Politics

[Renton 17744]

I hope it doesn't come to it, and it would be ridiculous if it did, but for me Burnham has been the politician to come out of the pandemic with the most credit. If only we had got him rather than Corbyn the political landscape would have been so different now. I guess he would have to be parachuted in to a safe seat either through natural attrition or through a deliberate resignation. Not even sure he would do it tbh. Only other one I can see as plausible is Cooper, because surely Rayner would be fucked too.

 

BTW, I personally didn't give a shit about the birthday cake if that's all Johnson did, but we know it wasn't. It was breaking your own rules and more importantly lying to parliament. Starmer did neither of them. 

[NJS 3977]

Burnham, Cooper and the rest lost to Corbyn because their "manifestos" for the leadership election were absolute dogshit - no underlying principles or vision. 

 

I do agree that Burnham looks competent though. 

[spongebob toonpants 3598]

Wes Streeting is the best media performer by far in my book. Haven't seen as much of him in the Commons to know how he would perform there

[Renton 17744]

48 minutes ago, NJS said:

Burnham, Cooper and the rest lost to Corbyn because their "manifestos" for the leadership election were absolute dogshit - no underlying principles or vision. 

 

I do agree that Burnham looks competent though. 

Or the labour membership was hijacked by £3 a go Corbyn idealists who haven't got a clue about real politics. 

[Alex 30372]

1 minute ago, Renton said:

Or the labour membership was hijacked by £3 a go Corbyn idealists who haven't got a clue about real politics. 

Twitter is still full of the cunts, still claiming he won the argument, was hard done to etc. They hate Starmer a lot more than they hate Johnson and prefer idealism to being in power. Even f I agreed with them about Corbyn I’d like to think I’d be able to recognise it’s time to move on 

[spongebob toonpants 3598]

I was delighted Corbyn won, I still think his was the best set of policies we've seen in a manifesto in a very long time, but I am more than willing to admit he was a disaster as a leader.

The anti semitism, his vacuum regarding Brexit and his overall complete ineptness as a politician were sickeningly bad

[spongebob toonpants 3598]

Also Starmer will obviously resign if he is fined so I've  no idea why he doesn't just get ahead of thr game and say it

[NJS 3977]

I still feel a bit sorry for Corbyn on brexit - he had to try and keep both sides onside - going either way full on would have cost him either way. Maybe the 2017 respect the result view would have been better electorally. 

Edited May 8, 2022 by NJS

[Toonpack 6844]

3 hours ago, NJS said:

I still feel a bit sorry for Corbyn on brexit - he had to try and keep both sides onside - going either way full on would have cost him either way. Maybe the 2017 respect the result view would have been better electorally. 

He was a brexiteer, and he couldn’t even demonstrate that properly, he was/is fucking hopeless.

 

The Corbyn cult and their interminable sniping are the best friends the Tories have.

[PaddockLad 14578]

5 hours ago, ewerk said:

Aye, you can’t make a massive deal out of wanting the PM to resign for receiving a FPN then not do the same yourself. Labour look to have played it incredibly badly but on the face of it it doesn’t seem like they’ve done much wrong legally.

The usual suspects pushing it,  presumably to deflect attention from the tories getting their arses handed to them on a plate in the local elections.  

 

6 hours ago, Alex said:

If he gets a fine I think he’ll have to go. It’s plausible the memo didn’t represent what took place, rather that it was just a rough plan. If that’s the only evidence would it be enough? Needs to be sorted out quickly one way or the other though. 

Somebody on Twitter suggested it was a Covid risk assessment, which to me would completely exonerate him. Also being pointed out  Starmer’s wife and interior decorator weren’t at the shindig at the Labour Party office in Durham

[spongebob toonpants 3598]

18 minutes ago, Toonpack said:

 

 

The Corbyn cult and their interminable sniping are the best friends the Tories have.

By the same token the "Boris" ultras in the Tory party will hopefully have the same effect

[Dr Gloom 19806]

6 hours ago, Alex said:

If he gets a fine I think he’ll have to go. It’s plausible the memo didn’t represent what took place, rather that it was just a rough plan. If that’s the only evidence would it be enough? Needs to be sorted out quickly one way or the other though. 

If fined, he resigns as any principled leader should, making Johnson look all the more pathetic for clinging on and allowing Nandy to replace him, whose no nonsense northernness helps Labour win back the red wall in the process. Boom  

[Gemmill 34413]

Nandy was the shout last time and she remains the shout this time. One day the world will catch up with my speed of thought. Doesn't look like happening anytime soon. 

