This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[MaxQue]

Labour are reported as saying they can’t get rid of the 2 child benefit cap because then they might have to get rid of things like the bedroom tax. Reeves wouldn’t publicly commit to getting rid of the bedroom tax today.

Given that’s been policy at the last 3 elections (pretty much the only welfare policy Miliband clearly promised to reverse), you would have assumed abolishing it was a given. It makes you wonder what costed policies Labour will actually commit to changing, especially before the manifesto.

They will commit to none, as Reeves is essentially a Tory who thought it would be easier to have a career in Labour for family reasons.

[MaxQue]

The thing to note about the formal position Labour has adopted on this issue is that it's actually example of this...

...and most of what cannot be explained by that can be explained by the usual needs to balance out particular interest groups in the Party, especially within the PLP itself.

...rather than a reflection of the need to appeal to the Party's main target audience (who do not particular care about the issue). There has been an ongoing and rather sharp disagreement on the subject between some of the Party's middle aged and older female MPs (often veterans of the AWS wars) and the LGBT group, both of whom form powerful internal sections in the PLP (and the former is unusually large at present due to the precise way that recent election results have dovetailed with selection patterns). If Labour's position now looks like a compromise hammered together by a committee in order to minimize the risk of something blowing up before the election, well, there's a reason for that.

You also omit the main problem for Starmer, i.e. making sure the MP for Canterbury doesn't defect to the Conservatives. She will anyways, but he is too weak to get rid of her on his own terms.

[MaxQue]

The point they and you miss, is that it really isn't about that at all. It is far *far* more about reducing the hostility to the party from loud and influential opinion formers.

And yes, this is at least *a* primary motivation with several of Starmer's changes.

Which is misguided. The only way to deal the loud opinion formers is to win the election and pass legislation to weaken them.

[MaxQue]

https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1688107316585869314

Isn't boats the strategy the SNP is using in Glasgow?

[MaxQue]

This would certainly be encouraging in indicating that factionalism does not, after all, override all else.

The names in question - even to see them briefed - suggest that verily Lord Watson of Wyre Forest aka 'Tommo' is a spent force, though we already knew that.

My dislike of him from the outset is one of my viewpoints that has been fully vindicated.

I assume you did not support him in the 2015 deputy leadership election, then?

In hindsight, not a great lineup. Flint and Eagle seem almost as bad as him.

[MaxQue]

She seems to have accepted her new post willingly enough, which is something.

Maybe the only blot on this is RAK walking out (hard to believe it will be for that long)

Might she pay her proximity with Khan?

[MaxQue]

but in 2012 it was very obviously time for someone new and Labour had enough people then who could have ran & beaten Boris who was very very beatable- it was a very close race! But he ofc threatened to run as an independent

The local Labour membership, in their wisdom or otherwise, picked him to be the candidate again.

It maybe didn't help that the only other option was Oona King, even her best friends might admit she can be a bit flaky on occasion. Plus her campaign was outsourced to the same sort of sectarian ultra-Blairites who did so much to put people off for the main leadership vote around that time in 2010.

Funnily enough in 2015 the Labour membership (not including affiliates etc) voted for Tessa Jowell over Sadiq; I assumed the Olympics role she had meant she couldn't run.

Looking at the results, in the final round, the members vote was 51-49 for Khan, through she led every other round.

[MaxQue]

Its a possibility, but not sure about the timescale.

Not impossible the Greens might make significant gains if a Labour government really does alienate much of its base in government (think of the LibDems at the 2005 GE)

They're not our base; they're nice-to-haves.

Let's get rid of the myth of Labour base being union members, most of them are retired and vote Conservative and they're not coming back.

[MaxQue]

It’s amazing how many politician seem willing to sacrifice their careers over the exact wording of an amendment that will be defeated and even if passed would have no impact on either our government or importantly either of the governments currently at war 1000s of miles away.

Indeed, it is amazing to see Starmer endanger party unity over the exact wording of an amendment rather than allow a free vote.

[MaxQue]

Is there a legitimate chance someone tries to pass a VoNC against Starmer over this? It would potentially be suicidal, but I can see a number of the Corbynites thinking that there are no other options.

That's not how UK Labour works, but I can't imagine this is strenghtening Starmer on the long-run. It depends how long the people he sacked hold grudges.

[MaxQue]

Mostly this sort of thing is done to avoid looking too partisan: the electorate, as a rule, does not much like noisy, ultra-partisan behaviour from senior politicians. And it often boils down to (as in this case) 'he/she said they were going to do certain things, and my goodness but they certainly changed the country, didn't they?' which is not exactly praise in a conventional sense.

Oddly, it would probably not be as common if Britain had a more consensus-driven political culture and if most British governments were not constantly trying to reverse as much of the agenda of previous governments from the other side that they can get away with, but we are where we are.

Alternatively, Starmer could just have skipped talking to that Russian-owned rag.

[MaxQue]

Anyway, the long rumoured u-turn has now happened.

And the totally useless PLP continues to stand rudderless as their role is usurped by unelected staffers.

[MaxQue]

A large proportion of the people complaining in the comments of that tweet have the Palestinian, EU and/or trans flags in their name/bio. Nationalism and pride is completely normal until it’s a political party using the flag of its own country.

However, I would caution against using these in Scotland and Wales.

[MaxQue]

Actually this whole discussion is quite triggering because it reminds me of when I had to work with John Denham. By far the worst person Labour ever put in the cabinet.

Working with people with principles is difficult for you?

[MaxQue]

What would 'Left' even mean in that sort of context? I mention this not to be a prick for the sake of it, but historically there would have been only one possible meaning for a party of the radical Left in Britain - advocacy of the nationalization of, at least, the Commanding Heights of the economy and a transition to a planned economy* - and that is not exactly what is being talked of here. Of course for such a party there is, of course, no longer even a small electoral market (that world is gone), but that's not the point.

_{*No, no, loosely worded resolutions about the public ownership of certain utilities and forms of public transport categorically do not count, especially not from people who otherwise show a strong attachment to the notion of private property rights.}

I defined it as the 'Old New urban left' as you once described Corbyn! So people without the traditional links to trade unionism

My interest was spiked by the fact that chunks of this movement seem to be going to the greens; at risk of sounding crude it's largely the same sort of voters who went Liberal Democrat in 2005/2010 & then flirted with Labour in 2015, signed up to Corbynism and then well went various ways in the years since then!

It's weird how little coverage there has been of the greens; whether its their growth in local government, their surge in Conservative areas as the anti-Conservative alternative and the expected strength they'll get as being the urban progressive alternative to Labour.

It is not. The right-wing media will not given any air th the Left, especially now that they forced Starmer into a straightjacket and imposed a Tory Shadow Chancellor on him.