Keir Starmer

[AngryOfTuebrook]

https://labourlist.org/2020/06/exclusive-labour-needs-major-overhaul-to-win-again-says-election-review/?fbclid=IwAR1FSQiQKTHDS4SMat2EU-HpZg_z10uozbXKPAJWgxzqRny5s5t3HWTmjgw

 

Labour needs a “major overhaul” of its “political strategy, organisation and campaigning infrastructure” to win again, according to the Labour Together 2019 general election review.

 

LabourList – which jointly commissioned the review – can now reveal details of the 140-page report that brought together views from across the movement to assess last year’s result and campaign.

 

The project commissioners included MPs Ed Miliband, Shabana Mahmood, Lucy Powell, plus journalist Ellie Mae O’Hagan, TSSA’s Manuel Cortes and former John McDonnell aide James Meadway.

 

Noting that Labour “types of voters everywhere compared with 2017, except in London”, the review declares that the party “must change how we campaign and reset our relationship with the public”.

 

Its findings are based on evidence and analysis from YouGov, Datapraxis, the British Election Study, submissions from groups such as Momentum and Progress, 50 interviews and 11,000 survey responses.

 

The report notes that Labour “lost support on all sides” in 2019 – around 1.7 million Leave voters and around one million Remain voters in net terms, compared to 2017 – and failed to attract swing voters.

 

Labour lost roughly equal numbers of Remain (1.9 million) and Leave (1.8 million) voters between 2017 and 2019. But it also gained around 900,000 Remain voters, while only winning over around 100,000 Leave voters.

 

Although one of Labour’s aims under Jeremy Corbyn was to attract non-voters, it was also identified that the Conservatives were more successful than Labour in turning out non-voters in 2019.

 

The review says the “terrible defeat” experienced by the party last year should be “mobilising, not paralysing” – but also warns that the scale of the challenge cannot be underestimated.

 

“To win a majority of one, we would need to increase our number of MPs by 60% up by 123 seats – something no major party has ever done,” the report states. A swing of over 10% would be needed to win in 2024.

 

It says the “broad consensus” across the party, reflected in the survey results, is that concerns over the leadership, Brexit position and deliverability of the manifesto damaged Labour’s chances.

 

But observing that the surprising 2017 result “masked” the foreshadowing of Labour’s 2019 defeat, the review concludes that the roots of the loss “stretch back over the last two decades”.

 

It advises the party now led by Keir Starmer not to be complacent about seats it currently holds, as many were retained with slim majorities and there are high levels of switching and tactical voting among them.

 

In chapters exploring Labour’s 2019 campaign, the review finds that the party was “unprepared for an election, with no clear message” and its media strategy “meant policies didn’t have time to land”.

 

Labour lost the online campaign, according to the report, while the Tory approach – making use of proxies, online forums and Facebook groups – lent itself well to organic shares and “distributed spin”.

 

The review comes out strongly in favour of community organising, though says it needs to be “integrated”, as well as opening up local parties and engaging more with volunteer networks.

 

“We need to make community organising central to what we do as a party and modernise our approach to doorstep canvassing by putting relationship-building at its heart,” it recommends.

 

It stresses that an overhaul of Labour’s digital tools is essential, saying: “Labour needs to invest in and upgrade its technological infrastructure and capacities and should adapt its working culture and structures to match.”

 

Work has also been done to identify a political strategy that could build a broad enough coalition of voters, offering a “big change economic agenda” and a “robust story of community and national pride”.

 

Commenting on the review, commissioner Ed Miliband said: “This report is not a counsel of gloom and despair for our party but a call for realism about the situation we face, a determination to learn lessons and change things.

 

“It is not a call either for minimalist politics. The next election will be a change election and Labour must be the agents of that change… We on this commission all believe in this transformative politics.”

 

Lucy Powell, also now a Labour frontbencher, added: “We shouldn’t make the mistake, which we often do, of thinking that having a new leader and Brexit being resolved will automatically change our electoral fortunes.

 

“Our disconnect goes further back and is deeper than that. This report provides an opportunity to build shared understanding and common objectives and to put infighting behind us.”

 

Commenting on the publication of the review tonight, a Labour Party spokesperson said: “We thank everyone who contributed to this independent report.

 

“Its attempt to understand the challenges and opportunities facing the Labour party is welcome and we will read it carefully. By harnessing our collective skills and energy we will build a party and a movement that wins again.”

[Neil G]

On 01/06/2020 at 10:42, Hank Moody said:

Well, that being your first sentence, we already have a big disagreement. I think it's a really big amount. I think it's fuckin' colossal, mate. 

