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Labour hosting Tory MP at conference – to endorse Johnson’s fictional ‘levelling up’ ‘mission’

Nandy-run ‘Labour Together’ sets up event lionising Johnson’s supposed ‘mission’ to ‘level up’ poor areas – and invites Tory MP to Liverpool to talk about it

A ‘Labour’ company run by front-bencher Lisa Nandy and one of Keir Starmer’s biggest donors has arranged an event at the party’s conference in Liverpool next month that validates the Tories’ fictional ‘levelling up’ ‘mission’ – and has invited a former ‘levelling up’ Conservative front-bencher to talk about it.

The truth about the so-called ‘levelling up’ agenda was always obvious, but was laid completely bare when Tory leadership hopeful Rishi Sunak boasted to fellow Tories about taking money from the ‘poorest and most deprived’ areas and diverting it to wealthy Tory shires.

But this has not deterred ‘Labour Together’, an organisation also linked to Starmer’s Shadow Justice Secretary Steve Reed and Starmer’s former chief of staff Morgan McSweeney and that failed to declare 83% of almost £1 million in donations within the legally-required period – from validating Tory ‘levelling up’ promises as if they were more than a con and inviting the Johnson-supporting Tory MP Danny Kruger to talk about it:

Kruger’s voting record, since he became an MP in 2019, is dire. Among his shameful actions, he consistently voted against measures to protect the environment and to reduce tax avoidance – and against allowing unaccompanied children and vulnerable adults seeking asylum to join relatives in the UK. Yet he is considered a suitable guest at a ‘Labour’ event.

As well as MPs, ‘Labour Together’ has among its directors Trevor Chinn. Starmer was rightly criticised for hiding donations from Chinn and others until after the close of the Labour leadership election even though he had received them months earlier, presumably because Starmer was well aware that many on the left would not never vote for him if they knew he was accepting money from a well-known pro-Israel, anti-Corbyn donor.

Following suit, Starmer’s Shadow Chancellor Rachel Reeves was also recently found to have failed to declare a large Chinn donation along with three others, while the multi-millionaire has donated to both Labour Friends of Israel and Conservative Friends of Israel, as well as on multiple occasions to figures who undermined Labour during Corbyn’s leadership such as Tom Watson and Ian Austin.

Starmer himself is expected to face a hot reception when he returns to Liverpool for the conference, where last month he was humiliatingly put on the spot by the Mersey Pensioners’ Association’s Audrey White for his numerous betrayals of ordinary people and Scousers in particular.

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55 comments

  1. Blue Tory, Red Tory….Same arse, different cheeks.

    Meanwhile Labour do nothing to oppose the fuel crisis that’s about to hit the poor of this Nation.

  2. I’m confused, the party is not too keen on discussions from the left. Yet is quite happy to have Kruger as guest of honour at a discussion about the fake three word slogan levelling up. Plus let’s not forget Kruger also announced in the Chamber about his disagreement that women should have absolute right to body autonomy. Then said he was misunderstood.

    1. Surely the recently ex PPS to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities will have some valuable first hand insights to impart, even if it is only to show how it shouldn’t be done.

      It seems that Kruger has fallen out with Boris.
      Danny Kruger – https://twitter.com/danny__kruger/status/1544782425078878208
      @danny__kruger
      Very sorry indeed to hear @michaelgove has been fired by the PM. As I told No 10 earlier today it should be the PM leaving office. I am resigning as PPS at @Dluhc
      9:36 pm · 6 Jul 2022·Twitter for iPhone

      1. I see the knight as gone missing again according to the front page of the guardian?…..deary me whilst the country is slipping into meltdown our man from the bunker Sir keir Rodney Starmer goes off once again on is famous “isolation hols..Why is it we only ever see him on the front page if it is partying,covid for the hundredth time or any excuse for a quick drying out session when the drinking is out of control.Poor stevie hes got his work cut ✂out trying to spin this clown as a leader.

      2. Joseph – You can look forward to hearing from Keir next week

      3. Don’t flatter yerself.

        Have you read what you types? You’re now putting up a case for a toerag…“well at least he doesn’t like Boris”

        You sad, toerag nonce apologist & would-be child starver.

