Dishonest right-wing narrative collapses still further
The Labour right and their media friends continue to push the idea that Starmer’s party made gains last week compared to Labour’s performance under Jeremy Corbyn – and that London was a success for them, when in fact Starmer made net losses in at least seven boroughs and lost both mayoral elections and control of councils that more than offset any gains.
But now a Commons analysis of the results has driven another nail into the coffin of Starmer’s fallacy – showing that Corbyn won 27 more seats in England in 2018 when the same areas were contested – including a bigger percentage share of seats and a higher overall vote share:
Corbyn’s vote share across Britain was only 1% higher in 2018 – but as Wales and even Scotland outperformed English Labour last week, that means the gap between 2018 Corbyn and 2022 Starmer is considerably larger.
Starmer and his entire right-wing faction are a disaster for Labour and for a country that desperately needs real change – and he’s taking Labour backward, despite getting the easiest possible ride from the media in contrast to the unprecedented state and corporate propaganda war that Corbyn faced continually.
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….and in 2019?
because Jeremy’s policies are positive for all. Mandelson & WMD Blair’s Starmer has nothing good to offer us. That’s why he went on about Johnson’s parties. Now that Starmer’s been exposed as a hypocrite, Mandelson has advised him to ORDER activists; DONT TALK ABOUT PARTIES!!!
i kid u not. He went on and on and on and on about parties. Now the fraud has been exposed, he does what he does best; SILENCE TRUTHS!!!
That’s why Starmer hates Julian Assange. Julian tells too many ESTABLISHMENT SECRETS.
2019 GE: sabotaged by Mandelson & WMD’s Starmer.
“Starmer is finished goods” says The Sun’s political editor.
Starmer hobnobbed with The Hillsborough victim slanders Sun.
What a comeuppance for Starmer. Fridays deliver good news🐟🐟🐟
…..and the 2019 results?
That was a General Election, in 2019. Surely, you can tell the difference?
George – Yes the 19GE results were abysmal but I was referring to the 2019 Local Authority elections when Labour lost 84 Local Authority seats instead of gaining 108 like we did this year.
You make a good point: the 2019 General Election result ought indeed to be largely attributed to Starmer’s convincing the Shadow Cabinet and the shadow Chancellor in particular that there should be equivocation over the clear result of the EU Referendum.
It was the Mandelson/People’s Vote policy championed by Starmer that cost Labour dozens of seats and millions of votes. To make no mention of Corbyn’s reputation for integrity
It is indicative of the real purpose of the policy that once the Election was over and lost, as the “centrists” wanted, Starmer dropped the policy like a radioactive potato.
He and the Trilateral Commission, Israel, the CIA and the ruling class had one object in view-getting rid of Corbyn and ending the threat that socialist reform posed to their empire and their portfolios.
It’s good to see Steve recognising that.
I was referring to the Local Authority elections in in the same year.
SteveH -The failure to leave in on the scheduled date in 2019 created a UK wide backlash, amplified by the press esp. Mail, Sun.
Brexit was all consuming – normal domestic politics and normal debate was suspended. TV news coverage was dominated by Brexit, Brexit, Brexit.
SteveH, do live in the UK? Because if you do you’ll know all this. Where someone stood on Brexit for/against was overriding normal party allegiances.
Labour’s problem was this: Most of the ‘Remain’ support was concentrated in deep blue Tory areas in the SE and SW – constituencies of no history of voting Labour. Labour’s traditional support base in the North and Midlands were more Brexity, thus Labour ‘s policy was electoral suicide in their heartlands , yet won few seats in the SE ,SW.
I wish you’d stop pretending 2019’s GE was a verdict on Corbynism, it wasn’t. It was the Brexit election, as stated by all at the time.
I think Tom Watson and Starmer knew what they were doing saddling the party with the disastrous PV policy.
What a strange date to choose….
Toffee – Not really 2019 was the last LA elections where Corbyn was in office as leader.