 

I don't want to chop your post up and reply to each sentence, but to chop your post up and reply to your second sentence... I actually disagree. I think we do have to worry about deficit and debt whilst entering a recession. This particular recession is an interesting one, where nothing economic has really caused it. We stopped big parts of the economy so we could stay home (and avoid the virus, not for the fun of it). When things return to normal, the recovery will be swift and powerful. When making policy, we absolutely have to be concerned about the impact it has on the deficit. 
 

 

I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree for the time being on the deficit and public spending. In normal circumstances I’d be happy to write a mini essay on it but I don’t really have time to go into it at the moment. Homeschooling and otherwise entertaining a 5 year old is a constant slog, hence the time it’s been taking me to reply to anything longer than a paragraph. I’m sure it will become a major topic in the months to come, so we can revisit it then.

 

As for the speed of the recovery when it happens, I’m a lot more pessimistic than you are. The longer restrictions continue, in whatever form, the longer lasting the economic damage will be - more businesses will fold and more people will get into financial difficulties, making a consumer-led recovery more difficult. I don’t think we’re out of the woods with the pandemic by a long way, and unless the virus peters out Sars style I think a second wave in the UK is more likely than not. Given the damage to public infrastructure from a decade of austerity - the NHS, social care, local government - I don’t believe this country has the capacity to get a proper grip on the virus before we get either a vaccine or an effective antiviral treatment. I don’t see either of these becoming widely available until next year at the earliest, meaning I expect the economic disruption to continue until then at least.

 

On 01/06/2020 at 10:42, Hank Moody said:

 

That's a general comment about the effects of the virus, I agree with it. We will need to stimulate the economy in these times, and we do need to inject money into the economy to ensure the health of the economy whilst people are in lockdown and shit is hitting the fan. That is sound Keynesian economic theory. You're right, I agree, and we are on the same page. What it isn't is relevant to idea that Labour should be causing all hell in the media about paying people's rent. That's a different thing. That said, in an effort to shorten this post, I totally accept where you say that this is just one option and you don't favour it. So, for now at least, let's just say that on this point it's unpalatable to me and we might well disagree on the reason why. Let's look at things we are closer on. 

 

I don't have the idea that everyone is covered [EDIT: please read edit below]. I was responding to the comment about millions of people being homeless, which I think is pretty much without foundation. I don't agree that it is a plausible scenario. If it was the case, instead of taking issue with your comments about the way Labour have suggested a two year period of repayment, I'd be supporting your call for Labour to be up in arms, media blitz, etc, etc. I'm saying, and just to clarify my entire issue here, the problem you have laid out and the reaction you wanted to see to it is not as colossal as you are describing, therefore the criticism if the two year period and Labour's reaction isn't a particularly fair one in my view.

 

EDIT: I accept that not everyone is covered, at least immediately. Having re-read how I phrased it, it looked as if I was saying everybody falls into those categories. Although most will eventually, some aren't and I should have been clearer in my response, as in my mind I was referring to the millions of people homeless rather than being specific to everybody eligible. So I accept that not everybody is covered, and I'll talk about those in a second, but I'll clarify what I think about this particular issue. 

 

I don’t think millions of people will be made homeless. My original comment referred to “millions of people being made homeless or burdened with unsustainable debt”, meaning that millions of people would fall into one of those two categories, with the latter presumably outnumbering the former. I can see how my wording would make my prediction sound more grave than it actually is. Even so it’s still a very serious situation that demands more attention from Labour.

 

On 01/06/2020 at 10:42, Hank Moody said:

First off, covered is actually the wrong word. Covered can and usually does mean entirely. What I mean is that most people, not all but by-far enough to avoid millions of people homeless (which we absolutely will not see), have some enough coverage that will help them through the situation. I mean, 80% of wage isn't covered (unless the employer is adding the 20%). Housing benefit for private renters isn't fully covered. So they're not 'covered' exactly, but - and here's the clarity - the vast majority of people who were working and now have issues because of the situation fall into the '80% of wages or eligible for housing benefit' category and this is enough coverage to avoid millions of people becoming homeless. So the point being the issue you're describing isn't as catastrophic as you have laid it out to be. That's not to say it isn't a big enough issue to warrant government intervention... it absolutely is. This is where we agree. 

