– Electorial and party funding reform
– Full transparency and accountability of people in public office.
– Taxing corporations and the rich fairly
– Demolishing the myth of deficits and public debt
– More devolved and decentralised government
– More generous universal benefits
The average voter doesn't care about any of that and wouldn't even know what you are talking about for most of it.
There would be more interest in more generous benefits as more people will be on benefits and now realise that you can't live on them let alone have a whale of a time as they my have previously believed but that is still a minority.
Did the last tory government get into power with a list of things like yours or did they do it with a 3 word slogan?
The average voter doesn’t care about any of that and wouldn’t even know what you are talking about for most of it.
Then he's got four years to start making them care about stuff like that. Or we are all ****ed forever more.
We all need to be raising the quality of political literacy in this country rather than thinking that it's a lot of hard work and really not worth the bother.
"What about being on an island?"
Fair point, that shiphas long since sailed unfortunately. So whilst you might be morally right, I don't think that factor will play into people's choices come election time.
To extract political capitol from the UK's failure to shut down its borders in January last year Starmer would have had to have been screaming from the rafters that the UK should completely isolate itself from the world for a couple of years. As it was the loudest voice for doing so came from, (albeit belatedly) Pritti Patel!
It would have been an impossible sell to make such a suggestion a year ago, one that only an extraordinarily astute and visionary politician could have gambled on. And Starmer ain't that unfortunately. No shade on him, just facts.
Then he’s got four years
Two years.
Did the last tory government get into power with a list of things like yours or did they do it with a 3 word slogan?
Translated for the average sun reader..
– Electorial and party funding reform / Make your vote count
– Full transparency and accountability of people in public office. / Sack the crooks
– Taxing corporations and the rich fairly / You pay taxes, why shouldn't the rich?
– Demolishing the myth of deficits and public debt / We will never run out of money
– More devolved and decentralised government / Local politicians answerable to local people
– More generous universal benefits / No one should be hungry or homeless
– More devolved and decentralised government / Local politicians answerable to local people
Joking aside... this is policy I can get behind. But Labour have to be very careful... by the next election devolved and decentralised bodies will have more and more responsibility that they will be seen to be failing to deliver... while central government goes back to cutting their funding and removing their decision making powers. Everything will be blamed on local administration, while the UK government bypasses them to give funds to, and award decisions in favour of, their mates and funders.
Dazh, you do know that none of those policies would get you elected, right?
people want govts to live within their means, unlimited spending sounds like a con trick to most folk
they don’t want local accountability as that means they’ll have to get involved, and they don’t want to. (As even they realise if it goes wrong it’ll be their fault) they want politicians to get on with it for them (that’s why they vote so they can blame)
the don’t want more generous welfare ‘cause they “know” it won’t be for them it’ll go to someone who doesn’t deserve it/is on the take
They don’t want high taxes for the rich, because when they get rich, they don’t want to be highly taxed
"Dazh, you do know that none of those policies would get you elected, right"
What politicians say they'll do and what they actually do when they get into power are often two different things. Dazh's proposal won't get Labour elected but if they could get elected on a different manifesto they could implement some of those policies once they got in office.
Once in office it is possible to adjust policy in relation to 'events'. Cameron raised high band taxes (temporarily) in response to the financial crisis, May stole some bits of the previous Labour manifasto and the current government's fiscal targets and overall policy is in tatters, meaningless.
As Binners pointed out, promote fair and reasonable policies too hard and you'll get called a commie by the Tories, whilst they simultaneously steal the policies for themselves.
Just get your arse in office. By any means necessary.
Daily Mash nails it...
https://www.thedailymash.co.uk/politics/politics-headlines/the-unrepentant-corbynites-guide-to-why-this-is-all-keir-starmers-fault-20210202204906
And to follow that
It'll come across as fakery. Because it is.
And to follow that
That whole guardian report is hilarious. I pariticularly liked this bit:
Staffers are also concerned at the policy ideas presented to the focus groups, including 5,000 new police officers, a fund to invest in barren high streets and protecting local bus services. A staffer who sat through another presentation said: “I couldn’t remember any of those ideas half an hour later. They were that dull.” Labour said those policies had been chosen by an agency and as examples used to test voters’ priorities.
Bus services and pound shops! Ahaha! Where's binners? Honestly, the world is disappearing down a pit of enironmental destruction and monopolist kleptocracy and that's the best they can come up with? They're f****! Starmer needs to go now if this is his 'strategy'.
Bus services and pound shops!
I'll defer judgement until we get something more concrete than some leaked report of a presentation from a random staffer, but yeah... It's going to need to be substantially more visionary than that to keep even many current Labour voters let alone get more!
