bojo is king, brexit is on, stuff is fvcked, tomorrow starts here -- new govt new thread new battle

my mum (a party member) likes jess philips, any advice on how to dissuade her at xmas?

my mum (a party member) likes jess philips, any advice on how to dissuade her at xmas?

Agree with her, but with 'concerns'

"I like her too but it worries me the way she always seemed to be fighting our own side. I'm sure she had good reasons on occasion but I'm not sure she's particularly solid, she just worries me - I worry she'll flip flop when it really matters and I think we need someone who's a little stronger"

I've really found offering nothing myself at all but playing this bullshit "Im not sure I just don't know" game is really quite effective.

People have mostly already decided what you're going to say, and "I don't know" cuts through that. Possession based conversation really doesn't work, counter attack is much more effective.

Let them have the ball, let them do the work, find the weak spot and press whatever it is

Turns out you need the support of 20 or so MPs to stand, plus a couple of affiliated societies like the unions or the Fabians or the Jewish Labour Movement or whoever. RLB will presumably get that unless she isn't the only left candidate in the running (ie if Clive Lewis or someone decides to bundle in there and split the vote).

i seem to recall stephen bush patiently explaining how clive lewis couldn't possibly get there in practical terms and so wouldn't try

(but this was c.150,000 million years = like 18 months ago so maybe the ground is now very different)

I think RLB is more a deputy type.

Jess Phillips does not catch enough shit for lying about black colleagues. She’s the type in your office who’d complain about a black colleague being rude or intimidating or uppity, and then doing white tears when called on it.

Rayner is probably the only one who can get both wings of the party on board, partially because she isn’t particularly trusted by either.

RLB comes across well. Have doubts over everybody else aside from Dawn Butler but sadly she can't stand for leader because racism. A couple of new MPs from the new intake to get shadow cab jobs in a couple of years too.

The key thing is for the membership to hold. As a member now I am hoping I'll do what I can to be quietly ruthless with the Lab right. Stuff that broad church up your arse.

Ridiculous watching people who thought it was outrageous that Labour plumped for a backbencher with no front bench experience four years ago suddenly going wild for Jess Phillips though.

I'm trying to avoid watching or reading too much about politics right now but LOL at this clown's name coming up constantly - despite mfktz's mum, I can't believe me this as anything more than Westminster bubble stuff, she's a public school media intern's idea of a feisty prole.

... sentence garbled but you get the idea.

'Stuff that broad church up your arse' does not strike me as a good starting point to win or implement anything because that's what the rest of the electorate are going to hear as well and think 'fine, fuck you then'. Johnson won not just by going full ERG but by sprinkling the manifesto with just enough public spending sugar to convince waverers - it's a lie but it worked because of a nudge and a wink that convinced enough people that he might govern for people who aren't just Jacob Rees-Mogg.

Nevertheless, even if there is a surge in centrist registrations with Labour, the first step to any route to power is winning over a left-wing base - or at least enough of it. Any candidate who can't grasp that - or tries to pitch to the country before their party - is just proving that they lack the political skills or strategic intelligence to do the job.

Also, let’s be real, who do you want at the despatch box every Wednesday handing BJ his arse or provoking him into showing it?

Angela Rayner!

I mean, I prefer RLB but I think Angela Rayner would be better at getting on Tory tits.

The tidal wave of misogyny that will confront any female leader of the Labour Party is already making me wince and it hasn't even happened yet.

I am not sure how much those public spending pledges really worked. In the 47 seats that flipped to CON almost all were leave. I am still at this was 90% Brexit as an issue, with a decades long build up to it.

It's partly me reacting to some of the worst Lab right stuff I've seen. Very hard to see unity where Corbyn was only part of the problem, and where policy and treating non-white ppl with dignity as the much bigger problem.

I do see a lie being told to keep people onside as part of the solution though xpost to Matt.

I really don't care about PMQ performance in a leader, sorry.

