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

[darrenm]

37 minutes ago, Davkaus said:

He's looked like the only adult in the room a number of times and embarrassed the government by calling out the blindingly obvious that they refuse to do.

What more do you expect from him in opposition when his predecessor granted the tories an 80 seat majority?

Honestly, that's not how it's appeared to me. Or seemingly to a lot of other people. He's widely seen as dogmatically agreeing with Johnson over everything, hence the mocking with the Jungle Book video and the latest articles.

[bickster]

3 minutes ago, darrenm said:

I assume as you're replying to me, you're including me as 'on the left'? Because I don't consider myself left wing. I've always been centrist. I just agreed with a lot of what Corbyn said because most of it was basic common sense. Anyway, by the by.

I think I've said my reasons for disliking Starmer before. It's a combination of anger at him for covering up the truth of what happened with the factional fight 2015-2019 when it all needed to come out, anger for his marginalisation of the Jewish left and despondence at his lack of anything to say which isn't agreeing with Johnson. I know the strategy and I think it's doomed.

But it's not my fight. I'm not in the party. All I can do is pass comment and give my opinion the same as anyone else. I won't be a wrecker because that'd make me a hypocrite when I criticised others for unfairly attacking Corbyn when the only alternative was the Tories.

I backed him for leader because I thought he'd be in the middle of the 2 factions and then be the media friendly face of the Corbyn type progressive policies. When it gets to a GE I'll look at the policies and make my decision there. I'm just not a fan any more.

On the left in this context is someone considering voting Labour, you aren't on the right

If you think Corbyn spoke common sense, that puts you decidedly on the left and not a centrist

When you say marginalising the Jewish Left, i think you're refering to specific smaller groupings of Jews in the Labour Party and not the bigger ones, so claiming he's marginalising the Jewish Left isn't reaslly true is it? He's not playing the tune of those Corbyn supporting minor Jewish groupings and not doing as you claim, in fact it has little to do with their being Jews and all to do with their political opinions but your claim suggests otherwise and is rather naughty to be honest because it suggests a degree of antisemitism, which to my knowledge isn't true at all.

As for the agreeing with Johnson, you realise pretty much all the time, it's the other way around. Starmer has been calling the shots the government should be taking all along, they disagree then do it anyway. It's hard to understand how yopu've reached your conclusion

[bickster]

12 minutes ago, darrenm said:

Honestly, that's not how it's appeared to me. Or seemingly to a lot of other people. He's widely seen as dogmatically agreeing with Johnson over everything, hence the mocking with the Jungle Book video and the latest articles.

Then people need to look at facts, like when Starmer actually said something, the Gvt denied it was needed or laughed at him or something else, then changed their minds the next day

It pretty much happened every week from summer to Xmas

Hell he even (wrongly) called for the schools to reopen before Johnson opened them

[bickster]

This one will have a few Tankies doing sommersaults. I think he's trolling the far left now

 

[bickster]

Watching the factions expose themselves in Liverpool is quite compulsive viewing for me atm. The scrap is over who will be the Labour Candidate to replace Chippy Tits. Its interesting to see which side of the fence some of the councillors are coming down on

So far there's two declared candidates I'm aware of, I thought there'd be more tbh especially as the more left of the current candidates wants or wanted to abolish the position to which she now seeks to be eleceted to

[Risso]

Good. Nice to have a grown up in charge of the Labour Party for a change.

[Chindie]

They're just cribbing the Tory touchstones. They've recently gone on a rebrand to emphasise the flag and push petty nationalism tropes.

[OutByEaster?]

2 hours ago, bickster said:

This one will have a few Tankies doing sommersaults. I think he's trolling the far left now

 

It's not a headline that's going to do him any favours when the majority of his 'normal' voters are waiting in hope that he'll show some sort of interest in being "Labour". 

It is just a headline and not a policy document, and in fact it means next to nothing, being pro the right kind of business in the right kind of way will be important to him if he's to be a success - ultimately in terms of the actual truth about him it brings it means next to nothing.

Politically though, facts aren't everything and the problem it highlights is that he's allowing himself to be portrayed as the leader that Labour doesn't want - again. It's the talk of the Tory moderate, the centre right, and while it might be nonsense, a false flag, a mischievous newspaper editor or simply a load of boll*cks, it's cementing a negative image of him within his party.

I think the last few pages highlight what this problem will bring him, you get both ends of the Labour party represented, those who would say they are on the left and those who would say they are centrist - and the problem is that those two groups don't fundamentally agree on well, anything - on a good day they'd describe each other as the far left and the centre right, on a bad day in much less friendly terms - but both parts exist in the Labour party. That's what Tony Blair did, he made the Labour party win by fundamentally changing the Labour party, by sacrificing some things in order to get to power and he's left as a legacy a party with a schism, a mess.

