New Labour Leader

[littleyellowbirdie 2,550]

9 minutes ago, TheGunnShow said:

He's not wrong either. Any time you hear the "too big to fail" argument is generally its most obvious manifestation.

Exactly; it's an argument for subsidies with no strings attached and no return for the tax-payer.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

4 hours ago, littleyellowbirdie said:

A friend of mine insists America has socialism, but only for the very rich!

Its called Momentum in the UK.

[KiwiScot 1,443]

If I was Sir Kier I'd probably not want any by-elections especially this one likely coming in the near future. You would like to think they'd win any vote right now however this one will be In Scotland vs The scandal hit SNP. Who are the daddy here you know. It still has a few hurdles before we get one, but Labour could face defeat giving a boost to the SNP and furthermore if they won weaken chances of holding it in the GE.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-65671806

Edited May 22, 2023 by KiwiScot

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

36 minutes ago, KiwiScot said:

If I was Sir Kier I'd probably not want any by-elections especially this one likely coming in the near future. You would like to think they'd win any vote right now however this one will be In Scotland vs The scandal hit SNP. Who are the daddy here you know. It still has a few hurdles before we get one, but Labour could face defeat giving a boost to the SNP and furthermore if they won weaken chances of holding it in the GE.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-65671806

We know what the SNP policies are. What are Labours?

[KiwiScot 1,443]

11 hours ago, keelansgrandad said:

We know what the SNP policies are. What are Labours?

Another reason a by-election against the SNP is not needed. A need to produce policies earlier than the main show.

[canarydan23 4,060]

12 hours ago, KiwiScot said:

If I was Sir Kier I'd probably not want any by-elections especially this one likely coming in the near future. You would like to think they'd win any vote right now however this one will be In Scotland vs The scandal hit SNP. Who are the daddy here you know. It still has a few hurdles before we get one, but Labour could face defeat giving a boost to the SNP and furthermore if they won weaken chances of holding it in the GE.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-65671806

If they can't beat them in a byelection triggered by a suspension of a sitting SNP, during a time where the party is in crisis, then they've no hope of making gains from them in a general election.

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

3 hours ago, canarydan23 said:

If they can't beat them in a byelection triggered by a suspension of a sitting SNP, during a time where the party is in crisis, then they've no hope of making gains from them in a general election.

They might well do if they told us something. All I keep hearing is that they won't give figures because the Tories might make it worse by the next GE and their figures wouldn't be right.

[Hook's-Walk-Canary 213]

On Saturday morning Jonathan Ashworth MP, Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, claimed that more than half a trillion working days had been lost to sickness since the last GE -- HALF A TRILLION 🙃...

If Labour win the next GE he will be responsible for a £250 billion spending budget.

Ffs.

[Herman 9,767]

Liking this.👍

 

[dylanisabaddog 4,924]

7 hours ago, Herman said:

Liking this.👍

 

It's annoying that Blair didn't do it. 

I delivered leaflets in my village recently. We have one main road of social housing with around 30 houses. The gardens are absolutely enormous front and back. If they were all knocked down it would be possible to build 200 new houses on the same area. Unfortunately, half of them are now in private ownership so it's not possible. 

[MooreMarriot 310]

8 hours ago, Hook's-Walk-Canary said:

On Saturday morning Jonathan Ashworth MP, Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, claimed that more than half a trillion working days had been lost to sickness since the last GE -- HALF A TRILLION 🙃...

If Labour win the next GE he will be responsible for a £250 billion spending budget.

Ffs.

Priti Patel claimed in a government covid briefing that 300,034 974,000 covid tests  had been  carried out. People make mistakes you know.

https://metro.co.uk/video/priti-patel-300-034-974-000-tests-carried-out-2149924/

 

[Herman 9,767]

3 minutes ago, dylanisabaddog said:

It's annoying that Blair didn't do it. 

I delivered leaflets in my village recently. We have one main road of social housing with around 30 houses. The gardens are absolutely enormous front and back. If they were all knocked down it would be possible to build 200 new houses on the same area. Unfortunately, half of them are now in private ownership so it's not possible. 

Hopefully this kick starts a serious debate about house building. Currently it is in the hands of, and only benefits, a small group of people, landowners, building companies and developers, whose main focus is to make as much money as possible. This is fine for them but not for the vast majority. Another poor legacy of Thatcher and privatisation to add to the list.

[KiwiScot 1,443]

Unknown Labour MP getting accussations of sexual assault against 5 women.

Edit - Geraint Davies based on an article by Politico.

Edited June 1, 2023 by KiwiScot

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

Abuse of power and privilege. Kick him out. If guilty of course.

