darrenm

Difficult to argue against this

32 minutes ago, bickster said:

Begs the question what Labour's vision of a second referendum would actually have been considering the absolute vast majority of it's membership was Remain which brings us full circle to.... one member one vote

Yeah totally. When Starmer said that the Conference crowd went wild because by that time Labour members were massively remainers. 

39 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

Debbie does Dallas, deep throat

there's a website called hamster with an x at the beginning that has a great collection of classics all named 'among the greatest'

2 hours ago, blandy said:

Please take this as a compliment, I may be mistaken, but I seem to recall that in these various bolitics threads you've been a supporter of all kinds of different political figures and parties - even your own at one point? - It's a compliment because it shows you're free thinking rather than tribal - but the flip side is that it kind of shows that putting big faith in politicians to be "the answer" is (IMO) not particularly likely to end in anything other than disillusionment.

It's kind of one of the reasons I look at competence more than ideology - ideology always clashes with reality at some point, and then you're let down, or feel foolish. Brexit would be an example - loads of people now have "buyers remorse" that the ideology of a free Britain actually means all kinds of bad stuff happening.

It's like that post @HanoiVillanwrote when a twitter of Gordon Brown proclaiming all the good things Labour did was posted - "yeah but what about the war and this and that and the other..." - I mean he's right, but show me a perfect politician.

Personally I think it's too soon to see how Labour emerges from its slump of the past however long it is, or if it emerges at all. The pandemic and Brexit in particular have just completely changed things in the past few years, politically. The world isn't as it was, and it will never be the same again. Labour has to adapt to how things actually are, not kind of go back to old historical tenets. Big task.

Yeah I agree with all of that. I think the answer I was looking for was for the question 'how do we finally topple these bastards?' and it seemed to me to be the popular policies of 2017 with a different leader who didn't have as many targets on their back. I don't need a hero, I just want someone honest, straight and who will finally beat Manchester United err the Tories

38 minutes ago, bickster said:

Every time I see the line that Starmer was responsible for Labour's policy on Brexit, my mind instantly flashes back to that time at conference when he stormed out of the composite meeting for the Brexit policy motions and wouldn't speak to anyone.  He was clearly enraged but sensible enough not to go public with his anger. There were stories in the paper in the following days about a bit of a stitch up at the composite as I recall

Apparently he wasn't allowed to say that remain would be an option in a 2nd referendum under Labour. But did anyway. Which went down like cold sick in certain leave voting areas in 2019. Which ultimately got him the job as leader. So I guess he was right to say it, in the end.

12 minutes ago, Jareth said:

Not feeling that - a lot of Corbyn supporters / members voted Starmer in - if there is mutiny in the air it's not because the party is being led by someone they reject outright.

I was one of Starmer's biggest fans. I got right behind his leadership campaign because I thought I could trust him. I now can't stand him because he's made a fool out of me. 

24 minutes ago, mjmooney said:

Never heard of it, let alone seen it. 

If you have Netflix, please watch it. One of my favourite ever shows. It's python type humour if you like that kind of thing.

15 minutes ago, bickster said:

What source? They're all shouting down each others earholes. SIennas source, is evolve, who got it from skwark who heard a canary sing it whilst unzipping Aaron bastani's underpants. It's the very definition of a self-afirming echo chamber

It's like a bunch of ITK in the summer transfer thread

It seems to be taken seriously enough for a few MPs to become animated. You wouldn't think John McDonnell (follows me!) would tweet about it if there wasn't some substance. Perhaps it's just people getting excited about nothing. Guess we'll see.

1 minute ago, bickster said:

yuh thunk?

You think they want to be taken seriously?

 

Yes. But this isn't really about the source, it'd being reported in various places.

Is there anyone out there who hasn't seen Norsemen yet?

1 hour ago, Davkaus said:

We've not heard the phrase "enemy of the people" for a while, but that appears to fit the bill.

I've never heard of Evolve Politics, do they have a track record?