      4. Stevie H….what the hell our knights finaly flipped his lid with a official invite to a Boar from the transvall Danny Kruger and a religious krank family as well.Now I know your leader of the Labour party supports apparthied but really stevie boy a Voortrekker from the boonys?….tot siens!

      5. Joseph – That’s a bit rich coming from an admirer of Xi, Hun Sen and Putin.

      6. The glaring difference between me and you (apart from you being an irredeemable gobshite) is that I have no desire see children come to harm, under any circumstances.

        Whereas you make excuses for it. Just like nonces make excuses for disgusting practices. Perhaps it’s not the type of nonce that keef refused to prosecute, but you still excuse it, especially if – like keef – you think it’s beneficial to his career.

        You’re of zero use to society. You ought to be experimented on

      7. SteveH10/08/2022 AT 6:53 PM
        Joseph – That’s a bit rich coming from an admirer of Xi, Hun Sen and Putin

        Says the idolator of keef – the slimy nonce non-prosecutor – who’s also happily allowing kids to go hungry… As long as it doesn’t upset his paymasters.

      8. …That’s a bit rich coming from an admirer of Xi, Hun Sen and Putin…

        I’d take those over 500 times what labour market s currently offering.

        Two of those three rebuilt their countries in a matter of decades.

        What we have destroys in decades.

        And for the record Luke, people around these parts think if you are toilet paper.

        Disposable, and laden with excrement.

        P S. Given the shitstorm that’s approaching, have you considered the locals may take exception to you? May we live in interesting times, huh?

    2. Errrrm… skwawky?! It’s august 10th, squire 🤔

      …Ohhhh…it’s NOT a joke?!

      Among his shameful actions, he consistently voted against measures to protect the environment and to reduce tax avoidance – and against allowing unaccompanied children and vulnerable adults seeking asylum to join relatives in the UK.

      Meanwhile, among keefs’ shameful actions was ordering his members to ABSTAIN on a vote that would feed hungry schoolchildren.

      Buggered if I know WHY I thought it’d be an April Fool type joke. 😒

      But let’s hear the nonce apologist try to navigate it’s way past this one….,😙🎶

  3. The Tories and Labour may as well merge, it’d be the more honest thing to do. Show the British people the true nature of our two party democracy, the charade of going to the trouble of bothering to cast a vote.

    They agree on the mismanagement of economy, on maintaining the many privatisations, on austerity; on the BoE’s independence and its ideological emphasis on doing what’s best for corporations and banks. They also agree on foreign policy; on fuelling the war in Ukraine providing sophisticated weaponry, rejecting Corbyn’s calls for a ceasefire and dialogue, all while hypocritically claiming the long suffering Palestinians have no such right to resist and ONLY dialogue can resolve their occupation.

    This is why the Labour are only comfortable fighting the Tories on trivial issues, they’re in lockstep with the Tories on all the big issues. Most of Labour’s shadow team could cross the floor without having to make a single adjustment to their political outlook. The British people living with this fake democratic choice are the losers..

    1. Can’t help but be cynical and think Nandy only visited that BT and Openreach picket line with an eye on any future leadership race. Nandy will, much like Starmer, seemingly say and do anything to get elected, then veer sharply right thereafter.

      Both are capable of more more contortions than the kamasutra.

    2. That’s been really obvious today, the attack line on Truss has not been about her policies, but about the fact that she would continue Boris’s “rotten culture” at Number 10. Yeah, sure, the culture. That’s the only thing that’s wrong with what the Tories are doing.

  4. Nandy was very keen to absolve Corbyn for GE 2019
    result – saying it was to do with the demand for a second referendum. She had said that previously and I agreed
    with her – which is why I voted for her. She also
    belonged to Friends of Palestine(?) and may even have
    led it?

    I can’t remember when she uttered the first lie
    about Corbyn – that he had been too friendly with
    Russia when the exact opposite was the case ..

    1. If you saw the list of funders backing her bid for the party leadership , you would agree with the person who said that the campaign to undermine Jeremy Corbyn was organised in Wigan.
      Her interview in the current New Statesman ( the Summer Special) is hilarious – for all the wrong reasons.

