Labour needs the whole of its broad church on board at that point. Including those who backed former leader Jeremy Corbyn. Not that you would know that from Starmer’s recent comments, including the unequivocal commitment “Let me be very clear about that: Jeremy Corbyn will not stand for Labour at the next general election, as a Labour party candidate.” There was more.
“What I said about the party changing, I meant, and we are not going back, and that is why Jeremy Corbyn will not stand as a Labour candidate at the next general election”. Once again he appeared to link Jezza to allegations of anti-Semitism, to suggest that there had, in the past, been tolerance of this and other forms of racism within the party. But no evidence was ponied up.
And, all the while, more and more of those who went out in all weathers in the run-up to the 2019 General Election, and took their share and more of abuse from voters who had been fed misinformation about the then Labour leadership, voters who thought Corbyn was a terrorist sympathiser who was going to take away their cars (and their money), are switching off.
Shrugging their shoulders and ignoring the stream of email exhortations from a variety of senior Labour figures, trying to get them to turn out for whichever by-election campaign is on at the moment, while failing completely to stand up for all those hard pressed working people who are taking industrial action in order to recover a half-decent standard of living for themselves.
Labour’s priorities seem awry: not only does the party seem to be alienating the left, it is also pursuing an apparently pointless lawsuit against five individuals who were considered close to Corbyn. As George Monbiot has told, five people including Jezza’s former comms and strategy man Seumas Milne, are being targeted as suspects of leaking an internal report.
Monbiot concludes that Labour’s case “looks very weak … The Information Commissioner’s Office investigated three of them and decided there was ‘insufficient evidence’ to prosecute. Nor were external investigators hired by the Labour party able to identify the leakers. Sources told the BBC that up to 15 other people may have had access to the report”. Oh dear!
Moreover, Labour “could be liable for an estimated £3-4m in costs - a figure Labour denies - perhaps sufficient to bankrupt the party”. And as to Labour coming out of EHRC “special measures”, former member Rivkah Brown is unimpressed. “We have a Labour party today that is more anti-semitic than ever. A party that wants to whip Jews into line on Israel; that has expelled more Jews than in any period of its history; and that (quoting Forde) has created a ‘hierarchy of racism’ that pits Jews against others”.
Ah yes, that Forde report and the “hierarchy of racism”, which appears to have been forgotten by our free and fearless press. Ms Brown went on “The EHRC's verdict means nothing, obviously: the organisation, which effectively exists to rubber-stamp the ruling class's anti-racist credentials, has been widely accused of racism and transphobia. This is just its latest whitewash”.
The Guardian could not bring itself to be unequivocally supportive of Starmer, an editorial telling of his effective barring of Jezza “That sounds like a message to the hundreds of thousands of people who joined Labour in those years and the millions who voted for the party that they aren’t welcome”.
It went on “Mr Starmer served in the frontbench team of his predecessor. He ran for leader promising to carry on the ideas of his predecessor. To proclaim that there is no place for Mr Corbyn in today’s Labour party, no matter what he says or does, not only looks vindictive, it poses serious questions about the consistency of the current leader - questions that his opponents will be all too happy to raise come the next general election”. Dead right they will.
Keir Starmer has sent Labour members the wrong message, one not of tolerance and inclusivity, but of authoritarianism and intolerance. But there is no compulsion on members to follow his call. So many of them won’t.
Keir Starmer as Labour leader is for a time. But not for all time.
https://www.patreon.com/Timfenton
30 comments:
Keir Stalin more like.
Ah, yes. As predicted, the sound of chicken Quislings roosting. The cluck-cluck of political treachery and cowardice a la Bliar/Brown.
How long before we see from them yet more mass slaughter somewhere in the East in conjunction with Washington fascists? And will the enemy be EastAsia or EurAsia? And who will be the next Goldstein? More Two Minutes Hate looms.
Nothing Starmer says comes as a surprise. He's just another ale house suburban tribalist righty. The fellow has no moral character whatever, nor have his apologists. All of them, like Bliar/Brown before them, beholden to the sociopathic corporate media thugs Rothermere and Murdoch and the broadcast equivalents. Corrupt liars, hypocrites and cowards all.
