Rare moment of honesty from ‘Labour’ leader in new speech
Keir Starmer is expected to confess – or more accurately, boast – that he’s a Tory. Starmer is now telling the nation that he and his team of horrors are ‘the real conservatives’ and that he wants to be ‘Tony Blair on steroids’ – fighting against redistribution and protecting ‘our way of life’ – the status quo of this blighted nation of child poverty, debt, homelessness, war and inequality:
Confirmation, as if it was needed, that Starmer lied through his teeth at every opportunity to con his way into the party leadership. True colours showing at last – and his is Tory blue.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and 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 doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Yes, indeed he is!
Blair’s Clause IV – on steroids – is his sound-bite.
“stability, order, security” – is another three word sound-bite. Meant to be less offensive, but easier to remember
Replacing neoliberalism, with more neoliberalism, is the reality.
“stability, order, security”
S.O.S.
Revealed:[The Labour Party’s] Full draft policy platform that could form 2024 Labour manifesto
Labour has drafted its most comprehensive policy programme yet for a Keir Starmer government, drawing up a provisional but wide-ranging blueprint likely to shape the next general election manifesto.
The 86-page policy handbook, seen by LabourList and summarised below, builds on submissions from Labour groups and beyond, six NPF policy documents consulted on earlier this year, past consultations and pledges announced by the shadow cabinet in recent years.
https://labourlist.org/2023/05/labour-manifesto-2024-election-what-policies-npf-party/
You can watch Keir Starmer’s full speech here.
https://youtu.be/uDp2bJ0FlD0
Andy – So say the self appointed guardian’s of ‘the left’ (many of whom voted for Boris in preference to Corbyn) who literally have nothing credible to offer the electorate.
Have you read and watched the links that I posted above.
https://skwawkbox.org/2023/05/13/starmer-admits-hes-a-tory/#comment-244084
Ere wee gobshite….keefs’ a Tory.
A TORY!! OH! THE HUMANITEEEEEE 😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱
And what’s all this about manifestos? Thought it was foolish for keef to tell the toerags what he’d be up to, with over a year to go?
But nevermind all that.
Keefs’ a TORY.
“six NPF policy documents consulted on earlier this year, past consultations and pledges announced by the shadow cabinet in recent years…”
He’s had three years to make sure only ‘approved’ (by WEF) neoliberal newZabour-like authoritarian ‘Representatives’ get on to the NPF.
What is it about Keir Starmer you don’t get? He’s here to destroy and denature Labour as an agent “for the Many, not the few”.
So, re your claim that it must be good cos its NPF, SteveH, it doesn’t hold water. Starmer is a class-enemy wolf in sheeps’ clothing
qwertboi – Have you forgotten that ‘the many’ evaluated what was on offer in 2019 and voted Tory.
As the documented objective evidence demonstrates – based on the first past the post metric – the “majority” in 2019, with 15,757,624 votes, voted non of the above.
Which was 1,791,059 move votes than the second placed number of votes for the blue wing of the neo-liberal uni-party which went on to administer the Kings subjects and lands on behalf of the oligarchy. .
The blue wing having secured that second placed number of the eligible voting electorate on the back of the again objective documented evidence of the issue of Brexit. Which the red wing of the neo-liberal uni-party were seeking to reverse with another referendum pushed by Trilateral commission and WEF lacky cum Karaoke act Keir Starmer, MAPSG (Minor Attracted Person Support Group.)
Something which the majority, having already spoken in 2016 were having non of.
Now steveH can bellyache, deflect, procrastinate, and shout all the insults he likes about this. What he cannot do , and never does, is refute the objective evidence:
a) that this was so;
and the objective documented evidence of
b) why a majority of people, who poll after poll demonstrate their support for a whole range of policies that not only the blue tories but also the red, yellow, orange, purple and increasingly green ones are dead set against, allow themselves to be persuaded by sophisticated PR propaganda to vote for those who are openly declaring they will never act against the interests of the minority of incompetent oligarchs who they work for,
Dave – What objective evidence would that be?
steveH, the voting figures quoted can be found by perusing the data to be found in this link from the UK Parliament.
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-8749/
……and here:
https://weownit.org.uk/public-solutions/support-public-ownership
…..and here:
https://labourlist.org/2022/03/exclusive-majority-of-uk-backs-public-ownership-of-energy-firms-poll-shows/
…….Tax rises and more spending:
Here:
https://www.ft.com/content/bc07381f-fa73-4552-860e-576d640cb90e
……continuing with polls showing a majority in favour of tax rises on wealth:
https://oxfamapps.org/media/press_release/clear-majority-of-british-public-support-higher-taxes-on-wealth-new-poll/
Apologies, Despite numerous attempts to post the first of three links to data showing evidence of a public majority in favour of public ownership the skwawkbox site will clearly not allow a posting containing a link to the survation site.
So we will just have to circumnavigate this dumb decision by splitting the link into separate component parts: and hope that the Caribbean (alleged) goat fancier can put it together again:
Here’s the first bit:
https://www.survation
Second segment:
.com/new-poll-public-strongly-backing-public-ownership-of-energy-and-key-utilities/
What does that prove apart from the electorate didn’t trust Jeremy to deliver.