 

So, to condense it down, you criticised Labour for reacting weakly, saying there should be massive response and media blitz, etc. Where we end up with, really, is that it could - depending on the actual requirement - need extending. No media blitz, no catastrophe, no injection of small country's GDP to pay for rent, but a change of criticism to, 'it's on the right track but needs to do more to help'. Well, that's a much more palatable proposition to deal with. The question then becomes how much help do people actually require. I suggested that the bulk of this should be with the property owner who already has the option of a mortgage break that he should be forced to pass on to his occupants if they meet certain criteria (and I say that because if you've got hundreds of thousands in the bank then... fuck you, pay your rent). If there's need to go beyond that, and I can see cases where it is, then of course there should be help to avoid help. Coupled with not being allowed to evict people for a certain period, this should surely be enough to avoid both homelessness and too much financial hardship during the period it takes to get people back into work. 

 

I suspect that our disagreement is not going to end with what I said there, as the root of the disagreement seems to be how big the problem actually is. I want to see a solution that matches the scale of the problem, I think I just see the scale of that specific issue as smaller than you do. I'll happily change my view on the scale of the solution if there's something more concrete about the scale of the issue. As of now, it seems to me that the type of solution Labour have proposed looks reasonable, although I accept there's potentially room for adjustment on the time and size of the help required. 

 

As regards what an appropriate solution would be, I think an offer from the government to cover all rent arrears for any tenant who requests it, with repayments deferred until the economy has recovered and spread over a much longer period than two years, would be a much more practical approach than placing the onus on landlords. The latter will inevitably means-testing landlords to decide which ones are entitled to a mortgage holiday from their bank, which will be complex and have huge scope for error, inequity and disputes with tenants. I don’t have access to any figures on this, but I’ve seen numerous people online saying they’ve been refused relief from their mortgage payments. 

 

To reiterate though, any policy that guarantees landlords’ rent income shouldn’t be undertaken in isolation, but should be followed up with action making it easier for more people to buy their own homes and harder for landlords to charge excessive rent and provide a substandard service to tenants. Another subject that I could go into in great depth if I had more time.

 

The reason I think Labour needs to go big on this is that whatever it suggests, the government will inevitably implement something far less generous and effective as far as tenants are concerned. Labour’s opening gambit has to be ambitious in scope and has to be widely publicised and aggressively pursued, in order to generate the kind of public and media attention that pressures Tory governments to go further than they want to in helping people. I cited the case of the government dropping the surcharge for NHS migrant workers in my last post, and now we’ve got Marcus Rashford’s campaign to add to that. With the public losing trust in the government, the government crying foul at even the mildest of criticism from Labour and Labour’s poll ratings improving, Starmer has now got the political space to go on the offensive without being accused of opposition for its own sake. The case for caution and constructive support has collapsed, and I don’t see what Labour has to lose from upping the ante on this issue now.

[Neil G]

On 01/06/2020 at 09:48, Hank Moody said:

I'm not really talking about the party, fuck knows what state the membership is in at the moment; I'm talking about his position on the political spectrum. I think there is reason not to call him a centrist, at least if you base it on the political views he holds rather than internal Labour Party stuff following on from the Corbyn era. I think his views have probably become less radical since he was a member of young socialists, but he's still espousing the same sort of economic agenda now as he was then. He's clearly a socialist. He's not Corbyn - thank God - but he's also not Tony 'he's right wing, honest' Blair.

 

As an aside, and not in response to your or your post, I think the way we on the left poke at people not quite as left wing as we are is quite detrimental to the cause. If the centre or centre left, rather than the centre right and right, become the enemy to the left, then I've no business calling myself a left winger anymore. I know who my enemy is, it's Boris Johnson and the Conservative party. Beating them, even if it means pragmatism and doing what can win, rather than 100% perfection, is what's important to me right now. I think that's where Starmer is too. That's why, at least at the moment, he has my support. He certainly deserves time as nearly 60% of the party voted for him. 

 

One thing I will pick you up on is offering his comments about selling himself as proof of your suspicion that he's not committed to the pledges of the Corbyn era. Implying he was only saying it as a sales pitch. That, with the greatest respect to you as one of my favourite posters on this site, is horse shit. Those comments are about the leadership election where preceded the 'selling himself to the membership' comments with 'You're in your own party and you're up against colleagues, and very good colleagues, who you like. And it is a very odd thing to do. I'm very glad that that part of it is over I have to say', going on to say 'For me personally, I really hated selling myself to the membership and I much prefer leadership decisions as leader'. He's very obviously saying he didn't want to fight inside his own party, big himself up over his colleagues, and prefers leading the party. That's perfectly fine and normal reaction. He might well break his pledge about upholding Corbyn's agenda - how he breaks it and which parts he drops will be important to how I react to it - but those comments don't add to the case that he's more or less likely to. I think that's a dodgy conflation. As of now, he has pledged to keep those policy initiatives. That's where we are. 
 

