dAVe80

Fair point. At some point though we're just going to have to deal with the fact that you can't have the press onside, and be a radical, transformative Labour government in the traditional way that we probably want to be. So at which point, we've probably got to say forget the press.

On a happier note, my colleague, and ex member of my local union committee won his seat, alongside the other two Labour candidate, including gaining a seat from the Lib Dems. So it was nice that I was able to help in 3 Labour victories.

He certainly fits the centrist bill (if centre left).

I really can't be chewed to sit and write tons, so here are a few thoughts on how Labour get back on track. Embrace the policies in the 2017 & 2019 manifestos. They are popular with the electorate, and offer the hope the apathetic and disenfranchised. At the same time they need to be realistic. They can't offer everything all at once. Trying to put 15 years worth of policies into the first 100 days of government isn't going to work. Pick the ones that can be delivered quickly, and help the most amount of people, and champion those. Champion working people. Talk them up. Offer them something. Reward their hard work. The obvious answer is to back pay rises. In the public sector, and private. Back a real living wage. Adopt the new deal for workers. Support unions. Support education staff when they tell you it's not safe to be in school. Oppose any bill that seeks to take away workers rights (and human rights ffs!). Oppose fire and rehire, and pedge to outlaw it. Look at the success the party has had, and learn from it, and adopt and scale the campaigns. Look to Wales, Salford and Preston. Take their ideas, and shout about them. Tell the country that there are alternatives and they work, and there's proof that they work. This is perhaps the one I'd personally maybe struggle with the most, and I'm still not sure about, but get a leader who sits in the middle ground. Doesn't necessarily have to be a populist, but Labour is going to need someone that can't be demonised in the press. Yeah they're not gonna get an easy ride, but it can't be anyone who's going to have skeletons (whether they're real or concocted). That leader is going to have to listen to and embrace the left. This means having Corbyn or McDonnell in the shadow cabinet (yes I know that contradicts the skeletons part). If they can do this, that means they bring the activists back, which means the army of door knockers, leaflet deliveres and champions who did so well in 2017.

Nah don't think so mate. Doesn't sound believable to me. There's not a magic money tree you know? Sounds like broadband communism to me. Etc.

Forgot Joni Mitchell.

Yeah probably the big soul voices. Aretha, Otis, Marvin, Curtis, Smokey, Al Green have been mentioned. Also Etta James, Ronnie Spector, Mavis Staples. Beach Boys harmonies are obviously great, and would probably single Carl Wilson out. Jeff Buckley is amazing. Junior Murvin and Jimmy Cliff are two voices that stand out. Also a big Phyllis Dillon fan. Probably missing some big favourites, and I'll probably come back and wonder how I missed them?

Well I've been and done some campaigning for a former colleague, and an ex memeber of my union, who is standing to be a councillor in County Durham. That's about as much as I can stomach to do at the moment. I contemplated going to Hartlepool, but the thought of bumping into Mandleson put me off.

I don't know about you, but what I really love doing is giving thousands of pounds to people to refurbish their houses. I never want anything in return, I just do it for the love of it. I especially enjoy it when I do it for people who hold massively influential offices, who are already multi millionaires in there own right. I definitely don't expect anything in return, I just love doing it.

Risky, but yeah I agree.

Number one rule of watching the cricket team you support, is to never acknowledge anything is happening at any point in the game.

They were bad mouthing Ian Lavery and Jon Trickett the other day on twitter, because they were in Hartlepool campaigning for Paul Williams. As if a two northern, Labour MPs aren't going to go and help out in a constituency 45 mins drive away, because their candidate is more socialist that Dr Paul. I mean I have misgivings about the party's candidate, but I understand the need to campaign for a Labour candidate, if you want to keep the seat away from the grasps of the Tories. The Northern Independence Party is beginning to ever so slightly get on my tits.

Massively tenuous claim to fame, but it was friend and comrade, James Doran who coined the phrase. I know that sounds mental, like claiming you invented the question mark, but it's true.

There are some major things happening in the trade union movement at the moment, and this would be the perfect opportunity for the leader of the UK Labour movement to embrace them and score some easy points... Not gonna happen though is it?

