This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[CumbrianLefty]

Not totally wrong about Cooper though, are they.

Have always found the online centrist/media cult around her totally baffling.

Stolen the point from Stephen Bush but he made the good point that her appointment was basically fodder to the lobby & parts of the Labour Movement (the Brownite tendency I guess?) who kept briefing she needed to return- it was Starmer basically trading the chance for an alternative* Home Sec in exchange for an easy life.

There were early signs of annoyance around January I think and in a lot of the small boats debates it does seem the Labour Home Affairs response is to sigh and say 'get a grip' rather than offer some sort of alternative. I have always thought Yvette is much better at the tactics rather than strategy of it all (hence the belief that a withering put down of Braverman in Home Office Qs would win an election) & again as SB has said her previous tenure in 10-15 wasn't exactly a huge success.

Although tbh if the briefings are true it appears that people in LOTO somehow think that Yvette is too soft and 'playing to the members' so god knows who they're going to get as Shadow Home Sec.



*He could have gone with someone like Thornberry who is an extremely adept media performer & press operator (her chief adviser is Damian McBride), Lou Haigh or even David Lammy- this row seems to have been made by the fact that Steve Reed who is Shadow Justice isn't actually a lawyer and so will tend to view the brief in a different way to how someone with that background would.

I'm a broken record but Thornberry at Justice would be a way of squaring this circle.

The way that the aforementioned online cult bigged up her often totally obvious ripostes when she was on the Home Affairs Committee as if she had rewritten the Gettysburg Address

And I note that her husband was bigging up Rishi the other day, up to no good for sure.

[Blair]

Yeah there certainly is that feeling that if the poll lead falls below 10% and the locals aren't the landslide that people expected that a lot of the old issues (see boredom & bitchiness) will come back to the front.

It still seems remarkable that we probably went what 6-7 months without any sort of negative weekend briefing.

[Blair]

Wasn't it also fairly common knowledge that a lot of the sh**t being kicked up against Ed M in 2014-15 was from the two honourable members mentioned above?

I remember recalling that the 2014 coup against him after conference basically failed because both Andy & Yvette wanted it and couldn't make a deal?

[CumbrianLefty]

Wasn't it also fairly common knowledge that a lot of the sh**t being kicked up against Ed M in 2014-15 was from the two honourable members mentioned above?

I remember recalling that the 2014 coup against him after conference basically failed because both Andy & Yvette wanted it and couldn't make a deal?

I thought the "plan" then was to draft in Alan Johnson as a stopgap, and hope his "popularity" might win Labour a GE after all?

This was before he showed what a terrible campaigner he really was, of course (though that utterly wretched 2016 Labour Brexit "effort" didn't come out of nowhere at all - his losing the 2007 deputy election after starting as strong favourite should have been a pretty big red flag)

[Blair]

Wasn't it also fairly common knowledge that a lot of the sh**t being kicked up against Ed M in 2014-15 was from the two honourable members mentioned above?

I remember recalling that the 2014 coup against him after conference basically failed because both Andy & Yvette wanted it and couldn't make a deal?

I thought the "plan" then was to draft in Alan Johnson as a stopgap, and hope his "popularity" might win Labour a GE after all?

This was before he showed what a terrible campaigner he really was, of course (though that utterly wretched 2016 Labour Brexit "effort" didn't come out of nowhere at all - his losing the 2007 deputy election after starting as strong favourite should have been a pretty big red flag)

I thought that was the actual Blairites plan (iirc Peter Mandelson was rumoured to be involved) and basically didn’t lead to anything because he didn’t want it and Yvette was happy to wait rather than risk backing someone else’s coup.

But yeah it was always clear he never had the drive to do it- the leadership could have easily been his in 2010 if he made an effort and I think I heard that in 2014 it would have been relatively effortless (but ofc these are the people who failed to unset Brown about 15 times and then Corbyn so who knows?)

The 2007 deputy race was very funny as it was always in my view the time when half the low our party realised that Harriet Harman was actually a very good organiser!

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The thing with Alan Johnson is that random ordinary people really do quite like him and so other people in politics noticed and thought 'we have a star here!', but, alas, he is genuinely personally unambitious, which places a pretty hard cap on quite a few things. So people sometimes nudged him into running for this or that and he's an affable chap with a certain sense of public duty, and thus generally said yes... but then didn't really put much effort in afterwards as he lacked the person (egotistical?) drive necessary. An Alan Johnson with normal levels of ambition and self-importance for a politician would have been an absolute political titan, but that Alan Johnson does not exist and never could have.

