This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[LabourJersey]

Are there any Scottish Labourites that would be better than this guy Leonard? It seems like their bench has been very thin for some time.

[LabourJersey]

More generally though it's funny how the discussion within Labour has switched from the post-referendum 'We'll only win back Scotland if we follow my pre-ordained policy positions' to 'who the F**K knows'.

It was widely mentioned when phone-banking in the '15 election by JC supporters that he'd win Scottish seats back (something that to his credit he did) but by 2020 election it was barely discussed at all; like there's virtual agreement across the party that there is no obvious route back.

I use to subscribe to the more zealot based view of SLab being a firm unionist party, strongly supporting remain & opposing Brexit; while having the policy flexibility we saw with Welsh Labour. But honestly with the dire state we're in & the threat to union (and by extension the future of a Labour majority) you almost wonder if supporting indy-ref 2, giving Findlay the leadership and just completely turning the whole thing upside might actually be more worthwhile.

It always looked to me at least that Scottish Labour's been trapped in a rock and a hard place since 2014. They feel compelled to be firmly unionist for multiple reasons, including the need for Scotland to remain in the UK to ever have another majority. But being unionist costs them appeal and credibility from left-leaning voters.

The fact that the SNP has managed to stay in power after 13 (!) years and maintain popularity and enact progressive policies has also made things so much harder. But of course, I don't think any of the Labour folks who supported devolution expected that nationalists would ever actually be good at governing.

[LabourJersey]

Saw some stuff on the leftwing UK twitter accounts I follow about some dumb movement to call Starmer "Keith Starmer" because he has apparently betrayed Labour ideals so greatly that he has no right to use the same name as Keir Hardie.

Not going to lie I thought it was a parody at first. Some of these people have go so far into Inside Baseball (to use an American term) on these intra-party fights

[LabourJersey]

An interesting view; as always it was interesting to read Stephen Bush's responses to his article where he said was unsure how much of this was boredom (journos can't write Labour splits story or Keir cleans house anymore & need something to do), people in the party egging it on (who believe they should be in the shadow cabinet) or just general weakness in Keir's team.

It's interesting that this appears to have been briefed by people in the Shadow Cabinet.

My only mild annoyance is towards people from all wings of the party who seem to be convinced that there's some sort of alternative in the wings...

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2021/02/consensus-forming-among-commentariat-keir-starmer-not-job-does-it-matter

The part about politicians getting absurdly restless and desperate to talk about anything/give their opinions on how things *ought to be done* to anyone strikes me as pretty accurate.

Personally I feel the line about Starmer "stalling" given elections and campaigns right now are, much like the rest of our lives, stalled. Seems like these takes can wait until the May elections, can't they?

[LabourJersey]

Would I be wrong in thinking that the regional divide between North and South also contributes to the divisions in Labour?

Like from studying in the UK even I managed to notice the differences in attitudes and politics between students from the North vs. students from the South. I'd assume that may carry over to intra-party politics

[LabourJersey]

According to John Curtis many northern voters were enticed by the prospect of pork-barrel spending if they elected Tories.

Is that believable?

Yes. They have been spending lots of money in seats that just happen to be Tory marginals in the North. Apparently the Tory metro mayors have been pushing this message - if you want investment from the government, vote Tory.

Well, if that's not a clever use of the government's power of the purse, I don't know what is.
That does sound like something that would help explain the swings in Hartlepool.
It also strikes me as something the Osbourne-era Tories wouldn't have been as effective at. It seems we have a Tory party perfectly geared towards winning Northern votes.
What can Labour do? It doesn't control the agenda (the government does).
And I can't imagine a scenario where Labor wins government without Hartlepool.

The Tories having pivoted from the party of austerity to the party of pork barrel spending is kind of amusing, even though it's sad to see since it's basically assured them power for quite a few years to come

[LabourJersey]

https://twitter.com/epkaufm/status/1390735605437456387?s=21

I would suggest implicitly slagging off a large swath of your electorate (young graduates, most of whom are not “rich” by any means) tends not to be the best of ideas.

