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

[OutByEaster?]

"Britain needs radical reform, a great reset, a new Beveridge report, and that's going to require some slight adjustments to the current government policy."

That's the message.

 

[blandy]

3 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

True enough, but differentiation is where he's confusing, he "absolutely clear" that things must change and be completely different - but he's much less clear on how. He seems to think that in many ways the government are doing an okay job and that in many respects he'll continue that good work - there are some ways he said he'll do some things differently and at a detail level there are lots of differences in method, but big picture is carry on as usual but be "absolutely clear" that things must fundamentally change. I found today's speech confusing in that respect.

Fair enough. I have not seen it. I will say though. Don’t scare the horses. Then give the horse a sugar lump or carrot, then put the saddle on, then trot - no not “Trot” - I said trot, off into the future.

[OutByEaster?]

What if the horses are the problem?

 

[blandy]

4 minutes ago, OutByEaster? said:

What if the horses are the problem?

You can't change the electorate. You can't tell the electorate (collectively) "you were wrong not to vote for us, you got it wrong". That way madness lies.

[OutByEaster?]

34 minutes ago, blandy said:

You can't change the electorate. You can't tell the electorate (collectively) "you were wrong not to vote for us, you got it wrong". That way madness lies.

Ah, I'd seen the horses in your post as business, not the electorate. 

 

[OutByEaster?]

Good news/bad news in terms of coverage.

The speech was the fourth story on the BBC news which says something about its impact and they went on to say that for many Labour voters it lacked substance and was too timid, but the clip they showed of the speech was for me the strongest few lines of the whole thing and I thought that he personally came out of that reporting looking quite good.

 

[dAVe80]

6 hours ago, bickster said:

What you also have here is a classic British Leftism, they have somehow managed to have an all woman shortlist for the position, then managed to have two candidates (both Union backed) from the left of the party to compete against each other and split the left of the party vote

This 100%. Put 20 lefties in a room, and there will be 14 different fights about what colour Lenin's hat was, and then speeches about not voting with the group who say it was a shade of green. Happened recently in the Unison General Secretary election. 3 lefties on the ballot, because Labour Left, SP, and SWP couldn't agree a candidate, so the right winger gets the vote. Self defeating nonsense. 

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, OutByEaster? said:

"Britain needs radical reform, a great reset, a new Beveridge report, and that's going to require some slight adjustments to the current government policy."

That's the message.

 

That's a good summary, and it's . . . I dunno, it's barely 'politics' at all. To be clear, I haven't watched the speech, and am going from the Guardian's write-up (https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/feb/18/keir-starmer-labour-must-work-with-business-to-create-fairer-society), but most of the stuff they say he said that you characterise (fairly) as 'slight adjustments to current government policy' (reverse universal credit cuts, extend business rate holiday, boost furlough scheme) are barely even policies as such, they're more like commentary or punditry on the budget. I could Martin Lewis tweeting those opinions.

From the report, there appear to be two actual ideas. The first:

'Starmer proposed the idea of a “British recovery bond”, which would work like the long-standing bond schemes run by National Savings and Investments, but with the money going directly into Covid recovery schemes.

The plan is similar to the idea of a post-Covid “northern recovery bond” floated earlier this week by the Northern Research Group of Tory MPs and the Centre for Policy Studies, the thinktank co-founded by Margaret Thatcher.'

The second:

'Starmer also pledged to create 100,000 startups in the next five years, with a focus on pushing funds to help this nationally, beyond London and the south-east of England.'

Both of these policies - and indeed all of the suggestions to current programs above - could just as easily come from the Conservatives, and indeed some of them probably will be taken up by the Chancellor (I assume the business rates holiday will be extended, for instance). Maybe the point of this is to be able to say 'well I told him to do that' later, but that's a very weak approach to things long-term. You would hope that a leader of the Labour party aspired to be something more than the moral conscience of Conservative policies. 

What's weird is this was absolutely not how the speech was trailed. Here was how it was described in Politico's Playbook:

from: https://twitter.com/anyotherleader/status/1362396584621834245

If you give it the big talk-up, you've surely got to have something more to it than covid recovery bonds, new start-ups and pushing more money through existing programs? Nobody's going to remember this speech by the weekend.

Edited February 18, 2021 by HanoiVillan

[Jareth]

There was more media time devoted to previewing this speech than there will be in reaction to it.  

[snowychap]

3 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

I've missed the beginning but he's saying some very nice things about social justice, making Britain a great place to grow up in and a great place to grow old in, he's saying great things about not just allowing the market to run the country - but then the most he's saying about how he'll solve this is by working with business, that a partnership with business is what will make that work.

Did he nick/repeat Theresa May's first speech as PM at 'the lectern'?

[Chindie]

Quote

Keir Starmer doesn’t deserve a lot of the criticism he faces – here’s why

It is much easier to say how someone should be leading than to actually do it, especially in a time of almost no political intrigue

Jess Philips. The Viewspaper

Laughing like a drain.

[Jareth]

7 hours ago, Chindie said:

Jess Philips. The Viewspaper

Laughing like a drain.

OMFG the lack of self awareness with that particular sub-heading is JP in a nutshell.  At least she doesn't need to grind her teeth when she's sh*tting out all her media pieces this year. 

[ml1dch]

 

 

[Xela]

12 hours ago, ml1dch said:

 

 

He must really like Kentucky Fried Chicken. 

[darrenm]

Not that it really matters now but it looks like the Tories broke election spending rules in the 2019 general election. Multiple 'independent' anti-Labour advertiser's, all just below the spending limit, using very similar emails. Just like Vote Leave.

