UK Election!

A week to go to submission deadline and Reform currently have more candidates in place the the Tories

One week til nominations close:

Lab 627 (+20)
Green (GPEW + Scottish Greens) – 573 (+9)
Lib Dem – 530 (+16)
Reform UK – 470 (+13)
Conservative – 448 (+40)
Workers Party – 173 (+4)
SDP – 125 (+8)
Independent – 99 (+16)
SNP – 57 (+1)
Plaid Cymru – 28 (+1)

— Owen Winter (@OwenWntr) May 31, 2024

the Tories still nearly 200 short!

this surprise election certainly caught someone off guard

this wont help….

BREAKING

Aaron Bell says he will not contest the Newcastle-under-Lyme seat at the general election pic.twitter.com/Hz1RZI7T9m

— Richard Price (@journoontheedge) May 31, 2024

Shits deserting the sinking rat.

LBC host Ian Dale just pulled out as Conservative candidate for Tunbridge Wells, after footage emerged of him saying his much he hated the place………..

Panic candidate selection is going to mean lots of this…….

173 Workers Party candidates.  Their 10 point plan sounds pretty good

https://workerspartybritain.org/ten-point-programme/

Getting past George Galloway may be a problem though.

this surprise election certainly caught someone off guard

Mostly conservatives, by the looks of it… I mean I know it was called unexpectedly early, but it had to be this year realistically, and given we are already in Q2 you’d think all parties would be well into the process of gearing up by now, even if just quietly behind the scenes.

Workers Party – 173 (+4)

I find this worrying. Galloway is fully exploiting the situation and the vacuum on the Left. And he’s obviously not short of a bob or two.

After the general election, and hopefully a huge Labour majority, the Left need to get their act together and mount an effective fight in the interest of both ordinary working people and global justice.

And hopefully sideline mouthy narcissists like Galloway.

I saw one opinion poll recently put the Workers Party on 1%. I struggle to believe that they can enjoy that level of support but if true it shows the need to offer a credible alternative.

I suspect that Gaza and the Muslim vote is the issue. I know plenty of Muslims who ignore Galloway’s failings because he is the only one publicly making the correct noises on the telly when it comes to Israel’s ongoing genocide. Despite the fact that he does **** all else. He doesn’t even speak at national rallies. Although to be fair I think that he has been banned by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign!

the Tories still nearly 200 short!

There are going to be a lot of bad, panicked selections there. Problem they’ve got is (as I understand it) it’s not just seats they’ve got a snowball’s chance in, and some of them are whatever passes for a safe seat these days.

… actually, I take it back about unrepeatable tricks – Galloway may turn out to be another

This is lazy stereotyping. Whilst the really keen ones did tick that box there was a large number who supported brexit for a variety of reasons. Ranging from people of Asian descent who felt the immigration policies favoured Europeans over their families

meh, not sure any person of asian descent would get a different message from Nige’s poster

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/3f510b25581c993fae11fe42817a9c6d3780f376/0_305_5049_3029/master/5049.jpg?width=1140&dpr=2&s=none

this surprise election certainly caught someone off guard

I think we are just witnessing an incompetent, zombie government bringing those “virtues” to an election campaign.

Has Starmer said or done anything to make you believe he’ll enact those changes once he has the keys to number 10?

Starmer is merely the empty vessel – he hasn’t got one single big idea, he was selected 8 years ago as he’s a vacuum, its those behind his push, mandlesons goon squad amongst others who we’ve got to worry about, and if you think any changes will be for the betterment of society then I have a bridge to sell you

Diane Abbott 1 – Starmer 0.

At what cost? Can’t help feeling that she was going to stand down, someone leaked the news so she couldn’t announce on her terms, she got the hump, subsequent fight weakens Labour and hands the Tories an attack line.

How long will she serve for then before standing down; she’ll be 75 at the end of the next parliament?

Funny that Starmer is wanting to beat the tories and he can’t even beat a tired old leftie who is universally derided as being a bit thick. That’s the tories attack lines written for them. Nice job!

theotherjonv
Full Member
At what cost? Can’t help feeling that she was going to stand down, someone leaked the news so she couldn’t announce on her terms, she got the hump, subsequent fight weakens Labour and hands the Tories an attack line.

How long will she serve for then before standing down; she’ll be 75 at the end of the next parliament?

I agree. They’ve now done the inevitable though which will effectively kill the story as a Tory attack line. If it ever was.

