Keir Starmer's time is up

[Bingoman]

On Sky news press preview the Sun's Harry Cole asking an important question, who brought the beer

 

[strung out]

The mail etc have been gnawing away at this for weeks, along with a number of tory MPs. A display of openness and straight - full - answers might have gone down rather well. It's not that people give a shit about the Starmer story, it just has the effect of blurring the edges of the johnson version. And people do, still, give a shit about that.

Providing the evidence to the Mail or Tory MPs would have done fuck all to make them shut up about it, and the police only announced they were investigating on Friday.

 

[Kaka Tim]

Kind of win win.
Cops clear starmer - throws spotlight back on Johnson.
Cops issue Starmer with a fine - He resigns which puts huge pressure on johnson to do the same. Also - Labour get different leader who might be slightly more effective and relatable than David Brent in wet paper bag form.
Extra lols if starmer gets a fine but Raynor doesn't.

Also the public do not percieve Starmer as remotely like some kind of party animal - hes all dull and dithery and in bed by 10pm most nights - whearas Johnson always looks like he suppressing the urge to run around whooping wearing a pair of plastic tits before stopping to piss in a fountain. Or on a homeless person.

 

[elbows]

Theres also something amusing about it given the number of times in the past we groaned at Starmers attempts to appear to be a normal person by having photo opportunities with a beer in hand.

Which remonds me that a chunk of the public wont care about this issue because they dont know who Starmer is.

 

[killer b]

Which remonds me that a chunk of the public wont care about this issue because they dont know who Starmer is.

only 8% according to yougov

 

[elbows]

Yeah Im just having a cheap pop at him, its not a big factor in the political ramifications of this story.

There arent too many 'leaders' in this country that impressed me with their pandemic attitudes, so if the beer did for him I wouldnt complain.

 

[steeplejack]

Shur Kieth aspires to the kind of political career that when you resign, people notice

 

[eatmorecheese]

It's quite extraordinary. Whenever I hear Starmer's adenoidal speech I feel my brain auto-deleting any memory of what he is saying. All the impact of being flayed by a duster.

 

[Pickman's model]

Shur Kieth aspires to the kind of political career that when you resign, people notice

yeh they'll be astonished and ask who was that dull man

 

[Pickman's model]

Kind of win win.
Cops clear starmer - throws spotlight back on Johnson.
Cops issue Starmer with a fine - He resigns which puts huge pressure on johnson to do the same. Also - Labour get different leader who might be slightly more effective and relatable than David Brent in wet paper bag form.
Extra lols if starmer gets a fine but Raynor doesn't.

Also the public do not percieve Starmer as remotely like some kind of party animal - hes all dull and dithery and in bed by 10pm most nights - whearas Johnson always looks like he suppressing the urge to run around whooping wearing a pair of plastic tits before stopping to piss in a fountain. Or on a homeless person.

except it won't

 

[andysays]

except it won't

Yeah, the sad reality of this whole situation is that whatever Starmer does is largely an irrelevance as far as Johnson is concerned.

For a brief moment there looked to be a possibility that enough Tory MPs might be sufficiently outraged/concerned for their own seats that they'd seek to depose him over this, but that possibility now appears to be well and truly over.

If this is all a cunning plan by Starmer to try to make Johnson look bad, perhaps even to shame him into resigning, it really doesn't stand much (any) chance of succeeding.

 

[teqniq]

FBU disenchanted to say the least with what they perceive as an increasing rightwards drift by Labour under Starmer:

Firefighters’ Union To Vote On Cutting Ties With The Labour Party

Exclusive: The Labour Party’s union link is at risk of weakening further as the left-wing firefighters’ union FBU is set to vote on disaffiliation ...

www.politicshome.com

The motion proposed by the Merseyside branch claims Keir Starmer’s Labour has “seemingly attempted to purge itself of socialists, actively distance itself from working men and women and sought to align itself with big business”.

The resolution concludes: “Conference is no longer convinced that the aims and objectives of the Labour Party reflect those of the FBU. With this in mind the conference demands the FBU disaffiliate from the Labour Party nationally with immediate effect.”...

also:

Supporters of the fresh bid to disaffiliate from Labour say it has been motivated mainly by Keir Starmer’s decision to write an opinion piece for The Sun last year.

“It’s the leadership’s close connection with The Sun that’s really inflamed it,” a Merseyside FBU member told PoliticsHome.

“It’s that liaison with the bastion of the right-wing media who’ve called me and others scum and murderers. I was at Hillsborough so it’s very dear to me.”

Liverpool has seen organised boycotts of The Sun since its coverage of the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, in which 97 Liverpool supporters were crushed to death due to police negligence. The Sun falsely reported that Liverpool supporters were responsible for the accident.

When Starmer wrote an article for The Sun in October on food and petrol shortages, he was met with a backlash from Merseyside Labour MPs – including front benchers Alison McGovern and Bill Esterson....

 

[Beermoth]

I'm surprised the FBU haven't hopped it already. They disaffiliated in 2004 and only rejoined under Corbyn.

