I don’t think being ‘reasoned’ with someone like Robert ‘Honest Bob’ Jenrick is the way to go at all.

When that crook is trotted out again to blather meaningless patronising platitudes in defence of another **** up, whoever is on the other mic needs to hit him with:

“How many free school meals could be funded with the £45m tax bill you helped, unlawfully by your own admission, Tory Party donor Richard ‘Dirty’ Desmond to dodge?”

And until the mo-fo answers the question keep asking it over and over again until he walks out.

Or ask that question direct to Johnson during PMQs. Make it apparent that De Pfeffel wouldn’t have a clue what one FSM costs, couldn’t do the maths in his head anyway (an old favourite) and if he could it would put real-world context on a tax fraud committed by one of his ministers….who is still in post and positively bouncing about the place.

jenrick’s attempt to help Desmond avoid the infrastructure levy at Westferry is a dead issue and irrelevant; easy for jenrick to duck that one and Desmond has now offered to pay a £43mill CIL if permission is granted.
Starmer needs to be highly focussed in any questions to johnson.
How about these, for example – they can be merged…
– how many children in UK are on FSM
– what is the weekly cost per child and in total
– why do you and members of your from bench continue referring to £63 million allocated earlier in the year when it was stated that funding would run out in about 3 months so by end September – that money can’t be spent twice
– if the estimated cost of FSM for one week is c£63milion that is about 0.5% of the spend to date on a failed/failing test’n’trace system; it’s 0.4% of the spend on emergency PPE contract awards most of which have been kept secret to avoid scrutiny
– in the context of government spending, the cost of providing FSMs for a week is not even a rounding error
– how offensive is it to parents of children on FSM – and to any right-thinking person – to hear a member of your party say that some parents exchange FSM vouchers for drugs; will you condemn that comment
If only there was a PMQs session today…

EHCR due to be published today isn’t it?

Starmer response to ECHR report seems to have gone down well

Westminster voting intention:

LAB: 40% (+2)
CON: 35% (-3)
LDEM: 7% (+1)

via @YouGov

— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) November 6, 2020

And we are about to jump off that brexit cliff

He’s also started banging the “government delay/incompetence is making this lockdown harder than it needed to be” drum. Which is about bloody time.

Or maybe the Press are starting to report him doing it.

Slow & steady wins the race

I can’t see much good news for Johnson on the horizon

Elections a looong way off

But I suppose Johnson will be gone once Tories are 10pts behind, I’m predicting February and the knives will be out

3rd one in a row to show Labour with a 5 pt lead

Starmer having a good day

Johnson, not so much

Westminster voting intention:

LAB: 42% (+2)
CON: 38% (-)
LDEM: 7% (+1)
GRN: 3% (-2)

via @OpiniumResearch

— Britain Elects (@BritainElects) November 7, 2020

The saviour of progressive politics legitimising the incorrect idea promulgated by the far right that we look after asylum seekers ‘better than our own’ and they should stay in France, yay.

Q: We see people being put in hotels, while we have our own homeless?

Starmer says he has visited the camps in France. He says claims should be processed there.

Where’s that from, please grum ?

^ LBC phone-in today.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2020/nov/09/coronavirus-covid-uk-live-news-updates-keir-starmer-boris-johnson?page=with:block-5fa90bf38f08f974eae15308#liveblog-navigation

Hmmm… slippery way of not answering the question at all. I appreciate he’s trying to keep the interview on one topic, the government’s response to the pandemic, but he needs to be ready with real answers to this kind of question… it’s going to be the focus of attention for much of the media next year… as the distraction to Brexit issues.

Agree, Kelvin. Pointing out the tory’s (and especially Boris’s) failings at every opportunity is a must, but also we now need to start seeing at least some more clues as to what SKS and labour will offer, in contrast to what’s not on offer at present.

Otherwise Labour is in danger of trying to be all things to all men, and we know how that’s worked out for various factions and promises over the last few years.

Yep, they need a few core policies, and start explaining why and how they will improve peoples lives and why they are important. Don’t leave it to the last minute to try and persuade people with meaningless soundbites. Otherwise we will just end up in another personality contest.

Good old Ian Lavery… calling for Starmer to apologise over Brexit… just in time to clear the air before all the milk and honey of 2021.

