Current Affairs The Labour Party

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Starmer - criticises lack of clarity in Johnson's BS statement, but never states that (as per the devolved assemblies) the Stay at Home message is what the LP are backing.

That is incredibly pathetic.
 
davek said:
Starmer - criticises lack of clarity in Johnson's BS statement, but never states that (as per the devolved assemblies) the Stay at Home message is what the LP are backing.

That is incredibly pathetic.
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That SIR Starmer to you!
 
That response from Starmer today was truly awful.

"I dont deny that there is conditionality about these plans".

FFS.

Never mind your barrister bollocks, start a revolt against this 'kin lunatic.
 
davek said:
That response from Starmer today was truly awful.

"I dont deny that there is conditionality about these plans".

FFS.

Never mind your barrister bollocks, start a revolt against this 'kin lunatic.
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It's not going to happen Dave. Starmer is triangulating and getting a fair bit of joy from it (more than I imagined he would). In his own terms his plan is working. He is making an appeal to British business, the civil service and the British state (the ruling class) that he can run things more competently than Johnson. If your view of politics is about winning and losing elections it makes sense and will be a powerful pitch.

I haven't been to the bookmakers, but I would put a bit of money on Labour in government this year. You would probably get crazy odds (like 200-1) but I could easily see this all spiralling quite quickly. The Tories seem to think they have won because they are unbeatable, and actually the chaos they're presided over wasn't chaos, it was actually brilliant governance and it's only because of left wing conspiracies any criticism is allowed. What they don't grasp is that they only won because the ruling class couldn't stomach sticking a socialist in who played a bad hand terribly, and they really were the least worst option. Without that slavish bias (that to me was almost outside of the boundaries of acceptability in elections) they don't get anywhere near winning.

It's fine putting on a particular face, but privately you have to acknowledge you have to change. That message hasn't sunk in yet.

However Starmer's Labour are a different kettle of fish. If they don't start governing competently, essentially giving the Europeans what they want to resolve Brexit very quickly the ruling class will send them out. Brexit is the next pressure point in this, and Johnson will not get away with a repeat of last years antics.
 
catcherintherye said:
It's not going to happen Dave. Starmer is triangulating and getting a fair bit of joy from it (more than I imagined he would). In his own terms his plan is working. He is making an appeal to British business, the civil service and the British state (the ruling class) that he can run things more competently than Johnson. If your view of politics is about winning and losing elections it makes sense and will be a powerful pitch.

I haven't been to the bookmakers, but I would put a bit of money on Labour in government this year. You would probably get crazy odds (like 200-1) but I could easily see this all spiralling quite quickly. The Tories seem to think they have won because they are unbeatable, and actually the chaos they're presided over wasn't chaos, it was actually brilliant governance and it's only because of left wing conspiracies any criticism is allowed. What they don't grasp is that they only won because the ruling class couldn't stomach sticking a socialist in who played a bad hand terribly, and they really were the least worst option. Without that slavish bias (that to me was almost outside of the boundaries of acceptability in elections) they don't get anywhere near winning.

It's fine putting on a particular face, but privately you have to acknowledge you have to change. That message hasn't sunk in yet.

However Starmer's Labour are a different kettle of fish. If they don't start governing competently, essentially giving the Europeans what they want to resolve Brexit very quickly the ruling class will send them out. Brexit is the next pressure point in this, and Johnson will not get away with a repeat of last years antics.
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I care little about Starmer and his triangulating; I care that the LP aren't walking hand in hand with these murderers and pushing tens of thousands of people over a cliff.

WTF use is having power if you;ve got it by being an effective accomplice to mass murder...which is what's going on? The LP is now in the position of seeing millions of workers forced back into infected workplaces and paying the ultimate price for that. It's time to stand up and lead a fightback against the butcher government's death cult policies.

Standing back is no longer an option, even if it does curry favour with the elite Starmer seeks to reassure.
 
davek said:
I care little about Starmer and his triangulating; I care that the LP aren't walking hand in hand with these murderers and pushing tens of thousands of people over a cliff.

