Great, so more Tory misrule.
I see Jeremy Corbyn’s shaved his beard off and taken up a new hobby!
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Labour under Starmer are just Tory-Lite anyway. What’s the point in them getting elected? Corbyn at least offered a genuine alternative, which is why he had to go.
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It’s misrule either way. Not sure if you’ve noticed, but we’ve not really had a credible reforming government for a long time. Blair was described by Thatcher as her greatest achievement, Cameron aped Blair and his policies to get elected. Starmer is simply a return to all of that.
Different coloured ties. Same politics. War and debt.
The one time we had a chance to be governed by something else, the whole system turned in on a lifelong anti-racist campaigner, fitted him up as an anti-semite and a few people actually believed it, or were too afraid to delve into the issue so just accepted second hand conclusions at face value.
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I think Starmer is more of a Labour man than Blair.
As for governments, I doubt if any government ticks all boxes for all voters, but surely you need to be pushing for those who tick most boxes?
I’m sorry @Sadoldgit, I think you’re on to a loser here, I would have happily voted for Corbyn, I won’t vote for Starmer as he is, to me, Tory lite, this from a lapsed, some would say “seen the error of me ways”, Tory voter…
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He’s not the sort of bloke that fills me with any sort of confidence that he’d have the balls to unravel all of the the fuckups of Tory rule. Sadly.
Same here. Usually voted tory until fairly recently.
Which makes it a bigger fucking shame than it is. Did you know there was actually a group called Conservatives for Corbyn?
Their basic premise was that Corbyn would do a better job of conserving stuff than the Conservatives.
There will not be a Conservatives for Starmer with the same outlook.
Let’s see shall we? He is only been in the job a short while and not only has to find a way to make Labour appeal to middle England, he also has to deal with two very strong willed factions. I always though of Blair as as watered down Tory. I don’t see Starmer that way. Maybe watered down Labour but surely that has to be infinitely better than what we have at the moment?
The last time Labour had a majority, it had what it lost in the red wall plus Scotland.
Middle England isn’t enough and as long as the party continues to sneer at the working class, it won’t get a majority.
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I know some Tories who were desperate for Corbyn to stay as leader of the Labour Party…
…because they knew he wouldn’t get elected.
That old chestnut!
So why did they spend four years slandering him, telling ever more fantastical lies about him? They pulled out every dirty trick in the book to stop him being elected. This ‘Tories are desperate for Corbyn to stay as leader’ bollocks was just another one of the tactics, Tory/New Labour bots flooding The Guardian comments pages, day after day, swearing that they are Conservative voters to a man, posting this mantra. It was all aimed of course at Labour members and supporters, sowing the seed and creating doubt and fear, stepped up frantically the closer to the election we got, they were terrified of Corbyn winning. This is why the (very popular) Labour manifesto was barely mentioned in the MSM, because when their policies were individually put to random members of the public by some pollsters, without mentioning that they were in the Labour manifesto, the response was overwhelmingly positive.
I think far too much is being made about the next election, mustn’t rock the Starmer boat, ignore his disastrous intervention last week which he must have known would provoke the reaction it has. The next election is four years away, the government have an 80 seat majority, the next election is an irrelevance for three years. As you say, Starmer has only been in the job a few months, but already he has deliberately thrown a hand grenade into ‘Party Unity’, he must have known that would be the result unless he is very naive which i doubt very much. He and his backers must know that with four years to the next election he will at some point face a leadership challenge when he carries on ditching the few socialist policies he committed himself to as part of his leadership campaign. Despite the faux handwringing and pretence of being concerned about ‘Corbyn supporters’ resigning from the party in droves, in fact they of course welcome it, they are banking on it.
