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

[a m ole]

21 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

Amusingly, the advice he's getting from the politics-knowers in the media is that he absolutely shouldn't:

 

What a moron. If anything it’s a GOOD idea so Labour don’t lose any more **** voters to spoiled ballots. More of that and I might bother to vote.

[HanoiVillan]

Just now, a m ole said:

What a moron. If anything it’s a GOOD idea so Labour don’t lose any more **** voters to spoiled ballots. More of that and I might bother to vote.

It's incredible. They want Labour to apologise for the last five years, to suggest that their members are crazed Stalinists who can't be trusted, *and* now they don't want them to criticise the government? I'm not sure 'we're scumbags, please vote for us, but if you voted Conservative, you should know that you didn't make a mistake' is going to be the rallying cry of the century.

For a guy who loves Blair as much as he does, Rentoul doesn't seem to have a very good memory of how Blair actually acted - he spent his time as Leader of the Opposition laying into the government in the strongest terms possible.

[ml1dch]

4 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

It's incredible. They want Labour to apologise for the last five years, to suggest that their members are crazed Stalinists who can't be trusted, *and* now they don't want them to criticise the government? I'm not sure 'we're scumbags, please vote for us, but if you voted Conservative, you should know that you didn't make a mistake' is going to be the rallying cry of the century.

For a guy who loves Blair as much as he does, Rentoul doesn't seem to have a very good memory of how Blair actually acted - he spent his time as Leader of the Opposition laying into the government in the strongest terms possible.

If I were being really optimistic, all through the pandemic there was talk that "in times of crisis, voters don't want to hear the people dealing with it being yelled at or undermined".  So while they are trying to fix / screw up Covid, he's not too shouty. As soon as it's fixed (which obviously it isn't, but the country basically seems to have decided that it's going back to normal) then the crisis is over and voters aren't going to be so upset by the opposition loudly telling the Government how shit it is. 

I'm sure that the above would be crediting the Labour leadership with far more nous than they deserve though. Right now I think I'd be happy with "turning out not to be quite as pointless as they've been for the last twelve months" as solid progress. 

[Jareth]

Absolutely galling to see Stella Creasy on Questiontime, not even flinch when antisemitism was brought up in relation to Rafiq - she was entirely uninterested - yet a couple of years ago was seen on TV weeping at the lack of empathy from her own party towards the importance of AS. Antisemitism has been deformed by those who use it as a political football, to the point it has lost a lot of meaning - what a shitty thing to do. 

[HanoiVillan]

The gags at Starmer's speech to the CBI were top-quality material, someone really put the effort in:

Another zinger from further down the thread (you can click and see it, I am copying and editing to remove a swear):

'Starmer on Boris Johnson saying ‘**** business': "I can promise you that the only 'F words' I'll be using are ‘foreign investment’, 'fair trade', 'fiscal policy', and 'fiduciary duty'"'

Be still my aching sides.

[ml1dch]

38 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

The gags at Starmer's speech to the CBI were top-quality material, someone really put the effort in:

Another zinger from further down the thread (you can click and see it, I am copying and editing to remove a swear):

'Starmer on Boris Johnson saying ‘**** business': "I can promise you that the only 'F words' I'll be using are ‘foreign investment’, 'fair trade', 'fiscal policy', and 'fiduciary duty'"'

Be still my aching sides.

I mean, I'd be concerned if those were his lines for a pre-election debate on ITV. Or his social media clips from PMQs. Or his stag-do banter. 

But isn't that pretty much the right tone to hit for a bunch of CBI bods? They're not really expecting the politicians to be providing the entertainment. 

Edited November 22, 2021 by ml1dch

[HanoiVillan]

1 minute ago, ml1dch said:

I mean, I'd be concerned if those were his lines for a pre-election debate on ITV. Or his social media clips from PMQs. Or his stag-do banter. 

But isn't that pretty much the right tone to hit for a bunch of CBI bods? They're not really expecting the politicians to be providing the entertainment. 

It's just very cringe. But also, on your latter point, have I missed something changing, or has the CBI always been a chance for politicians to try stand-up comedy bits? Doesn't seem like the most obvious venue for it to me.

