Keir Starmer's time is up

[Wilf]

Meaningless fucking drivel. Kieth.

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I wonder if any of the clowns who came up with this ever said it out loud. Doesn't flow, doesn't scan, just awful.

 

[two sheds]

They were probably too busy saying things like "put more about patriotism and flags in"

 

[Humberto]

Reasonable 'socialism is pragmatism' angle, from the snippets I've seen.

 

[Humberto]

New Labour had 'an end to boom and bust', of course they failed to answer back when their corporate sinecures were threatened.

 

[Raheem]

He looks utterly horrified to be so near that tower block. That coat is dry clean only, what if a heroin addict dies on it? What then?

Reckon he's not even in front of a tower block. They tricked him with Photoshop.

 

[redsquirrel]

I'm against FPTP, but not specifically an advocate of PR. But the point is not the what system the French Presidential election is run under, but the fact that the French system (mostly not PR) does allow space for the development of electoral politics to the left of the PS, which allowed Melenchon the platform to run a vaguely realistic campaign for the presidency. It's a bit daft to suggest it doesn't. LFI have 17 MPs. Not very close to a working majority but, all the same, virtually impossible for an equivalent British party, because they would be structurally excluded from meaningful participation.

Such a comparison is meaningless because parties under FPTP are different from those under PR (or two-runs voting). The old cliche about FPTP having the coalitions form before elections is accurate here. There may not be 17 MPs from the "Democratic Socialist Party" but there are 32 LP MPs that are part of the campaign group.

Again the Jacobin article has the numbers. Radical left parties (Jacobin's term but I will use it) have a presence under PR (or non-FPTP) systems, indeed in in some cases are now polling on the same sort of level as centre-left parties. However, any level of growth has been limited, in Germany, the Netherlands and Sweden the vote for the radical left has stagnated or slightly decreased over the last decade. In Greece Syriza has a sizeable vote, but has given up any pretence to being a radical left party. In France the radical left did have some growth between 2012 and 2017, and Mélenchon is still ahead of the PS in presidential polling. But both the PS and LFI are utterly marginalised, with the politics of France now being a contest between technocratic liberalism and the populist radical right. In Italy there is no significant representation for any radical left party, and similarly the political contest is between liberalism and populism.

Podemos are usually held up as the example of the type of party that PR allows. And yes you do have a radical left party in government, but since there initial burst they have been gradually losing vote share (to the centre-left). Portugal also has radical left parties in government, but there has been no growth in support, as in Spain the biggest beneficiary of the coalition of the centre-left with the radical left has been the centre. And in both Iberian countries you have a radical left element within the centre-left coalition government, not especially dissimilar to the situation within the LP.

And the radical left in Spain and Portugal have to answer the same question that pro-Corbyn LP member never did

It’s a fundamental mistake for formations of the radical left to agree to a line that is merely complementary to social democracy. We don’t need radical-left parties to make deals with social democracy to limit foreclosures, raise the minimum wage by €50, cancel some redundancies in the public sector, and so on. If we really think that’s the best we can get, we should operate within the framework of social democracy, and try to obtain some concrete improvements. But for a political current that supposedly has an alternative vision for society, accepting this as the horizon can amount to giving up on that vision.

"sThis is a serious point that should not be dismissed as sectarian or “ultraleft.” Even if they reject such arguments, the radical-left groups need to deliver something tangible from the experience of supporting a government and then hold on to their electoral base, with the latter obviously dependent on the former. If they suffer a wipeout or a sharp decline, they won’t be any use as a partner, no matter how accommodating they may be.

If there’s no question of a radical turn in economic policy, the ability to deliver small-scale reforms hinges on the existence of favorable conditions to create some fiscal breathing room. The post-pandemic downturn has already caused serious tensions between the government partners in Portugal and Spain. The European Commission has added to the pressure by attaching unpopular conditions to coronavirus aid in a bid to circumvent electoral democracy."