In WhatsApp messages, sent within hours of one briefing, senior officials ordered: “Please prioritise the union jack header images, not the plain red ones.”
😆/😕
People are stupid but they're not that stupid. At least Boris actually believes in this jingoistic BS.
The report points out that nobody knows what the Labour Party stands for any more, and they are trying to change that by..... erm..... more Union Jacks? Dressing smartly? Have they seen Boris? It's tragic.
The red rose replacing the red flag as the logo worked.
Labour has to do all this crap to appeal to the “back Britain” little englander vote. That is the country we live in, if you’re here in England. Suck it up. You can just say things like, “of course I’m proud to be British”, you have to wrap yourself in the flag. It stinks, but there you are. You have to accept the electorate for what they are, and nudge them towards you. Asking them to think differently and to focus on the bigger picture turns them away from you.
I’ll defer judgement until we get something more concrete
A senior Labour official said that although the phrasing had been written by an external agency, senior figures agreed on the fundamentals and said it was intended to demonstrate internally the challenges facing the party.
and then..
The strategy also suggests the party fears Boris Johnson’s lasting “relatability” could maintain his popularity with the country. Attacks will focus on “incompetence” in tackling the Covid crisis and plan to focus next on the Tories’ “waste” and the sense they are “cavalier and self-interested”.
Are they taking the piss? Pointing out the tories are self-interested! Honestly never in my life have I seen such a pathetic, cowardly and defeatist set of 'ideas' as listed in that artticle. They should disband, get it over and done with and make way for some people who actually give a shit and have some backbone. I'm off to put a substantial bet on the result of the next election.
...and with great timing the secretary of the Calderdale CLP emailed me today to tell me I was in arrears with my membership fees. As well as telling him that's because they haven't yet given Corbyn the whip back, I'm going to send him a link to this article as well. What a pointless waste of everyone's time.
Pointing out the tories are self-interested!
Yes, this really does need pointing out, repeatedly. Why do you think that it does not?
Attacks will focus on “incompetence” in tackling the Covid crisis and plan to focus next on the Tories’ “waste” and the sense they are “cavalier and self-interested”.
This sounds spot on to me. It sounds childish, but, “Britain deserves a better government” will be the push over the next few years. The causes close to the hearts of those of us on the left have to take a supporting role, as Labour tries to win over people who in recent years did not vote for them. The big test is whether the more progressive polices are kept, rather than just not central to the messaging. Time will tell…
Why do you think that it does not?
Oh come on everyone knows the tories are self-interested. Pointing that out is the absolute minimum that they need to do, yet it seems to be their primary line of attack. Whichever way you look at any of the stuff in that article it's pathetic. I'm actually beginning to think they don't want to win an election, and even if for some bizarre reason they think they can win with that hollow mealy-mouthed bollocks, it confirms that they don't plan on doing much when they are in power.
Oh come on everyone knows the tories are self-interested.
No, “everyone” does not. There are negative traits to the party that we see written through them like rock, but a huge slice of the voting public are unaware of them. They think the party governs for them… and that it is the Labour Party who want power for themselves, and their own special interest groups, rather than to improve the lives of voters. Really, they do.
Oh come on everyone knows the tories are self-interested.
if that were the case then we’d never have a problem as people wouldn’t vote for them.
Sometimes you do seem to inhabit an alternative universe.
We’ve already covered the fact that when a lot of voters look at, for example, the PPE Supply crisis/scandal of last year they don’t see a bunch of morality-free opportunists using a pandemic as a cover to cynically funnell billions of pounds of taxpayers money into their mates pockets (like we correctly do), they see a government ‘doing their best in difficult circumstances’
That’s the reality of the situation
Maybe it’d be worth taking a bit of time to correct that incorrect assumption and many more. Seems like a good idea to me.
As for the Union Jack thing, until recently most voters will have assumed that if they saw the Labour leader with a flag, it’d most likely be an ISIS one
https://labourlist.org/2021/01/surge-in-policies-from-starmer-as-january-draws-to-a-close/
Preparing for the fight on austerity (this battle is coming, don’t confuse the desire for Johnson to have big spending projects with a lack of enthusiasm for keeping public sector pay and support for those that need it as low as possible), and a clear commitment for students. Two “little” things I’m pleased to hear him say. But the key focus will not be on anything like this, it will be about offering a better government… as facile as that sounds to “followers of politics”.
and that it is the Labour Party who want power for themselves
They’re correct in that assumption, because they’ll do absolutely anything, and discard all their principles and beliefs to get power. That’s why no one takes them seriously. If they can’t stand up and defend their own principles, how will they ever defend and stand for the people who vote for them?
