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Labour Leader: Keir Starmer IV

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But he got Labour electable. And New Labour had a majority in Hartlepool of 17,500. You may have forgotten that.

In fairness there is a very different climate now. People in northern working class areas had sat through 14 or so years of throwing plastic chairs at plexiglass windows in Job Centres before that majority. Britain Trump’s economic reality has yet to hit home. It will, I am sure of that. There is a heck of a lot of unemployment and poverty hiding right around the corner as the Tories have zero clue about the changing economic reality beyond knowing how to siphon £bns for themselves. The people of Hartlepool etc are about to get reamed, as are any ‘working class’ areas expecting any change from a billionaire oligarchy when it comes to the inevitable unemployment and poverty that comes from a world that no longer needs mass labour.
 
A rather good result though of course the prepared narrative is already doing the rounds, that the ghost of Corbyn still haunts Labour and the exorcism needs to be completed. In other words, expect calls for a further tack to the right.

Labour are now back to playing the game of rotating rosettes and musical chairs. Identify what you perceived as the centre ground and join everyone else in seeking to occupy it, no matter how cramped the space. All this achieves is a rotation of jobs and political colour, with the basic politics staying within tight boundaries. Little changes.

What the Party should be doing is staking out a position and fighting to win sufficient of the electorate toward that position, on the left of politics.
The best we achieve in a general election is c60% turnout, and typically 35% in other elections. An awfully large cohort are completely disengaged with politics and are ripe for the taking by a party able to appeal from the left with bold policies and extra-parliamentary activity.
That was the project Corbyn begun, only to have this crippled and sabotaged from within.

Possible now from Labour? - no, which is why we must kill it.
I urge all left groups, socialists, Marxists, Leninists, Trots, left Greens, whatever the left political colour to challenge Labour in marginal seats in order to help split the left vote and unseat the sitting MP.

Clear the way for something new.
 
In fairness there is a very different climate now. People in northern working class areas had sat through 14 or so years of throwing plastic chairs at plexiglass windows in Job Centres before that majority. Britain Trump’s economic reality has yet to hit home. It will, I am sure of that. There is a heck of a lot of unemployment and poverty hiding right around the corner as the Tories have zero clue about the changing economic reality beyond knowing how to siphon £bns for themselves. The people of Hartlepool etc are about to get reamed, as are any ‘working class’ areas expecting any change from a billionaire oligarchy when it comes to the inevitable unemployment and poverty that comes from a world that no longer needs mass labour.

Yup, and unfortunately sometimes folk need to learn the hard way.
 
In fairness there is a very different climate now. People in northern working class areas had sat through 14 or so years of throwing plastic chairs at plexiglass windows in Job Centres before that majority. Britain Trump’s economic reality has yet to hit home. It will, I am sure of that. There is a heck of a lot of unemployment and poverty hiding right around the corner as the Tories have zero clue about the changing economic reality beyond knowing how to siphon £bns for themselves. The people of Hartlepool etc are about to get reamed, as are any ‘working class’ areas expecting any change from a billionaire oligarchy when it comes to the inevitable unemployment and poverty that comes from a world that no longer needs mass labour.
The people who voted Tory are not going to get reamed, because they’re mostly asset-owning pensioners. They will be looked after. And Tories are now openly favouring Tory constituencies when it comes to funding so everyone in Hartlepool will be better off than they would be had Labour won.

There's no point waiting around for Conservative supporters to face the consequences of their own actions, because the Conservatives are in a position not to let that happen. They have all the means at their disposal to rig things for their base: some of these are openly corrupt, but some of them, such as economic populism, have been gifted to them by Labour.

There are good reasons for voting Conservative, including being a home owner, and being a ****. There ought to be lots of good reasons for voting Labour, like having a job, or being unemployed, or being a renter. But Labour are not going to mention any of these reasons for fear of looking a bit lefty.
 
Vast swathes of people own homes, have savings etc and don’t vote Conservative! If it is somehow a requirement I wasn’t notified!
 
Sir Keir has spoken. In a rather fake and rehearsed style, though sounded a bit frustrated by the end.

Says he is bitterly disappointed, but he will fix things.

Oh dear. He is clearly in deep denial at how dull and unpopular he is.

I wonder what the plan will be? Probably more photoshoots in John Lewis, but this time with some flags and some armed forces and/or farmers in the background.
 
What's interesting so far in the declared seats in Scotland is that it does seem to be showing how well aligned Labour and the Tories are in the eyes of the electorate, with their voters seeming quite willing to switch their votes from one to the other. That's perhaos a bigger concern for Labour than it is for the Tories.
 
Vast swathes of people own homes, have savings etc and don’t vote Conservative! If it is somehow a requirement I wasn’t notified!
I keep going over this: owning a home doesn't make you a Conservative voter. But it does insulate you somewhat from their demented actions. And if you happen to like those actions, well...

