Part of hall kept closed, day visitors bussed in to create illusion of support – and Starmer STILL can’t fill what’s left
The Brighton conference venue for Starmer’s speech has many empty seats for Keir Starmer’s speech – even though the party shut down a large part of the conference hall to force people into closer proximity (in the middle of a pandemic) to create an illusion of a bigger audience.
In addition, Labour appears to have bussed in day visitors to pad out the crowd, with those delegates who steeled themselves to stay and sit through Starmer’s attempt to fake sincerity reporting that the delegates they got to know sitting around them during the rest of the event have gone and been replaced by people with a day visitor badge.
And still those empty seats. Under his predecessor, queues stretched around the building and Corbyn’s speech had to be broadcast outside and in overflow venues to meet the demand.
Starmer can’t fake popularity any more than he can fake sincerity.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to without hardship, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Starmer originally said he wanted to unite the Party. He knows now because he wants to create a pro-Israel Party he cannot do it therefore he has abandoned his promise. The result is he is destroying the Party by disuniting it. He is stupid enough not to realise that disunited Parties do not win elections.
Jack T I genuinely do not think Starmer wants to win an election. I truly believe that his remit is to remove all Socialists and those supportive of Palestinian human rights ( usually but not always the same people) from the party and in a few years time hand over a completely Socialist free and Pro Israeli party to a successor with an aim to win an election around 2030.
Smartboy, there is a more than evens chance you are correct. After all, the most successful spies or con men are those who fake sympathy or compatibility with their victims.
The way the party has gone kills me Jack and when I think of the dirty tricks the Right of the party have got away with the help of the MSM I could weep. The only rational explanation I can think of for Starmers current behaviour is what I have said in my post above.
I hope they don’t catch a killer virus, because it would have been foreseeable, avoidable and glaringly obvious to anybody who wasn’t a filthy, right wing zealot with their eyes fixed on manipulating the party image and not the wellbeing of these healthy, mercenaries who are probably being paid an undisclosed amount of party funds to plant their fat arses into seats that would otherwise have stayed empty.
…..and yet Keir’s speech is being well received at conference
SteveH
If you are shipping in support in Brighton then you are truly fucked
SteveH. What else would you expect from a gerrymandered audience, or were you being sarcastic? I certainly saw many in the crowd refusing to applaud him.
Jack – but a far greater proportion did.
Hahaha.You must be asleep again!!!
Like massive arseloads of shit tumbling into a toilet.
They’re designed for each other.
Wirral – Why when they’ve run out of stuff to say, do the left always resort to talking about excrement.
Poo off.
Grow up.
Fascist.
This is a speech. She took two minutes to make her points. Starmer took, almost, two hours to say, virtually, nothing.
Note the – spontaneous – cheers and applause.
https://twitter.com/i/status/1443329972962275330
Steve it was a manufactured conference any descent was stamped on and there was armed police waiting, Pretty depressing and says a lot about Starmer. Problem is he is not trust worthy is he. ? He voted to support LP Corbyns manifesto which was very popular. It probably did not fit in with his advisers mandy and Blair I guess.
Again party unity well getting rid of Ken Loach was a superb move. Let alone many socialist Jews who are not Zionists..wrong sort of Jew. What is the point of that.?? Starmer has his qualities but he has been a very big disappointment. I did not vote for him. I think if he had been honest about getting rid a very popular manifesto not releasing the Forde report and acting on what was revealed about PLP, wanting to change party rules he would not have been elected as leader.He seems that he is acting according to what his backers tell him to do. He did not reveal who his backers were either
He seems to be wanting to go backwards to old new Labour agenda. privatization, carry on neoliberalism of Thatcher yrs That is what his advisers are telling him to do. Steve it wont work times have changed.
Starmer has no vision. He is just boring and appears safe. but in reality he is a establishment man. That s why nothing will change very much . I doubt if he will be elected whatever his minders and focus groups tell him. He is still a long way behind the must disgusting so called PM in history. It does not look good. Why vote for a diluted Tory pink Tory party when they can get real thing. Bojo may go but others will replace him who will be more straight forward Tories .Also his unreliability and nastiness towards decent supporter’s members of LP.
He lets in some pretty awful people like Ellman a particularly nasty woman Berger Smeeth may be parachuted in someware. He obeys what Hodge tells him to do. They are all Zionist’s thats his stratigy Steve. Not very pleasant is it.
Good point about pottymouth, the children’s friend. She’s got the code for the safe. Couldn’t help noticing how, handy Mandy, was always on hand to spread his poison. Coincidence surely.
yes The Observer and the Guardian editorals both praising Starmer for getting rid of Corbyn Manifesto saying that Starmer showed that he was more primisteral Eh what conference were they at. Probably written by Corbyn haters Freedland and Cohan
Who are the hecklers?