Corbyn represented one of those groups trying to assert control, it didn't work because not only did he end up fighting the Tory party in an election, he also ended up fighting the other half of the Labour party and ultimately you can argue as to which of those two ultimately did away with him. The big hope for Starmer is that he'll be a Labour-centrist, someone who would try to represent both halves of the Labour party, bring them together - continue some of the really, really impressive policies of the Corbyn era, but bring to them the polished sheen and negotiating ability of a politician who was capable of compromise in order to achieve some change.

The Labour party and a lot of its supporters are waiting for Starmer's policies, his manifesto, in the hope that's still true - but there's absolutely every signal that he's not that man, that he is in fact just a Corbyn from the other end of the scale - a centre right politician prepared to sacrifice beliefs for power.

If he doesn't address that, if he doesn't do some work to change that image, then the unrest in the party will continue to boil and bubble and it'll manifest in a big battle that he doesn't need to have while he's trying to have a bigger battle with the idiots in charge. He can't win an election with only half of his party in tow and if continues to alienate that half of the party, he'll be lucky to contest one.

He's no Tony Blair in terms of his ability to capture the attention of the media, or the public, in fact, thus far he's not shown much ability in that sort of populist, attention grabbing electioneering style of politics at all - he needs to improve on that, our current leader has got where he is on very little else and it's possibly the most important part of any party leaders role - you have to be the cool kid every one likes - without that skill, the ability to manage and control his public image from elsewhere is absolutely paramount to the Labour party and to his future - whether that's in prolonging the doubt on his intentions long enough to keep the party together, or on making sure his successes are celebrated, or on making sure he gives off the impression of being on the right side of the issue on lots and lots of issues.

Labour are doing a dreadful job of doing that right now, he's awful at it, the party are awful at it and the people they pay to do it are awful at it, he's coming across as Cameorn-esque. If he doesn't change that impression, articles like the one above will ultimately undermine him and he'll end up with a red dagger in his back rather than a blue one to his heart.

Those on the centre right might well refer to the other half of the party as tankies (what is a tankie?) or the loony left, but there's a huge section of the labour party that believe in traditional socialist values, and there are plenty of voters that believe the same, he can't win without the tankies and Labour can't win without both ends of the party getting behind someone that at least to some degree represents them all.

Being the anit-Corbyn isn't the way forward, any more than being the anti-Blair was the way forward for Corbyn, Labour needs someone who can pull the party together - if headlines like the one above mean he's "trolling the far left" then he's likely to be in an awful lot of trouble.

 

 

 

[Risso]

General elections aren't won by appealing to the fringes though. If Starmer loses the far left but gains votes from more left and central-leaning Conservative voters, he could win the election. He won't do it by appealing to the dyed-in-the-wool Corbyn fanbase.

[OutByEaster?]

5 minutes ago, Risso said:

General elections aren't won by appealing to the fringes though. If Starmer loses the far left but gains votes from more left and central-leaning Conservative voters, he could win the election. He won't do it by appealing to the dyed-in-the-wool Corbyn fanbase.

The worry is that he's starting to look like a fringe candidate - the other end to Corbyn, but with the same limited appeal within the party. The Labour party is almost all one fringe or the other - that's it's problem. Chasing right leaning voters is one thing, but if that's all you're vying for, you're most likely going to lose out to the people they normally vote for - he'll need the Labour party behind him too.

I think one of the other things about the people in the two bits of the Labour party is the assumption that their faction (the left or the centrist) comprises the vast majority of the party and that they can therefore ignore the other part - it's patently not true, if it were there wouldn't have been enough people to put Corbyn into it's leadership in the first place, or enough people to take him out of it. 

I genuinely believe that Labour can't win an election until it has a leader that represents both ends of the Labour party. that's going to be incredibly difficult to do, but I think it's the only way forward. Lurching from one end of the party to the other isn't going to work.

 

 

 

 

[HanoiVillan]

14 minutes ago, Risso said:

General elections aren't won by appealing to the fringes though. If Starmer loses the far left but gains votes from more left and central-leaning Conservative voters, he could win the election. He won't do it by appealing to the dyed-in-the-wool Corbyn fanbase.

To actually win an election, he would need to do both; you need to keep your base intact *and* win swing voters. That's why it's difficult.

[cyrusr]

Surely Starmer has to appeal to the centre/“left” side of Tory voters to even stand a chance of getting elected?

