that to succeed, highly competent impressive people need to make the case.

Which “centrists” were you on about

Yes I was talking about the blairites. There are many in the PLP, and vanishingly few in the wider party, who still can't move on from the failed neo-liberal 'centrist' economic orthodoxy. If they had their way we'd spend the next few years talking about fiscal prudence and incremental reform. Even before coronavirus  we were in a very different place to the 90/00s, now we're in another universe where the things like borrowing limits, national debt and austerity are meaningless. The pandemic has provided the opportunity to reorganise the economy (and politics) for the benefit of everyone rather than the tiny few at the top. Labour are not going to capitalise on that by harking back to past glories.

I’m left wing. Corbyn moved the party’s policies in my direction. He got me voting Labour. He then wasted years by not standing down after his general election loss. He put Labour into its current hole, not “blairites”. The new leader needs a new team, with capable left wing people, and I care not whether they stood with Corbyn while it was blindingly obvious to everyone else that he was the wrong person to carry on leading the party.

It sets up a battle with the left who will demand/expect RLB to succeed McDonnell.

Rebecca Long Bailey will get nowhere near the chancellrs job. Nor should she. For obvious reasons.

She'll be farmed out to the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship in line with her abilities

Rebecca Long Bailey will get nowhere near the chancellrs job.

Let’s hope not. She could well have a front bench role though.

She’ll be farmed out to the Department of Social Affairs and Citizenship in line with her abilities

An environment brief is more likely. And a key role.

Binners – accept that labour MPS were constantly briefing against Corbyn? Or do I need to go and search the gutters of the tory press?

Get yourself off to the Daily mail website Uncle Jezza, because i firmly believe its all paranoid, lefty, bunkerist, siege-mentality nonsense, with no basis and reality and nobody, including yourself, despite being repeatedly asked, has yet provided a single example that its not.

The articles you linked are former labour MP's or people just staing the bleeding obvious, that Corbyn was bloody useless. It hardly mounts to skullduggery and was born of the frustration at the party tanking in the polls against the most hopeless, flailing government this country has ever seen

Its simply not credible. From what I can see the PLP just sat back and let the Corbynites keep digging, knowing full well what the achingly predictable outcome would be.

And here we are...

I thank any Labour MP that said what needed saying about Corbyn as leader, while he was leader. He should have stood aside years ago. In fact, any MP that doesn’t recognise that fact after he has finally gone, will have a long term credibility problem.

From what I can see the PLP just sat back and let the Corbynites keep digging,

Nah, most of them tried to oust him. It went badly. Many kept saying he was a problem right up to, and past, the last election. Don’t try and rewrite history Binners. While many went quiet and played the waiting game, plenty left parliament for Labour roles outside the PLP, or left the party completely, or used every opportunity when campaigning for re-election to distance themselves from him.

or used every opportunity when campaigning for relectuon to distance themselves from him.

Common sense dictates nobody wants to be in the immediate vicinity of a car crash

And massive increases in spending on the NHS would just be wasted and would bankrupt the country.

Stop with this nonsense. You just can't bankrupt a country that is in control of its own money supply.

It's just not possible. This is old-school Tory speak.

Repeat after me - There is no solvency issue for a sovereign government ...

"Whether the economy is strong or weak, the British government can never default on its debt. The debt is nothing more than pieces of paper that the government promises to buy back on a specific date. These pieces of paper can be bought back with new pieces of paper (new bonds) with later buy-back dates. If the private owners of the debt paper do not want the new bonds (new debt paper), our government can sell those new bonds to the Bank of England for cash and use the cash to pay the bond holders."

tj:

Its the perfect time to get rid of all the idiots.

An interesting idea, but who gets to decide who the idiots are? Or do you mean, the people you don’t agree with?

Also, it seems a bit out of order to harangue binners to answer your questions, when you say:

I am only dipping in and out of this thread so do not expect replies from me.

binners:

Rebecca Long Bailey will get nowhere near the chancellrs job. Nor should she. For obvious reasons.

Again, it is not obvious to me; she appears quite a competent person and knowledgeable when she speaks. What are some of these reasons?

Stop with this nonsense.

It may well be nonsense. It was never my thinking. It was what was said about the Labour opposition plans on the run up to winning that first election under Blair.

Reread all my post, with that sentence in context, and the post it was replying to.

Again, it is not obvious to me; she appears quite a competent person and knowledgeable when she speaks. What are some of these reasons?

Press don't like her. Done.

Is may be nonsense. It was never my thinking. It was what was said about the Labour opposition plans on the run up to winning that first election under Blair.

I will give you that - Labour are culpable in this process.

You are impossible to engage with sometimes Rone. I was arguing against the idea that the New Labour opposition weren’t seen as threat to the status quo before they game to power. The minimum wage and putting large increases of funds into the NHS were fought hard by the Tories and many of those in positions of power or with money. Those were two example of how Labour opposition polices were portrayed as “dangerous” and wrong … two policies that were badly needed by many people at the time, and became the new status quo. Only looking back do they look anything like “more of the same”… they were a big positive change, but portrayed as dangerous ideas at the time.

