Keir Starmer Labour Leader

[Fingeredmouse]

Indeed.
The guy is only just beginning as the leader. And it is clear that he is aiming at leading a party with strong morales and building trust.

Nobody is going to be perfect all the time.
But as a lifelong Labour supporter of well over 60 years, I am more than happy with what he has done so far.

Labour in opposition is neither use nor orniment.
Becoming the next government is all that counts.

I read your posts a lot and I think you're a good guy. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure we'd agree on a lot. I'm younger than you think but old enough to remember the politics of the left truly existing in Britain before Thatcher won the battle to crush the Labour movement.

Labour in power is certainly the aim and Starmer is doing the right things to get that. If he wins a GE, I'll be fecking delighted.

However, I am not a Labour supporter. They're a political party not a football team I support progressive, left wing politics. I support redistribution of wealth and secular, social state government with a strong focus on education. If labour deviate from that, and they absolutely have before, then, whilst I'd rather have Labour than the "Natural party of Government", I cannot enthusiastically support them. I've been here before.

 

[Ubik]

The comms have been clear that there’s an investigation, not that they are treating the abuse of Abbott seriously. Hence the tweet with almost 4k retweets, and that’s just one I see regularly from Black Labour voters expressing the view that their concerns are not taken seriously under Starmer. You can argue about the merits of that view, but that is how many feel and that is a problem.

Right, but I'd just point out that drawing these conclusions before the report is out is premature, particularly that retweeted opinion is based on inaccuracies. I'm personally of the view that the guy that had his campaign launched by Doreen Lawrence (who said he was instrumental in getting justice for her son) is acutely aware of the need for systemic racism to be stopped at source. But you're right, actions speak louder, and we'll have to hope that he makes black members feel listened to and respected, otherwise it's another stain on the party.

 

[jeff_goldblum]

The centre and right really need to move away from this attitude where any attempt to look critically at New Labour and learn from where they went wrong is chalked off as ideological leftie nonsense.

Blair backing out on switching to PR because Labour had just won a landslide under FPTP and failing to enforce rules on media monopolies because Murdoch was in their corner at the time were two of the biggest missed opportunities in British political history and have basically guaranteed that a lot of the progress New Labour made has been demolished by subsequent administrations.

There are plenty of perfectly valid critiques of New Labour. Embracing right-wing rhetoric on immigration/asylum seekers (thereby ceding ground to the likes of Farage and leaving Caroline Lucas and the SCG as the only pro-immigration voices in Parliament), saddling the public sector (particularly the NHS) with debt by using PFI and hiring layers of pointless bureaucracy staffed by PPE graduates with no expertise, failing to spread the benefits of economic growth beyond the big cities, allowing our economy to become too reliant on the financial sector and failing to properly regulate it, becoming far too cosy with industries which went on to benefit massively from privatisation.

These are all things (and there are others) that had massive ramifications for the country and the direction it has moved in. They are also things the centre and right Labour desperately needs to come to terms with and learn from if it wants get in power and do a good job when it does.

 

[Buster15]

The name of the party in government should not be all that counts. Granted, they are still looking like the lesser of two evils at the moment.

I really don't see Starmers Labour as a party of strong morals. Strong tactics, maybe I could understand that argument.

What is the point of Labour in opposition.

 

[Fingeredmouse]

The centre and right really need to move away from this attitude where any attempt to look critically at New Labour and learn from where they went wrong is chalked off as ideological leftie nonsense.

Blair backing out on switching to PR because Labour had just won a landslide under FPTP and failing to enforce rules on media monopolies because Murdoch was in their corner at the time were two of the biggest missed opportunities in British political history and have basically guaranteed that a lot of the progress New Labour made has been demolished by subsequent administrations.