Yes, really.
The seats in 2019 are contested next year.
And you reckoned that keef’d sweep the board – what, with his mahoosive lead over de piffle we’re constantly reminded of, an’ all…
Didn’t quite do that, did he? 😏
Toffee – Hopefully we’ll gain another 104+ seats instead of losing 84 council seats..
Hopefully we’ll gain another 104+ seats…
4000-odd seats up for grabs….And the libtards gained more seats than smarmerist labour 😏
And it can’t be because the libtards were campaigning for a second ref and labour wasnt…
Because I distinctly remember you telling us that if labour didn’t offer a 2nd ref, the libtards would sweep up all the labour seats at the ’19GE.
…And how did that one go, genius?
Crowing about the equivalent of man city getting a draw (due to a shit, 98th minute of injury time penalty decision) against an alehouse side full of fat, hungover,old men)
The fucking state of ya. 😒
SteveH when are we going to have a People’s Vote? Anytime soon?
Are you going to lobby Starmer to include as a Labour Policy for the next General Election Manifesto a pledge to start the application for Britain to rejoin the EU?
It was the pursuance of the People’s Vote/Constructive ambiguity that cost us the 2019 General Election. Hence, please stop your BS and start lobbying Starmer to have as a Labour policy to rejoin the EU.
Maria – Jeremy himself has clearly stated to camera on at least 2 occasions since he stepped down that he had no choice in the matter because the overwhelming majority of the Labour Party’s membership wanted to a confirmation vote and to stop in the EU. The real problem was that after Corbyn had spent month after bloody month hiding behind ‘Constructive Ambiguity’ both sides of the argument had unsurprisingly lost trust in him.
SteveH weren’t you part of the Labour membership that wanted a People’s Vote. I disagree with your statement that the overwhelming majority of LP’s members wanted a People’s Vote, you just were more vociferous and the MSM gave you a hearing.
The silent majority of LP’s members such as myself while wanting to remain in the EU have accepted the democratic result of the Referendum and were supporting Corbyn’s vision of Brexit that would have allow us to stay in the custom union.
Your let didn’t allow Corbyn to have a choice!! What about taking responsibility for the 2019 defeat?
Maria – I’m simply quoting what Jeremy Corbyn said.
SteveH 13/05/2022 at 5:29 pm
Nice try at, yet, another deflection. The article is comparing 2018 and 2022. The reason it’s doing that, is because the same seats were contested in 2018, as in 2022. A straight comparison.
Come back next year and ask, again.
George – Will you remind me to?
Yes, of course I will. Give a nudge nearer the time, to remind me.
Don’t bother, George – even then he still won’t fuck off. No shame, because he has no clue.
Instead we’ll STILL get wall-to-wall but Corbyn bollocks.
The last time the seats on offer this year were contested was in the Local Elections of 2018. Hence, the comparison to 2018 is pertinent.
But thank you for reminding us that that Labour is for a kicking in next year Local Elections. Since it is in the Councils that hold elections almost every year re-electing a third of its Cllrs that Starmer’s Labour got a painful kicking in this elections. Hence, next year Local Election results could be even worse that this year.
Something to look forward to.
If Labour continues to be consistently ahead in the polls the likelihood is that we will see further improvements.
Steve H your knowledge of campaigning is abysmal along with the hangers on members leftover from the “great escape” .You will find in the next election that positive “campaigning will be the only stance to make as the negative campaigning against the Torys will have gone with the wind” .You can hardly win a election on whos the lesser criminal of the two partys so you will have to “run” on positive “campaigning which only leaves you with the similiar policy and similar” medicine “with a country that will be on its knees with hyper inflation a failing welfare system and a collapsing economy.The two party system is like irelands doomed and its wide open for another new party although I suspect that unlike Ireland who will have a democratic socialist Sinn Fein Britain will go for a mediocre lib “solution”with a sprinkling of greens to save the” people “after the media warn of “commys” under the bed and coming through the drains “Youve basically “cooked” your own goose and appealing for we are not as bad or corrupt as the Torys just wont work in positive campaign.Hope will have been destroyed in the next election comrade.