Eh, I get what you mean, but in my experience the politically engaged young college graduates (the ones mentioned here) are definitely richer than the average person in their 20s.

Also politically engaged young people tend to have a certain perceived status in the media that outpaces their income. Orwell called academics and journalists and those in jobs of that ilk "The Upper Lower Middle Class"

[LabourJersey]

Apparently Starmer has fired Angela Rayner as Party Chair (which apparently is a position distinct from Deputy Leader or leader?)

He appears to be blaming her for the loss? That's a pretty bad look as I see it.

[LabourJersey]

One of the worse decisions in the latter Corbyn era was the botched effort to get rid of Tom Watson without any real planning when everyone was feeling rather emotional- this move is even more idiotic than that and poses serious questions about what on earth is going on...

So much for "I take full responsibility"...

I did like Starmer when he was elected but I think it's really starting to seem that he isn't up for the huge task of rehabilitating Labour right now.

[LabourJersey]

I regret to inform everyone I’ve had the full bingo of reading an article about Ed M which features both the ‘wrong brother’ dig and the weird idea that air strikes in Syria in 2013 would have stopped Assad.

For those interested… and perhaps a reminder for me to finally stop reading the Times

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ed-miliband-needs-to-shut-up-and-let-labour-move-on-gxr8z8z7k

Every time I hear about the "Wrong Miliband brother" line I think about the "Wrong Kid Died" joke in Dewey Cox (great movie in case you haven't seen, by the way).

Also I wouldn't bother with the Times when it came to Labour party politics

[LabourJersey]

Hahahah

https://mobile.twitter.com/BeckettUnite/status/1418174909646311429

Isn't the loss of the designation because of the new Everton stadium? What...does that have to do with Starmer?

[LabourJersey]

I see that someone is... unfamiliar with Mr Beckett.

My brain only has so much space for the characters who make up the British Left

[LabourJersey]

Hahahah

https://mobile.twitter.com/BeckettUnite/status/1418174909646311429

Isn't the loss of the designation because of the new Everton stadium? What...does that have to do with Starmer?

It’s a long running issue (I don’t know much about it but know that it’s been discussed for many years)

The essay question is whether Beckett is actually dense enough to think this is a Starmer led plot or if he’s just bored and overly enthusiastic with his tweeting. He has form for it to be either.

 

I see that someone is... unfamiliar with Mr Beckett.

My brain only has so much space for the characters who make up the British Left

A character for sure.

He’s the current head of legal services for UNITE the Union- he was formally a solicitor- read more below.

https://hansard.parliament.uk/Lords/2009-05-19/debates/09051977000648/BritishCoalCompensation

Since joining the top rungs of UNITE he was quite a character- he was reported to be the driving force behind the union taking a rather strange line during a legal wrangling during a libel case relating to a Labour MP- which UNITE lost and had to face significant costs for.

https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/anna-turley-libel-case-swawkbox-unite-union-377122

He was also one of the UNITE reps on Labours National Executive Committee and since Keir Starmer has been elected has been one of the strongest opponents over various issues which all seemed very important at the time. He had a rather funny fight with Keir over legal advice… I know who I’d want representing me in court!

Since then he has been suspended from Labour for a bizarre tweet saying Priti Patel should be deported.

Outside of Labour he also tried to run to be the head of UNITE the Union. He lost in what was the de facto primary of the UNITE Left grouping (United Left) to Steve Turner- it was a rather ugly virtual vote- there were allegations of the dead voting, ballots going missing and the usual hi-jinks of the Labour movement.

Rather than dropping out as agreed he tried to keep running- two of his promises were to create UNITE TV and to charge Boris with manslaughter or something similar. He had a very vocal and loud online following promoted by his social media use- well more accurately a part of UK left Twitter.