 

 

[OutByEaster?]

Yesterday was a bad day for Kier Starmer as he opposed the government by agreeing with them on schools returning on the 8th March even though the teachers unions are very much against it.

It was also a bad day for Kier as he opposed the government by agreeing with them that there shouldn't be any calls for Matt Hancock to resign as no one really likes that sort of thing.

 

[bickster]

6 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

It was also a bad day for Kier as he opposed the government by agreeing with them that there shouldn't be any calls for Matt Hancock to resign as no one really likes that sort of thing.

Genuine question: Is there any precident for ministers resigning for publishing contracts late?

At present it seems like an apology to the house situation rather than a resign situation but I just wondered if there was any precident for it?

We all now what they and he have been up to but right now the other much much worse stuff (The actual corruption) is still subject of further legal challenges in progress. I guess I'm saying that I don't think this is the issue to skewer Hancock on and much better opportunities lie ahead

[HanoiVillan]

8 hours ago, OutByEaster? said:

Yesterday was a bad day for Kier Starmer as he opposed the government by agreeing with them on schools returning on the 8th March even though the teachers unions are very much against it.

It was also a bad day for Kier as he opposed the government by agreeing with them that there shouldn't be any calls for Matt Hancock to resign as no one really likes that sort of thing.

 

One of the annoyances of the Westminster system is that the Leader of the Opposition is an important figure, but one who is largely powerless, especially when the government has an almost-impregnable majority in the Commons, and so the conversation inevitably drifts to political strategy, a difficult topic for discussion because most people (very much including me) end up approaching the topic looking for reasons why it would be electorally prudent to do the things that I want done, whereas what I really mean is that I want these things done and 'they' can work out the electoral strategy later.

I say this to preface the point that I'm not confident about what constitutes 'good' and 'bad' days or weeks, that I don't believe small movements in the polls matter much at all, and that I'm often wrong about what the public want, and even when I'm right it might be for the wrong reason. So take the following comments as the guesswork that they inevitably are, but:

-On the first point, I don't really think Starmer is making a mistake. One thing I think he should do is not contest the specific timetables for removing individual restrictions. He doesn't need to be micro-managing the crisis from the sidelines. His intervention on schools last summer was a disaster - he couldn't criticise the government for the inevitable outbreaks in university accommodation (and so left students without a champion of their interests) because he had been if anything more gung-ho than the government about reopening them in the first place. But the politics (and the epidemiology) might be different this time; it is possible that unions are being too cautious (even if for the good reason of protecting their members) and the political calculus may be different to last summer too: I don't know any parents who are not heartily sick of homeschooling their children at this point.

-On the second point, I am more worried, less because of the decision (maybe @bickster is right that there will be better opportunities later, who knows) and more because of why I think they have taken said decision, which I suspect is because when you ask focus groups what they want to see they will say they like politicians 'working together in the national interest' and not 'squabbling' and so on. The problem is that whatever focus group participants say, this is not how they vote (for evidence, see the Lib Dems' electoral performances, 2015 to present). And this is the opposite of 'leadership'; it is specifically following the stated-but-not-revealed preferences of voters. Maybe he will surprise, and come out swinging on this and other topics later, but basically he has so far let the government frame the response to the virus in their own terms, and I don't think that is a good idea.

[OutByEaster?]

I think for me, the reason I'm judging Starmer on these small things is that he is very much a politician that has a massive group of voters waiting to see what he is. it's an emotive thing for me.

He's done absolutely nothing of real value to explain what he is and shown no intention of that - so we're looking for any clue or any pointer from his actions - this is a key time for Starmer and his leadership, these are the months in which people will decide whether he has the values that they will want to see in the future. He seems to be completely unaware of that and his plan at the moment seems to be to sit under a rock for a couple of years until we're nearer to an election. Politics and the electorate don't come with that level of patience.

Each time he misses an opportunity to make a mark, each time he lets something go, each time he kicks the can down the road for a future outcome that's better, he reduces his chance of being in the position to take advantage of that opportunity later on.

At the moment, he is nothing, an empty man, in terms of the press coverage, in terms of how voters see him, he's a stuffed suit, a man who speaks well but without principle, belief or personality - and opportunity after opportunity after opportunity to change that is passing him by.

Hammer Hancock - not for the sake of hammering Hancock but to prove there's a big stick to go with the speak softly, to prove that you hate, that you're angry, that you care, that you're involved, that you're awake - because the electorate at the moment keep waiting for Starmer to arrive and he's not here.

If you're not going to appeal to the electorate, at least make some friends - make sure that the people who should be behind you are behind you - he's not doing that either, he's not bringing back the half of the Labour party that were worried about him, he's alienating the unions, he's not providing anything like the entertainment that the media want. He's the leader of an increasingly small group of interests.

The countries view at the moment of him is as an agreeable, invisible, soft man doing as little as possible to ruffle any feathers, and he seems to want to maintain that image for as long as possible for reasons that are beyond my understanding. We're coming up to a year in charge for him and I can't think of a single thing that he's done that's memorable or that's uniquely his.

If his apathy translates into voter apathy in May at the local elections, I'm not sure how long he'll survive. 

It's not about whether Hancock did something wrong or really wrong, it's not about whether the Unions are overly cautious or not, it's about his future and whether he has one. He seems completely oblivious to this.

I am concerned about "good" and "bad" days, because I don't think he's got that many left before the country make up their mind on him or get bored of waiting for him to give them something to hang their hat on.

 

 

[Chindie]

Starmer will be booted before he contests a general election.