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Labour Leader: Keir Starmer II

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He usually gave the impression he was just reading last month’s homework. Just totally outside the current news cycle, e.g. Gina Miller would have beaten the government in the courts, Farage/Yaxley Lennon would be bringing their racism to the streets and Corbyn would ask a question about bloody bus stops in Warrington or something. Real ‘focus group says no’ cowardice at challenging the issues of the day IMHO.
If that is true, why isn't the same fury thrown at Starmer's 'cowardise' towards people drowned while seeking asylum?
 
It says in black and white that people don't blame Corbyn they blame Brown. The reason for that was the repeated failure under Milliband's leadership to explain the root cause of the banking crash. There's no suggestion whatever the folks didn't like the 2017 manifesto. You need to get your head around Brixit and what is happening on the radical right.
I liked the manifesto. I didn't believe the leader was competent.
 
Starmer’s popular. The reason the Tories are still out in front is because they’re popular too. Boris is popular. And it’s not because of his sensible attitudes to international trade and calm, competent handling of the current crisis. It’s because he promised to stick it right up smartarse Remainiac MPs, Brussels bureaucrats and refugees, even if - especially if - it meant setting fire to the economy, parliament and the UK itself. Current Tory policy isn’t just radical it’s apocalyptic, and they’re more popular, after a decade in power and a mass cull of their own livestock, than any party since peak Thatcher. Herself no moderate.

Starmer is making Labour electable and given the meltdown of support for Labour left behind by Corbyn that is quite an achievement.
 
It says in black and white that people don't blame Corbyn they blame Brown. The reason for that was the repeated failure under Milliband's leadership to explain the root cause of the banking crash. There's no suggestion whatever the folks didn't like the 2017 manifesto. You need to get your head around Brixit and what is happening on the radical right. Corbyn is blamed for backtracking on the referendum result.

For the third time where's the evidence of people wanting radical politics? What you say above shows nothing of the sort.

BTW if you want to take the article at face value then how do you respond to it's accusation that " the continued toxicity of Labour’s image" is helping to keep the Tories out of reach.
 
For the third time where's the evidence of people wanting radical politics? What you say above shows nothing of the sort.

BTW if you want to take the article at face value then how do you respond to it's accusation that " the continued toxicity of Labour’s image" is helping to keep the Tories out of reach.

I think that's a Toryism and that you need to read between the lines. I don't think you understand that the Tories are popular precisely because they are perceived to be radical.
 
If that is true, why isn't the same fury thrown at Starmer's 'cowardise' towards people drowned while seeking asylum?

Believe me I am. I’m very disappointed with him so far, but in fairness I am always disappointed with Labour! Given a party as small as the Greens can find a Caroline Lucas, the SNP a Nicola Sturgeon, and the Lib Dems totally fail to recognise the one they have (Layla Moran), I don’t understand why Labour is always such a vacuum. I honestly don’t know what the party is for anymore. It should be a powerful highly focused progressive opposition to the most destructive and hard right-wing government in my lifetime, but it is just crap. Bland, cowardly fence-sitting crap. It’s been crap since Blair waddled into Iraq with George Bush, they’ve just discovered a whole new range of banal focus-group-neutered crapness since then! Just shoot it in the head and let the Greens grow into the opposition!

PS FWIW I quite liked Ed Milliband!
 
I always felt they chose the wrong Milliband brother. David always struck me as far more Prime Ministerial but Ed was the unions choice from what I remember!
 
Believe me I am. I’m very disappointed with him so far, but in fairness I am always disappointed with Labour! Given a party as small as the Greens can find a Caroline Lucas, the SNP a Nicola Sturgeon, and the Lib Dems totally fail to recognise the one they have (Layla Moran), I don’t understand why Labour is always such a vacuum. I honestly don’t know what the party is for anymore. It should be a powerful highly focused progressive opposition to the most destructive and hard right-wing government in my lifetime, but it is just crap. Bland, cowardly fence-sitting crap. It’s been crap since Blair waddled into Iraq with George Bush, they’ve just discovered a whole new range of banal focus-group-neutered crapness since then! Just shoot it in the head and let the Greens grow into the opposition!

