Keir Starmer's time is up

[Rob Ray]

I'd agree if we were talking about the cunt being hung from a lamppost with piano wire, but a select committee hearing with difficult questions from Tory and Labour twats from the Westminster bubble? Nah.

That's up to you, but why tell other people off for having a bit of fun at his expense? You don't get points for it. And I'll tell you now, when Starmer goes I'll be laughing at him too.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

That's up to you, but why tell other people off for having a bit of fun at his expense? You don't get points for it.

I'm not telling people off, I'm merely pointing out the utter dead end of investing agency in the fortunes of an individual. They are all ciphers. Another one will be along shortly.

 

[Rob Ray]

I'm not telling people off, I'm merely pointing out the utter dead end of investing agency in the fortunes of an individual. They are all ciphers. Another one will be along shortly.

But no-one here has been investing agency in the fortune of the individual. No-one was saying "thank God Boris is gone, now we'll have a good PM at last". Who is it you think you're taking to? This is Urban, not Labour List.

 

[Cid]

I did see some pretty daft responses to Johnson's ousting - one guy on a Facebook group (demographic clue there) saying something along the lines of 'at least it shows a moral core in those that got rid of him'. But yeah, not a sentiment present here.

 

[planetgeli]

I'm not telling people off, I'm merely pointing out the utter dead end of investing agency in the fortunes of an individual. They are all ciphers. Another one will be along shortly.

Something that brings joy to otherwise disenfranchised people is not a dead end to them. It's one of the few vectors for the visceral hatred we have. None of us are kidding ourselves it brings an end to the corrupt structural politics we have to live under.

Working class first your tag line says. Well I know plenty of working class people who celebrated this. A whole staff room at my work for one. But you keep preaching to them that they are wrong to do so. Shows a great understanding of the working class that.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

But no-one here has been investing agency in the fortune of the individual. No-one was saying "thank God Boris is gone, now we'll have a good PM at last". Who is it you think you're taking to? This is Urban, not Labour List.

Come off it. There was page after page after page of people getting very excited about Johnson's demise. I haven't suggested, at any point, that there was an implication in those posts that what would come next would be better. There wasn't any apparent thought at all, which is precisely the point I was and am making in the context of those now saying they want Starmer out. Few are asking, what comes next. As with Johnson the answer is something worse is what comes next.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Working class first your tag line says. Well I know plenty of working class people who celebrated this. A whole staff room at my work for one. But you keep preaching to them that they are wrong to do so. Shows a great understanding of the working class that.

Where I work there wasn't any celebrating. My workmates don't like any politicians. Most people (although not all) were glad to see the back of him, but had seemingly twigged - from long experience - that he'd be replaced by another odious scumbag who'd do nothing for them and carried on talking about more important things. Turns out they were right.

 

[weepiper]

First of many?

 

[ska invita]

Fully agree with this. The Revisionist Starmer Clique's stance on industrial action is cowardly and pathetic but the Tories have already significantly weakened union rights and both leadership candidates have vowed to dramatically role them back further. However bad the Revisionist Starmer Clique are, the Tories are worse. Taking 10 minutes or so to engage in a bit of damage limitation is the right thing to do, but, as you say, what we do in our communities and workplaces is more important still.

unless you live in a swing seat why vote Labour? it makes no difference other than showing moral support

 

[Jeff Robinson]

unless you live in a swing seat why vote Labour? it makes no difference other than showing moral support

I guess it depends on who your MP is, not all of them are in lockstep with the Revisionist Starmer Clique. Also, as the last election showed, there are a great many more swing seats that we previously thought.

 

[Rob Ray]

Where I work there wasn't any celebrating. My workmates don't like any politicians. Most people (although not all) were glad to see the back of him, but had seemingly twigged - from long experience - that he'd be replaced by another odious scumbag who'd do nothing for them and carried on talking about more important things. Turns out they were right.

Yes they were right, and so was Urban which said exactly the same thing, albeit with more interest in the theatre of it, because this is a political forum. What no-one on Urban suggested was that what would come next was going to be any better. You're mistaking joy at a bastard getting some comeuppance for mindless naivety. Which tbh, given your continued advocacy for a Labour vote, is really misunderstanding who's where on the spectrum of "won't make a difference".

 

[planetgeli]

Where I work there wasn't any celebrating. My workmates don't like any politicians. Most people (although not all) were glad to see the back of him, but had seemingly twigged - from long experience - that he'd be replaced by another odious scumbag who'd do nothing for them and carried on talking about more important things. Turns out they were right.

Christ. Your working class is better than my working class? I'd better tell them. The correct position is to be "glad" but not celebrate. Gotcha.

 

[Rob Ray]

First of many?

I'd not be surprised if a few of the unions leave, though I suspect this would actually be something Starmer and co. are relaxed about. My guess is he wants to convert Labour fully to the US Democrats model in any case - competing for lobby money where the attached strings aren't getting cited as showing the party's "owned by unions." The Labour right would generally be happier to have both the public and the unions at the end of the barge pole.

 

[tommers]

I'm off to talk about more important things.

 

[SpookyFrank]

Starmer is the Blairite hegemony, or so tied to it as to make little difference. I don't see Reeves or Streeting being particularly worse than him outside of maybe taking a more erudite approach to their bullshitting.

Streeting might just be smart enough to pretend to be less of a cunt than he is but probably not even that tbh.

