UK Election!

I reckon if you gave most people the option of listening to Owen Jones rattle on about Diane Abbot or removing their own kidneys with a teaspoon, the A&E departments would be pretty busy tonight

Possibly not if they are Guardian readers and perceive themselves to be caring liberals just like Owen Jones.

The Guardian even managed to dedicate an editorial to address their concerns:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/may/29/the-guardian-view-on-diane-abbott-an-unnecessary-mess-of-labours-own-making

I loved the final sentence btw:

But it is a strategic error of judgment to believe that purging the party of dissent will help him connect with voters.

As a dedicated hardcopy  Guardian reader did you manage to read their bleeding heart editorial about Diane Abbott without reaching for the spoons in the kitchen drawer binners?

The Tories have made zero effort to resolve any of the strikes as their philosophy is that if there’s strikes then that will make their racist pensioner base believe it’s the 1970’s again so get out and vote for them

Just yet another example of the future of the Tory party in power being their one and only consideration, to the total exclusion of everything else

Your mum won’t get her chemotherapy? We don’t ****ing care as long as it gives us some perceived electoral advantage

They’re the very worst people. Psychopaths

Victoria Atkins will explain all – I’m sure (?) – on Peston…tune in to ITV now.

Owen Jones thinks Diane Abbott is right Glad? Phew! Glad that he could interrupt his busy schedule of inciting Twitter mobs against female Guardian staff and Londonsplaining to the Scots about how Scottish politics is really all about Palestine.

My mate works as the secretary/receptionist in the estate agents in town (kirkcudbright), she gets folks from down south all the time asking her about the choice of private schools in the area and they are always surprised that the nearest would be 100 miles away in Glasgow/Edinburgh area, I guess the private school idea is pretty much an English thing.

🤣

Maybe the reason that Dumfries and Galloway isn’t knee deep in private schools is because it has a small population, low population density, and the lowest wages in Scotland?

Dumfries and Galloway has rock bottom wages

Dear everyone to the left of Heinrich Himmler,

We’ve nearly got rid of these corrupt, useless, Tory bastards now.

Can you please not **** this up?

Please.

Yvette Cooper has promised to “take Britain’s town centres back from thugs and thieves” by putting 13,000 bobbies back on the beat in communities across the country.

The shadow home secretary lashed out at the Conservatives after a “decade of dereliction” on law and order, laying bare the damage done to policing and the criminal justice system.

And she unveiled plans for a visible army of neighbourhood police and PCSOs with tough new powers to “crack down on those causing havoc on our high streets”.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/yvette-cooper-labour-police-crime-general-election-b2553338.html

This is something I would welcome, it’s something the conservatives seem to be against, given thier ‘fingers in ears’ stance on petty crime.

Thirteen thousand ‘bobbies’ though, how quickly? Sounds a lot like a wish rather than a plan if they are all to be vetted and trained correctly.

Still, at least they are making the right noises… from the conservatives we have “something something boats, something something rwanda, something something”

I reckon if you gave most people the option of listening to Owen Jones rattle on about Diane Abbot or removing their own kidneys with a teaspoon, the A&E departments would be pretty busy tonight

Possibly….I’ll give you that one but his factual statements and what the forde report outlined in his video still stands.

Owen Jones thinks Diane Abbott is right Glad? Phew!

What does he think that she is right about?

At the end of the day, completely unsolicited, Diane Abbot wrote a letter to a national newspaper for them to publish that was so mind-bendingly stupid and offensive to so many people on so many levels that I’d question why anyone would want an MP who demonstrates such absolutely appalling judgement

Yeah.. MPs are very low quality these days.

Maybe they always were but it’s just way more visible now with new technology.

that I’d question why anyone would want an MP who demonstrates such absolutely appalling judgement

I imagine there’s quite a lot of folk in Hackney

“I think [@Keir_Starmer’s] full of bullshit!”