PS FWIW I quite liked Ed Milliband!
There are still some good people in the PLP (Clive Lewis, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Dawn Butler...) and there is hope for the future as younger MPs come through the ranks:

https://twitter.com/NadiaWhittomeMP/status/1301200914712231936

I find Whittome impressive. She was elected in 2019 and is the youngest MP in the HoC, yet she is calm, articulate, and not afraid to take on a fight. On becoming an MP, she announced she would only take the equivalent of the national average salary, and would donate the balance of her income as an MP to local charities. During the first wave of the pandemic, she returned to work at the care home where she had worked before she became an MP.

A fine young socialist. If there were any justice, she would be a contender for future Labour leader, but the way the party's going she stands no chance. Right wing members of the PLP have already taken pops at her on Twitter but yeah, unity.
 
Dunno, the point me and Gav are trying to make to gassor is that they already did - Brexit and Johnson 2019 were not moderate options.

When did they change from being right-wing choices to be awarded the title of radical? Brexit and the election result were down to people voting conservative with a capital c. Conservatism has the sovereignty of the UK above everything else so it was not radicalism, but a return to its core values that drove Brexit. As for the election, you have identified the Tory manifesto as being blatantly right-wing so where did the radical tag come from? Right-wingers, can, of course, be radical but this is not what gav meant, he meant radical in the sense of left-wing radicalism. And to reiterate my point there is no meaningful evidence for this in the UK at present.
 
When did they change from being right-wing choices to be awarded the title of radical? Brexit and the election result were down to people voting conservative with a capital c. Conservatism has the sovereignty of the UK above everything else so it was not radicalism, but a return to its core values that drove Brexit.

It was the purging of all the moderates from the party, the take-over by a dark-funded ERG insurgency, the widespread adoption of vile UKIP/BNP/Britain First racist scapegoating rhetoric, the utter contempt for the rule of law (illegal prorogations etc, the refusal to support judges branded ‘enemies of the people’ etc), the endless lies, the total lack of accountability, the absolute power of oligarch elites, the blatant unashamed corruption right from giving party donors multi-£million contracts they can’t possibly deliver on through to Emperor Johnson giving out peerages to his family and close friends. This can’t possibly be viewed as anything other than an extreme government. Moderate governments just don’t drive around in racist ‘GO HOME’ vans for a start. I’d describe where we are right now as a hard-right kleptocracy.
 
When did they change from being right-wing choices to be awarded the title of radical? Brexit and the election result were down to people voting conservative with a capital c. Conservatism has the sovereignty of the UK above everything else so it was not radicalism, but a return to its core values that drove Brexit. As for the election, you have identified the Tory manifesto as being blatantly right-wing so where did the radical tag come from? Right-wingers, can, of course, be radical but this is not what gav meant, he meant radical in the sense of left-wing radicalism. And to reiterate my point there is no meaningful evidence for this in the UK at present.

I don't know how I could have been any clearer for you...

"...the Tories are offering extremely radical policies just the wrong kind, but they're popular. Sturgeon too is radical in her own way - leaving the UK is very radical and growing in support. You don't counter those by saying let's go back to the failed policies of Gordon Brown or supporting the Union. We'll be facing 'no deal' with the EU, or some shabby compromise, a dreadful deal with the US with rising healthcare costs and declining food standards, increased pressure on the climate - all that needs imagination."
 
When did they change from being right-wing choices to be awarded the title of radical? Brexit and the election result were down to people voting conservative with a capital c. Conservatism has the sovereignty of the UK above everything else so it was not radicalism, but a return to its core values that drove Brexit. As for the election, you have identified the Tory manifesto as being blatantly right-wing so where did the radical tag come from? Right-wingers, can, of course, be radical but this is not what gav meant, he meant radical in the sense of left-wing radicalism. And to reiterate my point there is no meaningful evidence for this in the UK at present.
I wouldn’t use radical as another word for left wing: there are all sorts of radicalism, and modern conservatism is of the batsh-t right wing variety. I thought you were arguing that there’s no evidence of the UK preferring radicalism to moderate politics, to which I was saying [looks around and gestures with arm to ask “WTF is all this then”].

