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Keir Starmer


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Does my head in the way the Corbyn crowd have seized ownership of the word 'socialist' when in actual fact a lot of what they talk about I'd file more under trendy metropolitan liberalism. 

 

Israel/Palestine, American foreign policy, Trident, ordinady working class Labour voters don't particularly give a fuck about any of it, they didn't under Michael Foot and they didn't under Corbyn.

 

RLB didn't get binned off for calling for an end to bedroom tax or for denouncing bankers or for calling for the NHS not to be privatised. 

 

Socialist policies in a Labour context as far as I'm concerned are about building social housing en masse, a strong state, well funded councils, a living wage, union jobs, and the private sector being drop kicked out of the education system and NHS - forever.

 

In Owen Jones and Canary world though, Corbyn, Milne and Lansman - who are about as working class as a Hurricane pilot - know more about what traditional working class labour voters want from their lives than Starmer, even though unlike them he went to a state school, because he must be an establishment stooge as he has pomade on his quiff and wasn't annointed by them as his successor.

 

Corbyn was an MP for years and never achieved anything of note politically, he just protested and rebelled. He was seemingly happy with that and fair play to him, but when the party itself begins to mirror that, it's of no help to anyone, especially the people it was supposedly trying to help.

 

The idea that "the left" has somehow been betrayed and clandestinely ousted by some shady conspiracy is embarrassing.

 

This is not 'the left' or 'socislism' just because you say comrade and 'in solidarity' at the end of letters and emails, it's Corbyn and people loyal to Corbyn who were firmly rejected by the British electorate, and then firmly rejected by the labour membership. 

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Section_31 said:

Does my head in the way the Corbyn crowd have seized ownership of the word 'socialist' when in actual fact a lot of what they talk about I'd file more under trendy metropolitan liberalism. 

 

Israel/Palestine, American foreign policy, Trident, ordinady working class Labour voters don't particularly give a fuck about any of it, they didn't under Michael Foot and they didn't under Corbyn.

 

RLB didn't get binned off for calling to an end to bedroom tax or for denouncing bankers or for calling for the NHS to be privatised. 

 

Socialism policies as far as I'm concerned are about building social housing en masse, a strong state, well funded councils, a living wage, union jobs, and the private sector being drop kicked out of the education system and NHS - forever.

 

In Owen Jones and Canary world though, Corbyn, Milne and Lansman - who are about as working class as a Hurricane pilot - know more about what traditional working class labour voters want from their lives than Starmer, even though unlike them he went to a state school, because he must be an establishment stooge as he has pomade on his quiff and wasn't annointed by them as his successor.

 

Corbyn was an MP for years and never achieved anything of note politically, he just protested and rebelled. He was seemingly happy with that and fair play to him, but when the party itself begins to mirror that, it's of no help to anyone, especially the people it was supposedly trying to help.

 

The idea that "the left" has somehow been betrayed and clandestinely ousted by some shady conspiracy is embarrassing.

 

This is not 'the left' or 'socislism', it's Corbyn and people loyal to Corbyn who were firmly rejected by the British electorate, and then firmly rejected by the labour membership. 

 

 

That’s exactly it, mate. Some of the shit I just read about the first line Starmer’s legacy being that he supported the Tories in the coronavirus policies and is jointly responsible for killing thousands of people. It’s a load of point scoring bollocks. I have mentioned that I hate that group of pricks. I used to wince at people calling it a cult, but they’re not far wrong some of them. It’s group think to the max on twitter. I bet half of them don’t know the difference between left and right. I bet they don’t really know what socialism actually is, half of them. It’s about proving yourself on twitter. 
 

 

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31 minutes ago, Section_31 said:

Does my head in the way the Corbyn crowd have seized ownership of the word 'socialist' when in actual fact a lot of what they talk about I'd file more under trendy metropolitan liberalism. 

 

The one thing I'm sure that it's not is any kind of liberalism. But the overriding point is correct, socialism (and Labour, historically) covers a much broader range of views than the Corbynite left.

