Keir Starmer and the Labour Party

[DarloRich]

Gordon Brown’s economic mismanagement

Gordon Brown is the bloke who saved the world economy! It was his leadership that stopped things getting worse. It was his leadership that got a recovery system in place and adopted as the way forward by the main economies. It was his leadership that steadied the ship when the rest were going full on headless chicken. The economy was in a pretty decent state when we booted him out. "Austerity" isn't on him - despite what the media and the Tories say!

But yeah - he sold of some gold.

 

[Iskra]

Gordon Brown is the bloke who saved the world economy! It was his leadership that stopped things getting worse. It was his leadership that got a recovery system in place and adopted as the way forward by the main economies. It was his leadership that steadied the ship when the rest were going full on headless chicken. The economy was in a pretty decent state when we booted him out. "Austerity" isn't on him - despite what the media and the Tories say!

But yeah - he sold of some gold.

Pretty sure there was something about oil and gas reserves as well...

 

[Typhoon]

Yes, "a patriotic war was the solution to increased unemployment, economic stagnation, civil disturbances at home" for Thatcher...

It was definitely 'Winner Takes It All'!
(The irony was not lost on me as I wrote it).

 

[RuralRambler]

Pretty sure there was something about oil and gas reserves as well...

And a succession of crazy tax changes and U-turns.

 

[317 forever]

David Miliband should have replaced Tony Blair. We then elected the wrong brother to replace Gordon Brown.

Corbyn's catastrophic leadership and the leftists it attracted.

Taking voters for granted and not understanding why traditional Labour voters don't vote for the party anymore.

Yes. For all Tony Blair's talk when still opposition leader of never being complacent, he took for granted that established Labour voters had "nowhere else to go" and instead he focussed only on swing voters. So by 2001, established Labour voters were disillusioned and abstained but floating voters did still vote Labour through apprehension of another Conservative government. Thus in 2001 Labour won another landslide, but this time with fewer votes than in 1992 (and incidentally also 2017). Furthermore, in 2001 Labour got more votes in several marginal seats than in many "safe" seats.

These disillusioned voters felt disenfranchised from politics until the emergence of UKIP and more significantly the Brexit referendum. Quite a few such voters now vote Conservative instead of Labour, hence the fall of several red wall seats in 2017, 2019 and recently Hartlepool.

Had John Smith lived, he might not have targetted middle England so strongly and would not have neglected the Labour heartlands. We might only have had 2 terms of Labour government instead of 3, but they would not be facing so long in the wilderness. They might have lost office in 2005-07 but been back 2 terms later.

We can only speculate whether the SNP dominance of Scotland and Brexit referendum yet alone Brexit would still have happened.

 

[Aljanah]

The economy was in a pretty decent state when we booted him out.

Thats not the economy I remember

New Chief Secretary to the Treasury David Laws has revealed his predecessor left him a note reading: "I'm afraid there is no money."

 

[GusB]

Thats not the economy I remember

New Chief Secretary to the Treasury David Laws has revealed his predecessor left him a note reading: "I'm afraid there is no money."

Oh, come on. The economy was buggered no matter which party was in power at the time. It was a global crisis and decisions had to be made in order to prevent further buggeration.

Do you really think that the Tories would have made a better job of it?

I have no love for Gordon Brown, nor Alistair Darling, but I'd rather trust those two with the economy than the idiot Cameron/Osborne team. As for there being no money - well, there's always money as we've recently witnessed with the covid crisis.

 

[Butts]

Actually, it was the INLA who murdered Airey Neave (not a pedantic point, the differences between it and the IRA were significant at the time) and declassified Intelligence documents show the go-ahead for the assassination was given by its leadership when they concluded Callaghan could not win the General Election about to take place. Enoch Powell later proposed the theory that the Americans, and specifically the CIA, were behind it all, but he was a Conspiracy Theorist par excellence who would have revelled in the 2021 political scene. Having said that, I've no personal antipathy for Callaghan and acknowledge he had a backbone, an item of anatomy sadly lacking from almost all of today's political class, together with a sense of shame. I believe he'd have lost the 1983 General Election as massively as Michael Foot, though.