Evolve are pretty good. Not crank like Skwawkbox or Canary. Bit like Novara; definitely left but trying to build a reputation as serious.

This is being reported in lots of places though, Evolve was just the last place I saw it.

Back to normal

So Keir is looking ripe for a leadership challenge. Better make sure that those pesky members don't get to decide and get the MPs to choose the next leader instead because 200 people living in the Westminster bubble is definitely more representative of the country than 300,000 people from all walks of life.

2 hours ago, troon_villan said:

Ramsey for Buendia and you have your starting line up.

Ramsey is good but he's not quite Buendia level yet.

              Martinez

Cash.  Konsa.  Mings.  Targett

               Douglas

       Buendia.     McGinn

Bailey.       Ings.       Watkins

What a team

20 minutes ago, blandy said:

I thought the Labour Party elected Starmer. I thought all the candidates played on their unifying nature, I thought RLB was the favoured choice of the Corbynites. I’ve seen lots of Corbynites slagging off Starmer for not being “pure” (their version of left wing) enough.

I've showed the maths here before. Starmer said he would carry on Corbyn's policies while being more centrally acceptable. The Corbynites are slagging him off now for lying. The irony is, all he has to do is make a single positive comment about Corbyn and the highly excitable left will get back behind him.

6 hours ago, markavfc40 said:

We didn't realise what we had did we. I suppose Gordon Brown wouldn't be acceptable to many within Labour though would he.

 

Absolutely he would

1 hour ago, blandy said:

Well exactly.

These days half of them put "purity" over actually getting elected and doing anything.

The Corbynites elected Keir Starmer because he said he was the unity candidate.

2 hours ago, markavfc40 said:

This thread is a great example of the issues Labour have isn't it. Plenty of people posting who have voted for Labour at one time or another but couldn't bring themselves to vote for Corbyn's Labour or now won't be able to bring themselves to vote for Starmers Labour.

I don't know if Tories have this issue do they or at least not to the same extent Labour do. They'll come together when it matters and vote for any old Tory as long as it means they don't end up with a Labour government.

I have got to be honest I'll vote for Labour in any guise if that is the best chance of getting rid of the Tories. If not I'll go to the polling station with the sole intention of voting for the party/candidate most likely to beat the Tories, so long as the party they represent isn't more right wing. 

It is long past time that those within the Labour party, or who have been part of the Labour party, put any internal differences aside and focused their energy fully on getting rid of the Tories. Pipe dream I suppose. 

I'm nothing to do with the Labour Party now so I like to think I'm an outside observer. I joined in 2015 in my first foray into politics and by 2020 had done a 'yikes!' about turn after I saw how bonkers and brutal the internal war is. From my point of view there's one faction comprised of about 20 MPs who are genuinely not interested in anything for themselves. They represent about 50% of the membership. It used to be about 75% of the membership until recently. They're the ones who were in charge 2015-2019. The majority of the rest of the MPs and those now in charge are career politicians who didn't like their gravy train being taken away and being exposed as vacuous weathervanes without much in the way of a moral compass. A lot of those did everything they could to sabotage the party's chances of winning in 2017 and when they had a shock about how close it was they redoubled their efforts for 2019. It's all in the book Left Out (which I haven't read but want to)

It's easy to do a "stop fighting you two I'll bang your heads together" but from my point of view one side was just trying to get on with fixing things and their major fault was they were too naive and didn't take the chance to solidify their power when they could. But I'm sure someone who doesn't like that faction will be along in a minute to see it from the opposite view. So that'll probably prove your point.

3 minutes ago, blandy said:

Wow. You seem to have jumped something there. I don't for a moment think I've stated or assumed any such thing. The only thing I have said is that essentially liking anti-semitic (or borderline) face hole posts, by a self proclaimed political nerd, and intensive social media user might not have been a very bright idea (or whatever it was I wrote - but that was the gist of it).