Month after bloody month of hiding behind ‘constructive ambiguity’ didn’t help especially when Jeremy has since admitted that he knew that the vast majority of Labour’s members and supporters wanted a confirmatory vote and to stop in the EU.
https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/inlineimage/2019-12-23/Why%20did%20people%20not%20vote%20labour.jpg
…To continue meeting the request of the goat fancier from Berkshire for evidence following the post submitted at 2:24pm today, Saturday 13/5/23:
….majority in favour of wealth tax – i.e wealth redistribution:
https://leftfootforward.org/2022/01/exclusive-majority-of-voters-support-a-wealth-tax-poll-finds/
But because they didn’t trust him to deliver they didn’t vote for Jeremy did they, they voted for Boris.
The polls proved to be more or less spot on about the vote share for the 19GE
Have you seen the latest polling results❓
https://www.omnisis.co.uk/polls/mind-the-gap-labour-and-sir-keir-starmer-hit-record-high-leads-in-latest-poll/
Labour hit a record-breaking 27-point lead over the Conservatives, while Sir Keir Starmer saw his biggest-ever lead over Rishi Sunak as the nation’s preferred Prime Minister in the latest Omnisis poll.
Starmer’s Labour gained three points to reach 51% in the pollster’s latest voter intention tracker, as the Tories dropped three points and now sit on 24%.
Meanwhile, 41% of voters think Sir Keir Starmer would make the best Prime Minister compared to just 27% who prefer Rishi Sunak – a 14-point difference.
Well that’s saved me a job.
Thank you for demonstrating the next part of my argument for me.
Being in the Caribbean (allegedly) all you have to go on is filtered data such as this. You were not on the doorstep in 2019 actually interacting with people day in day out for weeks on end.
Those who were actually interacting with real people, rather than sat on their arses like you steveH relying on partial and simplistic information such as this Yougov poll (which is owned by a prominent Tory) as though it were the whole story, will tell you that when you dig down on this simplistic and filtered presentation of a loaded question what you found on the doorstep was that a huge amount of people regurgitated, verbatim, media attack lines about Labour and Corbyn.
Many would preface this by saying ‘I seen on the news that…’ or ‘they say that Corbyn is….’ You would encounter people, lifelong Labour voters who were voting for the Tories. This was because they were absolutely convinced that Corbyn was a terrorist, that he would bankrupt the country, that he was an anti-semite.
Where did they get that impression from?
Did it suddenly pop into their heads like spontaneous combustion to the extent that in two short years 2.6 million of the 12.8 million who had voted for Corbyn’s Labour in 2017 did a 180 degree totally off their own back with no influence whatsoever from years of one sided vitriolic negative attacks from across the media and political class spectrum?
Is that your argument?
Really?
You are that stupid and naive?
That proves nothing steveH.
Such polls go up and down all the time.
The only relevant criteria is what works and what does not.
As tax expert Richard Murphy observes here:
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2023/05/13/starmer-has-to-decide-what-is-more-important-neoliberal-rules-or-making-the-state-work-for-people/
“According to The Guardian, Keir Starmer is going to say today:
If you think our job in 1997 was to rebuild a crumbling public realm, that in 1964 it was to modernise an economy overly dependent on the kindness of strangers, in 1945 to build a new Britain, in a volatile world, out of the trauma of collective sacrifice – in 2024 it will have to be all three.
Apparently he will add:
This is about taking our party back to where we belong and where we should always have been … back doing what we were created to do. That’s why I say this project goes further and deeper than New Labour’s rewriting of clause IV … This is about rolling our sleeves up, changing our entire culture, our DNA. This is clause IV on steroids.
All of which is a string of platitudes, largely because I gather that the draft Labour manifesto is dedicated to having iron-clad fiscal rules and reaffirming the role of independent institutions like the OBR and Bank of England and to establishing an Office for Value for Money.
You can transform the state if you abandon the constraints of neoliberalism that are deliberately intended to prevent that happening but you can’t transform the state and keep those constraints in place.
Starmer has to decide. What is more important? Neoliberal rules that deliver a small state or making the state work for people? Trying to do both will be a recipe for failure.”
Come on. Tell us, if you can, how continuing with the same failed neo-liberal approach and policies is going to deliver different results? The constraints which Starmer has embraced are not going to deliver under Starmer because they are not delivering under Sunak and they did not deliver under Truss, Johnson, May, Cameron, Brown, Blair, Major, Thatcher or Callaghan.
No matter how many people vote for the WEF/Davos snake oil salesmen like Starmer selling this unworkable nonsense.
Look at the results as they stand:…….
Dave – Or alternatively you can watch Keir’s full speech here
https://youtu.be/uDp2bJ0FlD0
ps Richard Murphy isn’t going to standing for election.
Dave – If you are a regular reader of Richard Murphy’s column then you’ll already know that Corbyn’s manifesto was a half arsed version of the Richard’s economic policies and that Murphy has quite a low opinion of Jeremy.
……
https://www.pwc.co.uk/economic-services/ukeo/ukeo-november-2019-productivity-puzzle.pdf
and here….
https://obr.uk/box/international-comparisons-of-government-investment/
and here…..
https://www.bma.org.uk/media/2885/the-role-of-private-outsourcing-in-the-covid-19-response.pdf
and here….
https://data.oecd.org/rd/gross-domestic-spending-on-r-d.htm
my 6:48pm comment was intended to be a response to Andy’s 4:14pm comment below
https://skwawkbox.org/2023/05/13/starmer-admits-hes-a-tory/#comment-244101
When you look at the results of the financialisation of the UK economy which Starmer has openly committed to continuing here in the statistics provided by the above links – productivity, investment, capacity, research and development, growth, quality of life, GDP per capita, wealth distribution, and real wage growth measured by unit labor cost – they all are either falling or stagnant.
