The Chairman Mao resembling, Monarchy hating, threat to Britain, Labour Party thread

[darrenm]

Just now, magnkarl said:

So let me get this straight. JC goes on Press TV, gets paid for it, stands next to a rabid TV presenter who advocates death to gay people, sharia law, destroying Israel etc, yet it's Starmer being on a fairly common, albeit click-baity UK radio show that makes you react? 

Could you ever imagine Corbyn going on LBC with Nick Ferrari (who was actually a Press TV presenter) and nodding along with someone describing the great replacement theory while *he was leader*? I can't see it happening.

Yep, Corbyn's got a very mixed past with his previous activism because he obviously never expected to be anything more than a lefty back bencher. Once you're leader and you're trying to become Prime Minister, there's a different requirement of how you act.

[magnkarl]

5 minutes ago, darrenm said:

Could you ever imagine Corbyn going on LBC with Nick Ferrari (who was actually a Press TV presenter) and nodding along with someone describing the great replacement theory while *he was leader*? I can't see it happening.

Yep, Corbyn's got a very mixed past with his previous activism because he obviously never expected to be anything more than a lefty back bencher. Once you're leader and you're trying to become Prime Minister, there's a different requirement of how you act.

Ah, it's okay to take money from Iran's propaganda-mistry because you're not going to become Prime Minister.

Funny how you judge Nick Ferrari for his gig on Press TV. Do you label this activism as well?

Edited December 14, 2020 by magnkarl

[bickster]

Do you win people over by preaching to the converted?

[darrenm]

Just now, magnkarl said:

Ah, it's okay to take money from Iran's propaganda-mistry because you're not going to become Prime Minister.

Funny how you judge Nick Ferrari for his gig on Press TV. 

I think you've completely missed the point. As I said:

This is about how you handle yourself as HM's official leader of the opposition. Whoever Jeremy Corbyn met previously is irrelevant to what he did as LOTO. The same with Starmer.

Starmer, while LOTO, is co-presenting a radio show with an objective racist and not calling out white supremacy by a caller.

Perhaps he just needs more unconscious bias training? Or perhaps he was too slow to realise what she was saying. He probably needs to clarify it though.

[blandy]

2 hours ago, HanoiVillan said:

My personal view is that the 'any other leader would be 20 points ahead!' stuff was stupid, bad faith nonsense when Corbyn was leader

I won't take umbrage. I said something along similar lines I believed it then and still believe it. I didn't say it in bad faith, nor from stupidity.

My logic was that the Government at the time was the worst one we've had in my lifetime, making a mess of essentially everything and that any decent opposition ought to be miles ahead in the polls coming up to an election after more than a decade and a half, of austerity and all the rest. If you're going to get a change of governing party, the oppo generally has to be well ahead in the polls come election time, it's almost unheard of for a party to win, from opposition, where they are behind going into an election.

What's happened since the election is a climb back towards level pegging. I'd hope for more, hope Starmer would have done more, been a bit clearer about some stuff, hope the Corbynites would keep quieter rather than starting Starmer Out twitterstorms and such like, but... no surprises really.

Labour is still struggling against the dominant Brexit and Covid stories. Starmer's been better than Bunter on Covid, by a mile. On Brexit, Labour's still not got a coherent story. "we left" is fine and a good start - a kind of "move on, it's over", but beyond that it doesn't seem clear what they have to offer on it.

The other stuff - policies n' that they need to have their conferences and so on to endorse the ones supporting Starmer's pledges, which to me seemed mostly good. Personally I think criticism of him or Labour for "abandoning" this or that is premature.

 

[OutByEaster?]

When are we likely to get policy documents? I'm not sure when the party conferences are scheduled in, but I think it's something that's particularly important for Labour.

I'd agree with the above, I think it's premature to judge Starmer before he has a chance to actually lay out what he believes in and the policies he wants to put into action - but he really could do with starting to do that - there's a vacuum of things that he's clear he believes in and it's natural for people to start filling in those gaps with the way he appears and the actions he's currently taking - at the moment, neither of those things inspires anything but a sort of Blairy/Cameron response, that's where his personality and his responses to things leave you feeling his beliefs are - an actual policy document could be the making of him, but he should understand that he does need a making.

 

 

[bickster]

37 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

When are we likely to get policy documents? I'm not sure when the party conferences are scheduled in, but I think it's something that's particularly important for Labour.

In 2022/23 maybe. A lot can change between now and then

Even on Brexit, no-one has a clue what is going to happen (we can guess the shit show) but enough to have actual policy on it's effects, I don't actually think its possible

[OutByEaster?]

2 minutes ago, bickster said:

In 2022/23 maybe. A lot can change between now and then

Including Starmer I'd guess. 