 

“On the left of the party” refers to a positioning on the political spectrum using the leftmost members of the PLP as a reference point, i.e. views similar to Corbyn, McDonnell et al on taxation, public spending, public ownership and so on. You say that the policies Starmer has pledged to implement represent the political views he holds - I don’t think that can be assumed, because unlike Corbyn he doesn’t have any kind of history of actively promoting them.

 

I take the point that his comments about the leadership election refer to his dislike of going up against colleagues and trying to best them, rather than having to sell something he doesn’t believe in to the members, but I don’t think the link is misplaced. As I said at the time, I felt the phrase “hated selling myself to the membership” was a really odd thing to say if he was genuinely committed to the policies. Most people who believe sincerely in a progressive political agenda find advocating it to a receptive audience to be a positive experience, and in the context of a leadership election, just as in the initial selection to be an MP, wouldn’t have any qualms about doing it in a competitive setting. When Corbyn first ran for leader he ran a relentlessly positive and upbeat campaign, focusing on his beliefs and ideas, without ever feeling the need to criticise any of his opponents.

 

Look at it this way: if the Labour membership hadn’t been overwhelmingly left-leaning, or if we didn’t know what their ideological inclinations were, would Starmer have run on a left-wing platform so similar to Corbyn’s? I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s any evidence at all to support that assertion. He has no prior record that I’m aware of speaking up clearly in favour of any left-wing policy positions. While he was shadow Brexit secretary many of his shadow cabinet colleagues went on record championing left-wing policies like the Green New Deal, National Education Service, rail nationalisation etc, often when their briefs didn’t cover them. There was nothing to stop Starmer doing likewise but he never did. Likewise for his time as a backbencher and prior to being elected to Parliament. It’s absolutely fair to question just how strongly committed he is to the policies he’s pledged to uphold.

 

Don’t misunderstand me - I don’t think he’s some cynical con artist who’s knowingly pulled the wool over Labour members’ eyes and has always planned to renege on his promises as soon as he can get away with it. I think he’s a decent guy with genuine progressive instincts who wants a Labour government and believes that he’s someone who can deliver it and lead it. But I don’t believe he has any particular attachment to any ideological tendency or position within Labour, in the same way as lots of people on here say they just want a Labour government and don’t care what kind it is, as it’ll always be better than the Tories. I think he’s a hard-nosed pragmatist who’ll do whatever is necessary to achieve what he sees as a worthy goal, starting with getting himself elected party leader by tailoring his pitch to his audience. I think he’d be perfectly happy to commit to and deliver a left-wing programme for government, and he may well do that, in which case he’ll have my wholehearted backing. But if at any point he concludes that a left-wing platform is an impediment to winning an election and that he can ditch it without alienating the membership and splitting the party, then I’ve no doubt he’ll do it.

 

On 01/06/2020 at 09:48, Hank Moody said:

 

EDIT: I will, of course, reply to your other post - thanks for putting as much time into it as you did. Always a pleasure discussing these things with you. Believe it or not, it does cause me to take a step back and see if what I think is... erm... still what I think and if it's right. 

 

Yeah, likewise. See my previous post, most days my brain is fucked by the time I get my daughter to bed and it’s as much as I can manage to gawp at Twitter for a bit. Always happy to carry on a debate if you don’t mind it moving at the speed of postal chess.

[Neil G]

On 18/06/2020 at 10:05, Section_31 said:

Thing is though isn't that what we're trying to get away from? People getting fixated on how someone talks or wears a suit rather than how they run a party is what got the western world where it is today.

 

We live in a country where the prime minister got where he is because he doesn't brush his hair, and where people would "like to go for a pint" with Nigel Farage. 

 

I want politicians to be serious,  organised and intelligent people and get on with the job. Politicians should be like a spleen, you shouldn't notice them until you've got a bad one.

 

I'm not saying Starmer is the solution, I don't know yet either way, but people bemoaning him not being entertaining enough in a world where entertaining people have led us to ruin baffles me. 

We’re not asking for entertaining though, we’re asking for a bit of passion and conviction to sell bold policies to the electorate in the face of what will be massive and relentless opposition. If Starmer sticks to his pledges he’ll be running for election as one of the most left-wing PMs in the UK’s history. Even without Corbyn’s baggage that will incur a tsunami of hostility and disinformation from the Tories and the media. He’ll need more presence and enthusiasm to cut through and persuade voters that his policies are credible and that he believes in them.

