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Keir Starmer


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6 minutes ago, Bruce Spanner said:


The problem isn’t the candidate it’s the party.

 

You’re never going to please all the people. A clean break was needed, for the larger electorate, from Corbyn and the myths, lies and sad truths associated with him, but you’re never going to satisfy his support as nobody will ever be as good as him as he’s a projection of their ideals. They won’t accept Reeves, Cooper, Burnham or any other ‘neoliberal shills’ as they’re too hackneyed to see the bigger picture.

 

Same goes for the others they will never concede that there is groundswell for progressive policies within the membership, that needs to be much better at actually spelling it out in a grown up way and not sixth form posturing.

 

The bigger problem is in the decimation at the last election reducing the talent pool significantly at the same time momentum pushed their successfully elected MP’s who are in the main young, naive and green.

 

Just an all round embarrassment.

Well, yes and no. 

Starmer or whoever else is never going to carry the crazies with them but to be a good Leader you have to fucking lead. 

Fight this shit Government and come up with good policies that the majority of the Party and the Country can get behind and support. Be bold, be brave and spend the next 3 years persuading the electorate that you have a plan to take us out of this mess.

It's not easy but it's not impossible either. We're only experiencing the start of Brexit at the moment; it will get a lot worse. The country is going to be badly fucked and a decent Opposition leader should be able to capitalise but they need to offer positive reasons for people to get out and vote for them

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Quote

After late night talks with union bosses, the Guardian understands Starmer will agree to retain the one-member one-vote system but has proposed dramatically increasing the threshold for future leadership candidates to get on the ballot.

Candidates would need 25% of MPs to nominate them to reach the ballot that goes to members.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/sep/25/starmer-ditches-key-part-of-plan-to-change-labour-leader-selection-rules

 

Not content with trying to fuck things up one way, he tries another route.

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8 minutes ago, mattyq said:

Well, yes and no. 

Starmer or whoever else is never going to carry the crazies with them but to be a good Leader you have to fucking lead. 

Fight this shit Government and come up with good policies that the majority of the Party and the Country can get behind and support. Be bold, be brave and spend the next 3 years persuading the electorate that you have a plan to take us out of this mess.

It's not easy but it's not impossible either. We're only experiencing the start of Brexit at the moment; it will get a lot worse. The country is going to be badly fucked and a decent Opposition leader should be able to capitalise but they need to offer positive reasons for people to get out and vote for them


You’ll find no argument he’s been tragically useless and has not led from the front.

 

Too many gaffs, too many niceties where he should be vicious and too many opportunities missed.

 

The biggest problem he had is in his desire to not be seen as a fence sitter and abstaining on the withdrawal agreement, he’s boxed himself in to a corner and has no political capital on the biggest political area, stupid move and he’ll never be able to get ‘we only voted for it because a bad deal is better than no deal’ as the public don’t have the attention span to actually listen to that rationale.
 

Just bad politics from day one and a party that isn’t looking out for each other and it’s own.

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29 minutes ago, Captain Howdy said:

I never said it was anti Semitic I said it was stupid and it’s stupid because it invites the accusation which is the last thing the left need right now. The left as you know have a slightly dodgy reputation with the Jewish community. For a left wing cartoonist to then portray a person of Jewish descent as a rat, a comparison infamously created by the Geobbels propaganda films is very, very stupid. Does this really need explaining? 

If anyone sees a cartoon of Peter Mandelson doing the thing he's been specialising in doing all his career and their first thought is "Jew", then they need to take a long look at themselves. There's nothing anti-Semitic about that cartoon.

 

What the false accusations of racism are intended to do (and, let's be honest, Stronts's allegation about this cartoon is false and he knows it) is suppress legitimate criticism. It's the electric fence effect: once one or two cows have been shocked, you can turn the fence off, because the rest of the herd will be too scared to go near it. These accusations of anti-Semitism are only used to protect some Jewish people from criticism: Socialist Jews are, of course, fair game for being lied about and hounded out of the party.

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1 hour ago, AngryOfTuebrook said:

If anyone sees a cartoon of Peter Mandelson doing the thing he's been specialising in doing all his career and their first thought is "Jew", then they need to take a long look at themselves. There's nothing anti-Semitic about that cartoon.

 

What the false accusations of racism are intended to do (and, let's be honest, Stronts's allegation about this cartoon is false and he knows it) is suppress legitimate criticism. It's the electric fence effect: once one or two cows have been shocked, you can turn the fence off, because the rest of the herd will be too scared to go near it. These accusations of anti-Semitism are only used to protect some Jewish people from criticism: Socialist Jews are, of course, fair game for being lied about and hounded out of the party.