Joseph – and here I was thinking that most elections were lost rather than won.
Steve H if you truly believe that most elections are lost rather than won,then you have lost already as you believe that you have no chance of winning an election which the labour party have always had to do with the media against them .Your hero Bliar would no doubt disagree strongly with you.as he believes that he delivered a Landslide victory with activist out on the streets as darkness fell.Obviously you cannot win without the grass roots and the activists that youve chased away for good.Their will be no rejoining again like with the socialist revival no matter whos the leader.youve truly destroyed the labour party.once and for all.
Joseph – You already know how much I value your contributions.
Has the penny just dropped that you may face some difficulties in rejoining the party.
Hi Steve,
If you are asking a serious question, the serious answer is here, on page 11 of this document:
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9545/CBP-9545.pdf
In 2019, Labour controlled 91 councils. This fell to 77 in 2021, and climbed 1 to 78 this year.
2019 was not a good year for Labour, although it was only marginally worse than Miliband in 2015, but it was in 2021 that the big losses happened.
Two Cheeks
Has the reality of 2019 not reached your planet yet
Which part of New Labour does not appeal to voters do you not get, let alone the corruption and bankruptcy
The War Criminal survived because the opposition was Duncan Smith, Howard and Hague
Harold Shipman would have beaten them
“Breaking: 2018 Corbyn outperformed, 2022 Starmer in local election results.”
Of course, he did!
….and 12 months later in 2019 he didn’t
Two Cheeks
In 2019 Red Tories outperformed 2017, with your man leading from the front
Now he’s expendable
Sqwawkbox, your efforts are appreciated but it would be really helpful if, when using such sources, you can provide a link to the original…cheers
SteveH, the citing of 2018 is not arbitrary, it was the last time this clutch of seats were contested, thus the most pertinent comparison.
Where you could find for Starmer over Corbyn – and, to be honest, I don’t think either 2018 or 2022 were strong results – is in noting that Corbyn came second in vote share in 2018 (36% against 37%) and Starmer had the largest share in 2022 (35% against 33%) which, all other things being equal, would mean being the largest party if the results were transposed to a GE (though possibly not as the labyrinthine weightings don’t directly map to seats, another inequity of FPTP).
bevin – Of course you are right, but it was much worse than that.
The Shadow Cabinet met regularly to try to come up with a suggested approach to Brexit for the 2019 election. Starmer, as Shadow Brexit Secretary, had to “be comfortable” with any agreed strategy because they didn’t want such a high profile resignation to result from the adoption of a position the LP had taken on Brexit. Papers were produced for discussion. Some of the attendees became convinced that Starmer was messing them all about so they tried a ploy. At the next meeting, they presented a paper that had not been discussed before. Starmer rejected it out of hand. They then told him that it was a paper that he had submitted some days previously (clearly he must not have prepared it himself, but must have simply submitted a paper that someone else had prepared without even reading it).
…………. and, if our resident little ray of sunshine begs to differ, I suggest he reads The Starmer Project by Oliver Eagleton.
goldbach – Do you have a link to the contents of this paper.
It isn’t a paper, it’s a book.
It’s available in the UK, though maybe not in the colonies yet.
We can argue over statistics, but what isn’t deniable, is the fact that Corbyn had a much more loyal support base; more members; party coffers were healthier – in the black, and members were generally upbeat and satisfied with policy direction.
Basically, the precise opposite applies today. Many have quit & those that remain feel unrepresented by this arrogant right-wing PLP + NEC and aloof Southside. There’s a deep sense of unease about whether it’s worth helping this lot gain power? Members and senior councillors alike, know they are unable to speak up, without being kicked out.
