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

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

See this is where politics is interesting, you’ve fallen for the professional-guy-in-sharp-suit illusion.

I’d actually be quite in favour of giving Angela Rayner a go at the top gig, at least she can claim to be more in touch with the vast majority of the population given her upbringing and background.

We have to move away from who ‘looks and sounds’ statesmanlike and focus on who will actually do the best job based on their experiences to date.

I mean, yeah I kind of agree with all of that…but to be fair Starmer is as qualified as anyone can be to be PM. More so than Rayner, in terms of CV. So there’s got to be more to it, perhaps than just that. They’ve both got a decent back history to support their claims, but I’d say Starmer is technically stronger, though I like Rayner more.

[bannedfromHandV]

15 minutes ago, blandy said:

I mean, yeah I kind of agree with all of that…but to be fair Starmer is as qualified as anyone can be to be PM. More so than Rayner, in terms of CV. So there’s got to be more to it, perhaps than just that. They’ve both got a decent back history to support their claims, but I’d say Starmer is technically stronger, though I like Rayner more.

I’ve said it before but Keir Starmer loses me at the ‘sir’ that prefixes his name.

I don’t want a sir, or a lord, or a baron…..I want someone who grew up in council estates, who knows what it is to have to choose between which necessities are actually most necessary that week.

For too long now we’ve had ‘well schooled’, well spoken and hand crafted PM’s, I’d rather someone who actually knows the price of a pint of milk rather than someone who can recite to me the origin of milk in Latin.

[bickster]

15 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

’ve said it before but Keir Starmer loses me at the ‘sir’ that prefixes his name.

I don’t want a sir, or a lord, or a baron…..I want someone who grew up in council estates, who knows what it is to have to choose between which necessities are actually most necessary that week.

You mean like Sir Kier Starmer. Mother a nurse, father a toolmaker

His upbringing is as working class as it gets

[sidcow]

53 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

See this is where politics is interesting, you’ve fallen for the professional-guy-in-sharp-suit illusion.

I’d actually be quite in favour of giving Angela Rayner a go at the top gig, at least she can claim to be more in touch with the vast majority of the population given her upbringing and background.

We have to move away from who ‘looks and sounds’ statesmanlike and focus on who will actually do the best job based on their experiences to date.

Nope, I haven't fallen for anything. I just look for different things in a leader than you do. 

[OutByEaster?]

Starmer is a near perfect candidate for PM, he's smart, carries himself in a way that could easily be described as statesmanlike, speaks well and can walk and think at the same time, he's perhaps a little bland, but that's better than being the other way. If you were making a PM action figure, he's pretty much exactly what you'd want.

I'm not particularly keen on his politics (such as he deigns to share them) and I don't like what he's done to a party whose foundation is principle not appearance, but I don't think it can be argued that he looks the part.

In more competitive times, that advantage might have been an edge; against the army of creepy incompetence opposite him in the house right now, it's most likely going to be enough on its own - and indeed that appears to be the strategy.

 

[bannedfromHandV]

26 minutes ago, bickster said:

You mean like Sir Kier Starmer. Mother a nurse, father a toolmaker

His upbringing is as working class as it gets

Yeah we’ve done this before.

Grew up in a nice hamlet in Surrey, attended a school which became independent whilst he was there. Sure his parents worked for a living but were they ever hovering around the bread line? Doesn’t seem as so.

I want someone who’s had to drag themselves out of the shit to get to the top, only then will they have any understanding of what ‘the shit’ is.

[bannedfromHandV]

33 minutes ago, bickster said:

You mean like Sir Kier Starmer. Mother a nurse, father a toolmaker

His upbringing is as working class as it gets

And it’s really not ‘as working class as it gets’ is it?

That would be someone who grew up on a council estate, had parents who worked two or three concurrent shite jobs like cleaner and dinner lady (my mum), fought in the street with other kids who were from equally as poor or even poorer households.