I’m, cynical and ask because the soundbite “Shouting slogans or saving lives?’ sounds pre-cooked i.e., planned in advance. And knowing the control-freakery + expulsions, all seems a bit odd.
Andy, I am not going to give a name for obvious reasons but, one of the hecklers the camera focus on, older women wearing a face shield curly hair and glasses is solid left.
I decided to leave Conference and head home, she decided to stay. It wasn’t prearranged, rather like fascist do, Starmer was prepared for any eventuality and used to his advantage.
Maria Vazquez – Oh Okay, just seemed convenient given the way the handy soundbite was deployed.
Andy – You are sounding increasingly desperate.
Shouting slogans and telling lies
Baby Trump is thinking mini me
This speech was being billed as Starmer’s chance for a ill-timed and misguided attempt at a ‘Kinnock moment’. However, it’s not the 1970s or 1980s and today’s union leaders aren’t Red Robbo and Arthur Scargill. Needlessly antagonising the left is precisely what you’d expect from a speechwriter like the frustrated Tory, Philip Collins. But it’s playing to an anti-union constituency that simply doesn’t exist anymore.
These Blairites really are a one-trick pony. Unable to adapt, continually trying to slay old long extinct dragons, hostile only to their own ranks.
You can’t win an election by running against your own party’s values. The only people who want a right-wing Labour party are the overpaid London MSM punditocracy, some in the overreaching, politically biased intelligence services(US & UK), and the Neocon influenced hawks at the FCO & MoD. And finally, two-thirds of the unrepresentative living in the 1980s PLP.
Andy – What did Keir say that was anti-Union?
SteveH – Nothing much, but only because he knows they can hit back, see BFAWU’s recent decision.
It was being billed in the run-up as an attack on the left, so the speech may have had some late revisions/editing?
Little doubt if they get the corporate donors and Lords’, he’ll go after the unions next.
Andy – Furious backpedaling.
SteveH, haven’t you been paying attention? Starmer is anti-Socialist, not very union friendly is it?
‘You can’t win an election by running against your own party’s values.’
mmm, happens to Democrats every election – and labour are embracing the model
SteveH
Money where mouth is
He won’t have any problem putting himself up for election based on his new new Labour manifesto
Doug – Would the left get on the ballot paper, and if so who?
SteveH
Anyone, it matters not a jot who stands, they will wipe the floor with him
Your turn
How does he escape his Brexiit position, he is pure poison to the Left and the Right
Pass the butter
Doug – What Brexit position. It may have escaped your notice but that war is lost. We’ve already left the EU.
The question is – Why are the Brexiteers still obsessing about Brexit whilst the rest of us have moved on.
Why, then, does Hilary Benn wan to make the next election the “Brexit Election”?
goldbach – Does he, who cares? Benn is just a backbench MP.
We haven’t seen the new manifesto yet but there was plenty of good stuff in the various speeches made by Keir Starmer’s team.
Such as?
goldbach – You’re a grown up, take your pick.
It’s tempting but, as a pacifist, I could not do to him what was done to Trotsky.
Correction : It’s actually ‘Shouting slogans or changing lives? ‘ …my bad … but you get the point about the takeaway soundbite, it seem planned.
Andy – Don’t be silly. It would have been remiss of him if he hadn’t thought through a strategy to deal with hecklers.
He could call this strategy WWII.
Walter Wolfgang 2.
He could if he was an idiot, but he isn’t. That’s your spin on it.
There’d be more in the audience if Starmer’s speech was on the subject of “Apathy in the Labour Party”
Is that your considered opiinion.
Bussing people in. How sad. How very keef rong un.
Worse than having paid mourners at a funeral….Alas! There’ll be piss-all in the pot at keef’s.funeral so I doubt anyone will turn up – not even madge or ellman.
How did they get past security so easily, anyway?
Good point.
Those hecklers seem to be remarkably unconcerned too given all the expulsions for doing less.
Remember Kinnock being heckled and it playing to his advantage. Hmm? That might sound conspiratorial, but this is Labour’s deeply dodgy right we’re talking about here.
They probably have new paperwork to dupe the (G4S?) security – maybe indicating fraternal membership of the brand-new ‘we love billionaires’ trade union (WLBTU), which, rumour has it, Unison is campaigning on behalf of to get TUC recognition.
Andy – “That might sound conspiratorial,”
Yes it does, I thought it was a great speech that was well received in the conference hall. It is telling that all you have is conspiracy theories. 🤔
SteveH- Conference support? Nigel Farage could fill a hall with cheering supporters, as can Trump, there’ll always be ‘right or wrong’ leadership loyalists.