Reporting from the Financial Times has claimed that at current levels, the UK will be poorer than Poland in a decade, and will have a lower median real income than Slovenia by 2024. Many provincial areas already have lower GDPs than Eastern Europe.
Some of those provincial areas like South Wales, West Midlands and South Yorkshire had lower GDP’s than Greece almost a quarter of a century ago even after each received significant sums of EU regeneration funding. And the situation has deteriorated even further since then as a direct result of what Starmer has committed to continuing.
The fact is, to quote former LP Head of Communciations James Schnieder:
“The British state is not very effective. It’s been actively dismantled to a greater degree than comparative European states…There is a debt mountain that is based on the idea that we will have strong growth going forward, which doesn’t seem to be the case. We have incredibly fragile supply chains that are pushing up the price of production. The parties don’t have the first clue about how to deal with what’s coming.”
In terms of what matters – ie. what works – your man is a loser. Like the predecessor Blair which he models himself on. And he is a loser because the evidence demonstrates that model and paradigm he is pushing does not work.
Do try and keep up and stick to the relevant issue steveH.
Whether Murphy or a donkey is standing is not the issue. The issue is:
Does the argument which Murphy, among many others, are making stand up or not?
“HOW is Starmer going to do anything workable constrained by “iron-clad fiscal rules”?”
“Starmer will find it impossible to achieve anything of lasting value if he confines himself in an iron straight jacket of so-called “fiscal responsibility”. It is a neoliberal trap, mentally, politically, and economically. He needs to think outside the box, use more of the tools available to him, and explain how and why that will work.”
Right now he, and yourself steveH, are failing miserably. As evidenced by your pathetic attempt to change the subject.
Sir Keir ‘constructive ambiguity’* Starmer.
2nd Referendum any time you like, Starmer!
———-
*much nicer than ‘Rodney’
“stability, order, security”
And whenever a neoliberal globalist politician like Keir Starmer uses the word ‘security’ you know he is actually cramming a piece of shit in your mouth and telling you it’s a hyper-healthy Mars Bar that’s fixing your obesity, diabetes, sight problems and over-worked liver, etc.
Food ‘security’, health ‘security’ planet ‘security’: I rest my case: We’re being lied-to and robbed of our human rights every time any one of them is mentioned!
For me, the key word is Order. I don’t like the sound of that in the slightest.
Now roll Security and Stability around with that Order.
Stability for who? Who needs securing? For the sake of Order?
Don’t worry. They’ve infiltrated the Tories too, so there’s no escape.
Oh, and before I depart. Is this the first time Starmer has told the truth? It is he going to say in six months that he’s always been a lib dem?
Trilateral Commission lackey.
Every day’s a school day, eh, wee gobshite?
Bear admits to defacating in woodland.
Pope declares his Catholicism.
Anfield 90% tourist.
…And so on.
We have been warned.
We should do everything we can to bring him down.
There’d be no problem with this had he run an open overt campaign to be the heir to Blair in ther leadership race as Matt Zarb-Cousin who was RLB’s campaign manager, has said.
But he ran as ‘continuity Corbyn’ and this ‘Surprise Mother F-ckers!! act is just plain obnoxious and undermines democracy.
What do his kids think of their Dad’s shameless, opportunistic, manipulative lying? His son, Toby, is 13 according to newspaper reports, he must be taking some flak at school from students over the broken pledge on tuition fees?
If he had done that, he would have lost resoundingly.
Indeed Tony.
But he would have at least lost honourably.
The bait and switch he pulled with the left, by dumping all of the signed 10 pledges, should contravene an equivalent to the Trade Descriptions Act, which safeguards consumers against misleading claims about products and services.
True Tony, if Starmer had run as ‘heir to Blair’ he’da lost the leadership vote resoundingly.
——–
Opposition leader says he is rewriting party’s DNA.
Who demanded or wanted him to do this rewriting? Certainly not the members nor Labour voters.
He’s just someone who’s ashamed to be in a socialist party, and hates its values and traditions. If he thinks the party needs its ‘DNA rewriting,’ maybe it’s him who is in the wrong party?
He is, like Blair, in the wrong party.
Picking up on a typically asinine comment by our resident interloper above, I am well aware that Richard Murphy is not standing in the next GE, but I urge anyone interested in a clear, understandable source of critical – in the best sense – economic commentary, to look him up and read his blog. He is in no doubt about the built-in potential for massive economic failure built into Starmer and Reeves ‘ proposals, and outlines reasonable possibilities and solutions.
@Ludus57
You’ll find he’s in the right party. TINA. And we’re moving towards an American style of politics (like ours was already bad enough)
Remember the golden rule.
He who has the gold, makes the rules
Vax the bastard!
SteveH13/05/2023 AT 12:35 PM
qwertboi – Have you forgotten that ‘the many’ evaluated what was on offer in 2019 and voted Tory
No. It was keefs’ brexit shithousery.
People wanted it and keef didn’t. (Does now though, to nobody’s surprise, and your bitter disappointment)
But you continue to deny what ‘the few’ did to sabotage the election.
Still think it’s those lefties plotting to keep the tories in? Yer own idol’s admitting he’s a bigger toerag than the toerags ffs.
Gobshite.
“qwertboi – Have you forgotten that ‘the many’ evaluated what was on offer in 2019 and voted Tory…”
2019 was the brexit election. The tories’ brexit position was clearer and more honest than the Labour one. Keior Rodney Starmer made sure of that!
