New and electable leader secures for Labour ...
You remember 2019? Labour allegedly in the grip of “trots”, beset by claims of institutional anti-Semitism, when rather a lot of people within the party, it has since been alleged, either didn’t bother to campaign for its then leader, or tried their damnedest to throw the contest. Yes, totally unelectable Labour scored more votes than new and totally different Labour.
How such a thing could happen, and with such a different result, is down to the Tory vote collapsing - and the First Past The Post voting system. Labour’s vote share was up on 2019, but turnout was, shamefully, lower at something like 60%. The “Landslide on 34%” has now incurred the displeasure of the Daily Mail, calling it a “Loveless landslide”. There will be more of that.
And while the Tories were duly turfed out, Labour’s stance on the Gaza conflict, Starmer’s clumsy mention of “returning people to Bangladesh”, its below shitty treatment of former leader Jeremy Corbyn, and equally shitty treatment of some of its candidates deserve analysis, as does the patently ridiculous behaviour of some of those client journalists out there.
Corbyn stood as an independent. Labour’s choice of Praful Nargund was staggeringly arrogant: here was someone who had made a lot of money in the healthcare business. A series of party luminaries let it be known that they were campaigning against Jezza. And then came the superior insights of the New Statesman magazine, starting with pundit Rachel Cunliffe.
Here was her schtick, delivered on live TV: “I have always found the argument that Jeremy Corbyn is such a prominent local figure, that he would be able to mount a strong, independent campaign. That has never really chimed with my experience living in the constituency. He certainly wasn’t particularly active in the time that I was there”. Would a Tweet/X/Whatever extolling the analysis of Ben Walker and Finn McRedmond add more?
... fewer votes than his predecessor. Who won his seat, thanks
The new authoritarian Labour Party had other problems, too. In Chingford and Woodford Green, the cynical last-minute sidelining of Faiza Shaheen, on whom Keir Starmer had showered so much praise, resulted in her running as an independent, the anti-Tory vote splitting, and Iain Duncan Cough living to fight another day. And no, it was not Ms Shaheen’s fault. It was Labour’s.
Had the ousting not taken place, she would have won. Who did the ousting? The newly authoritarian Labour Party. For party loyalist Jonathan Ashworth, it got much worse: he lost his seat to a pro-Palestinian independent. Wes Streeting came close as Leanne Mohamad got within 530 votes of dispatching him. He described the campaign as “ugly”.
Which is an interesting way of saying “I nearly got humiliated by one of those Scary Muslims™”. How “ugly” is it for tens of thousands of Gazans to be randomly blown to pieces, Wes? Streeting, whose reputation at this blog was shredded when he failed to call out Tom Harwood’s lying on Question Time, needs to ask himself why he nearly lost, which he may not.
Starmer himself experienced a fall in vote share and number of votes cast for him. He also had to contend with a significant independent campaign from Andrew Feinstein. Labour lost Dewsbury and Batley to an independent by almost 7,000 votes. They lost Blackburn. They kicked out and then patronised Jo Bird, who has came second in Birkenhead for the Greens.
Calling for a ceasefire in Gaza is not anti-Semitic, or indeed anti-Israel. Labour could have done that and headed off all the grief. Instead, a large part of their core vote has been alienated. On the other side of politics, the far right now has a presence in Parliament, given yet more airtime yesterday evening by the BBC, which really has had a dreadful election.
Relying on Tory collapse in order to win cannot be repeated. Realisation has dawned that Labour is beatable. Slow handclap, authoritarians.
https://www.patreon.com/Timfenton
Cunliffe at the Staggers?
ReplyDeleteJust another bought-and-paid-for ranting rightie. Fodder for the likes of BBC Newsshite and SlyTV "press preview" propaganda enemas.
So long-ago forecasts turned out accurate. And the red tory Quislings are well on course to make matters even worse.
This is not just "authoritarianism", it is well down the road to urfascism Italian "style". As it is across most of the West.
Ah yes, the heady days of Operation Paperclip and Operation Gladio are finally bearing fruit. That'll keep them happy in the curtain-twitching Gnome Counties and inside the Washington Beltway.
Here in North Durham their new man got significantly less votes than the last guy, to the point where combined tory/reform would have taken it for the first time since 1906
ReplyDeleteTim the BBC is awful pretty much all the time not just on election night. The 34% landslide. Over here in N.Ireland barely 50% voted in some areas and less than 60% overall. Most work colleagues were totally underwhelmed. " Tories are gone? Ok who's in charge now? Oh good grief him. "
ReplyDeleteYet, despite all the warnings, the fact that, just as in 2001 and 2005, only Tories staying at home, or as they did all over the UK, going even further right and splitting the regressive vote, their policies are all, from the rhetoric, just rehashed Tory ones. Two of Labours most fanatically right wing mps are put in charge of the Home Office and DWP, thus we can expect more refugee blaming, disabled demonising, and the dreary 'scrounger' rhetoric rumbling on interrupted not one jot by something as insignificant as a change in govt.
ReplyDeleteNever forget: the New Statesman declined to call for a Labour vote in the 2019 general election.
ReplyDeleteKeep alert for the Quiff Quisling "tough decisions" and "challenges".
ReplyDeleteThat is, the usual bullshit to "justify" looting the economy for his far right paymasters and bankers in the USA and Europe.
"Tough decisions" are still "necessary" sixteen years after the greatest Bust Depression in history. Of course none of it will entail legislation to recover stolen loot from far right thieves and war criminals, or to encourage a future clean and decent society. Far right thievery and mass murder wars will continue, but only after a small hiatus to regroup and refine the Newspeak and lies. All of it will be propped up by corporate media propaganda clerks new and old, agog with their own unimportance and fifteen minutes of zero hours employment.
So, no change there.
ReplyDeleteSpot on, Tim.
Most enjoyable results of the night were Diane Abbott's, Jeremy Corbyn's, Truss's, Rees-Moggs', Galloway's and, for showing the Labour organisation what twats they still were, Faiza Shaheen's.
ROFL
ReplyDelete