Next Labour Leader: Keir Starmer

[gavreid]

Macron's travails should serve as an important lesson for Starmer

"...who feel the party, contrary to its pledge to be “neither left nor right”, is distinctly more right than left"

They've (re)discovered that there is no centre, not being left is being right.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...-reinvent-himself-may-not-save-his-presidency

 

[Woodface]

Mmm, I am sure Starmer would quite like that problem.

 

[mandryka]

Well, that's not what the Daily Express said! Or The Mail!

.

Well I’ve not read The Express for years and seeing that comment this morning prompted me to seek it out.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/poli...armer-news-coronavirus-latest-covid-19-deaths

Out of interest, I did glance through the Fail's report on a recent question time, one I'd happened to watch because I suddenly find them most enjoyable, and I can only assume the "journalist" was inhabiting a different space-time continuum than the rest of us.

There’s a French expression, chacun voit midi à sa porte. What I saw at my gate was this: Boris avoided answering the questions and he blustered. And Keir looked disgruntled and uncomfortable.

 

[TheDecameron]

If you watch the whole session you can see that The Express has gone full Fox and Friends. In fact you only have to watch the next 30 seconds they cut out when Starmer responded to Johnson’s claims about his “world beating test and trace programme”-

3:00 minutes in,

..fill your boots

 

[Tony L]

If you watch the whole session you can see that The Express has gone full Fox and Friends. In fact you only have to watch the next 30 seconds they cut out when Starmer responded to Johnson’s claims about his “world beating test and trace programme”-

There was an excellent Storyville documentary on BBC4 last night about The National Enquirer (iPlayer). It tracked the development of this type of gutter tabloid “journalism” from the 1950s and how over its history it shifted from gore and vacuous celebrity titillation to fundamental political corruption and blatant propaganda to the extent of buying up potentially scandalous stories that could be damaging to hard-right candidates like Schwarzenegger and Trump just to gag the accuser and ensure they never saw the light of day. Utterly partisan. Utterly corrupt. Our gutter press is obviously at least as bad, and the Express pretty much the bottom and most fetid level of that shit-heap. The program is well worth a watch.

 

[mandryka]

. Utterly partisan

What do you think of The Guardian, the live UK feed? Is there anything better or even as good but different online?
I’ve started to read The Standard live.

 

[Tony L]

What do you think of The Guardian, the live UK feed?

The Guardian is an entirely different thing as a) its a newspaper, and b) it is owned by a trust, not some far-right tax-exile oligarch. Details of the ownership can be found on Wikipedia. It really couldn’t be more different to the far-right gutter shite like the Express, Mail, Sun, Telegraph etc, all of which are really just tools for their oligarch owners to influence the UK’s decline into a low-tax, low-wage, low-rights economy where the most wealthy can do as they please.

 

[mandryka]

The Guardian is an entirely different thing as a) its a newspaper, and b) it is owned by a trust, not some far-right tax-exile oligarch. Details of the ownership can be found on Wikipedia. It really couldn’t be more different to the far-right gutter shite like the Express, Mail, Sun, Telegraph etc, all of which are really just tools for their oligarch owners to influence the UK’s decline into a low-tax, low-wage, low-rights economy where the most wealthy can do as they please.

Sure, I read it too. What I was interested in is what else is good to read on the current crisis in the UK online. But maybe this isn't the right thread for the discussion.

 

[Tony L]

Sure, I read it too. What I was interested in is what else is good to read on the current crisis in the UK online. But maybe this isn't the right thread for the discussion.

To be honest I prefer to form my own opinions, I watch government press briefings, PMQs etc and then follow the actual science via WHO, Johns Hopkins, Worldmeters etc. I don’t really need comment/opinion on something like Covid 19. Understanding how the virus spreads, what demographics it impacts etc is enough to assess the UK government response.

 

[Woodface]

I really like the ‘I’ newspaper, it has a range of voices & publishes pieces from the Spectator, Economist & Financial Times. I quite like to read the other side of arguments rather than just a reflection of my own views. I think the Guardian is a bit too predictable at times, you can forecast their take on everything.