Stuff that broad church up your arse

I don't think this is right! Its about taking ownership of what broad church is (whatever that really means)

RLB is a better choice for leader. In 2024

Rayner is a better choice for leader in 2020. Whoever it is should be keeping the seat warm

Johnson won not just by going full ERG but by sprinkling the manifesto with just enough public spending sugar to convince waverers

He also correctly surmised many remainers weren't really that bothered about remaining, whereas leavers actually meant what they said. And could take the risk he wouldn't lose that many of them, without actually offering them anything. Stuff like this doesn't really come back to bite you for years (even decades as we just found it)

I am not sure how much those public spending pledges really worked. In the 47 seats that flipped to CON almost all were leave. I am still at this was 90% Brexit as an issue, with a decades long build up to it.

Brexit was the washing up and someone was trying to put off doing it. Nobody gaf about the spending pledges, they didn't really believe them, he doesn't need to deliver on them ,and he probably won't bother. A lot of people think councils are responsible anyway, do the Tories even really 'own' austerity?

But if we couldn't do the washing up then our spending pledges weren't believable either so what's the difference and at least Boris wasn't in Hamas

this is my own professional bad-not-good bubble but much of the hastings & brighton 80s rockwrite massive -- who are largely *not* public school -- luuurves jess p

(partly i suspect bcz one julie b once announced she wd v happily bang JP and, well, you join the dots) (i take no pleasure in reporting this)

Downing Street is putting out the word that it is boycotting @Radio4Today because of its, and the BBC’s, ‘bias’ against Boris Johnson & the Conservatives during the campaign.

— John Simpson (@JohnSimpsonNews) December 15, 2019

I take no pleasure in reading it so we're even

to be clear #notallrockwrite

Exactly as it was after the referendum result all BAME people are going to feel that customary vacillation between feeling looked at/ barely tolerated and wondering about our own sensitivities and paranoia in coming weeks.

— ⚫ Chilli Kulkarni (@KaptainKulk) December 15, 2019

Well it's not that people didn't believe in the manifesto because the marginal losses tell me that.

As per yesterday's discussion councils turned out to be a gigantic weakness. And indeed Labour making no gains, and having no offer, at council level proved to be fatal in the north XP to anvil

this is my own professional bad-not-good bubble but much of the hastings & brighton 80s rockwrite massive -- who are largely *not* public school -- luuurves jess p

A vital constituency, shame on Corbyn for neglecting them >:(

"I don't think this is right! Its about taking ownership of what broad church is (whatever that really means)"

No idea what this means either. The factional war will carry on in one form or another. The Tories did in the end purge their remainers and I think some form of this is something the left should not be afraid of doing. It's hardly show trials lol.

"RLB is a better choice for leader. In 2024"

We don't have the luxury of time. There might be a major economic crisis by the end, and further climate events. Be serious.

I would certainly not vote for Starmer as a leadership candidate nor in a GE (I still hate myself for voting for Miliband Labour + will never do that again) and if he was the most lefty candidate on the slate that would be the point where I say fuck this bullshit game and throw my card in the bin and sulk off to the communist party!

It doesn't do anyone any good pretending that this wasn't at heart down to a combination of Brexit and Corbyn and any candidate who succeeds him has to be able to adequately differentiate themselves from him while keeping the policies that are attractive to the electorate.

The harder bit is finding someone who is harder for the right wing press to monster or who the mud won't stick to. That bit might be impossible but I share Tom's horror at what might happen to a female Labour leader.

Nandy making the right noises on the bit of Marr I saw, about local organising etc

It is going to be a tough gig, but like Corbyn used to often say it isn't as hard as being homeless or queuing outside foodbanks to survive. Lets not get too carried away with compromise for the sake of placating the shitty right wing media - who will even find eays to demonise sir brylcreem boy - don't pretend just cos someone is from the moderate wing that they will be immune to that.

Also the Boris narrative is not going to be one of austerity and hardship and tightening our belts. He wants to be a PM for good times, Britain Bouncing Back etc and his record as Mayor shows that he will throw money at gimmicks and anything else that gives the impression that we're heading into a golden age. Labour has to be able to counter that without looking like dour miserablists.

Obviously if there's an economic crisis then that will really test a government which isn't overburdened with competent technical minds and that will do a lot of Labour's work for it. But voters still need to believe that a Labour victory isn't just pouring oil on the fire.