An unhappy, nasty atmosphere hangs over the party, thanks to the vicious, intolerant morons who’ve hijacked the party through a lying leader and his false promises.
Labour’s budget under Corbyn was based on the premise that the membership wouldn’t drop below 500k, when it did the party was in the realms of negative cash-flow and this situation was further compounded by the loss of ‘short money’ because we’d lost 60 seats.
Given that so many from the working class chose to vote for a RW neo-con Tory wet-dream rather than vote for Corbyn it makes the so called loyalty of Corbyn’s base more than a little questionable.
As you well know, or ought to if you are serious about seeing a Labour government ever elected again, it was Brexit that caused traditional Labour voters in leave-voting constituencies to vote Tory in 2019. In 2017, most of the Red Wall seats delivered substantially increased Labour majorities compared with 2015. Blair, Brown and Miliband lost millions of votes in these seats. Corbyn won them back. Starmer’s second referendum policy drove them into the arms of the Tories, and it is little surprise that with Starmer as leader now, they see no good reason to come back to Labour.
Labour did extremely well in Wales, which is “continuity Corbyn” territory and did worse than Corbyn everywhere else.
But you, like the entirety of the Labour right, are determined to keep lying to yourself, and are wilfully blind to the lessons you need to learn. I have long since reconciled myself to the fact that there is no chance of a Labour victory in the next general election, because Starmer’s Labour refuses point blank to offer anything that enough voters will vote for.
SteveH – I have already pointed out elsewhere
on another Skwawkie piece that psephologists
(eg Curtice) compare “like with like” when
analysing Election results.
Thus comparing 2022 with 2018 is pertinent –
as the same points on the Electoral cycle and
the differences comprise the most important
parameter(s) ..
So the fact that Starmer did *less well” than Corbyn
is EXTREMELY significant because the Tories in
charge then were angels compared to the Cabinet
now ..
Poor old May while lacking in charisma
was struggling with getting Brexit done while the
dogmatic ERG were bent on a no-deal Brexit and all
for dogmatic reasons. Johnson has been exposed
as a liar who – contrary to his promises – has NOT
got Brexit done and on the contrary has left NI in
a mess. Others stuff too ..
As for Ref2 – it was actually adopted as the “last
chance saloon if all else failed” in the 2018
Conference and to present it as a complicated
algorithm was incompetence on Starmer’s part.
HFM – Unfortunately Labour have a long history of ‘agreeing’ long-winded composite motions that can be interpreted as a win by all factions instead of clear and unambiguous policy
An admission, by Steve H, that he, either, didn’t read the – much lauded – GE19 Manifesto, or, read it and didn’t understand a word of it – which would go some way to explaining his ignorance of democracy, on these threads, over the long, long months, he’s infested them.
But the “composite motion” you refer to
– can be neatly summarised thus
“as a last resort – ask the people again”.
For what else does it mean?
And if I could see it – I’m sure others
could.
The main problem about that 2019 Election
Manifesto was that it was the policies for TWO
terms and this was not made clear.
McDonald made this clear straight afterwards ..
but admitted it was not clear. It is always better
to keep things as simple as possible in
explanation..
This can be excused owing to the pressures
they were under with the ERG wanting to
leave without a deal.
PS as for the 2018 Conference decision – I
wrote to Watson in June 2019 to tell him
so, berating him for what I called an “over
complicated algorithm” when it could be
summarised as a simplified algorithm ..
The communication from myself was in
response to a stupid tick box questionnaire
from Watson but I NEVER respond to them.
Maybe those with better memories than mine can shed light on something. I seem to recall that the BBC et al, when they reported on the Ukrainian strike on the Russian frigate, Admiral Makarov, reported a few days later that it had sunk.
Defense (sic) Politics Asia is reporting that they have video of it arriving in Sevastopol a few days ago (presumably for repair work, if the report is correct).