[Blair]

The thing with Alan Johnson is that random ordinary people really do quite like him and so other people in politics noticed and thought 'we have a star here!', but, alas, he is genuinely personally unambitious, which places a pretty hard cap on quite a few things. So people sometimes nudged him into running for this or that and he's an affable chap with a certain sense of public duty, and thus generally said yes... but then didn't really put much effort in afterwards as he lacked the person (egotistical?) drive necessary. An Alan Johnson with normal levels of ambition and self-importance for a politician would have been an absolute political titan, but that Alan Johnson does not exist and never could have.

A sign of this was the fact that irrc he only got his seat in ‘97 at the last minute- I can’t recall the circumstances but he wasn’t someone who was seat shopping in ‘87 and ‘92 like most of his cohort were.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

A sign of this was the fact that irrc he only got his seat in ‘97 at the last minute- I can’t recall the circumstances but he wasn’t someone who was seat shopping in ‘87 and ‘92 like most of his cohort were.

Yes. Stuart Randall retired at the very last minute (contrary to what has sometimes been claimed this was a genuine surprise to everyone: Randall had a bad relationship with certain figures in the CLP and decided to fuck them over by making sure they couldn't pick his successor), and Johnson agreed to be subbed in on an 'oh alright' basis.

[CumbrianLefty]

Interesting if true, at the time it was almost universally assumed this was what we now refer to as a "parachute" (had that phrase at least originated by then, even if not so widely used?)

[Blair]

Very very funny to see a certain backbencher complain publicly that her newly elected colleagues are getting appointed to the front bench ahead of her.

If you slag off the leader and the party to the Express do you really expect to get a job?

[CumbrianLefty]

This isn't R*s*e *u*f*e*d, is it?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Yep

[🦀🎂🦀🎂]

Talking of people who have been radicalized recently, Diane Abbott has sent, um, quite the letter to the Guardian where she says Jews and Travellers are not victims of racism, and compares discrimination against them to anti redhead bullying.

[Coldstream]

Talking of people who have been radicalized recently, Diane Abbott has sent, um, quite the letter to the Guardian where she says Jews and Travellers are not victims of racism, and compares discrimination against them to anti redhead bullying.

She’s quite clearly yearns for the same martyrdom that Corbyn got of having Evans expel her. At this point she should get it, this should be her final act as a Labour MP.

[Blair]

She's released an apology that errrr leaves more questions.

[Torrain]

Whip has been suspended.

Wonder whether she get it quietly back in a few months, like Rupa Huq, or if this ends up being more… final.

[Blair]

Whip has been suspended.

Wonder whether she get it quietly back in a few months, like Rupa Huq, or if this ends up being more… final.

That's actually quite interesting as I assumed her apology had come after a phone call... but equally a chance they expected it to be more contrite. 

Not a huge surprise.

[Blair]

Also to be blunt a lot of people (to sounds like Trump!) where questioning some of her tweets over the recent weeks and months; it is a genuine shame that she didn't say, stand down in 2015, as she would have had a very different political obit to her current one.

[Torrain]

it is a genuine shame that she didn't say, stand down in 2015, as she would have had a very different political obit to her current one.

Isn’t there a risk that, if she’d stood down then, Corbyn would have nominated her for the Lords as LOTO, and we’d still end up with these scandal, albeit with a little less media attention?

[Silent Hunter]

The fact is she put that in a draft...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Quite an old-fashioned 'veteran MP says something offensively stupid; gets in trouble' sort of story really: an actual letter sent in to a newspaper rather than something idiotic on social media. Other than that there's really not much to say as the published letter is so obviously offensive that there's nothing to debate or discuss.

[Upper Canada Tory]

Diane Abbott is a self-important, self-centred, narrow-minded, self-styled 'progressive' who thinks that the world revolves around her and that the only valid experience that exists is her own. The Labour Party would probably be much better off without her.

[TheTide]

As far as I can tell, Diane Abbott has been suspended for being Diane Abbott. Or for being a bit more Diane Abbott than usual. Keir Starmer is a white man who loves playing divide and rule, as she may say.

[CumbrianLefty]

The most noteworthy thing is surely how few of the left have spoken out in her defence.

(basically, its just the crankiest of the cranks)

[Coldstream]

The most noteworthy thing is surely how few of the left have spoken out in her defence.

(basically, its just the crankiest of the cranks)

I think if she hadn’t mentioned Irish & Travellers she’d have got more support from them. Although I like to think anyone actually on the left would recognise the basic lack of empathy as wrong.