He has since dropped out of the race and endorsed Steve Turner after there was a very real risk of their being three left wing candidates against the moderate Gerard Coyne- it’s a first past the post race for GS and Coyne would have won. (He still could)

I’m sure Al will be able to give some better stories on him but this has turned into a rather lengthy post about someone who despite my usual ranting is actually a pretty good manifestation of various trends in the Labour left.

Thanks for the rundown

[LabourJersey]

https://mobile.twitter.com/jessicamordenmp/status/1442556048338997248

Ffs..

This may be a dumb question, but have policemen in the UK outside of NI been *always* a very Tory demographic? I would assume so but was curious if there's been historic movement to or from that "equilibrium" of right-wing sentiment.

I know in NI the RUC were pretty much exclusive Protestant and very unionist/right wing. so I'm asking for the mainland ones.

[LabourJersey]

This may be a dumb question, but have policemen in the UK outside of NI been *always* a very Tory demographic? I would assume so but was curious if there's been historic movement to or from that "equilibrium" of right-wing sentiment.

I know in NI the RUC were pretty much exclusive Protestant and very unionist/right wing. so I'm asking for the mainland ones.

Yep. And the politics of policing and the police have tended to differ in different parts of the country as well. Provincial police forces have always tended to reflect the areas they serve, which are also the areas they recruit from. Senior officers were (are) mostly Conservatives, but that was (is) the norm for higher management posts in general. But the Met was, and to an extent still is, very different: it has always recruited from across the whole country rather than just London, has always attracted more ex-army types than normal, and developed a fierce hard-right political culture that became increasingly toxic and dangerous as time moved on: efforts to reform it since the Macpherson Report have largely involved trying to battle against this and the consequences of it.

Thanks--that and the discussion in the UK general thread is helpful

[LabourJersey]

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

Tony Blair is a Gamer/Pro-Gamer?

[LabourJersey]

There’s suddenly been a lot of noise in the Sheffield Central selection.

I believe there are four local candidates, mostly councillors (Mike Buckley, Jane Dunn, Rizwana Lala, Abtisam Mohamad), and two ‘celebrity’ candidates (Eddie Izzard, and journalist Paul Mason).

Curious if those with a better sense of THIGMOO movements have a sense of how it’ll all play out.

It's always going to be a high profile selection because it's a bit of a plum seat and because of Izzard's candidacy in particular.  (Though, on the plum seat thing, it's worth pointing out that Paul Blomfield only beat the Lib Dems by 165 votes in his first win in 2010, and the proposed boundary changes would certainly wipe that majority out with room to spare; if the demographics that have swung from Lib Dem to Labour since then were to swing away from Labour again they could easily be in trouble.  On current boundaries it had the highest student population in the whole UK in the 2011 census, and the boundary changes actually take out some of the least studenty bits.)

Another local candidate is Abdi Suleiman.  Only Dunn and Mohamed are councillors, and both are for wards in the neighbouring Sheffield Brightside & Hillsborough constituency (though Dunn used to represent Broomhill).

The Greens, probably the least unlikely challengers, have already selected Alison Teal, who used to be a Green councillor for Nether Edge & Sharrow and made her name as a tree campaigner.  However, she also appears to have TERF tendencies, so her selection is far from universally popular in the Greens.

Why is it seen as a plum seat? I admittedly know very little about Sheffield but it seems odd for it to be a super desirable constituency? Does it have some kind of combination of "safe seat" and "not a lot of local problems" that would presumably be attractive for MPs?

[LabourJersey]

Corbyn has a response, but doesn’t seem to really be saying anything, yet:
https://mobile.twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/1625918105439404033

This might expose my ignorance, but don't "party leaders" typically decide who the candidate is in a particular constituency? Or at least alongside the local party member? That was my impression of how the selection (or deselection) process works.

If I'm wrong please let me know. 

[LabourJersey]

Also to be blunt a lot of people (to sounds like Trump!) where questioning some of her tweets over the recent weeks and months; it is a genuine shame that she didn't say, stand down in 2015, as she would have had a very different political obit to her current one.

The most underrated political skill is knowing when it's best to step aside.