Strange how you didn’t day this when it came to FoM, work visas, and immigration more generally. Labour is moving towards the voters. Some of that will disappoint you and me, but you yourself have made the case for doing so.
if that were the case then we’d never have a problem as people wouldn’t vote for them
I think most people know the Tories are the party of privilege, but they are also the party of power - the default option unless something quite extraordinary happens. Tony Blair wannabe with zero charisma going to cut it? Nah.
People have historically seen it as Labour = unions, and most people barely know what a union is any more.
If they can’t stand up and defend their own principles, how will they ever defend and stand for the people who vote for them?
We recently had some beardy weirdy bloke who was constantly praised to the heavens by his supporters/cult followers for doing precisely this
He got his arse handed to him in two consecutive general elections, the second time giving the Tory’s the biggest thumping majority and the Labour Party the worst result they’ve had since 1935
Banging on about principles doesn’t work. Boris Johnson doesn’t even have any. What he does have is a whacking great majority to do whatever the **** he likes with.
Labour has to first and foremost be seen to “back British”, in a way that disturbs me… but that is exactly where England is. Joking about it is like mocking people hanging multiple St George Flags out of their windows… plays well with the chattering politics followers… seen as sneering and anti-British by people who have been rejecting Labour when they place their votes.
Joking about it is like mocking people hanging multiple St George Flags out of their windows…
They deserve to be mocked, and they deserve to be called out. If Starmer thinks capturing the white trash 'no surrneder to the IRA' vote is going to win him an election he's an idiot. You can relate to the working class without encouraging their racist tendencies. Part of that is accepting brexit, part of it is focusing on things like jobs, public services and rebalancing the north-south divide, and part of it is liifting them out of poverty so they don't have the excuse of falling back on racist stereotypes. It doesn't require small-minded jingoism and UKIP dog-whistle politics.
As crass as an email saying "get behind the flag" may seem, it's worth thinking about for a second. The Union Jack can represent different things at different times. Think of what it stood for in the 60's, when it became an icon of popular culture. Remember too how Tony Blair managed to rehabilitate the flag after it jad been 'owned' by Thatcher, who had used it to represent Thatcherism, in much the same way as Boris used it as a Brexit symbol.
Given the divisions between the home nations over Brexit it's a shame the remain side didn't take ownership of the Union Jack, leaving St George and the (Welsh) Dragon to the Brexiters. I bet Mandleson and Campbell would have seen that move, unfortunately the left and centre left haven't had personnel with that kind of vision and talent recently.
Campbell and Mandleson did for the Labour party what Saatchi and Saatchi did for the Conservatives a decade earlier and part of that was reclaiming the flag and having a clear idea of what Britishness meant.
dazh, you are making the same arguments I was making a few pages ago when it came to Freedom of Movement.
You seem to have completely changed your mind or am I missing something?
I think it's great that Starmer is taking his inspiration from the best sources.
You seem to have completely changed your mind or am I missing something?
You are absolutely missing something, accepting that brexit and it's many stupid things has happened as a result of a democratic process is an entirely different issue to stoking the racist jingoistic tendencies of the British public. The mistake you've made is assuming that anyone - like me - who thinks the brexit debate is over is a tub-thumping jingoist or racist. I'm the very opposite of that. I come from an entirely internationalist position that the working class here have more in common with the working classes in other countries than we do with the ruling class in our own countries. The job of the labour movement is to promote that position and steer the working classes away from their racist tendencies for their own benefit. Starmer's flag-waving does the opposite of that.
accepting that brexit and it’s many stupid things has happened as a result of a democratic process is an entirely different issue to stoking the racist jingoistic tendencies of the British public.
Isn't capitulating on Freedom of Movement also stoking racist jingoistic tendencies?
First Labour and especially Starmer need to be asking about all these dodgy deals to the friends and families of the Tories.
If for some reason he is scared to do that then he could just go at it from the wasteful angle as mentioned above.
People will vote for the party who they trust with the country's finances. Starmer has a massive opportunity to win here.
**** all this rebranding.
Boris is not to blame for 100,000 deaths. If Germany had 60,000 deaths and France the same then you could argue approx 40,000 deaths. I would not go on about the deaths but target Boris' relaxed attitude at the start of the crisis and wasteful spending.
Isn’t capitulating on Freedom of Movement also stoking racist jingoistic tendencies?
