This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[Lord Halifax]

Corbyn has the whip removed

Nice to know he'll no longer be Starmer's whipping boy.

[Lord Halifax]

Corbyn is 71 and will probably be 75 when the next election takes place. Why doesn't he simply retire?

[Lord Halifax]

Does Monica Lennon stand a chance against Anas Sarwar?

[Lord Halifax]

Unite Scotland has endorsed Monica Lennon.

https://unitetheunion.org/news-events/news/2021/january/joint-press-release-unite-scotland-endorses-monica-lennon-for-scottish-labour-leader/

[Lord Halifax]

Unite Scotland has endorsed Monica Lennon.

https://unitetheunion.org/news-events/news/2021/january/joint-press-release-unite-scotland-endorses-monica-lennon-for-scottish-labour-leader/

Perhaps more telling is that USDAW have endorsed Sarwar. Ordinarily that, too, would be 'water is wet', but back in 2017 Sarwar was cold-shouldered by the unions and only managed a nomination from Community.

Okay, so it was expected Unite would back the "leftist" candidate? How would you expect the unions to split between the two candidates?

[Lord Halifax]

I see some people in our movement are making up that Ruth Smeeth is going to be parachuted in...

Is she a good fit for the constituency?

[Lord Halifax]

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

Blair seems to be the kind of person that has terrible opinions on everything.

[Lord Halifax]

(Although of course she said that she hadn't left the party, the party had left her.)

a true classic

[Lord Halifax]

How do you view the chances of Labour starting to run candidates in Northern Ireland? It's a bit odd that they're still allied with a nationalist party (SDLP) when Starmer has said he'll actively campaign for maintaining the union if there is a border poll.

There has also been a recent poll showing significant potential support for Labour in both communities if they decided to run.

[Lord Halifax]

How do you view the chances of Labour starting to run candidates in Northern Ireland? It's a bit odd that they're still allied with a nationalist party (SDLP) when Starmer has said he'll actively campaign for maintaining the union if there is a border poll.

There has also been a recent poll showing significant potential support for Labour in both communities if they decided to run.

I actually think it’s non-zero, the Labour Party in Northern Ireland has become increasingly active over the last few years, requesting they be allowed to stand etc. I don’t think there’s any reason to think we’d do any better than the NI Tories do, but I think the party is increasingly in a place that we’d do it.

UUP seems like a perfect match for people who'd be Tories on the mainland, but there is no unionist centre-left party apart from a few micro parties with paramilitary ties (PUP and another one I can't remember).  

There must be some unionist voters who are centre-left on economics and a lot that are dissatisfied with public services (the dismal state of the local NHS etc.), and there's a growing middle ground of people from a mixed background, ethnic minorities, blow-ins from the rest of the UK and people from the two "tribes" who for whatever reason are agnostic about the constitutional status. Alliance is an economically liberal party, some of their voters must be to the left of the party.

The poll is older than I remembered, from last summer: https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/poll-reveals-a-growing-appetite-for-labour-to-contest-elections-in-northern-ireland/41849645.html

[Lord Halifax]

My highlight at any conference or event is when the Red Flag gets sung and the awkward back and forth as senior politicians have to remember what the latest line is on how you react to it.

How on earth did Labour end with a German Christmas song as the melody for their party hymn? I can't stop laughing, at the moment.

It was decided that the original melody for the song was too fast for the level of solemnity they wanted from it.

Billy Bragg recorded it with the original melody:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bLeoYyksqY

[Lord Halifax]

How on earth did Labour end with a German Christmas song as the melody for their party hymn? I can't stop laughing, at the moment.

The key thing to remember about the Labour Party is that it is an incredibly funny political party.

Funny strange, funny ha-ha, or both?