  5. New New Labour have become the same as the Democrats in the US. No matter what happens in the next election, New New Labour will always have enough right-wing MPs, who will vote with the Tories to ensure no leftist policies are ever passed.

  6. PS I see that Nandy’s opinion on a second referendum
    was pretty much my own. In my case I was very keen
    on remaining and wanted a “soft” Brexit and still think
    it the only option on account of the NI Border..

    I thought that to equate a “soft” Brexit (single Market etc)
    with Remaining was just as arrogant as wanting REf2.
    I struck me that to assume that EVERY Brexit voter was
    against the Single Market was not properly thought out
    and that there would be some who were quite happy
    with it. It follows then that from the people who cast
    their vote – there would be more people happy with
    it than not happy ..

    Of course we know that Johnson lied to the public
    about having an “oven ready deal” when in fact it
    was a Dogs dinner. In particular there was a border
    down the centre of the Irish Sea when Johnson
    promised there would not be ..

  7. Catatonic, spineless jellyfish…

    Very good!! But more slug than jellyfish, I reckon. Jellyfish have a purpose. Some have a sting Keef has neither.

    Nor has he a personality. When TV news anchors call him boring to his face, he can’t even please his case; instead sticking to a pathetically scripted soundbite because he’s as spontaneous as a fucking telegraph pole….And definitely more wooden.

    He looks every bit what he is. No wonder people don’t know who he is… They don’t bleedin’ want to.

    1. With his nasty jellyfish-like sting reserved purely for left-wingers?

      Don’t know about catatonic, but Labour’s silence over upcoming energy bill hikes is deafening.

      Shadow Leader of the HoC Thangam Debonnaire seems to pop up on various news channel discussions and has that most irritating habit, only found in politicians, of deliberately answering a question she wasn’t even asked. It can be a simple yes or no? answer required, and off she goes, rabbiting on, telling us what she doesn’t like about Tory policy X or Y while failing to provide any Labour remedy or alternative.

      So annoying when politicians simply can’t give straight answers, and she thinks she’s being clever outwitting her tormentor, grinning like an idiot as the interviewer gives up trying to get an answer out of her and shuts the interview down.

  8. Skwawkbox
    Next time you post an article like this please issue a heath warning first so that we all have sick buckets handy

  9. Sadly, the responses here seem more invested in buffing up ideological purity rather than finding coherent solutions to enduring problems. The same voices have nothing but praise for Corbyn talking to those castigated elsewhere as a means to unfix an impasse but here the maintenance of open hostility with those who don’t share your point of view must take precedence over finding a route through what otherwise remains intractable. This is the enabler of adversarial politics that serves only to bolster the careers of those who, through indolence and ignorance push the clash of good versus evil, whilst those they represent have their hopes and aspirations continually deferred.

      1. Yes – very eloquently put.

        Except allowing children to go hungry is acceptable to you, isn’t it goatfucker?

        Maybe if those kids could express themselves with the same eloquence as Tim, they’d be allowed a bowl of gruel every now and then, eh?

        Maybe if Mick Lynch wasn’t so blunt and direct, but instead spoke in a rees-mogg style superior air, and with the same verbosity, perhaps hed be asked pertinent questions and shown a soupcon more respect, eh?

        DO shut up, you complete ponce.

      2. Oh, I AM grown up. Nonce apologist.

        And it’s just as well – with horrible bastards like you around; else I’d either be sexually abused without retribution, or starved to death..or both.

    1. @Tim,SteveH

      Well, if Labour actually existed as a viable opposition and was not simply the plaything of a bunch of vindictive right-wingers, there may be something here to positively discuss.

      Apparently Labour are finally going to say something about the looming energy bill / cost-of-living crisis, but the entire shadow cabinet has been told to remain shtum because Sir Keith wants to hog the limelight when he gets back from his hols. Why he needs a holiday when he’s been doing sweet FA in opposition is anyone’s guess mind?

      And you can wager Labour’s plans won’t involve EDF Macron style renationalisation. Labour at a minimum, Labour needs to demand an immediate locked price cap, even if energy companies have to fund it from their own excessive profits.