 

[redsquirrel]

I’m less concerned on what it’s called than the conditions that the mass of people lived under. And nationalized industries leading to full employment, building of the NHS, welfare state, free education, council house building and low rents seem fairly socialist results to me. All while paying off the huge debts we’d built up since WWII. And it beats the shit out of what we (and particularly young people) are faced with today.

And yet you continue to refuse to question why those conditions came about. As I've pointed out to you before the Keynesian model existed across countries and under both centre-right and centre-left governments. Was the situation for workers better in many ways? Of course it was, that is not a point that is being contested. But to call it socialist is not just a mistake in terminology it shows a misunderstanding of what was actually happening.

You may be right – I did see an article with a lot of graphs showing that it all started going to shit worldwide in (I think) 1977, which I now can’t find. However, I’d thought Thatcher and Reagan(omics) initiated neoliberal policies which then spread to the rest of the world.

Callaghan was the first monetarist PM in the UK. It was under a Labour government that In Place of Strife written. Carter proceeded Reagan in making reduction of the debt a key policy.
And look at things outside the US/UK. What measures did the Mitterand take during his period in office? Who introduced "mini-jobs" to Germany? What were the policies of the Craxi government? When did privatisations really start in Australia?

By focussing on the actions of Thatcher and Reagan (or Attlee) you are missing why there a move to neo-liberalism across north american, western europe and Aus/NZ and (again) under both centre-left and centre-right governments. Because the "wrong" parties were elected? Because of the media? Unions had had plenty of hostile rightwing press before. Was the media more pro-union during the earlier decades of the 20th century? I'll admit I've not done/seen a systematic comparison but I doubt it. So why did was it possible for the state and capital to accede to labours demands in 45 that it was not in 75?

 

[ska invita]

Keeping Universal Credit up the extra £20 is of course a bare minimum, and we know Labour have said it should stay at that rate, so no new announcement there.

The main announcement was this bond thing. I don't even know what it means, and I doubt many who aren't stock brokers do either. Is it like an ISA? Aren't ISA's a bond? Don't they alreayd exist?

Its the kind of thing you implement once in power and maybe some shrewd people with enough money find out about and do - it is not an election winning incentive to the regular public. Its something you might get told about whilst at the bank and say "no thank you" to. Starmer even looks like a bank manager.

I've only come across Sienna Rodgers this year for the first time as am not long on Twitter and she seems to have the labour party gossip first. She's written a surprisingly positive take on the speech here. On the bonds she says:
" [this bond crap] is based on the idea that Covid savings do not necessarily translate into a spending spree, as predicted by Sunak, and so the bonds could be used to fund the post-Covid recovery. They could ensure that not only key workers but also those who saved during the pandemic have a reason to back Labour, as they see returns on their investments."

So those people who have money to invest will vote Labour because they've reinvented ISAs? Unbelievably narrow and shit.
But the bit that stands out to me is "the bonds could be used to fund the post-Covid recovery". As said in posts above, Biden is about to open the print-money floodgates. Even parts of the conservative financial orthodoxy have been calling for printing money, as 1. theres little fear of inflation due to other economic factors, and 2. a little bit of inflation would help bring the Debt down.

An open door for a print-and-spend Labour party to rebuild Britain in the Spirit of 45.
Whats the Starmerite vision to the nation: lets effectively crowdfund it from the public with Bonds.
I reckon the Tories are going to win the next election and they're going to at least talk up splashing the cash to do it. Starmer is going to be outmaneouvered from the left by the Tories . My brain is melting.

 

[strung out]

Keeping Universal Credit up the extra £20 is of course a bare minimum, and we know Labour have said it should stay at that rate, so no new announcement there.

The main announcement was this bond thing. I don't even know what it means, and I doubt many who aren't stock brokers do either. Is it like an ISA? Aren't ISA's a bond? Don't they alreayd exist?

