This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[DaWN]

I can tell this is a thread where I'm going to make myself very popular

[DaWN]

If it helps I'm getting more and more impressed. I'd almost be tempted to vote Labour if I wasn't in a safe seat. Almost.

[DaWN]

Blair was many things, some of them good, most of them bad, but one thing he most certainly was not was a liberal.

[DaWN]

Starmer has been photographed drinking a glass of beer. It appears this has upset Online Corbynites.

[DaWN]

Whatever the result, I expect it will be hailed as hugely important, a massive boon/failure for Starmer, a thread of hope/final nail in the coffin for the left and a guarantee that Labour will/won't win the next election. Then it won't make the tiniest bit of difference to anything whatsoever.

[DaWN]

To be frank, if Starmer doesn't nip this sh!t in the bud right now, this movement of yours is going to stay 'Once Great'. Umming and ahhing and ifs and buts will continue to make things worse.

[DaWN]

Getting rid of Leonard strikes me as a waste of time, because all the possible replacements are approximately mediocre as he is and spending time drawing attention to this doesn't seem like a great way to win support.

To the extent there is a viable electoral niche for Scottish Labour, it involves attacking the SNP from the left - it's notable that on a lot of the coronavirus relief measures, especially the ones relating to housing, the SNP and the Tories voted in lockstep, whereas the Greens tended to line up with Labour. Leonard is better placed to sell that attack line - not enough to keep his job, but enough that it might at least keep Scottish Labour relevant enough for a new generation of politicians to come through and spare us from the 1999 vintage.

The problem is not Leonard's positioning though - I think most accept SLab's only niche is to attack the SNP from the left, and there is far more potential there than Twitter cybernats would have us believe. The problem is that he is f!cking useless at it.

[DaWN]

Can't imagine the national Tories are too thrilled about the prospect of a by-election in Moray though

[DaWN]

I don't like that Starmer hasn't been as forceful as he could have been about this, but there is a difference between 'Senior Shadow Cabinet member' and 'elderly possibly senile backbencher'. I don't think Sheerman's actions are as obvious a symptom of the overall problem as RLB's.

[DaWN]

I don't like that Starmer hasn't been as forceful as he could have been about this, but there is a difference between 'Senior Shadow Cabinet member' and 'elderly possibly senile backbencher'. I don't think Sheerman's actions are as obvious a symptom of the overall problem as RLB's.

Zero tolerance is zero tolerance. Start playing favourites with it and you're not really caring about antisemitism anymore.

I agree with the general sentiment but remember that RLB was actually sacked because she refused to apologise, not the actual tweet, and that it's not like Starmer can do anything to Sheerman, short of suspending him from the party, which will seem like a disproportionate response given he didn't suspend her.

[DaWN]

My general impression is that what was being done was certainly unprofessional, but I don't think you can credibly make the accusation of sabotage. Labour were heavily behind in all the polls (and those polls that showed a closer contest were widely disbelieved by Corbyn's opponents) and in those circumstances there wasn't much of a case for offensive targeting beyond hope. Moreover, in 2015 Labour had lost seats due to refusing to play defence and the party (particularly the right of the party) was accordingly gun-shy. The extra resources make sense as an attempt to prepare for a 1983-style result. The specific seats picked were certainly picked on a factional basis (and there's the unquestionable unprofessionalism.) On the other hand, some of there were actually lost in 2019, so on an insurance basis I'm not sure it wouldn't have made sense as a strategy.

More generally, I'd suggest that arguing that something was a betrayal in 2017 is made more difficult when the absence of the same was a major contributor to bad results in both 2015 and 2019. As a general rule, we have not done a very good job of dealing with the inevitable optimism bias.

How dare you bring facts, logic and common sense to this. It was clearly a sabotage campaign by the Blairites so they could enact their plan of invading Iraq again and you're a Red Tory Blairite Scum if you disagree.

[DaWN]

I'm beginning to get the sneaking suspicion that Dawn Butler is the current wasp's cake

[DaWN]

It's a dim middlebrow joke from a TV show that aired 15 years ago. It means the same thing as 'lightening rod'.