WTF use is having power if you;ve got it by being an effective accomplice to mass murder...which is what's going on? The LP is now in the position of seeing millions of workers forced back into infected workplaces and paying the ultimate price for that. It's time to stand up and lead a fightback against the butcher government's death cult policies.

Standing back is no longer an option, even if it does curry favour with the elite Starmer seeks to reassure.
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I understand where you are coming from Dave, but that won't be Starmer's perspective. I've always subscribed to Lenin's view of the Labour party, as a "capitalist workers party". It has competing interests, rank and file working class support from below but ultimately an inherent desire to maintain capitalism from above. Starmer is very much in the latter's tradition. There is also a very deep electoralism within Labour (it's the only Socially democratic party in Europe not formed as a break off from a revolutionary party, but as a reformist organisation from the start) and there is a deep desire to measure everything in terms of electoral success. Starmer will see this is the best path to victory.

I think people are going to have to start getting their heads around the idea that we are going to have to start making demands independent of Labour, and also to a degree in opposition to Labour. In the short term electoralism will be fine, but medium term fascists will start organising encroaching into working class communities and making the exact arguments you are, if the left is unable to do so.

However, at this point, any expectation Starmer does this is foolhardy. He knows the British state will not want a bloodbath of an enquiry, and will not want everything laid bare and will be looking to see Starmer can be trusted to downplay this enough to be trusted. That is who he is seeking to appease. The guy isn't bothered about people dying massively, he wants to prove to business and the state he's trustworthy and can do what the Tories presumably can't.
 
catcherintherye said:
I understand where you are coming from Dave, but that won't be Starmer's perspective. I've always subscribed to Lenin's view of the Labour party, as a "capitalist workers party". It has competing interests, rank and file working class support from below but ultimately an inherent desire to maintain capitalism from above. Starmer is very much in the latter's tradition. There is also a very deep electoralism within Labour (it's the only Socially democratic party in Europe not formed as a break off from a revolutionary party, but as a reformist organisation from the start) and there is a deep desire to measure everything in terms of electoral success. Starmer will see this is the best path to victory.

I think people are going to have to start getting their heads around the idea that we are going to have to start making demands independent of Labour, and also to a degree in opposition to Labour. In the short term electoralism will be fine, but medium term fascists will start organising encroaching into working class communities and making the exact arguments you are, if the left is unable to do so.

However, at this point, any expectation Starmer does this is foolhardy. He knows the British state will not want a bloodbath of an enquiry, and will not want everything laid bare and will be looking to see Starmer can be trusted to downplay this enough to be trusted. That is who he is seeking to appease. The guy isn't bothered about people dying massively, he wants to prove to business and the state he's trustworthy and can do what the Tories presumably can't.
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I know mate, I know the limitations of the LP. However, just as they opposed appeasement in the 30s and forced the Tories down the route of opposing and mobilising against fascism, I expect the LP to step up and offer resistance to that same Tory Party intent on allowing the infection of the population.
 
davek said:
I know mate, I know the limitations of the LP. However, just as they opposed appeasement in the 30s and forced the Tories down the route of opposing and mobilising against fascism, I expect the LP to step up and offer resistance to that same Tory Party intent on allowing the infection of the population.
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I used to know what my Labour party stood for...me, the worker in the factory, though looking back, did I only 'know' what they though I wanted to know and think *shrugs
Todays Labour has to decide what (and who) it stands for.
When it does, if it ever does, they have to tell me so I know and can let them rejoin me.
 
davek said:
I know mate, I know the limitations of the LP. However, just as they opposed appeasement in the 30s and forced the Tories down the route of opposing and mobilising against fascism, I expect the LP to step up and offer resistance to that same Tory Party intent on allowing the infection of the population.
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A lot of that was as a consequence of a push from below though. Thats the challenge for the left though, to rebuild those structures from below.
 
Labour could and should be going for the Jugular here but they seem to be being as inept and spineless as the Tory government.
 
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