Where’s the lie? pic.twitter.com/QFcHba50vi

— James Foster (@JamesEFoster) May 29, 2024

And we have the likes of Luke “Nuke’em” Akehurst, member of Labour’s National Executive Committee, imposed by National Executive Committee as candidate for safest of safe seats, North Durham. Luke is ex National Secretary of Student Labour, PR consultant by trade. Current job is Director of advocacy group We Believe in Israel. Key organiser on the right. Will be good to have him in the public eye, so that people can see what they’re dealing with.

‘Plotting to suspend a democratically selected Muslim candidate for liking a tweet acknowledging the existence of an Israel lobby, while imposing the director of “We Believe in Israel” as a candidate elsewhere. All in a days work. Labour aren’t being subtle!’

https://x.com/LabourNorth/status/1795903561076711692

https://x.com/twuntastical/status/179591309345465968

Thirteen thousand ‘bobbies’ though, how quickly? Sounds a lot like a wish rather than a plan if they are all to be vetted and trained correctly.

Whilst I totally get why Cooper made a statement about bobbies on the beat etc. (election talk during an election…) I doubt it holds much water.

I’m sure in some scenarios a visible police presence, on foot, can be handy but It’s not great when something kicks off 3 miles down the road and said Bobby has to leg it there.

That’s when id preferto have a couple of cops in a nice fast response car.😁

Like I said though, I get why she said it.

We all know how to cut crime down in reality and that’s to reduce inequality, give better access to mental/ addiction services and give younger generations hope.

That’s a hard message to get across in sound bite politics though. It’s also going to take many years to achieve. ☹️

I imagine there’s quite a lot of folk in Hackney

Fine. Let her stand as an independent, just like Magic Grandad. She’s an irrelevance at best and a liability to the Labour Party nationally.

Anyway… back to more relevant points that matter to people outside Hackney,

Farage was interesting on Peston. Actually worth watching. He’s predicting Reform bringing about a Canadian style  wipeout of the Tory party as those voters who’ve moved to Reform won’t be coming back to the Tories ever.

I think he may be right on that score.

Rishi is basing all policy* announcements on chasing the far right, racist pensioner nutter vote, but it’s already gone and it’s never coming back

The rest of the stuff Farage was on about is absolutely hatstand, Nick Griffin/BNP level racism

* the word policy is used figuratively in this instance

Meanwhile, the woman who beat Rishi in an election but then lost to a lettuce has been doing her bit for the election campaign

Rishi Sunak has been urged to de-select Liz Truss as a Tory election candidate after she appeared on a platform founded by a YouTuber who made comments about raping a Labour MP.

I’d question why anyone would want an MP who demonstrates such absolutely appalling judgement

The widely held consensus now appears to be that Starmer’s handling of the Diane Abbott crisis, a crises of his own making, is his first major blunder in an otherwise faultless first week general election campaign.

But perhaps the most interesting aspect of this is that Starmer appears to have united the various wings of the Labour Party as they express their outrage over Diane Abbott’s treatment, even blairite politicians are now publicly expressing support for her.

Opinion pieces in both Sky News and the Statesman have suggested that Starmer might have done long term damage to himself. The suggestion is that this might well blow over and be forgotten fairly quickly but that at some point in the very near future things are going to get pretty tough for Starmer and this crisis will have cost him good will which he can ill-afford to lose.

The suggestion is that Starmer does not enjoy strong personal approval from voters, and when coupled with the fact that he will likely make some politically unpopular decisions will probably deny him any sort of honeymoon period.

This will make him politically vulnerable quite early in his premiership so strong parliamentary support and loyalty will be crucial to his political survival.

Denying Diane Abbott  parliamentary candidature does not appear to be popular with Labour MPs right across the party, if Starmer wants to maintain the goodwill of the PLP it should be hoped that Morgan McSweeney and David Evans, the two people who probably make all these decisions, will tell him to allow Diane Abbott  parliamentary candidature.

To re-iterate, the whole Diane Abbott issue will blow over – not as quickly as the frothing about Natalie Elphicke but it will soon be history.

From Peston, the most interesting piece was the answer he got from both Mhairi Black and Lee Cain to his closing question – which way will the tories move if (when) they lose the GE?