 

Look at the three big instances in our lifetime of a progressive opposition leader ousting an ideological hard-right government: Blair, Clinton and Obama. As well as being telegenic they were all gifted orators and charismatic personalities who were able to sell an optimistic alternative vision for their country and take the voters with them. No matter that none of them ended up making any profound changes in office - voters didn’t assume that would be the case when they elected them. They still needed the strength of personality to forge a positive offer and capitalise on the public’s desire for change, rather than simply win as a safe pair of hands.

 

Attlee is often cited as an example of how a low-key leader can win on a radical platform, but it doesn’t hold up nowadays. Attlee didn’t have 24 hour news and social media to contend with, and besides the public already saw him as a credible PM thanks to his role in the war cabinet. Policy wise the public were ready for radical change from the left because of the profound sense of social solidarity created by the war. Short of a similarly earth-shaking national or global crisis that upends political and social conventions - and it’s far from certain that Covid will meet that threshold - it’ll take an extraordinary job of salesmanship from a Labour leader to persuade the public that a radical programme is necessary and possible and that a Labour government can deliver it without trashing the economy.

 

Right now I really can’t envisage Starmer in 2024 convincingly championing stuff like the Green New Deal and the biggest renationalisation programme since 1945. If he doesn’t rouse himself and show a bit more conviction voters are going to ask whether he really believes in the manifesto he’s espousing or whether he’s had it forced on him by the deluded fanatical Marxists that make up the Labour membership ((c) all mainstream media since 2015). That’s a serious credibility problem looming right there. If he does it then fair play to him, but at this moment I don’t see it.

 

On the other hand if he does water down the policies he risks not marking out enough difference between Labour and the Tories to enthuse swing voters, especially as the Greens, SNP and possibly the Lib Dems will seek to exploit the space to his left. He could always win by default if the Tories fuck up badly enough, but with the media squarely behind them and playing dirty it’ll have to be an absolute catastrophe to reach that level - worse than the poll tax, Black Wednesday or the current clusterfuck. And if he does win on a diluted platform he might make things better for a while but won’t embed long term change, and the next Tory government will dismantle all of his positive achievements just like this lot have done with Blair’s. 

[Numero Veinticinco]

21 minutes ago, Neil G said:

I think we’re going to have to agree to disagree for the time being on the deficit and public spending. In normal circumstances I’d be happy to write a mini essay on it but I don’t really have time to go into it at the moment. Homeschooling and otherwise entertaining a 5 year old is a constant slog, hence the time it’s been taking me to reply to anything longer than a paragraph. I’m sure it will become a major topic in the months to come, so we can revisit it then.

Nah, I totally understand about the pressure you must be under with having the little one at home all the time. I'm just glad mine is 17 now and it's less about homeschooling and more about playing games and watching stupid shit on the TV. I think you're right though, this - the economy and the recovery - is going to be a major topic over the next few months.

 

23 minutes ago, Neil G said:

As for the speed of the recovery when it happens, I’m a lot more pessimistic than you are.

That's fair enough; there's not a lot of reasons left in the world to be a glass-half-full optimist right now. My main concern when talking about the economy is still Brexit. I think the recovery from the downturn will be mixed into the entire Brexit thing. It's going to be an interesting time to look at political and economic systems in the coming few years. 

 

27 minutes ago, Neil G said:

As regards what an appropriate solution would be, I think an offer from the government to cover all rent arrears for any tenant who requests it, with repayments deferred until the economy has recovered and spread over a much longer period than two years, would be a much more practical approach than placing the onus on landlords. The latter will inevitably means-testing landlords to decide which ones are entitled to a mortgage holiday from their bank, which will be complex and have huge scope for error, inequity and disputes with tenants. I don’t have access to any figures on this, but I’ve seen numerous people online saying they’ve been refused relief from their mortgage payments. 

I still fall on the side of the burden being with the homeowner not the renter. The obstacles you've mentioned - and they are no doubt real obstacles - can be overcome and the government can back that and organise that along with the mortgage lenders. There is a large issue with the ability of people to last a few months without income though. That's something that badly needs addressing. I actually have a personal interest in this subject, and if you want I'll tell you about it via PM. Needless to say, I think we are both on the side of the tenant. It's the solution that we perhaps separate on. 

 

37 minutes ago, Neil G said:

With the public losing trust in the government, the government crying foul at even the mildest of criticism from Labour and Labour’s poll ratings improving, Starmer has now got the political space to go on the offensive without being accused of opposition for its own sake.