2nd Ref NOW Starmer
You can blame Jeremy’s endless prevarication and dithering for that. Even Jeremy has since admitted that he knew that the vast majority of Labour’s membership and voters were quite clear that they wanted a confirmatory vote and to stay in the EU.
SteveH Labour membership, at plus 500K weren’t the voters.Two thirds of Labour seats voted to leave the EU.
Starmer and people like you persuaded many young members that had just joined the Party enthused by Corbyn’s politics that remaining in the EU was possible, when the more politically sophisticated knew this to be a mirage and will lead to Labour losing the 2019 General Election and a hard Brexit.
Starmer is offering nothing to the young people that were inspired by Corbyn. Starmer in his quest for power betray them and I don’t see them voting Labour.
The Green Party with none of Labour’s resources more than double its Cllrs. Former Labour Cllrs that abandoned the Party were re-elected.
You can spin it which ever way you wish but in 1991 the Tories lost over a 1000 seats in the local elections only for the Tories to win the General Election in 1992.
I am afraid this is deja vue.
You can blame Jeremy’s endless prevarication and dithering for that.
No…You can’t.
“prevarication” F complete and total FS.
“His activity included:
10 EU rallies, with speeches and meetings in London, Bristol, Stroud, Newquay, Perranporth, Cardiff, Blackpool, Bournemouth, Liverpool, Runcorn, Manchester, Truro, Sheffield, Widnes, Doncaster, Rotherham, Hastings, Brighton, Dundee, Aberdeen and Birmingham.
These included a meeting with student nurses in Birmingham, a factory in Runcorn, a clean beaches event in Truro and campaigning with activists in Scotland.
Launched the Labour In bus and the Ad Van.
A debate on Sky News with Faisal Islam, also talked about the EU on the Agenda and the Last Leg. Appeared on the Andrew Marr show twice and on Peston on Sunday.
Written two op-eds, one in the Observer and another in The Mirror.
Reached more than 10 million people on social media.
Six statements to the House of Commons and 10 PMQs on the EU.
He has been consistent on this issue from day one of his leadership, issuing a statement in September that “Labour will be campaigning in the referendum for the UK to stay in the European Union”.”
Have another try, gobshite.
Even Jeremy has since admitted that he knew that the vast majority of Labour’s membership and voters were quite clear that they wanted a confirmatory vote and to stay in the EU.
Really? And where was YOUR vote on it?
And WHO was it made policy “on the fly” to bring about the rigged vote on second ref?
The same fella thats gonna make brexit work
So you can continue posting your links to your idol’s empty blathering and commitments to which he has NO intent on committing to.
Nobody here gives a flying fuck what he says. He’s a self-confessed tory – and doesn’t care who knows it.
The fuck are you? Preaching from your supposed Caribbean idyll about what we are if we don’t vote for a Tory in the country where WE LIVE.
Filthy fucking nonce that you are. Hurry up and die.
Can we have a vote on Toffees proposal of 09:40 am of 14/5/23?
SteveH
You appear to have a blank spot in what you remember. It was Starmer’s Undemocratic People’s Vote that lost us the 2019 election. Corbyn didn’t prevaricate at all, Starmer persuaded the members to vote for his People’s vote and that cost us hundreds of thousands of natural LP supporters. Apart from the ‘People’s Vote’, the Manifesto was the same as the 2017 GE. PS, Starmer blamed Corbyn’s policies for the loss, knowing full well it was his policy that caused it.
‘Clause IV on steroids’: Keir Starmer says his Labour must go further than Blair.
Cryptic, but I’d guess he’s softening people up for an attempt to privatise swathes of the NHS. His Davos bankster chums, and the American political elite, with a few left-wing exceptions like Bernie Sanders,all view the UK NHS as a sprawling, costly socialist monstrosity. As do the Tories, though they’re too fearful of a voter backlash to touch it.
Vital that journos pin Starmer, Streeting and Reeves down; get them on record saying the NHS will remain free at the point of delivery. So access to the NHS remains based on clinical need, not an individual’s ability to pay.
With this, and Starmer’s authoritarianism, a hung parliament is looking more and more like the most attractive option. Starmer, Reeves and Streeting can’t be allowed to do the Tories’ dirty work.
Have you seen the latest polls
https://www.omnisis.co.uk/polls/mind-the-gap-labour-and-sir-keir-starmer-hit-record-high-leads-in-latest-poll/
Andy -See my response to you above
https://skwawkbox.org/2023/05/13/starmer-admits-hes-a-tory/#comment-244124
SteveH
We don’t need the polls, not when we’ve just had the Local elections, which produced : a 40% turnout of which Labour won 35%, that’s just 14% of those eligible to vote casting a vote for Labour. Hardly a sign of massive public enthusiasm.
I always said apathy and and switchers (to the Greens, LDs and TUSC) can easily scupper Labour if the manifesto is really disliked due to its blandness or being too RW.
And tbh , I don’t expect Starmer to be facing Sunak. Tories can be ruthless, they’ll replace him before the GE if he can’t make progress in closing the gap soon.
246
You have been told what the numbers are after last week’s elections
Your man has a 9% lead, he needs 14% for a majority which includes the Socialist group, beginning of the end for Red and Blue Tories
SteveH
Latest poll for Observer
Labour is down one on 43%, the Conservatives up 3 on 29%, the Liberal Democrats up 1 on 11% and the Greens down 2 on 5%. Starmer is still preferred as PM, on 29% against 26% for Sunak.
the Starmers won’t be measuring the curtains for No.10 just yet. In a six week election campaign , when Starmer is questioned properly, in leaders’ debates, even that the lead will likely fall away.
