Morgan McSweeney Pisses Down His Leg

So the Labour Party Conference is once more upon us, but not, for those running the party, at the moment they would have chosen: not much more than a year after being returned to power, poll ratings remain stubbornly low, and stubbornly behind Reform UK and its self-appointed Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage, with internal dissent never far from the surface.

And it is the manner in which potential and actual dissent is being addressed that shows us just how shameless, clueless, and detached from reality those who run the Labour machine have become. They think they’re still the bees’ knees, while all too many of their potential supporters have stopped listening.

At this point, a message from the distant past arrives. Lyndon Johnson’s observation “Did y’ever think ... that making a speech on ee-conomics is a lot like pissing down your leg? It seems hot to you, but it never does to anyone else” should be ringing out long and loud in the ears of Morgan McSweeney and his cabal. What they’re doing seems hot to them, but not to anyone outside their magic circle. Rather, it does no more than invite ridicule.

The Labour whip has been restored to John McDonnell and Apsana Begum, fourteen months after it was removed because they declined to back the two-child benefit cap. No, it doesn’t show a new generosity of spirit. But it does remind the world how authoritarian and intolerant Keir Starmer and his coterie of hangers-on became, and so soon after the election. Another fail.

Not even the blessed Tone was so intolerant of dissent. But the Blair years did produce policy proposals that went down like the proverbial cup of cold sick, one of which was ID cards. That’s the same ID cards that became so unpopular by the early 1950s that they were binned. Blair’s attempt, in 2006, to exhume them failed. But that has not dissuaded the McSweeney cabal.

Because now, it’s going to be DIGITAL. As the BBC report tells, “It is a way of proving your identity, and your right to work in the UK, using modern smartphone technology”. It is also, whisper it quietly, a way of getting every opposition party, from the Tories to Lib Dems, Greens, Independents and even Reform UK, lined up in forthright opposition. It’s another fail.

What it will not do is to “stop the boats”, the slogan by which Farage and his pals live their political lives. Far more useful, and better for everyone concerned, would have been to establish safe routes for refugees, and giving them the ability to claim asylum either in their own countries, or elsewhere outside the UK. Boats stopped, Farage deflated. So why not?

Because, sad to say, there seems to be a desire to fight Mr Thirsty on the latter’s chosen patch. WRONG. And when it comes to the kind of dissent that could derail the Starmer and McSweeney project, it gets worse. This has been superbly illustrated by their response to concerns that Greater Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham may challenge for the Labour leadership.

So how has Labour’s ruling cabal addressed the potential challenge? What would a sensible, confident and collegiate leadership have done? What would Nietzsche have done? Sadly, this cabal does not operate on that intellectual plane, and the leadership has sunk to sending photoshopped images of Burnham as Liz Truss into the Internet. That’s a seriously bad fail.

Burnham has significant ministerial experience. His tenure as Mayor of Greater Manchester has included ending bus deregulation across the county, together with price capping to make travel more affordable. Adding local rail services to the “Bee Network” is the next step. Positive change. What has the McSweeney cabal done? Slagged off and undermined its opponents.

And coming over the horizon is Paul Holden’s book “The Fraud: Keir Starmer, Morgan McSweeney and the Crisis of British Democracy”. Which McSweeney and his pals will doubtless slag off and brief against. Because it seems hot to them, whatever those in the world outside New New Labour might think.

Worse still, Labour membership is in serious decline. Many may never return. Not while those who worked to throw the 2019 election are in power. Hint.

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