At the present time it’s difficult to imagine what things will be like in this country in four months time, never mind four years. If we carry on the way we are going there will be nothing left of the country to argue about, anything of true value to the many will have been handed over to the few by these unscrupulous bastards running the show. This needs to be opposed, properly, in plain language that people can understand. Not the current pathetic nonsense we are getting now from Starmer, who’s finally, but very timidly got around to daring to bring up the scandal of PPE contracts being corruptly awarded to government supporters, financial backers, friends and in some cases family. It’s not a ‘Chumocracy’ Sir Keir, that almost makes it sound palatable. The country desperately needs an opposition leader who will call it for what it is, naked corruption by a government who are no different or better than racketeers and organized criminals. The electorate are grown-ups, they can take it. The whole rotten shit show needs to be opposed vigorously, but sadly we won’t be getting it from Sir Keir, that’s not his purpose. He is the placeman of the right wing because he’s a safe pair of hands, when push comes to shove he won’t rock the boat. Well shit - or get off the pot.
Pap made the accurate point that the country missed a once in a lifetime chance for real change at the last election, if only because, regardless of what your politics may be it was a chance to elect a decent, caring person to lead the country, someone who has always made no bones about the fact that his priorities are towards the poor, weak and disadvantaged in our society, and a highly principled stance towards the oppressed in the wider world. Is “for the many not the few” such a bad philosophy? Really? Look what we’re lumbered with now, ‘For the few not the many’. Good luck with that, it can only end one way, and it won’t be a pretty sight.
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Starmer had to make a call. Either way he was going to upset a large part of his party. If he had done nothing he would have pissed off the other side of the party.
As for it being a chestnut, I can only say that the few Tories I know were very happy when Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party. Thousands of Labour voters voted Tory so he didn’t even appeal to his own people. I say this as someone who has never voted Labour before but voted for him in the last two elections. People will believe what they want to believe. They believed all of the guff and smears about Corbyn but they ignored anything negative about Johnson. Why is that? I don’t know the answer but assume it has something to do with a deep rooted dislike of far left politics?
I think that you’ll find it was more than just Corbyn, I think a lot of Labour voters voted for Boris because of his promise “to get Brexit done”, don’t forget Labour’s stance was to have a second referendum on the subject…
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Exactly. They voted against Starmer before he was even at the wheel.
Half the country wanted to remain but true, I don’t know what percentage of Labour supporters wanted to leave. They still could have left and voted Labour assuming the second referendum went their way.
The point is that Corbyn is no longer leader of the Labour Party and they aren’t going to change anything whilst in opposition so need to do something about getting themselves elected. In fighting isn’t going to help. Getting the anti-Semitism monkey off their back would be a good start.
The anti semitic accusations are nonsense. Starmer appears to be using it as an excuse to purge the Labour Party of pro Palestinian socialists. If he carries on it will spell the end of his leadership or the end of the Labour Party.
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They may be Goat, but this particular mud has stuck and needs to be dealt with. I don’t agree with you about the pro-Palestinian purge but we will see. Starmer isn’t stupid and is clearly playing the long game. He needs to deal with this anti/Semitism shit and that is what he is doing. If Corbyn had phrased his response differently we wouldn’t be having this conversation now and Corbyn would still have the whip.
As an outsider who just wants to see the end of Tory rule, it was very frustrating to see the way the Labour Party were fighting amongst themselves when they should have been directing all of their fire power towards the Tories. The same seems to be happening with Starmer now and he needs eyes in the back of his head instead of directing his attention to the government.
I worked under a number of DPPs during my time at the CPS and Starmer was by far the most impressive. He would visit the various offices around the country, ask questions and listen to the answers whereas the rest of them would just pitch up and talk at you for an hour or two. Not only would he listen, he would quietly go about changing the things which weren’t working. I think he has the makings of an excellent PM for this country if given the chance. IMHO he is nothing like Blair and you certainly won’t see him sucking up to the likes of Murdoch.
Starmer socialism may not be the same as Corbyn socialism, but it will be a lot better for most than another 4 years of Johnson, Gove, Patel etc.
The one thing I liked about Corbyn was that he seemed to stick to his principles, the times he looked weaker and more unsure of himself was when he was trying to ‘play politics’, if he felt that way about the report then that’s what he should say, not some sugar coated fluff piece to make the party look good. I’m surprised he has stayed a member as I would have fucked off long ago if treated similarly. I voted Labour in the last election but doubt I will anymore, I was fooled by Tony Blair and now have similar reservations regarding Kier Starmer.
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