2020 Labour Leadership Election

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Early days but Nandy seems to have "it" more: I like Starmer and don't think Brexit will be a big problem in 4 or 5 years time, but there's something vaguely bland and Westminstery about him. Nandy seems to be better at engaging with ordinary people and is quicker on her feet, my main concern is that she's good at talking about winning back muh towns but so far has been a bit thin on how to do it in substance. Still deciding between the two.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Ugh. I really want to like Nandy, but all of the policies she comes out with are gimmicky nonsense sh**t like

https://twitter.com/Kate_M_Proctor/status/1225368691698696192?s=20

I dunno. It's like she's the most skilled politician in the running by far but in substance there seems to be no there there. Perhaps giving her some slack it's hard to announce new policies during a leadership run but still. Ugh.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

When you break it down, Thornberry is basically just a stereotypical Middle Class Yummy Mummy - and nobody likes Middle Class Yummy Mummies. Very unsurprised she didn't make it and equally pleased as well. Hopefully the eventual winner consigns her to the backbenches.

She's effective and, to me at least, likable. But it's unfortunately obvious that she's not the direction in which the party needs to go.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Reluctantly backing 1. Nandy 2. Starmer. Tougher choice than I expected because neither of them particularly excite me, both having obvious weak points. If one could combine Starmer's attention to detail with Nandy's ability to communicate you'd have a very formidable politician, alas...

[Statilius the Epicurean]

There's an awful lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth from left Twitter at the moment but it's notable that a decent chunk of the left has survived, it's just that it's the part of the left that doesn't make a habit of starting factional shouting matches for no obvious benefit. This is perhaps instructive.

I'm not sure what they expected. Yes, it would have been nice to see RLB at shadow chancellor or what have you, but this team is still probably to the left of the median PLP member. 

[Statilius the Epicurean]

There's an awful lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth from left Twitter at the moment but it's notable that a decent chunk of the left has survived, it's just that it's the part of the left that doesn't make a habit of starting factional shouting matches for no obvious benefit. This is perhaps instructive.

I'm not sure what they expected. Yes, it would have been nice to see RLB at shadow chancellor or what have you, but this team is still probably to the left of the median PLP member. 

I think they mostly just wanted to whine, given that several of the complaints were quite obviously false (eg accusing Starmer of whitewashing, when he nearly doubled the number of BAME members of the Shadow Cabinet.)

Yeah reminds me of the opportunistic factional attacks on Corbyn's first team as not having enough women. Sadly that's politics.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

When there's no shadow minister for sh**tstirring against your own party in the media brief

https://twitter.com/maitlis/status/1247172802744115200?s=19

[Statilius the Epicurean]

You're confusing origins with outlook. Coming from a working class background but aspiring to ingratiate oneself into the system (and being satisfied with the few measly tweaks possible by working 'from the inside'), as Keir did, is to adopt a fundamentally conservative outlook.

Have you read this interesting article on his background? I think it's unfair to describe Starmer's purpose in going into law as ingratiating oneself into the system.

Starmer had already decided to read law while he was still in the sixth-form. But the particular way he moved to the Bar was a more directly political choice. He applied for pupillage in the chambers headed by the former Liberal MP Emlyn Hooson because it had already attracted a group of more radical younger lawyers who were starting to reshape the legal system in ways that have endured.

“Keir’s purpose when he became a lawyer was not to make a fortune, or to build a glorious reputation,” says Millar. “Most of the work in those days was legal aid work. Some of it was pro bono. His purpose was the same as all of us in that generation who had been radicalised by Margaret Thatcher. We wanted to change the world, and we wanted to do it by using the law to entrench stronger human rights and civil liberties. That was absolutely true of Keir too.”

The radical Bar was not invented out of thin air in 1987. Radical barristers of the earlier 20th century like the Communist DN Pritt, Labour’s John Platts-Mills and Gerald Gardiner, and liberals like Louis Blom-Cooper and John Mortimer had a significant place in the firmament. But it remained a fairly isolated one. The generational movement that Starmer joined in the 1980s would go on to reshape a profession hitherto embodied by the character Mortimer created for TV, the claret-quaffing Rumpole of the Bailey. For many, this physically involved setting up new sets of London chambers outside the traditional inns of court. In 1990, Starmer was part of this exodus, joining Doughty Street Chambers, newly founded by Geoffrey Robertson and a gallery of other progressive barristerial luminaries like Ed Fitzgerald, Helena Kennedy and Ken Macdonald.

Starmer cut his teeth in things like public order cases involving the right to protest. He assisted some high-profile campaigners, including in the McLibel trial, and did a lot of unpaid pro bono work on Caribbean and East African death penalty cases in which colonial-era rights of appeal to the UK courts were still available. In the argument that was crystallising among radical barristers at the time, between those who were keen to entrench a code of human rights in the law and those who were suspicious of codes and preferred to wrest the advantage within the existing common law, Starmer was always firmly in the former camp—and he still is.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

The Middle East brief given to Wayne David, who broke the whip to vote for the continued Saudi blockade of Yemen.

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Good tweet

https://twitter.com/steamedhamms/status/1248582883306078213?s=19

[Statilius the Epicurean]

Saw someone on twitter saying the report is like "bringing the Death Star to a knife fight". Seems like they went all out in factional terms.