This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[Blair]

A man at the end of his tether, or a man who simply hates the great traditions of our movement?

https://mobile.twitter.com/patrickkmaguire/status/1450721230533931011?ref_src=tw...

[EastAnglianLefty]

Be fair - is there anything more authentically Labour than passive aggression?

[Gary JG]

I have always thought that proportional representation would only be introduced if a major party accepted that it had no realistic chance of a single party majority. The party would then have to be in a position to either form a minority government or a coalition, without doing so well that the hope of a future majority is revived.

The precise combination of events has never happened in the UK.

In 1918 Lloyd George did not realise that the Liberals were about to lose major party status, so he did not ensure proportional representation was adopted. This was despite a majority proposal from the Speaker's conference, which led to the Representation of the People Act 1918. At the time the Labour Party would also not be certain that it was about to become a major party, so it would probably have welcomed electoral reform. By the time of the 1922 general election, the basic shape of party politics since then had been established and the chance of PR disappeared.

In 1931, Ramsay MacDonald and David Lloyd George were trying to introduce the Alternative Vote to try to ensure Liberal support for the Labour minority government. The legislation got into trouble, as not everyone in the Labour Party had lost hope of an eventual majority government. In any event the formation of the National government killed the opportunity for a measure of electoral reform.

In 1974 neither major party was prepared to offer any serious proposal for electoral reform.

There was some interest in electoral reform leading up to the 1997 general election, but Tony Blair won too big to endanger Westminster orthodoxy.

The less said about the disaster of the Alternative Vote referendum in 2011, the better.

I would oppose a referendum before a form of proportional representation is adopted, but French experience does demonstrate that proportional election systems can be repealed by the next centre right government if they lack popular legitimacy.

[CumbrianLefty]

A man at the end of his tether, or a man who simply hates the great traditions of our movement?

https://mobile.twitter.com/patrickkmaguire/status/1450721230533931011?ref_src=tw...

Maybe he should tell his staff to stop doing it to them, then

[Blair]

Another normal day in our movement. Starmer posted his response to Angela’s thread just minutes after and I’m pretty sure they would have spoken. It’s just very weird behaviour.

https://mobile.twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1453773569704579073

[EastAnglianLefty]

Why would you follow Owen Jones? Regardless of how you feel about his politics, his Twitter timeline is just deeply tedious and self-regarding.

[cp]

Why would you follow Owen Jones? Regardless of how you feel about his politics, his Twitter timeline is just deeply tedious and self-regarding.

Because he's an erudite voice for the left in Britain and, self-evidently, an important one. Otherwise minor moments like this wouldn't be talked about so much.

[CumbrianLefty]

Another normal day in our movement. Starmer posted his response to Angela’s thread just minutes after and I’m pretty sure they would have spoken. It’s just very weird behaviour.

https://mobile.twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1453773569704579073

For the record, the gap between Rayner's statement and Starmer's response was a huge 12 minutes.

[Silent Hunter]

Why would you follow Owen Jones? Regardless of how you feel about his politics, his Twitter timeline is just deeply tedious and self-regarding.

Because he's an erudite voice for the left in Britain and, self-evidently, an important one. Otherwise minor moments like this wouldn't be talked about so much.

Perhaps that's not necessarily a good thing?

[MaxQue]

Why would you follow Owen Jones? Regardless of how you feel about his politics, his Twitter timeline is just deeply tedious and self-regarding.

Because he's an erudite voice for the left in Britain and, self-evidently, an important one. Otherwise minor moments like this wouldn't be talked about so much.

Perhaps that's not necessarily a good thing?

It is not, but it is the consequence of Labour doing everything it can to silence left-wing voices since the mid 90's.

[CumbrianLefty]

Thing is, for some time the Labour left genuinely had little support amongst the wider public - so their "marginalisation" was to some degree organic. That really started to change with the Iraq war.

[Blair]

It's worth noting ofc that Jones himself has a slightly strained past with parts of the Labour left (well tbh who in it doesn't?)

He started his career as a bag carrier to Mac the Knife & after having a larger profile than virtually every member of the campaign group in 2015, he tried to recruit Lisa Nandy (along with a number of other figures iirc?) to run for the leadership.

He then called for Corbyn to quit after the Sellafield By-election loss (I can't remember the exact name of the seat) & was seen as close to Clive Lewis- who was then much more part of the Another Europe is Possible branch of the left.

He remained a high profile surrogate supporter for Corbynism- but my impression was always that as the UNITE crew took over in 2018 his actual influence (as much as ever existed) was vastly over-stated.

[Blair]

He was a journalist I very much liked & one of the first columnists I read- and equally the only political person my normal friends would read and understand.

He just seems to have become one in part of the Forever War & the endless endless endless rows over the most trivial type of stuff- in a way he wasn't in the 2011-15 period.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Thing is, for some time the Labour left genuinely had little support amongst the wider public - so their "marginalisation" was to some degree organic. That really started to change with the Iraq war.

And it isn't as if the Blair leadership actually went out of its way to marginalise what was left of it - it actually preferred to patronise it and keep it hanging around like a pet or something.* It would have been quite easy to have swept the remnants of the SCG out of the PLP, for instance, but there was never any attempt to do so. I do wonder whether that might have led to greater long-term bitterness than if they had been more hostile towards it, strangely.

_{*I suppose this reflected the personal history of a lot of senior New Labour figures, Mr Tony included.}

[CumbrianLefty]

He was a journalist I very much liked & one of the first columnists I read- and equally the only political person my normal friends would read and understand.

He just seems to have become one in part of the Forever War & the endless endless endless rows over the most trivial type of stuff- in a way he wasn't in the 2011-15 period.

