The UK government has said that the £60,000 bereavement payment to the families of health workers killed by the coronavirus will not apply to care workers, porters or hospital cleaners.
The Tories have also said that families of the deceased have no automatic right to remain in the UK. Families of people who died trying to keeping us safe and well could face deportation if their right to remain is withdrawn.
Johnson and his fellow Tories will no doubt still make sure they are filmed ‘clapping for carers’ tomorrow.
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Quelle surprise.
Giving them a clap for a minute every Thursday evening’s far more than they deserve, innit?
About time that was ended and a new rallying cry was issued. ‘Toerags OUT’!
Then I might join in.
But that doesn’t mean starmer’s labour in, because that’s just defeating the object.
So when will the Labour Party campaign for solidarity with ‘care workers’ to be a part of NHS with the same terms & conditions of employment?
Now, the stay @ home & don’t sunbathe instruction males sense as ‘health advisers’ extol the virtues of vitamin D.
So when will the Labour Party campaign for solidarity with ‘care workers’ to be a part of NHS with the same terms & conditions of employment?
EXACTLY, Steve. They’ll bring nothing back ‘in-house’ under starmer. He’s more for the status quo than Francis Rossi.
Starmer is just a better speaking Johnson. He supports the Tory policy in case the papers turn on him. It’s more than pathetic. It deprives the country of any opposition.
Starmer is just a better speaking Johnson.
Starmer’s a ‘johnson’ , alright. Better speaking than who is anyone’s guess.
I only mean he often manages to speak whole sentences. What he says is acutely disappointing and will only get worse. You shouldn’t be running an opposition if you’re scared stiff of actually opposing!
At last – you’re onto a *real* issue.
Yet another ‘real’ issue that the knight of the Third-Way (TrilateralCommission version) is failing to represent his party’s membership on.
A rent holiday anyone – or shall we initiate mass, industrial scale mass evictions and homelessness?
Everyday a new Tory low. Everyday a new horror. How Tories manage that, defies understanding. Early this morning, they were worse than last night. Now 10:51, they are worse than that. Tories will be worse at noon. By sunset Tories will be worse again. Every hour a new low.
No decent people could be as heartless without determined effort. Think Iain Duncan-Smith. Watch, the nasty man enjoys being cruel to anyone with less money than he has. Think Theresa May. Devoted member of decades. She knows her party. She admitted it is seen as the nasty party. They ARE nasty. Worst yet, horrifically, they have been allowed to successfully contaminate our party since Tony Blair the war criminal and its attendant tools.
They were not scrubbed out. Now we suffer SIR Starmer. We suffer Starmer acting as agent for the warmonger Bliar. Very sad to see the inevitable happen. It was predictable. That makes the pain worse. That this was obvious, that having a Starmer at the heart of the Shadow Cabinet would end in tears, is crushing. And still, non stop obsession with political theories of dead men. No resolve to learn. Extraordinary comfort…. satisfaction with reading, listening and discussing more political theory. That is the food of the “Left” in my metropolitan CLP. Suspect it’s not much different elsewhere.
Dynamic action has no pull. Basics have no pull. Reality here and now have no pull. Seeing Starmer and his type for what they are, has no pull. Those who disapprove of Skwawkbox.org , think that despite his history, Starmer can be trusted. I kid you not.
I believe the basics need urgent effective attention. Yet to my intense frustration, have no more ideas of how to communicate that. I’m stumped. 🌹🌹🌹
I think we have to forget all about the “Labour” Party. It’s stumbled on for a 100 years consistently turning against its radical side except perhaps once in the late 1940’s. Recent events have shown the hopelessness of relying on Starmer and people like Kendall and the other Tory-lites in the Shadow Cabinet. Time for a New Party.
A *new* Labour Party can only flourish once parliamentary elections are no longer FPTP, and, in addition, when legislation is changed to allow a socialist media access/involvement to television and radio.
How come, for example, Freeview provides numerous shopping channels and Christian/gospel channels, but no trades union provision of a NLM-type current affairs?