The Daily Express is a paper I no longer thought existed, it is basically The Star for people who wear ties.

 

[Seanm]

That range runs all the way from right wing to extreme right wing.

 

[russel]

If you watch the whole session you can see that The Express has gone full Fox and Friends. In fact you only have to watch the next 30 seconds they cut out when Starmer responded to Johnson’s claims about his “world beating test and trace programme”-

3:00 minutes in,

..fill your boots

Years of treating every problem as what tabloid media coverage the response gets coming home to roost. Labour weren’t immune with its “spin management” and the Tories turbocharged it with Cameron’s ad agency background leaving him unable to think long term, the U.K. is currently getting its arse kicked not just by its peers but developing countries as well. If you look at China they are winning the battle because they are thinking long term and invest resources, a lot of those ideas are harmful and we are losing the battle because the country is being run by people who think all you need to achieve anything is a snappy slogan but then again maybe so long as everyone is distracted enough until they can shovel the countries cash offshore they don’t care.

 

[Tony L]

<moderating>

RL-B sacking split-out to separate thread here.

 

[SteveS1]

Johnson seemed to have truth issues (again), another PMQ disaster. The faithful will be getting restless.

 

[ks.234]

Johnson seemed to have truth issues (again), another PMQ disaster. The faithful will be getting restless.

The faithful are not pursuers of truth, they follow a perception moulded by popular opinion. It would take weeks of negative Daily Mail front page headlines to change that opinion, PMQ gaffs, lies and bluster don’t even register.

 

[Brian]

The faithful are not pursuers of truth, they follow a perception moulded by popular opinion. It would take weeks of negative Daily Mail front page headlines to change that opinion, PMQ gaffs, lies and bluster don’t even register.

Sadly, I have to agree.

 

[mandryka]

In PMQ Starmer (Captain Hindsight) gave Boris the opportunity to say three times (or have I miscounted?) that no one knew that COVID could be transmitted by people without symptoms when they made discharges from hospitals to care homes in Spring. Starmer did not challenge him on this, despite the fact that it was predictable that it would be his line. In a similar way, Marr didn’t challenge Hancock on Sunday when he said the same thing, and again it was predictable that he would say it. Maybe it’s not challengeable, I don’t know.

 

[SteveS1]

In PMQ Starmer (Captain Hindsight) gave Boris the opportunity to say three times (or have I miscounted?) that no one knew that COVID could be transmitted by people without symptoms when they made discharges from hospitals to care homes in Spring. Starmer did not challenge him on this, despite the fact that it was predictable that it would be his line. In a similar way, Marr didn’t challenge Hancock on Sunday when he said the same thing, and again it was predictable that he would say it. Maybe it’s not challengeable, I don’t know.

Look at the sketches and coverage this morning, voter comments are scathing and becoming more so, even in friendly broadsheets. It does no harm to allow him the room to correct a lie at the time. Removes the excuse that he was somehow hectored. Underestimate Johnson's continual failure at PMQs at your peril, there is far worse for him to come.

It never has massive effects in isolation, but it emboldens criticism, becomes an agenda of it's own and maintains a pressure on the individual. He does not like it and reveals more of himself and his inadequacy. It's one of the few genuine opportunities the opposition has to expose him. He hides most of the week.

 

[Kirk]

Starmer asks a narcissist to say sorry. Easier to push water up a hill.

 

[Tony L]

Maybe it’s not challengeable, I don’t know.

Easy to challenge as the Bullingdon liar was lying as usual. He always is. Exhibit A: Diamond Princess. Exhibit B: WHO advice. Exhibit C: a SAGE meeting way back in Jan. As usual Britain Trump hadn’t read his brief and just thought he could lie and bluster his way out. Sadly his voter demographic, like proper Trump’s, don’t care about evidence or science. They are magical thinkers and buy his shit.