As for conspiracy theories. I didn’t claim they were plants, I stated it seems odd, given the stage-managed control freakery and expulsions for less.
stevieh “I thought it was a great speech that was well received in the conference hall. It is telling that all you have is conspiracy theories.”
When vested-interests, authoritarians and anti-democrats like you dismiss something as “conspiracy theory”, it’s a sure-fire sign that there’s some truth in it. Best example I can think of atm is the billionaires’ “covid (99.8 survival rate) narrative”
SteveH, the connotative use of the phrase “conspiracy theorist” is borrowed from the US secret services under President Richard M Nixon, post Watergate. The CIA were desperate to defend their president from impeachment charges and first labelled two Washington Post journalists thus. The journos exposed Nixon as a liar and worse and the rest is history. I’ve worked out for myself whose side you’re on 50 years later, thanks 😊
Wirral – Jeeze, only you could link Watergate with a Labour party conference speech. What are you on.
As for your deflective nonsense about conspiracy theories it wasn’t me that introduced the thought. Andy said “That might sound conspiratorial,” and I responded to that.
SteveH. You brought up the phrase “conspiracy theories”. So you yourself inferred Watergate, to which the phrase is inextricably linked. Not that you would be aware of it, I grant you. I gave you some free education on the matter. Nixon would never have employed you, not with such scatterbrained behaviour. Even dark forces operatives need to be in a position to find their arse with both hands. Andy didn’t even expound on any conspiracy theory … as everyone except you can clearly see.
Oh dear 🤭
Fascist.
Wirral – Oh dear, you sound as credible as the hecklers did.
Have you found your arse yet? Getting others to help is cheating.
Toffee – It is worth noting that the accusation of bussing in was carefully worded “Labour appears to have bussed in day visitors to pad out the crowd,
Why you or any one else would find it in any way strange that Labour party members would want to see their leaders speech is baffling. It is the highpoint of the conference for many.
Then why the need for busing?
If he believes the last manifesto was financially imprudent and unrealistic, why didn’t he resign and why did he remain silent about it in the Shadow Cabinet? As John McDonnell revealed last night.
You can bet scrapping tuition fees will be the next pledge to be dropped, such a valuable big ticket item for the youth vote. The sheer dishonesty used to win the leadership has holed him below the water line.
I only heard aout 3/4 of an hour, before a neighbour came ’round. Did I miss any policy announcements?
All I heard was me,me, me, I was DPP, me, me, my dad, my mum, me, me, me, value of care, me, me, me, dad,, mum DPP, care me, me …….
It was like it was on a loop.
I wonder if the day visitors charge by the hour or the minute?
Well, Starmer was paid £400 per hour as a Human Rights lawyer and it’s reported his father actually owned the tool factory.
That doesn’t sound quite so humble tho, does it.
Pathetic
Can’t resist the obvious:
His dad certainly made a Grade A tool when he created him!
And you thought his answer about nationalisation was fucking embarrassing..
From the bbc website: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58713344
Raising the minimum wage was not one of the 10 pledges Sir Keir made when running for the Labour leadership last year.
But he supported a campaign in 2019 for fast food chain McDonald’s to improve pay and conditions.
At the time, he said: “They’re not asking for the Earth. They’re asking for the basics – £15 an hour, the right to know their hours in advance and to have trade union recognition. That ought to be the norm in 21st Century Britain.”
But on Tuesday, Sir Keir said his comments were in relation to “particular industrial disputes at McDonald’s”, adding: “I backed them in that and I’d back them again today in relation to that the minimum wage, [but] across the whole of the economy is a completely different issue.”
Yeah, alright then, you completely & monumentally fuckwitted shithouse. They aren’t called ‘McJobs’ for nothing. So you’ll back those at mcdonald’s getting £15p/h but NOT fpr those at kfc or poundland or tesco etc.
Nor would you back it for carers, cleaners, etc…
Change your name to Warren R Sole because that’s exactly who you are, stammer. Go on, sod off.
Warm welcome for Louse Ellman and standing ovation fot her.Starmer – ‘Louse Ellman, welcome home! ‘
(Not long after Doreen Laurence gives a gushing introduction of the Leader before his speech)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qCqvUtP5oL0
Surprised he didn’t reintroduce Ruth Smeeth and Luciana Berger to members, with a gushing Ruth shouting, “we love you Keir!”, this party is such a ‘through the looking glass’ ghoul fest these days.
The ‘makes you feel queasy’ party.
Andy – It is worth noting that the left’s leadership candidate ‘little Becky’ clearly stated on the record that she would welcome the likes of Elman and Berger back into the party with open arms as well as clearly stating that the Labour party would under her leadership pay compensation to the participants in the Panorama show..