This I don't agree with. There's very little space at the moment. For me, there are two things Starmer can do at the moment. He can lose or he can not lose. There's no winning, there's just putting things into place over the next four years and slowly building, restructuring and rethinking policy, etc. I'm not saying let the Tories off unopposed, I'm saying Labour need to be smart in their opposition. I want Labour to avoid the mistake of becoming a mimic of the left wing support on twitter, most of whom are fucking morons who wouldn't know how to win an argument outside of their own self-affirming bubble. I don't want the opposition to be a party of well intentioned aggression that is seen as an endless drone. It's very easy to combat and very easy to ridicule, no matter how valid it is. Being correct isn't enough. I think he needs to come across as the adult in the room, not as a rowdy teenager throwing firecrackers, which is how it will be perceived if he doesn't chose his targets and his timing. Obviously your intention isn't for him to be a rowdy teen with firecrackers, I'm saying it's easy to turn it into that. In fact, the Tories have tried that tactic in PMQs a couple of times already. The only reason it hasn't worked is because he hasn't been reckless. Corbyn's Labour fell into that trap. They beat themselves half the time and made it easy to beat them the other half. It doesn't matter that Corbyn what right, not to the people outside of that bubble. This is very, very early days. He needs to continue building his credibility and not go 'on the offensive' in the wrong situations. 

 

47 minutes ago, Neil G said:

 

“On the left of the party” refers to a positioning on the political spectrum using the leftmost members of the PLP as a reference point, i.e. views similar to Corbyn, McDonnell et al on taxation, public spending, public ownership and so on. You say that the policies Starmer has pledged to implement represent the political views he holds - I don’t think that can be assumed, because unlike Corbyn he doesn’t have any kind of history of actively promoting them.

Did I say that? I don't think I did, assuming you're talking about the Corbyn policy pledge. I agree that it can't really be assumed because he's not a career politician like Corbyn. I don't think being a career politician is necessarily a bad thing, though it often is. What I'm saying is that just because he hasn't been a career politician, it doesn't make it a sound jump to suggest he's a centrist. I don't think there's much evidence to suggest he's a centrist - at least in the pejorative way used by the twitterati these days.

 

And anyway, it's okay to have some views left, some views, centre left, and some views central. Fuck, in some cases I've no issue with left wing politicians holding some specific traditionally right wing or conservative positions. I don't require every politician to be a tree hugging leftie on every single issue. For example, if a politician believes in liberal social policies, in socialist policies where there is reasonable human need - healthcare, education, welfare, etc - and democratic freedoms, then do I really care if they show a pragmatic side to interacting with the global community, for example on military funding or the now seemingly de rigueur abolitionist position on nuclear weapons? The answer is no. In fact, I encourage pragmatism. Although I argued with his interpretation of it in the coalition (as, in my view, it wasn't even close to being true in that case), I agree with Stronts that it's important to have a level of cooperation in (yuck...) 'grown up' politics. Labour has an election to win and 70 million people who have views that they'll need to represent at some point, or at least a majority of them. 

 

1 hour ago, Neil G said:

Look at it this way: if the Labour membership hadn’t been overwhelmingly left-leaning, or if we didn’t know what their ideological inclinations were, would Starmer have run on a left-wing platform so similar to Corbyn’s? I don’t think so. I don’t think there’s any evidence at all to support that assertion. He has no prior record that I’m aware of speaking up clearly in favour of any left-wing policy positions. While he was shadow Brexit secretary many of his shadow cabinet colleagues went on record championing left-wing policies like the Green New Deal, National Education Service, rail nationalisation etc, often when their briefs didn’t cover them. There was nothing to stop Starmer doing likewise but he never did. Likewise for his time as a backbencher and prior to being elected to Parliament. It’s absolutely fair to question just how strongly committed he is to the policies he’s pledged to uphold.

You're absolutely right with that last sentence, it's of course fair to question how strongly committed he is to them. What isn't fair, in my view, is to suggest he doesn't without evidence for it. That's why I raised that point, because I don't think you were simply questioning it you were offering it as evidence that he doesn't. That's an unfair thing to do, I think. 

 

Look, I totally accept your suspicious perspective on him. He has it all still to prove, right? That's totally reasonable, just as long as it doesn't slip into the erroneous view that just because you haven't seen him actively promote these views for years it's proof that he doesn't hold them or that it's a legitimate sign that he does not hold them. My main concern is that reasonable people aren't giving him a chance. One look on Twitter - surely the place we all go to look for reasonable views on... anything - shows that people are champing at the bit to stick it to him. These people? Not Tories or Lib Dems, but Labour supporters and lefties who are hell bent on every word of every policy being exactly as they want it, including grammar and punctuation, or the world can fucking burn. If he supports something they agree with, it wasn't soon enough. If he supports something similar but not exactly the same, it's because he's a a fucking bullshitting right winger. I hate to break it to them, but if he had wanted to be a Tory or a Lib Dem, they'd have fallen over themselves to take him. 

