This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

One of my more "right wing" opinions is that I fully understand why the national party wants to "fix" selections for high profile byelections (and most on all wings of the party who recall the famous 1980s disasters from not doing this will agree, at least privately) but there is really no need to be so clumsy and transparent about it. And given that a byelection is very likely coming up (Leicester E) where the Labour candidate being locally acceptable could well be very important, this matters.

Are you referring to Peter Tatchell in Bermondsey or are there other examples ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

You’d hope that the purity tests would go away once you get knocked down to 200 MPs. Alas…

Well according to the British AOC, all Labour needs to win is young people, ethnic minorities and progressives, a coalition of voters that even Jeremy Corbyn has some reach outside of.

Sorry, but who is this?

Zarah Sultana

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Very weird comment.
https://twitter.com/HackneyAbbott/status/1531168330010308609?t=HpR4W6DNxEagci4-3...

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

It's really quite noticeable that, at a time when so many of Labour's most obviously rising stars are women (some of whom I personally don't rate at all, but a lot of people do), people are most focused on a man who's still under 40 but acts like he'll die if he isn't promoted tomorrow and a man whose last leadership campaign put even David Miliband's effort to shame in terms of how spectacularly it imploded.

This is actually a very good point- unlike others Wes did not have to spend years as junior minister for shipping or some other pointless role. He was promoted very quickly and has been given imo one of the most important jobs for a Labour Government- the only time I see him talking about his brief it’s with a touch of self promotion.

I suspect he was given Health because of Omincrom and the need for someone who could handle h the endless media.

Andy Burnham to his credit seemed to love being Shadow Health Secretary.

I misread this as junior minister for sh**tposting and did a double-take.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Turns out Tony Blair is speaking at a conference I'm attending, I don't know what he knows about mordern technology but I figure I might as well watch it given how much the organizers must have paid him.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Tony Blair praises digital identiy card and talks about mistaken ideas about privacy in the UK preventing Id cards. Praises gaming for creating online communities and relationships

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Interesting Times Article about Durham gate- apparently the surveys are long (duh) and some centre around Keir being given a football shirt which he poses with.

Of course as he does this on other campaign trips you could argue it was campaign related.

I still can’t see how they can change their retrospective fines policy but still have a niggling feeling he will get fined.

Any sign that Starmer would listen to Nick Brown's stupid idea of standing in the leadership election if he got fined and resigned? That would be an incredible act of bad faith, a huge waste of the Labour Party's time and precious resources, and leave the party with a weakened leader.

Well Starmer so far seems to be smarter than a racoon, and somewhat uncommonly among politicans doesn't seem to have a huge ego so it would be pretty out of charecter for him.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

snip

The working assumption is around the end of June- they said 4-6 weeks after it was announced, and I wouldn’t be shocked if they wait until after the by-election, because they did so with the locals.

The interesting thing (this might be lobby brain as the PM is safe so we need to find something else to plot about) is that there would be a lot of anger if he was quit, and he would likely be respected for doing the right thing but I think a lot of people in THIGMOO would broadly welcome a new regime- because a Keir is just about an asset for Labour, in the sense he isn’t hated, but there’s still a bit of a sense of malaise that is covered up by the poll lead.

Cheers. Tbh, I’ve started hearing whispers of a similar thing r.e Starmer standing down, at least amongst other online circles I’m in. Can see the appeal of looking for someone with a tad more charisma, although I have to imagine there’s at least a little risk throwing the leadership back to the party membership and MPs right now.

My thinking is that seems needlessly risk, Starmer's low-key boring approach is working. Why does it need to be changed ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

A fitting end to the Stroud selection- the party blocked the local council leader from the shortlist and only put two people on it. Of course The banter outcome happened- members picked the random local GP over the ex MEP who was rumoured to be the favourite.

Don't local GP's tend to be strong canidates ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Starmer and Rayner NOT fined by Durham police per Sky

Skwabox and random Reddit commenters* are shaken

*Seriously people were using it as a source that they would be fined

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://skwawkbox.org/2022/07/13/exclusive-starmer-must-come-clean-as-sources-insist-beergate-fine-pulled-by-chief-constable-under-pressure/

Skwabox not coping very well.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I'm curious. Is being an NEC member a paid job ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Trans issues have become as much of a dividing line as the EU/anti-semitism were 16-19, perhaps more so as those issues have become less prominent. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were GC corbynites who backed Duffield, or indeed people to the right of her (since Duffield isn’t seen as on the right by the right) for the same reason. Whilst there will be plenty in the 65 who voted to trigger her who also backed Keir.