Ideal result would be a hung parliament. Starmer would resign and Labour will be forced to compromise on PR and other things.
Reply to Steve H
Who cares? Starmer has said he is a Tory which means that no matter how poeple vote in the election there will be a Tory in Downing St.
246
Omnisis are the pollsters for a 2nd Referendum, rejoin, single market and freedom of movement
Stsrmers response is ‘Make Brexit Work’
Methinks he is prevaricating behind a wall of constructive ambiguity
Real Tories would replace him before GE
Never make the mistake of confusing a right winger with a fascist. Stamer is worse than a Conservative: the man is a fascist.
In 2020 he was telling Party members that:
– Corbyn was his friend,
-he was going to keep the manifesto policies of 2017
-he was going to “unite” the Party.
Three years later:
-Corbyn was never his friend,
-he has repudiate any policy of the 2017’s manifesto
-his version of uniting the Labour Party is to witch hunt the left within the Party. Broad church? What broad church?
The best possible result for the next General Election would be a hung Parliament in which neither the Tories or the Labour Party can form government only with the support of the LibDems but, would need the support too from the SNP and possibly the Greens and Plaid.
What we need is:
-for the SNP to maintain/improve its position in Scotland
-for the LibDem to double/their seats in Parliament
-for the Greens to win more seats.
-for Plaid to win more seats
-for all the members of the SCG to retain their seats.
Either the Tories or Labour would have to agree to PR to be used in subsequent elections. Members of the SCG would be able to give two hoots to retain the Labour’s whip once we have PR.
Starmer’s Labour or Tories in government will have to realise on each other support plus the LidDems to pass legislation, with the SCG, Plaid and the Greens in opposition. The mask would slip from Starmer’s Labour.
Maria Vazquez
Any TV or radio political reporter/ pundit could make him look utterly ridiculous with all those ‘on record’ contradictions to go at. But they won’t, and the reason they won’t is even more corrupt than Starmer.
The media are shielding this man, calling him a man of integrity, while he goes around pretending the Labour party was in the hands of violent thugs under Corbyn. The only people who behaved like thugs under Corbyn were the HQ staffers on the right of the party, the ‘good guys’ as the media and PLP like to frame it. We’re truly through the looking-glass in the UK.
Andy, you could be right or the Tories are keeping their powder dry.
It makes sense for the Tories to wait to be nearer a General Election and deprive the PLP of the chance of challenging Starmer for the leadership of the Labour Party. Keeping Starmer as LP’s leader is to their advantage.
Still even if the MSM is willing to keep quiet about Starmer, the over 100K that has left the Labour Party under Starmer’s regime perhaps aren’t going to keep quiet.Their is nothing stopping them to canvass for an alternative candidate to the Labour candidate, with the old Labour card in hand telling people doorstep by doorstep while Starmer cannot possibly be trusted to be the next PM.
Besides Alexei Sayle apparently is standing against Starmer in his constituency, comes the GE is due to attract publicity and if Corbyn, Abbot and Webbe stand as independents they would attract publicity too, the MSM will have to report it.
Went to see Jeremy Corbyn The Big Lie last night and JC is a lovely human being but he was up against ruthless people when he tried to unite people.
The conundrum for us socialists then in Labour was we had a few socialists at the top surrounded by grotesque Right Wing Lab careerist anti-socialists backed up by a Right Wing Labour bureaucracy surrounded by a majority left grassroots and some union leaders and left union rank & files.
Johnson at a strike kicked 50 Right Wing Tory Remainers out (to be replaced by Tory Neo-Liberal drones) and the Tory media
didn’t say a dickie bird.
Could we have kicked the 200 Right Wing Lab MPs out after the coups & reselected within 3 months with socialists?
JC & Dianne Abbott will have to stand as Independents so we have a gang of 2 or JC turns Peace & Justice into a political party & 200,000 members within weeks & £10m to campaign with or if not 620 of us stand as JC Independents (not standing against the few Left Lab MPs) and in a hung Parliament we may have a block of 80+ socialists. Solidarity!
Bazza
Corbyn had a brief window, after defeating Starmer clone, Big Pharma man Owen Smith in 2016 leadership contest after the so-called crap coup. He could and should of punished the plotters by pressing very hard for open selection. The CLPs could have done the heavy lifting democratically removing the right-wingers, and Corbyn could have wrong-footed the press and Tories, crying “purge” by challenging them to make their candidate selection processes more democratic.
He had another window of opportunity after getting 40% (12.8m votes) in 2017’s GE, he was in a very strong position to make changes with his critics stunned into silence by that result.
That’s the one thing I dislike about Corbyn and McDonnell, between them they had no killer instinct, no ability to fight for good. Always seeking to forgive those who hated them. Even the good and righteous, have to move quickly against vicious foes. Greater internal democracy was there and available; popular with CLPs and empowering, it would have seen off these centrist vampires who now dominate the party.
*He could and should have punished.
Andy said:
‘That’s the one thing I dislike about Corbyn and McDonnell, between them they had no killer instinct, no ability to fight for good.’
No ability to fight for good says Andy about two MPs that have been fighting the good fight against greed and injustice etc, etc, the whole of their adult lives, and Andy is being totally disingenuous. As for punishing the plotters, do you include ALL of the 172 Labour Party MPs who voted No Confidence in Jeremy in 2016?
Anyway, you sound just like signpost – and for all I know you could very well be the same paid shill – who repeated such falsehoods thousands of times. There is no way on this planet that the Establishment and its propaganda machine – the MSM – were ever going to let Jeremy get hold of the reins of power.