Definitely agree that it's not fully Starmer's fault. Essentially he's in the same position as Corbyn was, in so much as the Labour Party in the Tees Valley hasn't changed all that much, and Labour North is happy to go along with that. The difference is I feel he's quite happy to carry that on. I'm a doing disservice to all the hard working activists who have pushed to change it, but unfortunately have been met with a party machine that is doesn't want to change. From experience I can tell you how disheartening it is to go out and campaign for a local party that wants you to shut up, and stop going on about how things could be done better. A local party that actively wants to keep quiet about the national leader, and his policies, and didn't want to build on the success of 2017. Interesting you mention the Tory Mayor. Again this was just a disaster waiting to happen for Labour in the region, and the start of things to come. Since he got voted in, Labour have lost MPs, and councils over the region. He is absolutely going to win his position back, and this goes back to Labour North, and in this election the national party not wanting to promote candidates who want to do things differently. If they'd have put the effort into supporting Jessie Joe Jacobs in the way they have Dr Paul Williams in Hartlepool, then maybe she would have had a fighting chance. As it stands, he's on for a landslide.

A depressing but unsurprising poll. It says two things to me. People don't know who Starmer is, or what he or the Labour Party stand for anymore, and people support radical policies. On Teesside, Labour have taken their vote for granted for too long, and become increasingly out of touch. You may want to blame Corbyn for that, but as someone who is eligible to vote in a Tees Valley constituency, I'd say a larger issue is the way the local party and CLPs have been run. Labour North remained, and still does to a certain extent remain to the run by the right. Local councils were dominated and still are by local, long serving Blairites, and they have failed to get across the message that austerity and cuts were down to the Conservative governments. The local MPs and candidates have all mostly been rigtwing, or parachuted into the seats. What we're seeing now is years of Teessiders not being able to tell the difference, and austerity having the face of Labour. Labour didn't fight hard enough to keep their factories open, and to bring work to the region. What they saw was Labour politicians telling them keep voting for us, but nothing changing. That's why Brexit was so appealing. When you have nothing, and someone says things will change if you vote for us, that's an infinitely better message than vote for us, cus the alternative is worse. In my opinion Labour in the Tees Valley don't have to look far. Cast a gaze to Tyneside, and see what Jamie Driscoll is doing as the Labour Metro Mayor. Standing on a platform of transformation, and selling an alternative. Offering something different, and doing it from a left wing position. More of the same from Labour, or going back to watered down Tory Lite policies isn't going to cut it.

Still not sure why Reeves was sent out to tell people he was visiting a vaccine centre, if the same day he then comes out with this.

So Starmer goes to a church that practices gay conversation therapy, then Rachel Reeves goes on TV 3 days later and says he was just visiting a vaccine centre, then later that evening he puts out an apology. I mean isn't this kind of similar to what he sacked RLB for?

Yeah and ultimately I see myself a fairly Northern now (having moved north from Birmingham 20 plus years ago), but I'm still also a Brummie, which isn't the North. The idea of Northern independence isn't something that I've ever had a burning desire to see, although I suspect neither have a lot of the people involved. I think the reality is a lot of people have jumped on this as an FU to Starmer.

This Northern Independence Party seems to be getting a bit of buzz on left wing twitter. I can see the appeal as an alternative to a centrist Labour Party, and it is amusing to right wingers flapping, but ultimately as a socialist I can't see the merit in more division of the working class. My idea of socialism is one that helps all of the working class, not even just in the UK. Looking out for workibg people in Hackney and Hamilton, as much as in Hartlepool. Also as much as I still have inner turmoil over my Labour Party membership, I can only see this being a problem for them in the North, and ultimately cementing the Tories blue wall.

Anyone who has sat in CLP meetings with one of his prominent advisors would tell you they aren't 'politically happy' about anything in the party that isn't from the right. I mean so I hear...

The Parliamentary Labour Party. *sigh*

The drummer from Nirvana looks like a younger version of the singer from Foo Fighters. Not sure if I'm the only one who has ever noticed that?

Excuse me Sir, are you a doctor?