But the Labour Party itself was an insurgent movement in a FPTP political arrangement. It supplanted the Liberals who were increasingly seen as Tory-lite crooks. A new party would supplant the old Labour organisation. Initially it might give succour to a Tory National type of Govt as it did in the 1920’s and 30’s but Centrist Labour candidates would be squeezed out of their seats. It didn’t take long before the Liberals were a laughing stock from which they have never recovered. Never say die!
Hi Paul, if your hundred year old house was broken into by bandits or pest, would you pack up and leave it to them❓ OR would you use the best means to drive the critters out❓
Would you gift them prominent seats at your table, pamper them, give them golden keys … not just for them, but tor all their bandit / pest invaders❓
When they spread their filth over your 100 year house, would you kiss them each time they kicked you in the face❓ When they increase their control over YOUR 100 year old house, because you let them, would you refuse to look at what you should and COULD have done differently❓ And DO things differently OR leave YOUR house to repeat the same mistakes elsewhere❓❓❓
I agree that a new and genuinely left wing party might be able to replace Labour – maybe more easily than we fear – and is staying in THIS ‘Labour’ loyalty or just nostalgia?
Starmer is dragging it toward the Tories just as they show themselves less and less fit for purpose.
Despite the delusions of the so-called “centrists” neoliberalism can’t just be turned back down to gas mark 1 or 2 – the kind of capitalism that preceded Thatcher & Reagan – because the need for more, MORE! is embedded in its structure.
Only redistribution or revolution can stop a dozen people owning everything including us and our children for ever more – and ever more could start sooner than you think.
If the Tories use successive peaks & lockdowns of CV to excuse No Brexit there’s a chance they’ll be damaged – but would Starmer benefit? Maybe not given his history with Brexit.
A new party will need time to build but the next GE is nearly 4 years away – maybe enough time with luck. Maybe while the MSM are totally obsessed with CV would be a good time to start?
Even if the membership is just old Corbynistas and Oh-JC’s the subs should keep it well afloat.
If Corbyn joins we can hope he and a left green manifesto might again inspire the young.
Every Labour member won over to the new party though is worth two young first time members/voters – by taking away subs & votes from BornAgainBlairbour.
Won-over and aspiring MP’s will need careful ̶w̶a̶t̶e̶r̶b̶o̶a̶r̶d̶i̶n̶g̶ vetting.
I don’t think a new party is the answer Paul but unfortunately I don’t know what is – not now anyway.All I can say is our party is polluted by incompetent careerists who wouldn’t know a principle if it jumped up and bit them in the backside .We should have brought back mandatory re-selection when we had the chance, we didn’t so I don’t know how we can get rid of them now.
However I am going to hang in there for now. I want to see who is our new GS and what the outcome of the enquiry into the leaked AS report is before I make a decision about my future membership.
‘smartboy’ sorry you have bought into a lie. This so called looking at the report is ONLY to find who leaded it. They won’t do anything about what’s in it! That’s it if your waiting to see what happens you better get comfy old chap because I will tell you what is going to happen bugger all…
You say your waiting for the new gen sec why? Even if god comes down and you managed to elect another left wing one we saw what happens nothing they hide shit, they form secret cables and slush funds with YOUR money they work to NOT get elected all happened under Jenny and she did? I like the lady but being strangled with the right wing party machinery cancer stops her doing. The useless unions stop her doing. The PLP stops her doing so what’s going to change? I suggest you stop waiting and hoping and stop giving them first your money and second your support…. But hay it’s your choice!
But they’re termites – termites with parasites poisonous to socialists – and they’ve eaten into the whole house and all the furniture – there’s nothing left even worth loading into the moving van – the whole structure is shaking on its once-sound foundations and is about to collapse.
Still want to pay the deposit and move in?
“Still want to pay the deposit and move in?”
OUR hundred year old house. We are in it. I am. DRIVE the termites with their parasites out‼️
QUESTION: Did you see ANY slight attempt to do that over the last 4 years❓ Or did you see the very opposite❓ If you allowed termites to infest YOUR home, what guarantee you won’t do the same to a new one❓🌹🌹🌹
A new Party isn’t a guaranty that you wouldn’t bring the termites with you, since their is nothing much left to destroy in the old house; they could just transfer to the new house. Better to fight them off in the house that we are still occupying,
I am waiting to see the results of the NEC’s elections before deciding what to do. But what I am sure of is, that if I leave the Labour Party, I will not join another Party with people that have allowed their former house to be taken over by termites and instead of fighting them, have abandoned the house to them.