Unless Boris does a 180 and completely aces the next three years, I can’t see him being elected again. Once this global pandemic is over, it will inevitably expose the failings of the management of this crisis. There are only so many 2 or 3 word punch lines one can come up with before the public gets sick of it.

There are only so many 2 or 3 word punch lines one can come up with before the public gets sick of it.

10 years of screwing the public over via austerity and being exposed for lying on the key issues of Brexit didn’t stop Boris getting a thumping majority at the last election.

Starmer/Labour has to show a definite alternative programme. I’ll vote “anything but Tory” but Labour isn’t the only alternative and are not guaranteed my vote. He needs to be able to unite a very diverse group of voters behind a deliverable vision of what Labours post Brexit/Covid Britain will look like.

Johnson will be gone in a few months. He has neither the ability or will to lead in difficult times and his purpose is complete for the party.

Further evidence of KS’ astute political maneouvering today – jumping to suspend Corbyn to the delight of the columnist set, only to enrage both wings of the party when he’s reinstated.

Centrism: pissing off everyone by giving no-one what they want. I’m sure the party unity Keith promised is just around the corner!

Come on, this was his no.1 desert island disc.
Respect.

Starmer didn’t take either the decision to suspend Corbyn or the one to re-instate him.

Details Frank… details.

Anyone know who this Keith is? Or is it Sam’s new repeating “joke”?

EDIT: Actually, no, I’m not doing this. Apologies.

Is Keith’s identity a secret?

Details Kelvin?
The general secretary took the suspension decision – endorsed by Starmer; NEC panel was responsible for the re-instatement.
For a little bedtime reading, here’s the 2020 version of the party rulebook…
https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/rulebook-2020.pdf

Sorry, I should have a put a smiley in… you were attempting to inject facts into the thread, and my quip was meant as support for you doing so Frank. Carry on. I wasn’t criticising or disagreeing with what you said.

Anyway, after some searching I found out that both Sqwawkbox and Conservative Home have a running “Keith Starmer” joke, so now I get what Sam was up to. More likely to have adopted it from the former than the later, I presume.

Were I a multi-millionaire beneficiary of and supporter of apartheid, or owned a supermarket or car hire chain, or a property developer and landlord, I’d back Sir and he’d back me. If I rented or was in mortgage debt, underpaid, furloughed, poor t and c’s, maybe not so much. He said he wants to be less reliant on union funds and therefore more reliant on the mega-rich sponsors, they will be chuffed. You takes your choices and get what your given.

Sorry for the mixup kelvin, frank – I’m pretty sure frank was replying to my post above.

The deleted post was a bit sneery, and that’s not helpful. Yes, “Keith” is a stupid name for Keir Starmer; after 4 years of allotments and “magic grandad” I engaged in a bit of the same tit-for-tat. That was a mistake – it doesn’t help the discussion and doesn’t help with party unity. So apologies for that.

On frank’s fact-checking, he is quite correct – Starmer neither directly suspended Corbyn or was on the reviw panel. However it’s quite clear that this is a politicial decision, and there’s no point pretending that Starmer has no influence on what happens here. I would have thought at the least he would have had words with the general secretary to make sure that IF he took action, he needed to be sure of it. Instead, what’s happened over the last month has just turned the spotlight away from the ongoing Tory shitshow and increased the infighting in the party.

Anyway – I’m going to stop here. I just want an end to the infighting and for Keir to be able to make some progress on his leadership pledges, and start challenging the government more. We’re going to need it in the coming months!

I just want an end to the infighting and for Keir to be able to make some progress on his leadership pledges, and start challenging the government more.

Wake up and smell the coffee. He’s declared war on the left and a huge proportion of his members. He doesn’t want unity, he wants a fight to the death, with him as the last man standing. Judging by his pathetic display at PMQs today against a car crash of a PM it seems he’s more at home fighting with his own members and supporters than fighting the tories. He’s finished, and will never be PM.

Wake up and smell the coffee. He’s declared war on the left and a huge proportion of his members. He doesn’t want unity, he wants a fight to the death, with him as the last man standing. Judging by his pathetic display at PMQs today against a car crash of a PM it seems he’s more at home fighting with his own members and supporters than fighting the tories. He’s finished, and will never be PM.

Feel better now?

