Just to add – price controls could be described as direct intervention depending on how it’s implemented.

I see a bit of difference between that and regulation.

Funny I don’t remember him saying the same about Corbyn.

Starmer's current position depends on people voting Labour because they believe his Brexit line *and* people voting Labour because they don't believe his Brexit line. Hard to see what else he can do *at this point* but it's indubitably a great opening for the Lib Dems.

— James O'Brien (@mrjamesob) May 31, 2023

Yes it’s hilarious the shift in position from these Tory outrage faux-left supporters.

New Statesman did a hilarious article on this climate.

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newstatesman.com%2Fpolitics%2Fuk-politics%2F2023%2F05%2Fbritish-centre-left-doomed-cringe

Centre-left cringe comes with an obsession with the vibes and “values” of politics. The teeth-gnashing hatred of Boris Johnson centred on his deceit, unkemptness and disregard for the dignities of high office. Suited-and-booted Rishi Sunak generates noticeably less hostility, despite him being significantly to the right of Johnson on both economics and culture.

My sentiments exactly. I think it too complex for Supertanskiii to see beyond Brexit as the only stop point. Oh as with Ian Dunt add in loads of sweary cleverness and you’re golden.

Russ Jones FFS.

Centre-left cringe comes with an obsession with the vibes and “values” of politics. The teeth-gnashing hatred of Boris Johnson centred on his deceit, unkemptness and disregard for the dignities of high office. Suited-and-booted Rishi Sunak generates noticeably less hostility, despite him being significantly to the right of Johnson on both economics and culture.

Yup, that is something which has genuinely long baffled me. Especially as those who appear most obsessed with personality over policies are often so contemptuous of ordinary voters – due to voters alledged lack of political sophistication.

Funny I don’t remember him saying the same about Corbyn.

Before we left the EU. After Corbyn had called for an immediate triggering of Article 50 without any plan for what comes next. It’s like having your foot amputated… get a second opinion before you do so. Once you have taken the big step (sorry for the pun), compare the different proposals for moving on… I mean, you could get angry with people now proposing a particular prosthetic foot because you’ve had your foot removed… but…

Before we left the EU.

that is indeed a key point there

I expect another electoral cycle before we rejoin the SM & after that fully rejoining would still take a while

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/brexit-rishi-sunak-labour-daily-express-britain-b2348811.html

“Britain’s future is outside the EU. Not in the single market, not in the customs union, not with a return to freedom of movement. Those arguments are in the past, where they belong.”

I guess the hope for remainers is that Starmer’s now well-known inconsistency and dishonesty simply makes him say whatever he thinks he needs to say to win an election, and that he doesn’t actually mean any of it.

“Every one of the problems I have outlined can be fixed from outside the EU. But it will require hard work, good relations and – above all – honesty”

It is strange that Starmer should emphasize the need for “honesty”. It suggests either a serious lack of self-awareness or total shamelessness. Or more likely a bit of both.

“Pretending everything is going fine or ducking hard conversations will see Britain miss opportunities and slip behind our competitors”, he said.

“If we are to get this right, Rishi Sunak must face up to the truth – that the Tories have got this wrong. Failure to do the hard yards needed to right those wrongs will mean the Tories fail to deliver for Britain and fail to deliver on the promise of Brexit.”

As one of the few posters here that supported leaving the EU… do you agree with Starmer, and think that it looks like the Tories are going to fail to deliver on the promise of Brexit?

Pretty depressing reading that Express article. And because of the electoral system, voters are now left with only three options at the next election;

1. Bad Tory
2. Not-as-bad Tory
3. Protest vote that counts for nothing

Well if the protest vote has popular support then it certainly doesn’t count for nothing.

Voters do have a choice. It is minority opinions that don’t get fair representation.

Pretty depressing reading that Express article

You remember that vote that we all took part in, in 2016? That.

Before we left the EU. After Corbyn had called for an immediate triggering of Article 50 without any plan for what comes next. It’s like having your foot amputated… get a second opinion before you do so.

