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

xp
Unguided missile Clive has come the closest and then backtracked a bit. I've not heard Hilary "drums of war" Benn yet but I reckon he might be as reticent to back Trump as well. Things have definitely changed when it is seems the BBC's Nick Robinson is more hawkish and to the right of Raab and most of Labour Right are basically with Corbyn on this.

hah! Nandy fooled me with that local paper stunt bullshit, thought it was too maverick to be true.

Journalists, when Labour want to renationalise something: "Where's the money coming from?"

Journalists when money needs to be spent attacking a Muslim country: pic.twitter.com/eSeqlMyaKg

— Sinan Kose (@TheSinanKose) January 3, 2020

There have been heavy hints that Johnson wasn’t warned in advance, unlike Israel, and Pompeo has criticised the U.K., along with France and Germany, as being unhelpful. It’ll be interesting to see whether the gung-ho press line holds.

Raab basically said that the Foreign Office wasn't told in advance and even he has been talking about the need to de-escalate tensions.

The Trump administration is probably (and correctly) surmising that as the little Brits are in the process of shredding their most important trading relationship they can be relied upon to fall into line when the moment arrives if they want that trade deal.

Also theoretically at least the UK, France and Germany are still signed up to the nuclear deal although whether that means anything any more I have no idea.

Literally no chance of any prospective Labour leader sticking their hand up and saying that yes joining Trump's war in Iran would be a great idea.

― Matt DC,

True but can either come out strong and gain some points, or weasel around like Warren

unguided missile C was taking the Warren approach at first, then he seemed to temper his words with another less weasily tweet when he noticed he was stood alone in the corner of the playground!

Everyone else basically took a variant on the same line (not really seen Nandy's response admittedly). Either because they believe it - to be fair the alternative is insane - or because they know its toxic with members, or both. Lewis doesn't seem the sharpest tool in the box and bungled it.

How not to run a campaign

Don’t you think we all know a Jess? A doer. A matriarch. A turn-to.

Might not be your pick. But she is the mum at the school gates, the receptionist at the doctors, behind the counter at the corner shop, loud Aunty in the kitchen or person pulling pints in the pub to me.

— Melanie Onn (@OnnMel) January 4, 2020

Who on earth would want to be likened to a GPs receptionist?! https://t.co/cVnbwj6LT6

— The Suspicions of Mrs Warboys (@ThatJoelfella) January 4, 2020

Why? I’m so pleased I don’t have to try and weed out hypochondriacs from the genuinely ill. Tough gig, pretty thankless.

— Melanie Onn (@OnnMel) January 4, 2020

all this time on the sidelines being touted as a leader, and she clearly hasn't spent it thinking about irksome things like policies, she just thought that she's good at this stuff and Corbyn wasn't is all the content she needs.

Yes, GP receptionists are not generally renowned for their warm and open-hearted bonhomie.

The youngest of four children, Phillips is the daughter of Stewart Trainor, a teacher, and Jean Trainor (née Mackay), who was deputy chief executive of the NHS Confederation and chair of South Birmingham Mental Health Trust. Phillips worked for a period for her parents at their company, Healthlinks Event Management Services.

Awroight bab, salt of the earth, what am yo drinking?

Melanie Onn was recently accusing 23yo newly elected Labour MP Nadia Whittome of virtue signalling for giving half her salary to deserving causes. And an MPs salary is a lot for someone that age.

A man in my victims agency consultation today was the exact double of Omar from the Wire. He'd never seen it, & was shocked by my excitement

— Jess Phillips MP (@jessphillips) September 20, 2012

She’s the mum at the gates everyone avoids, the reception nobody lines up to see, the shopkeeper all the kids can’t stand, the loud aunty you have to strategically seat at family does cause she’s a nightmare and the slowest barmaid in the pub who talks a lot but can’t pull pints. https://t.co/eRywzcm2o2

— Labour Towns Source (@judeinlondon2) January 4, 2020

OTM to all that.