He has declared war on a bunch of incompetents in his party that failed to get elected twice against the worst government we have ever had (until now). I know of a few people who were at a loss on who to vote for in the last election for various reasons despite having voted Labour for years.
One of which was a teacher in a private school, his take on it (I have not fact checked this) was that he would be signing away his own job with Corbyn’s policy on Private schools.
Why would repeating Corbyn’s ideology for a 3rd time have any different results?

Feel better now?

Absolutely. It’s always good to have questions and uncomfortable suspicions answered and confirmed. Starmer’s done just that today.

Why would repeating Corbyn’s ideology for a 3rd time have any different results?

And who is suggesting doing that?

I’m a ‘natural labour supporter’ – I won’t be voting for Starmer. Allowing a decent if misguided man to be characterised as an anti-Semite and kicked out of the party after being a lifelong campaigner for social justice and anti-racism is just shabby, to say the least.

One of which was a teacher in a private school, his take on it (I have not fact checked this) was that he would be signing away his own job with Corbyn’s policy on Private schools.

Voting purely on self interest, sounds like a natural fit for the Tory party.

He doesn’t want unity, he wants a fight to the death, with him as the last man standing. J

Sounds like he’s not the only one, speaking as a non-Tory voter desperately looking for someone worth voting for to get them out.

Sounds like he’s not the only one

I joined the party and voted for Starmer largely on the basis of his promise to act as a unifier. His actions this morning have proven that he’s doing the very opposite of that. If you want the tories out, you need a united labour party. It’s politics 101, yet Starmer seems more interested in fighting internal battles. Leadership starts with listening to all sides and having the backs of those you lead. Starmer does neither, and instead only serves the interests of a small but powerful minority in the party who want to use it to further their own interests. He’s done.

Allowing a decent if misguided man to be characterised as an anti-Semite

some of Corbyn’s “confusion” about anti Semitism have included: supporting Mear One’s deeply AS mural, standing on a platform in support of Sheikh Raed Salah a man who believes the blood libel to be the literal truth, and writing a forward to Hobson’s book; Imperialism, which is riddled with Hobson’s AS beliefs…

there’s more… either Corbyn is serially unlucky with his choice of political allies, totally blind or ignorant of history, or really isn’t as blameless as lots of folk seem to think he is. I’m content for Starmer to get shot of him quite frankly, I don’t think the Labour Party will suffer for the loss. He’s an anachronistic embarrassment

Starmer does neither, and instead only serves the interests of a small but powerful minority in the party who want to use it to further their own interests.

replace Starmer in that sentence with “Corbyn” and it’s still accurate. These are politicians, it’s what they do.

I would say that like many people on the left his support of the Palestinian cause has led to a bit of a blind spot regarding anti-semitism that is sometimes tied up with that.

But picking out a few examples of missteps in amongst a lifetime of campaigning against racism and anti-semitism is a very Daily Mail kind of approach.

I never voted for Labour ’till Corbyn became leader and changed many of its policies for the better, and won me over. But I’ll be continuing to vote for Labour under Starmer still… and I haven’t bought into the idea that Corbyn is the victim here, and that “enemies in the party” are pushing him out… his response has made it hard for Starmer to restore the whip… I still think that on balance he should do exactly that, restore the whip that is, but that has become such a difficult act to carry out because of the way Corbyn responded to the EHRC report, not because of anything the new leadership team have done. The response to either action (restore/withhold the whip) is going to be long and messy for Labour now… and Starmer can’t avoid that… only Corbyn had the power to avoid this, by choosing how he responded when the report was published, but he decided not to, or was unable to. There are no good options after that for the Labour party… only bad and worse ones.

He’s declared war on the left and a huge proportion of his members

He really hasn’t. Corbyn only has himself to blame for the situation he’s in. Who else is presently ‘under siege’ from Starmer and his stormtroopers then?

Its exactly this kind of paranoid, tinfoil-helmetted nonsense we’ve come to expect from the left, who feel constantly compelled to act to develop a bunker mentality to fuel their never-ending persecution complexes.

Grum there’s folk in the Schul my partner attends who think he’s been “hiding in plain sight” his whole career, and were genuinely scared of the prospect of a Corbyn premier-ship. That we could get to that position : liberally minded Jews who’ve been members of the Labour Party in fear of it….astonishing.

Personally I think it’s probably more nuanced than that, and tend to think these aren’t deliberate choices, but crucially he keeps making the same mistakes and is seemingly blind to the grief and upset it causes among natural supporters  like reform Jews, he should retire as gracefully as he can IMO