I’m disengaging this discussion with you now.
Keir Starmer Labour Leader
- Thread starter Damien
- Start date
I’m disengaging this discussion with you now.
A couple of examples for me of who qualifies as a murderer in this sense are, Tony Blair, the CCP, the Tories, Netanyahu and Bush (not an exhaustive list) because they knew their policies would lead to the deaths of thousands.
Cool, have a good one.
I think the real reason for any - in labour voting is that the tories were all over the tv for the last year chucking out their pandemic response and how fantastic they are, and people vote for who they know about.
See wales, labour did great because the same kind of reasons (Pandemic response)
See wales, labour did great because the same kind of reasons (Pandemic response)
has this buffoon resigned yet?
Which is exactly why the left have been calling for Starmer to offer an alternative. The electorate know absolutely nothing about him or what his party stands for.
Some of rhetoric in this thread reminded me of a reference to a private eye cartoon today with Labour asking the voters "Why won't you racist facists vote Labour?".
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He did, it's just no one remembers because the Tories fecked it so bad over winter.
10 years time:
"Well the left did absolutely nothing to stop the rise in fascism in this country, how can I vote for them now?"
"Well the left did absolutely nothing to stop the rise in fascism in this country, how can I vote for them now?"
What was his alternative? I may have seen it but either forgotten or don't see it as going far enough.
reminds me of stewart lee’s “if you say you're English, you get arrested and thrown in jail.”
Oh I see - got you.
Whilst I completely agree with you in complicity, those actions tend to go beyond that of a single government, and are tied into agreements and trade deals that include international businesses and alliances, and whose moving away from would have big implications further down the line on British business/jobs, often impacting unforeseen industries and sectors. Basically, it's very difficult to identify the lines in the first place, let alone draw them.
That's more to do with arms deals and the likes, austerity was a shiteshow once we went down that path, and one that looks inevitable no matter what happens next in terms of who is elected. Take independence in Scotland for instance. Even if it happens - and despite all the good will in the world - austerity is an inevitable immediate fallout and likely to be more impactful to day-to-day lives and businesses than anything Scottish society will face as part of the Union.
For the record, I don't make these arguments willingly, or with the intention of deflecting criticisms, more to make the point that the situations you're right to criticise our current government for are now very difficult to avoid for any future governing party.
Are there not far more productive ways of employing people than in bomb factories though? So what if we piss off the Saudis, let them find their weapons of mass extinction elsewhere. Corbyn spoke about creating hundreds of thousands of jobs (dwarves the employment figures in the arms manufacturing industry) with a green industrial revolution for example.
Austerity is a political decision, one that is designed to funnel money from our pockets and the government coffers upwards. If I was going to try and rejuvenate an economy, my first action wouldn't be to whip out all the money because that's clearly ludicrous. The economy needs stimulating so the money can begin to flow again, you don't do that by reducing the money available to consumers.
This court case?
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/jeremy-corbyn-set-face-libel-23948113
Suspect he will try to settle out of court as the legal fees will be crazy
Tony Blair responsible for deaths of thousands...?
Yes, GW2 was somewhat controversial. But the real question was - was it better to leave Saddam alive to continue what he was doing or not. In my view, definitely not.
What is definitely not controversial is that Saddam and his henchmen were responsible for the deaths of many many thousands and counting.
Firstly, he did it based on a lie.
Secondly, are you saying the answer to a despotic leader is to completely flatten the country, destroy all infrastructure and kill thousands of civilians in the process?
What do you mean by the electorate? Most labour party members don't know what he stands for.
Including myself. Good point.
Edit: just to be clear I'm not a Labour party member, I just don't know what he stands for either.
Absolutely. Ask the Iraqis if they prefer to the country they have now or before. Saddam was a brutal dictator. But it was a functioning country with good education and good infrastructure. There was religious freedom and so long as you don't get involved in politics, the ordinary people were leading a decent life.
What do they have now? Nothing. A country destroyed, Iranian and American influence tore the country apart after getting destroyed by the Americans and the British.
As an outsider looking in it looks like a cultural problem rather than leadership. England is a conservative country right now simple as. Doesn't matter if Labour goes more right or more left, Tories will win regardless. Starmer is horrible but I dont see anyone who can challenge Tories.
England has always been conservative bar a few hubs. Even in the traditional Labour and Tory strongholds, the differences lay in economic policies regarding public spending, they were on shared grounds when it came to social issues.
Arguably, this is where the Tories are now picking up their votes in traditional red-wall areas. They understand the impact the social argument has, whilst labour can't find a stance to speak to their various sections of support.
The Blair Government were also warned that invading Iraq would lead to a whole new generation of Islamic extremists, but decided to do it anyway.