Thing is she's had such an easy ride getting smoke up her arse from the Murdoch press just based on that she's anyone but Corbyn and talks like a bigoted ignoramus and "says it like it is". But now she's got to show she how she's different from Corbyn. Which is a problem when she's most content free vacuous candidate of the lot of them. And the same dickheads pumping her up as a credible leader will soon be throwing pelters at her when she's making weak, unconvincing overtures to the membership.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9L6P-WMKKw

Leaked video from a recent strategy meeting, sources tell me its legit

o great, now those of us from B'ham have got months of people taking the piss out of the accent or confusing it with Black Country.

But now she's got to show she how she's different from Corbyn.

And she's doing this by asking for honesty because we all know Corbyn lied about voting Remain

lol at "That gambol was nice"

like calzino implied, by 'honesty' she means plain-speaking, which i guess is where corbyn did fail at some crucial moments. and i do think that the way the next leader communicates with is a crucial thing, and a lot of that is the ability to cut through the media bullshit albeit at the expense of nuance. which is why i really wish angela rayner was running, cos she actually seems to have something to communicate and isn't just some sort of foghorn in love with it's own parp

um, its

otm, otm, otm

i’ve just realised that watching newsnight any time soon would psychically break me. i don’t know if i’ll be able to watch any of those people again. hignfy, etc. maybe they all should have become kryptonite to me long ago. but they definitely are now.

yep. same with Today, AQ and PM etc.. but I feel much better tbh and it isn't like getting angry with your radio/tv on daily basis is good for your MH or makes you any better informed on domestic politics. It's the BBC's loss because they'll have pissed a lot of much younger viewers than us - who are pretty much their last hope of still existing as they do beyond the next couple of decades.

I'm surprised Jess hasn't had most of her horrendous twitter history deleted at this point, especially stuff like backing up a white man using a black-woman sock to racially abuse Diane Abbott. Although even if she did - she hasn't a prayer of winning the membership over.

xps

isn't "the expense of nuance" just adding more noise and bullshit rather than cutting through it? I think as some of these numpties progress through their campaigns I think people will see how plain speaking and competent Corbyn was in comparison. Anyway i don't there is any chance Rayner is running as anything other than RLB's deputy and I think that is fine, because none of the men running are worth shit!

one thing I'd hate to see is RLB allied to some two bit loser like Burgon, Rayner is great as a number 2 and they are real friends which is good imo.

Literally no chance of any prospective Labour leader sticking their hand up and saying that yes joining Trump's war in Iran would be a great idea.

― Matt DC,

True but can either come out strong and gain some points, or weasel around like Warren

― anvil, Saturday, 4 January 2020 11:19

Going for the weaselling around answer -> "People want there to be an easy answer to this question and there isn't"

Turns out straight talking JP is full of prevarication and evasiveness, who would have thought it eh?

not when it comes to dealing those striking teachers it seems or proposing policies from the TV series The Wire to deal with drugs problems "in the low rises". Sorry everyone is tweeting her bad social media history again!

Like I said her team should have had a sweep through her Twitter and deleted loads, because it is (lol) very damaging to her prestige as a candidate. But I guess when you are arrogant enough to think you are special, then none of this stuff matters.

I guess the PLP just doesn't have any charismatic masters of the media game, sad.

speaking of which I saw this horrific image of A Campbell playing bagpipes over Charles Kennedy's grave the other day. Talk about a grave insult to someone who saw through his Iraq bullshit.

"Turns out straight talking JP is full of prevarication and evasiveness, who would have thought it eh?"

I presume you are referring to her Marr interview. Not heard it yet, but it sounds like a classic of the genre from early reports!

10 mins of probing on policy and all she could say was "We need to listen to people" and "The election told us what people want" and then he asks if she'd campaign to re-enter the EU and she's like "Yeah I'd probably campaign to go back in"

Incredible

— /j/o/n/ (@AScribbledEagle) January 5, 2020

In what I thought was an otherwise poor, complacent interview, Richard Seymour did highlight the main issue I have with Starmer; he doesn't appear to have any central sense of intellectual ideology (in a way that, albeit in a slightly vanilla way, Ed Miliband did). He's fairly consistently triangulated – most obviously backing Owen Smith. That isn't *necessarily* a problem, though I resile from it instinctively; it is after all politics. But what it means is that when it comes to tough decisions about which people and which policies to back, where there is contention - and there will be contention - his natural instinct is to hedge, which I suspect is a natural regression to a sort of perceived centrist mean – established modes of centrist power: Blairite, technocratic.