This goes around in circles but a possible Labour victory and leaving the EU might have been the better option. And viable back then.

So now you have a terrible Tory option – and a terrible Labour confused right-wing option.

I would argue the opposite of the timing – it would have been better to have a Labour government guiding the way out back then than accepting a new Labour government now that doesn’t seem interested in a way out.

I’m sorry but the position was simply anti-Corbyn and nothing else.

I mean, you could get angry with people now proposing a particular prosthetic foot because you’ve had your foot removed… but…

Or you could have had your foot removed ages ago and the NHS might now be in batter shape to fix it as opposed to your prosthetic turning up and not fitting correctly.

that doesn’t seem interested in a way out.

There doesn’t appear to be the votes in suggesting that Brexit could (or should) be reversed. I know the polls show that many folks are now regretting their vote to leave, but that doesn’t necessarily translate into votes for the party suggesting it. Pretty much every one who is hoping for Labour to take an anti-Brexit stand is voting for it anyway. It also raises the question of “what does re-join look like?” and TBH, if I was Starmer rightly or wrongly- and there’s clearly a debate to be had there, I’d not want the next 5 years just re-fighting the same arguments again. Re-joining is fraught with so many political elephant traps that it’s perfectly possible to think both “Brexit is totally shit” and “we’re stuck with this for the fore-see able” at the same time.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-brexit-keir-starmer-poll-b2347833.html

Anyone know who the top pollster is?

Labour in danger of losing votes for being too pro-Brexit, top pollster warns https://t.co/eGDaSbXKXQ

— Jon Stone (@joncstone) May 31, 2023

Peter Kellner, for Deltapoll.

EDIT: Commissioned by “Labour Movement for Europe”

🚨don’t believe the hype- the British public know you can’t make brexit work. They aren’t interested in rerunning 2016. They want action now on problems it’s creating for British businesses and workers- and will vote for it! read more here and RT: https://t.co/x7aDgxBTMB pic.twitter.com/RdpdRA2zHz

— stellacreasy (@stellacreasy) May 31, 2023

Funny I don’t remember him saying the same about Corbyn.

Corbyn was unelectable. That was unfair and largely based on ageism with a healthy dose of caricature along the leather-elbow-patched, beardy, sandal-wearing, lentil-bothering 70s geography teacher line. Totally unfair. But he was a gift for the Johnson operation. OK, so they got the supposed terrorist supporting danger man stuff out there, but that wasn’t their main framing of him as far as I could make out. What they did, very successfully, was portray him as a slow, grumpy, permanent contrarian who held the views he did because he was a dogmatic dinosaur, stuck in his ways. The free broadband thing was also a gift because he could be portrayed as being like that elderly relative who says stuff like “My son got it onlines for me” or still thinks mainframes are really a thing.

Because he was so easy to caricature he was always going to be shredded by the Tory election machine. Excellence at campaigning vs uselessness at governing being more marked with Johnson than anyone else. Even his earnestness and honesty were a weakness against someone like Johnson, who could change skins readily, because no one particular trusted him so much as liked him – which is enough to make you vomit if you pay any attention to politics – which the vast majority of the UK population don’t. Johnson’s appeal wasn’t that of being a guy you’d trust to buy a second hand car off. His appeal was as a bloke who you might have a funny, pissed up, exaggeration and lie heavy, chat at a bar with. And enough of our electorate preferred that. To our eternal discredit.

Starmer is still trying to walk both sides of the street. His advisers are clearly telling him he has to pretend Brexit is a good thing to avoid injuring the misplaced pride of the Red Wallers who voted for it. He’s also trying to guard against Libdem encroachment by implying the opposite. As a supposed competent and steady technocrat he is making a rod for his own back by doing this. His only real line of defence is that the Tories have ballsed Brexit up – rather than the full truth, which is the whole idea of Brexit is idiotic. Make no mistake, the Tory campaigning operation will back him into that corner on day 1.

