I love how often 'imagine if Corbyn' gets said in this thread.
Keir Starmer Labour Leader
- Thread starter Damien
- Start date
let’s not engage with the argument at all because our bloke looks like a prime minister in a Dr Who episode
It's utterly futile and I'll leave it to somebody who can be bothered.
You've got to admit the turn around in things that were absolutely inexcusable nine months ago into astute political policy is mighty impressive.
Where is Corbyn relevant in my post here?
agreed. This forum is about as left wing as you can get, without going into some extreme groups. The general public like him, we all know this forum is about as far from representative as you can get. That’s not a dig. It’s an echo chamber.
he represents the best chance of a labour government in a generation (assuming a generation is circa 20 years).
do You know what, I don’t think anyone has a problem with it. I also think the government gets leeway on it too.
very simple reason, this is a challenge we have never encountered before. Things change, they change quickly. I’d far rather politicians about turn, than blindly plod on because they don’t want to be seen as flip flopping.
Like he's doing with wanting schools to remain open, you mean?
Weirdly that's one bit of the science he's not interested in following.
To be fair if you compare his statements and policies proposed in times of normality with those proposed during an economic catastrophe brought on by a death spiraling world wide epidemic which we may have no way out of. Then yeah they appear less concerning than before.
I’m making an assumption here, but the science doesn’t tell us what the ongoing effect of closing schools is? What are the long term effect of closing down schools again?
science can only go so far, and it’s not that granular.
specific decisions around timings of pubs closing or schools closing are political. Quite frankly, the science can’t tell us exactly what we need to do.
They said, 'pubs should be open as much as possible'?
Part of me feels like it would be sensible to lock this thread until next year's elections. We keep going round in circles otherwise. At least then we could have some concrete evidence as to whether Labour under Starmer are electable or not. Just a thought anyway...
Yeah they opposed the curfew
Because it's just indicative of the entirely different difficulty setting Starmer is playing on because he poses absolutely no threat to the establishment interests whatsoever.
To go on TV advocating a national lockdown whilst in the previous day or so briefing that you are going to abstain on extending the pub curfew because you don't think it is helpful is ridiculous.
But of course we'll get people saying it's forensic leadership and following the science, because I guess of all that new science that came in earlier this morning.
Just to point out that I'm not just picking on Starmer, this from Owen Jones is utterly incoherent:
Pubs shouldn't be forced to shut early. If they are closed it encourages non-socially distanced drinking.
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They should be closed entirely!
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Pubs shouldn't be forced to shut early. If they are closed it encourages non-socially distanced drinking.
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They should be closed entirely!
You're just missing the point.
Nope, it is an opposition U turn, the same people praising Starmer would be criticising Corbyn.
Shhhh. They don't want to engage in that discussion.
Again, I don't see the relevancy to Corbyn in my post. I've not even mentioned him, so I'm unsure what triggered your defence of him in your response.
I don't think you're getting the point of the abstention. There's agreement that there needs to be action to improve the case rate, so what is proposed is better than what currently is there. However it's not far enough in Labours position to agree and support the vote. The abstain means the improved proposals goes through, which is incrementally beneficial to help control cases, whilst sending the message that they don't go far enough. Simply rejecting the bill, means it doesn't go into law, and certainly gives the Tories ammunition that the other side of the house isn't supporting the national interest.
It comes from my own frustration at how Starmer is reported on. See the tweet below.
Oh for God's sake these things don't happen in a vacuum. Labour and Starmer were actively telling the press that they thought pubs should be open longer and that the curfew was a bad idea, whilst saying they wouldn't oppose the bill that enforced that curfew. And then turn around and say actually they shouldn't be open at all.
Coherent: We shouldn't have a curfew because we should have a lockdown which is actually effective
Incoherent: We shouldn't have a curfew, it is uneccessarily hurting hospitality businesses. We should have a lockdown.
Labour's approach has been the second of these.
I also think its misleading to pretend that we can now have a 3 week circuit breaker lockdown to acheive the necessary reduction. We needed to do that back in September and avoid 100s of thousands of young people moving all around the country, but at that time Starmer was saying that he'd support the government measures, whatever they were, sight unseen.
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Definitely not a cult
How is opposing the curfew = open pubs as much as possible? Wasn't their opposition because the curfew wasn't properly justified and the way it was implemented meant it could potentially do more harm than good?
Understood. Nothing of relevance to my post though. Reliance on twitter as a primary source of news & opinion will always cause frustration. You only have to look at this thread as a great example of the twitter posts with no comment or opinion.
