This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[Torrain]

Why don't the Tory staffers do those kind of gathering when they win elections though?

They do try. When Johnson resigned, he filled Downing Street with supporters, who clapped their way through his speech, and mobbed him on his way out.

Part of the problem is that no Tory PM has entered office on a wave of euphoria since Blair - so the moment risks looking rather manufactured - and they often want to project gravitas rather than jubilation as a result. Cameron came in after a week of coalition talks, amid an economic downturn. May arrived mid-Brexit panic, Johnson arrived in the middle of a government crisis, and so did Truss and Sunak.

Sunak is perhaps the clearest example. He went to Conservative Campaign HQ and was clapped by his MPs, but entered Downing Street alone, and in silence, to try and emphasise how he was the serious, level-headed guy who was here to fix the mess Truss left.

[afleitch]

Purely as a matter of record, a large part of those crowds were Labour party staffers and workers.

Many in 'various states' having done an all nighter at the Royal Festival Hall.

[Cassius]

Why don't the Tory staffers do those kind of gathering when they win elections though?

They do try. When Johnson resigned, he filled Downing Street with supporters, who clapped their way through his speech, and mobbed him on his way out.

Part of the problem is that no Tory PM has entered office on a wave of euphoria since Blair - so the moment risks looking rather manufactured - and they often want to project gravitas rather than jubilation as a result. Cameron came in after a week of coalition talks, amid an economic downturn. May arrived mid-Brexit panic, Johnson arrived in the middle of a government crisis, and so did Truss and Sunak.

Sunak is perhaps the clearest example. He went to Conservative Campaign HQ and was clapped by his MPs, but entered Downing Street alone, and in silence, to try and emphasise how he was the serious, level-headed guy who was here to fix the mess Truss left.

Thatcher seems to have had reasonably big crowds outside Central Office for her re-elections too.

[TheTide]

A trio of Corbynistas - Anas Sarwar, Andy Burnham and Sadiq Khan - have called for a ceasefire.

[afleitch]

A trio of Corbynistas - Anas Sarwar, Andy Burnham and Sadiq Khan - have called for a ceasefire.

You know it's serious when Anas Sarwar expresses independent thought.

[Coldstream]

A trio of Corbynistas - Anas Sarwar, Andy Burnham and Sadiq Khan - have called for a ceasefire.

None of them are Corbynites.

[morgieb]

A trio of Corbynistas - Anas Sarwar, Andy Burnham and Sadiq Khan - have called for a ceasefire.

None of them are Corbynites.

Isn't that the joke?

[CumbrianLefty]

If Keir Starmer doubles down on his pro-Israel stance and ignores these dopes then I will sign up to campaign for the well fit chick who's Labour's candidate here.

I suspect you will likely be disappointed then, even leaving aside that one ambiguous phrase in one interview his line has shifted a fair bit since this kicked off (as with many other people)

Starmer is instinctively pro-Israel (which is actually what many of his critics in reality dislike) but not in a totally uncritical way. Indeed, polls confirm that "Israel right or wrong, no matter what" is a highly unpopular position and is if anything becoming more so - though you might not guess this from our media (hardly the only area where that is the case, of course)

[Torrain]

I see John McDonnell has told Times Radio that it's not antisemitic to chant "from the river, to the sea", and told Times Radio he'll continue to use the phrase.

Which seems grimly ahistoric and foolish in equal measure. I'd thought he was trying to avoid having the whip withdrawn like Abbott and Corbyn, so the SCG still had a figurehead in the next parliament?

[CumbrianLefty]

Is it "ahistoric" though? It started out as at least an ambiguous phrase, even if its not now (or is seen by most Jews as highly offensive at any rate, which in practice amounts to much the same thing)

[Meclazine for Israel]

The archetypal Labour Home Secretary remains Chuter Ede (1945-51). Of course he was actually a former Liberal, but that was back when the word had different political associations to today.

Out of curiosity: if you asked an average person back then to place the Liberals on a left-right axis, what would they say?

When Ede was a member - before the First World War - unquestionably on the left. By the time Ede was a nationally prominent Labour politician, unquestionably in the middle. The thing about British Liberalism by the Edwardian era is that it was a coalition of out groups; people who did not feel comfortable with this or that element of the social order and wished to make changes to it as a result. Ede was the son of a Nonconformist grocer (quite the Liberal-voting cliché there) and was devoted to the Unitarian Church for his entire life. One reason why Ede was the archetypal Labour Home Secretary was that he combined a hardline and authoritarian approach to his office with liberalizing instincts in the more traditional sense (e.g. abolishing penal servitude, hard-labour and corporal punishment in the Criminal Justice system) and saw absolutely no contradiction between the two.