Even now, though, the Labour election campaign can still be one poster – three vertical photos of Johnson raising his glass at that lockdown pissup, Truss looking mental (easy one there) and Sunak looking greedy and corrupt (not much more difficult). The words ‘Britain Deserves Better’ underneath. But Starmer will have to nail his colours to the mast at some point – he can’t win by hiding in a fridge.

We also must not underestimate the goldfish memory and IQ of the electorate either. If Sunak gets inflation back to norm, but the baked in increases stay, the temperature in the frog pan has increased, but the bloody frog has forgotten why or what came before. When people give up caring (or lack the capacity to appreciate the why) the Tories benefit.

Some commentary on those more liberal voters Starmer might lose along this route to gaining and keeping red wall and blue wall support… some brightspark has dubbed them “Mavis”…

“There are Mavises everywhere, always ready to turn to the Lib Dems or Greens or the SNP if Keir Starmer, Wes Streeting and Rachel Reeves get the tone wrong.”

Read more: https://t.co/en2P7Jb5NK

— The New Statesman (@NewStatesman) May 31, 2023

who held the views he did because he was a dogmatic dinosaur

And yet his economic policies were massively popular with voters.

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/11/12/labour-economic-policies-are-popular-so-why-arent-

The most popular involve increasing tax on the highest earners. Close to two thirds (64%) would support raising the tax rate on earnings over £123,000 a year from 45% to 50%. Likewise, six in ten support increasing the tax rate on earnings over £80,000 a year from 40% to 45%.
Most people also support nationalising the railways (56%) and reserving a third of the space on company boards to workers (54%).

Around half (53%) would support a wealth tax, nationalising water companies (50%) and 45% support taking gas and utility companies into public ownership.

The electorate seems to be full of dogmatic dinosaurs.

And as for “unelectable”, as you call it, when Corbyn first stood for the Labour Party and won Islington North he received 40% of the vote, almost 40 years later at the last general election he received 64% of the vote.

In the 2017 general election after two years of Corbyn as leader, and with his anti-austerity economic policies, Labour gained an extra 30 MPs. It was this real threat that he would become prime minister that made the Tories and the right-wing of the Labour redouble their efforts. Resulting in the 2019 general election result.

Why would you expect voters to vote for a party whose MPs were constantly and publicly attacking their leader?

Even here on supposedly “leftie” stw alledgedly leftie posters were endlessly queuing up to publicly slag off the Labour leader. And then those same people went on to denounce voters for being stupid and thick for not voting Labour!

I agree that Corbyn was a shite leader. Amongst other things he was weak, as was seen by the way he pandered to Starmer despite Starmer doing all that he could to undermine him, including being part of a choreographed front bench resignation stunt.

But there is no reason to make stuff up about his policies not being popular or that only he was responsible for Labour’s poor showing at the last general election.

Btw Danny as someone who particularly vents their dislike of the Tories on here, certainly more than me, can you explain why you appear to want Labour follow policies much closer to those of the Tories and why you dismiss any radical alternative as being Jurassic? It seems strange.

New Statesman did a hilarious article on this climate.

Very good on the tossers of twitter.

What they did, very successfully, was portray him as a slow, grumpy, permanent contrarian who held the views he did because he was a dogmatic dinosaur, stuck in his ways.

Was the full quote. And they did. Very successfully. It was easy.

That the 2017 Labour manifesto was filled with popular policies, but after that election Corbyn was increasingly a turn off for voters, was why they should have changed leader after that election defeat. A new leader might have delivered a different result in 2019 (or whenever) rather than it becoming a “stop Corbyn” election. Now we have over correction away from that policy agenda in an attempt to put those double election defeats behind the party and scrub its image in an attempt to get the Tories out.

There were people in Labour, and who left Labour, who didn’t want Corbyn as PM, and either soft pedalled or outright talked against Labour at the 2019 General Election. But Starmer wasn’t one of them. He campaigned to get a Corbyn led Labour Party into government… something we’re reminded of by whoever is Tory PM at the time at PMQs each and every week it’s held.