I said shortly after the last election there was every likelihood the tories will lose the next general election because of their own sheer rottenness. That still stands. Unfortunately they will be replaced by a similar far right gang with different spiv slogans, barrow boys and girls who have thieved the Labour Party and discarded every worthwhile principle it once stood for. Whatever the majority, once they replace dishonour with yet more dishonour there will be a few small legislative gestures then it will be back to the same old disgusting parliamentary gobshitery. Britain will slide further into the sewer.
Meanwhile, Jeremy Corbyn is better off outside that gang of tenth rate mediocre red tory opportunists. He has more honour and decency in his little finger than that collective of sock puppets. The best to be said of this "Labour" Party is that it has too many Mr and Mrs Micawbers - most of the rest of them are just red tories. Its long term future is as bleak as the country's.
Now that Starmer has finally revealed himself for the grubby little Tammany Hall political gangster he is.....nobody can claim there was no warning.
Vintage stuff, Anonymous, and couched in such preposterously lurid language that, no matter how much they despise Starmer's actions here, few could fail to disagree with you.
And, purely for the sake of debate you understand, I hereby claim that there was no warning.
I think it's high time those who are currently supportive of the present incarnation of The Labour Party but also consider themselves vaguely progressive and on the left of the political spectrum wake up to what Labour are as of this moment, the Conservative Party 2.0. Same basic policies, same intrinsic belief that the "Market" and private enterprise will resolve all issues and with the same authoritarian tenancy towards crackdowns. Oh, and the same donors. They are the Conservative party without, they believe, the baggage of the serial liar DePfeffel, the idiocy of Mary Elizabeth Truss or the simmering corruption of Sunak.
How have I reached this conclusion? simple, I've listened to what they say and observed what happens to anyone within the party who has a different point of view. Broad Church? to quote the immortal Jim Royle, my ar$e.
And just as there is no compulsion on party members to go out and get thumped while knocking on doors asking for the public's vote (as happened in 2019), there's no compulsion on anyone else to vote for these people who have implicitly and now publicly tell you to f*ck off.
And if anyone, and in particular a regular poster on this blog, tells you that to vote elsewhere is a wasted vote, my response is quite simply this, if you want progressive policies that at least start to fix this serially broken country of ours, voting Labour is a wasted vote.
Clause IV of the party's constitution starts: "The Labour Party is a democratic socialist Party."
Only on paper under Red Tory leadership.
@17:21.
Even Sillier Billy, Bertie. Especially now the Quiff Quisling has now hoist you, himself and his apologists on your own Micawber petard.😂
But you still have the Rothermere and Murdoch version of Pickwick Papers for consolation.😊
Meanwhile you could ask any one of millions of victims across Libya, Syria, Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Yemen for their definition of "lurid". I guarantee it will be a lot different to yours.
But you needn't concern yourself about the prospect for a Quisling victory at the next election. The Quislings will "win". It's the British people who will lose. Starmer just proved it.
Gulliver,
I doubt whether many people who are attracted to this blog would disagree to any great extent with what you say about the current Labour party leadership. It was ever thus, except maybe for a brief period when Corbyn briefly looked hopeful, then couldn’t produce a coherent response to the Tories’ Brexit and then ultimately proved a very difficult sell to the Great British Public. And Starmer is clearly an unprincipled liar who would say anything to get the Labour leadership. However, as Aristotle probably said, ‘it is what it is’.
Your post ends with a conclusion but without any ideas about how to achieve ‘progressive policies that at least start to fix this serially broken country of ours’ other than not wasting your vote on Labour.
That leaves the voter with a range of ‘choices’ in the next year:
1. Vote Conservative
2. Vote for a smaller party which will have no chance of power
3. Don’t vote at all
If, as you claim, both main parties ‘are the same’, then the voter might as well choose Option 1. If it’s a case of ‘a plague on both your houses’, then Option 2 might appeal depending on the available choice. Like 2, Option 3 also allows the smug luxury of feeling that you played no part in the winning candidate’s victory. All 3 options have the virtue of at least making someone happy, even if does only happen to be the Conservative party agent for the constituency.
Alternatively, you might decide to ignore the whole process, pretend it isn’t happening and devote your energies to building a progressive socialist party with a wide-ranging and credible programme that will win the support of the electorate, the media and the power elites of this country some time in the foreseeable future. Good luck with that.