SteveH, stop hallucinating, RLB, if that’s who you mean, is no friend of the left, precisely for the reasons you mentioned.
Jack – She was apparently the best the left could come with and strongly endorsed by both Corbyn and McCluskey
SteveH- Yep, I know, that’s probably why RLB didn’t attract the support she needed from the left. Many foresaw a re-run of Corbyn’s defensive behaviour around these bullies.
Capitulating and giving ground to the smearers and bullies doesn’t magically make them stop, it just emboldens them.
Hardly a day passes on this blog without someone spouting the B/S lie about Jeremy capitulating, and TODAY it’s Andy’s turn to dissemble the big Nazi-type falsehood. So what happened when Jeremy said in a statement that the ‘scale of the problem [of A/S in the party] has been dramatically overstated by political opponents inside and outside the party and the media Andy? And what happened when Jeremy defended Chris Williamson and dismissed the claim that Chris is an anti-semite Andy? And what happened when Jeremy and the LP condemned the Panorama program Andy?
You imply that if Jeremy had stood up to the smearers initially and refuted their claims that they would have stopped their smearing, and THAT of course is asinine nonsense. As if! Of course they wouldn’t have! But know doubt you and the other smearers on here will carry on dissembling your lies and falsehoods – ie your smears – about Jeremy every single day, because repetition is a subtle form of brainwashing.
Given that THIS particular falsehood about Jeremy gets repeated at least several times a week, and the shills have been doing so for around three years, it has probably been repeated about six/seven hundred times during the course of the past three years, and probably closer to a thousand times. But whenever I pose the above questions to anyone that dissembles it – which I have on literally dozens of occasions – not a SINGLE one of them has EVER responded – and for the blatantly obvious reason that to do so would of course totally contradict their B/S falsehood – and they never WILL of course!
Allan – “Hardly a day passes on this blog without someone spouting the B/S lie about Jeremy capitulating,”
That’s probably because we all witnessed it happening.
White Flag Man, remind me when it was that Jeremy Corbyn defended Chris Williamson or Jackie Walker or Cyril Chilson or Ken Livingstone or Tony Greenstein or Mark Wadsworth or…. etc etc?
Right on cue as per usual! You see part of SteveH’s job is to ‘respond’ quickly to me calling out the lies and the liars (who smear Jeremy with their falsehoods on a daily basis), and he’s done so on literally dozens and dozens of occasions! So here’s a guy who has allegedly moved/retired to the Caribbean, and what does he DO! Yes, he spends practically every day monitoring the site – the comments, that is – fifteen/sixteen hours a day AND posting dozens of comments every day – albeit mostly ‘replies’! But he’s not a paid shill of course – perish the thought – and it’s perfectly normal behaviour. As if!!
So will YOU answer the questions I posed above? No, of course you won’t, because to do so would expose the falsehood for what it is!
Don’t hold your breath folks!
Andy?
As you know full well Jack, once someone has had a complaint made about them to the LP, the leader can’t say anything (publicly) in respect of the complaint/allegation. As for Chris and the occasion Jeremy defended him, THAT was a few months before Chris was suspended, but if a journalist had asked Jeremy about Chris AFTER Chris had been suspended, Jeremy of course would have said that he can’t comment. But when he DID comment and respond to a local journalist in Chris’ constituency when he was visiting the area, and asked if he thought Chris was an anti-semite, Jeremy responded that ‘Chris is a very good MP’ and that he ‘is not anti-semitic in any way’, and then the JLM made the ludicrous claim later on – as ‘reported’ by the Mail, and no doubt elsewhere – that by saying THAT, Jeremy was sending out a message to members that it’s OK to say anti-semitic things.
In OTHER words – and as Jack and the other Jeremy Corbyn smearers on here know of course – that if he defends someone – as he did that time regarding Chris – he is just vilified and demonised for doing so. Anyway, here’s how it was initially ‘reported’:
The Derby MP has called accusations of antisemitism within the Labour Party “smears”, and the Jewish Labour Movement called for him to be suspended from the party.
But speaking to local paper Derbyshire Live, Mr Corbyn said: “Chris Williamson is a very good, very effective Labour MP. He’s a very strong anti-racist campaigner. He is not antisemitic in any way.”
https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/jeremy-corbyn-defends-jew-baiter-mp-chris-williamson-saying-he-is-not-antisemitic-1.479451
As I keep saying Jack, whenever Jeremy DOES defend someone OR refute the lies, he is attacked and vilified for doing so. And YOU know it!