She should have been allowed to stand if she wished right from the start but this is the best outcome from where we are now.

173 Workers Party candidates.  Their 10 point plan sounds pretty good

High quality laundrettes for women. That is so woke.

At what cost?

A completely unnecessary public row in which even right-wingers ended up queuing up to support Diane Abbott, and which over the period of a couple of hours Starmer was forced into another yet another U-turn.

That plus several days of total unnecessary distraction appears to have been the price that Starmer paid for looking tough on the left.

He should have focused on just purging the unknowns rather than the first black female MP. I guess that he got carried away with his success in purging the former leader of the Labour Party.  He was probably starting to believe that his powers were limitless.

Funny that Starmer is wanting to beat the tories and he can’t even beat a tired old leftie who is universally derided as being a bit thick. That’s the tories attack lines written for them. Nice job!

Yeah, as always, negativity against Starmer, rather than looking at this whole weird scenario, where Abbott was brought back in to the Labour Party, and then made a statement to people regarding not being allowed to stand, Starmer has said nothing on this bar that it hasn’t even been decided yet, if he didn’t want Abbott to stand then why allow her back into the party before the selections?

A completely unnecessary public row in which even right-wingers ended up queuing up to support Diane Abbott, and which over the period of a couple of hours Starmer was forced into another yet another U-turn.

Created by who, and to whose benefit is the point of my question? And then if not fuelled, not exactly quelled by DA either.

I mean; she could have said “I’m very disappointed that people are being briefed that I’m being banned from standing, but it’s an irrelevance really because I’d already taken the decision that at 70 and after 37 years as an MP, it’s the right time for me to stand down”

It’s all being proposed as a purge of the left but there is another entirely feasible explanation.

Starmer would do better nicking a few Workers’ Party policies than Tory ones. Apart from withdrawing from NATO and laundries there’s a lot to like in their programme. It reads a lot like Labour in the early 50s.

Created by who, and to whose benefit is the point of my question?

Well it was created by Starmer and his advisors, obviously. What Starmer said this afternoon he could have said several days ago, he is after all responsible for what he says, but he chose not to.

In fact the whole issue could have been resolved 5 months ago. Starmer deliberately strung it out because firstly he hoped the general election would preemptive the conclusion, as he lied and said that the disciplinary procedure was ongoing.

And then he hoped that a public row with the left would endear him to the likes of Daily Telegraph readers.

It all went tits up for Starmer when the right-wing saw the damage that attacking the Britian’s first black female MP was doing and they started to line up behind her.

The only person to blame for this mess is Starmer. To blame the intended victim is ludicrous.

It all went tits up for Starmer when the right-wing saw the damage that attacking the Britian’s first black female MP was doing and they started to line up behind her.

Are you drunk?

Any chance all the Starmer thread people could shut the **** up for a day or two and let other people contribute to this thread? Crowding any and all news and comment out with the same old shit… become self aware and take a **** break.

I didn’t realise we had a one in one out policy for discussion.

I can only speak for myself, you understand, but I’m sick to death of the same opposing points being endlessly regurgitated.

I’m sure the feeling isn’t really going to sink in until the Labour manifesto gets published. Anyone know when that will be? At the moment I feel like I’m waiting on medical test results: I know there’s definitely something badly wrong, but I don’t really know how badly wrong it is yet.

Any chance all the Starmer thread people could shut the **** up for a day or two and let other people contribute to this thread? Crowding any and all news and comment out with the same old shit… become self aware and take a **** break.

LOL! Someone isn’t happy about this afternoon’s developments! 😊

Go on Kelvin, you crack on – Starmer has finally pulled the plug on the story which has been dominating the general election campaign for the last few days, it’s dead and buried now, despite the fact some still want to apportion blame, so you can talk about whatever you want 💡

Well it was created by Starmer and his advisors, obviously.

Not obvious from the version of events i heard. We covered this pages ago, go back and look at contemporaneous posts on p26 to about 31. Try to ignore yours and read other versions.

The version i heard

– investigation ended 6 months ago.

– ordered to complete training course which was done in Feb

– conditions of readmittance were still in discussion; in the version I heard she was going to have the chance to step down and have all manner of platitudes passed her way including potentially seat in Lords. And then…. ‘sources close to’ DA then said she was being barred from standing, stuff was leaked, etc. As I say – by who and who has benefitted?

In fact the whole issue could have been resolved 5 months ago. Starmer deliberately strung it out because firstly he hoped the general election would preemptive the conclusion, as he lied and said that the disciplinary procedure was ongoing.

