Keir Starmer's time is up
- Thread starter agricola
- Start date
[A few months/years later]
"So, anyone got any ideas as to why everyone in the big cities stopped voting for us?"
Kneel on their necks until they complete the direct debit form.
Diabolical straw grabbing by Sir Keith Faker and his PR fools.
They’ll be celebrating Trafalgar Day next.
“We need inclusivity”
“Quick, get the flags out!”
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
Every sentence you’ve written is wrong. Factually and politically. Well done.
I need no lessons in being wrong from you.
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
The demographics are against the Tories!
How long have we being hearing this one. The evidence of the "youthquake" in 2017 is disputed at best. And then there is the politics of writing off people because of their age.
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
Its not the policy as such that’s offensive. It’s the fact that it’s contrived and will be widely perceived as such.
You can’t fake a connection with ordinary communities. The concept of the nation state is important to most people, an embedded reality that continues to elude much of what passes for the left. But, as Wilf suggests, the way that any party that wants to deeply connect translates that is key. At this moment that practically means worked out plans to rebuild and invest in communities, it means a jobs plan targeted at these communities and most of all it’s clear signals that these communities are not forgotten. Starmer’s approach is both deeply cynical and, as a result, won’t generate any cut through. Piss poor
Last edited:
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
well you need them from someone to save further embarrassment.
I need no lessons from, and am not interested in the opinions of, someone whose posts read like a time machine from about 1981. I've also far too much to do today to have time for an argument.
andysays
Love and solidarity
I think the policy is offensive actually, and will be perceived as such by at least a section of Labour's existing and potential voting base.
The fact that they've chosen to lead with this rather than any hint of a policy which might improve people's material conditions is similarly offensive, it's an indication that they actually think this sort of bollocks is more important.
And I'm not convinced that it necessarily is contrived, tbh, I'm sure that at least some of them really believe in this sort of simplistic patriotism.
hitmouse
so defeated, thinks it's funny
That bit does make me keep thinking of a certain Manics lyric: "Wheeled out once a year, a cenotaph souvenir.../I see liberals/I am just a fashion accessory",
Smokeandsteam
Working Class First
We aren’t talking about flag waving patriotism, or at least I’m not. I’m talking about the existence, which I think is multigenerational to a greater extent than commonly recognised, that material conditions are intimately bound up and dependent on a strong and healthy nation state. Class gains in turn were popularly understood to strengthen the nation state and boundaries. You can overlay, and I think I’ve seen someone do this (Alistair Reid?), employment levels and wage gains ebb and flow directly in correlation to the broader economic performance of the state.
We can criticise this understanding, we can expose the lies and the oppression of others it was constructed upon. We can point out that there are no real shared interests, but to deny that this understanding exists or to pretend that’s it’s not the point where we have to start from would be a mistake.
ETA: the leaked document doesn’t engage with any of that. Instead, it does seem to suggest that waving the flag is all that’s required. It reveals a deep misunderstanding of the processes at work
kebabking
Not a Girly Swot, but I like them....
It is cynical, and it is contrived, and I rather doubt it will have any immediate impact, but on the other hand it does appear that this Politics 101 - Hard of Thinking Edition may be actually necessary for the LP.
Can I ask the assembled political geniuses how they think this
goes down amongst the electorate, what at the exact same time, the exact same people get their collective knickers in a twist about Sir Keith standing next to a Union Flag?
Do any of the spectacular tacticians genuinely beleive that when the electorate in Hull, or Bolton, or Sunderland, or West Bromwich - or indeed South Gloucestershire - see that juxtaposition, their gut reaction is 'Labour is us...'?
wrapping itself in the flag will not make Labours long and complex 'to do' list go away, but a deep feeling amongst large sections of its potential votes that 'Labour' is far more comfortable waving Palestinian, or Venezuelan flags than being seen next to their own harms them, and in a post-referendum, identity driven politics, it will harm them more.
Can I ask the assembled political geniuses how they think this
goes down amongst the electorate, what at the exact same time, the exact same people get their collective knickers in a twist about Sir Keith standing next to a Union Flag?
Do any of the spectacular tacticians genuinely beleive that when the electorate in Hull, or Bolton, or Sunderland, or West Bromwich - or indeed South Gloucestershire - see that juxtaposition, their gut reaction is 'Labour is us...'?
wrapping itself in the flag will not make Labours long and complex 'to do' list go away, but a deep feeling amongst large sections of its potential votes that 'Labour' is far more comfortable waving Palestinian, or Venezuelan flags than being seen next to their own harms them, and in a post-referendum, identity driven politics, it will harm them more.
brogdale
Coming to terms with late onset Anarchism
I suspect that the brand agency to which Starmer has turned for this re-branding advice have based the guff sold on the sort of liberal identity segmentation presented in Maria Sobolewska and Robert Ford’s Brexitland as reviewed by Will Davies in the LRB:
Looks like the brand agency has told Starmer to take for granted huge sections of his party's core and go all out to symbolically appeal to the 'identity conservatives'.