If what you’re saying is people prefer radical right to radical left that’s a different question, but still not one to which “Let’s play to the UK’s innate sense of moderation” seems like the most sensible answer right now.
 
It was the purging of all the moderates from the party, the take-over by a dark-funded ERG insurgency, the widespread adoption of vile UKIP/BNP/Britain First racist scapegoating rhetoric, the utter contempt for the rule of law (illegal prorogations etc, the refusal to support judges branded ‘enemies of the people’ etc), the endless lies, the total lack of accountability, the absolute power of oligarch elites, the blatant unashamed corruption right from giving party donors multi-£million contracts they can’t possibly deliver on through to Emperor Johnson giving out peerages to his family and close friends. This can’t possibly be viewed as anything other than an extreme government. Moderate governments just don’t drive around in racist ‘GO HOME’ vans for a start. I’d describe where we are right now as a hard-right kleptocracy.
And an extremely popular hard right kleptocracy at that!
 
And an extremely popular hard right kleptocracy at that!

43% of a 67% turnout. I’m crap at maths, but that’s around one in three that actively selected this crap isn’t it? If that. Yet here we are, in a dictatorship for four years.

Edit: 28.8%, I think.
 
I don't know how I could have been any clearer for you...

"...the Tories are offering extremely radical policies just the wrong kind, but they're popular. Sturgeon too is radical in her own way - leaving the UK is very radical and growing in support. You don't counter those by saying let's go back to the failed policies of Gordon Brown or supporting the Union. We'll be facing 'no deal' with the EU, or some shabby compromise, a dreadful deal with the US with rising healthcare costs and declining food standards, increased pressure on the climate - all that needs imagination."

When I commented to you initially it was in the context of you saying the appeal of Starmer is limited because he doesn't do radical politics and that's what people (you said) really want. You were not saying anything about right-wing radicalism. Now suddenly you are on about the Tories being radical. Re-read what you wrote when I first commented.

In fact here it is, "I agree - with his barrister's training I would certainly hope so. Unfortunately a vocational degree, the ability to cram and to define an argument in a sterile context doesn't make a leader in itself. Maybe that was enough in Westminster circles in the past but people want radical policies now, and radical policies will be necessary for the future for sure, but there's been very little (if anything) to suggest that Starmer is capable of delivering." You are talking about Starmer delivering radical policies not Tories being radical.
 
I think radical policies are the last thing ordinary voters want at this time. They want political parties that are trustworthy, who put weight behind their promises and who don’t appear to be in it for themselves. At the moment this is not a reality. The Conservatives are out of touch, led by a network of Eton boys who are only interested in themselves and their buddies. They don’t have a clue about what it’s like to live in poverty or battle for employment. Labour are principled but ineffective and introduced a range of ‘radical’ policies in a desperate bid to win an election that they could never win. At the moment they are pretty much an irrelevance to the ordinary public. For me the Cons have predictably fallen at the first hurdles after forcing Brexit. Incredibly scary. Labour may win back support but they need to build trust before they push policies.
 
I wouldn’t use radical as another word for left wing: there are all sorts of radicalism, and modern conservatism is of the batsh-t right wing variety. I thought you were arguing that there’s no evidence of the UK preferring radicalism to moderate politics, to which I was saying [looks around and gestures with arm to ask “WTF is all this then”].

If what you’re saying is people prefer radical right to radical left that’s a different question, but still not one to which “Let’s play to the UK’s innate sense of moderation” seems like the most sensible answer right now.

Left-wingers often call themselves radical, it's sort of a badge of honour, something they value I would suggest. You want to argue Johnson is some kind of break with trad Tory values well that's possible, but it's not radicalism. He may have by increasing state intervention (and involvement in people's day to day lives) to a level beyond the imagination of the previous Labour leader but it is more to do with political expediency than any form of radicalism. The extremism of Thatcher has been replaced indeed by moderation. "There has been less talk of tax cuts and more of tax increases; an election manifesto that promised “opportunity for all” and “social justice”; an increase in the minimum wage well above the rate of inflation; the nationalisation of Northern Rail; and the possibility of state aid for other troubled but strategically important businesses" There is plenty of evidence of moderate politics if you want to see it, the reason being it is what people want.
 
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