First bit, maybe – if not 5 months ago then certainly sooner, although as per above in the version i heard discussions were ongoing still I agree no reason why they had to take 3 months after the course was done.

Did he lie – well, as I said before, in my experience the disciplinary process ends with the sanction being finalised. So no, not outright although not exactly totally transparent.

OTOH – deliberately strung it out? How long was he going to given that no-one, not even Rishi apparently, knew the election was going to be called. was he going to string out until October? Christmas?

The only person to blame for this mess is Starmer. To blame the intended victim is ludicrous.

Not blaming the victim, just saying she hasn’t acted to minimise the damage caused by persons who would benefit. You say it was the labour right, I don’t necessarily agree when you look at who benefits.

I do agree that once the row happened he’d have been far better acting on it, almost irrespective of what the action was.

In the end, different versions and interpretations of the same event.

[edit – and i agree, it’s now fish wrappers, let’s move on]

https://x.com/AdamBienkov/status/1796468845965910348?t=y5I8EBbeRQwlDJAp0TnIFNGsey0QfPVf0z4WXI5ERuE&s=19

BREAKING: Iain Dale tells LBC he has now abandoned his bid to become the Conservative candidate for Tunbridge Wells, after this clip of him telling listeners he ‘never liked the place’ and ‘would happily live somewhere else’ was revealed

Starmer has finally pulled the plug on the story

Definitely not the end of it. Every day from now until July 4th all we will here from Sunak and the tories is that Starmer was bullied into a u-turn by Diane Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn and that if he becomes PM the labour left will be the hidden hand behind his premiership. I can’t think of a more spectacular clusterf*** to be honest. This is his Gordon Brown bigot-gate moment.

[edit – and i agree, it’s now fish wrappers, let’s move on]

Don’t be intimidated into not discussing an issue which has dominated the election campaign all week.

Although I agree that there isn’t anything left to discuss thanks to Starmer finally seeing sense.

This is the current headline now:

Diane Abbott free to stand for Labour in election, says Starmer

It could have very easily have been the headline a week ago and we would have been spared all this nonsense. I mean in the media, not just here.

Every day from now until July 4th all we will here from Sunak and the tories is that Starmer was bullied into a u-turn by Diane Abbott and Jeremy Corbyn and that if he becomes PM the labour left will be the hidden hand behind his premiership.

Good point, I hadn’t thought of that – the Tories will exploit it to their advantage claiming that he is weak – of course they will!

How ironic that what was obviously designed to show how tough Starmer is when dealing with the Left should so spectacularly backfire.

Not intimidated, just bored. I know, I know, I can leave it at any time but then you’ll have won ;-)

Heres Beth Rigby attempting to get an answer as to why starmer can’t raise taxes for the top few % of earners, Despite avoiding the question I’m totally convinced starmer will once he gets into power…..or will he? ;)

the Tories will exploit it to their advantage claiming that he is weak – of course they will!

I bet there’s someone in a tory advertising agency right now rehashing the Miliband poster where he’s in the pocket of Alex Salmond.

Embarrassing for Starmer, sure,

Problematic with some labour voters, probably

Will it change anything, not a pip

A lot of focus on one candidate, they only need to select 17? more assuming Abbot stands

Meanwhile the Tories need to find 190 in 6 days, even as more candidates & sitting MPs are dropping out by the day (3 today by my count)

There was a question whether Reform would actually stand in every seat, they currently have more candidates in place than the Tories

If the Tories fail to fill those slots it’s going to look very bad for Sunak

No plan survives contact with the enemy, particularly if the enemy is a large proportion of the UK population.

https://x.com/BestForBritain/status/1796565060892147762

It’s an article of faith in what we’ll term another party that they have to put candidates up in every seat, no matter how futile, as a) it means they can claim to be a national party, b) they feel everyone should have the option to vote for them and c) there’s something about total vote share and central funding, as limited as that is. If the Tories fail to achieve that, especially in what is nominally a ‘safe’ seat…

Getting past George Galloway may be a problem though.

… and when you get past him you’ve got deputy leader Chris Williamson. What a delightful bunch

Meanwhile the Tories need to find 190 in 6 days, even as more candidates & sitting MPs are dropping out by the day (3 today by my count

And given the standard of the 2019 intake, I think it’s safe to assume this next lot will be even worse!

You hear that? That’s the sound of the mud underneath the bottom of the barrel being scraped