Both said, unhesitatingly…to the right.

So that’s the tories making themselves irrelevant for decades to come.

At the end of the day, who gives a flying **** whether Diane Abbot or Magic Grandad is a Labour MP or an independent MP or voted out and gets an allotment to keep them busy.

These people were the past in the 90’s, should have been nowhere near the front bench of the party, due to their general political hopelessness and will spend their days (if they’re lucky) as irrelevant backbenchers, like they’ve always been

The only people getting anything out of this are the Tory party (as usual)  and the limitless narcissism of Abbot and Corbyn

With their endless stupidity, they’ve been a plague on the Labour Party and an absolute gift to the Tories for the last ten years and it appears they’re planet-sized ego’s aren’t about to stop them now

The slightest element of self-awareness would inform them that an extended period of STFU would be in order for both of them. Not that they care.

Who needs a Labour government when you get to be worshipped like gods by 6th formers and Owen Jones. A Tory government is something to wave placards against and get some sweetly paid gigs on Russia Today and Iranian state TV

I imagine the likes of Josh Simmons is more “New…….New Labour” , he’s certainly got a few ideas

https://x.com/StephenFlynnSNP/status/1795915296173170788

At the end of the day, who gives a flying ****

Well currently the whole of the media I would say. Right now it appears the general election campaign story and is overshadowing everything else, from the way Diane Abbott has been treated to the way Starmer has handled the whole issue.

I have just heard Wes Streeting, of all people, give an interview in which he pours praise on Diane Abbott emphasising the deep respect he has for her.

Does that answer your question?

As for the claim that ‘the whole issue will blow over’, of course it will. That is what the term “news” means in this context. Does anyone know of any news which hasn’t blown over?

The issue is how damaging it is likely to be to both Starmer and the Labour Party. Since it is a major news story and any potential damage is dependent on how it is resolved it is probably not too clever to dismiss it as unimportant.

On another note I mentioned yesterday that I expected to see Rishi get on a bike and take it off a “sweet jump”, it looks like Ed Davy (the Mr Bean of politics) jumped on one today, he didn’t take it off any “sweet jumps” and he didn’t fall off.

I was sorely disappointed, still………I expect we’ll see him down the skatepark tomorrow so that’ll be good for a laugh

In my canvassing on Wednesday Diane Abbott’s name wasn’t mentioned once on the doorstep, talking with voters of different political persuasions.

Out in the shires – where this election will be won or lost- there is absolutely no interest in the Hackney/Stoke Newington/metropolitan frothing about perceptions of how Diane Abbott has been treated.

There has been no reference to her in my CLP and branch social media

If there are any comments about her in my door knocking campaign or any reference to her in my CLP and/or branch social media feeds over the next few days I’ll post about on this thread.

Ernie, it’s tiresome reading many of your posts which attempt to denigrate and/or imply a sense of superiority on your part but if that’s what gives you a frisson – crack on but do tell me…what are you hearing on the doorstep when you’re out canvassing?

Diane Abbott should exit stage left gracefully now – and preserve her legacy; if she doesn’t, her name and reputation will be much diminished.

Some matters are really important and are worthy of serious and extended discussion; this is not one of them

I do wonder about the apparent focus of some posters which appears to be rooted in notions of ideological purity with no reference to the real world; good luck with that.

Don’t forget to take your pragmatism pill – you’ll feel much better for it

The labour party moves on with new focus and the news cycle just keeps trundling on

This is more a point around what Starmer is and how he has acted and will continue to act when PM.  The way he has handled/allowed the Abbot issue to be handled is crap by any measure.

People on the doorstep may not be interested but that doesn’t mean those who are interested cannot discuss it on a forum.  You don’t get to decide which matters are really important in an open discussion I’m afraid.