There are plenty of perfectly valid critiques of New Labour. Embracing right-wing rhetoric on immigration/asylum seekers (thereby ceding ground to the likes of Farage and leaving Caroline Lucas and the SCG as the only pro-immigration voices in Parliament), saddling the public sector (particularly the NHS) with debt by using PFI and hiring layers of pointless bureaucracy staffed by PPE graduates with no expertise, failing to spread the benefits of economic growth beyond the big cities, allowing our economy to become too reliant on the financial sector and failing to properly regulate it, becoming far too cosy with industries which went on to benefit massively from privatisation.

These are all things (and there are others) that had massive ramifications for the country and the direction it has moved in. They are also things the centre and right Labour desperately needs to come to terms with and learn from if it wants get in power and do a good job when it does.

Well said.

 

[Fingeredmouse]

What is the point of Labour in opposition.

What is the point of Labour when it is no longer Labour?

 

[Buster15]

I read your posts a lot and I think you're a good guy. Furthermore, I'm pretty sure we'd agree on a lot. I'm younger than you think but old enough to remember the politics of the left truly existing in Britain before Thatcher won the battle to crush the Labour movement.

Labour in power is certainly the aim and Starmer is doing the right things to get that. If he wins a GE, I'll be fecking delighted.

However, I am not a Labour supporter. They're a political party not a football team I support progressive, left wing politics. I support redistribution of wealth and secular, social state government with a strong focus on education. If labour deviate from that, and they absolutely have before, then, whilst I'd rather have Labour than the "Natural party of Government", I cannot enthusiastically support them. I've been here before.

And I read and normally agree with you.

I worked in aero engineering and was always a union member.
And I too remember the 1970's. Nonstop strikes and significant industrial relations problems. Not all the trades unions fault.

The country was on its knees and we lost significant amounts of manufacturing jobs.

But the fact is that Britain is and has been a moderate center supporting country.
Sometimes slightly left and other times more to the right.

I am a center left believer.

The objective of any political party is to be in government.
I have zero trust, zero respect and zero time for this shameful Tory party.
So I really do want to see a Labour party in government.
And in my opinion, Starmer is the first leader I can see as electable since Tony Blair.

 

[Fluctuation0161]

Blair... 56
Blair... 56
Blair... 41
Brown... 41
Red ed is seen as a move away from the centrist policies of brown and blair
Milliband... 1
Corbyn... 6
Corbyn... 1

If anything you would say centrist policues played better but that would still be a false narrative as the big change was the indy ref

Events occur progressively. Hard for you to comprehend I'm sure.

More accurately Scotland became disillusioned with Labour after the Blair and Brown years. SNP then mopped up.

 

[Fluctuation0161]

Don’t worry, the facts are clear that Labour lost all but one of its Scotland seats in 2015 but some on here have a loose connection with reality so they’ll find a way to blame Corbyn.

Yep.

Unsurprisingly, some may refuse to see the damage of lost Labour seats in Scotland is primarily down to the Blair and Brown years causing Scottish voters to look for alternatives.

 

[Fluctuation0161]

The left to blame for losing Scotland now?

It really is laughable.

To put into context though, some people actually read Guido and view it as a genuine source for news!

 

[Fluctuation0161]

Does anyone know what the feck the Lib Dems are doing?

They used to help. What happened?

I recall they targeted Labour seats during the election then crumbled? Great leadership.

 

[Fingeredmouse]

Yep.

Unsurprisingly, some may refuse to see the damage of lost Labour seats in Scotland is primarily down to the Blair and Brown years causing Scottish voters to look for alternatives.

Of course it is.
To win in England, they lost in Scotland.
There's a reason we still have higher education as a funded right North of the border.

 

[Kentonio]

Yep.

Unsurprisingly, some may refuse to see the damage of lost Labour seats in Scotland is primarily down to the Blair and Brown years causing Scottish voters to look for alternatives.

And yet before Blair/Brown they couldn’t win an election to save their lives.

 

[Fingeredmouse]

And yet before Blair/Brown they couldn’t win an election to save their lives.

In the UK, no they could not. In Scotland they did repeatedly...and that's the problem in a nutshell.