[Herman 9,767]

41 minutes ago, keelansgrandad said:

Abuse of power and privilege. Kick him out. If guilty of course.

Yep, suspension while a full investigation is under done. 

[PurpleCanary 5,562]

Two things keep being said about Starmer, including by those sympathetic to Labour. That he has few policies and the ones he has are not much different to those of the Tories. There is a long piece in the FT today (I would be drummed out of the Bilderberg Group if I posted it here...) which refutes both those claims.

"A blizzard of other policies [as well as the massive green-energy plan] are now being rolled out, as Starmer scents power: an overhaul of Britain’s stifling planning rules; a rewrite of swaths of employment law; some targeted higher taxes on the wealthy; and constitutional reforms including scrapping the House of Lords."

 

[canarydan23 4,060]

8 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

Two things keep being said about Starmer, including by those sympathetic to Labour. That he has few policies and the ones he has are not much different to those of the Tories. There is a long piece in the FT today (I would be drummed out of the Bilderberg Group if I posted it here...) which refutes both those claims.

"A blizzard of other policies [as well as the massive green-energy plan] are now being rolled out, as Starmer scents power: an overhaul of Britain’s stifling planning rules; a rewrite of swaths of employment law; some targeted higher taxes on the wealthy; and constitutional reforms including scrapping the House of Lords."

 

Not much of a fan of democratic procedures or pluralism, if his Stalinesque involvement in ensuring selection processes only provide winners who are loyal to him. The trouble is, the people loyal to him tend to be of the vapid variety who bore the **** off the electorate and are frightened of anything even slightly radical.

[PurpleCanary 5,562]

1 minute ago, canarydan23 said:

Not much of a fan of democratic procedures or pluralism, if his Stalinesque involvement in ensuring selection processes only provide winners who are loyal to him. The trouble is, the people loyal to him tend to be of the vapid variety who bore the **** off the electorate and are frightened of anything even slightly radical.

It is true Starmer has been pretty ruthless about purgeing Corbynistas, but this is realpolitik. There has been 13 years of increasingly incompetent Tory rule, with four increasingly absurd and incompetent PMs. The absolute necessity of ending that trumps delicate considerations.

Not much more than a year ago psephologists were saying it would be quite  impossible for Labour to win a majority at the next election, given the swing they would need. Now the only question they are debating is whether Labour will win outright or at worst have to enter a coalition with the LibDems.

As to the lack of radical policies, no, not so. His policies if enacted would mark a significant change from the last 13 years and even from the Blair/Brown years.

[Barbe bleu 826]

On 01/06/2023 at 10:45, Herman said:

Yep, suspension while a full investigation is under done. 

Yes, it does seem that an under-done investigation is par for the course in these things...

[Barbe bleu 826]

51 minutes ago, PurpleCanary said:

Two things keep being said about Starmer, including by those sympathetic to Labour. That he has few policies and the ones he has are not much different to those of the Tories. There is a long piece in the FT today (I would be drummed out of the Bilderberg Group if I posted it here...) which refutes both those claims.

"A blizzard of other policies [as well as the massive green-energy plan] are now being rolled out, as Starmer scents power: an overhaul of Britain’s stifling planning rules; a rewrite of swaths of employment law; some targeted higher taxes on the wealthy; and constitutional reforms including scrapping the House of Lords."

 

For those who don't want to pay £55 a month to be drummed into the bilderberg group 

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/labour-policy-pledges-cost-rise-income-tax-2377898

Certainly the suggestion is that spending plans, if fully realised, will be surprisingly radical and as you say there are the other reforms.

Starmer is man quite able to go unnoticed, which is probably a strength in tht he appears to be able to promise quite a bit without anyone who isn't invested in the proposed change really noticing.   

I've said it before here but we could actually be in for an election based on policy.

[Herman 9,767]

Sue Gray. That is all. 🤣

[sonyc 5,519]

46 minutes ago, Barbe bleu said:

I've said it before here but we could actually be in for an election based on policy.

I'm fairly sure that is likely to be the case with Starmer. He is clearly a candidate (listening to him carefully) who has a grounded set of beliefs guiding him. He appears quite forensic in explaining society problems and the kind of responses needed. He is unlike Blair, who had a personality on show. Blair was more 'box office' to use that cliché. The problem is that we now increasingly live in a celebrity culture. People dislike technocrats and more boring older grey men. Burnham appears to be a kind of leader in waiting and has more force of personality.

Yet, like Purple, I'm far more sold on him being more radical than at first appears on the surface. He is a conviction politician (my belief). He knows that he simply mustn't frighten the horses.

[Nuff Said 5,141]

4 hours ago, PurpleCanary said:

It is true Starmer has been pretty ruthless about purgeing Corbynistas, but this is realpolitik. There has been 13 years of increasingly incompetent Tory rule, with four increasingly absurd and incompetent PMs. The absolute necessity of ending that trumps delicate considerations.