 

I always chuckled when Corbyn and his faction was described as being "real Labour" and "Labour going back to its roots" because Labour has traditionally been led by more moderate (for want of a better word) people, and has never been a vehicle dominated by SWP types. It really showed a lack of the history of the party, which isn't surprising, because half of those people had only been in the party for five minutes.

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56 minutes ago, Strontium Dog™ said:

 

The one thing I'm sure that it's not is any kind of liberalism. But the overriding point is correct, socialism (and Labour, historically) covers a much broader range of views than the Corbynite left.

 

I always chuckled when Corbyn and his faction was described as being "real Labour" and "Labour going back to its roots" because Labour has traditionally been led by more moderate (for want of a better word) people, and has never been a vehicle dominated by SWP types. It really showed a lack of the history of the party, which isn't surprising, because half of those people had only been in the party for five minutes.

Hmmm really . A few of the top of my head.

 

Atlee, Bevan , Foot, Benn all against Britain joining europe.

 

Attlee Bevan, Foot, Benn all in favour of nationalisation of British assets.

 

Atlee, Bevan, Foot, Benn all in favour of mass  public spending on infrastructure. 

 

All four mentioned played a major role in shaping the then labour party.

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5 hours ago, Strontium Dog™ said:

It took me a few seconds to get that. Man, what happened to that guy, he just seemed to drop off the face of the earth.

Yeah, I had to look it up. Went from City to New York, then onto Phoenix, the retired last year. He’s now trying to become a circus performer whilst working as a waitress in a cocktail bar. Apparently. 

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3 hours ago, Numero said:

Yeah, I had to look it up. Went from City to New York, then onto Phoenix, the retired last year. He’s now trying to become a circus performer whilst working as a waitress in a cocktail bar. Apparently. 

Its Phil Oakey who put him where he is now and he can put him back down too.

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This Tory government is going to bring the country to its knees quite simply Labour has to win the next election or there will be two generations of the working class bypassed in a mirage of lies surrounding austerity,covid and Brexit. I don't really care about left middle right of the party all I know is whomever the leader at least the general thrust of the policies will be for the good of all. Look at the housing development scandal 45 million diverted away from local spending at the stroke of a pen that's how the Tories operate and it's there for all to see. There is one goal and that is to remove Tories from power whatever has to be done to achieve that needs to happen.  

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10 hours ago, Strontium Dog™ said:

 

The one thing I'm sure that it's not is any kind of liberalism. But the overriding point is correct, socialism (and Labour, historically) covers a much broader range of views than the Corbynite left.

 

I always chuckled when Corbyn and his faction was described as being "real Labour" and "Labour going back to its roots" because Labour has traditionally been led by more moderate (for want of a better word) people, and has never been a vehicle dominated by SWP types. It really showed a lack of the history of the party, which isn't surprising, because half of those people had only been in the party for five minutes.

It's always been a broad movement with "moderate" leadership (with room for lefties in the Cabinet/Shadow Cabinet) and a much wider range of views among the rest of the party.  From the mid-nineties, the leadership moved to the right and became less tolerant of dissent; anyone who believed in stuff like workers' rights and public ownership of essential services were driven out of the party.  "Corbyn and his faction" returned the party to a broader, pre-Blair state and made it attractive to hundreds of thousands of new members; people who (to borrow a phrase from all the whiny, pearl-clutching Guardianistas on Twitter) had been "politically homeless".

 

Labour under Corbyn was never "dominated by SWP types".  That's a convenient fiction.  People from across the spectrum were invited to join the Shadow Cabinet.  The party was, at the top level, hamstrung by sulky twats from the ancien regime who either took their bat and ball home and refused to work for the good of the party, or cunts in HQ who actively worked against the party.

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12 minutes ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

This is what Labour needs - someone prepared to fuck workers off and help the Tories force kids to school before it's safe.

 

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/sir-keir-starmer-urged-replace-175154981.html

 

Bit late for rando yahoo articles talking bullshit, the replacement has been picked. 