As would Viscount Stansgate another great parliamentarian. (Rear Gunner on Lancasters)

Talking of Enoch Powell he started the War as a Private and ended it as a Brigadier.

Denis Healey was a beachmaster at Anzio

Willie Whitelaw, Lord Carrington and Francis Pym all awarded the MC and men of honour.

Carrington resigned following the Argentinian invasion of The Falkland Islands.

 

[edwin_m]

Oh, come on. The economy was buggered no matter which party was in power at the time. It was a global crisis and decisions had to be made in order to prevent further buggeration.

Do you really think that the Tories would have made a better job of it?

I have no love for Gordon Brown, nor Alistair Darling, but I'd rather trust those two with the economy than the idiot Cameron/Osborne team. As for there being no money - well, there's always money as we've recently witnessed with the covid crisis.

The last ten years have shown that austerity was the wrong response to a worldwide financial crisis, and the last two have shown that the sky doesn't fall in if the government borrows huge amounts to prop up the economy in even more exceptional circumstances. I suspect George Osborne knew full well that Gordon Brown was right to want to keep spending up, but adopted the populist "manage the country like a household" line as a means of getting the Tories elected.

 

[Typhoon]

The last ten years have shown that austerity was the wrong response to a worldwide financial crisis, and the last two have shown that the sky doesn't fall in if the government borrows huge amounts to prop up the economy in even more exceptional circumstances. I suspect George Osborne knew full well that Gordon Brown was right to want to keep spending up, but adopted the populist "manage the country like a household" line as a means of getting the Tories elected.

A previous 'Project Fear', alongside his claims of a 'Death Tax'. Still, it did also free up money for tax cuts which largely benefited large corporations and the better off - and enable the former Chancellor to take a £650,000 for 4 days a month job a few years ago so can't be all bad!

Thats not the economy I remember

New Chief Secretary to the Treasury David Laws has revealed his predecessor left him a note reading: "I'm afraid there is no money."

Liam Byrne has a lot to answer for by making that quote. Just provide the other side with ammunition, why don't you? Maybe there wasn't so much in way of actual cash, but there was a lot of equity in the country and, as @edwin_m suggests, there are less harmful and more constructive ways out of economic difficulties. We largely got it wrong in the thirties (when Roosevelt got it right), and probably in the early eighties. May be we've learnt, and it has taken a clown and an inexperienced politician to teach us.

 

[birchesgreen]

I think the joke was something many chief secretaries have made before, unfortunately it backfired with Osborne who was a ruthless political opportunist.

 

[Typhoon]

I think the joke was something many chief secretaries have made before, unfortunately it backfired with Osborne who was a ruthless political opportunist.

It is a joke you make when it is not true (or only partly true). It isn't a joke if it is!

But you are right, Osborne and humour are not two words that go together, really. He would have made a dreadful PM. Part of the reason that paying for social care hasn't been sorted out is that he put his single-minded pursuit of power above the anxiety of thousands of pensioners and their children for over a decade now, and there is little sign of the situation being resolved.

 

[507021]

I think they need to decide whether they want to win over people who aren't Labour members, or just focus on certain "comfort zone" issues (impotently waving their Palestinian flags at the conference whilst ignoring other things) - there's a slippery slope towards blaming the "1%" for everything and getting into conspiracies/ anti-Semitism etc, and I think that some people are relaxed about going down that route

That was a big problem with Corbyn's Labour. They spent far, far too much time focusing on the support they already had rather than appealing to non-Labour voters in constituencies held by other parties.

That should never be an issue. The roots of the Labour Party are in various (usually non-conformist) churches; the founding fathers may have had issues with some of those in the higher echelons of the established churches but they have had the support, admittedly often tacit, of many of those in parishes throughout the country.

It shouldn't, but it was. As a Jewish man I did not feel comfortable in Labour during the Corbyn years.