I think a man that looks and sounds (and perhaps acts) quite so much like a traditional neo-liberal politician really needs something that gives a clear indication that he believes in something, that there are policies there that are worth voting for that can back him up, some substance. At the moment he's being judged on how he's acting and how he appears, and he acts and appears like exactly the sort of thing people have stopped voting for.

 

 

[ml1dch]

7 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

At the moment he's being judged on how he's acting and how he appears, and he acts and appears like exactly the sort of thing people have stopped voting for.

Dunno about that. The US election suggests that there is suddenly a bit more of a marketplace for "dull centrist who isn't going to drive the country off a cliff".

The post-Brexit, post-covid wasteland might yield similar results.

[blandy]

54 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

When are we likely to get policy documents? I'm not sure when the party conferences are scheduled in, but I think it's something that's particularly important for Labour.

I saw a thing on twitter saying March, (I think) -  something about How Starmer and Angela whatever her name is (Rainer?) Deputy, anyway are about to start setting out a vision of some such - an alternative to what the tories are doing. I think the tweet was from Isabel hardman id you want to go look - I can't access twitters from work

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

I won't take umbrage. I said something along similar lines I believed it then and still believe it. I didn't say it in bad faith, nor from stupidity.

I'm not calling you stupid, because you aren't, but intelligent people can believe stupid things, and that was a stupid thing to believe. It is exceptionally hard to see how a party that was clearly divided on implementing a referendum result could possibly be 20 points ahead of a party that was clear in the need to implement that result. If you actually stop and think about that, there is just no way that would ever happen.

20 point leads are also really quite rare for either party (for obvious reasons). You would have to go back to before the 2005 election, and probably closer to the 2001 election, to find a 20 point lead for Labour in a poll, and even then the average lead would be significantly lower. How could they possibly have recreated the politics of 2001 in the wake of a lost referendum?

[blandy]

8 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

It is exceptionally hard to see how a party that was clearly divided on implementing a referendum result could possibly be 20 points ahead of a party that was clear in the need to implement that result. If you actually stop and think about that, there is just no way that would ever happen.

That was my point. I dunno how many times I said that Corbyn was and would be divisive for Labour, that he was the wrong person to be leader because of (among many flaws) his divisiveness. Labour (ideally) shouldn't have been split and divided (and yes the other side of Labour was also to blame). I predicted (and it's not exactly Nostradamus levels of insight) that what did happen would happen. That with him as leader Labour could not and would not win.

It absolutely was not a stupid thing to believe that a Labour party that wanted or would be going to form  the next government should have been romping it against the worst government in memory. That the actual Labour party was nowhere near that poll lead is an indictment of its leadership, it's feuding MPs and factional membership - it was a shambles. Corbyn's leadership was a major part of why it was such a shambles. It was utterly predictable. It was not a stupid thing to believe, it was a correct assessment (IMO, natch).

[HanoiVillan]

12 minutes ago, blandy said:

That was my point. I dunno how many times I said that Corbyn was and would be divisive for Labour, that he was the wrong person to be leader because of (among many flaws) his divisiveness. Labour (ideally) shouldn't have been split and divided (and yes the other side of Labour was also to blame). I predicted (and it's not exactly Nostradamus levels of insight) that what did happen would happen. That with him as leader Labour could not and would not win.

It absolutely was not a stupid thing to believe that a Labour party that wanted or would be going to form  the next government should have been romping it against the worst government in memory. That the actual Labour party was nowhere near that poll lead is an indictment of its leadership, it's feuding MPs and factional membership - it was a shambles. Corbyn's leadership was a major part of why it was such a shambles. It was utterly predictable. It was not a stupid thing to believe, it was a correct assessment (IMO, natch).

Even if Jeremy Corbyn had literally never been born, Labour would not have been *20 points ahead* in the circumstance of having been associated with the losing side of a national referendum and then publicly disagreeing about whether to implement the result or not. The party was truly and utterly divided about whether to leave or not, and you cannot airbrush that from history or pretend that if Jeremy Corbyn wasn't leader, those divisions would magically not have appeared.

Nothing in my argument requires you to believe that Jeremy Corbyn was a good leader; you can even believe he was the worst party leader in political history if you want. The point is that no leader could be *20 points ahead* in the wake of losing a referendum and then their party being split on whether to implement the result. I cannot think of a single example, anywhere in world political history, of a situation that you are proposing as a 'correct assessment'.

[blandy]

3 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Even if Jeremy Corbyn had literally never been born, Labour would not have been *20 points ahead* in the circumstance of having been associated with the losing side of a national referendum and then publicly disagreeing about whether to implement the result or not. The party was truly and utterly divided about whether to leave or not, and you cannot airbrush that from history or pretend that if Jeremy Corbyn wasn't leader, those divisions would magically not have appeared.