Maria Vazquez, not sure if there is another Maria on Skwawkbox.org but i agree with you here. Esp the last 7 lines. The idea of joining another party with the same people who r ready to give up this one, and who refuse to accept that the termites were ALLOWED to take root and flourish, is for the birds. Why a new party with the same people should be different beats me.
What amazes me, despite seeing that creatures like Bliar with £MILLIONS and access to more £MILLIONS remained for FOUR years to REGAIN control, perfectly intelligent people see that and think, lets start another hundred year project. Let’s do an Ummuna, Berger, Soubrey, TINGE CUK, Greens, SWP, CoOp, CP, Women’s Equality P, Respect, UKIP, Brexit Party etc etc etc…
PERFECTLY intelligent people, think while 60,000 excess avoidable deaths add up, don’t learn from the Tories who stay in their party and battle for what they want. Don’t do as Tories do and infiltrate other parties to thus heads they win, tales they win eg Blair, Starmer etc who said openly on radio several years ago, words to the effect that he thought Socialism was sixth form amateur…
No, don’t learn go off and form another SWP etc. At first i thought, give it time. Shame on me for being so naïve. After all, a few weeks ago, someone who was in the Labour Labour Party for 44 years, suggested same. Form a new party. After 44 years, the person failed to convince others to drive out the termites with poisonous parasites, just as the termites drove out many occupants in preceding decades.
Yet for some unexplained reason, the same people who had power and means, but decided to appease monsters to stop monsters doing that which monsters have always done, and done openly as it is their nature. Somehow some STILL believe, that there were no alternatives. Yet, allow millions to endure another 100 years building another party for poisonous parasites to infest. Best wishes to them.
There are certainly no regrets to getting involved. Lots have been learnt. I’v seen attitudes not seen elsewhere and not in such abundance. After the Open Selection CLP Branch meeting, I said to my neighbour who is a party member for at least 47 years, member of CND and all that, my neighbour and friend was in a state of utter puzzlement. Asking repeatedly “what was the point of the meeting???” I tried to console and explain it was a work in progress.
Seems my friend’s years trumped my optimism. Seems my friend saw something that evaded me. Though i did say then that now we can see why politics is as it is and the world as it is. It was obvious that the rightwing had organised thoroughly. By fair means and foul they pulled out all the stops to get their way. They did. They did the basics. They got that right.
Interestingly as a first time meeting attender, none of the “Left” came to introduce themselves. I was the person who had to introduce myself and collect contacts to network, Little did I know there were large “Left” groups already. What gave me that impression??? I noted those who spoke in favour of open selection as i did and thought, i’m with them. They were all full of compliments for my speech, even months after, yet sweet as they are, reaching out, did not seem at the top of the agenda. Rest assured though, this very day, this very week… every week since that meeting, theory and learned chat has remained atop all agendas.
Regularly, including at a post election “wash up”, with very learned and experienced people, in a different part of London, the phrases: “from the bottom up”, “grass roots” “communities”, “class consciousness” etc are all repeated. To date, not a sign of that can be seen. At the “wash up” standing room only event, the host repeatedly returned to the panel despite them saying they had little more to add to what they had already explained at length. The host answered one question from the floor, by telling the questioner to read the book written by someone sitting in front of me. Even that brilliant person had the try to squeeze excellent value into max 5 minutes.
The superb new Midlands MP spoke. Even she, though with much to say which we all needed to hear ie how did she achieve victory in a sea of defeat, her contributions i felt should have been given the space to breathe… to inspire and uplift us. The host had other ideas. To me that new MP was grassroots, was community, was from the “ground”.
Maria V, this was only meant to say, i agree with you, but there is always so much swirling in my mind trying to understand how, perfectly intelligent well meaning people can decide to hand their 100 year old house to termites an poisonous parasites. 🌹🌹🌹
You don’t know much about termites, do you? 🙂
Signpostnotwindchimes you keep on repeating this crap. Now I challenge you with a simple question how are you going to remove most of the PLP, all the party machinery and most of the workers who are all solid right wing? Most are NOT electable posts.