 

[Buster15]

Very clever of Starmer to appear on ITV Breakfast with Piers Morgan. Especially after 61 days of government boycott of the programme.

I am not a big fan of Morgan. But, he has done significantly more to hold the government to account over their shambolic handling of the Corona virus situation in the UK.

Boris Johnson Tories thought they were clever by not appearing on the programme.
But doing so has backfired badly on them.

Fantastic opportunity for Starmer to take the high ground.

 

[sun_tzu]

In the UK, no they could not. In Scotland they did repeatedly...and that's the problem in a nutshell.

Yet they never won as many seats as they did under blair before or since...
14 elections in a row (with Blair being the high tide mark) with over half the seats... then bang indy ref and all of a sudden the Scottish national Party becomes the major party... i mean its almost like some big event stiring up loads of nationalist sentiment happend between 2010 and 2015
You will of course continue to blame Blair... im sure the ehrc report will somehow be blairs fault as well
Ignoring the indy ref in the changing fortunes of labour in scotland is beyond naive its willfully trying to twist a story to your narrative
Hopefully with a leader whose not totally unelectable labour can make some inroads... or at least win enough seats in the UK that a coalition is viable

 

[EwanI Ted]

The centre and right really need to move away from this attitude where any attempt to look critically at New Labour and learn from where they went wrong is chalked off as ideological leftie nonsense.

Blair backing out on switching to PR because Labour had just won a landslide under FPTP and failing to enforce rules on media monopolies because Murdoch was in their corner at the time were two of the biggest missed opportunities in British political history and have basically guaranteed that a lot of the progress New Labour made has been demolished by subsequent administrations.

There are plenty of perfectly valid critiques of New Labour. Embracing right-wing rhetoric on immigration/asylum seekers (thereby ceding ground to the likes of Farage and leaving Caroline Lucas and the SCG as the only pro-immigration voices in Parliament), saddling the public sector (particularly the NHS) with debt by using PFI and hiring layers of pointless bureaucracy staffed by PPE graduates with no expertise, failing to spread the benefits of economic growth beyond the big cities, allowing our economy to become too reliant on the financial sector and failing to properly regulate it, becoming far too cosy with industries which went on to benefit massively from privatisation.

These are all things (and there are others) that had massive ramifications for the country and the direction it has moved in. They are also things the centre and right Labour desperately needs to come to terms with and learn from if it wants get in power and do a good job when it does.

I agree there's much to be unhappy about with New Labour beyond the famous headlines of Iraq & tuition fees. However the caveat has to be that all Governments make mistakes, often big mistakes, and the longer you're in Government the more mistakes you make. Whether due to lack of judgement, undue concern about winning votes, poor party culture, whatever, this is a truism of every Government in history. The only way to avoid making decisions in Government is to stay in opposition. Even the best teams concede goals and lose matches. That's why a lot of people chalk off the legitimate critiques of New Labour's failings as ideological, because its sometimes based on the idea that we could have a Government that does no wrong, which is pure fantasy. What really matters is the overall balance. If the good comfortably outweighs the bad, you're probably looking at a good Government.

People end up disagreeing over New Labour not because its advocates think it did no wrong, but because the argument slides into the paradigm of New Labour good vs New Labour bad. New Labour's supporters then end up defending its bad decisions because New Labour's detractors argue that the bad decisions outweigh the good. We're all guilty of defending 'our side' in debates in such a way. But this means that neither side is really critiquing the policy itself, instead it becomes a proxy for a different debate. Neither side wants to concede the point, even if they actually might agree, because it would undermine their larger argument.

In order for people who liked and didn't like New Labour to successfully debate a New Labour policy they'd have to begin with the acceptance that whether each policy was good or bad makes no difference to the overall judgment of New Labour in the round. ID cards alone aren't enough to make Labour a crap Government. The minimum wage alone isnt enough to make it a good one. As long as both sides are using it to justify a larger point, there's no common ground for a debate.

