Hold your nose and vote Labour?

[danny la rouge]

i recall being on a really wet demo in London circa 1992 against the Tory pit closure program. It was really huge. For the speeches, we assembled in (maybe Hyde Park?) and what was evident was the huge respect that John Smith had in the crowd. Arthur spoke, and was actually quite pragmatic in tone. Some TUC wonk also said a few meaningless words and were jeered constantly (iirc Arthur even intervened to prevent the hecklers!). When John Smith spoke there was almost no heckling. i took the impression that he was widely regarded as someone who understood the wc movement and who held genuine trade union values. Obviously he was no revolutionary or even anti capitalist, but he was a thorough going and honest social democrat of the old school who commanded breadth and width respect. i'm not here suggesting he was marvelous in any way. What i would like to suggest though, is that the likes of Starmer and Kinnock were always untrustworthy cunts. John Smith was perhaps the last of that generation of Labour politicians who at least retained some understanding of trade union consciousness and the working class. When Smith died i heard the news for the first time in a wc cafe in the heart of Yorkshire - and i kid you not, people spontaneously wept. Who the fuck would weep for Starmer (if he died) apart from the bankers?

Not trying to traduce them guy. I’m sure he was honorable in intention, but at the time he was considered anti-trades union by many who were involved in the trades council I was tangentially in contact with at the time. He was considered middle class establishment. Like a friendly bank manager.

But history has been kinder to him than to Kinnock.

 

[Shechemite]

Starmer gives me Friedrich Ebert vibes personally. Not sure who the spartakusbund and the freikorps would be in this scenario though

 

[Puddy_Tat]

Not trying to traduce them guy. I’m sure he was honorable in intention, but at the time he was considered anti-trades union by many who were involved in the trades council I was tangentially in contact with at the time. He was considered middle class establishment. Like a friendly bank manager.

But history has been kinder to him than to Kinnock.

i know what you mean

in hindsight, i'm struggling to remember just what john smith said / did.

to some extent, i wonder if at least part of his skill (or all that became apparent as leader of the opposition in the early years of a government) was simply not being john major and the tories while they imploded, and not being neil kinnock...

 

[mojo pixy]

It did help Smith's reputation that he died before he was really tested as leader, or became PM (1997 was probably always going to be a labour landslide tbh)

 

[redcogs]

Not trying to traduce them guy. I’m sure he was honorable in intention, but at the time he was considered anti-trades union by many who were involved in the trades council I was tangentially in contact with at the time. He was considered middle class establishment. Like a friendly bank manager.

But history has been kinder to him than to Kinnock.

Anti trade union legislation is in Labour's 'high command' dna. John Smith can't be seen as being outside that perspective in any way. i certainly saw him through such a lens in 1992 (as did the trades council i was involved in). i still do.

 

[nino_savatte]

i recall being on a really wet demo in London circa 1992 against the Tory pit closure program. It was really huge. For the speeches, we assembled in (maybe Hyde Park?) and what was evident was the huge respect that John Smith had in the crowd. Arthur spoke, and was actually quite pragmatic in tone. Some TUC wonk also said a few meaningless words and were jeered constantly (iirc Arthur even intervened to prevent the hecklers!). When John Smith spoke there was almost no heckling. i took the impression that he was widely regarded as someone who understood the wc movement and who held genuine trade union values. Obviously he was no revolutionary or even anti capitalist, but he was a thorough going and honest social democrat of the old school who commanded breadth and width respect. i'm not here suggesting he was marvelous in any way. What i would like to suggest though, is that the likes of Starmer and Kinnock were always untrustworthy cunts. John Smith was perhaps the last of that generation of Labour politicians who at least retained some understanding of trade union consciousness and the working class. When Smith died i heard the news for the first time in a wc cafe in the heart of Yorkshire - and i kid you not, people spontaneously wept. Who the fuck would weep for Starmer (if he died) apart from the bankers?

I was at that demo and I remember it well. One thing that I would add is that Smith was one of the last of the Gaitskellites, so deffo no lefty, but he clearly understood trade unionism and the need for unity within the party, which meant making deals with the left. Starmer holds no such views: he's a liar and a cheap opportunist. In short, he's a cunt.

 

[brogdale]

I was at that demo and I remember it well. One thing that I would add is that Smith was one of the last of the Gaitskellites, so deffo no lefty, but he clearly understood trade unionism and the need for unity within the party, which meant making deals with the left. Starmer holds no such views: he's a liar and a cheap opportunist. In short, he's a cunt.

This is the clarity of political analysis that I come to U75 for.

 

[nogojones]

Not trying to traduce them guy. I’m sure he was honorable in intention, but at the time he was considered anti-trades union by many who were involved in the trades council I was tangentially in contact with at the time. He was considered middle class establishment. Like a friendly bank manager.