Oh, and being popular in Islington doesn’t always scale up to UK wide acceptance. Come up North sometime…

I don’t care what conclusion anyone comes to – Corbyn’s ideas are exactly what we need.

If only 50% were implemented we’d be in a different universe.

In fact it’s not even him it’s the whole idea of pushing back against the menace of the right.

Something the current Labour party will never understand before it’s too late.

. If Sunak gets inflation back to norm, but the baked in increases stay, the temperature in the frog pan has increased, but the bloody frog has forgotten why or what came before. When people give up caring (or lack the capacity to appreciate the why) the Tories benefit.

Sunak nor the BoE are currently in control of inflation. They’re going to struggle as they raise rates (which adds to parts of inflation) and expecting inflation to fall faster. I’ve said this since day one.

The race to slow the economy is not currently biting.

I think Q3/Q4 is where the action might happen.

If only 50% were implemented we’d be in a different universe.

Agreed. I voted for it. Twice.

Sunak nor the BoE are currently in control of inflation.

Sunak knows that. He’s betting on others sorting inflation for him. Or more accurately, for what would have only two years ago been seen as high inflation to look like “a drop” in inflation compared to what’s happened over the last few years, as energy hikes work their way through.

I hate that phrase “a drop in inflation” that the BBC and others use. It should be a “slowing of inflation”. Nothing is dropping, prices are rising less quickly. Change in rates of rates of change is beyond the instinctive maths of most people… they just hear drop or fall and don’t emotionally connected with what that really means.

And as for “unelectable”, as you call it, when Corbyn first stood for the Labour Party and won Islington North he received 40% of the vote, almost 40 years later at the last general election he received 64% of the vote.

He conceded a 80 seat majority to a bloke who hid in a fridge and publicly diddled him over the BBC interview. This is like a football team that’s down 5-0, having been hit on the break five times, taking solace in the possession stats.

What they did, very successfully, was portray him as a slow, grumpy, permanent contrarian who held the views he did because he was a dogmatic dinosaur, stuck in his ways.

Was the full quote. And they did. Very successfully. It was easy.

@kelvin

Don’t worry about it, mate. If someone is resorting to selective quoting sans context, then imposing their own made-up context around it, they are about 2000 years late on the uptake. That kind of stuff was probably going on back in ancient Greece. But thanks for correcting the record – even if we know it won’t make a jot of difference going forwards.

I voted for Corbyn. I liked both the man and the policies. But that wasn’t the prevailing view amongst the population.

Fact is, he conceded a 80 seat majority to an actual proven liar, philanderer and chancer. He lost because more people preferred a known liar over an honest man. The reason was that Corbyn the man was easy to pin stuff to for all the reasons above. That’s the only result that matters and that is a matter of record – and cannot be selectively quoted. Although I’m sure some people would try. 🙂

He conceded a 80 seat majority to a bloke who hid in a fridge and publicly diddled him over the BBC interview.

You said, quote, “Corbyn was unelectable”. It was very specifically aimed at him. He is an extremely popular MP who has been repeatedly reelected for the last 40 years, he has increased his share of the vote massively over that period.

If you meant Labour were so-called “unelectable” when he was leader I asked, why would you expect voters to vote for a party whose MPs were constantly and publicly attacking their leader?

Seriously, how well do you expect a political party, any political party, to do under those circumstances?

And btw the term “unelectable” is a nonsense term used by Tories and other right-wingers, mostly in the right-wing press, to describe people that they don’t support.

The only way anyone or any party is “unelectable” is if their names aren’t on the ballot paper.

If someone is resorting to selective quoting

I specifically selected your “dogmatic dinosaur” because I was specifically interested in that comment, the “slow, grumpy, permanent contrarian” comment I wasn’t particularly interested in. What is exactly is the problem with that?

The reason I was particularly interested in that comment was because Corbyn’s economic policies were massively popular with voters. Which suggests that “dogmatic dinosaur” isn’t an appropriate label.