PS And I don’t say this unkindly, but the irony of it is that after being suspended for saying that ‘the party has been too apologetic’, Chris then apologised for saying so (which was of course widely reported in the MSM):
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/mp-chris-williamson-apologises-over-antisemitism-remark-as-pressure-mounts-on-corbyn-to-act-a4078076.html
Afterthought: But despite his apology – and note that they waited until a few months AFTER he made the apology – the Blairites en masse were calling for JC to remove the whip from Chris:
Growing calls for Jeremy Corbyn to boot out anti-Semitism row MP Chris Williamson
The controversial politician has not shown “one iota of contrition”, says the founder of the grassroots Momentum group……
It ramps up further pressure on Mr Corbyn after more than 140 Labour MPs and peers led by deputy leader Tom Watson demanded he intervene and withdraw the Labour whip from Mr Williamson.
https://news.sky.com/story/jeremy-corbyn-urged-to-boot-out-anti-semitism-row-mp-chris-williamson-11750535
Forgotten about his apology had you Jon?!!
White Flag Man. Don’t give me all that nonsense about Jeremy could not do this or that, he was the LEADER of the Party and he could have done whatever he wished, just ike Starmer is doing now. Neither do I accept Jeremy gave any of his allies proper support. I mean full support and backing, not just so and so is a good person.
Chris Williamson made his apology as a favour to Corbyn, not because he took back anything he had said. In the circumstances, he now regrets making that apology.
Just seen your B/S ‘reply’ Jack. Many thanks for the additional material. I appreciate it!
So Jack the shill maintains that Jeremy could have done whatever he wished, just like Starmer is doing now, and pretends that he doesn’t know that if Jeremy had started suspending and expelling Blairites in the party, he would have been condemned and demonised for doing so (not that he personally could of course), OR, if he’d started removing the whip from this MP and that MP, there would have been a tsunami wave of condemnation and faux fury and outrage by scores of Blairites, whereas, as Jack knows full well of course, Starmer and Co can do what the hell they like, and the MSM either blank it completely or play along with it, as with Jeremy being suspended, and then having the whip withdrawn, for example, or the four groups that were proscribed.
Jack knows all this of course and, as such, he is being totally disingenuous AND deceiving and misleading readers of this blog by pretending that he doesn’t!.
As for Jeremy doing MORE (as you claim he could have done), could you elaborate. Oh right, and obviously you’re such good buddies with Chris Williamson that he told you he apologised for Jeremy’s sake, and that he regrets doing so now. So when was that Jack? And how come you’ve never mentioned it before? Needless to say, if Chris HAD told you *THAT*, you would have been straight on here and posted about it at the time! But you didn’t, and for the obvious reason – ie that you are lying through your nasty little fascist shill teeth!! Yet AGAIN!
I get all of the Likudists mixed up. Which one is Stilletto, which one loves children and the one with the pegs like oak trees, the one who sleeps with her boat in a vice and John Mann. Hard isn’t it?
thanks for that… what a wet rag or was it dull as dishwater. or wooden spoon wrapped in a rag floating in the sink
Victory is more important than policies. This what victory looks like.
Victory for some is defeat for others. Defeat for normal folks like me.
Labour is defeated. Whoever bankrolls Starmer won.
Have you seen his personal poll ratings, all this talking of ‘focusing on winning’ is absurd. The obvious question to ask is which policies prevented Labour winning in 2019? If he were honest, which he isn’t, he ‘d admit his new referendum plan was the biggest obstacle in 2019.
I’m off the focus on winning the lottery.
Andy – The polls were quite clear. Jeremy was the biggest obstacle in the 19GE. We went into the 19GE with two thirds of the electorate consistently expressing a dislike for Corbyn and in exit polls JC was the most oft quoted reason given by ex Labour voters for voting Tory.
SteveH – Corbyn had been demonised and the party gaslit to death by the MSM. He’d been undermined by the PLP , sabotaged by staffers at Labour HQ, and had former Labour MPs openly campaigning against the party, MPs who went on to the House of Lords for their efforts. Even the Cameron approved former oil man turned Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, chipped in against him
If you think that was a level playing field election you’re naive.
Andy – Where did I claim it was a level playing field?
I simply stated the facts as they existed at the disastrous 19GE.
SteveH: “Andy – The polls were quite clear. Jeremy was the biggest obstacle in the 19GE. …”
You’re not a scientist are you stevieh? The polls are basic data, the significance of the data – and (in your example) whether X or Y is the reason for the data is supposition and theory.
As a fine thinker once said ‘polls are used to influence decisions, not just to measure them’.
Ben – It is good to see that you accept that Keir was the winner today.
And what did he ‘win’ ,exactly? And who was he up against?
