This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[Silent Hunter]

If money can change your mind, the opinions can't be that strongly held.

[Blair]

An interesting fact from the long read* by Paul Waugh was that Labour is getting donors to fund by-elections directly- I’m not sure how this works as I assume there are long running costs (e.g staff) and ones associated with the campaign which are capped (leaflets, cars etc)

There was also a report that Lord Cashpoint is returning to raise money for the party.

*I can’t actually remember anything else from it other than the usual ‘well actually when Keir meets people they really like him’- which was said about Miliband, Brown, Kinnock etc.

[CumbrianLefty]

An interesting fact from the long read* by Paul Waugh was that Labour is getting donors to fund by-elections directly- I’m not sure how this works as I assume there are long running costs (e.g staff) and ones associated with the campaign which are capped (leaflets, cars etc)

There was also a report that Lord Cashpoint is returning to raise money for the party.

*I can’t actually remember anything else from it other than the usual ‘well actually when Keir meets people they really like him’- which was said about Miliband, Brown, Kinnock etc.

They're just so innately defensive, aren't they?

Starmer's ratings are in reality better than all those three, and following Sunak's recent plunge he is actually the most popular (OK then, least unpopular) leading politician in the country. Given how he almost sabotaged his own leadership beyond repair less than a year ago, that's surely worth noting.

[Blair]

Good to see the old tactics back in use!

https://mobile.twitter.com/UKLabour/status/1511674397169496064

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Police raid at Unite's HQ.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Police raid at Unite's HQ.

Corruption or something else?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Police raid at Unite's HQ.

Corruption or something else?

There have been all sorts of rumours of the first for some time.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

So we've had confirmation of what this is all about: 'bribery, fraud and money laundering'. This is rather major. We should have a clearer picture soon as arrests are apparently imminent.

[MaxQue]

I wonder if it is like in Canada, where we have a similar scandal where the President of the largest union got bribes to lobby other members and businesses about a specific brand of what you call a lateral flow test.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

I do wonder how come the UK doesn't have the same steortype of Unions being linked to organized crime that's present elsewhere.

[Blair]

Labour once again have a new slogan.

‘On your side’.

It’s much better than the last one which was ‘prosperity, respect, security’.

Which of course are three things you don’t get if you work for the party.

[Blair]

THIGMOO is very funny whenever I see Chris Bryant- he has become a very vocal and strong critic of the Government, is quite good on TV and played a big role in Paterson gate*- yet in my mind he’s still partly a brownite junior minister who was rather well, identikit.

I can remember when he was junior immigration Minister and causes a huge row with Tesco leading a speech being rewritten…

*he is much more effective as a backbencher than he would have been as minister for Culture or whichever random job he would have gotten. This is good as Labour have been awful at using backbenchers.

[Blair]

Frances O’Grady retiring from the TUC.

Relatively big news- she was very highly rated and was iirc one of the those who pushed the Government to adopt the furlough scheme. A genuine loss. I wouldn’t be shocked if she gets a gong or even a parliamentary seat (she seems to normal for the later though)

[Blair]

On the other end of the TU spectrum the NEU conference made news for a debate over Ukraine and heckling the Labour Shadow Education Sec over Ofsted.

My father left the forerunner of the NEU in the 80s after one too many debates about the Contras and too few about the ILEA…

[CumbrianLefty]

Frances O’Grady retiring from the TUC.

Relatively big news- she was very highly rated and was iirc one of the those who pushed the Government to adopt the furlough scheme. A genuine loss. I wouldn’t be shocked if she gets a gong or even a parliamentary seat (she seems to normal for the later though)

Born in 1959, a bit older than I thought. So a move to the Lords is rather more likely.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

On the other end of the TU spectrum the NEU conference made news for a debate over Ukraine and heckling the Labour Shadow Education Sec over Ofsted.