Meanwhile, the election will take place whatever you choose to do. And either the Conservatives or Labour will win. And if you can’t distinguish between them then it won’t matter to you either way. But, as another regular on here has been heard to say, ‘nobody can claim there was no warning’.
PS If you think that this is all terribly cynical and defeatist then you may well be right; I long ago gave up any hope that my childhood team Torquay United would ever qualify for the Champions League in my lifetime.
Anonymous
Stop blustering for a moment and consider the voter's dilemma adumbrated in my response (above) to Gulliver. I'm sure he'd appreciate your input.
Btw, you're not hoist 'on' your own petard, you're hoist with(or by) it. It's a bomb. It's a word of French derivation indicating something explosive. Peter (Fr vb) also means 'to fart', as in the stage name of Joseph Pujol or 'Albert le Petomane', the noted vaudevillian whose stage act included performing Old McDonald Had a Farm, including all the animal noises, entirely by means of air expelled through his anal sphincter.
You possibly saw him at Batley Variety Club back in the day. He certainly had us rolling in the aisles on his regular appearances at the Old Bull and Bush!
Here he is at the Moulin Rouge in 1900, though, as it's a silent film, some of the intensity of the performance is lost.
Enjoy!
#en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Pétomane
I'd hate to review your essays Bertie, they really lack any formal structure and, in the end, much sense.
It is how I pegged you as not being a university man. You are better in short, sharp doses. That's where your strengths lie.
Any more than a couple of paragraphs and it would be like Usain Bolt doing the 800m. Just a shade too far.
That 'patronising twerp' line must have stung a bit, Mark. Sorry.
But if you can't understand what I write, why not go and try something you find a little more accessible? Why waste your time struggling with my stuff and then getting yourself in a grumpy mood as you try to come up with a wittily bitchy response?
(Hope you were still with me after all those words!)
Malcolm Armsteen
Never thought I'd seen the day that Bertie got so rattled.
@ Bertie
"If, as you claim, both main parties ‘are the same’, then the voter might as well choose Option 1"
You don't seem to be disputing my claim, and it seems more likely to me that those who would normally vote for the "Original" Tory party will simply not vote at all (as many did post 1997) or go with whatever incarnation of UKIP is in vogue at the time.
"If it’s a case of ‘a plague on both your houses’, then Option 2 might appeal depending on the available choice."
Option 2 seems to me to be the pro-active choice, voting for Tory 2.0 is a waste of a vote insofar as nothing will meaningfully change so why not vote for the party that most aligns with your own aspirations regardless of their chance of power, unless...
"Like 2, Option 3 also allows the smug luxury of feeling that you played no part in the winning candidate’s victory"
And here we have it, if you don't vote for either of the main parties in England you're being luxuriously smug. we really are an extremely well managed democracy aren't we? Don't vote Labour you're letting the "marginally greater" evil back in power, vote Labour you'll still get all the same basic policies and crackdowns funded by all the same bajilionaire donors and the county will continue it's descent but at least Wesley Streeting and Rachel Reeves get to carry a red briefcase.
I am reminded of a quote often attributed to Einstien, "Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results", you don't want to vote Labour because you recognize nothing will meaningfully improve but you're going to vote labour anyway so....
Hello Gulliver
I think you recognise that I'm not registering approval of our current situation and choices, I'm merely trying to be realistic.
Either Tory Classic (Heritage Tory, Real Tory, Continuity Tory) will form the government in a year's time or Tory 2.00 (as you see it) will. So a choice will have to be made. Socialism is not on the menu, but nor has anything approaching it been since 1945(and arguably not then).
It's 'fine margins' as the sports coaches are programmed to say. But there is a choice.
Braverman (and the policies associated with her) or no Braverman? Francois or no Francois? Johnson or no Johnson? Williamson or no Williamson? Gove or no Gove? Gullis or no Gullis? Rees-Mogg or no Rees-Mogg? Lee Anderthal or no Lee Anderthal? Redwood or no Redwood?
That's enough of a choice for me after 13 years of this lot.
And I'd take a lot of convincing that many people who take an interest or an active part in this site will fail to register any reaction, of satisfaction, relief, disappointment or despair, when they look at the results on the Friday after election day next year.