 

[two sheds]

Entitled "spot the difference"

 

[Calamity1971]

Entitled "spot the difference"

View attachment 322063

Bunter has aged spectacularly quickly! He needs to keep it up.

 

[Larry O'Hara]

interview here

I've now watched this: some very useful points made. His dad would be proud (I think!)

 

[Larry O'Hara]

It’s doesn’t matter what the Durham police do now. The narrative has successfully been shifted from Johnson to ‘all of em were at it’. Presumably Johnson and his team will see that as ‘job done’. Also, presumably, Starmer will see the need to dial down the attacks over the Downing Street parties and focus on having nothing much to say about the cost of living crisis instead. Johnson will stagger on with the Grey report and further fines to come and the low level civil war in the Tory party will rumble on. Meanwhile millions will be tipped further into poverty as energy and prices continue to rise and wages fall behind. Unlike the 1970’s the consequences won’t be played out as a battle between capital and organised labour (as the latter no longer exists).

Roll on a long hot summer…..

Actually, much as I despise Starmer, his promised resignation if fined is a potential masterstroke, turning a potential crisis for him (which is all he cares about) into a grandstanding opportunity. Time will tell, but it is not impossible he will have been informed by former CPS colleagues about what the police might say.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Actually, much as I despise Starmer, his promised resignation if fined is a potential masterstroke, turning a potential crisis for him (which is all he cares about) into a grandstanding opportunity. Time will tell, but it is not impossible he will have been informed by former CPS colleagues about what the police might say.

Good point. I note the Tory media are quitely moving on from the story presumably on the basis that they think the game is up.

 

[killer b]

I don't think it's a grandstanding opportunity - it's just an attempt to shut down a story which no-one actually cares about or believes, but was nonetheless dominating the news. Seems to have worked too.

 

[Larry O'Hara]

I don't think it's a grandstanding opportunity - it's just an attempt to shut down a story which no-one actually cares about or believes, but was nonetheless dominating the news. Seems to have worked too.

Actually, Starmer is hoping to potentially leverage the issue to pretend he has integrity: because after all he has no policies

 

[TopCat]

Actually, Starmer is hoping to potentially leverage the issue to pretend he has integrity: because after all he has no policies

To be fair he has, its Tory economics without overt bigotry.

 

[Larry O'Hara]

To be fair he has, its Tory economics without overt bigotry.

yes I should have said no unique distinctive policies

 

[Humberto]

Plus lack of charisma? Get the feeling he wouldn't be much less draconian than the incumbent shower, an echo of what really did my head in about the later New Labour years.

 

[Knotted]

I was wrong earlier to suggest that beergate was going to be a tough one for Starmer. I think he's handled it well. I also agree that most people don't give a shit about it. But on a political/ethical note, I do judge him/them for this.

The question of breaking the rules is a completely arbitrary question. The virus doesn't care if you are holding a bottle of beer or if you go back to work when you've finished it. But the reason the rules are arbitrary is that maintaining labour discipline, and the convenience of business dictate the rules more than fighting the virus ever did. This is something even the Labour Party should have been fully aware of and in some form or other should have pressed the government to fight more effectively against the virus. If they were working in that office, they were working without masks, without social distancing and it seems without ventilation. I don't give a shit if they'd stopped for a full on knees up. The point is they were breaking the guidelines. They were doing in practice what they were doing politically ie. scabbing on the fight against Covid. This wasn't the public face of Labour. Remember that interview that Owen Jones did with the Labour candidate for Hartlepool? They sat metres away from each other, outside. That was the norm at that time, that was the proper way to behave. So watching Starmer and co break the guidelines like that makes my blood boil. I know a lot of people behaved similarly, so I apologise in advance but at that time we needed leadership and for politicians to set an example.

 

[ska invita]

interesting thing i got from this

Tony Blair tells Starmer to drop ‘woke’ politics and focus on economy

Former PM says Labour leader needs to win back remainers who voted Tory in 2019 election

www.theguardian.com

was the policy suggestion of biometric ID cards
- so Starmer id bet the farm he proposes it (though maybe thats more of a second term lol policy)

 

[TopCat]

interesting thing i got from this

Tony Blair tells Starmer to drop ‘woke’ politics and focus on economy

Former PM says Labour leader needs to win back remainers who voted Tory in 2019 election

www.theguardian.com

was the policy suggestion of biometric ID cards
- so Starmer id bet the farm he proposes it (though maybe thats more of a second term lol policy)

I read that more as drop the only differentiation with the tories e.g. embrace overt bigotry.

 

[philosophical]

Starmer says ‘make Brexit work’ which a) presumes ‘Brexit’ means something and b) presumes anything about leave is going to work on the land border between the UK and the EU.
Perhaps he needs solutions from those ‘lexiter’ morons.

 

[ska invita]

I read that more as drop the only differentiation with the tories e.g. embrace overt bigotry.

Yeah but thats old news

 

[DotCommunist]

That fucking mouth and his ID cards obsession. Move on tony, go roast another child over the fire you cunt.

 

[NoXion]

That fucking mouth and his ID cards obsession. Move on tony, go roast another child over the fire you cunt.

War criminals love that kind of shit.