Most will claim one allegiance while quietly working to undermine and there true allegiance come out way to late. This is a Cancer that has eaten the body leaving just the skin to hold the mass together. There is nothing a few changes of people will change. It’s too deep to embedded just look that that report secret groups, secret slush funds all allowed and hidden and when exposed these criminal acts what happens oh yes fuck all. Where is the left wing demanding accountability?
Apart from members nothing from the useless MP’s etc. This you think your change with a bit of moving the furniture around the deck of the sodding titanic and your feet are getting wet. So no I won’t waste my time with useless fights any more, I won’t give my hard earned money to people who will use it and laugh at me, the aims of the so called Labour party the useless parasitic unions that only exist to keep there bloated machinery in jobs.
So fuck that NO I won’t stay thanks and these people that demand I and others stay I wonder what there alliances are really? To the left as they claim or really the right and trying to keep the money rolling in while controlling the left as normal…
disabledgranddad, my message was not meant for you. You have made your position clear. So best of luck, good bye and best wishes. Skip my posts. Better yet read elsewhere. Moreover why read at all??? That’s another puzzle.🌹🌹🌹
Ps to make it clear don’t stay. Do what u like, but don’t discourage the rest of us. Skwawkbox was formed to be positive, to change our party not to moan.🌹🌹🌹
Reply to disabledgrandad
There is a lot in what you say and I am not hopeful of a good outcome to the investigation. By a good outcome I mean disciplinary proceedings under either the Rules or Contracts of Employment depending on the status of the people identified in the report as working against us.
Regarding the new GS, I am probably wasting my time and money waiting to see who is appointed – the people appointed for our shadow cabinet and our front bench tells me that but despite this I live in hope for the time being.
FAO Signpost. Maria Vazquez and I are not the same person.
For most of the lifetime of the Labour Party, signpost, both left and right have been ‘sharing’ the house.
And when you say (in relation to the first CLP meeting you attended) that ‘every week since that meeting, theory and learned chat has remained atop all agendas’, can you give some examples of the theories and ‘learned chat’ you claim happens ‘every week’. I wasn’t aware that CLPs held meetings every week, and as far as I know it’s usually once a month, and it really doesn’t sound plausible that a CLP would hold meetings every week, and so, much like Izzy Lenga who claimed in the Panorama hatchet job that she was subjected to A/S abuse at meetings every day, I have no doubt whatsoever that, yet AGAIN, you are lying, not only about the weekly meetings of your CLP, but that those attending meetings spend every meeting discussing theories etc.
As ALL members know – whether they attend meetings or not – they are sent an email PRIOR to meetings listing what is on the agenda for the forth-coming meeting, and are usually mainly comprised of discussing local issues and problems.
Gordon Bennett, signpost is off AGAIN, just repeating what he said a few days ago, and a few days before that, and a few days before that……. Repetition, a favourite technique of propagandists. So where is this non-stop obsession with political theories of dead men etc happening signpost…… oh right, in your CLP…. oh, and you suspect it’s no different elsewhere. Needless to say, signpost is lying through his teeth about his CLP (I don’t believe he even goes to CLP meetings!), and the reason I KNOW it’s a lie AND that signpost is a shill, is because he has repeated this numerous times during the course of the past few months, and ONLY black propaganda shills repeat things over and over and over again.
Oh right, and now he’s come up with the complete and utter B/S – ie another piece of fiction so as to falsely fight fault, YET AGAIN, with Jeremy Corbyn – that it was ***obvious*** that ***having Starmer at the heart of the shadow cabinet would end in tears***. I mean the twisted thinking that must go into coming up with these totally malicious fictions so as to find fault with Jeremy is just staggering. Oh, right, so if it was so obvious signpost, how come you’ve not mentioned it before! Because it’s complete and utter tosh, and you’ve only just thought of it, that’s WHY. You must be a sort of demented genius signpost to come up with so much non-sensical stuff, And I REALLY can’t believe that anyone with even a slight grip on reality could give such asinine claptrap a Like. It really beggars belief.