Binners - I just provided you with half a dozen examples of exactly what I was saying - labour MPS briefing against Corbyn.

Do yo want more?

There is no solvency issue for a sovereign government

There is no truly 100% sovereign government, they run a country that does not exist in isolation, it must be able to trade and otherwise engage with other countries, the value of its currency is highly relevant for the health wealth and wellbeing of everyone that lives there.

The minimum wage and putting large increases of funds into the NHS were fought hard by the Tories

Labour's 1997 manifesto committed them to Tory spending levels for at least two years. Entirely because they were frightened of challenging the status quo.

He then wasted years by not standing down after his general election loss.

This is a ridiculous statement. Lets rewind back to 2017, whilst he didn't win the election he did massively better than anyone predicted, and even his critics at the time acknowledged that he deserved to stay in post. Back then literally no one, Binners included, thought he should step down. Now though, in a brazen revisionist re-writing of recent history, you criticise him for not being able to see the future.

Here's another view, following the 2017 election it would have been fairly easy for Corbyn to step aside for someone younger to take up the reigns, with his job of moving the party back to it's soft left social democratic tradition complete. Any hopes of this were made impossible after labour MPs on the right of the party joined with tory critics to engineer the anti-semitism fiasco.

The moment they called him a racist was the moment the draw bridges were pulled up and trenches dug deeper, and the next two years were spent with the left trying to defend Corbyn's anti-racist reputation rather than fighting the tories. What happened in the 2019 election was the inevitable and deliberately intended result of the actions of a few labour MPs on the right of the party.

This is a ridiculous statement.

I absolutely stand by it. He should have stood aside for a new left wing leader to take a shot at the leadership. Wasted years. And to pretend that no one said so at the time ignores… well, all the Labour voices that said that he should.

it would have been fairly easy for Corbyn to step aside for someone younger to take up the reign

And he should have.

https://www.****/news/article-6033473/Dozen-Labour-MPs-secret-plot-oust-Corbyn-hatch-plans-144-night-farmhouse.html

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-the-papers-50831984

Thats enough digging in the cesspit

TJ, you’re not listening to Daz… it’s just revisionism to suggest people thought Corbyn should go. Apparently. Well, apart from the Jews. And it’s their fault that he didn’t, or something.

I find it hard to believe that Corbyn wanted power for himself so much, that he would not stand aside for someone more suited to the role. However, I can believe that after so long on the back benches struggling to move the party further to the left, he would not want to risk a new, unknown leader, with a different agenda.

 it’s just revisionism to suggest people thought Corbyn should go.

Kelvin you know full well I'm talking about the period straight after the 2017 election before the anti-semitism stuff got going. That farmhouse plot was over a year later at the peak of the anti-semitism stuff when the civil war was fully under way. Hardly anyone ws calling for him to resign after the 2017 election. I'm not saying he would have stepped aside, but the anti-semitism disgrace made it completely impossible and set in motion an ustoppable chain of events which led to the election defeat.

People were calling for Corbyn to go for years. You were moaning about those that were at the time. To pretend that people, include key Labour people, didn’t want Corbyn to stand aside is, well, deluded nonsense. If you think that he wasn’t already a sunk leader in the eyes of many, taking Labour down to the depths, before Jewish MPs and councillors started leaving party, then I can’t agree.

4 words:

Vote of no confidence

What was the result of that one again? Remind me...

To pretend that people, include key Labour people, didn’t want Corbyn to stand aside is, well, deluded nonsense.

Kelvin you're flogging a defeated argument. You are saying that Corbyn should have stepped aside after he lost the 2017 election, and I'm pointing out that at the time virtually no one was asking him to (if you can find evidence go for it), and that the opportunity to do so later was removed because of the anti-semitism issue. It's plainly absurd to criticise him for not being able to see the future, or for not doing somethig which hardly anyone at the time was asking him to do. If I remember right, even Tony Blair wasn't calling for him to resign after the 2017 election.

If you're really going to carry on with this silly line of argument, then you should also be slating every single labour MP and media commentator (ie pretty much all of them) who said that the 2017 election result earnt him the right to continue as leader.

Vote of no confidence

Long before the 2017 election. You lot have very poor memories.

(if you can find evidence go for it)

I can’t be arsed. Didn’t TJ post examples of Labour MPs ‘undermining’ him? I’ll be honest, I didn’t click on the links.

If your memory is that ‘virtually no one’ was calling for Corbyn to move aside back in 2017, then your blinkers are most impressive.

As for Corbyn being someone locked into his post because of the ‘anti-semitism issue’… ahh what’s the point.

If your memory is that ‘virtually no one’ was calling for Corbyn to move aside back in 2017, then your blinkers are most impressive.

It's not my memory, it's a simple fact. Following his second victory in 2016 the calls for him to resign/step aside died down. There was still plenty criticism but not many telling him to step aside. Before the election there were even fewer doing so. After the election almost no one. Subsequent calls for him to resign didn't happen until 2018 when the anti-semitism storm gathered momentum.