And your assertions don’t add up anyway: Jeremy wouldn’t be Jeremy if he possessed this so-called ‘killer instinct’, and the reason he won the leadership – not only once but TWICE – is precisely because he is a man of principles and integrity. And your line about ‘always seeking to forgive those who hated them’ is complete and utter bollox! And DEFINITELY is a giveaway for the propagandist you really are, albeit posing as a left-winger.
And as I recall it, you didn’t start posting on here until some time AFTER the 2019 general election defeat – ie AFTER Jeremy had stood down as leader!!!.
I don’t know the ins and outs of what went on behind the scenes, but the following from a New Statesman article posted on August 1, 2016, and entitled ‘What is deselection, and what does it mean for Labour MPs?’, gives every indication that Jeremy, at the time, was in favour of Open Selection:
Jeremy Corbyn has called for a “full and open selection process” to choose the Labour candidate in every seat for the next general election.
Jeremy Corbyn has called for a “full and open selection process” to choose the Labour candidate in every seat before the next general election. Many MPs are interpreting this as a call for “mandatory reselection”, a sensitive issue for Labour, as it was a process brought in by the party’s left – in a movement led by Tony Benn – after Labour’s defeat under James Callaghan in 1979. This system wasn’t scrapped until 1990, when Neil Kinnock brought it to an end.
It would be in Corbyn and his supporters’ interest to introduce such a rule. And senior sources from the leadership team have hinted that they will pursue such measures, and more, following the attempted coup against Corbyn by the majority of his MPs. One insider told the HuffPo: “We will offer the most radical leadership reform package ever……
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2016/08/qa-what-deselection-and-what-does-it-mean-labour-mps
It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that someone – a right-winger – whispered in Jeremy’s ear that if OS is introduced 170 odd Labour MPs will be forming a new party. Their ruthlessness – as with their duplicity and deviousness – knows no bounds.
Andy & I think without Right Wing Lab MPs (and some staff) sabotage we could have got JC over the line in 2017 but before the results came in my heart sank at the prospect of a JC victory.
I just couldn’t imagine Right Wing Lab MPs ever voting for JC’s transformational programme.
The Lab Right have won battles since 2019 but have not won the war.
With my ideas of JC’s Peace & Justice as a political party OR 620 JC Independents it could be the start of JC Part 2 leading to the final countdown & WE keep the JC dream alive.
Starmer admits he’s a Tory
Well – We already knew that !
Tory Boy, True Blue
What thye f*ck’s he doing as “Leader’ of Labour?
He ‘s on the side of multi-national global conglomates, not people -‘for the few, at the cost of the Many’
______
BTW – the answer to the question is ‘he’s denaturing and destroyuing labour – and the people they serve and protect‘. That’s his job!
Meet the New New Labour same as the old New Labour
Back to the futile and ultimately corrupting ‘War on Drugs’?.– from Labourlist
Introduce Respect Orders: a new criminal offence to target persistent adult repeat offenders who are ruining lives with their anti–social behaviour (including the smell of cannabis perhaps?)
Take tough action against drug dealing with powers for police to shut down premises used by drug dealers, and data–driven hotspot policing targeted at common drug dealing sites, complemented by local neighbourhood police patrols of town centres (which invariably shifts the problem elsewhere and opens up the trade to ever more ruthless competition and greater profits)
We’ve already seen the New Labour approach to drugs a la Alan Johnson and Professor Nutt, I don’t see any change now.
Much of the content of this video on UK drug enforcement, straight from the ‘horse’s mouth’ as it were, has appeared in other interviews but this in-depth Finnish one (in English) gathers it all in one place with quite a lot more besides.
Former UK undercover cop says we should end drug prohibition | Neil Woods
Its very revealing that every time anyone on this site provides any detailed evidence based examples of working alternatives to the efficacy free Feudalist based neo-liberal approach and policies of the Uni-Party the silence from steveH is like what you get in the moment when the equally ridiculous cartoon character Wylie Coyote momentarily hangs over the cliff before dropping.
You don’t even get the tumbleweed with the Berkshire Bore. Just empty vacuous nothing. Because such empty vessels only do the kind of yah boo rhetoric you find on the football terraces. Real life details are too much for them.
Reply to Steve H
Who cares? Starmer has said he is a Tory which means that no matter how poeple vote in the election there will be a Tory in Downing St.
The entire basis of the article and thread.
Except not once has the wee gobshite addressed that. And nor will he.
Ever.
But you and I – and the rest of the posters here – are all of us tories if we refuse to vote for the tory we already knew (and told the wee knobhead countless times) was a tory.
The utter retard.
246
The numbers don’t lie, you are on course to match the 2019 result, miles behind 2017 and as you have kindly pointed out, the worst result since 1035
FPTP means you will need SNP, Lib Dem, Green and Socialist group support to form a government
What we know from 2010 is Red Tories will disappear back up their own arses, can anyone tell me why they lost that election
I have refrained, until now, from commenting on this discussion because I thought it better to have read the LP document “Final year policy documents” before doing so.
I can recommend it heartily as a cure for insomnia.
It is ridiculously long (86 pages) and is full of guff, padding and, at best, pious hopes.
A constant reiteration of our problems occupies the bulk of the paper.
There are a lot of vague outlines of what is desired to be achieved (not that in most cases it is not desirable) but the steps needed to achieve these outcomes are conspicuous by their absence – no detail, no timescale etc.