But anyway, perhaps you could elaborate signpost. No? Thought not!
PS As I said, it’s hard to believe that anyone gives such complete and utter nonsense a Like, and I have little doubt that the vast majority of Likes he gets are fraudulent, BUT if there really IS any REAL person giving such total garbage Likes, then PLEASE take a course in critical thinking, because you are being led right up the proverbial garden path! And HE is laughing at you for swallowing such vacuous and totally divorced from reality ordure
,
Can’t these creatures be reported the Equalities Commission?
I assume this means cleaners working in ‘NHS’ facilities are also exempt as cleaning in NHS was privatised years ago under the contracting out systems. It’s fair enough calling for care staff to be pulled under NHS banner, but what’s the point until privatisation of NHS is reversed?
“Maria 20/05/2020 AT 11:51 PM
FAO Signpost. Maria Vazquez and I are not the same person.” Thank you Maria for that. Forgive my mix up. Hope you took no offence. So much is a whirl and so incredible, diff 2 keep up. 🌹🌹🌹
If your not a member of Labour party join up, then recruit another member, then vote for chosen left wing candidates
That’s an order
I haven’t researched it but by “families” I suspect the lying Tories will include only spouses and children – maybe even only spouses with children – and that other kinds of dependants like elderly parents or extended families here or abroad, some of whose sole support may be a BAME NHS health or social care or ‘key’ worker – won’t be eligible.
Everyone working in a healthcare or social care environment has continued working despite the increased risk of death. ‘Key’ workers may have been less exposed than them but if so there’ll be fewer deaths among them – so the cost of making the payment also apply to those categories will amount to less.
Everyone who voluntarily or by legal obligation took that increased risk to keep society running when they could have stayed safe at home – and who died as a result – deserves equal recognition of their sacrifice and equal respect to be paid to them and their families.
So that’s ALL WORKERS WHO DIED OF CV then Boris, Rishi.
Thanks for doing what’s right.
Yeah, right.
The Tories attacking the poorest in the NHS should come as no surprise to members of the democratic socialist Labour party and its supporters.
Neither should it come as a surprise that the Tories were aided indirectly by the former DPP head, who pursued the persecution of the political prisoner Julian Assange, member of an anti democratic right wing organization, recipient of money from patrons who support the fascist apartheid regime in occupied Palestine and refused to accept democratic results because of his chiefly pushing a policy to reject them.
Step forward the knight of the realm. Keir Starmer flavour of the month , in
contrast to the visceral hatred of a genuine socialist leader, by the vast majority of the chiefly right wing billionaire owned MSM, the State Broadcaster and the rag which proclaims that ” facts are sacred” the Fraudian beloved by some on this site.
Change the language
Traditionally the Tory party has always had a visceral hatred of the NHS, whats changed
How many hospitals were commissioned and built under Margaret Thatcher
In the last 10 years there has been record underfunding of the NHS, you have systematically run it into the ground, why
Can we have net recruitment figures
Most NHS funding is siphoned off to pay the huge internal market bureaucracy created by breaking up NHS into Trusts etc. and to pay huge PPI loan repayments.
Thatcher just set the ball rolling, all subsequent Govs have done their bit towards restructuring NHS towards a US based model ready for take over of most lucrative sectors by private health care industry.
Reminder to all. http://selloff.org.uk/nhs/
“Plans for post Covid NHS hatched behind the lockdown”
https://lowdownnhs.info/news/plans-for-post-covid-nhs-hatched-behind-the-lockdown/
.. and lets not forget the role of the international pharmacological industries that have been so much in the underlying story of US-UK post-Brexit floundering and in the setting up of this ‘Panic!’ mood.
Not sure how much Brexit has to do with it to be honest. UK has been close to US pharma and private healthcare industry for decades especially re privatising NHS England… the most lucrative part.
Class warfare now fully exposed and out in the open for all to see.