 

[Buster15]

Yet they never won as many seats as they did under blair before or since...
14 elections in a row (with Blair being the high tide mark) with over half the seats... then bang indy ref and all of a sudden the Scottish national Party becomes the major party... i mean its almost like some big event stiring up loads of nationalist sentiment happend between 2010 and 2015
You will of course continue to blame Blair... im sure the ehrc report will somehow be blairs fault as well
Ignoring the indy ref in the changing fortunes of labour in scotland is beyond naive its willfully trying to twist a story to your narrative
Hopefully with a leader whose not totally unelectable labour can make some inroads... or at least win enough seats in the UK that a coalition is viable

Quite right.
Some people just don't accept that Tony Blair and new labour were the most successful labour government in most people lifetime.

Why. Simply because they had policies that appealed to the majority of the electorate.

And labour in power will always be better than labour in opposition however left or centrist their policy.

 

[Fingeredmouse]

Yet they never won as many seats as they did under blair before or since...
14 elections in a row (with Blair being the high tide mark) with over half the seats... then bang indy ref and all of a sudden the Scottish national Party becomes the major party... i mean its almost like some big event stiring up loads of nationalist sentiment happend between 2010 and 2015
You will of course continue to blame Blair... im sure the ehrc report will somehow be blairs fault as well
Ignoring the indy ref in the changing fortunes of labour in scotland is beyond naive its willfully trying to twist a story to your narrative
Hopefully with a leader whose not totally unelectable labour can make some inroads... or at least win enough seats in the UK that a coalition is viable

I will of course continue to blame the drift of the Labour party to the right because it's what happened. Policies such as the introduction of tuition fees were deeply unpopular in Scotland. The Indy Ref gained traction for this reason. I'm not ignoring it but it is a byproduct of a deeper and longer standing issue.

I know this because I am one of those traditional Scottish Labour voters who left them. I know this because I actually live in Scotland and understand the political environment.
What you fail to understand, and this is not a controversial point, is that the political landscape of Scotland is not the same as the rest of the UK. The rise of the SNP is not riding on the crest of a wave of nationalism and it is, all to often, misunderstood in the UK nationally as akin to the rise of UKIP and English nationalism. It is because the Labour party, to win in England, had to become too right of centre to be palatable Scotland.

I don't think everything Blair and Brown did was wrong. Far from it, although there are many aspects I disagreed with. I certainly believe that without Blair and Brown's strategies Labour would never have won in the UK.
However, it ended the Labour party up here for a generation...possibly for longer than that. The reason for that is that, in Scotland, there is actually a mainstream alternative to Labour who are, in general, of the left (I will add at this point that I'm not a particular fan of the SNP to avoid derailment).

In your all consuming desire to drop the EHRC report into any conceivable conversation and completely ignore any conversation regarding the legacy of Blair and Brown that is not a hagiography by disenfranchised Trots you have lost sight of the valid and important points that are being made about a left wing party drifting right.

In the UK, this drift to the right will absolutely make Labour more electable and Starmer's tactics with that aim in mind are undoubtedly correct.. In Scotland it categorically will not make Labour more electable and if you think that people up North of the Border didn't vote Labour at the last few elections because of Jezbollah and Unicorns you are mistaken. You are confusing the election results with wholesale endorsement of centerism because, quite simply, you're conflating Scottish politics with those of the UK in general. You're not listening Sun.

 

[Fingeredmouse]

Quite right.
Some people just don't accept that Tony Blair and new labour were the most successful labour government in most people lifetime.

Why. Simply because they had policies that appealed to the majority of the electorate.

And labour in power will always be better than labour in opposition however left or centrist their policy.

I do accept that.

It won't work in Scotland because Scotland is not the UK. We've been here already. The UK's centre of politics is to the right of Scotland's.

 

[Shamwow]

Lots of people mainly RLB supporters at the moment calling for Alex Sobel to be sacked for this tweet now.