On a very small number of occasions, there are clear statements though, again, we are given no timescale. Here are the ones I noted, though I may have missed a couple through sheer boredom.
1. “investing £28 billion of public capital a year into the green economy” – sounds good but, again, there is no indication of what projects would be funded, who would undertake them or what the timescale would be.
2. “stopping the issue of new licences for oil and gas” – sounds good, but I wonder whether there are reserves still within UK waters of a size that could be exploited.
3. “right an historic wrong on the Mineworkers’ Pension Scheme.” – I don’t know what this is and, though it must be of significance to ex-miners, it seems odd that it appears in a major (?) “policy document”.
4. “GB Energy [a government body that it is proposed be set up]…… will also be able to partner with 16 leading businesses to crowd in private investment “. What does “partner” mean? Fund?
5. “No public ownership of Royal Mail” – Mmmm
6. “The next Labour government will bring our railways into public ownership as contracts with existing operators expire, consistent with our fiscal rules,” – Is “consistent with our fiscal rules” a get out clause?
7. “Repeal Trade Union Act 2016” – Without question, this should be repealed, but what about all the other anti-TU legislation from earlier years?
8. “we will introduce fully-funded free breakfast clubs in every primary school.” – how will funding be allocated to schools, the funding model is crucial.
9. “A Labour government will remove the barriers that prevent local councils from opening more nurseries” – No mention of funding local authorities so that they can open nurseries..
10. “build more genuinely affordable houses, including council houses.” – No mention of funding local authorities so they can build houses.
11. “Labour’s support for nuclear deterrence is absolute. – we also want to see Britain doing more to lead efforts to secure strategic arms limitation and multilateral disarmament and reduce nuclear risk.” – Does not an “absolute” support for having nuclear weapons mean that there could be no nuclear disarmament?
12. “championing international law and universal human rights” – Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria – Assange etc. – Surely some mistake.
13. Then there is a section on “Ukraine” – a “policy document” with a section on just one relatively small country???
14. “Belarus, where Labour will continue to support opposition leaders.” – again an item about, in this case, a small country, and advocating interference in its affairs.
15. “… to seize and repurpose frozen Russian assets ” – and yet another individual country, this time with a proposal to steal its money. Championing international law?
In all, it is 99.5% waffle.
How much of it will be adhered to, given keefs’ propensity to change his mind with the weather?
“Circumstances have changed”
“We can’t come into office picking through all the Conservative legislation and repealing it. It would take too much time.’
So what’s the point of them?
Most of the 10 pledges were either cost neutral or would result in savings eg. abolishing the HoL as we move to a slimmed down democratic chamber. And what price democracy?
The Starmeroids rushed in to defend Lammy, over his comments about not repealing the draconian police legislation, only for Starmer to pop up and undermine them by stating he wanted the anti-protest law provisions to be allowed to “bed-in.” it’s fairly clear Starmer nor his shad cab have any intention of being anything other than right-wing and deeply authoritarian.
“Labour’s support for nuclear deterrence is absolute”.
Nuclear deterrence is only a ‘theory’.
Who said that?
I’ll tell you who: David Cameron.
Labour’s commitment to nuclear disarmament is pure deception.
In all, it is 99.5% waffle.
Centrist speak always is. Platitudinal guff about ‘better tomorrows for all’ and ‘an NHS with the time to care’ ? (the Ed Stone).
All to mask the fact that the deeply unattractive political offer is basically more of the same, more neoliberal economics and US neocon inspired foreign policy. With a sprinkling of domestic ZANU Labour authoritarianism like the rotten cherry on top.
Reeves can’t wait to gleefully impose workfare(as punishment on the idlers – as she sees things). Grubby, smug Streeting can’t wait to advance and indulge the US private healthcare lobby. Starmer just wants to destroy the left and follow Blair’s path to unfathomable wealth and riches.
If you start from an understanding Starmer is a bad actor, sent in to the party to ensure the status quo for the privileged few who exercise all the power in the UK, expectations for any govt led by him come into sharp relief.
The guardian’s columnists and some making comments btl, still harbour the fantasy that Starmer is the progressive Starmer of the leadership campaign; someone open minded to progressive reform, to PR and HoL democratisation, it’s utterly naive stuff.
goldbach
A continuation of stupid foreign policy?
You’d expect nothing less from Starmer.
All the US and UK are doing is forcing all these countries together and into deep cooperation agreements. Sanctions and the ultra obnoxious sovereignty infringing ‘secondary sanctions’ are clearly selectively and hypocritically applied. I read today, that after providing military support, Russia is providing Iran with advanced cyber-weapons as they build up their capabilities, with warnings of new threats as a result.
Look at the population numbers of the BRICS plus so-called ‘Pariah states’ like North Korea and Iran vs ‘the West’, that’s what the fight over influence in Pakistan (231 million population) and Turkey (84 million) is doubtless about, as the west interferes in their politics.
The West can keep making sworn enemies, the cheerleaders for this approach are the cheerleaders for a war that will end the world. People like that prat Paul Mason and his mates at the FCO.
Pakistan and Turkiye – Quite right. – The crazy thing is that, even if Erdogan doesn’t win the presidency, the foreign policy of Turkiye would not change. The rapprochement with Syria would continue; the relationship with BRICS would be unaffected; the relationship with Russia would not be affected.
“The West” would benefit from a look at how China deals with diplomacy. China’s strategy is “if you don’t try to push us around, you are a friend”. The strategy of “The West” is “if you don’t do as we say, you are our enemy”. No surprise which most countries will go for.