 

You ask the question about whether or not he would have offered left wing policies if he wasn't playing to the left wing base of the Labour Party. Well, I guess nobody knows but there's no real reason to think that other than paranoid suspicions. If those suspicions have basis, like not marrying with other views that he has had, then I'd totally get it. If Corbyn turned out for the Lib Dems and started espousing Orange Book views, you'd rightly call shenanigans, but Starmer? I just see no reason. 

 

Let's look at the claim regarding his history of sharing views and political positions, etc. See if there's anything corroborative. His first interview with with Tony Benn where Starmer said Labour needs to become 'the united party of the oppressed'. He's right, because you can't be a party for the oppressed if you're not united. You end up where Labour actually is, which is watching from the sidelines wishing they were in power so they could actually do something. We could look at what he said when he was originally elected in 2015, but couldn't an equally valid (or invalid) care be made that he was only saying those things because of anti-austerity was the name of the game at the time. Well, we could, but it seems that would also be without merit. Have a read of this article, and see if you get the same vibe that you currently get. This is an excerpt: 

Quote

 

His politics are continental but are not the “bland centrism” criticised by supporters of Long-Bailey. “He was very much what Europeans would now call a red-green,” said the QC Gavin Millar, who interviewed Starmer for his pupillage in 1987 and later shared rooms with him in a set of Middle Temple chambers run by Emlyn Hooson, the radical Liberal MP who had defended the Moors murderer Ian Brady. Growing up, Starmer had never knowingly met a lawyer: Geoffrey Robertson, another QC and pioneer of the progressive bar, described how he turned up for the interview in a cardigan, was “nervous and awkward”, and “looked about 14”. By then Starmer had moved into a flat above a brothel in Highgate, where he devoted himself to work. Stacked high about his room were boxes of Socialist Alternatives, an obscure and atrociously written Trotksyite pamphlet, for which he was once a co-editor. 

 

The coercive forces of the Thatcherite state were the main targets of his ire, most often the police. In one piece, written from the picket line of the anti-Murdoch, Wapping printers’ dispute, Starmer asked “the question of the role the police should play, if any, in civil society. Who are they protecting and from what?” 

 

He did not hide his politics at the bar. In 1990, Millar, Robertson and Starmer were among 30 barristers who left chambers in the Inns of Court and set up a new, radical practice on Doughty Street, north London. They wanted to break the establishment cartel and defeat the Thatcherite hegemony – unassailable in parliament – in the courts. “He was very interested in environmental politics: public order, protesting, and street campaigning,” Millar said. 

 

Critics say Starmer’s emphasis on his work representing trade unions and environmental campaigners is a selective telling of his legal career, but Millar disagrees: “He would take very, very left-wing positions quite happily in those days. The clients he represented were on the left… He was bona fide. The context tells you why: Thatcherism, the miners’ strike, industrial conflicts, cuts to public sector and welfare budgets. It was a terrible, terrible time. Our reason for being there was to fight it.”

 

Starmer agrees with Millar’s account. 

 

Is he still a red-green? “Yeah!” Then, as now, he was among those who believed that Labour could succeed only by uniting what Hilary Wainwright, the leftist sociologist and journalist, called the “fragments” of liberation movements (what would now be described as identity politics) with the traditional working class beyond parliament. Or, as Starmer later put it to Tony Benn in an interview for Socialist Alternatives, it needed to become “a united party of the oppressed”. 

 

 

 

[Numero Veinticinco]

I think the performance in the latest PMQs was the best to date. He made the Prime Minister look even more of a blustering idiot than normal. 

[Numero Veinticinco]

There seems to be a running trend where he says some figures, Johnson says they’re wrong, then Starmer holds up a price of paper saying they’re from the PM’s own briefings. Every fucking week Johnson seems to fall face first into it. 

[Mudface]

35 minutes ago, Numero said:

There seems to be a running trend where he says some figures, Johnson says they’re wrong, then Starmer holds up a price of paper saying they’re from the PM’s own briefings. Every fucking week Johnson seems to fall face first into it. 

Looks like he's too lazy to get properly briefed. Plus he's thick.

[Numero Veinticinco]

Just now, Mudface said:

Looks like he's too lazy to get properly briefed. Plus he's thick.

Probably being patted on the back for battering Starmer. Seems to live in a bit of a bubble of self-delusion. To be fair, he's got the job for years. He dongeeaferk. 