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I think it's pretty shocking that a Labour MP is spending his time arguing with BLM, using whataboutery to delegitimise serious concerns about oppression, and getting it completely wrong in the process as BLM have in fact given a platform to the West Papuan people in their protests (check the replies).

 

[EwanI Ted]

Lots of people mainly RLB supporters at the moment calling for Alex Sobel to be sacked for this tweet now.

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I think it's pretty shocking that a Labour MP is spending his time arguing with BLM, using whataboutery to delegitimise serious concerns about oppression, and getting it completely wrong in the process as BLM have in fact given a platform to the West Papuan people in their protests (check the replies).

A stupid tweet, but why, specifically, are they asking for him to be sacked?

 

[neverdie]

I think it's pretty shocking that a Labour MP is spending his time arguing with BLM, using whataboutery to delegitimise serious concerns about oppression, and getting it completely wrong in the process as BLM have in fact given a platform to the West Papuan people in their protests (check the replies).

Especially when I read that 250 or so very high ranking ex military and political officials within Israel came out to protest the annexation. If Israel moves forward with its proposed land grab it'll have no one to blame but itself for the damage its reputation will take internationally. There's some talk about recognising Palestine and more about immediately boycotting produce from all occupied zones.

 

[neverdie]

A stupid tweet, but why, specifically, are they asking for him to be sacked?

What does Indonesia have to do with Israel? It's as if someone said the war in the Congo needed stopping and he replied that Yemen also existed and the Saudi consulate made it difficult to talk about. It's a deflection tactic.

 

[Shamwow]

A stupid tweet, but why, specifically, are they asking for him to be sacked?

Because he's intentionally undermining anti-racism with whataboutery which isn't factually correct - which is something I expect from EDL members, not Labour ministers.

Is what he did in any way defensible?

 

[Sweet Square]

In fact I was thinking that at this week's PMQs the first question should be, you know, first to 50."

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Gonna put some money on this.

 

[Sweet Square]

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[EwanI Ted]

What does Indonesia have to do with Israel? It's as if someone said the war in the Congo needed stopping and he replied that Yemen also existed and the Saudi consulate made it difficult to talk about. It's a deflection tactic.

I think the point there was, why are you talking about Israel when you could be talking about any of these other places where there is oppression? The implication being that Israel gets a disproportionate amount of criticism compared to other countries, which then leads into why it gets more criticism, etc, etc. A well trodden road.

Because he's intentionally undermining anti-racism with whataboutery which isn't factually correct - which is something I expect from EDL members, not Labour ministers.

Is what he did in any way defensible?

When you said RLB supporters wanted him sacked I wasn't sure if there was some anti-Semitic connotation I didn't understand, since West Papua is a topic I know nothing about. I think I get the MP's point now though.

The original tweet from BLM UK was not very helpful, its fair to say. I didn't see the problem at first, I just saw a lot of people arguing on Twitter about it yesterday, but I did eventually click why people are upset. Its not about the annexation bit, its the line "...and mainstream politics is gagged of the right to critique Zionism...". As someone on Twitter pointed out, when you ask "Gagged by whom?" it becomes easier to see the problem, because it falls into that trope of Israel controlling the media or politics. Hence a lot of people were offended by it, and a twitter row broke out.

Now my view is that BLM's tweet could have been better phrased but probably didn't mean to imply what people took it to mean, but equally I see why people took it that way and I get where the pushback comes from. Id also say that, in principle, challenging an anti-racist group can be fine and doesn't (automatically) count as racism (if done correctly).

Whether his response is a sacking offence is hard to gauge. I don't immediately see it as being racist or anti-semitic, so I dont think the RLB situation is comparable. Is the standard now that MPs shouldn't get involved in twitter arguments at all? That would overwhelmingly be a good thing, but I'm not clear whether that's what's expected. Sacking him would send a nice signal about expected behaviours on twitter, but that's setting a really high bar and would probably be impossible to maintain.

