This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[Torrain]

Wonder whether a Starmer endorsement from Brown would/will be more or less advantageous…

I do think rehabilitating the Blair-Brown years should help the party, (if the Tories can use nostalgia, why not Labour too?) but agree that Blair is a double-edged sword as a messenger.

[Blair]

It’s quite funny that it’s shocking for a former leader to endorse a current one- it’s shocking because he’s so unpopular and equally it’s genuinely up in the air whether the former leader would be willing to say it.

This strange movement with its strange traditions as Barbara Castle said.

Wonder whether a Starmer endorsement from Brown would/will be more or less advantageous…

I do think rehabilitating the Blair-Brown years should help the party, (if the Tories can use nostalgia, why not Labour too?) but agree that Blair is a double-edged sword as a messenger.

Brown endorses him in the leadership race and it was a relatively big deal; the first time I believe he had put his finger on the scale so publicly. Brown did appoint him as DPP after all.

[JimJamUK]

It will do Labour good to remind people that Labour did good when last in power with concrete examples eg; minimum wage, investment in public services, gay rights etc. It certainly won't do them any good to associate themselves with Blair himself.

[CumbrianLefty]

Daily Heil are today continuing their obsessive jihad against Starmer and his supposed "Covid lies and hypocrisy". In aid of this they had a picture of him eating a curry with the clear implication this was taken when restrictions were in force. In actual fact, cropped out of the shot was a certain Mr Frank Dobson - who died in 2019. This has not stopped a certain Cabinet member tweeting it, though.

[JimJamUK]

Daily Heil are today continuing their obsessive jihad against Starmer and his supposed "Covid lies and hypocrisy". In aid of this they had a picture of him eating a curry with the clear implication this was taken when restrictions were in force. In actual fact, cropped out of the shot was a certain Mr Frank Dobson - who died in 2019. This has not stopped a certain Cabinet member tweeting it, though.

On a similar note, a Cabinet ministers claim of a Labour-Lib Dem local elections pact is given uncritical front page billing on the ToryTelegraph. Nothing to do with both parties having next to no support or members in the places they are not standing.

[YL]

Daily Heil are today continuing their obsessive jihad against Starmer and his supposed "Covid lies and hypocrisy". In aid of this they had a picture of him eating a curry with the clear implication this was taken when restrictions were in force. In actual fact, cropped out of the shot was a certain Mr Frank Dobson - who died in 2019. This has not stopped a certain Cabinet member tweeting it, though.

After reading this I had a guess which Cabinet minister might have done that, so I checked.  I was not surprised.

[afleitch]

The 'memba Blair?' messaging is clearly pointed towards a certain demographic; first time voters in 1997 are now 43. The biggest swing away from Labour in 2019 was the 45-60 age group; people who don't necessarily have the same visceral hatred of Blair that elder millennials do, many of whom filled their boots with the expansion of the welfare state (tax credits etc) when getting established or starting a family over twenty years ago. These people are also most likely to be squeezed by cost of living, NI hikes and everything else that has been done to fete retirees (which will create a demographic tipping point sooner than the Tories think) when they themselves are budgeting for their own retirement.

So it's a sensible strategy. I don't necessarily think policies tailored for them will benefit me (certainly not socially) but it makes sense for Labour to target that group and the potential overlap with voters both younger and older.

[Blair]

The 'memba Blair?' messaging is clearly pointed towards a certain demographic; first time voters in 1997 are now 43. The biggest swing away from Labour in 2019 was the 45-60 age group; people who don't necessarily have the same visceral hatred of Blair that elder millennials do, many of whom filled their boots with the expansion of the welfare state (tax credits etc) when getting established or starting a family over twenty years ago. These people are also most likely to be squeezed by cost of living, NI hikes and everything else that has been done to fete retirees (which will create a demographic tipping point sooner than the Tories think) when they themselves are budgeting for their own retirement.

So it's a sensible strategy. I don't necessarily think policies tailored for them will benefit me (certainly not socially) but it makes sense for Labour to target that group and the potential overlap with voters both younger and older.

Thinking out loud but I wonder if it’s also partly about reassuring people that Labour would actually deliver- in the video there was a lot about what Labour said it would do, what it did under New Labour and the results it had.

The big problem Labour faced in all elections bar 2017 was that very few people actually believed Labour would do what they promised, or voters expected the policies to not work in the way Labour claimed- see the mansion tax.