Yes. For all Tony Blair's talk when still opposition leader of never being complacent, he took for granted that established Labour voters had "nowhere else to go" and instead he focussed only on swing voters. So by 2001, established Labour voters were disillusioned and abstained but floating voters did still vote Labour through apprehension of another Conservative government. Thus in 2001 Labour won another landslide, but this time with fewer votes than in 1992 (and incidentally also 2017). Furthermore, in 2001 Labour got more votes in several marginal seats than in many "safe" seats.

These disillusioned voters felt disenfranchised from politics until the emergence of UKIP and more significantly the Brexit referendum. Quite a few such voters now vote Conservative instead of Labour, hence the fall of several red wall seats in 2017, 2019 and recently Hartlepool.

Had John Smith lived, he might not have targetted middle England so strongly and would not have neglected the Labour heartlands. We might only have had 2 terms of Labour government instead of 3, but they would not be facing so long in the wilderness. They might have lost office in 2005-07 but been back 2 terms later.

We can only speculate whether the SNP dominance of Scotland and Brexit referendum yet alone Brexit would still have happened.

You're absolutely bang on the money.

 

[tbtc]

Liam Byrne has a lot to answer for by making that quote. Just provide the other side with ammunition, why don't you? Maybe there wasn't so much in way of actual cash, but there was a lot of equity in the country and, as @edwin_m suggests, there are less harmful and more constructive ways out of economic difficulties. We largely got it wrong in the thirties (when Roosevelt got it right), and probably in the early eighties. May be we've learnt, and it has taken a clown and an inexperienced politician to teach us.

I think the joke was something many chief secretaries have made before, unfortunately it backfired with Osborne who was a ruthless political opportunist.

I don't think I'd heard of Liam Byrne during the thirteen years of Labour Government - maybe I had but I couldn't have told you anything about him

But the way that the Tories obsessed with this post-it note makes you think he was a Chancellor making an official announcement, rather than a lame attempt at humour for his successor

It's even more frustrating given the way that the Tories have subsequently oscillated between the kind of "we need full austerity, we can't borrow money that we don't have" - "let's spend billions creating money from scratch to fund the financial market - it's called Quantitive Easing" - "there's no Magic Money Tree"... so there is money available when they want to spend it - but Thatcher attracted a lot of votes with her incredibly simplistic economics (treating the UK economy like a housewife's purse), so I guess Osbourne took that as his roadmap

That was a big problem with Corbyn's Labour. They spent far, far too much time focusing on the support they already had rather than appealing to non-Labour voters in constituencies held by other parties

I agree - I'm not even sure that Corbyn wanted to appeal to such voters - he seemed to have an approach of "better to have a small number of people love and adore you than have a large number of people quite like you"

Sometimes it's better to have a hardcore of loyal fans (e.g. musicians would generally prefer a tiny loyal fanbase who buy the records and attend the gigs and buy the t-shirts to a radio friendly tune that millions of people tap their fingers along to but don't actually buy the songs). But politics needs widespread support (even if none of the people voting for you write poems in your honour or serenade you at Glastonbury). Corbyn just seemed completely unsuited to mainstream politics - he was in his comfort zone, giving speeches to people who already loved him - must have been fun for him but the rest of the country needed proper opposition to the Government!

 

[507021]

Sometimes it's better to have a hardcore of loyal fans (e.g. musicians would generally prefer a tiny loyal fanbase who buy the records and attend the gigs and buy the t-shirts to a radio friendly tune that millions of people tap their fingers along to but don't actually buy the songs). But politics needs widespread support (even if none of the people voting for you write poems in your honour or serenade you at Glastonbury). Corbyn just seemed completely unsuited to mainstream politics - he was in his comfort zone, giving speeches to people who already loved him - must have been fun for him but the rest of the country needed proper opposition to the Government!

Absolutely. The Corbynistas were more obsessed with winning the argument, which they didn't, than actually gaining power and making a difference to peoples' lives.

All they and Momentum achieved was a landslide victory for Johnson and setting the Labour Party back at least ten years.

 

[TravelDream]

May's elections for various offices in the whole of Great Britain, saw this once great Party standing on the edge of the abyss and becoming if it is not already an irrelevance.