First Nazi Petty Patel with her 25K or so entry fee for the UK and now this ! and still yet the morons vote for them , there is no hope really , can’t wait to fuck off and emigrate
Forget Keir Starmer
We have a challenge to stick together like shit to a woolly blanket and vote in nominated left wing candidates at every level of the party and unions
So go out and recruit new members and someone tell me how we get our hands on members contact details, can it be done at a price
Forget the dinosaur that is the current Labour Party. There are a number of candidates, some indefinitely suspended by the LP, to form a new party. Ther3 are said to be some 30 MP’s who could follow them but retain their seats in Parliament of course. It will be interesting to see how hard the Starmer crew press for by-elections; not that hard one imagines. But the ‘rebels’ should hang on for the GE.
Sound good on paper but it wouldn’t work in practice. The Trade Unions, I am afraid are not ready to abandon the establish branch that is the Labour Party.
For the moment we have to stay put and fight; we have the numbers. It is a matter if the left can unite on a single slate or no. If the left cannot unite, leaving to form another Party wouldn’t solve the problem: you will take the problem with you.
What a relief Maria to read reason. Help me. I cannot understand the mindset of those who take time to read posts here and get in a rage about other views. So odd. No one can make someone stay or go to form their new shiny party, so what’s the rage about❓❓❓ So strange.
Now i see why the Right Wing succeed. The coyled creature is a typical eg. A Lib Dem was the incumbent for 32 years, yet the coyled one riding on the coattails of Jeremy unseated the popular incumbent and kicked Jeremy in the face repeatedly. Never censured. Not once. Yet people who insist on reading Skwawkbox which has a mission to tackle the basics spew out abuse to us here and treat the Right Wing as if they are some gigantic meteorite that fell from the skies.
The right wing, most of them are people just like us. But they work NIGHT and DAY to achieve their aims. They don’t expect it to happen by magic. Most of 500,000 members supported Jeremy. Yet the right wing stayed, plotted and did not even need to fight. Yet some seem blind despite seeing for 44 years in some cases, that which is obvious and could be analysed in four months. Some do not want to learn. Their habits are precious to them after 80 90 years. They have learnt to moan and swear at those who don’t. Very odd.
I wonder if the negative people have ever stopped to wonder how people have managed to achieve the most spectacular things❓❓❓ It seems the answer is either no, they have never stopped. OR they have no ability to make connections. Eg How did the young MP win in the Midlands? Could we learn from her experience? How are successful operations done? How are tinier and tinier babies able to survive the impossible challenges? The worlds largest cargo plane is in the air this v minute ferrying medical supplies. What sort of attitude allowed people to conceive of getting such a large hulk aloft?
It will be ferrying medical supplies to Montreal this weekend. Not one of the people who helped produced the medical supplies, or designed and built the An-225 transporting them, are “can’t do” people. They would not have been employed or they could damage morale… sap energy. It is exactly the same in sport, and commerce, and it seems in the Tory Party. They need not bother to infiltrate us to depress us. After 40 50 years Labour people do it for them. They learn nothing and attribute some magic powers to those who defeat them. It’s those big bad people over there miss. There’s nothing we could do. Very very odd.
🌹🌹🌹
Maria
More than happy to bear your children and future members of the Great British Labour party
Doug, Paul and Maria v. All speak good sense. Maria’s point that the trade union movement would effectively be split by the formation of a new Labour Party is right, and the TU movement and we would be the net losers.
Also, two iimportant things have to change before the ‘leave and start new party’ option would be feasible:
1 – Media.. we need a more balanced media – a freeview Labour channel, if you will, stimulating discussion and enabling education, as well as providing a balance to neoliberal hegemony;
2 – We need to replace FPTP for parliamentary elections. FPTP facilitates rw dominance, not least because it co-exists with a rigorously censorial and dominant billionaires press.
Have the Trade Unions really been that useful over the last 40 years? Haven’t they divided over which wing of the Party they support, especially over the past 5 years? When they had mass membership they were potentially a powerful force but when were they most effective – pre 1914!?