Its the kind of thing you implement once in power and maybe some shrewd people with enough money find out about and do - it is not an election winning incentive to the regular public. Its something you might get told about whilst at the bank and say "no thank you" to. Starmer even looks like a bank manager.

I've only come across Sienna Rodgers this year for the first time as am not long on Twitter and she seems to have the labour party gossip first. She's written a surprisingly positive take on the speech here. On the bonds she says:
" [this bond crap] is based on the idea that Covid savings do not necessarily translate into a spending spree, as predicted by Sunak, and so the bonds could be used to fund the post-Covid recovery. They could ensure that not only key workers but also those who saved during the pandemic have a reason to back Labour, as they see returns on their investments."

So those people who have money to invest will vote Labour because they've reinvented ISAs? Unbelievably narrow and shit.
But the bit that stands out to me is "the bonds could be used to fund the post-Covid recovery". As said in posts above, Biden is about to open the print-money floodgates. Even parts of the conservative financial orthodoxy have been calling for printing money, as 1. theres little fear of inflation due to other economic factors, and 2. a little bit of inflation would help bring the Debt down.

An open door for a print-and-spend Labour party to rebuild Britain in the Spirit of 45.
Whats the Starmerite vision to the nation: lets effectively crowdfund it from the public with Bonds.
I reckon the Tories are going to win the next election and they're going to at least talk up splashing the cash to do it. Starmer is going to be outmaneouvered from the left by the Tories . My brain is melting.

A bond is a promise to repay your money at a fixed future date with an expected return. Essentially you give the government your savings, which the government can use to 'rebuild post-Covid Britain' (or whatever else they've told you it'll be spent on), and the government promises to repay your investment with 3% interest (or whatever percentage is agreed) when the bonds mature.

You can hold some types of bond in an ISA if you want but you don't have to. Anything held outside of an ISA must have tax paid on it.

Government bonds are among the safest there are, because they're guaranteed, unlike stocks and shares, or corporate bonds, where there is the chance your investment goes down instead of up.

It's a shit promise though, because without Labour being in government until 2024 at the earliest, it'll never happen. Additionally, it only helps those with savings to spare, rather than those who are unemployed or have had to blast through their savings to survive Covid.

 

[brogdale]

A bond is a promise to repay your money at a fixed future date with an expected return. Essentially you give the government your savings, which the government can use to 'rebuild post-Covid Britain' (or whatever else they've told you it'll be spent on), and the government promises to repay your investment with 3% interest (or whatever percentage is agreed) when the bonds mature.

You can hold some types of bond in an ISA if you want but you don't have to. Anything held outside of an ISA must have tax paid on it.

Government bonds are among the safest there are, because they're guaranteed, unlike stocks and shares, or corporate bonds, where there is the chance your investment goes down instead of up.

It's a shit promise though, because without Labour being in government until 2024 at the earliest, it'll never happen. Additionally, it only helps those with savings to spare, rather than those who are unemployed or have had to blast through their savings to survive Covid.

Essentially it looks like they're proposing to re-brand a process that is an on-going and normal way for states to raise finance.
Nothing of any substance and couched in the (flag-waving) 'war-spirit' shite that Starmer appears to have alighted on.

 

[ska invita]

i'm sure there is an audience for these bonds, though i cant see who would vote for it or be excited by the prospect

but the scale of the audience is decidedly going to be made up predominantly of the middle class and up


Source: Savings statistics: Average savings in the UK | 2020 | Finder UK



somewhere around half of people in the UK have no money spare to save, in bonds or elsewhere
these should be core labour voters
...ETA: and might be insulted and alienated by the emphasis of this as an issue - I know i am

 

[NoXion]

She was rubbish on the Today program. She sounds too much like a politician. She needs to plainly set out why the Tories are bad, what Labour is going to do differently, and why that will be better for the ordinary voter. Using phrases like “Tory ideology” makes her sound like she is a poster on the politics forum here.

Those two statements are in direct contradiction to each other.