Just fuck off you toadying little turd. Personalities don’t win or lose elections. The media produced an angry old red wall man every day during the last election, it became a standing event to slag off Corbyn. However, Brexit position lost Labour the election, everyone knows that because the seats lost were all from leave constituencies bar one and marginal seats needed were all leave constituencies. You know fuck all about what happens here beyond what you get from the internet. You are just some gammon faced old expat moaning and sweating in someone else’s country. There hasn’t been such an uninspiring, wooden leader since Kinnock, there’s no getting away from it. Mr no policy, know me just turns people off. This is as good as it gets for him.
lundiel – Thanks for the rant but until a couple of weeks ago I was resident in the UK. Is that the best you could manage. What was it about Boris that won him the election if it wasn’t his ‘personlity’.
A Pyrrhic victory is a victory that inflicts such a devastating toll on the victor that it is tantamount to defeat. A Pyrrhic victory takes a heavy toll that negates any true sense of achievement or damages long-term progress.
You think Sir Keir’s Labour is relevant to voters or “the Many”?
Pyrrhic. It leaves a skid mark like diarrhea.
Errrrm let me think……of yes GET BREXIT DONE!
and how’s that going? 🤔
but until a couple of weeks ago I was resident in the UK
And now you’re not….
So, going on your logic – the one where you decreed that me not being a labour party member means my opinion doesn’t count – by definition that means your opinion counts for less than fuck-all.
Now fuck off and cark. Gobshite.
Toffee – Why would I care what you think.
Neat.
“…..And still those empty seats. Under his predecessor, queues stretched around the building and Corbyn’s speech had to be broadcast outside and in overflow venues to meet the demand……”
And still Corbyn led Labour to the biggest defeat at a GE since 1934 !!
Peter Berry If you are a regular reader of Skwawkbox you’ll know the reasons for our defeat in 2019. If you are only new to this site I suggest you read some past articles and familiarise yourself with the facts surrounding it.
Berry’s been on here before, smarty.
and he’s more virulently anti-social than he resident divvy. Although he’s just as laughably disnmissed.
Reply to Toffee
Thanks for this Toffee (2.12pm) I didn’t recognise the name but the vitriol is familiar.
Peter Berry –
Yes… and 2017’s GE didn’t happen, right?
We had Blairite former minister Charles Clarke on TV yesterday explaining how in 2017, voters thought they could vote Labour without Corbyn ending up in No.10.
But Clarke’s analysis is demonstrably false; polling done immediately after the election showed Corbyn and Theresa May tied on 40% as to who would make the best PM.
As for 2019 , Labour lost heavily among pro-Brexit voters.The key architects of their ‘vote shedding’ new referendum policy were Keir Starmer and Tom Watson.
…And still Corbyn led Labour to the biggest defeat at a GE since 1934 !!…
What happens when Starmer leads labour to the same or worse? After all, Starmer has admitted to being willing to abandon pledges. Only yesterday too. Makes the speech a bit moot, no?
I’m sure you’ll have some clever counter about how the adults are back in charge or the only way to win is to court the right. Trouble is, why have cotton when you can have silk? The red wall has figured this out, and then there is plenty of cheesed off folks who see a labour loss as karma and the possibility to reclaim the party for the left.
Until we have a GE of course, it’s speculation. But, as a certain tulip said; “It’s all to play for”
May we live in interesting times as the Chinese say.
peter you need to do a bit more research Corbyn had more votes in 2019 than Blair Brown Mandelson elections
in 2015 2010 and Bliars last election . It was where the votes were situated. also if you take out the over 60s vote the result would have been Corbyn 38.6% Tories 35.7% total opposite.
also add in the MSM and the right wing campaign of the Labour party. see Forde Report.
Further Corbyn’s Manifesto was very popular generally.
brexit confusion also played a part. But the political illiteracy of a large proportion of the Brits particularly the over 50s played a big part. They get their so called Political education from the right wing media. which as I said carried a vicious vindictive campaign against a descent man with false accusations of Anti Semitism in Labour .It about 00.2%
Its complex Peter.
Ian – So what you are saying is that everything would have been OK if only we’d had a different electorate. 🙄
well steveH yes The UK has a very large politically illiterate electorate I fear the worst in europe so you are in a way right Perverse though it may appear.
he might mean a “better-informed” electorate, or one whose political zinc levels allowed their sense of smell to actually work.
“Get br*xit Done” stinks of decaying organic matter (ok, then “shit”) every bit as much as ‘arbeit macht fre’i has a touch of the covid-narrative about it.
Peter Berry, your naivety or is it right wing bitterness, has given you an eye problem, cateracts perhaps? The right wing were determined that destroying Corbyn was far more important than winning an election. If you were sharp-eyed enough you would have noticed it.
Peter Berry
You dont do stats do you, when did the Tories have less seats than we have now
Who was the single biggest contributer to our defeat and where does he go now
Temporary Embarrassment is a liar and a charlatan
Who was the single biggest contributer to our defeat?
