This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[CumbrianLefty]

How does getting a union place on the NEC actually work?

[CumbrianLefty]

The normal trajectory for opposition leaders (barring obvious superstars like Blair, and even he had the odd glitch early on) is for them to start a bit uncertainly as they have to learn on the job, but gain assurance and confidence later on if they are any use at all.

Starmer's is pretty much the opposite, and yes that is pretty jarring.

I note the latest brainwave from the galaxy brains around him (has *any* LOTO had a more hapless entourage - IDS possibly?) is to exhume the slogan that worked so well for HRC in 2016.

I'm not exactly an unalloyed fan, but Deb Mattinson's arrival can't come soon enough - even though the likelihood grows by the day that she will actually end up advising a new leader.....

[CumbrianLefty]

Thank heavens that he belatedly saw sense.

Interesting to see how the more excitable of his online claque take this news, though.

[CumbrianLefty]

It seems that there's quite a big clear out in LOTO this weekend.

Both the Director of Communications (Ben Nunn*) & Deputy Director of Communications has quit with the Chief of Staff Morgan McSweeney being 'moved'.

I heard on the NS Podcast that they were looking for a new communications director- and Morgan has been briefed quite heavily against for a few months. In an interesting turn of events Jenny Chapman is the only survivor of his senior original leadership campaign team-- it has only been a year.

*In true labour style one report said that Starmer told him they'd an 'open door in the future' while another said he was leaving politics all together.

Now if Starmer had done all this immediately after Hartlepool - rather than, very likely at their behest, picking a bizarre and totally unwinnable fight with Rayner - he might be in a less parlous position now. That dynamited his remaining credibilty, and the dogs in the street know it.

[CumbrianLefty]

Some on the Labour right do seem to be staking a fair amount on Coyne winning the Unite GE vote - when Turner's chances have surely been improved by not just Beckett's withdrawal but him telling his people to back ST (the latter especially is rather out of character, I wonder if Len himself had a word)

[CumbrianLefty]

I think that people in the Labour Party vastly overestimate how popular Angela Rayner is.
Even The Guardian has started to raise its objections to her.

Tbh I think this was the situation circa 2017. She is getting rubbished all the time now, and currently *under* priced if anything. Besides, she doesn't want the leadership gig full time - though I can see her doing it on a caretaker basis if Starmer actually did commit seppuku after a Batley loss.

[CumbrianLefty]

What are people's bets on a leadership challenge after Batley & Spen is lost?

Possible I think.

It's clear Starmer is useless as of now. But 'now' is temporary. He could be the right man afterall once the Covid crisis is over.

But only if he cuts the unforced errors out.

Can he?

[CumbrianLefty]

Quite a big issue is that Starmer seems to be in the late 2014 Miliband mode where he just has absolutely no political authority- the hope was that winning Batley would give him a boost but it's just going to be waiting for the 2022 elections.

And with this Labour party, are they (and should they be) willing to wait that long? I'm not convinced.

Well the Labour Party only tends to do stuff (and often in a half-hearted way) when people get very angry quickly after an electoral wobble- Batley & Spen is a trigger, but I can't see what other event causes someone to launch a leadership bid in say December 2021.

December this year? If it happens, it will almost certainly be rather sooner than that.

[CumbrianLefty]

I'm not one of the "Stephen Bush nails it every time!" gang, but he does this morning - people in the Labour party need to embrace the voter coalition it (broadly) has now and stop acting as if they are in some way embarrassed or even ashamed of it. Financially secure pensioners in Hartlepool or Mansfield are in absolutely no way more "real" or "authentic" than somewhat hard pressed people in Reading or Worthing just trying to get on.

[CumbrianLefty]

And on a similar note the Sienna Rodgers email to LabourList subscribers yesterday was very good. Not ranting about Starmer or anything, just telling it how it is. The bottom line is that a party that appears to despise its own voting base does not deserve to win, or even survive.

[CumbrianLefty]

It has its compensations, even if they are a bit thin on the ground just now.

Latest news btw is that Jenny Chapman has also been sack "reshuffled".

[CumbrianLefty]

Meh, about time we learned to fight a bit dirty IMO. And besides, Modi *is* bad.

[CumbrianLefty]

To claim that "Burnham (or indeed any other plausible leader) would end up doing no better than Starmer" does seem to rather presuppose that the latter's presently distinctly poor position is simply an act of God which any mere human would be powerless to alter. In reality, a lot of it is down to him and (even more importantly) his team making a succession of unforced errors since the start of the year. And that is fundamentally caused by his being a not terribly "political" person - sold as an actual plus point when he stood for leader (and understandably so given the poisonous factionalism that had run through the party since 2015, and to a degree a full decade before that) it was always likely to prove a weakness if he didn't choose well around him. And so it has come to pass.