The media and FPTP are serious obstacles to the Labour Party and have been throughout its history. The audacity of the 1924 GE tells you all you need to know. The forged letter organised by the proto-Fascists in the Secret Services and broadcast by the Mail and Times 3 days before the vote was the classic smear, astonishingly not exposed as a fake for decades. How do you magic them away? I suggest it’s impossible and there should be an alternative party. Only votes will sort it and not votes for Tory sympathisers like Starmer. The RW of the LP are wedded to FPTP to guarantee their own seats.
qwertboi, I suggested a Labour freeview channel to Skwawkbox in Autumn 2017 – I made the mistake of suggesting it be comedy-based to attract non-committed viewers on the basis that
– “[the Left] have all the best comic talent.”
I had no idea how out of date I was, having been spoiled for choice in the Spitting Image era.
Sadly, I’ve since come to realise that many (most?) of today’s young comedy and other media talent are Tory through and through. A socialist Jimmy Carr wouldn’t “avoid” paying his taxes.
A Tory Jimmy Carr isn’t going to appear for free on Labour TV.
Without a non-political, ENTERTAINED audience a TV channel might have a ‘circulation’ little greater than the Morning Star’s estimated 10.000 and could fail in a month – which doesn’t take us anywhere good.
I still think promising ex post facto prosecutions and future jail for present and past politically biased journalism amounting to subversion of democracy has merit.
How could they successfully (in the long term) challenge demands for ‘nothing but the truth’ to be told to the electorate? Of course they’ll try, but once it’s on the table every Labour rise in the polls increases their fear levels – either they double down on the lies and increase their exposure or they start telling the truth to save their own arses.
For an example of pathetically obvious circular reasoning masquerading as logic – see this yougov claim that whether the British newspapers are IN FACT biased depends on whether the Great British Public BELIEVES the MSM is biased.
In other words, “If the propaganda works it can’t be propaganda, right?”
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2017/03/07/how-left-or-right-wing-are-uks-newspapers
Although it’s difficult to ‘forget Starmer’, Doug, I’m sure that your basic sentiments are correct.
I see no signs outside the left talking to itself of a successful new Party emerging.
The Panic-demic has successfully produced an even more subservient population than I can ever remember. Despite the grumbling about Johnson and the Spivs, the Tories are riding high in the polls after a 10-year period that would normally have produced much more boredom and a fed-upness with their incompetence.
Meanwhile, the left have been floiundering to even recognize the forces behind the lock-up -let alone produce a viable critique and programme. The irony is that it’s the far right that have been making the hay.
A bunch of squabbling amateurs like this isn’t going to create a viable political alternative to Labour – or even the Blairite Labour right without less windy rhetoric and more action.
… and, no – I’m not preaching from on high. Excuses apart, I confess to a lack of motivation and concrete action. I’m just observing the bleedin’ obvious.
Leaving does nothing
Especially before two big unions, NEC and General Secretary decided
Worst case scenario we challenge Keir next year
Ive concluded those for leaving are in fact red Tories working for Blairites because they know we have the numbers, that is JC legacy to the Labour Party
Now go forth and recruit and vote and recruit and vote
Doug and DO what? The unions your waiting on are right wing and only want to protect there unions jobs and play silly power games. Where were they demanding investigations and changes after that leaked report oh yeah silence…
The magical PLP controlled right wing 90% and locked up to prevent to many left wingers getting elected. Next party machinery the real hidden army of darkness solid right wing. NEC useless just argue and do nothing. General secretary oh even with a left wing general secretary, we had mass BS expulsions under her and far to much crap including elections being thrown, criminal acts and far to much else so yeah a left winger achieved what?
So stay and fight let me know how you get on. I like my father before me was solid socialist until I see a socialist party I am not wasting my money, help or anything else on a party that is just a sick joke. Even if you magically elect left wing NEC, General secretary and everything else the cancer will be there working against you briefing the scumbag media as normal and NOTHING will change because the cancer remains.
Until you accept this big tent bollocks is dead and only make a socialist left wing only party nothing will change. Just the deckchairs on the titanic when your feet get wet and the deck is at a angle. Then you realise it’s to late to change and if your sensible and look for the lifeboat.
I believe the results of the elections in 2021 are going to be a disaster. So potentially the left of the PLP can challenge Starmer and win.
The first problem is that I don’t see the members of the Socialist Campaign Group having the appetite to challenge Starmer.The bigger problem is that I cannot see them selecting Richard Burgon or Clive Lewis to challenge Starmer but rather a woman.
