paulfromcamden
Baffled
It's not going to happen. Not in England.
Labour Leader: Keir Starmer V
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It's not going to happen. Not in England.
droodzilla
pfm Member
I agree. Don't underestimate the chilling effect of raising the PLP nomination threshold though:
https://twitter.com/LeftieStats/status/1441709962665893888
But yes, effectively closing down the possibility of deselection at local level seals the deal. It's a recipe for a sclerotic, increasingly out of touch party as well as being deeply authoritarian and anti-democratic.
Le Baron
Unbiased advice at reasonable rates
Perhaps not right now.
Regarding your other post though, I completely see how people look at what's happening to Labour and say: 'Get it together! Whilst you all bicker the country goes to pot under the Tories!' However there's no sense in trying to patch up this breach just to take office, it was attempted under Blair and came to grief. It's too big and has been coming for a long time. To suppress it means setting it up for another explosion later on.
It's all well and good for middle-of-the-road voters to look at it and opine that it's just the bolshy 'far left' trying to block moderate 'electable leaders'. It isn't. It's been a 43-year battle against the Labour Party being moved closer to an economic model which guarantees they'll never be able to deliver Labour Party social policy aims, In fact no party will. That dreaded 'monetarism' word; a complete system designed to purposely constrict spending, maintain a certain level of unemployment (as inflation control), rooted in a falsehood about where financial resources come from. Folk like 'Kirk' here who think this is just the unvarnished reality of economic life, are testament to how far this ideology has permeated everything.
Just the day before yesterday I was reading a paper on inflation written by Jeremy B. Rudd one of the board of economists at the Federal Reserve. I passed it on to someone who posted it on Twitter and then everyone was posting it. It was notable because it opened by declaring:
And then after a paragraph or so there was a footnote on page 3 which reads:
From the Federal Reserve! This thing is breaking down and a lot of economists have known this for a long time, but political parties are almost immune to recognising it. There is a routine which everyone sticks to, saying the same things derived from the same set of traditional falsehoods. Before anything changes long-term, this has to break down completely.
That paper, by the way, is here: https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/files/2021062pap.pdf
droodzilla
pfm Member
Pick a colour. Any colour as long as it's (not) black.
Seanm
pfm Member
Arf.
https://www.facebook.com/959780427477483/posts/4200715223383971/
David Evans to conference: “Everyone remembers why they joined Labour. What was it for you?”
Audience: “Jeremy Corbyn!”
https://www.facebook.com/959780427477483/posts/4200715223383971/
David Evans to conference: “Everyone remembers why they joined Labour. What was it for you?”
Audience: “Jeremy Corbyn!”
Seanm
pfm Member
Yes, bit troubling that.
That's a relief. I'm reassured that they are concentrating on the important stuff at a time when fuel isn't being distributed, we have empty shelves in supermarkets and manufacturers are unable to obtain an essential component of a number of essential food items.Guys, guys, can't we just be grateful that we finally have a "functioning opposition"?
And yes, this is real.
Holding the government to account, that's the stuff.
laughingboy
pfm Member
That footnote is extraordinary. The previous day, Starmer's The Road Ahead was published. It seems to describe a different world, one where no fundamental economic change is required, merely adjustments within the existing paradigm. In particular, its economic prescriptions sound inadequate:
Is it just me, or does that sound like the Third Way?
Le Baron
Unbiased advice at reasonable rates
Yes. That third way stuff is like a slippery snake, because it sort of sounds correct and just in essence. The rhetoric speaks to the centrist mind which imagines these two naturally separate powers: public sector (home of the 'communists' et al) and private sector (owners of money and land of innovators), jostling for domination and which needs careful mediation to balance them. It's not even like that. I'll be characteristically boring for a paragraph:
It's really hard for some people to admit the fact that government in a modern 'capitalist' monetary economy has the upper hand. That they levy taxes/charges BY FORCE to force people to accept their currency and create deliberate unemployment to set the economic wheels in motion. That very little happens until they start spending and making huge purchases of goods and services by mobilising people into economic activity in order to transfer this into the public sphere - leaving some over as private profit. That's the skeleton of the economy - now disfigured by massive private corruption, tax evasion, collusion with corrupt governments. Instead there is the image Starmer is portraying of a sort of 'truce' between two equal and opposing forces.
I think therefore your diagnosis is on the button.
ff1d1l
pfm Member
Ah, but if only he had starmer's many qualities...
Marcus Rashford. The leader of the opposition to the government
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
Like penetrating defences of the home team?
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
Headlines today say the Starmer is thinking about removing Charitable status for private schools. A great idea, but will it still be a firm policy by the end of the week? Or is Starmer just throwing it out there now to test the water and will row back when the inevitable push back happens?
Dave H.
Revolutionary relativist
Didn’t that same policy get floated by the JC team and get greeted by a bout of extra-loud spluttering and cries of ‘politics of envy’? Sure I remember it being a thing not too far back.
I’d be all for it, not that it’d warm me up to KS/the current LP in general.
Jim Audiomisc
pfm Member
To me it sounds like: "Daily Hate - please don't monster me like you did anyone who might disturb you and your wealthy chums."
The fundamental problem remains exampled by the no-show of 'Levison 2'. The main shield the chumorcracy has is their ability to cover over reality with a layer of distortions, lies, etc, and get away with it, even when their behaviour is illegal. Pandering to the press doesn't fix this if you can't then even deal with that basic problem when *in* office.
So our problems will continue until that is dealt with. I'm not holding my breath.
ks.234
Half way to Infinity
Yes, and Yes.
Starmer on Marr mentioned it but only very briefly. To answer my own question, I don’t think it’s a policy that’ll last long
Tony L
Administrator
I’m just watching The Invisible Man on Marr now (I’m a bit late as I was watching Angela Rayner calling Tories “scum” on Sky earlier). Even the feckless Marr managed to hold him to one of his ten pledges. As ever there were many words but nothing was said.
PS Rayner for leader, obvs.
PS Rayner for leader, obvs.
Seeker_UK
Feelin' nearly faded as my jeans
Plenty of ammo there for the press to attack Labour. You would think that after the period under Jeremy Corbyn, Labour would have at least learned not to give the press the opportunity.
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