Did the Beeb et al report that it had sunk, or is my memory playing tricks?
Seems the BBC reported the official Ukrainian line on 6th May that Ukrainian missiles hit the friggate and but not that that “it could sink” , instead claiming it did sink. The narrative was repeated by the Mirror, Independent, Guardian, SKY etc., (this is what ‘synchronised’ means).
However, on 9th May David Axe, a Forbes reporter, claimed A Journalist Just Spotted Russia’s ‘Admiral Makarov’ Frigate, Intact And At Sea
Seems Orwell was right, the first casualty of war is truth – not that it had mattered to some before the war even.
Such a pity that the population of Ukraine (both Ukrainian-speakers over the past three months and Russian-speakers over the past eight years) have been put through this since 2014. It looks like they’ll have to end up with two distinct countries, the north and the west which are majority Ukrainian-speaking and the east and the south which are majority Russian-speaking. Certainly there are people in Mariupol, in Donetsk, who don’t seem upset with the idea. Here they are celebrating the anniversary of the end of WW2, after having not been allowed to do so since 2014.
A rare display of common sense – After the governments of Finland and Sweden said they were looking to join NATO, Turkey has indicated that it would not favour the admission of these two countries (unanimity is required before another country could join). Turkey looks like it has done them a favour. They would have been risking their security and it would have resulted in them having to shell out huge quantities of money to US and UK arms manufacturers.
I think we are entitled to ask why their neutrality could survive the Soviet invasions of Hungary, Czechoslovakia and
Afghanistan but not the Russian invasion of the Ukraine.
Sweden does not even have a border with Russia!
The sheer dishonesty of it should be obvious.
@goldbach
Not sure which NATO article it comes under (50?), but the yanks seem to have the power to add members even if there is no majority.
There’s also the issue of Von Der Leyen (or Fond o’ Lyin?). Her proposal earlier this week to continue with decisions even if there is no unity can be seen as a float for similar with NATO.
Check out Sri Lanka.
From today’s Guardian:
“In a granular analysis, the Oxford professor Stephen Fisher found that not only had Labour radically improved its performance in London, but had actually bounced back further in communities that voted leave.”
Convinced? No, me neither.
GE turnout was higher at the two General Elections that occured when Corbyn was leader of Labour. Brexit might have been a factor for GE19, but even GE17 benefited from higher turnout than had been seen since 1997. Relevance and significance of poltical choice increased with Corbyn. Moreover, Labour recovered the c 5m votes that it had lost during Blair, Brown, and Miliband leaderships.
The signs do not look good for Labour post-Corbyn whether Starmer is in post or not.
People in the Russian speaking area pleased at
what happened there?
Russia has now taken over most of the Mariopule
area and doubtless there were celebrations there –
in the midst of what remained of the City … .
However in other Russian speaking areas
what I saw was interviews with people
who told of breaking off from their relatives in Russia
who kept to Putins story. The Ukrainians were pointing
out the remains of missiles in the rubble and were
extremely angry about what happened.
In Kiev a group of people broke up a statue
celebrating victory in WW2.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/world-61238942
Since Maidan Ukraine has been dissembling the Soviet
lie that their war was between 1939 and 1945 and
replacing this with the truth that it actually
took place between 1941 and 1945. In a pact with
Hitler the Soviets invaded and then annexed the
East of Poland at the same time as the Nazis
invaded the West . At the end of WW2 with the
agreement of the allies – this part of Poland
was incorporated into Ukraine which remained part
of Russia until 1990/91. As is evident – Eastern Europe
is still living out the legacy of WW2.
We could argue for ever about the history, including the fact that Ukraine did not become part of Russia. It was created as a republic within the Soviet Union; or that it’s not just the legacy of WW2 but also the legacy of empire (all of them including ours).
What is unarguable is that there is now no reasonable possibility of one nation-state existing in what was Ukraine in the first decade of this century – unless we’re happy with the Russian-speakers being either driven out or killed. For people to be able to live in peace in the future the blight of identity politics must be recognised and two states must emerge.