Nothing against women, it is just than now that Laura Pidcock isn’t a MP any longer, I don’t see any woman in the Campaign Group that can challenge Starmer and win.
So we will have to wait until 2024 or the next General Elections. The advantage in waiting is that in the north and the midlands we are going see more centrist Labour MPs losing their seats. So the electorate are going to do the cleaning for us and ensure that Keir Starmer has to resign without us moving a finger against him.
What we need is to concentrate in ensuring that no a single MP from the campaign group loses his/her seats. Plus, we need to carry on building on the local left in each CLP so in the 60 seats that we lost in 2019, we have socialists elected as PPCs.
This is why it is important for the left to keep control in the NEC to ensure that the rules of the game aren’t change, so that we can get socialist candidates in these Tory marginals, former Labour safe seats rather than centrists PPCs.
We have the numbers but if we don’t manage to organise and retain the seats in the NEC, I am afraid I would be tempted to leave the Party, save my subs and them use them to support members of the Socialist Campaigns Groups in marginals seats to be re-elected..
Yes, Yes, Yes!
Maria, who ARE “the left of the PLP?”
I ask because I neither see nor hear them. It’s been said there are around 30 of them but they’re keeping so quiet I hardly know more than a few of their names.
If 30 is anywhere near the truth – out of 202 Labour MP’s – people who think they could prevail over the “centrist/rightist” 172 – who have the backing of the party apparatchiks, the media, the BoD and in a real emergency the Tories – I can only imagine are either utterly deluded or they’re working for Starmer to try and prevent the party haemorrhaging members and, possibly more importantly, their dues.
@David, you are forgetting that under the present rules of engagement we only need 10% of the PLP to mount a challenge for the leadership, providing that we are not in government. Hence, if at the next General Election we manage to maintain the 32 present members of the Socialist Campaign Group, and increase their numbers by making sure that the PPCs in Tory marginals that were safe former Labour seats until 2019 are socialist and we help them to win back those seats, them we will manage to increase the socialist presence in the PLP.
I expect more centrist MPs to lose their seats in the now almost fallen red wall. So the proportion of socialist MPs in the PLP would be higher by comparison.
Keir Starmer will manage to win a maximum of 10 seats net, but equally we could fall under 200 seats. But in the process centrist MPs will lose their seats and hopefully the Labour gains would be made by socialists.
Something that the centrist are keeping quiet is that most of the 60 loses weren’t among socialist. Plus some of the seats that we managed to retain, the MPs are now socialist (Liverpool seats) when before they were centrist Labour MPs. So although small that was an important victory as the Liverpool seats are among the safer Labour seats they are and now we have socialist MPs representing Liverpool.
Hence, the importance of keeping a united left slate and retain our presence in the NEC. If we fail to retain them, it wouldn’t be much point to stay in the Party.
Maria, I think Corbyn, though definitely deserving, was also incredibly lucky to catch the mood of the young as he did – I’m guessing he’d admit to being as baffled as anyone by the hero worship.
I don’t think we can count on that kind of luck again.
With the right still occupying as I understand it most of the staff positions as well as having most of the MP’s, taking Labour back will surely be an uphill climb.
With 202 MP’s they only need to persuade, bribe or blackmail 12 of the 32 not to back a challenger, correct?
I’m not dumb – I know launching a new party wouldn’t be easy.
I don’t know if gaining control of Labour would be easier or if either is even possible in my lifetime.
Frankly I don’t even know who I’d trust to lead Labour or a new left wing party, or whether it will ever be possible to keep the Quislings out of either.
The unpredictable can happen any time though – even Covid might create unexpected opportunity – but someone has to be quick enough to recognise it as such.
I’m pretty hopeful that the people of the world take it back finally but, save the unpredictable, it’ll probably be a long haul, it might be messy and democracy might have to take a back seat for a bit.
I never trust people who proclaim with certainty “THIS is how it is” and “They will NEVER do that” and “This WILL happen” with not a shred of evidence or even evidence of reasoning having been applied to the question.
Very little is written in stone, and less than that where human frailty is part of the equation.