I like the historical takes of Fuli, Filuwar, Filuward, Filuwarj, Filuwardj, Filuwor, Filuwau, Filuwaru, Filuwaúrj, Filuwaúru,

Oh, forget it.

[CumbrianLefty]

Starmer's speech today, decent enough. But will it repair the damage already done?

[TheTide]

Starmer's speech today, decent enough. But will it repair the damage already done?

The question might inherently provide the answer.

[Blair]

Starmer's speech today, decent enough. But will it repair the damage already done?

The highlight was the rather weird attempt at charging at his car by various former labour members, including those the terminally online will know.

[Pericles]

It is unacceptable for Starmer to have justified Israel's total siege of Gaza, when he would know full well that it is a war crime. He talked a big game about how "honesty and integrity matter", but after years of observing his leadership I really do not think he is an honest person or has integrity. Maybe in that specific case he just slipped up accidentally? However, at this point I can only see a marginal improvement to the UK's prospects and to public trust in government under a government that Starmer leads.

[CumbrianLefty]

It is unacceptable for Starmer to have justified Israel's total siege of Gaza, when he would know full well that it is a war crime. He talked a big game about how "honesty and integrity matter", but after years of observing his leadership I really do not think he is an honest person or has integrity. Maybe in that specific case he just slipped up accidentally? However, at this point I can only see a marginal improvement to the UK's prospects and to public trust in government under a government that Starmer leads.

What are you actually referring to here? If its one ambiguous phrase in one interview, then it is surely rather telling that he never repeated anything like that subsequently.

[Zinneke]

It's telling that Mr D'Arcy can't even articulate a nuanced position that defends International Humanitarian Law and a throwback to the 90s and Responsibility to protect, all because he just wants to be seen as a contrast to his predecessor, or suck up to the weirdo neo -con Blairite cult that is slowly taking over his party.


It's also embarrassing that it's this issue that has caused a rebellion and not his backtracking over a range of domestic issues that showed himself as a bit of a wimp who ran a leadership campaign on radical reform without the Corbynite 80s third worldist bollox and instead the British electorate are getting the same Late New Labour Blairite sociopaths (TristaM Hunt, Ummuna the change UK hold of Streatham) with the likes of Reeves, Streeting, etc.

[CumbrianLefty]

The above foreign based takes are rather lacking in nuance, that's all I will say for now.

[Coldstream]

Tough to see how we recover from this setback.

https://news.sky.com/story/leader-of-burnley-council-and-11-councillors-resign-from-labour-party-over-starmers-gaza-ceasefire-stance-13001632

[CumbrianLefty]

Tough to see how we recover from this setback.

https://news.sky.com/story/leader-of-burnley-council-and-11-councillors-resign-from-labour-party-over-starmers-gaza-ceasefire-stance-13001632

Sarcasm aside, did they actually expect Starmer to resign?

[Coldstream]

Tough to see how we recover from this setback.

https://news.sky.com/story/leader-of-burnley-council-and-11-councillors-resign-from-labour-party-over-starmers-gaza-ceasefire-stance-13001632

Sarcasm aside, did they actually expect Starmer to resign?

I think they expected/hoped

1. To get more attention
2. That someone from the SCG would announce a challenge

When neither happened they recognised the hopelessness & friendlessness of their position and gave up.

[Torrain]

https://twitter.com/ChrisMasonBBC/status/1722034802277183880
He's been on the Labour fronbench continuously since 2016 - one year after he was first elected. Doesn't seem malicious - it's been timed to come out long after the point where it could end up on the evening news or tomorrow's front pages, and he's fairly positive about working with a Labour government in future.

Guess it's just a question of whether it snowballs - or stays an isolated incident.

[Coldstream]

It’s a shame to see Hussain go, he’s always been more of a team player than the rest of the SCG - hopefully he’ll come back at some point.

[TheTide]

I note that Hussain's tweet on the matter has received a complimentary reply from someone by the name of George Galloway. Many will be aware that Hussain suffered an exceptionally bad defeat to Galloway in a certain by-election just over a decade ago.

[CumbrianLefty]

Galloway's campaign in that byelection was, even by his standards, notably personal and unpleasant.

It is possible that, as with *some* of the councillors who have left (for now at any rate) Labour, this is partly down to pressure from Hussain's constituents.

I agree with the positive assessment of his actions, IMO this isn't part of a "left plot" or similar.