Rayvin

A lot of it is completely irrational, that's the problem. They're trying to stick the knife in because that's what they perceive happened to Corbyn. Many of the arguments they're throwing at Starmer qualify as fake news IMO. There's actually now a reasonable body of work that you can fairly criticise Starmer on, but the stuff they're going for is basically conspiracy theory twaddle.

I'm sorry like but "billion pound potential" from an energy drink? Maybe with his data arm, if that's set up under the same name, but I'm not exactly clear on what kind of data an energy drink manufacturer is able to get access to about their consumers that would be worth billions. He'll have paid the guy to come in and give him a PR story and almost certainly will have framed the 'billion pound potential' question along the lines of "We currently sell 10 sports drinks a year for £1 each. We plan to sell a billion + a year - do you agree that this would make us a £billion potential company?" "Yes, strange homeless man, that is basic maths. Now pay up my £10,000 per day 'consulting' fee".

It's hard to say I guess - they do still think of themselves as temporary residents in League 1, just beset each year by incompetence. But increasingly they're losing the players and status that such an argument relies on. I actually think the worst outcome for them in the short term would be promotion tbh - they'd soon realise just how far they've fallen.

What was he good at as a player? I can't really remember.

The other perplexing thing about this is what they think would happen if they did get the media attention they want? Somehow that would force the club into spending money or hiring a new manager or whatever it is they think the problem is? All it would do is remind people that they're a joke. The media are doing them a favour.

I mean they had a Netflix series documenting the whole fucking thing tbf.

1. Brexit 2. Happier Fish 3. ??? 4. Profit

I just mean it's a really pointless and divisive argument from their point of view that does neither side any favours whatsoever. I think Meenz is right about why it happens.

Damn, that's a weird one indeed.

As scary as that decision making process is, was he right?

I mean, she knew it was possible but gambled that it wouldn't happen before the vaccine came along. Now she's saying whatever seems vaguely plausible to avoid accountability for that decision. I guess you could call that incompetence, but I feel like cynical calculating and weighing human life against expenditure and effort would more exhaustively sum it up. As far as her bosses (and their objectives) are concerned, she's very competent, I'm sure.

I don't think they are morons really, I think the best way to refer to them now is 'differently informed'. They're now very politically aware compared to a few years ago, and therefore much less likely to pay attention to platitudes. And those who aren't informed probably couldn't even pick Starmer out of a line-up.

Maybe. And maybe it's standing in front of a flag. I doubt it though.

Abandoning the EU for one thing, but we all know my position on that and I'm aware of your views too. But he's going to have to offer them things for this to work - and I'd go so far as to say that they will have to be things of actual substance. This is what concerns me. I mean I guess there's a reality here where apart from betraying remainers, he does nothing else whatsoever to appease social conservatives - in which case fine, but the whole strategy is doomed to fail, making his displays rather pointless. Do you think these working class leave voters are going to vote for him just because he stands in front of the fucking flag?

Farage can do exactly what Starmer's trying and failing to do, would probably jump at it, and it would free Starmer up to actually stick to his guns on Labour values while granting Farage compromise concessions here and there which everyone would understand would be to bring about a system that isn't as fucking useless as FPTP. Everyone feels represented by their party and we all get the outcome we want. 4 million people voted for Farage's party before Brexit, he'd be a useful asset and he'd love the attention. It'd be sickening but this whole thing is sickening to me anyway - so I'd rather it actually worked if we have to go through it.

Agreed in terms of the facts, but not in terms of the narrative - and the narrative is now miles away from what reality is. We have consistently failed, under Brown, Miliband, Corbyn and very likely now Starmer, to be heard on economics. And the Tories are now outflanking us on it anyway. So I do get it, why Starmer is changing tack - but then economics can't and won't become the winning part of this argument. Starmer would in effect be asking people like us to ignore all of the bullshit he will bring about to appease the socially conservative voters, while at the same time asking us to vote to make their lives better (and it is them more than us who will benefit from a Labour government, economically). I just don't see it. I think Brexit killed that, honestly. The amount of contempt between the two groups is not going to permit that unity.