[bickster]

So two Liverpool councillors have quit the Labour Party. One being Sarah Morton who quite frankly I’ve never heard of and the more well known Anna Rothery who seemingly waited until her reign as Lord Mayor was over before announcing that she’d quit.

Both leaving and criticising the party, not the party they joined etc. But both staying on as independent councillors.

[Amsterdam_Neil_D]

On 22/11/2021 at 23:53, HanoiVillan said:

It's just very cringe.

Very much so.  If I had to guess who writes his stuff I would lean towards someone with the personality and overall vibe of Majorie Dawes.

He sounds like a new headmaster at his first assembly trying desperately to get down with the kids.

 

[HanoiVillan]

2 minutes ago, Amsterdam_Neil_D said:

Very much so.  If I had to guess who writes his stuff I would lean towards someone with the personality and overall vibe of Majorie Dawes.

He sounds like a new headmaster at his first assembly trying desperately to get down with the kids.

 

I believe, though cannot be sure, that it is former Times opinion columnist Philip 'Phil' Collins, and it would not surprise me at all if this guy struggled to be 'down with the kids':

[ml1dch]

LOTO advisor: "Sir Keir, things are looking better than they have for ages for Labour. Up in the polls, your personal ratings are creeping back up, the Government is failing on every front and for once people are noticing. What shall do we do to capitalise on this?"

LOTO: "maybe another botched reshuffle where I ignore and undermine my deputy again and make the headlines all about Labour infighting again?"

LOTO advisor: "On it".

[Chindie]

Doing a pointless reshuffle while your deputy leader is doing a big event on the first hit pain point you've found on the government, and apparently not briefing her on it, may be peak Labour.

[bickster]

The thing is the position of Deputy Leader in the Labour Party has always been a bit of a nonsense because it's elected and out of the control of the Leader. It's nearly often a position held by the other side in the internal wrangling of the party, usually as a result of some electoral stitch up

The last time Labour was in power as we all know was the Blair / Brown years, it was the two of them Blair and Brown pulling all the strings. John Prescot was the Deputy Leader of the party and Deputy Prime Minister. He was pretty irrelevant, they just wheeled him out when it suited.

Angela Rayner's job is to get eggs thrown at her

[blandy]

3 hours ago, Chindie said:

Doing a pointless reshuffle

It's all a bit curious. But I don't think it's pointless - the Labour Shadow cabinet ought to mirror the Tory one, but it doesn't because some of the Tory roles were got rid of and new ones created - departments merged and created. Like there's no shadow Gove, for example. (Yes I know that as a being from another, evil, dimension, he doesn't create a shadow and light passes straight through him). There's also a shadow international development bod, but no actual tory one, I think.

That said, it's preposterous that the leader and Deputy seem not to talk to each other, or if they do, that one or other of them kind of lies about it. Not a good state of affairs.

I like Rayner, from what I've seen of her on the telly. She seems like a normal person, which most MPs don't (albeit a very ambitious one).

[HanoiVillan]

It's not a pointless reshuffle. He is quite specifically replacing people in the shadow cabinet who are considered 'soft left' and replacing them with Blairites:

It's the final victory for the gang who have been complaining about Labour being too left-wing, at different pitches of hysteria, since Brown took office.

The opposite of pointless.

[Chindie]

Ah.

Something about purges.

[HanoiVillan]

A useful little thread on Labour and gambling:

He could also have mentioned Labour MP Neil Coyle, who wrote an article for The Times fluffing the gambling industry's record at self-regulation (I'm not a subscriber so can't really quote it, but you can find it here: https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/gambling-review-must-not-punish-casual-punters-skgfx8zg6 ).

[Seat68]

Labour during non Corbyn years also received large donations from Peter Coates, the man behind Bet365. Unsure if Denise still contributes. 

[HanoiVillan]

If it were my ambition to persuade Labour to support proportional representation or a tactical progressive voting arrangement, I would simply not make up absolute nonsense about the best party to vote for in a seat from a tactical perspective:

 

[Chindie]

North Shropshire is such a forlorn hope they might as well have just conceded the election. Sauron could put a blue tie on and win that seat.