None of this addresses my point that it was stupid, you’re arguing about whether it’s anti Semitic or not and to be perfectly honest that isn’t for you or me to decide. Surely only a person of Jewish descent can decide that. That’s how it works isn’t it? If you honestly are not even slightly uneasy at a person of Jewish descent being caricatured as a rat then I’m happy to leave it there because I’ve certainly no more to add and to be perfectly honest racism is a subject I avoid like the plague. I think the cartoonist was stupid, that’s me done.

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10 minutes ago, Captain Howdy said:

None of this addresses my point that it was stupid, you’re arguing about whether it’s anti Semitic or not and to be perfectly honest that isn’t for you or me to decide. Surely only a person of Jewish descent can decide that. That’s how it works isn’t it? If you honestly are not even slightly uneasy at a person of Jewish descent being caricatured as a rat then I’m happy to leave it there because I’ve certainly no more to add and to be perfectly honest racism is a subject I avoid like the plague. I think the cartoonist was stupid, that’s me done.

OK. I'll address your point.

It's not stupid, because there is literally no reason not to depict Mandelson as the rat from Ratatouille; the only people who would accuse you of racism for doing so are lying cunts who would accuse you of racism irrespective of what you do, so you cannot allow your freedom of speech to be restricted by their dishonest and hypocritical attempts to suppress it.

 

You don't have to be Jewish to see that that cartoon is obviously not racist. You need to be a bit dodgy to only see "a Jew" being depicted as"a rat".

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1 minute ago, AngryOfTuebrook said:

OK. I'll address your point.

It's not stupid, because there is literally no reason not to depict Mandelson as the rat from Ratatouille; the only people who would accuse you of racism for doing so are lying cunts who would accuse you of racism irrespective of what you do, so you cannot allow your freedom of speech to be restricted by their dishonest and hypocritical attempts to suppress it.

Ok, as ever we disagree and well leave it there. 

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2 hours ago, Bruce Spanner said:


The problem isn’t the candidate it’s the party.

 

You’re never going to please all the people. A clean break was needed, for the larger electorate, from Corbyn and the myths, lies and sad truths associated with him, but you’re never going to satisfy his support as nobody will ever be as good as him as he’s a projection of their ideals. They won’t accept Reeves, Cooper, Burnham or any other ‘neoliberal shills’ as they’re too hackneyed to see the bigger picture.

 

Same goes for the others they will never concede that there is groundswell for progressive policies within the membership, that needs to be much better at actually spelling it out in a grown up way and not sixth form posturing.

 

The bigger problem is in the decimation at the last election reducing the talent pool significantly at the same time momentum pushed their successfully elected MP’s who are in the main young, naive and green.

 

Just an all round embarrassment.

 

My wife’s grandmother, 80 odd years old, life long member and activist is working with a group of others trying to deselect their candidate as he’s ‘not like Jeremy’ that’s represented up and down the land and frankly it’s fucking absurd. 
 

There’s having ownership and then there’s having entitlement.

You keep banging this ' The left only want Corbyn back ' drum , Bruce , but the great majority like myself were attracted by his ideas and zeal and are quite clear about his failings as leader. Starmer got 275k votes and I am sure there were a lot of lefties like myself who are amongst that number and feel a bit miffed being blamed for a war that Starmer has started in complete contravention of his election promises. And 'sixth form politics' seems to be a new one  from the stable of 'woke' as a cliched way of stifling debate.

 

I am not a member any more but would be wary of Cooper and Reeves because of previous words and actions which suggest they would plough exactly the same furrow as Starmer albeit less clumsily , but if they were elected and they simply set out a radical agenda and played fair with all sides of the party I would be happy to judge them on that.

 

Putting Corbyn's politics to one side I have never heard a single person of any persuasion suggest he is not a tireless and impressive constituency mp , and maybe your wife's nan feels she and her neighbours deserve that level of representation. She sounds ace.

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55 minutes ago, sir roger said:

You keep banging this ' The left only want Corbyn back ' drum , Bruce , but the great majority like myself were attracted by his ideas and zeal and are quite clear about his failings as leader. Starmer got 275k votes and I am sure there were a lot of lefties like myself who are amongst that number and feel a bit miffed being blamed for a war that Starmer has started in complete contravention of his election promises. And 'sixth form politics' seems to be a new one  from the stable of 'woke' as a cliched way of stifling debate.