 

[Serge Forward]

Not really, most on the politics forum act like gobby wee shites, while most politicians act like cunts.

 

[Raheem]

Such a comparison is meaningless because parties under FPTP are different from those under PR (or two-runs voting). The old cliche about FPTP having the coalitions form before elections is accurate here. There may not be 17 MPs from the "Democratic Socialist Party" but there are 32 LP MPs that are part of the campaign group.

So in support of your claim that the UK system allows greater space for political parties to the left of Labour compared to their equivalents under other systems in Europe you're offering the example of the Labour Campaign Group. Call me smug if you like, but who do you think you're kidding?

 

[lazythursday]

It seems to me that while there may be no more chance of achieving socialism under PR than under FPTP, it does make a hard right government less likely. And where we are right now that seems like a decent enough win.

 

[JTG]

I mean, if Labour want to reintroduce policies from the 1940s to help rebuild Britain, there's always building 100s of thousands of council houses, fully nationalised health service/railways/energy etc etc. It doesn't have to be just "give us your savings at a crappy rate of interest and we'll freeze Universal Credit"

 

[Jeff Robinson]

Meaningless fucking drivel. Kieth.

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Also even internally bad as a strategy of triangulation. How to win over conservative voters? Why, promise them the exact opposite of conservativism: 'a future that is going to look utterly unlike the past'.

 

[agricola]

I mean, if Labour want to reintroduce policies from the 1940s to help rebuild Britain, there's always building 100s of thousands of council houses, fully nationalised health service/railways/energy etc etc. It doesn't have to be just "give us your savings at a crappy rate of interest and we'll freeze Universal Credit"

Indeed. The railways should be a particularly easy one as well, given how the government have effectively nationalised them already and will no doubt force itself into some ludicrous, financially wasteful and politically damaging act to try and re-privatise them (as they did when East Coast was killed off).

 

[two sheds]

Covid gives a real opportunity to pick stuff up cheap you'd think, too.

 

[ska invita]

this could be significant - Starmer got in on suspect money. C&P as business insider is a hard to read website
who knows, maybe this is all just easily batted away
theyve got some interesting legal proceedings coming up havent they
they could do with a good lawyer
also remember this?

Keir Starmer refuses to outline all donors funding his Labour leadership bid

Sir Keir and rival Rebecca Long-Bailey faced a grilling this evening.

metro.co.uk

--------------------------------------

A Labour Party group with links to Keir Starmer is being investigated for failing to declare financial backers

EXCLUSIVE: Labour Together is under investigation by the Electoral Commission after failing to declare over £800,000 worth of donations in time.

www.businessinsider.com

• EXCLUSIVE: Labour Together is under investigation by the Electoral Commission for alleged breaches of electoral law.
• The group allegedly failed to declare hundreds of thousands of pounds of donations within the time required by law.
• The group is led by senior figures in Keir Starmer's Labour party, including the Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy.
• Its former managing director is now Starmer's chief of staff.

An influential Labour Party group with close links to Keir Starmer is under investigation by the UK's Electoral Commission after allegedly failing to declare over £800,000 in donations within the time required under law, Insider can reveal.

The investigation into Labour Together, which counts among its current directors' the Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy MP and Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government Steve Reed MP, was opened in December 2020.

The Electoral Commission, which regulates political financing in the United Kingdom, is investigating multiple potential breaches of UK electoral law which requires donations to be reported to the Electoral Commission within 30 days of the donation being accepted.

An analysis of the figures published by the Electoral Commission shows only a small minority of donations received by Labour Together - £165,000 of the £970,492 donated - had been declared within the 30 day period, from its first donation in October 2015 to its most recent donation in January 2021

The Electoral Commission is also investigating a potential failure to register a responsible person within 30 days of accepting a reportable donation.
Both of these potential failures would be breaches of the Political Parties, Elections and Referendums Act 2000.