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I've only ever been to two Labour conferences, both under sufferance. 

 

The first was under Brown's leadership and there were the likes of Ed Balls, an economics expert talking about stuff like how the country could harness post war economics as an alternative to austerity.

 

The second was under corbyn. There were loads of old white blokes outside waving Palestinian flags and Eddie Izzard was walking around the lobby in high heels. There was nobody recognisable giving speeches either, MPs had been banished to some kind of naughty step and the vibe was very much that they were there to do what they were told and speak when they were spoken to, most of the speeches were by delegates, random council staff from Trafford and the likes, talking about solidarity with kashmir.

 

Both myself and everyone else I know who are members of a clp (three different ones between us) have largely the same experience. You 'get told' what the clp has voted for, if you go and raise an unpopular view you get shouted down. If you email and ask why you weren't invited to an important vote (I was never told when they'd be meeting to vote for their preferred party leadership candidate, for example) you don't get a response. If you complain about this to region or the national party, you don't get a response. 

 

During the election working for a Labour MP I was writing pamphlets and posters and making it up as I went along as there was nobody above you delivering any kind of strategy or support. It was every man for themselves.

 

The people around corbyn focused their election efforts on stuff that would make the news, such as trying to oust high profile tory MPs even though they had no chance of winning, rather than concentrating any resources on areas where labour could actually win or retain a seat.

 

Crucially, and this is where I was well and trying finished with the corbyn project. There was talk about a year ago about replacing him as leader (with his agreement) with someone that might have a better chance of winning, as it was felt that due to all the Brexit shit that an election was coming (probably this year). The people who suggested this were allies of his but who wanted to see a labour government.

 

But the people in his immediate circle convinced him to stay, knowing that he couldn't win. We went into the election knowing we'd lose, everything was about fighting your own fires with no support from above. It was a disgrace.

 

A lot of pople latched onto the corbyn project because it gave them some power and influence. They rocked up to meetings in caps and Che Guevara t shirts with banjos autographed by Jeremy and told elected MPs "just remember who you're working for". They were the type of people we've all met, the type of people who berate the work experience kids for having 'no common sense' and claimed to have been from the University of life. But they didn't know shit about shit. They just said solidarity a lot, blagged their way into council committees for a few extra grand a year and tried to bully anyone that stood in their way. 

 

I'm not saying these are representative of everyone who joined under corbyn, but in my experience they're the ones who've wielded the influence.

 

Needless to say, these are not firm foundations for acquiring power and forming a government. But many of them didn't care, and as a pragmatist who simply doesn't want to live under a tory government into his 50s and fucking 60s, that's unforgivable.

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I think the Socialist Campaign Group is going to start becoming a bit of an issue in the coming months. Over the last few years, they’ve basically been running the show so haven’t had much campaigning to do, but now they’re on the outside looking in once again, it will be interesting to see how they act having had that time in the hot seat. So far it seems like they have made warnings and demands. Corbyn, Abbott, McDonnell, Long-Bailey, Burgon, et al have had their run at it. Not from a political spectrum perspective, but as individuals. They’re not the only socialists in the world, and it’s completely possibly to be bad at your job and/or make mistakes whilst also being a socialist. It’s an internal battle that Starmer is going to have to win pretty quickly. 

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16 minutes ago, Numero said:

I think the Socialist Campaign Group is going to start becoming a bit of an issue in the coming months. Over the last few years, they’ve basically been running the show so haven’t had much campaigning to do, but now they’re on the outside looking in once again, it will be interesting to see how they act having had that time in the hot seat. So far it seems like they have made warnings and demands. Corbyn, Abbott, McDonnell, Long-Bailey, Burgon, et al have had their run at it. Not from a political spectrum perspective, but as individuals. They’re not the only socialists in the world, and it’s completely possibly to be bad at your job and/or make mistakes whilst also being a socialist. It’s an internal battle that Starmer is going to have to win pretty quickly. 

You don't need trophies to be a winner but he is a winner

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