Even if they manage to claw back the “red wall” seats, because of the loss of Scotland to the SNP (which they aren’t going to get back , certainly not significantly), they are not going to get the numbers without making gains in Tory areas. That is only going to happen with appearing calm, collected and moderate (as boring as it sounds) and not appealing to the far left of the Labour Party.

We are unlikely to get an election for a number of years, this a massive long game that he needs to play. He is not in a position to enact real change, save in the way that he has been. Incidentally, knowing his background he is laying the foundations for future arguments. The brief moments observed of PMQs shows that he is getting one over Johnson pretty much every time. When that is presented to the wider public, for example, on a TV debate; I think people will really see the difference then.

If it means that he starts getting some fluff pieces about him being “a patriot” or being “pro-business” to get positive news reports then that’s fine by me. It’s better than what was written about Corbyn and that’s a start.

[Demitri_C]

I agree with a important point bicks said earlier. This government has been  a shambles but the one thung they are doing well is the vaccine process. What is starmer suppose to do? Criticise that?

He will make himself look ridiculous 

Its far too early for calling for changes of a new leader. Imagine we got someone as useless as sadiq khan? 

I think starmer is doing well so far and he should remain as leader

[Sam-AVFC]

5 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

I agree with a important point bicks said earlier. This government has been  a shambles but the one thung they are doing well is the vaccine process. What is starmer suppose to do? Criticise that?

He will make himself look ridiculous 

Its far too early for calling for changes of a new leader. Imagine we got someone as useless as sadiq khan? 

I think starmer is doing well so far and he should remain as leader

Yeah, that bloody Sadiq Khan. Presides over the worst public transport system in the whole country doncha know.

[bickster]

7 hours ago, cyrusr said:

Surely Starmer has to appeal to the centre/“left” side of Tory voters to even stand a chance of getting elected?

Even if they manage to claw back the “red wall” seats, because of the loss of Scotland to the SNP (which they aren’t going to get back , certainly not significantly), they are not going to get the numbers without making gains in Tory areas. That is only going to happen with appearing calm, collected and moderate (as boring as it sounds) and not appealing to the far left of the Labour Party.

We are unlikely to get an election for a number of years, this a massive long game that he needs to play. He is not in a position to enact real change, save in the way that he has been. Incidentally, knowing his background he is laying the foundations for future arguments. The brief moments observed of PMQs shows that he is getting one over Johnson pretty much every time. When that is presented to the wider public, for example, on a TV debate; I think people will really see the difference then.

If it means that he starts getting some fluff pieces about him being “a patriot” or being “pro-business” to get positive news reports then that’s fine by me. It’s better than what was written about Corbyn and that’s a start.

This has always been the problem with left politics as long as I've been politically active. It's very Life of Brian, we all know the splitters sketch but its as true today as it was then. Sections of the left are too impatient, too idealistic and cannot for the life of themselves see the bigger picture.

To actively have a positive effect on peoples lives, they need to get elected. They need to do what it takes to get elected. The only time they've managed this in the last 40 years is the transition from Kinnock to Blair

[Seat68]

5 hours ago, Demitri_C said:

I agree with a important point bicks said earlier. This government has been  a shambles but the one thung they are doing well is the vaccine process. What is starmer suppose to do? Criticise that?

He will make himself look ridiculous 

Its far too early for calling for changes of a new leader. Imagine we got someone as useless as sadiq khan? 

I think starmer is doing well so far and he should remain as leader

You have consistently disliked Khan. What is the reason, did he steal your green bin?

[Demitri_C]

1 minute ago, Sam-AVFC said:

Yeah, that bloody Sadiq Khan. Presides over the worst public transport system in the whole country doncha know.

I take it you think he is doing a good job as mayor then? 

The guys been a absolute disaster 

[bickster]

1 minute ago, Demitri_C said:

I take it you think he is doing a good job as mayor then? 

The guys been a absolute disaster 

Yeah but WHY?

[Demitri_C]

3 minutes ago, Seat68 said:

You have consistently disliked Khan. What is the reason, did he steal your green bin?

the illegal cycle lanes, ignoring crime, putting up tfl prices straight after being elected (evn though he promised he wouldnt), LTNS, putting congestion charge up, extending that to weekends, introducing ULEZ into london then extending it even further. 

The guy is a absolute joke. Ive met him a few times he is arrogant little weasel.

Edited February 8, 2021 by Demitri_C

[Sam-AVFC]

1 minute ago, Demitri_C said:

I take it you think he is doing a good job as mayor then? 

The guys been a absolute disaster 

I don't think he's been great, no. I'm struggling to see what he does so much worse than predecessors that makes you hate him enough to often bring him up as a byword for failure though.

Why is it you dislike him so?