 

[Dobba]

So Sir Forensic got on one knee for a movement he knows nothing about.

 

[sun_tzu]

So Sir Forensic got on one knee for a movement he knows nothing about.

its a slippery slope - he will accidentally be laying a wreath for a terrorist soon

 

[Ibi Dreams]

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The more I see of him the more I dislike him. He doesn't seem to really stand for anything other than third way centrism.

 

[Dobba]

its a slippery slope - he will accidentally be laying a wreath for a terrorist soon

Thanks for the input, Guido.

 

[Shamwow]

I think the point there was, why are you talking about Israel when you could be talking about any of these other places where there is oppression? The implication being that Israel gets a disproportionate amount of criticism compared to other countries, which then leads into why it gets more criticism, etc, etc. A well trodden road.

In this case sobel deployed whataboutery which is completely an inappropriate thing to do when someone is trying to highlight oppression and also as I said, innacurate. Which is supporting racism and therefore racist.

RLB fans in particular pushing for his sacking as they say the bar has now been set by her sacking.

 

[Untied]

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Can anyone who supports Starmer justify this without referring to Corbyn?

 

[neverdie]

I think the point there was, why are you talking about Israel when you could be talking about any of these other places where there is oppression? The implication being that Israel gets a disproportionate amount of criticism compared to other countries, which then leads into why it gets more criticism, etc, etc. A well trodden road.

In this case, because they're about to annex the West Bank and the entire world seems to be rightfully opposed to it.

 

[sun_tzu]

Can anyone who supports Starmer justify this without referring to Corbyn?

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It wasn’t intended to be an endorsement of all aspects of BLM
and hey he managed to not blurt out any antisemitic conspiracy theories so no need to sack him

 

[Shamwow]

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It wasn’t intended to be an endorsement of all aspects of BLM
and hey he managed to not blurt out any antisemitic conspiracy theories so no need to sack him

What an imbecilic but predictably typical post. He's getting criticised for his own writing, not a retweet. And anti-semitism is not the only form of bigotry.

 

[sun_tzu]

What an imbecilic but predictably typical post. He's getting criticised for his own writing, not a retweet. And anti-semitism is not the only form of bigotry.

hes getting critisized by a bunch of people who are upset the country rejected their vision so soundly in the last election... and outside your echo chamber all you are doing is reinforcing the fact that your movement is finished as a political force unless you get behind the direction of the party - or leave the party and forge your own way forwards... ta-ra..
As for the bold thats very true and there is no place for bigots in the labour party and indeed no place in UK politics imo and that includes all antisemites and their apologists

 

[Fingeredmouse]

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It wasn’t intended to be an endorsement of all aspects of BLM
and hey he managed to not blurt out any antisemitic conspiracy theories so no need to sack him

See, this is the problem Sun. You're not even trying to argue in good faith. You know this is not even close to a comparable.
Continued lazy inferences of antisemitism are a genuine problem, and especially when a Labour MP singles out a single tweet by a movement on Israel, who have produced multiple tweets and given prominence to many other issues including the one Sobel highlights.
His position isn't about politics of integrity. It's about point scoring against a faction of his own political movement and he's he thinks it's okay to infer a link to antisemitism. This isn't ok for lots of reasons not least being disrespectful and detrimental to the very valid aim of eliminating antisemitism in society.
I don't think he should be sacked but it's not a good look.

 

[Shamwow]

hes getting critisized by a bunch of people who are upset the country rejected their vision so soundly in the last election... and outside your echo chamber all you are doing is reinforcing the fact that your movement is finished as a political force unless you get behind the direction of the party - or leave the party and forge your own way forwards... ta-ra..
As for the bold thats very true and there is no place for bigots in the labour party and indeed no place in UK politics imo and that includes all antisemites and their apologists

He's also getting criticised by BLM, who are also upset that the country rejected their vision of not being racially discriminated against. But you don't care about that, because you're a guido fan, and everyone knows what guido fans are.