Yep - it was always likely to happen given how VERY ONLINE he is, but still a shame.

[afleitch]

The gender crits daily pile on (the Girl Guides got it yesterday for a tweet about asexuality) is LGBT Labour after an unsubstantiated claim about two men vetting lesbians holding 'gender critical' views.

Anyone asking for evidence is being called a misogynist, because this is where we are now.

[CumbrianLefty]

That's nothing, a BBC "journalist" just conflated all trans women with Jimmy Savile on Twitter.

[afleitch]

That's nothing, a BBC "journalist" just conflated all trans women with Jimmy Savile on Twitter.

I saw that.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The gender crits daily pile on (the Girl Guides got it yesterday for a tweet about asexuality) is LGBT Labour after an unsubstantiated claim about two men vetting lesbians holding 'gender critical' views.

Anyone asking for evidence is being called a misogynist, because this is where we are now.

What does asexuality have (allegedly) to do with anything?

[afleitch]

The gender crits daily pile on (the Girl Guides got it yesterday for a tweet about asexuality) is LGBT Labour after an unsubstantiated claim about two men vetting lesbians holding 'gender critical' views.

Anyone asking for evidence is being called a misogynist, because this is where we are now.

What does asexuality have (allegedly) to do with anything?

Girl Guides posted a tweet in support of asexuality awareness, and that was deemed to be 'sexual' and inappropriate. Despite people pointing out there was nothing inherently sexual about being asexual.

No organisation or charity can post anything remotely about anything LGBTQ+ without a pile-on by GC's in the comments. I created a twitter last month just to use the service (as it's not easy without an account there) for news etc and any few likes or comments that I've made that are trans-inclusive have led to me getting a lot of unwanted messages, accusations that I'm a misogynist and demands to know if I'd sleep with 'man with a vagina.' And I'm a nobody.

Last week, the BBC published an article about lesbians being pressurised into having sex with trans women. This was based on 80 anonymous responses from a two year old 'survey' carried out by an anti-trans Gender Critical group (which goes against the BBC guidelines on relying on survey results.) One of of those interviewed but named included a lesbian sex worker who was accused of sexual assault by a number of other lesbian women who has just posted a number of posts, for want of a better word, calling for acts of violence against trans women (it was actually much much stronger than that).

And the BBC in it's response to complaints (and it was the first ever I've made against the BBC) brushed it off. One of it's own journalists as mentioned above today posted (but has since deleted) the same article again and compared these victims to those of Jimmy Savile.

https://mobile.twitter.com/ContraPoints/status/1455585465147473926

[Blair]

It’s also a slightly ironic as LGBT labour were criticised quite heavily for a perceived lack of action around trans rights after an issue with a certain MP. The critics weren’t exactly wrong.

It’s also so obviously a load of nonsense!

There is a very toxic environment for trans people in Labour and it’s clearly not just a THIGMOO thing as the English Greens and SNP have all had issues with it, although in different forms and to their credit the nats have handled it a lot better than Labour.

There is fundamentally no way of winning these people over- in the same way there wasn’t about people claiming Labour were turning kids gay in the 1980s.

[CumbrianLefty]

Some have commented how (even with easy targets, granted) Labour seem to have really got their messaging together in the past week or so. Which is when the leader has had to take a back seat.

This may just be an unlucky coincidence for Starmer, of course.

Or perhaps not.....

[Blair]

Some have commented how (even with easy targets, granted) Labour seem to have really got their messaging together in the past week or so. Which is when the leader has had to take a back seat.

This may just be an unlucky coincidence for Starmer, of course.

Or perhaps not.....

There certainly seems to be a more populist tinge to it all; I was getting worried when I thought Pat MacFadden sounded convincing on newsnight!

while it does have shades of late era Corbyn and Miliband (where alternatives were practically auditioning) it’s certainly true that the party has done a lot better when its Reeves, Rayner and Miliband- with an assortment of other ministers stepping up. Keir would not be the first Labour leader to take a more backseat role rather than wanting to do everything.

It would turn into a THIGMOO disaster but I wouldn’t be shocked if there’s a reshuffle next spring- most shadow cabinets have the big shuffle after two years (when juniors have earned a promotion, you don’t have to give patronage to the old guard, and you can move people who are struggling)

A few changes and tweaks- swap Lammy with Nick Thomas Symonds (I suspect this didn’t happen at first due to a perceived need to pivot on immigration), promote some good opposition politicians (Thornberry, Streeting, Tarry) bring some of the competent members of the left back (Dan Garden)
and get rid of some under-performing ministers (DCMS & Education)

[CumbrianLefty]

Interesting you mention Kate Green amongst the "under-performers" - of course she has a degree of significance as the replacement for RLB after her sacking. He own replacement could well be Emma Hardy, who some think should have moved straight into the role last summer.

[Blair]

Interesting you mention Kate Green amongst the "under-performers" - of course she has a degree of significance as the replacement for RLB after her sacking. He own replacement could well be Emma Hardy, who some think should have moved straight into the role last summer.

She’s not been bad and it’s not a personal slight (she’s a very good MP and the former head of CPAC) but I think it needs someone who can do what both Angela Rayner and Ed Balls (in his brief stint did) which is make it extremely difficult for the Tories while also pushing education policy within Labour. We still back tuition fees being scrapped yet we don’t shout about it enough.

The plan ofc was to replace Kate with Wes- who was to his credit a good schools minister. But it got derailed.

There’s also the issue of dealing with the UCU and NEU- which to their credit they’ve done well. Some of the stuff politically coming out of those unions has been, well very strange.