But that's it though, the economic angle isn't working - if it was, we wouldn't have had Brexit, Corbyn might have won, and Starmer wouldn't now be doing what he is. The whole paradigm of how to appeal to these voters has shifted, and again, he's going to have to unite internationalist, educated remainers with patriotic over everything, socially conservative leavers. I mean, how is he going to do that? I reckon it continues much like this for the next 3/4 years, we get to the election, there's a low turnout, he gets stuffed, resigns, and Labour accepts that it can't win those voters back and gets back to doing what it should be doing/gets into bed with whoever it has to to bring about PR which effectively becomes the only way to stop us being a one party state.

I really don't see many people on the left being ashamed of it, although there are certainly many who associate it with our imperial past and feel the need to point this out so that the atrocities committed by our empire don't fall from view. I will admit to being ashamed of the UK, in general, for Brexit. And Boris Johnson.

But how can we? Consensus around what? I really do think the ship has sailed - you're either going to get a jarringly right wing Labour party that, given where we were a year ago, effectively disillusions a lot of younger left wing and socially liberal people - or you get a Labour party that holds true to what it's meant to represent on the values side but can't win over the right wing working classes who will put their patriotic zeal ahead of every other consideration. It was the latter group that used to compromise, not us - they were in it for economic interests. Now that they've apparently decided this isn't their number one priority, how far to the right are Labour going to have to move to outdo or match the Tories on patriotism? Quite some way, by the sounds of it. Frankly, if Starmer is serious about this he should call for a return to the death penalty - that would get them on board. That's the kind of thing it'll need. But if he does that, if he goes that far, he sure as fuck isn't taking me and quite a good many others with him. In total fairness, I shouldn't have to vote for the same party as people who believe in this socially conservative vision of the country. And they shouldn't have to vote for things I believe either. And while the Tories are in power, these social conservatives have a better option than Labour to achieve their primary aims anyway. Why would they risk switching? They don't believe anything we say about how useless the Tories are anyway.

I've been in a meeting while this has been going on ffs, I skimmed the last 20 posts I see Renton has clarified anyway.

I don't think anyone is saying he's a wannabe populist, he doesn't have the fire in him for that - the problem is that he's falling over himself to win back socially conservative voters (Renton spot on with that characterisation) who were only allied with us as far as I can tell because of economics. But the divide between these social conservatives and the middle class liberals is wider than ever. It's not clear to me at all that Labour can carry both forward, some aspects of what they're trying to do are outright contradictory. Is there any evidence that this messaging is getting through to and persuading the voters he's targeting? If there is then he's right to do it, but he's risking losses on the other side of his now too big to function party. As I've said before, and as ewerk also said the other day, he needs to build alliances around getting us to a PR system. This would mean the pressure comes flying off Labour and it can disband. Farage would be a decent vehicle to ally with as he's far more likely to win over these red wall voters than Starmer is. And yeah I hate the thought of that too, but that's effectively who Starmer is trying to compete with here. There is no broad church anymore, it's a party that is trying to unite the most fervent remainers with the most fervent leavers. It's fucking doomed.

I don't feel shame about it, I just think it's disingenuous and transparent. Along with, I would add, most of the people it's supposed to appeal to.

We probably had a good opportunity to take forward a very positive vision of patriotism after 2012 and the olympics. I actually did feel proud of my country at that point, and the values associated with it (so, totally agree with NJS there). The problem is that we didn't really take that anywhere and I guess that was actually the peak moment for 'our ideals'. What we've missed from that point is that the Tories and the relentlessness of austerity have forced us into a murkier form of patriotism. And in part that's because no one is offering any believable hope for any great improvements to life. Everything is just shit, there's no way out of it, so people have chosen to be angry rather than constructive.

The far right have have been rattling on about how Labour needs to demonstrate patriotic values to become relevant again. In fact there's been a general movement from these sorts of people to congregate around the notion of patriotism in a stronger sense now that they're becoming disillusioned with the rich themselves. It's definitely pandering IMO. The red wall voters may not realise they're parroting far right talking points and chasing that rhetoric, but they often are.

I don't feel like I can comment on Starmer doing this stuff really as it just seems like I'm looking for faults given my politics - but I do basically agree with Renton on this in full. Having said that, maybe it's a winning strategy irrespective of what we think.