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

[CVByrne]

6 hours ago, bickster said:

I described Starmer as the most left wing leader that will get elected as PM since the 60s. That’s a fundamental difference

So all you're really saying is he's more left wing than Tony Blair

[chrisp65]

6 hours ago, bickster said:

I described Starmer as the most left wing leader that will get elected as PM since the 60s. That’s a fundamental difference

Is that careful wording to miss out Jim Callaghan?

[bickster]

1 minute ago, chrisp65 said:

Is that careful wording to miss out Jim Callaghan?

No, didn't even think about it, I don't even think that is the original wording when I said it. Callaghan continued Wilson's response to the winter of discontent by doing a deal with the Unions to keep wages low with rampant inflation. I wouldn't have either Wilson's second term or Callaghan's term of office as more left wing than what I think Starmer would be like

The point is more that he's to the right of people like Foot, Kinnock, Milliband, the C-word, who all failed to win elections and to the left of the others

There is one caveat, John Smith but we'll sadly never know on that one

I guess Starmer is actually closer to John Smith, thats a tough one to call

[chrisp65]

Race Relations Act, Homeless Persons Act, Police Reform, Scottish Devolution Referendum, (eventual) introduction of the national curriculum.

If Starmer is left of that and as busy as that, I’ll be impressed.

Obviously I knew all that and haven’t just spent a pleasant 15 minutes down a google rabbit hole.

 

[ml1dch]

32 minutes ago, bickster said:

The point is more that he's to the right of people like Foot, Kinnock, Milliband, the C-word, who all failed to win elections and to the left of the others

I'd wonder whether he's definitely to the right of Milliband, given I don't think anyone is one hundred percent certain which bits of Starmer's political persona are lies to get elected leader, which bits are positioning the party, which bits are performative differentiation from his predecessor and which bits are what he actually thinks.

He's just not been in politics long enough for anyone to know much, I reckon.

Although you've probably forgotten more about peoples' positions in the Labour Party than I'll ever know, so you're welcome to tell me I'm talking nonsense. 

Edited February 27, 2023 by ml1dch

[bickster]

14 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

I'd wonder whether he's definitely to the right of Milliband, given I don't think anyone is one hundred percent certain which bits of Starmer's political persona are lies to get elected leader, which bits are positioning the party, which bits are performative differentiation from his predecessor and which bits are what he actually thinks.

He's just not been in politics long enough for anyone to know much, I reckon.

Although you've probably forgotten more about peoples' positions in the Labour Party than I'll ever know, so you're welcome to tell me I'm talking nonsense. 

In all honesty, I didn't really consider Miiliband's position on anything because he didn't get elected. The comment has moved on somewhat since I made it and Milliband was cast aside in my thoughts in the original statement because he simply lost and to that end you can put him either way, it doesn't really make any difference to the original comment.

The point really was, in the last half a century, left-wing Labour leaders don't get their party into government.

[ml1dch]

Looks like Berger was just the first...

 

[ml1dch]

I'm guessing this'll have the "it was all just a witch-hunt against poor Boris" lot spitting feathers:

 

[bickster]

8 hours ago, ml1dch said:

Looks like Berger was just the first...

 

Just wait until they re-admit Alistair Campbell for the full on crank self-immolation apocalypse  

[Davkaus]

1 hour ago, ml1dch said:

I'm guessing this'll have the "it was all just a witch-hunt against poor Boris" lot spitting feathers:

 

This...Isn't a good look.

[Jareth]

The Sue Gray thing is a bit of a gift to the likes of Boris - not that it'll rile anyone other than the fervent brexiteers. Probably a sensible move given how respected she is. And as for anyone being let in to Labour, well they'll have tories, they'll take lib dems - it'll be a government of all the centre to centre right liberals whatever their colour. Who on earth will be the opposition?

[ml1dch]

4 hours ago, Davkaus said:

This...Isn't a good look.

It does seem a bit odd. I don't think it'll matter electorally though. There's probably nothing left in the Partygate barrel that will cause somebody to change their mind on it now.

People either think it was terrible, or it was a big fuss about nothing - but I reckon even if Sue Gray issued a press release saying "it was all lies, I did it because I'm a big lefty Labour fan and I hate Boris", I don't think it would turn the former crowd back to voting Tory. 

If anything, I reckon the likes of Mogg and Dorries chipping off about it is more likely to just remind people of how much the whole thing annoyed them. 

