Keir Starmer's time is up

[Smokeandsteam]

Breaking: Kieth is finally 20 points ahead

Team Kieth will be delighted to see that. Job done. High fives all round. Now to look forward to the session with Biden’s ‘people’ to discuss cyber-transformation of the post industrial economy.

 

[JTG]

Unity update:
Loads of officers, including the chair, of Bristol West CLP suspended because they debated - and passed - a motion in support of JC. Bristol area has been a bit feisty lately anyway with an upsurge in rumblings against SW Regional Office and their right wing control freakery. One particularly eye catching complaint is that Regional prevented Kingswood CLP from making donations to ACORN community union and local foodbanks, on the grounds that they were "inappropriate"

NB: Bristol West is a great example of a marginal seat in 2015 becoming extremely safe on a 30 point swing in '17. Suspect the Greens will be excited to see Bristol Labour in turmoil. Bristol CC is Labour controlled with 37/70 seats but I make around 12 of those vulnerable to even a small drop in Labour support next May.

 

[JTG]

Meanwhile the announcement of the NEC results have been delayed by a few hours today so that Evans can cancel more votes for left candidates

 

[Shechemite]

NEC results are pretty favourable for labour left (from what I know of labour internal stuff)

 

[brogdale]

NEC results are pretty favourable for labour left (from what I know of labour internal stuff)

True.
Turns out that they haven't managed to flush out all of the socialists yet.

 

[two sheds]

Couldn't write off enough who'd voted then resigned eh

 

[JTG]

Shockingly a black candidate fails to finish high enough to be elected in an internal Labour election

(it's not very shocking)

 

[JTG]

Couldn't write off enough who'd voted then resigned eh

Yeah, turns out the extra few hours to rig the vote weren't enough

 

[two sheds]

Glad Pidcock got in though

 

[JTG]

Glad Pidcock got in though

Sadly Nuke Akehurst got in as well

 

[belboid]

Fucking Akehurst as well though.

 

[JTG]

Fucking Akehurst as well though.

A man who couldn't even get nominated by his own CLP

 

[vanya]

Who Will Speak for the Dead?

Thursday 12th November, 563 dead. Wednesday 11th November, 595 dead. Tuesday 10th November, 532 dead. Every one of these deaths is on the ...

averypublicsociologist.blogspot.com

Thursday 12th November, 563 dead. Wednesday 11th November, 595 dead. Tuesday 10th November, 532 dead. Every one of these deaths is on the Tories. It's this hideous, ichor-soaked government who've shurgged their shoulders over the repeated, blatant failures of Test and Trace. It was they who resisted calls for an earlier lockdown, which might have saved many of the lives lost. It was also this government who prematurely opened everything up, with workplaces and retail approaching some degree of normality. And lest we forget it was the Tories who bribed people back into pubs, bars, and restaurants. It might have helped stimulate the economy into reporting 15.5% in GDP growth in the last quarter, but a blood price was extracted. Yet, as we have recently noted, the government have proven themselves successful in one endeavour: of shirking blame for this awful state of affairs. Folks can talk about their news management, the collusion of establishment journalism, and clever, clever micropolitical strategies working away to depoliticise their crisis, but above all there's one ingredient making all this possible: HM's official Opposition. It's one thing for the Tories to stay quiet about the dead, but Labour?

Consider Keir Starmer's Coronavirus record. His approach to the government has seen Labour, um, shadow the government in most aspects. He quickly grasped calling for a two-week "circuit breaker" during half-term was epidemiologically sensible and politically doable. Not too much damage to kids' schooling, and a quick points win - especially when the Tories would be forced to act by rising infections and hospital admissions, all without straying too far from the government's strategy and remaining entirely faithful to SAGE recommendations. Apart from this, at times Keir has proven even more zealous about opening everything to some level of normality. 30 seconds into the leader's shoes he was demanding a timetable for an exit strategy, and there was the embarrassment of notifying the government that he expected the schools to open on time and sod clinical realities. Where Keir has ventured into criticism, it's been process and details, and the famous focus on incompetence. These are necessary criticisms, but not the be-all and end-all of opposition in the age of Covid.

Limiting criticism to Tory cluelessness is ridiculous for two reasons. It lets whoever succeeds Johnson off for his smorgasbord of sin and foregrounds Conservative reinvention - surely a chief lesson of the 2019 general election no one ever talks about. And second, it's simply not true. Appointing cronies and manifesting incoherence is not a case of Johnson being rubbish, it's systematic, a part-consequence of competing pressures. In other words, it's political. This leads us to asking a similar question about Labour's pitiful opposition. Keir's managerialism is more than a personal quirk, of the UK's leading lawyer seamlessly transitioning into the front rank of British politics without disturbing a single, brylcreemed strand nor any ingrained habits of mind. It's deliberate, and sits within the Labourist tradition.