 

I am not a member any more but would be wary of Cooper and Reeves because of previous words and actions which suggest they would plough exactly the same furrow as Starmer albeit less clumsily , but if they were elected and they simply set out a radical agenda and played fair with all sides of the party I would be happy to judge them on that.

 

Putting Corbyn's politics to one side I have never heard a single person of any persuasion suggest he is not a tireless and impressive constituency mp , and maybe your wife's nan feels she and her neighbours deserve that level of representation. She sounds ace.

Agreed. 

Corbyn was a part of it,partly because he was light years away from that indentikit estate agent look politician but also because he actually seemed a like a decent man,unlike like that utter cunt in no 10 now.

But also because for the 1st time in years they seemed utterly different to the Tories. Nationalisation, going after millionaires evading tax,looking after the less well off,even free broadband. I'd support any labour leader who pushed those sort of policies. 

Starmer promised to unite the party and all he has done from day 1 is to do everything in this power to drive the left out, while, unforgiveably imo,letting those cunts get away with murder.

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2 hours ago, sir roger said:

You keep banging this ' The left only want Corbyn back ' drum , Bruce , but the great majority like myself were attracted by his ideas and zeal and are quite clear about his failings as leader. Starmer got 275k votes and I am sure there were a lot of lefties like myself who are amongst that number and feel a bit miffed being blamed for a war that Starmer has started in complete contravention of his election promises. And 'sixth form politics' seems to be a new one  from the stable of 'woke' as a cliched way of stifling debate.

 

I am not a member any more but would be wary of Cooper and Reeves because of previous words and actions which suggest they would plough exactly the same furrow as Starmer albeit less clumsily , but if they were elected and they simply set out a radical agenda and played fair with all sides of the party I would be happy to judge them on that.

 

Putting Corbyn's politics to one side I have never heard a single person of any persuasion suggest he is not a tireless and impressive constituency mp , and maybe your wife's nan feels she and her neighbours deserve that level of representation. She sounds ace.


So all or nothing then, Rog?

 

Thats the whole point.

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4 minutes ago, sir roger said:

If you don't think a Labour party should be looking at a radical agenda after Brexit / Covid / 10 years of Tory government , what is the point of a Labour party ?

What is a radical agenda, Rog? 

 

Corbyn didn't put one forward. Nor should he have done so, as very few people in the UK want one. 

 

He put forward centre left politics. Bog standard stuff seen all over Europe from other centre left parties. I'd quite like Starmer to do something similar. 

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17 minutes ago, sir roger said:

If you don't think a Labour party should be looking at a radical agenda after Brexit / Covid / 10 years of Tory government , what is the point of a Labour party ?


Given that the country is ravaged, practically on its knees and globally isolated I’d opt for a sensible, worker/family focused system that made everyone pay their fair share of taxation and be part of the collective rebuild, nowt radical about that.

 

Corbyn wasn’t even radical, he was just further left than most had been used to and he/it was rejected, twice.

 

The sixth form bit is not being able to see that and pining for a world and patch work, contradictory ideological system that isn’t realistic in the current world.

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Just now, sir roger said:

Possibly slightly better than the Tories then , Keir will be happy.


Not really as they have decimated the country and destroyed the lives of families and individuals through punitive cuts while enriching their friends and paymasters. 

 

Im not seeing anybody echoing those ideas, in fact quite the opposite, but hey-ho.

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14 minutes ago, Jairzinho said:

What is a radical agenda, Rog? 

 

Corbyn didn't put one forward. Nor should he have done so, as very few people in the UK want one. 

 

He put forward centre left politics. Bog standard stuff seen all over Europe from other centre left parties. I'd quite like Starmer to do something similar. 

Seemed pretty radical ( with a small r )  in this country at the time when practically everybody else is / was happy just looking after themselves.

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Just now, sir roger said:

Seemed pretty radical ( with a small r )  in this country at the time when practically everybody else is / was happy just looking after themselves.

Calling it radical makes people think it is. 

 

It was a terrible error from Corbyn's team, for me. 

 

It should have been pointed out how fucking normal it was all over Europe. That "radical" is what the other party was putting forward. 

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4 minutes ago, Bruce Spanner said:


Not really as they have decimated the country and destroyed the lives of families and individuals through punitive cuts while enriching their friends and paymasters. 

 

Im not seeing anybody echoing those ideas, in fact quite the opposite, but hey-ho.

Just a pity when Keir had the chance to oppose it he abstained on the austerity bill ( along with Reeves and Mortimer )

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