Specifically for saying that OFSTED in its present form is a disaster and that a total overhaul of it would be a priority for a Labour government. You might think that this is what delegates would like to hear, but anything short of 'abolition' is considered unacceptable by many, which is a bit silly as some form of inspectorate has existed since the early 19th century and as a return to LEA-led inspection would be a legal and administrative nightmare.* Amusingly the NEU's leadership (who seem to be open to the idea, even if they would like a new name for any national inspectorate) were embarrassed by the scenes and the delegates in question were reprimanded from the chair for 'acting like children'.

My father left the forerunner of the NEU in the 80s after one too many debates about the Contras and too few about the ILEA…

My Grandad left it earlier because it was full of (and I quote) 'communists', a term that he used quite broadly.

_{*As is often the case these days calls for the 'abolition' of something do not always mean the same thing.}

[Blair]

Muttering Ed Balls might be running in Wakefield and ofc Gordon Brown is briefed as supporting it.

I do respect that he’s the only ex prime Minister who still gets involved in THIGMO beef.

I would be shocked if it happens- I’m not sure he’s local other than previously having a house (I assume) in Morley. Smacks of Hartlepool.

[Zinneke]

Wouldn't Balls and Starmer essentially come from the same faction? Or is this going to be another personality war?

[Torrain]

Wouldn't Balls and Starmer essentially come from the same faction? Or is this going to be another personality war?

I’m not sure Starmer would want Balls back in the PLP…

Balls has spent much of his time out of office on tv, seemingly recasting himself as a lovable buffoon, who can be serious about politics when pressed. If he made his way back into Parliament, the papers would write articles asking “is Balls Labour’s Equivalent to Boris Johnson” almost immediately.

The last thing Starmer wants is to be in competition for airtime with Ed Balls of all people. It would also remind people of the LOTO-shadow chancellor drama Balls instigated in the Miliband years, and no Labour leader wants to be compared to Ed Miliband in the run-up to a general election.

[CumbrianLefty]

It has been almost totally written out of history now, but Balls was widely seen as a liability during the Miliband years - and even the loss of his seat in 2015 did not overly surprise. It says something about the shallowness of much of our commentariat that appearing on a reality TV show overrides that.

He shouldn't be the candidate, and hopefully won't be. If he genuinely wishes to return to front line politics, he can by all means do so by looking for a seat at the next GE in the normal way. There are good grounds for Labour playing it safe here in any case - especially given how a big win for them in this byelection could boost Starmer's image the way Crewe did Cameron's back in 2008.

[Continential]

If Balls comes back, then Starmer should get the person who called themselves British Obama to rejoin Labour and get him to win a by-election.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

https://twitter.com/Thelma_DWalker/status/1516780671309656070

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

https://twitter.com/Thelma_DWalker/status/1516780671309656070

Man the requirments to become an MP are low, I should apply.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Wouldn't Balls and Starmer essentially come from the same faction?

No: Balls was part of the core group of advisors, MPs and advisors turned MPs that were once grouped around Gordon Brown and is still identifiable with the largest fragment of it now that it has broken up, while Starmer doesn't have a factional background having made his career and life outside politics until middle age: factionalism in the Labour Party being much more about networking and associations than views. Presently the interests of that part of the Labour Party and Starmer align, but that isn't quite the same as being the same, if that makes sense.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Anyway, the apparent paradox of Ed Balls is that he was an unpopular politician but is now a well-liked public figure: there is an obvious parallel with Michael Portillo. And in both cases the answer to the mystery is that as politicians they were playing particular roles and suppressing large parts of their actual personalities (right up to Portillo's tragically ineffectual attempt to act straight in public, which convinced precisely no one). In the case of Balls it happens that he naturally has an ebullient and eccentric manner that is actually quite charming, but appears to have been convinced that this was not Serious enough for politics and, instead, attempted to come across as stern and stentorian; like a caricature of his patron, in fact.* Except that it actually came across as rigid and robotic. I suspect that if he ever were to go back to politics he would not return to this role-playing, much as Portillo did not when he returned to politics. But it should also be noted that Portillo's second political life was not very long and ended in frustration and rapid retirement.

_{*And it is also telling that he was much less successful as Shadow Chancellor than he was in his previous posts: very much attempted to play the part of Brown in the 90s and it didn't go very well.}