droodzilla
pfm Member
The last line of my previous post was a little tongue in cheek but, intrigued by the positive comments, I did watch Andrew Neil's interview with Nandy. I found it a mixed bag.
Positives:
1. She told Andrew Neil to shut up.
2. She told him to shut up for a good reason - to develop a line of thought. In a soundbite political culture, this is to be applauded.
3. She was positive about freedom of movement (with certain qualifications).
4. She pushed back against Andrew Neil's suggestion that her constituents voted against freedom of movement. I broadly agreed with her analysis (contra many members here who have repeatedly smeared Leave voters as "gammon").
5. Quite a lot of emphasis on creating sustainable growth (without ever calling it the "green new deal"), while acknowledging people's fears about the loss of jobs in (what's left of) traditional industry.
6. The emphasis on communicating policy in language that connects with people's everyday experience.
7. Not as much "cultural conservativism" as I expected (hardly any, in fact).
7. Some brief, clear answers to the quickfire policy questions at the end. Mostly sensible.
Negatives:
1. A bit vague on policy in other areas (e.g.how does she see giving power back to the people working in practice).
2. Over-reliance on the "brave choice" soundbite.
3. I fear she will surrender too much of the ground gained pushing the Overton wndow leftwards in the last few years.
4. Not enough about building a movement and using the mass membership on the ground (to be fair this stuff doesn't interest mainstream journalists so it never comes up).
5. Her claim that Corbyn defended Russia in the Skripal case is egregious. He insisted on seeing the evidence and following international law (something Nandy said she believed in earlier).
6. Her reply to the EHRC question was fine but her willingness to pronounce judgement, on the fly, on a named Twitter activist's alleged anti-semitism was disturbing.
She's an interesting candidate with, perhaps, more power to cut through and galvanise support where it's needed than Starmer. As a working class lad from a Northern town, I want to believe in her but I do worry about the political positions she will adopt under the intense pressure she'll face if she wins.
Why on earth is RLB in bed with Rayner and not supporting Burgon or even Dawn Butler?