If you think a ‘toolmaker’ and a nurse, with 4 kids living in leafy Surrey whilst sending kids to private / independent schools is ‘as working class as it gets’ then something has gone wrong.

[bickster]

6 minutes ago, bannedfromHandV said:

And it’s really not ‘as working class as it gets’ is it?

That would be someone who grew up on a council estate, had parents who worked two or three concurrent shite jobs like cleaner and dinner lady (my mum), fought in the street with other kids who were from equally as poor or even poorer households.

If you think a ‘toolmaker’ and a nurse, with 4 kids living in leafy Surrey whilst sending kids to private / independent schools is ‘as working class as it gets’ then something has gone wrong.

Working class kids who passed the 11plus, went to Grammar School, that’s what Starmer did. There was no “sending” you had to be clever enough to pass the exam, that was the education system at the time. Starmer going to that school had absolutely nothing to do with his families financial situation, that was the education system at the time.

Do you know how leafy Surrey was in the '60s? That bit is just classic inverted snobbery tbh
 

[Davkaus]

The point about it becoming a fee-paying school is rather disingenuous when it wasn't when he joined, and he didn't have to pay any fees. Feels like you've just got an axe to grind tbh.

It'd be fantastic to see a broader range of backgrounds reflected in the front bench, but you specifically called out his title as being a problem, when he had a fairly standard upbringing, and worked his way up. He's not worked himself up from the absolute bottom, no, he wasn't impoverished, but he got where he is off his own back, and is a bloody good example of social mobility.

And that's coming from someone who doesn't like him one bit as a politician.

[bannedfromHandV]

In my endeavours to make a point I’m getting drawn into a debate specifically on Starmer.

He’s inoffensive to me, he’s certainly a step up on any of the recent PM’s we’ve had, but that’s an incredibly low bar with which to gauge.

He just doesn’t represent the level of change I would like to see, he isn’t different enough from that which we’ve suffered under for too long now in my opinion.

[blandy]

1 hour ago, bannedfromHandV said:

he isn’t different enough from that which we’ve suffered under for too long now in my opinion.

Respect your opinion, but IMO it's not his difference (or not) from the characters of Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss etc. it's his and Labour's politics and stuff that matter more. His character (as I see it) is one of honesty (as much as you can get that in politics) principles of service to the nation, integrity, judgement and so on. I see Truss and Johnson as unprincipled in the extreme, May was an immigration obsessed home counties little Englander tory, and Cameron was a kind of lax, careless posho, who thought it would all just go according to plan, because his life always had, pretty much, with the sad exception of his little lad's death.

Labour's ethos is very different from the Tory one, even if some want a pure Corbynite version of it and think it's not different enough.

[ml1dch]

3 hours ago, bannedfromHandV said:

And it’s really not ‘as working class as it gets’ is it?

That would be someone who grew up on a council estate, had parents who worked two or three concurrent shite jobs like cleaner and dinner lady (my mum), fought in the street with other kids who were from equally as poor or even poorer households.

If you think a ‘toolmaker’ and a nurse, with 4 kids living in leafy Surrey whilst sending kids to private / independent schools is ‘as working class as it gets’ then something has gone wrong.

I really think you're onto a loser with this "title and background" stuff.

I think a lot of people who say that Starmer doesn't represent a transformative enough vision of British politics, are often pining after the politics of his predecessor.  

His predecessor of course who grew up in Yew Tree Manor, formerly home to the Duke of Sutherland while attending Castle House School, an independent preparatory school.

On the other hand, those same people are often angry at the likes of "not-left-enough" Wes Streeting, born when his parents were teenagers and his grandparents were in prison and who grew up with seven siblings in a council flat. 

I make no judgement here on the politics of any of them, simply that their background probably isn't the best thing to judge them on.

Edited September 11, 2022 by ml1dch

[fruitvilla]

2 hours ago, bannedfromHandV said:

In my endeavours to make a point I’m getting drawn into a debate specifically on Starmer.