Figures published on the Electoral Commission website in February 2021 show 10 donations for a total of £298,992. Only one of these donations, worth £50,000, is shown to have been received by Labour Together within 30 days of it being reported. The rest range from between June 2017 and April 2019.
Figures published by the Electoral Commission in December 2020 show 19 donations for a total of £465,500. None of these donations appear to have been received in the 30 days prior to their reported date of 10th December 2020. They range from June 2018 to September 2020.


The December 2020 report was the first report of donations made by Labour Together since July 2018. A November 2017 report of donations included sums given in June and August 2017 totalling £46,000, while a £45,000 donation in June 2016 was not reported until August 2016.

Labour Together's most significant donor to date is Martin Taylor, who was revealed in 2015 to be a Mayfair hedge fund manager having then given £600,000 to the party under the leadership of Ed Miliband. Taylor has given the group over £700,000. £143,992 of Taylor's donations were reported as being "non-cash".

Another significant donor is the businessman Sir Trevor Chinn, who also donated £50,000 to Keir Starmer's leadership campaign in 2020.
Chinn serves as the fourth director of Labour Together along with the Labour MP Jon Cruddas. Chinn has given the group £225,500.

There is no suggestion of wrongdoing by any of the donors.

'The blueprint for Starmerism'

Labour Together has become a highly influential group under Starmer's leadership of the party.

A former managing director of Labour Together is Morgan McSweeney, who is now Sir Keir Starmer's chief of staff. Companies House records for the company behind Labour Together show McSweeney was secretary from July 2017 to April 2020, when Starmer became leader of the Labour Party.
The group also conducted a high-profile review into the party's performance in the 2019 general election was published in June 2020 which was described by the New Statesman as "a blueprint for Starmerism".


Susan Hawley, Executive Director of Spotlight on Corruption, told Insider: "Full and timely transparency in electoral funding and donations by all parties is critical to trust in elections and in politicians.

"Pending the Commission's outcome, these kinds of investigations should be a wake-up call to all parties to work together to strengthen the Electoral Commission's mandate and powers, and to clean up political finance."

An Electoral Commission spokesperson told Insider: "The donations to Labour Together published this week were reported to us as part of an on-going investigation into the members association.

"Labour Together is currently under investigation for potentially failing to deliver donations reports within 30 days of accepting reportable donations, and for potentially failing to register a responsible person within 30 days of accepting a reportable donation. The outcome of the investigation will be published on our website when it has concluded."


Hannah O'Rourke, Acting Director of Labour Together said in a statement to Insider: "We are aware of an administrative oversight around donations to Labour Together. This was entirely unintentional, and we contacted the Electoral Commission to make them aware of this as soon as we became aware of the error.

"We are now fully transparent and compliant with regards to our donations, and are cooperating fully with the Electoral Commission to assist them in their ongoing inquiry. This was an oversight on our part and we proactively approached the commission to put it right. We are in the process of working with them to ensure this does not happen again."

 

[Puddy_Tat]

oops...

 

[ska invita]

oops...

"oops" is probably a good enough defence on this kind of thing, still fingers crossed.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

this is the face of someone having an existential crisis, isn't it?

 

[Raheem]

this is the face of someone having an existential crisis, isn't it?

Nice euphemism for a discreet crap.

 

[killer b]

This clip from Ridge this morning is incredible

 

[killer b]

This must be that 'capturing the public mood' Will Hutton is on about in the graun

 

[Spandex]

This clip from Ridge this morning is incredible

That backbench Tory MP they've wheeled out to defend Hancock looks just like Kieth Starmer. Even has a similar name.

 

[ska invita]

This clip from Ridge this morning is incredible

wow. of course if you dont agree with Starmer you are "way out of touch with working class people"

 

[kabbes]

Calling for the reisgnation of a disgraced minister? Don't be silly, that's not what opposition leaders are for.

 

[ska invita]

even if you dont call for resignation you say there needs to be a through inquiry and if corruption is found then should be prosecuted
no one is above the law etc
shittest director of prosecutions evah