News flash, we've already capitulated on FoM. It's done, gone, we lost. There will be a time to campaign for its return, but not now. If it helps you I absolutely agree it's a good thing. If it was down to me I'd have no borders whatsoever. Christ, I don't even believe in nation states so you won't get any opposition. But for the labour party, there's no point talking about it, they just need to let it lie.
Also global pandemic how can it be Boris' fault?
International banking crisis still Labours fault!
Regional govts a winner I think also
And Brown's response to the "International banking crisis" was, in hindsight, spot on. What came later was the problem. Hence I was pleased with Starmer making it clear that austerity as a response in the period after a crisis was a mistake then, and is a mistake to avoid making again in the years ahead.
News flash, we’ve already capitulated on FoM. It’s done, gone, we lost.
We lost, get over it.
I'm just surprised that you have such strong feelings about a purely symbolic gesture vs an actual policy that will affect and hurt millions of people*.
*I get that the flag thing can be seen to encourage racism but I really don't see how accepting your opponents arguments on FoM doesn't give just as much justification to racists if not more. And that's in addition to kicking foreigners out the country.
There have been times when the UK flag represented something very different than it does now
I'm thinking of Britpop, Euro 96, The 2012 Olympics, off the top of my head. Everything conveyed around that pointed to an open, outward-looking, inclusive nation.
After Brexit it has been co-opted (again!) by the far right and now signifies the opposite of that. Narrow-minded insular nationalist populism
For the labour party to try and get our national identity back from all the terrible damage done to it over the UKIP-isation of recent years is surely something worth doing, yes?
To just dismiss it as 'pandering to racists' is representing the narrow-mindedness of those who presently feel they have ownership of it and actually playing right into the hands of the racists. Its giving up and saying that 'they won' (to use the Brexiteer parlance) and from now on they own our national identity
I'm sure there are lots of us who would really to see a return to just a bit of the optimism that was felt at say the Olympic opening ceremony. A bit more positivity about what this country could be
Just because the UK flag represents something in particular now, doesn't mean that has to be a permanent thing. You don't have to go very far into the past to see that it can mean something different.
It is actually possible to have some pride in your country (or at least want too!) without being some rabid right wing racist
Brexit is a bloody nightmare and has shown our country at its very worst, but that doesn't mean its all bad. Maybe try being a bit less cynical? I talk to my kids and their mates and their views couldn't be more opposed to the Brexity toxic nationalism.
For the labour party to try and get our national identity back from all the terrible damage done to it over the UKIP-isation of recent years is surely something worth doing, yes?
Absolutely. They could do that by setting out a credible vision for making a better, more inclusive and secure country. "For the many not the few" did manage to cut through at the 2017 GE, despite an unpopular leader and split party.
What they're trying to do instead is out torying the tories by waving flags. It won't work because a) it will come across as fake and b) the tories are better at it. It's an utterly dismal lack of imagination.
I’m just surprised that you have such strong feelings about a purely symbolic gesture vs an actual policy that will affect and hurt millions of people*.
The problem is symbols have meaning. That the branding agency, sorry Labour leadership, seem to be hyping it up shows it is meaningful.
Its allowing the hard right, especially the media barons, to define what it means to be British.
Hence I was pleased with Starmer making it clear that austerity as a response in the period after a crisis was a mistake then, and is a mistake to avoid making again in the years ahead.
And yet Annelise Dodds made a speech a couple of weeks ago suggesting labour were going to impose fiscal rules in an effort to 'balance the books' or 'live within our means' or some other fictional GCSE economics nonsense.
It is actually possible to have some pride in your country
Nope, there's no pride to be had in anything that comes as the result of imposing arbitrary lines in the sand and the administrative structures that enforce those divisions. Even if there was, it doesn't negate the unforgivable crimes that have been committed in our name by the people who are in charge of the state administration. National identity is a shield used by elites to absolve them of their crimes against humanity. Quite frankly I despise the british state and everything it represents.
Its allowing the hard right, especially the media barons, to define what it means to be British.
Is it? Or is it trying to widen what it is to be British? Obviously... to get voters (the ones who delivered Johnson a thumping majority) to believe/accept that Labour and their policies are part of that identity (and they are), not standing against it, will take years of reinforcement. A couple of months of flags in the background of videos will do nothing... but that doesn't meant that it isn't part of the process.
labour were going to impose fiscal rules in an effort to ‘balance the books’ or ‘live within our means’ or some other fictional GCSE economics nonsense.
As opposed to your "the money can't run out" messaging you'd rather they were pushing? Good luck with that. It's fringe politics for the foreseeable.
Daz - Have you ever thought of standing for election yourself, mate?
I reckon your slogan of 'vote for me you hateful racist ****s' would be a real vote-winner