Ian Byrne in Liverpool West Derby looks to be in trouble. That wouldn’t be as shocking as it first appears, the seat was always the least left of all in Bristol - and it’s hard left MP Bob Wareing was deselected in 2007. Though Wareing was one of the most appalling people to have the Labour whip since Oswald Mosley, so he faced cross-factional support for deselection.

Worse than George Galloway ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Labour's policy on that area in general has not altered, in practice, for decades despite the many changes in direction on so many other policy areas over so many different leaderships. Reeves is quite good on her actual brief (if you sometimes here normies say that they think a member of the Shadow Cabinet is good then this must be our conclusion etc), but is a bit... lead footed on other matters.

What exactly has been that policy ? cause i'm honestly not seeing any consistent trends, Blair tried to promote skilled immigration, Harold Wilson cracked down on commonwealth immigration and Callaghan kinda ignored it.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

He's gonna go out swinging... whip suspension incoming:

https://twitter.com/rewearmouth/status/1579592779139014656

Beware trusting 'Labour sources', they are absolute factional BS'ers (and the journalist in your tweet is not one with the most honest sources eg; she claimed Labour canvassing showed them competitive with the Tories while the Lib Dems were falling back in North Shropshire, not exactly the most accurate prediction).

Yeah - it’s pretty clear that most of Wearmouth’s sources are hardcore Progress types, who are somehow both the most anti-Labour left and anti-Lib Dem people in British politics.

They say politics becomes more hostile the smaller the actual difference is, so I guess it makes sense.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://twitter.com/SturdyFern/status/1579922963901878273?t=26wv6H7_OlbQQMFlKsms...

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I realy don't understand the obsession some parts of the british left have with making abortion a political issue in the uk. Criticise what he said on the grounds of trans rights or whatever, but  this is just weird.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

What is it with the Lib Dems and attracting cranks ?

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Yes, whilst the leadership might not actually *seek* to get a left winger in they might not actively try to prevent it given the circumstances. One mischievous suggestion has been Owen Jones btw

Ironically I remember reading he was offered or encouraged to get a seat in the Miliband era- I think it actually could have been a very wise move. We don't have enough journalists anymore on the Labour benches- even if I've obviously disagreed with him over various things.

Really, you think he'd be a good recruit for labour ? Doesn't the party have enough twitter clout chasers

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

What are GCs?

Gender Critical, it's strain of feminism that rejects the existence of Gender as anything other than a misogynist concept and thus views trans people with inherent suspicion as there identity makes no sense if you don't believe in the existence of gender

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

So, uh, what exactly has happened to the Labour Party in the past few years? I don't mean the immediate aftermath of Corbyn being replaced--all that was expected--but a total surrender of nearly everything Labour historically stood for to an extent not seen since the Blair years. Starmer has come out against nationalizations (which have overwhelming public support), against increased public spending (and also against tax hikes, if the concern is over deficits), and is seemingly trying to out-Tory the Tories on immigration and trans rights. What, outside of maybe climate commitments, distinguishes Starmer from Sunak at this point?

My best guess is that Starmer is afraid of doing anything that could jeopardize Labour's massive polling lead, but playing Thomas Dewey and promising absolutely nothing to anyone is exactly how you lose that polling lead by next year.

It’s also not a defence (as it was appalling) but the Wilson Government iirc changed the law to stop British passport holders from Kenya arriving in the U.K.- the party has never been particularly progressive on migration!

It's kind of morbiduly funny that in Callaghan claims that he had to act in extreme speed to change the law after the Kenyan Indians found a loophole. Apparently according to him holding a british passport was a loophole.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I take it this is the “forget higher spending, let’s cut taxes and plug everyone into the Hypercube” comment?

Given the sheer persistence of his ID card evangelism (which, I’ll admit, I’m coming around on), I guess we should have expected him to lean even further into the ‘tech is a panacea’ stuff as he gets older.

When he came to Singapore he still mentioned ID cards in his speech and praised singapores digital ID cards

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Labour's PPC for my seat is a bit like that. She wasn't old enough to ever vote for Blair, has never done a day's honest work in her life (according to her LinkedIn), is hyper-online, works at Blair's Institute/cult and avoids Labour branding.

But she's good looking so she's got my vote next year.

If you're serious that's extremely shallow.