This isn't a turkeys voting for Christmas thing. Quite a lot of people have a material interest in seeing a Tory government, or are at least not so materially inconvenienced by a Tory government that they can't afford to buy into their racism and sadism.
 
But he got Labour electable. And New Labour had a majority in Hartlepool of 17,500. You may have forgotten that.

Ayesha Hazarika was making a lot of sense today on TV.
He got Labour elected by appealing to Tory voters. But in the here and now Johnson is cemented in power by appealing to Labour voters. Where does Labour go now?
 
There are good reasons for voting Conservative, including being a home owner, and being a ****. There ought to be lots of good reasons for voting Labour, like having a job, or being unemployed, or being a renter. But Labour are not going to mention any of these reasons for fear of looking a bit lefty.

Mentioning it would do no good! No one would listen, they’d be ridiculed and vilified.

IMO today’s losers - people who are precariously employed or unemployed, people who are precariously housed - don’t expect the state to help them beyond offering the most basic safety net, and by keeping foreigners and foreign ideas out. As we’ve said before, they’re not clamouring for lefty-ness. We seem to live in a time of bourgeois (who have excellent reasons for voting Tory) and lumpen-proletariat (who, as you say, have no good reason to vote Labour and have good reasons to vote Tory if it’ll keep the supply of cheap consumer goods and holidays going.)

You say the left is weak - and I say that the word weak is too weak! They would need a superhero to be able to get through the barrier of hostility they would meet. A sort of Che.

This is an interesting idea

I urge all left groups, socialists, Marxists, Leninists, Trots, left Greens, whatever the left political colour to challenge Labour in marginal seats in order to help split the left vote and unseat the sitting MP.

Clear the way for something new.

IMO Britain won’t evolve into a fairer society, ever.
 
Politics isn't about policies, facts and nuance any more, the Tories have adapted to this better than Labour who still think people will vote on their traditional values.

It's a popularity contest won with sound bites and acting the Pratt on TV, with a bit of "plain speaking" thrown in for good measure. Farage kick started it and the Tories have wrestled the baton off him and are running off into the distance with it. Regular folk who have voted Tory couldn't give two shits about how morally bankrupt Johnson is, no matter how many sleaze stories or "pile the bodies high" quotes come out.

It's not some alt right conspiracy either, most people just think he's s bit of a rogue who has done the best he could with covid. Lots of people voted for him just because he makes them laugh.

Under these conditions Starmer and Labour don't stand a snowball in hell's chance.
 
I wonder if we'll see some sort of left-wing populism in the next few years. Anti-elites, anti-immigration, anti-woke, anti-EU. A bit like the Five Star Movement in Italy. Get someone young and charismatic to front it and it would romp home. God help us.
 
Vast swathes of people own homes, have savings etc and don’t vote Conservative! If it is somehow a requirement I wasn’t notified!
It's statistical. Home ownership (and, relatedly, age) remains one of the best predictors of which party people vote for.
 
Mentioning it would do no good! No one would listen, they’d be ridiculed and vilified.

IMO today’s losers - people who are precariously employed or unemployed, people who are precariously housed - don’t expect the state to help them beyond offering the most basic safety net, and by keeping foreigners and foreign ideas out. As we’ve said before, they’re not clamouring for lefty-ness. We seem to live in a time of bourgeois (who have excellent reasons for voting Tory) and lumpen-proletariat (who, as you say, have no good reason to vote Labour and have good reasons to vote Tory if it’ll keep the supply of cheap consumer goods and holidays going.)

You say the left is weak - and I say that the word weak is too weak! They would need a superhero to be able to get through the barrier of hostility they would meet. A sort of Che.

This is an interesting idea



IMO Britain won’t evolve into a fairer society, ever.
There was a brief moment when some of the people you mention began to believe that something else was possible. 2017-21 has mostly been about beating that hope out of them.

Let's see what happens when things open up. I think there may be some pent up demand, so to speak.

Anyway, we can't expect anything from Labour. It will come from elsewhere.
 
Big-face is going to set out a strong case to the country. Whatever that might mean. Does he think he's still in court?


PS Volume is low.
 
There's no point waiting around for Conservative supporters to face the consequences of their own actions, because the Conservatives are in a position not to let that happen. They have all the means at their disposal to rig things for their base: some of these are openly corrupt, but some of them, such as economic populism, have been gifted to them by Labour.

This is simply not true. Governing wisely matters. Political mismanagement might be hidden from many in the short term with a bit of populism and bribery but the resulting decline cannot be hidden in the longer term. The current strategy of transferring wealth from the poor to rich by reducing the value of labour and increasing the value assets is destabilising and not sustainable. The current conservative popularity is a bubble and like all bubbles it is going to end quite suddenly. Labour need to look like a safe pair of hands when this happens and despite a decent start this is increasingly not the case.
 
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