[Renton 17744]

I like Nandy, I really do, but I just can't see her as a leader. I think she'd do well in red wall seats but very poorly in blue wall. Once again, you do more damage to the tories by hitting them there. I think Rayner is similar. Cooper is the only female who has enough gravitas to pull it off, but obviously won't appeal to the usual suspects. Starmer is by far the best option imo, labour losing him would do more damage to them than the tories losing Johnson. I very much hope it doesn't come to this. 

[Rayvin 4964]

If the "usual suspects" are "the left" I'm not sure who Starmer appeals to that Cooper doesn't. Don't think the anti-Blairite left like him any more than they like her given his lies to them. Him going and Cooper coming in might actually provide the chance for a clean slate for winning some of them back while still remaining on target.

 

I'm also having a hard time imagining she'd be grovelling to the Brexiteers to the same degree as he has. In fact I'm having a hard time imagining she would have put up with anywhere near as much of Johnson's shit as Starmer has.

 

Starmer is a very poor answer to the predicament we find ourselves in, honestly. His entire platform is based on just letting Johnson hang himself. I sincerely hope he has something more beyond that but I doubt there's anything that will cement a new Labour dynasty.

 

While I don't agree with her on everything, last time she was on the ballot for leader I was going to back Cooper until swayed by Labour's pathetic and dismal support of austerity forced me to Corbyn.

[Isegrim 8870]

13 hours ago, Gemmill said:

Nandy was the shout last time and she remains the shout this time. One day the world will catch up with my speed of thought. Doesn't look like happening anytime soon. 

Gemmill is the ASM and of the thinking people.

[Renton 17744]

6 hours ago, Rayvin said:

If the "usual suspects" are "the left" I'm not sure who Starmer appeals to that Cooper doesn't. Don't think the anti-Blairite left like him any more than they like her given his lies to them. Him going and Cooper coming in might actually provide the chance for a clean slate for winning some of them back while still remaining on target.

 

I'm also having a hard time imagining she'd be grovelling to the Brexiteers to the same degree as he has. In fact I'm having a hard time imagining she would have put up with anywhere near as much of Johnson's shit as Starmer has.

 

Starmer is a very poor answer to the predicament we find ourselves in, honestly. His entire platform is based on just letting Johnson hang himself. I sincerely hope he has something more beyond that but I doubt there's anything that will cement a new Labour dynasty.

 

While I don't agree with her on everything, last time she was on the ballot for leader I was going to back Cooper until swayed by Labour's pathetic and dismal support of austerity forced me to Corbyn.

 

I think you're being way too hard on Starmer and judging him too early.way before we hit a GE which imo he's keeping his powder dry for. Also think its bizarre you don't give him credit for a huge reversal in the polls and the council election results, as if that would happen anyway. If you don't already, I'd recommend you listen to the 'Oh God, what now?' Podcast with Ian Dunt and many others. They had Kinnock on this week (another leader I feel was unjustly regarded) who gives some good insight into Starmer. Changing things round after the absolute disaster Corbyn left (unarguably the worst position since the 1930s) was always going to be hard in one term, yet Starmer is on course to doing it anyway, in 2 years.  Not good enough, apparently.

Edited May 9, 2022 by Renton

[Rayvin 4964]

I think the times are stranger than the leader is meaningful and I'd have a very hard time believing otherwise. Labour were nowhere near the Tories until around Christmas when one of the various scandals to have flared up under Johnson, maybe it was the start of partygate, flared up. That suddenly surged Labour forward.

 

The only credit you could possibly give Starmer for that is that he hadn't managed to fuck his party the same way Johnson had. Except now we discover, unjustly or otherwise, that he's caught up in the same nonsense.

 

Go back to before partygate and Labour were a solid 6 to 8 points behind. Johnson is the one who is deciding the next election, not Starmer. He's barely even said anything man, what is it you think he's actually done other than keeping his head down?

[spongebob toonpants 3598]

There's a reason "Oppositions don't win elections Governments lose them" is such an oft quoted maxim. Starmer is far from my ideal politician and he's a personality vacuum but he's doing exactly what he needs to do

[Rayvin 4964]

I'm not saying he isn't, but I am saying that what he has done could have been done by literally anyone and that giving him credit for it is premature. I am gravely concerned that when he actually has to win on his own, he's going to reveal that there is no underlying substance to his platform.