Similar things have happened in the past – Sudan, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Moldova/Transdnistria and, of course India when the British left.
Sweden kept themselves aloof from Cold
War loyalties – remaining
neutral – as they were during WW2.
They may not have a border with Russia but
apparently during the Napoleonic Wars they
lost Finland to Russia .. or at least that is part
of the reason. However the fact that Country
A has lost a chunk of its territory to Country B
will undoubtedly affect its relationship with B.
Surprised how little has been said about the revelations from the court case this week, that revealed no less than 24 undercover police officers in concert with Mi5, infiltrated a small leftwing party (SWP) as part of a surveillance operation that ran for decades.
The party isn’t a banned organisation, and it could hardly be claimed it represents a threat to the status quo, yet millions in resources were spent monitoring it? And worst of all, the operation ran till 2007 – i.e. 10 years under New Labour.
We need to admit we’re a one party state pretending to be a democracy. The Labour vs Tory charade choice with Reeves and Sunak virtually interchangeable, is by design, not democratic chance. Sure, we’re allowed to vote and go through the motions of a functioning democracy, but an elite has subverted choice before we get in the polling booth.
Thank you for alerting us to the continuation of
the SpyCops investigation ..
I have been reading of one woman’s experience –
she was one of the “McLibel Two”** and she has just
contributed to a book about undercover police work.
In her case she details her relationship with her
undercover police “lover” John Dines who pretended
to help her during the Law Case.
Those men are a disgrace – exploiting women’s
compassion with lies about their lives in many cases.
They should be prosecuted – and their superiors too.
It is evident that misogyny was and is alive and well
in the police force.
*** Keir Starmer was her defence lawyer (or part of it)
HolbyFanMw –
Starmer’s role and behaviour since just raises more questions , if anything, because it seems to contradict his past. He’s supposed to be a human rights lawyer, yet he’s clearly an authoritarian & deeply reactionary individual – was his past a lie, was he undercover? He ordered Labour MPs to support the Tories regressive Spycop legislation which gave something close to impunity for crimes, right up to and including murder and rape of UK citizens!
Regardless of the sensitivity of the operation and any pressing national security concerns, giving the undercover officers impunity for murder and rape seems utterly bizarre – medieval monarchs weren’t granted such powers by citizens. Even the US, with its gun culture doesn’t allow the FBI to go that far. And yet here we have a human rights lawyer voting it through.
See – The Starmer Project by Oliver Eagleton for enlightenment.
goldbach
Some would say what we’re discussing conspiratorial ranting, that is were there not proof. But there is proof.
And ponder this…If the establishment put all that effort, expense and resources into monitoring an inconsequential little party(SWP) with few members and no chance of gaining power. Just imagine the effort that has gone into grooming the ‘right’ Labour leadership – since they unlike the SWP, have a good chance of gaining power.
I’d wager our two-party system is completely rigged and that is normal state of affairs for these people. Hence the absurd press hysteria and backlash against Corbyn – a rogue element in an otherwise fake, controlled democracy.
Notice how Starmer said in his recent press conference he’s always ‘looked to do the greater good’ – Interesting choice of words. You can justify anything if using flawed thinking about what’s good.
wonder if Starmer was born a liar? or started to mix with liars at an early age?? or both???
🍺🍖🥂🍻🍕🍸🍔🍹🧆🍷
btw, FRAUD SQUAD raided BARONESS mone’s home re £203,000,000.00 Covid-19 contracts. It’s alleged that her accounts r inconsistent.
SIR starmer will gave v little to say on that. WHAT will starmer go on and on about now that more people have found him out to be a dissembler / deceiver / con-merchant / hypocrite / fraud / antidemocratic / anti-decency / anti-truth / anti Labour … ⁉️🥂🍖🍹🍕🍹🥩🥃🌮🍾🍸🍤 greased up party boozer SIR Keith = “SPENT GOODS” according to one to whom he cosied up 😂😂😂 GOOD!!!