Nothing in my argument requires you to believe that Jeremy Corbyn was a good leader; you can even believe he was the worst party leader in political history if you want. The point is that no leader could be *20 points ahead* in the wake of losing a referendum and then their party being split on whether to implement the result. I cannot think of a single example, anywhere in world political history, of a situation that you are proposing as a 'correct assessment'.

It's all ifs and buts

The vacuum of leadership was a major factor. The party wanted overwhelmingly to remain, didn't it - members, MPs and so on? Corbyn though, appeared delighted with the leave result - champing at the bit to trigger A50 the day after the referendum, later whipping his MPs to vote for A50 triggering even though the Gov't hadn't a clue what it wanted at that point...

That kind of stuff started widening the cracks into splits on Brexit. A party full of remain MPs and members with a leadership seemingly intent on wanting Brexit.

Pick a horse, we said at the time, don't fudge. It was/would have been possible to make a credible argument for Brexit that his party could have swallowed - a soft Brexit, based on the logic of "The UK voted to leave, just - so we will leave, just - keeping the labour agreeable SM type stuff to protect jobs and so on". What we got was just a mess. They took the worst path of all and got further and further entangled in the tendrils of Tory dogma. They didn't stand as a beacon of sanity in a nation going mad, they joined in the madness, led by someone not up to the job, and got the "reward" that was bound to follow. While the Tories were throwing people out of their party, going through Prime Ministers at a rate of one every two years, and in constant turmoil, the Labour party was unable to sieze any advantage at all. It was a monumental failure of opposition and opposition leadership.

A competent well led opposition ought to have been miles ahead, but it didn't exist. It was shooting itself in both the feet for fun.

[HanoiVillan]

3 minutes ago, blandy said:

It's all ifs and buts

The vacuum of leadership was a major factor. The party wanted overwhelmingly to remain, didn't it - members, MPs and so on? Corbyn though, appeared delighted with the leave result - champing at the bit to trigger A50 the day after the referendum, later whipping his MPs to vote for A50 triggering even though the Gov't hadn't a clue what it wanted at that point...

That kind of stuff started widening the cracks into splits on Brexit. A party full of remain MPs and members with a leadership seemingly intent on wanting Brexit.

Pick a horse, we said at the time, don't fudge. It was/would have been possible to make a credible argument for Brexit that his party could have swallowed - a soft Brexit, based on the logic of "The UK voted to leave, just - so we will leave, just - keeping the labour agreeable SM type stuff to protect jobs and so on". What we got was just a mess. They took the worst path of all and got further and further entangled in the tendrils of Tory dogma. They didn't stand as a beacon of sanity in a nation going mad, they joined in the madness, led by someone not up to the job, and got the "reward" that was bound to follow. While the Tories were throwing people out of their party, going through Prime Ministers at a rate of one every two years, and in constant turmoil, the Labour party was unable to sieze any advantage at all. It was a monumental failure of opposition and opposition leadership.

A competent well led opposition ought to have been miles ahead, but it didn't exist. It was shooting itself in both the feet for fun.

Okay - we aren't going to agree. I think it is self-evidently not true that no Labour leader could be *20 points ahead*, doing as well as the party was doing in 2001, in the wake of losing a referendum. If you disagree, our analysis of British party politics is so far apart that we will never come to agreement, so we should leave it there and others can make their own judgements.

[blandy]

12 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

we should leave it there and others can make their own judgements

Yes, You're right on that .

I don't even like or enjoy talking about him and it. I doubt there's anyone left anywhere yet to make their own judgement anyway.

[darrenm]

9 minutes ago, blandy said:

Yes, You're right on that .

I don't even like or enjoy talking about him and it. I doubt there's anyone left anywhere yet to make their own judgement anyway.

I'm undecided. I don't have much of an opinion on either Corbyn or brexit.

(I refuse to make brexit a proper noun)

[HanoiVillan]

Regardless what people think of Starmer's answer to 'Gemma from Cambridge', it is probably worth being concerned about an organised campaign from the far right to spread white replacement theory bollocks on the airwaves, for that's what was happening apparently:

Why am I not surprised to see the link between far-right politics and 'wellness culture' rearing its head again?

[blandy]

15 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Regardless what people think of Starmer's answer to 'Gemma from Cambridge', it is probably worth being concerned about an organised campaign from the far right to spread white replacement theory bollocks on the airwaves, for that's what was happening apparently:

Why am I not surprised to see the link between far-right politics and 'wellness culture' rearing its head again?

What the hell is wellness culture? is it a good thing or a bad thing? do I need to worry about it and do a petition, or am I safe to carry on my life in ignorance?

Will yoghurt turn me fascist?

[darrenm]

Top job, Keir

Saying that, it'll probably give Labour a boost in the polls.