I'm sorry mate but this is your standard 'they should have thought about that before they did it' response

"That bloke who was moaning above about being thrown out - maybe he shouldn't have liked posts saying Starmer was a "tool of the Zionists" and so on?"

no-one's defending the comment about Starmer being a 'tool of the Zionists' was right or wrong, I'm saying that you assuming he even knows what the 'thumbs up' button on Facebook does or means shows you appraising him through your own understanding of how things work. It pays not to do that because you just end up siloed with a closed mind. 

27 minutes ago, blandy said:

Are you just saying some people are dumb?

Yeah. While I'm not saying that's what happened in this case, you can't take social media 'likes' as evidence of anything. Because a lot of people just don't know what they mean. To a lot of non IT literate people, they mean 'I acknowledge receipt of someone talking to me'. To even IT literate people, they just press like on stuff out of habit. I thought the heart symbol on Twitter meant 'save this for future reading' so didn't ever press like on anything for 5 years because I didn't need to bookmark anything. If you don't mind me saying, assuming that you know how much understanding people of all stages of life or IT social media literacy have is a little bit bigoted. It's a bit ignorant refusing to acknowledge anything outside of your understanding. I learnt a long time ago in customer facing tech support that all kinds of people have all kinds of understanding and use things in different ways. Therefore 'likes' on Facebook might mean to you and me and most people 'I've read this and agree with it', to a lot of people it won't. Or perhaps I give people too much benefit of doubt.

2 hours ago, blandy said:

It's been like that since wossisname, Ed Milliband, left the leadership and Corbz the absolute boy was made leader.

That bloke who was moaning above about being thrown out - maybe he shouldn't have liked posts saying Starmer was a "tool of the Zionists" and so on?

18 minutes ago, bickster said:

Yep, the whole Liked doesn't mean I liked it argument its pretty much as dumb as you get. I like every post on my timeline, what even the one's you don't like?

Would he like a post that said... "That's why I vote Tory" hmmm.... or "It's the fault of black people"... hmmmm.... but "Zionist Conspiracy Theory"... yep I'll like them all day every day even though I don't agree just because they are my mates and I don't want to offend them. 

I'm going to hazard a guess that you two guys have never worked in IT support.

2 minutes ago, darrenm said:

Modern versions which I think are much better are We're The Millers and Vacation. Rat Race is still great though. I've also got a bit of a fondness for Eurotrip. Possibly because they nail British football culture.

And if we're talking about trashy but funny American comedies, I think these are great:

Just Go With It

Blended

Along Came Polly

Forgetting Sarah Marshall

50 First Dates

The Wedding Singer

1 hour ago, Seat68 said:

I have seen Rat Race about 10 times. Its one of those films the entire household quotes, and if it was on tonight I think all of us would agree to watch it. Its not great and I have no clue why it has so much love in this house, but it continues to do so. Coincidentally as does Road Trip and Dude wheres my car. The latter don't come close to the affection Rat Race gets. 

Modern versions which I think are much better are We're The Millers and Vacation. Rat Race is still great though. I've also got a bit of a fondness for Eurotrip. Possibly because they nail British football culture.

1 hour ago, bickster said:

Unless his head actually exploded I'm not interested. He's about as trustworthy as a Palestinian firework

As is rightly completely up to you. But you either think he's lying and taking it as far as willing to lie in court, or you think that Starmer is as trustworthy as that firework and you might be doing McCluskey a disservice here. It's either of those really.

Pretty explosive stuff from McCluskey.

He's not happy with Starmer for breaking their deal about readmitting Corbyn.

I know he's got a book to sell but he states that everything that he describes here will be what he says in Corbyn's court case so it's going to be the truth.

If so, lying seems to be a pattern of behaviour for Starmer.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/13/keir-starmer-jeremy-corbyn-suspension

Quote

"When Starmer took over, I hoped for good relations between us. To begin with, that’s how they were. Contrary to what might be expected, I spoke to Starmer far more than I ever did Jeremy Corbyn. But that all changed after Starmer’s destructive decision to suspend his predecessor from the party in October last year."