Behind SNP and Tories in Scotland, controling fewer county and district councils in England than the Lib Dems, losing hundreds of council seats and around 16% points behind the Tories in the latest Westminster opinion polls and with the smallest number of MPs since 1935 it must be a major embarrassment being a member in these current times.

Remember those halcyon days of being the dominant party in Scotland and having 400 odd MP's at Westminster in the not to distant past ?

Did your Party die with Tony Blair the last (in my view) decent if troubled leader you had ?

Is there a way back ?

It's hard to pretend that last month's elections were anything but bad for Labour, but I think you are being slightly selective in your choice of races.

In Wales, Labour actually *increased* their vote share and number of seats. Several marginal seats the Tories were expected to gain, Labour held with an increased majority.

In Manchester, Andy Burnham won with over 2/3 of the vote, an increase on last time, and he won every single ward in the region unlike in 2017 where he lost a few of the leafier wards.

In places like Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire, Labour did decently in local council elections.

Scotland is a difficult one as the SNP has basically eaten Labour's lunch (and breakfast, dinner and snacks). Previously safe Labour seats now vote heavily for the SNP.
Labour are in a bind though. Their previous voters are generally soft nationalist or nationalist, yet Labour can hardly support independence.

What can Labour do to turn the tide across the UK?
I think nothing right at this moment. The Conservatives are riding high due to the successful vaccination campaign and perceived success at 'beating' Covid. He's a bit like Marmite, but Boris Johnson also seems to be very personally popular. The Scottish problem remains a big one for them. Without winning dozens of Scottish seats, it's hard to see how Labour will ever win a UK-wide election. A Labour-SNP coalition is possible, but unpalatable.
Is it the end for Labour?
Obviously not. People will get tired of the Conservatives and Labour will eventually elect a leader who can galvinise enough votes to win an election. And the cycle will continue.


Labour have a big test coming up with the Batley and Spen by-election. The seat should be much easier for them to hold than Hartlepool, but will still be a really tough test for them. If they lose, I'd say there's only a 50/50 chance that Starmer clings onto power.

 

[edwin_m]

Worth remembering too that Labour deposed the Tory Metro mayors for the Bristol area and Cambridgeshire/Peterborough and won the newly-created West Yorkshire post (thus setting up the by-election). The Tories now only have two of the ten posts.

 

[Typhoon]

It shouldn't, but it was. As a Jewish man I did not feel comfortable in Labour during the Corbyn years.

The likes of Sydney Silverman, Marcus Lipton, Gerald Kaufman, and Leo Abse did more for civil rights, for the underdog than all of Momentum are ever likely to. And if ever there was a true champion of left wing causes, it was Frank Allaun. My experience of the extreme left was first garnered when I went to University; they didn't have a clue about the environment that I was brought in, where men went to work in the local factories (with very few exceptions), women looked out for the next jumble sale, kids had clothes they had to grow into or hand-me-downs; and I don't think much has changed. Its all idealism and dogma but zero practicality. It was the despised Blair whose government introduced the minimum wage, despite opposition from the Tories. If Labour had kept Foot then gone to Benn, then whoever, they would still be spending Conference debating subsection 3 of paragraph 10 of a motion to replace the statue of Nelson by one of Karl Marx with a rump of MPs being beaten into third place by the LibDems. What Labour needs to do (and I think a fair number of its MPs realise this) is, as @507021 says, to put forward policies that make a difference to peoples lives - in particular those who Johnson is currying favour with but, so far, not actually helping.

I don't think I'd heard of Liam Byrne during the thirteen years of Labour Government - maybe I had but I couldn't have told you anything about him

He is completely forgettable. That is what is so galling, a complete non-entity who, by failing to engage brain, gave the Tories ammunition right through to 2015.

He surfaced again this year when he ran for West Midlands mayor, claiming that he should beat the Tory incumbent easily; needless to say, he lost ... easily.