Whether he is a “slow, grumpy, permanent contrarian” is another question.

Anyway Danny you still haven’t answered this question – as someone who particularly vents their dislike of the Tories on here can you explain why you want Labour to follow policies much closer to those of the Tory Party, and why you dismiss any radical alternative to Tory policies as being Jurassic?

Or can’t you explain?

I hate that phrase “a drop in inflation” that the BBC and others use. It should be a “slowing of inflation”. Nothing is dropping, prices are rising less quickly. Change in rates of rates of change is beyond the instinctive maths of most people… they just hear drop or fall and don’t emotionally connected with what that really means.

Agreed.

Economics reporting is inaccurate, and performed to an outmoded understanding of the way things work. In essence they’re behind the times and simply can’t articulate the levels of complexity involved.

US has just approved a new debt-ceiling. Oh lordy- they’re total batshit with all of that. Glad we don’t have a fabricated spending limit they have to keep arguing needlessly about. This is something they choose rather than need.

All this stuff simply gets dumped on to the poor to suffer.

My mum is very much an average voter – doesn’t really think things through that much and a 5 minute conversation has her doubting/not being able to back up what she has voted for but she continues anyway.
Every one of Corbyn’s Labour policies sounded good to her when stated without any link to any party so I asked so why won’t you vote Labour then as that is whose policies they are – answer “because of that awful Corbyn man”

And that was in May’s time so add in the love of Johnson and love of getting Brexit done and he was finished as we know.

I think there’s got to be some pivoting in politics/economics soon on certain issues. I think timing will be interesting.

It does feel like we’re heading for an almighty crunch of some sort. But then equally we keep breezing along.

Bizarre. I mean we’re out the EU (and avoiding debate of that) and inflation is up and interest rates, post covid fall-out, strikes, NHS turmoil etc. And yet even with all those things are just simply Tory business as usual.

The status-quo is a powerful magnet. Tory outrage doesn’t stick. People move on too quickly to remember.

Every one of Corbyn’s Labour policies sounded good to her when stated without any link to any party so I asked so why won’t you vote Labour then as that is whose policies they are – answer “because of that awful Corbyn man”

And yet aside from everything else he seems to be one of least awful mean alive.

Same when people say ‘I’m not voting for any of them – they’re all the same.’
Well you had an opportunity to vote for change and it wasn’t taken.

I think their is an innate force in people to not take the change. Even if what’s on offer is potentially good for them. I see it in lots of decision making.

So @RachelReevesMP, will you take control of interest rates back from the Bank of England? If not, there is nothing you could do to help the millions they’re planning to send into destitution. So, what is the plan? https://t.co/V4xPcpfdWz

— Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) June 1, 2023

I’m with Rich.

This is a useful arms-length tool for the government. Labour could sieze this one as a poweful argument (but they wont). I reckon Bailey is a dead man walking (figuratively. )

The BoE/MPC is not fit for purpose and shouldn’t sit above democracy. Inflation is not going back to 2%. (Though it will go lower than currently.)

Even the Guardian has noticed that there’s not much difference between Labour and Tory economic policy: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jun/01/brexit-labour-tory-policies-rachel-reeves-jeremy-hunt

It does feel like we’re heading for an almighty crunch of some sort.

As a canary in the coal mine, every time there has been a major recession I know it long in advance because the financial people and senior management at my employers start getting very twitchy about future work pipelines and time accounting. Right now there’s a tsunami of negative messaging about the need to win more work, reduce or eliminate unnecessary meetings/activities, logging potential future work in our CRM (which is the main indicator of future utilisation forecasts), and recording our time accurately. It all points to one thing, a massive recession on the horizon and future redundancies. The last time I saw this amount of panic at work from senior leadership was 2008 and back then we lost 40% of our UK headcount. It’s going to be brutal.