1 of 2
In terms of what delivers and what does not – what works and what doesn’t – the situation is at the extreme end of dire.
The financialisation of the economy – and this applies not only to the UK but the entirety of the Western model – in pursuit of forever increasing never ending guaranteed, but unproductive, rental profits has plunged Western societies following this paradigm into a one way and unrecoverable suicide dive.
Productive, in terms of added value via the multiplier effect (results which are greater than the sum of the parts) manufacturing has all but disappeared in favour of the fiat money printing presses.
A process which has been taking place and gathering momentum for around the last half century and which contains its own negative feedback loop in which, along with manufacturing, the necessary organisational structures, processes and knowledge – as well as the experience and expertise – vital to turn things around have also vanished.
And the first structural problem is organisation: To paraphrase: its not just what you do its also the way you do it.
Starmer’s version of this failed model does not even attempt the necessary structural challenge to this paradigm and its operational dynamics which produces diminishing results which are less than the sum of the parts.
And it is clear, along with the rest of the political and media class – trapped as they are in their own artificial reality bubble – that he does not have a clue as to what is necessary.
The stark reality is that the paradigm on offer from all iterations of the Uni-party is built entirely on a dis-integrated basis in which the only link is a network of contracts and sub-contracts between multiple actors with no other organising principle operating. This is why everything is so expensive and does not work.
As explained in Janet and John terms here:
https://www.harrowell.org.uk/blog/2018/01/31/in-the-eternal-inferno-fiends-torment-ronald-coase-with-the-fate-of-his-ideas/
The one thing missing in that analysis is the long term impact that has had on removing what is arguably the most vital factor necessary for reversing this – experience and expertise. Because once its gone, its gone. You have to start again from scratch playing catch up with those whose elites and establishment have not been so stupid, arrogant and ignorant as to think there way is the only way. Because “we” are the West. The “garden”. The top of the hierarchy. Bigger, badder and better than anything else in history.
Which brings us to the other structural problem which Starmer’s so called ‘viable alternative” will not deal with because its not really an alternative. Just more of the same wine in the same bottle with a different label……
2 of 2
……Which is competency.
Having managed experience, expertise and organisational knowledge out of the system and making everyone in their own image managerialists – whatever political rosette they have pinned to their chest – not only don’t know what they are doing they have no one but yes men created in their own image to work with.
The purge of political party members who do know their arse from a hole in the ground from Party’s like the Labour Party, the SNP, the Lib-Dems and even the Greens mirrors the same process which has been taking place across every organisation and institution in the UK and the West for the past four decades or so.
Not just productive manufacturing but also in the NGO/Third sector, the former public sector, the private sector, the Civil Service, the media, Westminster, and local government.
This, to paraphrase Starmer, is TINA on steroids.
Here’s Alistair Crooke with an overview of just some the consequences of the multifaceted clusterfuck we are in:
https://strategic-culture.org/news/2023/05/15/big-gambles-heading-into-gusting-headwinds/
“In place of ‘Frictionless Ease’, we have economic de-coupling: sanctions, asset seizures, legal protection degradation, regulatory discrimination; Green Agenda and ESG discrimination; national security ‘ring fences’, and narratives that cast swathes of hitherto mundane economic activity into borderline ‘treachery’.
Simply put, there is {note: systemic] friction … everywhere……
….”Europe decided that it could ‘do’ without cheap energy and natural resources. It decided to bet big on new technology (technology that is yet to be evolved, or proven) arriving, and arriving in time, and at a cost that could sustain a competitive modern economy – in the absence of fossil fuel pump-priming for an infrastructure originally built that way.
There is no assurance at all that this tech prospect will materialise. It may, but it may not. And that is a huge gamble.”
A gamble increased as a result of a total lack of gorm across and throughout the entire systemic landscape these numpties have constructed. Insufficient, if any, experience, expertise,and knowledge, to deliver. Hence insufficient, if any, competency – never mind organisational efficacy – across the entire system
As a result we get plenty of aspirational platitudes – as goldbach observes above in stuff like the much heralded LP document, among other similar wish lists.
However, as long as the present failed paradigm continues to be sacrosanct its all just hot air with no substance and no possibility whatsoever of working because lack of efficacy is built in.
Continuing to operate to the present “fiscal” straightjacket will not build the houses, nor will it make the trains run on time, stop the piratised water companies pumping increasing levels of toxic shite into rivers and seas, decrease poverty levels and a thousand and one other items on the aspirational wish list.
Continuing the present foreign policies of attempting to maintain Western hegemony over the rest of the planet will merely exacerbate and accelerate the deterioration in energy security, supply chains, trade, food production and supply, energy and commodity inflation and so on which Crooke, in the above linked article, highlights.
At some point the penny will drop simply because it will become impossible to hide the realities – it always catches up as Kipling, for example, argued in “The Gods of the Copybook Headings”.
The problem then will be that, having managed all competency out of the system, we will be reliant of the goodwill of the rest of the planet. to pull us out of the shite. Which, thanks to the past and present record of our “betters” and their sycophantic cheerleaders, may not exist in any meaningful quantities.
Moy name is Rodney, and oi’m a Tory! 😔
Admitting he’s a Tory is probably the most honest thing he’s said in his lifetime……
Meanwhile back in the Caribbean the Chief Turd Polisher’s arm is dropping off.
He still has his supporters…many can’t accept he isn’t what they thought he was.
The Starmeroids were foolish enough to believe one lie, then make themselves part of another.
And they call their cowardice, loyalty.
Probably not due to polishing turds, though. 😙🎵