They do have a democratic government that is representative of the demographics of the country, as opposed to the previous totalitarian dictatorship. Long term, Iraq is going to wind up in a very strong position in the region - not just because of its natural resources, but also because its in a unique position to act as an interlocutor between the Saudis and Iranians.
The issue is it really isn't a conservative country but the way our politics works means that they've got a lock in. It takes the Tories to have a really bad couple of years for the Labour party to get in and that's not a new thing.
The only thing that will get Labour the nedded votes is crazy high engagement in every age group under 50. Starmers approach won't do that, so we need a change in leader or hope for massive scandal.
Reading back the last couple of pages people need to stop being so precious when moral judgements are made against your politics. Politics is moralistic, it's not just your opinion it's a clear reflection of your choices. It's very clear why people hate that being pointed out.
We are going off topic. This thread is about Starmer.
However, GW2 involved a very large coalition of forces led by the USA. The UK was only part of that coalition.
I think we do know what he stands for now. It's a slight tug to the left, a few low-hanging fruits, perhaps. Just as long as he can keep the daily mail and telegraph happy that there's not going to any actual change.
In September Labour would have followed the science/advice by SAGE for circuit breaker lockdown to prevent the winter getting so out of hand.
It is off topic but in fairness, you were the one that posted a long defense of Blair.
This was a conscious choice. I heard so many shadow cabinet members state that opinion polls indicated that the public did not want the opposition to be opportunistic and criticise the Government in a time of crisis. So Labour held off and chose to wait until after the pandemic to set out an alternative. And this is the result.
Ok. Peace.
But as a life long Labour supporter, I prefer to acknowledge his success of winning 3 straight elections and their achievements in power. I wonder how long it will be before that is repeated.
Fair enough. He still could have done an awful lot more. I think his biggest mistake was not backing the initial lockdown quickly enough and not backing the teachers unions. Just in terms of the easy obvious things to do.
I saw an excellent post on Reddit earlier where they spoke about the initial lockdown and the reduction in pollution being a good place to delve further into environmental policy. They spoke about how 'broadband-communism' had to be brought in and how he could drive home the point that this is necessary in general and not just because of a pandemic. There a number of other good points brought up in that post as well but I think last year was a brilliant time to seize the narrative and show people what the Labour movement is all about. Instead we get this boring Tony Blair tribute act.
The bizarre thing is that the Tory government inept and shambollic handling of the lockdowns and many thousands of excess deaths seems to have been erased from people's minds.
Whilst the general headline notion was there, it was practically a pointless policy which was nothing more than window dressing that got torn apart as soon as it was announced. Nationalising Openreach, and guaranteeing full fibre broadband by 2030 on paper looked to be a poor use of money, when the technology of 5G will make fixed line broadband redundant by 2030.
If the vaccine roll out had gone badly or the elections been 6 months ago we might have seen a very different outcome
For me, getting into power is only a part of the job. Obviously New Labour did have a number of successes, such as improving infrastructure, introducing the minimum wage and not being the actual Tories. If I could choose between the Blair years and the Johnson years, I have no doubt I'd pick the Blair years but that doesn't mean I want them now. We're stuck in a neoliberal thatcherite loop since the 80s and I'm sick of it.
I'm hoping we can move on from Keir, who is at best way in over his head and at worst is some kind of Tory asset, and hopefully move to more all encompassing leftist movement under someone like Clive Lewis or Andy Burnham, as I mentioned earlier, who I feel are soft left and inclusionary enough to assemble a left wing coalition within Labour. I understand that it's been a tough 11 years under the Tories but winning at all costs is not worth neoliberalism for another 40 years.
It did seem like an after thought in the manifesto but the idea and the reasoning was solid. I mean there's no need for service providers when there's national infrastructure that can be nationalised, same as trains, buses, electricity and water. These are things people need so should be provided be the state.
Yes of course. As I have mentioned a few times, the Tory successes in these elections has a huge degree of timing.
That is not to say that Labour got it right.
And I just listening to Andy Burnham quite rightly saying that the Labour party has lost its emotional bond with it voters.
'Labour, a party not for the over 50s'.
Don't know if that's a slogan or a mission statement, should be very successful on the side of a bus though, the voters will flock to it I'm sure.
Don't disagree with that. But to be able to do those things, you first have to win the election.
The 2017 & 2019 Labour manifesto's was soundly rejected. That is a fact. And so you first have to appeal to the majority with a set of policies which they are going to get behind.
So. Do you go even further to the left.
Or do you move toward the middle ground.
Whichever, Labour now has a real opportunity to reconnect with not just traditional Labour voters, important as that is.
But it also has to appeal to the new voters who are becoming entitled to vote.
That is the challenge. And that is the opportunity.