My mum is very much an average voter – doesn’t really think things through that much and a 5 minute conversation has her doubting/not being able to back up what she has voted for but she continues anyway.
Every one of Corbyn’s Labour policies sounded good to her when stated without any link to any party so I asked so why won’t you vote Labour then as that is whose policies they are – answer “because of that awful Corbyn man”

And that was in May’s time so add in the love of Johnson and love of getting Brexit done and he was finished as we know.

Yes. But apparently he’s very popular in Islington, so that balances it out.

But apparently he’s very popular in Islington, so that balances it out.

Because in Islington they know what sort of man he is rather than the charicature that you seem to have swallowed. The tories, the media and the labour right wing knew what a threat he was to their corrupt and self-serving status quo, and people like yourself swallowed it hook, line and sinker. And now you all moan about how shit everything is while supporting politicians who say and do nothing to change anything. You get what you deserve.

He is an extremely popular MP

So what? That he’s a popular campaigner in one constituency doesn’t translate to being a good leader of a political party – as he demonstrated.  Personally I think the Corbyn leadership failed because he just didn’t command the loyalty of the rest of the PLP, and there’s a very good reason for that; he’s never shown any loyalty to it himself, he’s never needed to in the past, but too many times he voted against things that MPs in his own party had put forward, most of the time, it made no difference, but folks remember that shit.

I agree that he should’ve stepped down after 2017, but has there ever been a politician who lacked hubris?

Dear God.

I voted for Corbyn twice. The man and the policies.

I am on about how easy he was to caricature for the electorate at large.

If you can’t grasp the detachment between my personal view and Corbyn’s proven electoral repellency then this conversation is pointless.

then this conversation is pointless.

I agree.

Now back to Starmer and the looming economic chaos. What do you think of his Trussite proclamations on growth and spending? Apparently they’re calling it ‘securenomics’. I don’t see anything secure about it, just more shifting the burden on to people who can’t afford it while they allow the rich to continue raking it in. I notice Amazon have again paid no corporation tax in the last FY. I wonder what Starmer and Reeves are proposing to address that?

while supporting politicians who say and do nothing to change anything. You get what you deserve.

There is nothing but the slow march of progress. That’s it, that’s your choice. Every time the other road is taken – Revolution, Civil war, Coups whatever, ends in violence, death, and economic ruin and all that goes with it. If you demand immediate change, or If you want Accerationist policies and populist banners and slogans then all you need to do is look across the Atlantic of how the far right in America has hijacked the politic space that the Democrats used to occupy, you only need look at how the word “Freedom” has now been captured as a slogan of the right in any number of wealthy countries across the world.

Revolution, Civil war, Coups whatever, ends in violence, death, and economic ruin and all that goes with it.

There’s a huge amount of space between what we have now and revolution. I’m not a revolutionary by any measure, I’m actually an uber-pragmatist. When something isn’t working, we need to change it and try something else. What we have now isn’t working, and I have no time for politicians who tell us that they can’t do anything about it.

Yes. But apparently he’s very popular in Islington, so that balances it out.

No you made the claim that he was a “dogmatic dinosaur” which you can’t back up. It suggests that he stuck rigidly to outdated policies from a bygone era.

And yet his policies had very popular appeal, in fact the Tories had to publicly declare ‘austerity over’ to counter the growing support for Corbyn’s policies. No one uses the term ‘austerity’ now.

I appreciate that you are constantly reinventing yourself Danny but there was nothing stuck in the past about Corbyn’s policies. The reference to him being a “dinosaur” is just something which you read in the Daily Mail or the Sun and decided to repeat without bothering to think if it was appropriate.

The totally meaningless term “unelectable” is another classic right-wing attack line which you have picked up from the Daily Mail or the Sun. Quite a few people have pointed out on this thread that they voted Labour.

I notice that you are still ducking my question concerning why you support the current Labour strategy of emulating the Tories, despite your apparent intense dislike of the Tories.

If want clarity of what I’m talking about have a look at Ransos link above and the comment in the headline: “it’s hard to tell Labour and Tory policies apart”