Is there any possibility of setting up any network of alternative media that could combat the prevailing right wing message being the only thing that a lot of people see? Or would that just take way too long and not be able to compete with the existing monopoly.

I'm just trying to keep some hope taht the country I grew up in might have some hope of surviving this mistake.
& if there are a lot of the population who will be devastated by this surely there must be some recognition of tehir continued existence. Or is the plan taht this will make them waste away and disappear or transform themselves? IN which case getting rid of any opportuntity for them to do so would seem to be counterintuitive.
I can't help hoping there is till some room for optimism but maybe that's defunct already. & without optimism you just give up.

I think I left for a reason a couple of decades ago, and not sure how badly this effects me in the longterm. So still hoping the longtermdoes see some correction of what at the moment just seems calamitous.

I'm a RLB fan to the death at the moment, but Burgon as deputy - no way!

I'll be binning RLB if she comes with Burgon attached.

"It doesn't do anyone any good pretending that this wasn't at heart down to a combination of Brexit and Corbyn and any candidate who succeeds him has to be able to adequately differentiate themselves from him while keeping the policies that are attractive to the electorate."

Depends on how this works in practice. "Continuity Corbyn" is going to be thrown around at whoever succeeds him that also took part in the Shadow cab (bar perhaps Starmer) and is from the Labour left. RLB or Rayner will be called Marxists if they keep a lot of the policies (which as you say are popular, the same ones the membership will go out to bat for too). That's the reality.

How big a deal is Deputy? As long as that person has their heart in the right place and isn't a fucking wrecker. Burgon isn't that experienced but we've just lived through Tom Watson.

He's hopeless, get him to fuck.

I'm having this batch of tomato soup I made before election day and it feels like that lasagne Bobby Baccalieri's wife made before she died in The Sopranos and he doesn't want to eat it, because it was made before all hope had died!

He wouldn't be a wrecker but he'd be liability and anyone who repped for Chris Williamson at some point might need the Yezhov treatment!

With Burgon as Deputy Leader all your tomato soup will taste like hope had just died.

lol!

As for his heart being in the right place, his heart belongs to Williamson, dear old Chris Williamson.

now more than ever the left must focus on its ultimate objective: prime minister brian eno

Taking Blyth Valley By Strategy.

Chris Williamson is history now. I wouldn't have Burgon either but Lab did stop CW from standing. It is true he just isn't quite sharp enough.

He will probably be in the Shadow cab if RLB/Lab left get in.

:-(

Keep asking myself why so many people would vote for such an awful man that has hurt so many people with his cruel welfare policies, as well as a racist prime minister. Don’t want to lose faith in humanity, but trying to be honest with myself. https://t.co/WVmdiwdQSH

— Faiza Shaheen (@faizashaheen) December 15, 2019

RLB or Rayner will be called Marxists if they keep a lot of the policies (which as you say are popular, the same ones the membership will go out to bat for too). That's the reality.

This is inevitably true though it might be harder to make it stick to someone who has never identified as part of the Socialist campaign group, is a member of the LFI, etc. A lot of people on the left will make a fuss if it’s Rayner, which will likely help her distance herself from ‘continuity Corbyn’ to some degree.

I and others had to deal with exactly this type of idiot throughout the 80s. Now he's back and I'll have to spend the next decade dealing with him all over again. https://t.co/Kix5uweNw5

— Aditya Chakrabortty (@chakrabortty) December 15, 2019

Rachel Riley might have to postpone her defeat of anti-Semiticism in the UK celebrations, because it appears that fascists are completely emboldened by an openly racist PM

Rayner also came through UNISON's leadership scheme, although "in the pockets of the unions" seems like it wasn't as big a talking point recently

"This is inevitably true though it might be harder to make it stick to someone who has never identified as part of the Socialist campaign group, is a member of the LFI, etc."

Think it will be easy enough if you are batting for social housing and rent controls and anything that threatens property rights, nationalisation and so on. Easy enough to make slippery slope arguments too.

But as I said, that's the reality but the media didn't entirely win it for Johnson.