According to the polls it was Jeremy Corbyn.
SteveH – Regarding 2019. Why did they terribly in pro-Brexit seats in the North and Midlands if it wasn’t about Brexit?
Why were Jo Swinson’s centrist Lib Dems crushed in the same election?
Apply some logic here, if centrism is so popular andf it wasn’t about Brexit , as Starmer’s revisionists claim . Why were the Lib Dems hammered? Swinson was talking herself up as a potential PM at one point.
And before you mention Scotland – they voted to remain so the centre-left SNP were on solid ground opposing.
Andy – “Why were the Lib Dems hammered? Swinson was talking herself up as a potential PM at one point.”
On this rare occasion you have somehow managed to be perceptive enough to answer that for yourself.
Let me try & make sense of Starmer’s speeches in which he claims that winning is everything. It is more important than Party Unity; more important than traditional Labour Party Socialist values, everything. Even adopting Tory values & Policies, it is all about winning. Blair logic that will destroy the Labour Party with all 3 major political parties having similar policies, changing Labour Red to Blue. Mandy celebration.
Steve Richards – Posturing from the opposition benches may satisfy ‘the left’ but we need to be in power to effect change.
Blairite logic, you must become more like the Tories to attract the Tory vote. Stasi Starmer is demonstrating how to make a pig’s ear out of a sow’s purse. There is nothing wrong with Socialism but the constant conflation with AS by MSM will now make it even more difficult for any Socialist MP.to become PM. Michael Foot learned the same lesson as Jeremy Corbyn. No Socialist MP will ever gain support from MSM & no Socialist will be given a platform on PSV.. Suggest you listen to Any Questions on Friday to prove me wrong. Love a level playing field?
Steve Richards – have you only just realised that life is unfair.
Ben “Oh no he hasn’t”
The same fate as Scottish Labour awaits just around the corner.
And if Labour won (it won’t) believe me it would be Labour in Govt but NOT in power!
So come on BAFWU set up a new Left Wing Democratic Socialist Co-ordinating Committee to form a new socialist party.
And expelled JVL members could be given a place on this too plus the FBU may affiliate?
The Bakers Union were one of the founders of the Labour Party and it would be brilliant if this small diverse working class union (with poorly paid members) stated the ball rolling and made history again!
Oh the Bank of England pumped trillions via QE into the economy between 2008-14 and the poor got £10 a week and the rich top 10% got £1,000 a week.
In total over these years the poor got £3,000 and the rich £350,000! (Harvey, NLR, Jul/Aug 21, p73).
Right Wing Labour/Tory Levelling Up?
Come on brothers and sisters let’s fight back and organise to transform the World.
Solidarity to the Socialists on here and readers.
……….or stay & fight. I walked away once & Blair got stronger; the cancer must be cauterised quickly. Stay & fight!
Relying on mercenaries to fill seats is a sign of desperation. What next? Replacing non compliant voters with AI generated avatars to gerrymander elections?
This is not about improving matters, progress or doing the business but which gang gets access to the sweet tin with all the political parties in the Westminster and Hollyrood bubbles trapped in what Freud referred to as the ‘narcissism of minor differences’. If no significant needed change is going to occur there is no point to winning.
Like Johnson and whoever is sitting on top of the telephone kiosk for the Lib- Dems and their Orange Book descendents, Starmer and those backing and supporting him are committed to maintaining an unsustainable parasitic economic model based on rentier speculation rather than a productive economic model.
The paradigm of sustaining this by repatriating the rentier profits from the global South and what Makinder referred to as the ‘Heartland’ is in the process of becoming extinct.
This fundamental reality will not go away no matter how many fools stand clapping like sealions on a beach. Cheering for a neo- feudalistic policy platform condemns not only proles bussed in as extras to a future of serfdom but also everyone else.
It really is time the grown ups stopped trying to flog a dead horse and coalesced around a genuine alternative platform to this dog and pony show.
…and your ‘genuine alternative platform’ is?
The opposite of everything you stand for.
Dave – Oh dear, is that really the best you could manage.
Dave – Oh dear, is that really the best you could manage.
Then tell us – genial one – a single alternative keef is offering to the toeras?
No? Then shut your fucking cave, Mr non-dom.
Toffee – I’m not a non-dom, this has a specific legal meaning for taxation.
Well I cannot make any comments about the speech because after
missing the first half hour I watched for about 20mins and then
got bored so I watched the recording of Sundays “Endeavour” instead..
(I had previously set the speech on “record” because I knew I
might miss some of it so will watch later with a bit of Fast Forwarding ..)
AS to hecklers – there have always been those – ever since the beginnings
of Parliamentary democracy. A good speaker can always deal with them –
I was there several times when Wilson gave speeches and he could always
answer back. The good answers are those that are remembered and there
are some very good ones – but most are just
enough to stem the heckling.