In retrospect, I also think the widespread praise he got for his treatment of Corbyn went to his head somewhat (the warning sign that much of the approval for it came from Tories who were never likely to vote Labour went unheeded) and further encouraged an already existing mentality amongst those around him that endlessly and crudely bashing the left was all that he needed to do to win power.

Well at least he is assembling a new team now. Whilst there seems to be some last minute optimism about Labour's chances today, a Tory gain still appears most likely. And it will put Starmer in the last chance saloon, he had better recognise that if he still hopes to turn things around.

[CumbrianLefty]

Baffling coverage on radio 4 where they’ve got Dianne Abbott and Peter Mandelson arguing and asking both why the Labour Party is so awful…imagine what it would be like if Kim lost

He in particular really should be consigned to the outer darkness forever.

[CumbrianLefty]

It would be nice if right wing outriders like Ben Bradshaw would just shut up, though - Starmer isn't going to use a narrow Labour hold to wreak vengeance on his "disloyal enemies" and nor should he. Instead, he should use this reprieve to practice proper "big tent" internal politics.

[CumbrianLefty]

I’m not sure if this is a West Midlands Labour thing or a TGWU thing…

https://labourlist.org/2021/07/jack-dromey-why-im-backing-steve-turner-as-unites-next-general-secretary/

Trying to be as objective as possible, Turner is arguably the "best" candidate anyway.

[CumbrianLefty]

I regret to inform everyone I’ve had the full bingo of reading an article about Ed M which features both the ‘wrong brother’ dig and the weird idea that air strikes in Syria in 2013 would have stopped Assad.

For those interested… and perhaps a reminder for me to finally stop reading the Times

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ed-miliband-needs-to-shut-up-and-let-labour-move-on-gxr8z8z7k

The writer is a confirmed Tory to boot. Seriously, what's the point?

[CumbrianLefty]

Its rather a curate's egg tbh.

Critiquing the totally asinine concept of the "red wall" purveyed by much of the media is one thing and is still worthwhile even if it provides an easy target. But to make statements like "Blair in 1997 only polled about as well as Gaitskell in 1959" is psephological illiteracy at best, downright dishonesty at worst. Its a classic example of something that is both "true" and in reality worse than meaningless.

[CumbrianLefty]

Well a significant part of the blame has to lie with those Labour figures who spent much of 2010-15 loudly flagellating themselves that "Labour must apologise for spending too much in government" and proceeding to attack the then leader for not doing so. And often for purely factional reasons too.

[CumbrianLefty]

This is worth watching (and isn’t a comment on the effectiveness of this strategy!)

It reminds me of when a ‘swing’ voter in 1997 was telling Blair he needed to bring back the birch to sort out anti social behaviour.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/uk-politics-57849730

It appears this focus group of "former lifelong Labour voters" had at least one who, by their very own admission, hadn't actually voted Labour since......1997.

Maybe not actually that representative?

[CumbrianLefty]

It’s too hot for Labour drama

Government seems to be doing their best to fill the gap tbf.

[CumbrianLefty]

If the party went broke, surely it would simply be resurrected in "phoenix club" style?

Its too big to simply disappear.

Or maybe all those wealthy donors - who, we were assured, would easily replace such a cranky and old fashioned concept as actual "members" - would step in with their altruistic largesse?

Strange that hasn't actually happened eh.

[CumbrianLefty]

The new disciplinary arrangements look like they might be a real step forward, though - at least they will be if they are implemented in a fair and non-factional manner. Ah, there's the rub.....

[CumbrianLefty]

I also forget to make a glib point about Liverpool not always being a socialist city- it was iirc ran by the Conservatives at a local level until the 1970s?

Wasn't it also run after the whole Militant diaster by the lib dems until around 2010 ? Labour local rule seems to be the exception rather than the norm.

Labour actually ran it for most of the time between the early 80s and the late 90s, despite the former Militant element winning significant support (and some councillors)

They returned to overall control in 2010, and of course the LibDems then declined spectacularly.

[CumbrianLefty]

Dawn Butler made an obvious, but still effective, splash on parliament's final day before the summer recess on Thursday. Calling out BoJo as a habitual serial liar en masse at the appropriate moment might yet prove an effective weapon for the opposition (SNP/LibDems as well as Labour, maybe)