@ Bertie
"But there is a choice. Braverman (and the policies associated with her) or no Braverman?"
Before Braverman there was Priti Patel, before Patel there was Theresa May, before May there was....David Blunkett, who along with other New Labour Home secretaries enacted policies not dissimilar to the aforementioned (see Jon Stones lengthy twitter thread on New Labour policies here - https://twitter.com/joncstone/status/1231543272943898626?lang=en), indeed Blunkett first proposed "sending them back" in 2004 and no doubt whole heatedly approved of the entirely heartless "hostile Environment" we subsequently got.
So yes "there is a choice", you can have a heartless right wing authoritarian wearing in a blue rosette or a heartless right wing authoritarian wearing red rosette.
Gulliver,
If you genuinely can't see any difference, and you're sure you really don't give a shit which of the 2 main parties wins or loses( and still won't give a shit if the current polls turn out to be completely wrong, Sunak is dumped and Johnson comes back in triumph), then it really doesn't matter(to you, anyway), which way you or anyone else votes next year.
Is that a fair assessment of the position?
@16:30.
Awwww, c'mon Silly Billy Bertie. That smells of mothballs, old socks from servants quarters, Billy Bunter prepositions and 19th century old farts.😊
All while Britain edges out of an organised thieves society and closer to open fascism. And you wave a white flag of surrender.
Tsk tsk. 1/10. Must try harder. MUCH harder.😊
@18:17.
In a de facto far right racist one party capitalist state......no, it REALLY "doesn't matter which way you or anyone else votes".
That's why Britain has become an anti-democratic shit hole with too many Mr. Micawbers.
I'll willingly cede greater familiarity with the first milieu to you, me old Tankie.
As for the second, I would avoid eating cheese too near to bedtime if I were you (which, by the Grace of God, I'm thankfully not).
@ Bertie,
One of the reasons I find the present political landscape so deeply depressing is because I DO give a shit, but glancing at the words coming from the Labour side this weekend and I'm afraid to say I struggle to see a meaningful difference between the 2 party's which, if we're being honest, was the point of all the shenanigans of the 2017-2019 period, so we don't have a meaningful choice.
And if we're going to go from "send 'em back" Braverman to "march parents to (underfunded) court" Cooper then there really isn't much difference is there
Do please tell me, what is the difference between Johnston and Starmer? they both lied shamelessly to get elected yes? or do lies not count when they're coming from "our" side?
You keep telling me to be realistic, what "realistically" will change for the better if the present Labour party replaces the Conservatives?
Will privatized industries be properly held to account (or even returned to public ownership?
Will the public sector receive better resources?
Will public sector workers see their pay improve?
Will anything, anything at all be quantifiable better then it is now?
or is it just about changing the guard?
Answer these questions truthfully and you will have the answers to why I won't be voting Labour anytime soon.
@23:04.
Don't despair, me ol' McCarthyite.
You're nearer musty old Fawlty Towers. Basil will serve you any red tory cheese you want. Mind you, it will be as mouldy as Bliar/Brown and just as.stinky.😂
Gulliver
As I said before, it's fine margins. However, looking at your 5 questions we can only really be guided by the last Labour government, in which case:
Q1 Possibly, a little
Q2 Yes
Q3 Yes
Q4 Yes, 2 and 3 above
Q5 No, see 2 and 3 above
Once again, if you expect Socialism to be on the menu then you're in the wrong restaurant. But leaving Blair's infatuation with American materialism aside, if you believe that the government since 2010 is no worse than what preceded it then I don't think you're looking very carefully.
(Anonymous, spare me the Spartery, please. Have an early night and don't eat any cheese with your Wincarnis)
Sorry, 'materialism' should be 'militarism'.
militarism, not materialism
@ Bertie
“Q1 Possibly, a little” – so possibly, marginally, if at all?
“Q2 Yes” – Can point me in the direction of any recent statement by the Shadow cabinet to corroborate this view - https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/12/labour-to-pledge-ironclad-discipline-with-public-finances
“Q3 Yes” - Can point me in the direction of any recent statement by the Shadow cabinet to corroborate this view- https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/rachel-reeves-wont-say-nurses-28686147
“Once again, if you expect Socialism to be on the menu then you're in the wrong restaurant”
Straw man argument Bertie, nobody I know is [asking for] the nationalisation of sausage manufacture, but, you know, maybe we can focus our minds on this instead - https://news.sky.com/story/profits-triple-at-british-gas-parent-company-12812171
Hello Gulliver
There’s not much point in looking for things the opposition front bench have *promised*to do . First, they’re not going to give any hostages to fortune at this stage, and secondly they’re politicians and therefore not to be believed anyway.