That is why the behaviour of the heavies who removed
Walter Wolfgang was so disgraceful – though T Blair apologised.
These days they would have removed his security pass before the
Conference on some pretext !
You’re making me miss the old guy that used to be his boss – what was his name, Fred Thursday?
And don’t get me started about Sir Keir Dullard. No wonder he’s giving the tories’Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill an easy ride. If he does this to a Labour party conference, what would he be capable of a PM?
*”With every paragraph of his speech Keir sounded more and more normal and in touch with ordinary people’s lives. With every heckle from the fringe his critics sounded more marginal and lost. It was a great contrast. I am glad they were able to use me to help advertise their crankiness.”* – Peter Mandelson
Seems like it could have been planned, perhaps? Worth Skwawky having a look?
🤣
SteveH – Laugh away, but wouldn’t put it past him, tbh.
Look how Starmer sprung changing back to the electoral college out of nowhere, in a move squarely aimed at thwarting the same left he’d previously wooed to get elected. Tried to bounce the unions too – showing outrageous disrespect for union leaders.
Hardly the ‘good guy’ is he. Some in the MSM call him m decent, but betraying folks like that, ain’t a sign of having a good character.
Well, ‘normal’ ‘ordinary’ people from the west Midlands weren’t moved to support him when asked by the BBC news team who tried their best to present him in a good light.
steve H yes it would help if we in the UK did not have a very large politically illiterate complacent electorate. The worst in Europe. Their education is the one sided right wing Media I fear.
but the young over all seem to much more liberal internationalist and aware. Do not read right wing press and generally better informed and educated.
Ian Kemp, agreed. I think it also applied to many in Starmer’s audience earlier. They have heard him say in terms, he is going to fragment the Labour Party in order to win a GE and yet they sat there and applauded him, unbelievable!
Ian Kemp –
It’s all about managing public perceptions to these people, agreed.
They don’t want real supporters with ideologies and beliefs, as per Corbyn, that’s scary to therm – it may result in change. They only want the unthinking masses to allow them to manage simply because ‘it’s their turn’.
UK Westminster democracy is more like a WWF wrestling match – there’s lots of shouting and occasional action going on, but it’s just theatre and in reality the big two parties are working closely together coordinating every move, to deny real democracy.
BIG BROTHER’S DAY TRIPPERS (with apologies to Orwell and Lennon and McCartney).
He had a good reason
for taking the easy way out:
if your members won’t support you
bus in some toadies for clout;
have armed police to guard every row end
fill empty seats with rank fear
there’s only one message you must send
socialists aren’t welcome here;
:
WAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM SLAVERY
IGNORANCE STRENGTH
whence their familiar ring ?
sole aim of this circus to increase
the chance that your man will be king:
Labour royals will rule over sad proles
who don’t deserve 15 an hour
while they’ll count their money
flowing like honey
and bathe in their own sense of power;
Welcome Ellman back into the family
simple shorthand for Israel’s our State;
we’re content with oppression
will sell arms for repression
though of justice and quits we may prate;
Herzl’s racists are our kind of good folk
after all, it’s just Arabs they kill
we think Nafty Bennett’s a good bloke
just like Marie Van der Zyl.
We’re capitalists down to our toe nails
our business is business, of course,
and next time the fine market trick fails
it won’t be our lives that grow coarse
but you lot, the plebs. So vote Labour
your choice is us or the Tories
stick a knife in the back of your neighbour:
death to those socialist stories.
I modestly suggest that the Labour Party has reached its limit and the possibility of meaningfully winning an election ever again. A better place for bringing change would be in a widened green movement that incorporated the health of the nation alongside climate/material management. This would be achieved by more radical and popular disempowering of corporations and a meaningful democracy with political power being distributed fairly. Labour is looking more like an anchor than a lifejacket.
“we need to be in power to effect change.”
This is redolent of discussions I used to have with some people in the LP some years ago. They actually believed that it was necessary to advocate policies that they believed were wrong in order to get elected, because those policies were believed to be popular. Didn’t cross their minds that, if the LP did form a government, it would either be guilty of following damaging policies or, if it implemented different policies, it would be, rightly, accused of lying to the electorate.
My argument was that the LP should be persuading people to come round to the view that the policies were correct.
It is , indeed, true that policies cannot be put into place unless a party is in government. However, what’s the use of that if the policies are wrong in the first place.
Are you new to politics?
63 years – not long in the great scheme of things.
How recent is your cynicism?
goldbach, you have put Corbyn’s approach to Brexit in a nutshell. It was triangulating between what was actually good for the country and what the right wing media had told the electorate what was good for them.