 

[507021]

The likes of Sydney Silverman, Marcus Lipton, Gerald Kaufman, and Leo Abse did more for civil rights, for the underdog than all of Momentum are ever likely to. And if ever there was a true champion of left wing causes, it was Frank Allaun. My experience of the extreme left was first garnered when I went to University; they didn't have a clue about the environment that I was brought in, where men went to work in the local factories (with very few exceptions), women looked out for the next jumble sale, kids had clothes they had to grow into or hand-me-downs; and I don't think much has changed. Its all idealism and dogma but zero practicality. It was the despised Blair whose government introduced the minimum wage, despite opposition from the Tories. If Labour had kept Foot then gone to Benn, then whoever, they would still be spending Conference debating subsection 3 of paragraph 10 of a motion to replace the statue of Nelson by one of Karl Marx with a rump of MPs being beaten into third place by the LibDems. What Labour needs to do (and I think a fair number of its MPs realise this) is, as @507021 says, to put forward policies that make a difference to peoples lives - in particular those who Johnson is currying favour with but, so far, not actually helping.

Spot on.

Whether you agree with Tony Blair or not, the fact he won three general elections, with two landslides of over 400 seats, suggests he is worth listening to if you want to know how to win a general election. We will never win another until the left wake up and realise that divided parties don't win elections. They're more interested in repeatedly attacking the leader and calling him a Tory, which is ironic as Starmer is more working class than Corbyn ever will be.

 

[Bishopstone]

Labour will be back. Never write-off either of the UK’s two largest parties.

I think Starmer is doing a decent job, in the circumstances he inherited, but he needs to compromise with the electorate and I’m sure he will, in the years leading-up to the next General Election.

Meanwhile, here are some talking points that should never again pass the lips of Labour MPs and activists:

1. People who didn’t vote for us are ‘low information’ electors.
2. People who didn’t vote for us were brainwashed by the newspapers.
3. People who didn’t vote for us are poorly educated and dim.
4. People who didn’t vote for us didn’t know what they were voting for, as evidenced by the fact that, subsequently, the Tories have slumped to a 10-point mid-term lead over us.
5. The LibDems are evil Tory-enablers, who - nevertheless - must now join us in a progressive alliance that would subsume them.
6. Jeremy Corbyn.

We will know Labour are back when they start to pursue direct Tory switchers, rather than recoil in horror at the very thought of it.

To the question of where it all started to go wrong for Labour: when the masses started to buy their own homes. Now more people are building-up workplace pensions invested in the stock market and property (ie not the old defined benefit schemes), it‘s just got harder still.

 

[tbtc]

It's hard to pretend that last month's elections were anything but bad for Labour, but I think you are being slightly selective in your choice of races.

In Wales, Labour actually *increased* their vote share and number of seats. Several marginal seats the Tories were expected to gain, Labour held with an increased majority.

In Manchester, Andy Burnham won with over 2/3 of the vote, an increase on last time, and he won every single ward in the region unlike in 2017 where he lost a few of the leafier wards.

In places like Oxfordshire and Cambridgeshire, Labour did decently in local council elections

Worth remembering too that Labour deposed the Tory Metro mayors for the Bristol area and Cambridgeshire/Peterborough and won the newly-created West Yorkshire post (thus setting up the by-election). The Tories now only have two of the ten posts.

Good points both - sadly the headlines of the night were about the first place to declare (Hartlepool) and very little attention paid to other votes (once the media realised that their golden boy Lawrence Fox wasn't going to justify all of the attention they'd given him)

The likes of Sydney Silverman, Marcus Lipton, Gerald Kaufman, and Leo Abse did more for civil rights, for the underdog than all of Momentum are ever likely to. And if ever there was a true champion of left wing causes, it was Frank Allaun. My experience of the extreme left was first garnered when I went to University; they didn't have a clue about the environment that I was brought in, where men went to work in the local factories (with very few exceptions), women looked out for the next jumble sale, kids had clothes they had to grow into or hand-me-downs; and I don't think much has changed. Its all idealism and dogma but zero practicality. It was the despised Blair whose government introduced the minimum wage, despite opposition from the Tories. If Labour had kept Foot then gone to Benn, then whoever, they would still be spending Conference debating subsection 3 of paragraph 10 of a motion to replace the statue of Nelson by one of Karl Marx with a rump of MPs being beaten into third place by the LibDems. What Labour needs to do (and I think a fair number of its MPs realise this) is, as @507021 says, to put forward policies that make a difference to peoples lives - in particular those who Johnson is currying favour with but, so far, not actually helping.

