Labour Leader: Keir Starmer VII

[droodzilla]

https://twitter.com/CWUnews/status/1551821921679032320

Seems Keir Starmer has forgotten he wrote to @DaveWardGS when he stood for Labour leader committing to renationalise Royal Mail and other industries.

Here's the letter:

https://web.archive.org/web/2020092...k/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Keir-Starmer.pdf

As you will know from our discussions over recent years, I passionately believe that public services should be in public hands, not making profits for private shareholders. That of course includes Royal Mail. If elected leader I also want to ensure that trade unions stand shoulder to shoulder with the Party

It's worth reading the letter in full, as it lays bare the full extent of Starmer's dishonesty.

 

[droodzilla]

Just like it is/was a fundamentally anti-semitic organisation. Best get on with changing the leader, then it can all go away virtually overnight.

Not sure why you’re bothered anymore, drood, given you’ve said you don’t support Labour.

Correct. I don't vote for liars and racists, no matter what colour rosette they wear.

 

[Le Baron]

Well, we know that a) Yellen is 'not a fan' of MMT, and b) is worried that, in the extreme, it might lead to hyperinflation. I don't think it's dishonesty.

I don't want to majorly press this, but she's again wrong (or lying) in saying that MMT says 'the bank can just buy the debt'. MMT says that bond sales characterised as 'debt' is fraudulent as a concept. That the CB can, and does actually, just pay interest on the bank reserves. That the draining of them is not fundamentally necessary. That it can be eliminated in different ways. That some bonds could be sold, though maybe less of them, in different ways for different reasons and to different people.Or they can be eliminated with practically no difference.

The point being she's anchoring her argument on a dubious point: claiming that MMT economists say: 'interest payments don't matter'. In essence, they don't matter, because government meets them easily. If the payments were supposedly the problem and those payments are a fraction of the so-called 'borrowing', they just go round in circles. Is it the 'borrowing' or the 'interest payments'. Do they even care that it isn't 'borrowing'? Or what the interest payments really represent? They're imagining default, but it's not a genuine argument. f their 'borrowing' is such a burden why don't they just retire bonds and stop selling them? They can do that.

"Hyperinflation" is a massive jump to make. Inflation is not problematic, accelerating inflation is a problem, but these are a purchase spending issue, nothing to do with 'interest payments' on bonds. Hyperinflation is something else and has only a few examples in world history!

If she isn't lying, she's just theoretically wrong. And also hasn't really quoted MMT, because her remarks are erroneous.

 

[Brian]

Correct. I don't vote for liars and racists, no matter what colour rosette they wear.

I’m honest and I’m not a racist, yet I want Labour to win the GE in 2024 because the priority for the good of the UK is to replace the tory govt.

https://twitter.com/CWUnews/status/1551821921679032320

Here's the letter:

https://web.archive.org/web/2020092...k/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Keir-Starmer.pdf

It's worth reading the letter in full, as it lays bare the full extent of Starmer's dishonesty.

The second link is either to a very short letter or doesn’t work properly on an iPad. There is nothing much to see.

The first is a tw*tter link from some random individual who could have any kind of agenda going on. Nowt like looking for confirmation of position.

 

[droodzilla]

I’m honest and I’m not a racist, yet I want Labour to win the GE in 2024 because the priority for the good of the UK is to replace the tory govt.


The second link is either to a very short letter or doesn’t work properly on an iPad. There is nothing much to see.

The first is a tw*tter link from some random individual who could have any kind of agenda going on. Nowt like looking for confirmation of position.

The first link is from the CWU's official Twitter account.

Do you still moan about the printing press?

 

[Brian]

The first link is from the CWU's official Twitter account.

Do you still moan about the printing press?

Does that mean the individual who made the post has no agenda?

drood, everybody posting tw*tter links is searching for confirmation of their opinion. That’s the problem with it. Anybody interested in a balanced account of virtually anything is unlikely to find it on tw*tter.

I hardly comment about the printing press.

 

[Tony L]

Oh noes, save the ambiguity fence! Labour MP Sam Tarry has joined a picket line despite Starmer’s safe offend no one right-wing establishment stance.

PS Sky are using the term ‘Shadow Transport Minister’, and seem to be suggesting that is Sam Tarry, whereas it is Louise Haigh as far as I can tell.

 

[droodzilla]

Oh noes, save the ambiguity fence! Labour MP Sam Tarry has joined a picket line despite Starmer’s safe offend no one right-wing establishment stance.

PS Sky are using the term ‘Shadow Transport Minister’, and seem to be suggesting that is Sam Tarry, whereas it is Louise Haigh as far as I can tell.

Haigh is the shadow Secretary of State for Transport. Tarry is one of her shadow ministers (she has a small team). I think.

 

[paulfromcamden]

Oh noes, save the ambiguity fence! Labour MP Sam Tarry has joined a picket line despite Starmer’s safe offend no one right-wing establishment stance.