It’s a bit of a mouthful but a message of ‘remember we said we were going to build a new hospital here 20 years ago and we did, well now we’re going to….’’. Of course this needs Labour to learn how to talk about it’s Welsh Government and local councils!

[CumbrianLefty]

Yes, the video is clearly targeted at a certain group just as those Facebook ads bashing the LibDems. In many ways this is an ignoble business, but it one of the things that wins elections and the Tories have been much better at it than the other parties up to now.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I'm curious why former Tory PM's are so invisible compared to Blair and Brown. Cameron is praticaly a ghost and so is Theresa May despite her still being a MP.

[Oryxslayer]

I'm curious why former Tory PM's are so invisible compared to Blair and Brown. Cameron is praticaly a ghost and so is Theresa May despite her still being a MP.

Well that ones obvious -  both left in disgrace and there has yet to be a period of Labour rule to build nostalgia among targeted demographics. Maybe there is a bit of lost love for Cameron among the those leafy, remain'y, and wealthy areas (like Chelsea) but that is still too narrow of a constituency than "facebook olds" like Labour targeted with this.

[Blair]

Party culture is a huge reason. Blair and Brown had a project that essentially controlled the party and it’s wider organs for 20 years.

[CumbrianLefty]

Reeves apparently again showing this morning how difficult she can find interviews when they stray out of her economics "comfort zone" (which she is, undeniably, pretty accomplished at) Its something that those who tout her as a future actual party leader need to deal with.

[Blair]

Reports LOTO favours a community (the trade union) official as the Wakefield candidate.

A tell as old as time in THIGMOO.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Well this hasn’t been done before…. Last few lines are very telling.

https://mobile.twitter.com/UKLabour/status/1520659285163794432?ref_src=twsrc%5Eg...

Strange to someone living up here that the video didn't mention Scottish and Welsh devolution, one of New Labour's most important and popular achievements...

[CumbrianLefty]

Well this hasn’t been done before…. Last few lines are very telling.

https://mobile.twitter.com/UKLabour/status/1520659285163794432?ref_src=twsrc%5Eg...

Strange to someone living up here that the video didn't mention Scottish and Welsh devolution, one of New Labour's most important and popular achievements...

That's because Mr Tony was lukewarm at the time and verges on actually hostile these days.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Aaron Bastani has emerged with claims that the beer Starmer story goes far deeper and includes "‘Buffet’, ‘music, ‘11pm’  👀 "

https://twitter.com/AaronBastani/status/1522576349629661185

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Not sure that's how the law quite works.

[CityofSinners]

It's quite simple for me. If Starmer gets fined and it's not an egregious miscarriage of justice he has to resign.
Can't attack Johnson like that and then get fined. That is just asking to get punished the next election.

May not be fair, but Labour is there to win elections not protect their leader.

[Estrella]

It's quite simple for me. If Starmer gets fined and it's not an egregious miscarriage of justice he has to resign.
Can't attack Johnson like that and then get fined. That is just asking to get punished the next election.

May not be fair, but Labour is there to win elections not protect their leader.

Exactly. This was (or should have been) the case with Corbyn, and with Starmer it shouldn't be any different.

[CumbrianLefty]

Well it wasn't *quite* as simple as that with Corbyn, but still.

The thing about Starmer getting fined is that it would be pretty unambiguous, not a value judgement.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Another Leadership Election Cycle is the last thing the parties electability needs on the other hand.

[Blair]

Ironically in the event the leader resigns I believe the NEC choose the acting leader- even if there is a deputy.

Was a rule change from the Corbyn era in case Jeremy was required to resign suddenly.

[CumbrianLefty]

Another Leadership Election Cycle is the last thing the parties electability needs on the other hand.

No reason why that has to be the case, at all.

[Blair]

Yeah to widely go into hypotheticals it’s more likely than not that we’d see a coronation of some form- and the Tories are very much on record as saying they think Starmer is a dull charisma free non entity with a back catalogue they can exploit at an election.

This attack was clearly designed to muddy the waters before the locals and save the PM- so it would be the height of hilarity.

And worth noting that Labours three most successful leaders were all elected mid-way through the Parliamentary term- and in two cases after a previous leader had done a lot of hard work to reform the party.

A good pub quiz question; what do Gaitskell, Smith and Starmer have in common?