Better to look at what Labour achieved last time in certain areas
fullfact.org/economy/labour-inequality-1997-2010/
Usual caveat about not expecting Socialism. This is concerning the ‘Labour-and-Tories-are-indistinguishable-so-no-point-in-voting’ argument.
Fullfact examined some of Blair’s claims about health/welfare/education achievements between 1997 and 2010. Their conclusions are worth a look.
It seems to me that the prospects under a Labour government are inevitably better than under the Tories and, as that is what the choice amounts to, they’re worth voting for, with a peg on your nose if necessary.
(The distinction between the parties is always going to be lost on some utopian dreamers or the kind of apocalyptic haruspices who announce that Murdoch is a nazi and who, presumably sincerely, can’t see any difference between the Dirty Digger and Josef Goebbels)
@ Bertie
You say you can’t trust what labour politicians say today, I don’t disagree, but you then ask me to look at what “a different group” of labour politicians did when they last came to power a quarter of a century ago as some sort of pointer to what this group of duplicitous conniving bastards are going to do when/if they get into power.
Who were in the PLP in 1997? who were in the first Labour cabinet of 1997? Can you see Mo Mowlam, Clare Short, Robin Cook, even John Prescott or Donald Dewar getting cabinet posts in a labour government of 2024? They’d be lucky not to get de-selected.
And I also remember that Labour in 1997 actually had an offer (education, NHS, Windfall Tax, Minimum Wage), they seemed to remember that it’s not just enough to let your opposition fail, you also need to provide some “hope” beyond endless crackdowns, pay restraint and adhering to fiscal rules you’ve just made up.
Finally, Labour in 1997 inherited an economy that was doing alright. They won’t have that luxury in 2024. They can either follow neoliberal doctrine of endless austerity, which they show every sign of following (hence my previous use of the Einstein reference to insanity) or they can actually do something different and invest.
You vote for who you want, but I won’t be voting for “this” labour party and spare me the “lesser evil” argument or try to imply that I am some sort of “utopian dreamer” for not being prepared to hold my nose while I vote for a group of people who have quite literally told me to go forth and multiply. I mean its psychopathological behaviour isn’t it, “F*ck off you communist scum we hate you and everything you stand for and you have no place in our movement and remember to vote for us on election day”
I agree with a great deal of what you say, Gulliver, but don't get too romantic about the 1997-2010 Labour lot:
Jack Straw?
John Reid?
Charles Clarke?
Geoff Hoon?
Mandelson?
Adonis?
Alan Milburn?
And 'utopian dreamers and apocalyptic haruspices' wasn't directed at you but at Auld Tankie.
@ Bertie,
Don't forget David Blunkett, one of the worst IMHO, set the template for reactionary Home Secretaries that followed. And I was very particular in who I called out in my last comment for reasons that I think are obvious.
There's a reason new Labour lost 4 million voters following their 1997 victory to their 2010 defeat and it seems to me to correlate with the sidelining of the decent left wing MP's mentioned and the promotion of the type of people on your list, as New Labour in general decided to appease the RW press's bloodlust for anyone that didn't meet their purity test. I'm sorry to report that the current incarnation of Labour has carried on where this lot left off (and the Dark Lord himself is, I believe, a Starmer advisor). Hence my stated voting intentions.
And say what you like about the Poster-formally-known-as-Alan-Clifford (PFKAAC) but he's not really wrong is he?
Gulliver
Paras 1 and 2: agreed
Para 3: apart from the tedious Dave Spart juvenilisms of his polemical 'style', are we really to believe that Murdoch *is* a Nazi? That Starmer*is* akin to a WW2 national traitor and Nazi sympathiser who collaborated with an occupying power?
He sometimes appears to be quite well-read but the crude nature of his judgements make it difficult to take anything he says seriously. I've long suspected that his posts are early experiments in the use of ChatGPT
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