 

2 hours ago, sonyc said:

Yet, like Purple, I'm far more sold on him being more radical than at first appears on the surface. He is a conviction politician (my belief). He knows that he simply mustn't frighten the horses.

Winning the next election will demand a disciplined approach and that is what Starmer is implementing. The Labour Party cannot risk anyone being off-message and/or ill-disciplined as the opposition and especially the media will jump all over it. To argue that they should do anything else is to increase the risk of this shower of self-interested idiots getting back in and continuing on their apparent mission to drag this country into penury and oblivion. To complain that their manifesto isn’t left-wing enough is short sighted in the extreme. 50% of something is infinitely better than 100% of nothing.
 

The Labour Party are already canvassing in our local area for the election, whenever it comes and will have refined what is already an impressive database on who is a potential voter, so resources will be efficiently targeted the closer we get to the actual date of the vote. An approach which has just been proven by the recent borough council elections which we took back from the Tories after 20 years.
 

If they run the country with the same amount of careful and sensible planning, it bodes well.

Edited June 6, 2023 by Nuff Said

[nevermind, neoliberalism has had it 159]

On 29/05/2023 at 22:03, Herman said:

Liking this.👍

 

authorities to buy land cheaply for development whilst Herman and myself will have to pay not so cheaply for what we want to develop. Does this require knowledge of planning, the environment and services to these new developments, or are we talking about authorities using their limited expertise to just do a minimum without provision thereafter?

a big fat NO from me, because its favoring local apparatchiks with little knowledge, bar the many times they went wrong, so many times before. Incinerator, NCC lack of compliance with safety, the overspends in the hundreds of millions on their favorite contractors, their disregard for the environment and other species. CO2 increases, In Norfolk, a rural county. Then there is internal wastage, millions spend on a computer system that does not work, slows things down and already needs fixing, for some extra money.

They can't contemplate to build a tram service, because they don't know how and they don't want to know, as Norwich and suburbia has been developed to US blueprints, not to that of our European trading partners, with better expertise and know how. WHY, when we have had hundreds of years of experience with relying on the Dutch to organise our low lying marshes and regulate our dykes?

There is much more to be told about 'con in/sultants' and their political clout, but maybe our media can be bothered out of their slumber and ask some serious questions, ideally not with age old political commentators who had more dinners with politicians than they had nights of passion.

 

[KiwiScot 1,443]

On 22/05/2023 at 21:31, KiwiScot said:

If I was Sir Kier I'd probably not want any by-elections especially this one likely coming in the near future. You would like to think they'd win any vote right now however this one will be In Scotland vs The scandal hit SNP. Who are the daddy here you know. It still has a few hurdles before we get one, but Labour could face defeat giving a boost to the SNP and furthermore if they won weaken chances of holding it in the GE.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-65671806

Suspended. Over to the voters of Rutherglen and Hamilton West to trigger a recall and therefore a by-election

Edited June 6, 2023 by KiwiScot

[Hook's-Walk-Canary 213]

3 hours ago, Nuff Said said:

 To complain that their manifesto isn’t left-wing enough is short sighted in the extreme. 50% of something is infinitely better than 100% of nothing.

What manifesto would that be? Labour has already drawn up a shopping list of £20 billion in unfunded spending before they’ve even written one, ffs!

[Hook's-Walk-Canary 213]

5 hours ago, Herman said:

Sue Gray. That is all. 🤣

Lefties clear Lefty to work for Lefty shocker.. 🙃

Edited June 6, 2023 by Hook's-Walk-Canary

[canarydan23 4,060]

3 minutes ago, Hook's-Walk-Canary said:

Lefties clear Lefty to work for Lefty shocker.. 🙃

Someone spent time creating that.

And then someone actually shared it.

Humanity is doomed.

[Hook's-Walk-Canary 213]

8 minutes ago, canarydan23 said:

Humanity is doomed.

You're not wrong - Look at the following https://www.linkedin.com/posts/the-labour-party_internships-activity-7071465018059321344-rJum?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_android where Labour’s summer internship scheme is live, and they’re on the lookout for “applicants from ethnic minorities or lower socio-economic backgrounds“ -- To demonstrate the kind of fun in store for successful applicants, the job ad on LinkedIn features a picture of a dozen or so smiling faces stood outside an old, familiar-looking building:

 

Yes, that’s a picture of Tory interns stood outside 4 Matthew Parker Street, the home of… CCHQ 🤣

 

 

[Herman 9,767]

What's that affliction/term for really stupid people that don't realise that they're really stupid?