As for Corbyn being someone locked into his post because of the ‘anti-semitism issue’

Don't be daft. If he'd resigned as a result of the anti-semitism smears he'd have basically been admitting they were true. It's naive in the extreme to think that he would have done that given his lifelong reputation as an anti-racism campaigner, and the fact that the very people in the party doing the smearing were the same people who from the beginning swore to remove him.

The main thing Corbyn was guilty of in that period was not being aggressive enough in countering his critics due to a desperate attempt to hold his party together. If he'd walked away the party would have exploded. The election result was a collective failure and an inevitable result of the schism between the membership and the PLP. I'm hoping Starmer understands that, because if he doesn't he'll go the same way as Corbyn.

you know chaps, we've got a whole 'nother thread for corbyn...

So the result everyone has known for 3 months has been announced so time to guess for cabinet posts:

To start it off with...

Ashworth - Health
Thornberry - Foreign
Cooper home sec
Long Bailey Environment
Nandy communities
Benn - international trade, development/brexit
Junior shadow Cab post for Lammy

I am struggling for a chancellor

I am struggling for a chancellor

Rumour has it Rachel Reeves is favourite, which would be a terrible mistake. RLB is the most qualified but it won't happen for obvious reasons. It's needs someone who is a radical though, on both economic and climate change issues. Coronavirus has changed the game, and it needs someone willing to think about UBI, wealth taxes, MMP etc rather than a fiscal conservative like Reeves.

And Cooper and Benn, along with the rest of the refuseniks who refused to serve in a Corbyn shadow cabinet should be kept on the back benches where they belong.

Allin-Khan for health secutary Shirley?

I'm not endorsing my guesses. Cooper and Benn chair committees and Labour are short of experienced senior politicians.

Rachel Reeves is possible but I don't think he'd have Reeves and Cooper in 2 of the big three - so it would be Reeves as Chancellor and someone else for HO if that was the case - but Reeves wouldn't really be aligned with the Starmer's stated intent on economic policy. Maybe Reeves for transport of other mid ranking

And Cooper and Benn, along with the rest of the refuseniks who refused to serve in a Corbyn shadow cabinet should be kept on the back benches where they belong.

This. I admired Starmer for serving in Corbyn's shadow cabinet, regardless of their political differences.

RLB is the most qualified

In what way?

Allin-Khan for health secutary Shirley?

I really like but it would be difficult for a practicing medic to do health. Also a bit hard on Ashworth, unless he got DWP

So not close after all with RLB soundly beaten and Burgon 3rd for dep.

In what way?

She has the economic policies most suited to the times and a willingness to do things differently. Before coronavirus she was the architect of labour's best, most important and radical policy in the Green New Deal. She's also an advocate of the policies which are going to be required in the wake of coronavirus such as UBI, more public ownership and redistributive fiscal policies. She's a policy geek and a radical, which is exactly what's needed now as the status quo no longer exists.

So long as Abbot is kicked as far into the long grass as possible, the rest is gravy.

As RLB was green new deal I reckon that's why she will get Environment. Starmer will want a close ally as Shad Chancellor - it's too powerful a post.

Nandy and RLB might get jobs but if they do they'll be small ones. No chance of chancellor. I didn't watch all the hustings but some were quite needly, don't think they are all besties.

Nobody was calling for JC to go after the 2017 election. I thought he should go tbh, lose an election and that's your chance gone imo. Also hope YC doesn't get a job!

Agree with olddog.

Dazh, if the shadow cabinet is for ever more to only contain people who ‘got behind Corbyn’, then Keir is screwed from day one, and the party is staying where it currently is for the foreseeable.

if the shadow cabinet is for ever more to only contain people who ‘got behind Corbyn’, then Keir is screwed from day one

Because they did such a great job, didn't they? Political Pygmies, the lot of them. They'll hopefully be placed , to quote Malcolm Tucker: 'So *ing backbench, you're out by the *ing bins, where I put you"

The front bench isn't the main problem though. The main problem is the Marxist imbeciles that Grandad installed behind the scenes in important roles at the top of the Party machine. Hopefully they'll all be handed their P45's this afternoon. They were the ones calling the shots. Corbyns cabinet were just a bunch of nodding dogs

Then they need to kidnap Len McClusky and lock him in a cellar, then put an armed guard on Corbyn's allotment with orders to shoot him with a tranquiliser dart should he make any attempt to leave it

Hopefully they’ll all be handed their P45’s this afternoon.

Agreed. Although that will now be an expensive move due to the lovely new golden handcuff contracts they received, while those lower down all got shitty zero security ones.

Oh, they all knew the writing was on the wall alright. Which is why they handed themselves big fat salary increases with new gold-plated, ring-fenced permanent contracts that will have to be paid up to get rid of them all

All very 'socialist' of them.

It still absolutely staggers me how hard of thinking some people are that they still fail to see the true colours of the gang of self-serving charlatans around Corbyn.

No matter what the cost though, the lot of them need to be gone. They should have been out of the door months ago

Starmer and Rayner have a pretty strong mandate across the board

https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1246382272313524225?s=19

https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1246378419140640768?s=19

https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1246379557017595904?s=19

 

And what comment do we have on momentum already saying that they're looking forward to "holding the new leadership to account"?

Sounds like the opposition, to me...