 

[Pickman's model]

unless you live in a swing seat why vote Labour? it makes no difference other than showing moral support

don't vote, it only encourages them

 

[Mr.Bishie]

don't vote, it only encourages them

I read that as, ‘unless you live in a swing bin why vote Labour?’

 

[Pickman's model]

I read that as, ‘unless you live in a swing bin why vote Labour?’

even if you live in a swing bin why vote labour?

 

[two sheds]

I'm off to talk about more important things.

Of shoes and ships - and sealing wax - of cabbages and kings"

 

[JimW]

Give it ten years and we'll envy those with secure swing bin based housing.

 

[steveo87]

I'm off to talk about more important things.

Footy season starts soon.
Well excited.

 

[Pickman's model]

Footy season starts soon.
Well excited.

could be a good season for grimsby town, back in the league after being promoted

 

[prunus]

Instead of posting on here about your agonies about who you are going to vote for why not:

a) make peace with the fact that you are going to have to vote Labour which will take 10 minutes in 2024.
b) spend the time you would have wasted pondering whether to vote for the equally sickening and reactionary Greens/Liberals or whether to waste your vote on the cobweb left candidate doing something productive in your workplace/community instead.

Just an idea.

Could not Like this post more.

 

[prunus]

<…>
Johnson was a better PM for most people than Starmer could ever be.

I just can’t agree with this statement, on the information I have available at the moment. Johnson was never PM for anyone but himself, and has never been anything but out for himself. Starmer has at least in the past been on the good side - his current incarnation of not upsetting any apple carts is hardly edifying, but politics is a volatile and difficult place at the moment, and I’m not sure what a better course to steer would be. The right-wing press are still poised to rip into anything that looks Corbynite, and that was simply too anathema to too many people.

In my opinion, of course.

 

[Throbbing Angel]

This is where the spunking cock vote cums into its true place. Does nothing for any candidate, no point in tactical lesser of two cunts scenario

this is where my 'working on local elections' knowledge comes in...

don't just draw a small spunking cock next to one candidate or in the box where you would put your X for that candidate

the ballot will be taken out of the pile for referral to a higher-up - sometimes these are interpreted as being a vote for that candidate - I have seen this happen, much to the other candidate's chagrin

PLEASE...
either draw a massive cock across the whole ballot

OR

put a cock in every box so that it is patently unclear who you are voting for - eyethankew

 

[SpookyFrank]

I might have voted Labour at the next GE if the incumbent MP was standing because he's actually OK, but he's retiring and they're plugging some party drone from London as his annointed replacement. Not that safe of a labour seat and it'll have a big chunk of its working class neighbourhoods excised and handed to the neighbouring tory seat next time round, so it could turn blue I suppose. But I can't in good conscience vote for a Starmer Labour party.

And sure enough the sitting MP Ben Bradshaw has now come out in support of Starmer's actions because, 'you can't just defy the party leader, break collective responsibility'

To me collective responsibility requires that everyone ignores Starmer's diktat and supports striking workers regardless.

 

[Rob Ray]

I just can’t agree with this statement, on the information I have available at the moment. Johnson was never PM for anyone but himself, and has never been anything but out for himself. Starmer has at least in the past been on the good side - his current incarnation of not upsetting any apple carts is hardly edifying, but politics is a volatile and difficult place at the moment, and I’m not sure what a better course to steer would be. The right-wing press are still poised to rip into anything that looks Corbynite, and that was simply too anathema to too many people.

In my opinion, of course.

If Starmer was solely looking for electability he'd not go so hard after trade unionism in the middle of a cost of living crisis - the polling doesn't back it and it'll hurt the party's ability to finance itself at exactly the moment when it needs money having lost membership dues. He absolutely is upsetting apple carts as part of a move to push Labour firmly to the right, and it's not all about Corbyn.

 

[TopCat]

Ok, well that does make some sense, but you think that, even though that means by default you’d be helping put (probably) Truss in? And also very likely putting a significantly worse (I am assuming Tory, but even if Lib Dem still likely true) MP into parliament and as your representative?

Unless you’d actively prefer Truss (which I assume not) and/or a Tory/Lib Dem MP that seems to me to be a bit of a cutting off one’s nose approach.

Ie do you really feel that Starmer as PM is actually a worse outcome than Truss?

I’m not playing that game any more. Vote Labour or get the Tories in. Fuck them.

 

[Rob Ray]

It just seems barmy to me that electoralists would work on the principle of voting in the lesser evil knowing that success will mean in five years time either nothing will be different, or it'll be worse. It's like the gradual Labour shift rightwards while people worked on this very basis throughout the late 20th and early 21st centuries never happened. Where's the line drawn, a Labour politician shouting "the lady's not for turning" as they refuse to consider repealing the prior government's criminalisation of union membership? Because clearly it wasn't at "vilify and punish people without jobs," and it's not at "refusing to say you'll repeal the criminalisation of protest or the formal encouragement of scabbing."

I mean fuck at least Corbynism intended to do something vaguely positive, even if they were never going to get there.

 

[maomao]

I just can’t agree with this statement, on the information I have available at the moment. Johnson was never PM for anyone but himself, and has never been anything but out for himself. Starmer has at least in the past been on the good side - his current incarnation of not upsetting any apple carts is hardly edifying, but politics is a volatile and difficult place at the moment, and I’m not sure what a better course to steer would be.

I don't really care what they're like as people. Starmer reputedly cheats on his wife too.