 

Edit - or as borrowed from the Twitters, "Westminster chatterers may be right that Sue Gray joining Labour is a “bad look” and “won’t go down well,” but probably only among members of the public who a) vote Tory, and b) know who she is. Those 800 or so people will be furious, though"

Edited March 2, 2023 by ml1dch

[bickster]

40 minutes ago, Jareth said:

Who on earth will be the opposition?

The SNP

[Jareth]

3 hours ago, bickster said:

The SNP

That would be nuts, PMQs would be permanently about Scottish independence. 

[bickster]

8 hours ago, Jareth said:

That would be nuts, PMQs would be permanently about Scottish independence. 

It’s genuinely a realistic projection for the current polling

[Wainy316]

As expected...

 

[blandy]

3 minutes ago, Wainy316 said:

As expected...

 

It’s beyond utterly mental.

[Jareth]

Appointing Sue Gray is no different than anyone in the treasury going off to work in the city - or HMRC to any financial position - but you wonder how much traction they will get with this. Its up there with the republican's brand of absolute bollocks conspiracy theory - however it might just get some traction.

[Wainy316]

11 minutes ago, Jareth said:

Appointing Sue Gray is no different than anyone in the treasury going off to work in the city - or HMRC to any financial position - but you wonder how much traction they will get with this. Its up there with the republican's brand of absolute bollocks conspiracy theory - however it might just get some traction.

People that are susceptible to that kind of shit are never gonna vote Labour anyway.

[ml1dch]

38 minutes ago, Jareth said:

Appointing Sue Gray is no different than anyone in the treasury going off to work in the city - or HMRC to any financial position - but you wonder how much traction they will get with this. Its up there with the republican's brand of absolute bollocks conspiracy theory - however it might just get some traction.

I don't think it's going to give the Tories traction in a positive way. The Government have had a surprisingly positive couple of weeks on the news agenda by calmly getting on with the boring business of Government without any accompanying psychodrama, there's no scenario where bringing all this back up again helps them. 

Even their best case scenario appears to be people thinking "remember the Prime Minister the-one-before-last, who won the election? Maybe they shouldn't have got rid of him after all".

Edit - as Stephen Bush nicely summarises:

 

Quote

...but it has an additional edge for Conservatives — some of whom are said to be “disgusted” by the move — because from 2012 to 2018, Gray had one of the most sensitive jobs in the civil service, heading up the cabinet office’s propriety and ethics team (PET). Over the years, I’ve heard Conservative MPs and Labour veterans cheerfully refer to PET as “the place where bad news gets buried”, the “department of cover-ups”, and other colourful variations on that theme.

Our own Chris Cook wrote a must-read profile of Gray back when he was at the BBC, which you can find here. So it causes some anxiety among certain Tories that the woman who was bringing crises to a quiet end will now be advising the leader of the opposition. A lot of the reaction is simply hysteria. If Gray valued the ability to cause the Conservatives harm over her own professional ethics, she had plenty of opportunities from 2012 to 2018. As one Tory veteran of that time noted to me, if Gray were going to put her professional ethics to one side to inflict harm on the Conservative party, they would surely know about it already.

Ultimately civil servants do not swear a blood oath to never have political thoughts outside of office or to have political jobs afterwards. No one in the Labour party freaked out about the fact Dan Rosenfield, who helped the Labour government through the financial crisis, was working for Boris Johnson.

One reason for the Tory panic is that although most, when you put all the above to them, calm down about it, no one likes the idea that the permanent secretary for “cover-ups” is working for the opposition. Another reason is that the party’s polling position means the mood is pretty febrile all the time.

But the third is more cynical. For some Conservative MPs and their media allies, suggesting there is something improper about Gray’s hiring allows them to suggest there was something improper about her investigation into lockdown-breaking parties. And throwing her report into doubt allows them to suggest that the Conservative party made a mistake in getting rid of Johnson.

Now, of course, the reality is that Johnson wasn’t forced out because of Sue Gray’s investigation into the Downing Street parties. He was forced out because he and Rishi Sunak were at odds over economic policy and because, in the wake of the Chris Pincher affair, his MPs had grown weary of his Downing Street operation. But rewriting history to suggest that Johnson was forced out by a civil service investigation allows Johnson’s allies a way to rehabilitate their leader and themselves, and to find ways to undermine Sunak.

 

Edited March 3, 2023 by ml1dch