[mattyq]

Particularly enjoyed the last para of Crace's PMQ sketch in the Guardian

 

Too many more PMQs like this and something will start to give. And as Boris is incapable of change, then it can’t be long before his suitability for the job comes under scrutiny from his own party. It was probably always inevitable that the person who would ultimately destroy Boris was Boris himself. But Starmer is doing a great job of exposing his faults. There is a crack in everything. That’s how the light gets in

[Bjornebye]

Rebecca Long-Bailey sacked for retweeting an article by Maxine Peake. 

[skend04]

5 minutes ago, Bjornebye said:

Rebecca Long-Bailey sacked for retweeting an article by Maxine Peake. 

She should have checked what she was retweeting. After everything that's happened, why retweet something with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories? 

 

Had no choice, especially when they're asking for the likes of Jenrick to be sacked.

[Bjornebye]

2 minutes ago, skend04 said:

She should have checked what she was retweeting. After everything that's happened, why retweet something with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories? 

 

Had no choice, especially when they're asking for the likes of Jenrick to be sacked.

Agreed. Not seen much about Jenrick on BBC News today. 

[Neil G]

Jesus wept. Absolute clown shoes moment, what was she thinking. 

[Strontium]

Ballsy move from Starmer, contrast with Johnson refusing to sack anyone.

[Moctezuma]

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/maxine-peake-interview-labour-corbyn-keir-starmer-black-lives-matter-a9583206.html

 

“I don’t know how we escape that cycle that’s indoctrinated into us all,” continues the 45-year-old. “Well, we get rid of it when we get rid of capitalism as far as I’m concerned. That’s what it’s all about. The establishment has got to go. We’ve got to change it.” Born in Bolton to a lorry driver father and care worker mother, Peake is strident and expressive; if religion wasn’t anathema to her, she’d be perfect in the pulpit. “Systemic racism is a global issue,” she adds. “The tactics used by the police in America, kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, that was learnt from seminars with Israeli secret services.” (A spokesperson for the Israeli police has denied this, stating that “there is no tactic or protocol that calls to put pressure on the neck or airway”.)

[Moctezuma]

https://www.amnestyusa.org/with-whom-are-many-u-s-police-departments-training-with-a-chronic-human-rights-violator-israel/

 

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/palestinians-deadly-police-tactics-200611004902866.html

 

[Bjornebye]

7 minutes ago, Moctezuma said:

https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/maxine-peake-interview-labour-corbyn-keir-starmer-black-lives-matter-a9583206.html

 

“I don’t know how we escape that cycle that’s indoctrinated into us all,” continues the 45-year-old. “Well, we get rid of it when we get rid of capitalism as far as I’m concerned. That’s what it’s all about. The establishment has got to go. We’ve got to change it.” Born in Bolton to a lorry driver father and care worker mother, Peake is strident and expressive; if religion wasn’t anathema to her, she’d be perfect in the pulpit. “Systemic racism is a global issue,” she adds. “The tactics used by the police in America, kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, that was learnt from seminars with Israeli secret services.” (A spokesperson for the Israeli police has denied this, stating that “there is no tactic or protocol that calls to put pressure on the neck or airway”.)

She is obviously right re: antics adopted but still , badly timed. RBL should have known better than to retweet that. 

[Jairzinho]

What was the anti-semitic thing?

[Moctezuma]

I suppose the optics here are the interesting issue, though it does mean members of the Labour party (and particularly those on the left of the party) will have to be particularly careful with regards what they say about foreign policy and in particular the State of Israel.

 

I wonder if Starmer will bother to appoint anyone from that wing of the party to replace her in a sop to the base, I doubt it.

[Nelly-Szoboszlai]

I think that's me done. Membership to be cancelled ASAP. 

[Moctezuma]

2 minutes ago, Jairzinho said:

What was the anti-semitic thing?

The notion that police forces in the United States have been trained by IDF members/ ex-IDF members as to how to undertake choke holds.

[Bjornebye]

3 minutes ago, Jairzinho said:

What was the anti-semitic thing?

It mentioned Israel in a bad light. You can't do that. Even when they kill innocent people for nothing. 

[Neil G]

Just now, Nelly-Torres said:

I think that's me done. Membership to be cancelled ASAP. 

Exactly what the right want. Don’t do it. If all you ever do is vote in NEC elections you’re still making a difference. 

[Bjornebye]

5 minutes ago, Neil G said:

Exactly what the right want. Don’t do it. If all you ever do is vote in NEC elections you’re still making a difference. 

I think he was taking the piss mate.