      Tbh, Labour and Tory are so badly run, and so out of touch, a revolution of sorts may happen if prices reach that predicted new average of £4,200 per year, by January. It’s potentially that serious. A bad winter and that seems highly likely.

      1. Andy – It may have escaped your notice but Corbyn lost 60 seats at the 19GE. With a majority of 70+ there is not much that anyone can do to stop the Tories from doing more or less anything that they think they can get way with.

      2. SteveH

        Funny how you say Corbyn lost as if it were in a Presidential system.

        In 2017, many of the anti-Corbyn MPs returned with bigger majorities claimed uncharitably their results were due to a huge personal vote of confidence in themselves by their constituents. The very same anti-Brexit MPs who then went on to lose in Leave voting seats in 2019, turned around and claimed it was somehow all Corbyn’s fault. An attitude summed up as:

        Win – it’s down to me
        Lose – it’s down to you.

        Policy does matter and telling Leave voting seats they got it wrong on Brexit and were going to have to vote again, in 2019, was electoral suicide. And who pushed for that suicidal policy in 2019? None other than Sir Keir and Tom Watson.

      3. Andy – …..and according to Corbyn the vast majority of Labour’s membership and voters.

      1. Doug, my ‘solution’ (qualified because it would be naive to think the situation can be definitively resolved rather than a less imperfect model adopted) would be to both replace FPTP with PR and to stop funding of politicians, singly or as a party, by anything other than fixed subscriptions from members of the electorate. In concert, these would frustrate the continuation of the outward display of opposition from one of two entities while the other gets a free pass for five years. Instead, it would be hoped that there is an alignment of representatives with policies and ideas they believe in (rather than the flabby ‘broad church’ position that results in both current parties putting appeasement of their own above representation of their constituents) and, because these ideas are validated by affirmation from individuals rather than ‘performance-related pay’ from blocks such as business and unions, would be empowered or brought low by the appeal of these views.
        Such a state of affairs, which tends toward small, committed parties of various hues rather than two big beasts making increasingly token acknowledgement of their historical leanings, necessitates dialogue and the acknowledgement that some bedfellows are less agreeable than others, which always has to be tempered by the knowledge that the final arbiter is the contentment of the electorate. It also works against the consolidation of the absolute power that corrupts absolutely, a condition we seem to be moving toward at present with a right-wing government but might also be imagined with a party from the left.
        Such a situation is championed by the acolytes of either side but these ‘victories’ are to the detriment of the populace and democracy is jettisoned in favour of pandering to the diminishing numbers of the ever-more empowered (as is currently the case with economic policy being determined by 0.004% of the voting public).

  10. Should I judge a person by the company they keep or want to share a platform with eg Danny Kruger (Tory MP); Julian Coman (Guardian); Jen Williams (Murdoch’s FT) & Will Tanner ( Danny Finkelstein’s Onward). What a sic & sad bunch of ……………..? Feel free to join up the dots.

  11. Toffee, I could doubtless find yet more egregious positions held by this or any other person self-identifying as Tory, much as anyone on one side of a conflict will iterate through innumerable calumnies perpetrated by the other side to perpetuate a conflict. More people will continue to suffer even as those who spout the condemnatory rhetoric can bask in principles being upheld. Mick Lynch, I would contend, is prepared to talk to whomever will resolve the situation, because that is more important than being oppositional before all else. Rees-Mogg dissembles and deflects, which grants him the attention he craves, though he is quite irrelevant beyond being Johnson’s means to trigger the left.

    1. So we plebs should know our place, stop the scrutiny and criticism of the non entity that is keef, do not question his motives and be good little boys and girls and vote for him because he’s supposedly not Tory?

      News for you Tim. I KNOW who my enemies are. They are the ones who tell me I can’t do anything about allowing kids to starve so I best not trouble the elected vermin with such petty complaints as they have far better things to deal with.

      No tim, YOU are the problem, every bit as much as the Westminster careerist shower o’ shite.

      And I don’t need to prattle on in a pretentious, pompous and prolix peculiarity, to spell it out.