40,000 workers striking. Grant Shapps writing in The Torygraph that he plans to "finish Thatcher's unfinished business" and destroy the unions. And Labour MPs are being told to keep away from picket lines.

WTF are Labour for?

 

[Seanm]

40,000 workers striking. Grant Shapps writing in The Torygraph that he plans to "finish Thatcher's unfinished business" and destroy the unions. And Labour MPs are being told to keep away from picket lines.

WTF are Labour for?

Largely career development for some of the worst people out there.

 

[droodzilla]

Haigh is the shadow Secretary of State for Transport. Tarry is one of her shadow ministers (she has a small team). I think.

Anyway, respect to Sam Tarry for doing the right thing:

https://twitter.com/BBCBreakfast/status/1552179050189410304

While most of the cowards in the PLP flinch:

https://twitter.com/jrc1921/status/1552201455611875328

 

[paulfromcamden]

No doubt Labour MPs will be showing their support for Aslef and CWU members when they strike on Friday. They are both affiliated unions after all.

 

[Woodface]

My long standing Labour supporting uncle has handed back his cards; I really don’t understand how Labour are in such a mess over this. It’s really not a tricky position to defend.

 

[droodzilla]

My long standing Labour supporting uncle has handed back his cards; I really don’t understand how Labour are in such a mess over this. It’s really not a tricky position to defend.

Two reasons:

1. The leadership chose not to back the strikes, which have turned out to be quite well-supported by the public, because many people can relate to what RMT and other unions are asking for.

2. The leadership compounded the above error by making showing support for the strikes an internal disciplinary matter (and making sure that we all knew it).

Both errors are down to an eagerness to please the right-wing press and to signal that a Labour government will not rock the boat too much, if Starmer wins the next election.

The result is an incoherent mess that pleases almost no-one.

 

[ff1d1l]

My long standing Labour supporting uncle has handed back his cards; I really don’t understand how Labour are in such a mess over this. It’s really not a tricky position to defend.

Your uncle has principles...labour, however...

 

[Woodface]

Two reasons:

1. The leadership chose not to back the strikes, which have turned out to be quite well-supported by the public, because many people can relate to what RMT and other unions are asking for.

2. The leadership compounded the above error by making showing support for the strikes an internal disciplinary matter (and making sure that we all knew it).

Both errors are down to an eagerness to please the right-wing press and to signal that a Labour government will not rock the boat too much, if Starmer wins the next election.

The result is an incoherent mess that pleases almost no-one.

How hard is it to say the strikes are on the back of 12 years of Tory misrule? The only explanation I can understand is that they are fearful of the public turning against the strikers (this will probably happen).

Ok, so I kind of get why MPs on the picket lines may not look good but at least have a broadly supportive position.

Funnily enough my uncle has withdrawn his cards over the refusal to commit to nationalising utilities. I 100% get where he’s coming from on this but it’s a policy that could backfire either way.

What a total mess.

 

[ks.234]

WTF are Labour for?

For Centrists to feel better about changing nothing.

 

[Tony L]

For Centrists to feel better about changing nothing.

Where are you putting the centre? Labour are deeply authoritarian, socially and fiscally conservative, anti-trade unions, against democratic reform, pro monarchy, pro-Brexit, pro-Trump/Tory style immigration controls etc etc. That’s all pretty hard-right from where I stand.

Where is the real difference between Keir Starmer and say Rishi Sunak? Sure, Sunak is a public school billionaire who doesn’t like his family paying tax, or even committing to where they live, but that aside where is the difference in policy or ideology? I’m just not seeing it.

 

[Seanm]

It’s long been part of Labour analysis, left and right, that their defeat in the ‘80s was partly down to the way they were framed as representing narrow sectoral interests, I.e the unions, while Thatcher represented the national interest. I don’t think that’s wrong but it’s hardened into dogma like so much else. Lots of things have changed since then, including unions and people’s understanding of them, and it’s ridiculous that Labour are still repeating the Kinnock strategy.

The other aspect of this of course is that the Labour right just don’t like or understand unions and don’t share the interests of the people they represent. It’s tempting to read everything they do as electoral strategy, like all the right wing stuff is just for show, but at the end of the day it’s simpler just to take them at face value.

 

[Le Baron]

Where are you putting the centre? Labour are deeply authoritarian, socially and fiscally conservative, anti-trade unions, against democratic reform, pro monarchy, pro-Brexit, pro-Trump/Tory style immigration controls etc etc. That’s all pretty hard-right from where I stand.

Where is the real difference between Keir Starmer and say Rishi Sunak? Sure, Sunak is a public school billionaire who doesn’t like his family paying tax, or even committing to where they live, but that aside where is the difference in policy or ideology? I’m just not seeing it.

I suppose the only difference is that Starmer and co claim to want social policy of a different sort. They may even mean it. Whereas Sunak and co don't really want social policy like that. Those 'moderate Tories' and the Labour right hit the centrist spot. People who think non-monetarist public spending is communism and want to dissociate themselves from the right-wing, mostly on social policy grounds.