There's nothing wrong with a few dim middlebrow jokes every now and again.

Jokes aside though, the media's tendency to jump on Butler's frequent tendency to spout the first thing she thinks of (which this particular incident may not be an example of, relevant facts are unclear), no doubt in order to push a 'LABOUR HATES WHITE PEOPLE' narrative, is pretty sad (but not unexpected) but having it distract from the usual factional fistfighting your party still seems determined to engage in can't do it any harm, especially as Butler's legitimate grievances/usual shenanigans (delete as appropriate when facts become clear) probably aren't angering anyone apart from Gammons who were never voting Labour anyway.

[DaWN]

As I do not want to go anywhere remotely near to Corbynite Twitter, can someone explain to me what Starmer has done wrong this time?

[DaWN]

As I do not want to go anywhere remotely near to Corbynite Twitter, can someone explain to me what Starmer has done wrong this time?

Written an article for the Mail on Sunday in which he attacks the mess that the government has made over A levels, says that the government is failing children because it has not taken seriously the problems caused to education by the pandemic (points out that more attention appears to have been given to how to re-open bowling alleys safely than schools), and says that there cannot be any more excuses and that they must re-open schools next month.

I gather that this is bad because 'never opening schools again' is praxis, or something.

Just as petty and pathetic as I expected then. I think my opinion of Starmer goes up every time they attack him.

[DaWN]

My god, that MRP. That makes the American political pundits look like they know what they're talking about.

[DaWN]

I see there are calls for Starmer to sack Coyle... from his nonexistent job on the frontbench

[DaWN]

I hope for Scottish Labour's (and possibly the Union's) sake that you are wrong

[DaWN]

I can't believe I'm having to say this again, but please note that Scotland does not vote in a vacuum from the rest of the United Kingdom. If Labour as a nationwide entity is popular enough to be challenging for government, then they will be popular enough in Scotland to win some seats; see the 2017 general election, in which they won 7 seats and came very close in quite a few others, and the party nationwide was not challenging for power in that election despite a decent result. Now this obviously does not mean a return to pre-2014 domination, but it does probably mean that Labour can do reasonably well enough in Glasgow, Lothian and Fife to contribute enough seats to a potential nationwide majority.

[DaWN]

I can't believe I'm having to say this again, but please note that Scotland does not vote in a vacuum from the rest of the United Kingdom. If Labour as a nationwide entity is popular enough to be challenging for government, then they will be popular enough in Scotland to win some seats; see the 2017 general election, in which they won 7 seats and came very close in quite a few others, and the party nationwide was not challenging for power in that election despite a decent result. Now this obviously does not mean a return to pre-2014 domination, but it does probably mean that Labour can do reasonably well enough in Glasgow, Lothian and Fife to contribute enough seats to a potential nationwide majority.

Maybe in a Westminster Election where the SNP are doing badly; but we're currently seeing Labour hit national polling levels between 35-40% while getting 14% in the Scottish Parliament Elections.

And obviously it depends heavily on the SNP performance; which was pretty awful in 2017.

Which is hardly all that much better than they were getting pre-2017

[DaWN]

The reaction from Corbynites to that article has often been along the lines of "Blue Labour, ugh". A sentiment I would not actually disagree with, were it true. I think the reality is more hopeful, however.

None of them actually know what Blue Labour is. They just equate it with their 'RED TORY!!!1!!' talk from circa 2015 and think it means any stinking dirty Blairite.

[DaWN]

Meanwhile, Scottish Labour have reached hitherto unassailable heights of 21% in the latest poll.

[DaWN]

Amazing incompetence. He's basically untouchable now, and will continue to be a useless walking skeleton right up until he's ground into the dust in May. They had one job and they've managed to make it worse. A nice reminder that the Labour Right don't deserve power any more than the Left do.

[DaWN]

Amazing incompetence. He's basically untouchable now, and will continue to be a useless walking skeleton right up until he's ground into the dust in May. They had one job and they've managed to make it worse. A nice reminder that the Labour Right don't deserve power any more than the Left do.

Scottish Labour Right fwiw.

Not very much

[DaWN]

Actual representative surveys mean nothing.

This has to be a joke.