B R I L L I A N T !!!
‘See – The Starmer Project by Oliver Eagleton for enlightenment.’
The Starmer Project is not the only “Project” the ruling class/ neo-liberal right/ the Powers-that Be’ (PtB)/ the ruling class/ ‘our betters’/ the Billionaies/ the elite are running: “Project Fear” pretty-much covers everything they do.*
_____
* that’s the way it is when a parasitic ‘elite’ achieves supreme ascendency and not even basic units of ‘organised labour’ is able to counter them. As somebody sort-of said, (for) they are Few, and we are Many..
@Signpost. I’m really glad that you’ve picked-up on the wasteful, self-serving way that the parasitic elite use rule-based systems (all of them) to extract capital and, like the magnet money is, allow it to be attracted to other money for prcessing by their own capial-accumulation machines.
On the covid-front, tho’, it’s a much bigger amount than the paltry few hundred million pounds you cite. Masks and Track and Trace alone (I won’t include emergency enabled mRNA experimental drug ‘medicnes’ possibly mis-labelled as ‘vaccines’ (it takes a minimum of 7 years – some say 12 – to know if a vaccine is actually a vaccine)), the sum approaches 30 times that amount. Add vaccines, bio-chemical security, increased GCHQ surveillance, etc, etc, and we get towards the $/£ ‘T’ word each year. In 2020 a new ‘billionaire’ was created every 90 hours in the pharmaceutical and biochemical worlds).
I respectfully suggest u look up a few articles the NHS Foundation (and even The Lancet and BMJ) have put out and you’ll realise the scale of this scam on the back of covid. It really is the enabler of Global Capitalism’s “New World Order”.
Yes you could be right – since I posted Ive
read the review of Eagletons book . Now
normally I’ld dismiss that sort of allegation
but knowing Starmer it seems possible …
However my more cynical thought is – what
would he have to gain from McDonalds victory
compared with potential kudos over a Civil
Rights win?
They are lining up new players….
Guardian/Observer tonight report: Labour heavyweight Wes Streeting denies plan to succeed Starmer.
Now we know the guardian is taking the p*ss. This is alternate reality stuff, for In whose world is Wes Streeting a ‘heavyweight’ in anything? He’s certainly not an intellectual heavyweight, Tony Benn would have eaten him for breakfast.
The guardian exists these days solely to criticise Johnson, but they have a lot to answer for in terms of helping put him there.
And no, I don’t think Labour are spoilt for choice were there to be a contest. Most would perform similar or worse than Starmer, because they don’t have a programme for govt and appealing policies. Shutting the left out of both the leadership race and deputy would be a step too far for many, as well. This ivory tower PLP along with their friends at the guardian and other media, have created a fake reality in which New Labour never became unpopular. Every election shatters their illusion a little bit more.
Andy Burnham is about the only one the left would be willing to put aside their skepticism for. But even with him , there’s a chance, once in London he’d revert to type – New Labour, surrounded by right-wingers.
I would go for Dawn Butler – we need a WOMAN
next and she has at least had the cojones to
call Johnson a liar ..
I also think where she to stand she would win
over gawdelpus Reeves
HFM – Really?
In the 2020 Deputy Leadership election Dawn Butler was eliminated in the first round
Candidate First round Second round Third round
………………………..Votes………..%………. Votes ……..% ………Votes …….%
Angela Rayner 192,168 41.7 209,698 46.5 228,944 52.6
Rosena Allin-Khan 77,351 16.8 88,049 19.5 113,858 26.1
Richard Burgon 80,053 17.3 88,664 19.7 92,643 21.3
Ian Murray 61,179 13.3 64,560 14.3 Eliminated
Dawn Butler 50,255 10.9 Eliminated