In your endeavours you seem to be digging an ever deeper hole.

In a politician (PM) I would like to see:

1. A vaguely honest person, say somewhere between 95% and 99%
2. Somebody who is intelligent, makes an effort to use the available evidence
3. Somebody who is not married to, but only in bed with, dogma/principles, and can have a shot working things out from the evidence.
4. Be erudite and presentable ... ie statesperson like.
5. Be capable of representing all of the people, not just the downtrodden proletariat.
6. Somebody who recognizes people's capabilities to pick and keep a well functioning team (and deals with them bad apples)
7. Somebody has leadership qualities.

The party might state its objectives and pick a leader with some of the above qualities.

[one_ian_taylor]

31 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

I really think you're onto a loser with this "title and background" stuff.

I think a lot of people who say that Starmer doesn't represent a transformative enough vision of British politics, are often pining after the politics of his predecessor.  

His predecessor of course who grew up in Yew Tree Manor, formerly home to the Duke of Sutherland while attending Castle House School, an independent preparatory school.

On the other hand, those same people are often angry at the likes of "not-left-enough" Wes Streeting, born when his parents were teenagers and his grandparents were in prison and who grew up with seven siblings in a council flat. 

I make no judgement here on the politics of any of them, simply that their background probably isn't the best thing to judge them on.

Couldn't  agree more.  Judge  people by what they say and do and how they treat others, not where they are from

[KentVillan]

The idea that Starmer’s appeal is just superficial “white man in a suit” just shows complete ignorance of his life and career.

[KentVillan]

Also, one of the biggest myths in politics is that Corbyn was more popular with the working classes. Corbyn is most popular with insecure posh people who want to look cool.

[ml1dch]

15 minutes ago, KentVillan said:

The idea that Starmer’s appeal is just superficial “white man in a suit” just shows complete ignorance of his life and career.

Indeed. Which is why it's really quite annoying that he's not making full use of what should be all the tools needed to make his current position a slam-dunk.

[KentVillan]

24 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

Indeed. Which is why it's really quite annoying that he's not making full use of what should be all the tools needed to make his current position a slam-dunk.

Who says he’s doing anything wrong, though? His job at the moment is to avoid unforced errors and win the next election. It’s not to win popularity contests on Twitter or get glowing write ups from Owen Jones and Ash Sarkar, or people who think it’s clever to call him Keith.

People talk as if his job ought to be a piece of piss, but he has very few seats after the 2019 landslide, half his MPs are militant activists who just want to go to rallies and get clout on social media, and he’s trying to achieve a historic reversal. In the circumstances he seems to me to be doing quite well - certainly a lot better than the last 2 Labour leaders.

[Demitri_C]

Starmer over rayner definitely aa PM for me

[magnkarl]

19 hours ago, bannedfromHandV said:

And it’s really not ‘as working class as it gets’ is it?

That would be someone who grew up on a council estate, had parents who worked two or three concurrent shite jobs like cleaner and dinner lady (my mum), fought in the street with other kids who were from equally as poor or even poorer households.

If you think a ‘toolmaker’ and a nurse, with 4 kids living in leafy Surrey whilst sending kids to private / independent schools is ‘as working class as it gets’ then something has gone wrong.

I'm someone who lives quite close to 'leafy' Surrey. I can tell you right now that Surrey has plenty of ¤%"#holes. Just like Hampshire, Devon, East Sussex and Kent. The home counties aren't all bottles of bubbly and villas.

Have a stroll down Staines city centre or one of Woking's many chav-tastic neighbourhoods (Sheerwater, Maybury or Knaphill) and I think you'll revise your image of 'leafy Surrey'.

If you then have a chance, have a stroll around Eastleigh in Hampshire, the only leaf you'll see is one in a baggie that the local kid is trying to sell to you. Portsmouth and Southampton might as well be Bridgend and Swansea, they're not a posh beach full of retirees.

Edited September 12, 2022 by magnkarl