Not with the leadership of Keir Starmer, that is: the current Labour Party has become craven and cowed in the face of the bully boys. There is no boldness, indeed, no discernible anything. What does Labour stand for? It seems that the party now stands for nothing that will provoke the media - including, to its shame, the equally craven and cowed BBC.
Would Labour back those taking, or contemplating, industrial action in pursuit of a decent level of pay? You jest. One hates to come over all Neil Kinnock, but here we have the party of the workers - the party of the workers - ordering its front benchers not to join picket lines. Not to stand in solidarity with their fellow Trade Unionists. To pass by on the other side.
How would Labour deal with the self-imposed act of national harm that is Brexit? As soon as the press establishment demands to know if Labour’s solution includes free movement of people, the whimpering climbdown begins. Sorry Sir Press Baron, didn’t mean it, we’ll go and sit quietly in the corner and not mention it again, please don’t do too many hit jobs on us.
How about Trans rights, and the right-wing assault on Trans people, who are already a vulnerable minority? At the first mention of the puerile Gotcha question - “Can a woman be born with a willy? Tee hee, Labour mug, got you” - instead of unswerving support, there is the fog of bluster. And don’t even mention supporting the victims of press misbehaviour. There isn’t any.
The Mail’s vicious and dishonest attack on Starmer’s deputy Angela Rayner was not an exception. It was a mere sighting shot, a rehearsal for a far more organised and far nastier campaign, a campaign that will, with the certainty of night following day, accompany the next General Election.
And those attacks will only get worse if Labour is still believed to be taking advice from Peter Mandelson, a press hate figure from the Blair years whose closeness - maybe fleeting - to Jeffrey Epstein will be fuel to the boilers in press efforts to dump on the party. The Mail already did misogyny without breaking sweat: homophobia will not concern them one jot.
Blair got some of the press, including Murdoch’s titles - although arguably at too great a price - on side. Starmer will not. His columns in the increasingly desperate and downmarket Telegraph are pointless: as soon as the starting gun is fired, the title will turn on him. The press is so heavily invested in alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson that it is now as one with the Tory Party. There is no point trying to win it over.
Every and any Labour leader will be attacked: as it was with Gordon Brown, Ed Miliband and Jeremy Corbyn, so it will be with Starmer, and whoever comes after him. Cowering in the corner will not change that. Voters will not endorse a party that stands for nothing in particular. So Labour should start right now and say that it does stand for something - and stick to its guns.
At least show some fight, some courage of conviction, some solidarity with ordinary working people. Show some backbone, stop avoiding the issues, and stop standing for nothing in the vain hope that the press will leave off. It won’t. The strikes this summer will only intensify. Pick a side. You can’t sit on the fence. You’re the workers’ party. So stand with them.
People are hungry for leadership. They won’t get it from the Tories or their pals. Be bold, stand firm, and lead. Or leave the field to someone who will.
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5 comments:
Blair, Brown and Starmer are all Quisling gobshites. Domestically, there are only minor differences between them. Blair and Brown are the worst for their mass murdering wars, the tragic results of which still lap up on the far south east coast.
Increasingly, Starmer cuts an absurd yahboo figure. The latest right wing bad joke visited on the working class people he's supposed to represent. The same goes for the rest of his seedy gang of traitors - for evidence of which, see the detailed party internal report on the last general election.
Actually, Starmer is a hollow man, a nothing-creep, a tenth rate hypocritical spiv with no conscience. His only concern is his own pathetic "career" and mechanical "advancement".
I long ago forecast Quisling Labour could still "win" the next general election. Not because it was any good or had any decent progressive policies. But because the Johnson tory faction is so reactionary hapless and corrupt it is bound to seriously fuck up in its desperation. Hence a possible Quisling Labour "win" by default. Even morons would see the "problem".
So expect nothing from Starmer because that's all he will ever be. A nothing man.
This post is so blindingly obvious (and has been for at least the last 12 months) that it is impossible to believe the current leadership of Labour don't realise themselves the state the party is now in.
I think the grim truth is, having re-taken control of the ship after the mutiny of 2015-2019, they've got all they really care about, their status as "sensible, grown up" leaders back in charge of the party after the "student" politics of the Corbyn era.
Worse, I'm not even sure they want to actually run the country, like the Tory's they have no solutions to the multiple crisis it's people face, they've got what want, they've eradicated any meaningful internal opposition and removed the chance of another "mutiny" and that's the limit of their ambition.
At least the Tory's are honest about not giving a sh!t.
People are hungry for leadership, bollox, forgot how the sheep meekly followed COVID rules. And labour lambs were bah bah for more. Until Labour slays the ghost of Blair they are unelectable and Rayner is someone no woman would ever vote for whatever their sex!
I am convinced than more than cowardice, Keir Starmer is willingly setting Labour to lose.
A glorious sight among all the usual far right tory media propaganda lies and corrupt manufactured hysteria......Mick Lynch of the RMT making absolute mincemeat of assorted corporate media "interviewer" cowards, especially Kay "just another bought-and-paid-for tory meff" Burley. She ended up looking like a wet haystack in a tornado.
I'd love to see Lynch debate opposite the Fat Gimp in Downing Street. He'd wipe the floor with him. Or any of the other wittering vapours like Shapps, Raab, Gove and Truss who cower behind their media glove puppets.
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