Agreed - look at how much the Momentum types hate Jess Phillips for the sin of sitting down with Tories to help draft Domestic Violence legislation - much better to retain the purity of the high moral ground rather than compromise yourself by trying to find middle ground and make genuine improvements to people's lives!

Let's just keep signing petitions and organising tweetstorms and boast about how you've never had friends who were Tories...

 

[Aljanah]

I think the joke was something many chief secretaries have made before, unfortunately it backfired with Osborne who was a ruthless political opportunist.

Some joke.

Start by ruining the country's defined benefit pension schemes by taxing them into the ground. Then when the brownstuff hits the fan find you have no cash reserves to do anything, and no-one will lend to you anymore. Wind up by stealing folks savings when you nationalise the banks. Laugh a minute.

This was probably a classic example in fact of socialism running out of other peoples money. Don't forget the German inflation in the 1920's was caused by borrowing and printing money; that ended well too.

Anyway, the letter wasn't to Osborne, it was to the then new secretary, David Laws.

I'm also not sure the foreign adventure to Iraq helped the Party's cause either really. What was that all about?

 

[Bevan Price]

Agreed - look at how much the Momentum types hate Jess Phillips for the sin of sitting down with Tories to help draft Domestic Violence legislation - much better to retain the purity of the high moral ground rather than compromise yourself by trying to find middle ground and make genuine improvements to people's lives!

--------------------

They changed the name, but Momentum is just Militant in disguise -- the same bunch of losers that ensured that we got 17 years of tory rule starting with Thatcher. (sorry for the bad language)

 

[DelayRepay]

To the question of where it all started to go wrong for Labour: when the masses started to buy their own homes. Now more people are building-up workplace pensions invested in the stock market and property (ie not the old defined benefit schemes), it‘s just got harder still.

I think it went wrong when they decided to consign everything that happened during the Blair years to the history books, never to be spoken about again.

Blair had his faults, and should never be forgiven for the Iraq war, but he did understand that if you want to actually enact policies, you need to win elections. And to win elections you need to appeal to the centre ground. I am 41 now and Tony Blair is the only Labour leader to have won a General Election in my lifetime. I honestly wonder if I'll see another one.

 

[Typhoon]

They changed the name, but Momentum is just Militant in disguise -- the same bunch of losers that ensured that we got 17 years of tory rule starting with Thatcher. (sorry for the bad language)

More likely 'Son of Militant', but the point is well made, the same 'culture of intolerance'. Militant was effectively seen off by Neil Kinnock:

I’ll tell you what happens with impossible promises. You start with far-fetched resolutions. They are then pickled into a rigid dogma, a code, and you go through the years sticking to that, outdated, misplaced, irrelevant to the real needs, and you end in the grotesque chaos of a Labour council – a Labour council – hiring taxis to scuttle round a city handing out redundancy notices to its own workers.

The first part is as true today as it was in 1985, fortunately, I don't think there are the extremist councils as there were then (for one thing, councillor's powers have been diminished). Quote from https://thecritic.co.uk/the-neil-kinnock-speech-that-lives-on/. Maybe he wouldn't have made a good PM but Labour should forever be grateful for those minutes alone (and forgive 'Well, Alright! Well Alright.')

Blair had his faults, and should never be forgiven for the Iraq war, but he did understand that if you want to actually enact policies, you need to win elections.

And when he won them, he enacted some decent policies. Besides Minimum Wage there was increased expenditure on Education, Health, Transport; increases in benefits for those on the bottom rungs of the ladder; Sure Start; LGBTQ rights, amongst others. There were duff ones too - too much in awe of big business, but there were people who had suffered under Thatcher and Major, whose lives considerably improved under Blair.