Labour's approach has only changed due to SAGE meeting minutes published today though advising that pubs and restaurants should close. This isn't a change due to party politics, its based off recommendations from experts that has only come to light today, on how best to control the current position of the epidemic.
I know you would love it to be the party politics element to add weight to your current frustration, but its difficult to argue given the documents that have been published today.
Without commenting on anything else Starmer has done, it is perfectly reasonable to oppose the curfew whilst also thinking we should properly lock down. That isn't a contradiction.
Yeah I am aware of that. But it's not as if there were no other indicators of how things were going that could have been informing policy. It is also a very problematic position for the opposition to take their policy lead from SAGE advice, given that they are always going to be lagging 2-3 weeks due to lack of access/publication, especially given that 2-3 week lag may mean that the advice is no longer implementable (I suspect that's the case with this circuit breaker lockdown now – you need longer than the September advice suggested).
If I got to run the opposition I'd be embracing Independent SAGE, openly saying that from now on "we'll take a science lead approach by listening to Independent SAGE, as the only way to protect the economy is to get the virus under control through supression and track/trace"
Sorry we're veering well away from Starmer here, beyond the fact that I continue to think the opposition he's providing is lacklustre.
As I've said it depends how it's phrased. It is a contradiction if your concern regarding the curfew is the harm it causes to those businesses.
That's my issue with it. There's no chance a 2 week lockdown is going to be a two week lockdown, we've missed the chance.
What we'll end up with is another few months of perpetual lockdown (perhaps longer as cases aren't going to go down in the same way with school's open) or a completely ineffective two weeks being shut inside for no benefit. Neither seem palatable to me.
Or that it harms businesses without giving any real benefit from a public health perspective?
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It’s utterly laughable at this point, she is a mouthpiece for the government and nothing more. She doesn’t even try and conceal it. I thought post-Corbyn she’d rein it in but doesn’t look like it.
Tories missed a trick hiring Allegra Stratton instead of Kuenssberg
It’s not hard to understand mate. The problem is yours. There are no big gaps here. Apply a little thought.
Absolute fecking thunder cnut is ol’ Laura
No they didn’t.
An example of someone who is electable is Boris Johnson. The whole electable argument is self defeating since the system allows you to vote for whoever you want. It's up to you who is and isn't electable.
People have just chosen to or been influenced to vote for politicians who fit the bill of being a politician rather than someone who is actually fit to run a country and look after people...and unfortunately these two things in this country are drifting further and further apart.
I wasn't Corbyn's biggest fan but a lot of people were saying that it was our one chance to vote for meaningful change that we'll get for a generation, and I make them right. People vote for politicians and then complain when they act like politicians, and then when one acts like someone with principles instead they refuse to vote for them...and that's the only reason someone like Corbyn is unelectable. If everyone who agreed with Corbyn's principles had voted for him, which they could have, he would be PM now.
I'd still pick Starmer over the tories obviously but basically people got exactly what they asked for in him. I don't think it's likely he'll inspire people into voting labour because he's just a politician wearing a red tie. There's more hope of Boris making such a feck up of things by 2024 that people will end up voting for anyone who isn't him.
It’s especially good how she’s uncritically just echoed some moron saying ‘Starmer says he wants a national lockdown but he’s not voting for these measures which are... not a national lockdown’ as if there’s some kind of coherent point being made.
I'm old enough to remember when any accusations of impartiality against Laura were supposedly all just Corbynites moaning.
Good to see Starmer actually oppose something though. I'm going to guess he's allowed to now as it's perfect timing or some other nonsense to excuse previous reasoning.
Good to see Starmer actually oppose something though. I'm going to guess he's allowed to now as it's perfect timing or some other nonsense to excuse previous reasoning.
He is nothing more than a snake oil salesman. Feck him.
Not entirely accurate. The curfew will likely be in effect for months, the circuit breaker - weeks. Closing makes cost management easier than the uncertainty a lengthy curfew gives.
What utter nonsense this is. The closing of schools and universities is an extremely obvious way of curbing the spread of the virus. The fact that you would argue otherwise says it all.
I usually just lurk in this thread. For context, I like Starmer generally (I'm a lawyer, and he was when studying a bit of a hero of mine). Also, I've always voted Labour, and I will will probably continue to do so.
Totally agree with you on this. Comments yesterday smacked to me, and I suspect for most middle of the road, generally not that politically interested people, of opportunism. Clearly a short lockdown is, and has been on the cards for a while, it being reported yesterday that SAGE had advised the Government to do it. Looks very much like a cynical attempt to back Boris into a corner and score points. If it comes about they claim a victory in getting the Government to change tack, if not they can point out the error.