[ewerk 26282]

3 minutes ago, Rayvin said:

I am gravely concerned that when he actually has to win on his own, he's going to reveal that there is no underlying substance to his platform.

 

Johnson got a massive majority with zero substance to his platform. What we're gambling on now is personalities. Competence vs a clown. If we expect the current cost of living crisis to continue until 2024 with a chancellor who is refusing to help the public then Labour's steady as she goes strategy might work. There's little to be gained from announcing election policies at this point.

[Renton 17744]

15 minutes ago, Rayvin said:

I think the times are stranger than the leader is meaningful and I'd have a very hard time believing otherwise. Labour were nowhere near the Tories until around Christmas when one of the various scandals to have flared up under Johnson, maybe it was the start of partygate, flared up. That suddenly surged Labour forward.

 

The only credit you could possibly give Starmer for that is that he hadn't managed to fuck his party the same way Johnson had. Except now we discover, unjustly or otherwise, that he's caught up in the same nonsense.

 

Go back to before partygate and Labour were a solid 6 to 8 points behind. Johnson is the one who is deciding the next election, not Starmer. He's barely even said anything man, what is it you think he's actually done other than keeping his head down?

 

What do you want him to do? Release a manifesto possibly 2 years early, and let the tories hijack it? I know you want him to commit to rejoining the EU or the CU/SM, and I'm sure that he would prsonally love to. But he will have a team of advisors who know far more than me or you telling him he can't do this and win power. Winning power is ALL that matters. 

[Renton 17744]

11 minutes ago, spongebob toonpants said:

There's a reason "Oppositions don't win elections Governments lose them" is such an oft quoted maxim. Starmer is far from my ideal politician and he's a personality vacuum but he's doing exactly what he needs to do

 

How is he a personality vaccum? His biography is actually pretty interesting imo. He doesn't have stupid hair, he doesn't bumble and talk absolute shite, he doesn't try to appeal to appeal to every lowest denominator, he doesn't constantly lie and people say "that's Keir being Keir", he isn't an upper class arse clart who people want to doff their caps and pull their forelocks to,  and he doesn't have a working relationship with the tory press (probably the most important point). I don't want a populist PM, I only want a competent one with integrity. He fits the bill for me. 

[Rayvin 4964]

Just now, Renton said:

 

What do you want him to do? Release a manifesto possibly 2 years early, and let the tories hijack it? I know you want him to commit to rejoining the EU or the CU/SM, and I'm sure that he would prsonally love to. But he will have a team of advisors who know far more than me or you telling him he can't do this and win power. Winning power is ALL that matters. 

 

No, I'm asking you, what has he done that makes you think he's such a good leader? I think we all agree here on the facts of this - He's done basically nothing and Johnson has hung himself, but that this is a correct way of playing it. What has he said or done that makes you think he'll set Labour up for a decade plus in power? Which is what we need btw, 5 years before a more competent Tory leader reorganises their party and beats him at his own game (not hard to do when you consider all the economic mess that Labour will have to sort out and get blamed for) isn't the sort of answer we need to this.

 

Starmer should be entirely about making it so that the Tories never get power again. Electoral reform, press standards, safeguarding institutions, maybe even a constitution. He will do none of these things because he is somehow delusional enough to imagine that if he wins this GE, it will be because Labour were attractive rather than the Tories were horrific.

[Renton 17744]

1 minute ago, Rayvin said:

 

No, I'm asking you, what has he done that makes you think he's such a good leader? I think we all agree here on the facts of this - He's done basically nothing and Johnson has hung himself, but that this is a correct way of playing it. What has he said or done that makes you think he'll set Labour up for a decade plus in power? Which is what we need btw, 5 years before a more competent Tory leader reorganises their party and beats him at his own game (not hard to do when you consider all the economic mess that Labour will have to sort out and get blamed for) isn't the sort of answer we need to this.

 

Starmer should be entirely about making it so that the Tories never get power again. Electoral reform, press standards, safeguarding institutions, maybe even a constitution. He will do none of these things because he is somehow delusional enough to imagine that if he wins this GE, it will be because Labour were attractive rather than the Tories were horrific.

 

Fair enough, you want revolution rather than evolution. Ideally I do too, but how? We all agree for instance that we need constitutional reform and PR going forward, but with 80% of the unions opposing this (fuck knows why) and the tory press and Glooms fair and unbiased MSM on the case, can you see it happening from where we are now? Step one has to be to achieve power, I'll worrry about the next 10 years after that has been achieved.