But history has been kinder to him than to Kinnock.

This.

He had the good grace to die before being put to the test.

 

[Knotted]

Starmer gives me Friedrich Ebert vibes personally. Not sure who the spartakusbund and the freikorps would be in this scenario though

Ebert headed a workers/soldiers revolt for a time with the intention of betraying it. Starmer would simply be loudly hostile from the start. The advantage of the death of social democracy is that the shit Ebert pulled will not happen again.

 

[Rob Ray]

I think you're doing Starmer's powers of bullshittery a disservice there. He was well capable of pretending to be a Corbynite until the time was right to rip it out at the root.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

I think you're doing Starmer's powers of bullshittery a disservice there. He was well capable of pretending to be a Corbynite until the time was right to rip it out at the root.

I don't know, I think he was pretty unconvincing throughout the leadership campaign and couldn't understand why people believed him.

 

[nogojones]

I don't know, I think he was pretty unconvincing throughout the leadership campaign and couldn't understand why people believed him.

I think you have to be pretty gullible to be in the Labour Party for any amount of time and still believe that they are agents of progressive change.

Maybe people just wanted to believe him.

 

[redsquirrel]

I don't know, I think he was pretty unconvincing throughout the leadership campaign and couldn't understand why people believed him.

I didn't either - but I know a good number of people that really did.
Whether they were just fooling themselves or got suckered by him they thought he'd at least keep the policies of the Corbyn era.

 

[Serge Forward]

I seem to remember something about "an adult is in the room" meaning... er... a Tory is in the room.

 

[Cloo]

I think my conclusion is that Labour do not deserve to win. But more than that, the Tories deserve to lose, and in my constituency, that means voting Labour.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Another brave decision taken by Labour to demonstrate its bona fide’s to capital and the free market.

Labour rows back on workers’ rights to blunt Tory ‘anti-business’ claims

Starmer dilutes pledge to boost protections for gig economy as party focuses on winning over Britain’s corporate leaders

www.ft.com

Long live free enterprise! Vote Labour!

 

[redsquirrel]

Labour has watered down plans to strengthen workers’ rights as Sir Keir Starmer tries to woo corporate leaders and discredit Tory claims that his party is “anti-business” ahead of the next general election.
A pledge to boost the protection of gig economy workers was diluted by the party’s leadership at Labour’s national policy forum in Nottingham last month, according to people familiar with the matter and text seen by the Financial Times.
The party also clarified its position on probation for new recruits, confirming a future Labour government would continue to allow companies to dismiss staff during a trial period. The moves come ahead of a battle for the support of business leaders before a general election expected next year. Conservative ministers are looking to highlight what they see as a contradiction between Labour’s policies and Starmer’s efforts to court corporate chiefs in what party insiders have called a “smoked salmon and scrambled egg” offensive.
The text agreed last month will be published in the run-up to Labour’s annual conference in October and will form a menu from which it picks its manifesto pledges. Passages seen by the FT showed that Labour has diluted its 2021 pledge to create a single status of “worker” for all but the genuinely self-employed, regardless of sector, wage or contract type. The policy was aimed at guaranteeing “basic rights and protections” for all workers, including those in the gig economy. Instead of introducing the policy immediately,

Labour has agreed it would consult on the proposal in government, considering how “a simpler framework” that differentiates between workers and the genuinely self-employed “could properly capture the breadth of employment relationships in the UK” and ensure workers can still “benefit from flexible working where they choose to do so”. Labour also clarified that its previously announced plans to introduce “basic individual rights from day one for all workers”, including sick pay, parental leave and protection against unfair dismissal, will “not prevent . . . probationary periods with fair and transparent rules and processes.” The policy body also confirmed that businesses would retain the right to fairly dismiss workers — on the grounds of capability, conduct or redundancy — under a Labour administration.

And this is even before it has got into government and sells out

 

[nino_savatte]

Another brave decision taken by Labour to demonstrate its bona fide’s to capital and the free market.

Labour rows back on workers’ rights to blunt Tory ‘anti-business’ claims

Starmer dilutes pledge to boost protections for gig economy as party focuses on winning over Britain’s corporate leaders

www.ft.com

Long live free enterprise! Vote Labour!

Cowardly capitalist Labour.

 

[nino_savatte]

Labour Party conference set to host weapons manufacturers and spyware company.

Weapons manufacturers, fossil fuel companies and a spyware firm are among those sponsoring events at this year’s Labour Party conference.

Boeing and Babcock, manufacturers of missiles or missile compartments, and Palantir, a controversial spyware firm funded by the CIA, will sponsor fringe events hosted by centre-left media company the New Statesman Media Group.