You don’t get to decide which matters are really important in an open discussion I’m afraid

Great general comment.

https://x.com/mehdirhasan/status/1795972940850167948?t=vqUITSGz-96Yzj3ScaqCsw&s=19

Authoritarian? She ‘liked’ a Jon Stewart tweet for a sketch he did about Israel.

https://x.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1795942561258889318?t=5lxYjKvCmamTNGtU3L-AuQ&s=19

(Twitter not being embedded here from the app any longer?)

 widely held consensus

You mean by you and the Westminster bubble.  I don’t have Frank’s direct evidence from door knocking, but i strongly suspect that the vast majority of normal voters outside Hackney couldn’t care less about how Dianne Abbot has been treated.  Nor will it impact how they vote.

Agree, it won’t matter to the normal voters but I would like to think we are going a bit deeper than the normal voter aren’t we.

The widely held consensus now appears to be that Starmer’s handling of the Diane Abbott crisis, a crises of his own making, is his first major blunder in an otherwise faultless first week general election campaign.

While I agree this hasn’t been a good day for SKS, the version of the news I heard last night is that DA was going to stand down, on her terms, and then this was leaked. Even that bit is unclear, she was going to be barred (BBC was saying she’d told a BBC reporter that yesterday morning, by lunchtime it was ‘there are reports’ and in the afternoon it was ‘no-one’s said that to me and I’m not’). Who’s been feeding the news and to whose benefit?

So I’m not sure how much control SKS has had over the issue – equally, how much control do we want him to have, how authoritarian do we want our party leaders to be? At the same time, DA now seems to be quite intent on causing a bit of damage to the party overall by demanding that she WILL be standing in H&SN, so much as she’s been badly treated, is her big picture view correctly aligned with what the PLP and country need or is it what DA wants to do?

As usual with all of them, it is a case of me me me.

They don’t give a toss ultimately about us lot

Also AIUI the NEC decides the candidate list in the end. And that has to be completed next week. How much say would SKS as leader have on that? Can they decide that DA is to be admitted to the candidate list without his buy-in?

Theoretically, except the NEC is majority Starmer loyalists

So’s the majority of the PLP but according to our man in the know

Denying Diane Abbott  parliamentary candidature does not appear to be popular with Labour MPs right across the party, if Starmer wants to maintain the goodwill of the PLP it should be hoped that Morgan McSweeney and David Evans, the two people who probably make all these decisions, will tell him to allow Diane Abbott  parliamentary candidature.

so will they hand him DA’s candidature and tell him to get on, or allow him to boot her out and then gripe and moan about it later.

Probably the most telling thing is the fact DA is big news, if it were the Tory party it’d barely get a mention.  In my opinion the opposition parties are under much higher scrutiny than the Tories.

A party that has room for Elphicke but not for Abbott doesn’t have room for me either.

@rone I think you have to change the link from x to twitter

Ernie, it’s tiresome reading many of your posts which attempt to denigrate and/or imply a sense of superiority on your part

Did you have a straight face when you typed that?

The Tories must be laughing their tits off.

Look at them all! All those old lefties wanging on about Diane Abbot again. Those sleeper cells we put in to Islington North and Hackney decades ago still just keep on delivering, don’t they?

Meanwhile, outside the north London/Westminster bubble…

Nobody cares.

A party that has room for Elphicke but not for Abbott doesn’t have room for me either

So would you rather have another  5 years of the Tories, or hold your nose and vote for a less than perfect Labour party?

Probably the most telling thing is the fact DA is big news

Because that’s what the Mail and Murdoch media want. (Yes I know the Guardian are talking about it too, but it’s bound too)

Not sure it’s news anymore,  and it’ll be even less so when the next big thing is released for the election this week or next, as stated before, i think the likes of Abbott should have been bringing their candidate to the table now, MPs in their 70s going for another 5 years isn’t a great thing, surely they have some protege who could take over the challenges.

So would you rather have another  5 years of the Tories, or hold your nose and vote for a less than perfect Labour party?

This is what gets me about all of this,  yeah Labour isn’t perfect, if we had PR I would be voting Green constantly,  but how can anyone consider that a less than perfect Labour Party is worse than the money grabbing, narcissistic tory party.