      1. Toffee, it is quite extraordinary that you took my remarks to be a validation of Starmer, never mind an unambiguous affirmation of keeping people in a state of hunger and therefore can’t see how I can defend a position I never advanced. I did, in a subsequent reply, suggest a way forward that neuters the adversarial politics that you appear to endorse and which may be have no lack of sound and fury but do nothing for those people on whose behalf you espose such indignation. And I won’t be affecting a diminished lexicon in the mistaken belief that it provides a veneer of authenticity; I am probably as concerned and committed as you are to empower those excluded and personally feel that forging a consensus that has the legitimacy to do so takes precedence over creating new foes to rail against.

      2. Christ on a bike….Are you this fella?

        https://alchetron.com/cdn/viz-comics-63439014-4c13-4426-9a32-d6502286c89-resize-750.png

        (And keef knows ALL about prosecuting speeding offences, doesn’t he? 😗🎵)

        As I’ve made unmistakeably apparent. I have identified who the enemies of a left-of-centre/socialist demeanour are.

        Sadly, the responses here seem more invested in buffing up ideological purity rather than finding coherent solutions to enduring problems….Yadda yadda yadda

        …Inebriated by the exuberance of your own verbosity, much? You needn’t have gone round the houses instead of just being forthright and telling everyone that any case for Corbynist politics isn’t relevant to you, and that anyone who espoused them is wasting their time.

        That is an affront to those people who at least have a notion of morality; and who are less than willing to timidly submit to your ideal of neo-fascist nonsense.

        ..Where the excuse for keef ordering a cowardly abstention on a bill that would ensure children are at least fed one cooked meal a day is that it would’ve been a foregone conclusion because the rags have a majority.

        Evil triumphs when good men do nothing. Keef ORDERS his party to do nothing.

        And your solution is apparent. That people should do nothing and allow the bastards to do as they please, because to rodents like you, resistance is futile. The toerag majority handed to them by keef is fait acccompli and NO amount of knocking at the door trying to get the bastards to wake up to reality is acceptable.

        Without pointing these rodents TO the solution by highlighting the consequences, we’ll NEVER reach the solution. For you to discourage and condescend makes YOU part of the problem.

  12. Inviting a Tory to Conference! In Liverpool! No-Go area for Tories! Incendiary!

    1. Will there be a repeat of the mass protests that took place last time Keir visited Liverpool.

      1. The fact people aren’t protesting should be more concerning.

        People generally protest because they care and believe change is possible. With Starmer they don’t believe change is possible, they think Labour are a lost cause.

        This will likely be shown on election day with a crushingly low turnout and mass apathy, Labour’s only hope is rigging the postal vote by filling out votes for people, as they’ve allegedly done elsewhere. Unless Starmer and Reeves are shown the door Labour won’t get a majority.

      2. Andy – So according to you the reason that ‘the left’ never seem to be able to get their act together is simply because they are all apathetic.

  13. One observation.
    Much of the “commentary” illustrates the power of disinformation.
    It has worked well when the report was about a member of the CP being invited to speak at a “Labour Together” event.
    I see that Conman was due to speak too.

  14. Toffee, I won’t extend this exchange beyond this last response. Quite how calling someone a neo-fascist rodent makes an iota of difference to those you claim to support remains unclear but perhaps it makes you feel better. My initial post on this subject made the point that the absolutism that forbids breaking bread with those who do not follow the one true faith is not productive. If you chose to bridle at the possibility that this means Corbynist politics then it really is a fantasy of your own making rather than evident in anything I’ve said. For you to characterise my position as discouraging and condescending when your own appears to be one of asking people to persist with a moribund undemocratic system but just chose a leader more to your liking is a betrayal of all of us who would hope and expect more. It is not my intention to wind up you or anyone else, but rather to offer up possible ways through what is fast becoming a catastrophic retreat from democracy. And in that spirit I think it necessary to listen to opposing views rather than drown them out with insults.

    1. I would make one comment in relation to “in that spirit I think it necessary to listen to opposing views rather than drown them out with insults.”
      I think that it is also necessary to listen to people with opposing views rather than to prevent them from expressing those views in LP meetings, or expelling them from the LP.

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