Consider the latest intervention by way of an illustration. Looking aghast at Number 10's staffing shenanigans, Keir has condemned the affair as "pathetic". Or, to quote him more fully, "We're in the middle of a pandemic, we're all worried about our health and our families, we're all worried about our jobs, and this lot are squabbling behind the door of number ten. It's pathetic. Pull yourselves together, focus on the job in hand." The important part is my emphasis. When Keir confronts Johnson at Prime Minister's Questions, he affects the aspect of an exasperated teacher reprimanding a lazy schoolboy and threatening to send his parents a cause for concern letter. He offers less a critique and more a backhanded form of encouragement to get this right. The pull-your-socks-up discourse makes sense in a pandemic, and meshes seamlessly into Keir's comfort zone of Tory incompetence, but ultimately he's rushing to their rescue. When he says he wants them to do well, he genuinely means it.

The chief beneficiary of Keir's "opposition" to the Tories is the principle of state authority. This is why he, and Labour politicians generally, steer clear of structural criticism or taking the Tories to task for corruption and cronyism. It's either about being "mistaken" and having the wrong ideas, or not being up to the job. Talking about interests and the rootedness of the Tories in Britain's broken political economy raises awkward questions, including the wider legitimacy of the state - with all its laws and ideologies. This must be protected at all costs, not because of deep seated parliamentary cretinism, but because Labourism is fundamentally statist. Labourist politics relies on mass passivity, it's an elite project where the masses vote in the politicians, and they make the changes by passing legislation. This basic assumption, this ontology of establishment politics is responsible for commonalities between the parties and why, when all is said and done, MPs across from one another get on, go to gigs, strike up friendships, and wax lyrically about shared values and having more in common. Keir is not only doing Labourism by not encroaching on state authority, he's actually protecting it by overlooking the criminality and overt sectionalism of the Tories. Any honest politics would join the dots, but the only truth that matters here is the power he might enjoy in Number 10.

Who then is going to speak for the dead? Not asking serious questions about 50,000 deceased persons is as much a structural feature of Starmerist politics as recklessness is of the contemporary Conservative scene. Whoever ends up speaking for the lives lost, it's not likely to be Labour's front bench.

 

[JTG]

Meanwhile it's a Momentum landslide in the Young Labour National Committee elections - sweeping nearly all the seats including the chair.

Not convinced it'll mean much but it will annoy all the worst people so that's something anyway

 

[JTG]

Yeah, turns out the extra few hours to rig the vote weren't enough

On this - it would appear that 6,000 votes out of 135,000 cast were invalidated which is... quite a lot.

Aside from speculating as to the legality of throwing these votes out, it certainly gives some insight into the numbers who have left since Corbyn was suspended

 

[belboid]

Akehurst came in first place, annoyingly

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Best of luck to those comrades in the battle against the revisionist Akehurst and Starmer cliques.

 

[JTG]

Akehurst came in first place, annoyingly

Worth rigging the vote for I guess

 

[belboid]

And now I see our local Labour Left coordinator has been suspended for proposing a pro-JC motion (similar to the Bristol east one)

 

[JTG]

And now I see our local Labour Left coordinator has been suspended for proposing a pro-JC motion (similar to the Bristol east one)

West, not East!

Now Bristol North West (where I live) has gone over the top:

 

[JTG]

On this - it would appear that 6,000 votes out of 135,000 cast were invalidated which is... quite a lot.

Aside from speculating as to the legality of throwing these votes out, it certainly gives some insight into the numbers who have left since Corbyn was suspended

Just seen Bastani point out that in 2018, 293,000 votes were cast in the NEC elections so a greater than 50% reduction in votes cast.
If that's a reflection of membership numbers then they're going to have problems

 

[two sheds]

Someone mentioned that he's probably not bothered by membership numbers - I'm assuming he's going for "donations" from business.

 

[JTG]

Someone mentioned that he's probably not bothered by membership numbers - I'm assuming he's going for "donations" from business.

Well he should stop sending me begging emails even though I'm not a member any more
Following the business model that had the party nearly broke before 2015 isn't really that clever tbh. Especially when the leader's giving away six figure sums to the people who ignored anti-semitism complaints and chucked the General Election

Labour Muslim Network have published a report on Islamophobia in the party today btw. Makes pretty grim reading, as you'd expect from a party that just voted onto the NEC someone who still defends Iraq amongst other things

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Another vote of no confidence for the revisionist Starmer clique

Labour Islamophobia report: More than half of party's Muslim supporters 'do not trust new leadership to deal with racism'

New findings suggest that Keir Starmer's leadership may be losing the support of some ethnic minority members and voters.

news.sky.com

 

[two sheds]

I think we need a thread

 

[JTG]

West, not East!

Now Bristol North West (where I live) has gone over the top:

I understand Bristol South will be discussing the motion on Thursday

 

[planetgeli]

Tomorrow Radio 4, Desert Island Discs. The soundtrack of Keith Starmer's life.

Can't think of anything more depressing right now.

 

[ska invita]

Tomorrow Radio 4, Desert Island Discs. The soundtrack of Keith Starmer's life.

Can't think of anything more depressing right now.

Tony Blair DJ set with Cherie on the mic?

 

[On Fire]

Keir Starmer is hated in this thread, but doing quite well in the polls. He is ahead of Boris Johnson. Just thought I would point this out for balance!!

 

[planetgeli]

Tony Blair DJ set with Cherie on the mic?

Is probably the one disc he'll save from the on-rushing tide, yes.