3. People who didn’t vote for us are poorly educated and dim.

As part of my job I used to have to write Annual Reports that I did not want anyone to question. I recognise verbosity and verbal diarrhoea when I see it. I think the far left deliberately use language to make voters out to be poorly educated. It worked with me to some extent in the early days before I swallowed a Thesaurus. I suspect it is to distance 'mere voters' from them, but it also distances them from 'mere voters', so the electorate see them as the irrelevance they are rather than those who must be right because we don't understand what they are saying - bar a few slogans, of course.

Now more people are building-up workplace pensions invested in the stock market and property (ie not the old defined benefit schemes), it‘s just got harder still.

I'm not sure that they understand exactly where the money is being invested, of the annual reports I've seen, they are not over-detailed. I suspect a fair few would not be over happy to find that their pension is rather dependent on companies with a significant presence in western Europe doing well

Agreed - look at how much the Momentum types hate Jess Phillips for the sin of sitting down with Tories to help draft Domestic Violence legislation - much better to retain the purity of the high moral ground rather than compromise yourself by trying to find middle ground and make genuine improvements to people's lives!

I've got a lot of time for Jess Phillips (as I have for the MPs I quoted before); on leaving Parliament she will be able to say that she made a difference. Far too many just sit there day after day. By working with the government (and it is working with the government which happens to be Tory) this should ensure that it gets through unscathed, no matter how many neanderthals object. The reason why I hope Kim Leadbeater wins is that i think she can play a similar role regarding loneliness.

 

[tbtc]

They changed the name, but Momentum is just Militant in disguise -- the same bunch of losers that ensured that we got 17 years of tory rule starting with Thatcher. (sorry for the bad language)

True - they'd rather sit on the sidelines and boo the Tory Governments than get their hands dirty and win power

It's fine for the wealthy like Seamus Milne but the actual working class don't have the luxury of being able to preserve their sacred principles - they need a Government who does things like introducing a minimum wage or honouring a commitment not to slash the welfare state

And when he won them, he enacted some decent policies. Besides Minimum Wage there was increased expenditure on Education, Health, Transport; increases in benefits for those on the bottom rungs of the ladder; Sure Start; LGBTQ rights, amongst others. There were duff ones too - too much in awe of big business, but there were people who had suffered under Thatcher and Major, whose lives considerably improved under Blair

Agreed - a heck of a lot of good - but the biggest critics of the thirteen years of Labour Government were the Corbynites

I'm not defending everything Labour did in those thirteen years - it'd be weird to suggest art ANY government was perfect for that period - but they left the country in a better place than it was in 1997.

And a lot of the subsequent Tory criticism ("Labour bankrupted he country by spending all this money on Sure Starts and libraries" etc) should take into account that the Tories were promising to maintain Labour's public spending levels and increases in NHS funding etc (until the global financial crash, at which point Cameron etc swiftly changed tune). So not only did Labour did well, they built a consensus around that too

I've got a lot of time for Jess Phillips (as I have for the MPs I quoted before); on leaving Parliament she will be able to say that she made a difference. Far too many just sit there day after day. By working with the government (and it is working with the government which happens to be Tory) this should ensure that it gets through unscathed, no matter how many neanderthals object. The reason why I hope Kim Leadbeater wins is that i think she can play a similar role regarding loneliness.

I'm glad there's another Jess Phillips fan on here - she's a great example of what the left can achieve, even if not in Government herself. She focuses on genuine problems (e.g. domestic violence), finds practical solutions, sits down with people of all backgrounds/parties to achieve them (whether by knocking heads together or finding common ground) - Mo Mowlam was another one who was more focussed on delivering the actual improvements (even if it meant sitting down with "opponents")

But the modern Labour party seems to have too many people worrying about Palestine/ Venezuela etc - and being proud of the fact that they have nothing in common with their opponents (the "never kissed a Tory" t-shirts etc) - no wonder long term voters deserted them

 

[Typhoon]

I'm glad there's another Jess Phillips fan on here - she's a great example of what the left can achieve, even if not in Government herself. She focuses on genuine problems (e.g. domestic violence), finds practical solutions, sits down with people of all backgrounds/parties to achieve them (whether by knocking heads together or finding common ground) - Mo Mowlam was another one who was more focussed on delivering the actual improvements (even if it meant sitting down with "opponents")