Is that stuff going to stop under Starmer though? Can't see it - it's the activists who do all that stuff, and whatever silly strategy documents the leadership commission the activists will carry on draping themselves in the flag of Palestine for The Sun to photograph.
I'm interested in the idea that the electorate will see a Labour pivot to flags 'n' soldiers as contrived when the equally contrived use of those tropes by the tories (and by Labour leaderships of the past) is seen by the same people as authentic - whats the difference?
ska invita
back on the other side
Re The Red Wall I saw these the other day, shows some key seats and how Labour have been slowly deflating over the last 70 years, other than Blair in 97 and Corbyn in 2017
Its an oversimplification from stats but the suggestion being that Labour is in long slow terminal decline in these areas...which begs the question why.
The idea that there aren't enough flags and veterans involved is the crassest reading, only possible by outsiders. Its like anthropologists in the Victorian era making bad assumptions about some far away tribe.
For me it boils down to that this Labour lot fear the British public (working class and beyond) and have to ask others What are they like.
Blair was a public school boy but I think he was genuinely comfortable with the flags and the army and with people in general.
Corbyn is absolutely happiest as a constituency MP, caring and helping the great british public. A bit awk with the military bit cos imperialism, but even that wasnt enough to stop him get a massive boost in support.
Starmer is absolutely happiest at a heads of police gala dinner.
What Labour "need to do" is not be led by professional snobs. Everyone can tell - you cant hide these things.
Even Boris Johnson is less of a snob than Labour HQ.
This might just be the defining moment in Labour politics of my lifetime:
A British politician lost her job over a tweet: how to explain it to someone outside the UK
If you’re not British, Labour politician Emily Thornberry’s resignation for posting a tweet of a house, some flags and a van may seem baffling. Here’s why it happened
Last edited:
ska invita
back on the other side
The British flag and the Palestinian flag are not equal - Palestine is wiped off the map and its people living in open air concentration camps
False equivalence
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
I think a party at ease with itself doesn't need to wrap itself in the national flag.
ska invita
back on the other side
Tories have deep historic and authentic pro-military (imperialist) ties and view of history. People understand that innately.
Squaring the issue of Labours relationship to the military is best done somewhat like Trump did: "I will not let you be sent into unnecessary wars. Veterans don't get enough support". Job done. Show you actually care about the people doing the job, and their families.
They're places with an older demographic whose younger people have fucked off to the cities for work and those left behind are older home owning pensioners. It's not really that deep or hard to understand.Re The Red Wall I saw these the other day, shows some key seats and how Labour have been slowly deflating over the last 70 years, other than Blair in 97 and Corbyn in 2017
Its an oversimplification from stats but the suggestion being that Labour is in long slow terminal decline in these areas...which begs the question why.
The idea that there aren't enough flags and veterans involved is the crassest reading, only possible by outsiders. Its like anthropologists in the Victorian era making bad assumptions about some far away tribe.
For me it boils down to that this Labour lot fear the British public (working class and beyond) and have to ask others What are they like.
Blair was a public school boy but I think he was genuinely comfortable with the flags and the army and with people in general.
Corbyn is absolutely happiest as a constituency MP, caring and helping the great british public. A bit awk with the military bit cos imperialism, but even that wasnt enough to see a boost in support.
Starmer is absolutely happiest at a heads of police gala dinner.
What Labour "need to do" is not be led by professional snobs. Everyone can tell - you cant hide these things.
Even Boris Johnson is less of a snob than Labour HQ.
This might just be the defining moment in Labour politics of my lifetime:
A British politician lost her job over a tweet: how to explain it to someone outside the UK
If you’re not British, Labour politician Emily Thornberry’s resignation for posting a tweet of a house, some flags and a van may seem baffling. Here’s why it happenedwww.theguardian.com
Ed Miliband's report into the election defeat picked up on the slow decline of the Labour vote over the previous quarter century in many of those areas but it's far easier for the leadership to point the finger at Corbyn and wave a flag instead rather than do the hard yards
ska invita
back on the other side
TopCat
Putin fanboy
This is cuntish even for you.
Corbyn derangement syndrome is real. Prevents anyone from a good faith assessment of the pros and cons of the period and leads to a determination to scrub the party clean of any trace of the era. Upshot is that in places like Bristol, as I've said in the last day or so, they're busy suspending all their young, imaginative campaigners who've built networks across the city in housing/food campaigns and will probably lose seats to the Greens as a result. But at least they'll have their party back
kebabking
Not a Girly Swot, but I like them....
You hit the main on the head, but from the wrong direction.
The party only needs to be seen to wrap itself in the flag because it's pretty obvious to all that the party is not at ease with the country/nation/society it serves and seeks to represent. It's pretty obvious that large parts of the party, both politicians and activist, have little but utter contempt and bewilderment for large slices of its professed electorate and target audience; they are thought, thick, racist, with nowhere else to go, dreadful little Englanders.
While that may always have been so, it has become a problem the party has to address because because it's all become very public.
Pickman's model
Starry Wisdom
Tbh the problem the labour party is really ducking away from is it has no politics
Similar threads