Fossil fuel companies, private health firms, major banks and the International Airlines Group, which owns British Airways, are also among those paying to have a presence at the party’s annual conference in Liverpool, which will host politicians and policy makers.

The party has been slammed for playing host to these industries by environmental groups and anti-weapon groups, who call the sponsorships “disgusting and disappointing.” Its own MP Clive Lewis has also questioned why Labour is “cosying up” to some of the organisations involved.
Arms and fossil fuel firms sponsor Labour conference events

Vote for death. Vote for authoritarianism. Vote for militarism.

 

[Pickman's model]

Ebert headed a workers/soldiers revolt for a time with the intention of betraying it. Starmer would simply be loudly hostile from the start. The advantage of the death of social democracy is that the shit Ebert pulled will not happen again.

Shammer is more a noske I think

 

[Dystopiary]

Labour Party membership fell last year by almost 25,000. At the same time it "enjoyed one of its most financially successful years in recent history, PA Media reports."

This was well below the recent membership peak recorded at the end of 2019, when there were 532,046 Labour members.

But Labour still achieved some of its highest income levels outside an election year, raising £47.2m and returning a £2.7m surplus after losing £5.2m in 2021.

That's from the Guardian here.

(link to Labour's 2022 accounts)

 

[hash tag]

I am thinking I will need to hold my nose to vote, yet alone who for.

 

[teqniq]

FFS:

Labour took Google gifts worth £10,000 before tax U-turn

Keir Starmer’s Labour Party backtracked on plan to hike Digital Services Tax to 10% after being showered with freebies

www.opendemocracy.net

Frankly it's amazing how cheaply they've been bought.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

It really is something when even liberals begin to suspect that Labour has got it fundamentally wrong on the economy, on wealth, on tax, on rentiers, on unearned income and on property tax.

Really, the last credible argument for a labour vote was the idea that Labour would engage at the edges of capital to fund some limited repair of the public realm. The decision to rule out a limited tax on wealth and instead rely on a distal pursuit of "growth" in fact indicates that no engagement at all is likely.

In ditching a wealth tax, Labour is rejecting growth and embracing bad economics | Josh Ryan-Collins

Rachel Reeves has tied her party’s hands and placed it on the wrong side of the argument, says Josh Ryan-Collins, an associate professor at UCL

www.theguardian.com

 

[Pickman's model]

It really is something when even liberals begin to suspect that Labour has got it fundamentally wrong on the economy, on wealth, on tax, on rentiers, on unearned income and on property tax.

Really, the last credible argument for a labour vote was the idea that Labour would engage at the edges of capital to fund some limited repair of the public realm. The decision to rule out a limited tax on wealth and instead rely on a distal pursuit economic growth in fact indicates that no engagement at all is likely.

In ditching a wealth tax, Labour is rejecting growth and embracing bad economics | Josh Ryan-Collins

Rachel Reeves has tied her party’s hands and placed it on the wrong side of the argument, says Josh Ryan-Collins, an associate professor at UCL

www.theguardian.com

We're used to the labour party being rw shits but we're perhaps less used to them being such rw shits to the point where on many issues sunak is quite possibly to the left of them

 

[Smokeandsteam]

We're used to the labour party being rw shits but we're perhaps less used to them being such rw shits to the point where on many issues sunak is quite possibly to the left of them

Even middle class liberals are being turned off. Once they’ve gone, there’s nobody left is there?

 

[Pickman's model]

Even middle class liberals are being turned off. Once they’ve gone, there’s nobody left is there?

We'll have to wait and see. Shammer's rightward shift might alienate enough people that sunak triumphs against the odds. Even now, if shammer used the 2010 or 2015 manifesto he'd likely stroll in to number 10 with a bumper majority. What's standing in the way of a Tory majority as much maybe as shammer is the number of new and untested candidates the Conservative party are putting forwards. I reckon a tory win with a 10-20 majority's on the cards

 

[two sheds]

... which will convince Starmer that he needs to lurch even further to the right

 

[Serge Forward]

I expect a hung parliament next election... ending up with some sort of Lab-Con coalition to shit all over us.

 

[Dystopiary]

I think there might be enough "GTTO at all costs" people for Labour to be voted in at the next election. They keep doing this shit and still people talk about holding their noses and the lesser of two evils...

I expect a hung parliament next election... ending up with some sort of Lab-Con coalition to shit all over us.

The worst of both evils.

We're used to the labour party being rw shits but we're perhaps less used to them being such rw shits to the point where on many issues sunak is quite possibly to the left of them

Their game at this point is being Tories but looking more competent at it than the Tories. And being called Labour so it's ok for liberals to go along with it.