But the modern Labour party seems to have too many people worrying about Palestine/ Venezuela etc - and being proud of the fact that they have nothing in common with their opponents (the "never kissed a Tory" t-shirts etc) - no wonder long term voters deserted them

Apparently, one reason the left wing of Labour have fallen out with Phillips is that she accepted the post of Associate Editor of The House, a magazine given to each member of the Houses of Commons and Lords, and is also targeted at senior civil servants and political journalists. The Editor is Sir Graham Brady. The problem the Left have is that the owner of The House is Lord Ashworth, the tax exile (in Belize!), former Deputy Chairman of the Conservatives and Billionaire. What I struggle with is if a Labour member doesn't take the role (which is paid), then there is every chance it would go to the likes of Mark Francois or Desmond Swayne, or perhaps one of the Scots Nats. Between them Brady and Phillips have produced balanced output' OK there is Sir Bob Neil on some obscure Mozart opera, Lord (Ed) Vaizey on Gaming and some Tory who took over 500 days to make his maiden speech, but there is also Lord Dubbs on accommodation for asylum seekers, Kim Johnson MP on the 'Underground Railroad' to move African-American slaves from the South to the North or Canada, Melanie Brown (Mel B) on domestic abuse and Rosena Allin-Khan on Kickboxing (she is a participant). The journal also has its own staff to cover politics and the like. I don't suppose Lord Ashworth makes too much on it, or contributors and editors are generously paid. It just seems rather petty to sulk in the corner, when there is an opportunity to get a message across that might lead to co-operation to get legislation enacted. Right now the likes of Andrew Mitchell and Tobias Elwood are fighting to get the International Development budget reinstated, if Labour MPs have a worthy cause they will probably find one or two (or more) of the more enlightened MPs on the government benches willing to work with them, MPs like Johnny Mercer and Tracey Crouch who have already given up their ministerial role to support a cause they believe in.

 

[Busaholic]

I'm glad there's another Jess Phillips fan on here - she's a great example of what the left can achieve, even if not in Government herself. She focuses on genuine problems (e.g. domestic violence), finds practical solutions, sits down with people of all backgrounds/parties to achieve them (whether by knocking heads together or finding common ground) - Mo Mowlam was another one who was more focussed on delivering the actual improvements (even if it meant sitting down with "opponents")

Make that three Jess Phillips fans. Joan Ruddock was another who made a great contribution. Sarah Champion seems to have been ostracised under both old and new leaders, probably not helped when the BBC documentary film-makers in the Palace of Westminster featured her, and caught then PM David Cameron congratulating her for her contribution to raising the issue of child sexual exploitation in Rotherham and surrounding towns. She was understandably pleased to receive the recognition, but it won't have gone down well with the ideologues. There'd never have been peace in Northern Ireland if nobody on the two utterly opposed sides had been able to sit down and talk as members of the same human race.

 

[Cowley]

She was understandably pleased to receive the recognition, but it won't have gone down well with the ideologues. There'd never have been peace in Northern Ireland if nobody on the two utterly opposed sides had been able to sit down and talk as members of the same human race.

There’s a paragraph at the end of one of the chapters in the book I’m reading by Matt Forde that I thought summed this up quite well:

Ultimately, it’s about having the right mindset. Explore and enjoy the ideology but not at the expense of it being relevant.
Sometimes I worry that those who bury themselves in complex political philosophy, as important as knowledge is, are doing it as an alternative to engaging with reality. They’re becoming ideological hermits, pursuing politics in a way that doesn’t enrich debate or society. In short, know your values but don’t strive for purity or you’ll end up down a dead end. Once you’re down a dead end there’s only one way to go and that’s reverse.
Actually there’s another option, you can keep going for a bit, but you will crash the car.
What a great metaphor for the Labour Party...

None of that’s mine but I do agree with it.

 

[birchesgreen]

Politics is the art of the possible of course.