An ability to triangulate different points of view within the Labour party and their potential allies might be seen as a virtue. A couple of times during the election I was asked what I thought Labour's chances of a majority were, and I quoted John Curtice's relatively uncontroversial point that without Scotland, Labour's chances of forming a majority government were 'as close to zero as one can safely say it to be' because of Scotland. That always seemed to surprise people. Assuming the SNP will remain all powerful until independence, which answers the question another way, it means Labour will for the foreseeable future be seeking to corral divergent anti-Tory interests.

Does this make Starmer the right choice? Not for me. I think there will be a greater need for a clear alternative set of policies over the next five years. That's on the assumption... well it's mainly on the assumption that that's the sort of politics I think we should have, but more pragmatically, it's on the assumption that material conditions will worsen meaningfully (which is quite an assumption - even with a hard brexit, *some* growth is still projected, just much lower), and that the nationalism/sovereignty/immigrant bashing does not successfully become a sufficient majority's set of priorities. it may also rest on an assumption that this was a 'Get Brexit Done' election, and that *however* that plays out, that advantage will be lost in five years' time.

In a broader sense, and worrying less about a reliance on material conditions getting worse to enable the left, the promises of this government - invest more in the NHS, leave the EU, not put income tax, VAT or nation insurance, reduce debt as a proportion to GDP - cannot all be held. It's the same thing as the challenges around the rhetoric with Iran – *at some point* something has to give. General election experience tells us that the approach to this will be obfuscatory and bombastic bluster and lies. On that basis the first and easiest thing to drop is the debt to GDP ration (although *some* growth is expected, it's as near flat as can be, so it would have to come from not borrowing more money, simply impossible without raising taxes, while also exiting the customs union). The new LOTO will need to be able to expose these clearly in the press and in public (rather than just in parliament).

Simply put, Starmer does not represent enough of an alternative, and his manner is ill-suited to combat Johnson's bombast. His natural instinct for triangulation would see him drawn to the right, in an increasingly right-wing environment.

Fuck you NV

is there a catch-all word for these types of triangulating tories in disguise that always inevitably slide towards the right?:p

lol what did i do?

Also - with all candidates - we are getting a sense of how much talent was suppressed by Corbyn's refusal to broaden Labour front bench. Even loyal ppl of talent were sidelined to avoid upsetting the Lexit deadbeats.

— Paul Mason (@paulmasonnews) January 5, 2020

when a complete idiot presses post just as the crack he's been smoking is stimulating the old receptors!

Infuriating.

@siennamarla
Asked what she would drop from Labour’s 2019 manifesto, Lisa Nandy replies: “Free broadband. People said to us, it’s all very well promising free broadband but could you just sort out the buses? And that was the more pressing issue in their lives. It’s not about whether you’re radical or not, it’s about whether you’re relevant.”

stoya come to the labour front bench - the revolution is happening

hey at least she's got a programme

she's a smorgasbord of content next to joker Jess!

hate to say it but i just read Nandy's Graun Op Ed and there's not much in there to object to, i just don't trust her.

this

What is/was Corbynism? A thread:

Firstly, it was only ever called 'Corbynism' because Corbyn's leadership made possible the hegemony of a left-intellectual coalition within Labour. Corbyn's own personal belief system, which is not very systematic, was only one component of that.

— Daniel Gerke (@drgerke1) January 4, 2020

is quite good but also bad/sad in several areas - talking about Clive like he has something to offer; correctly identifying the need for structural reform without recognising that nobody in the electorate or commentariat is gonna be hyped for discussing it

starting 2020 very "we are fucked and i'm giving up politics for religion", don't know what will perk me up during this leadership election tbh

what will cheer me up will be seeing the back of this ragtag gang of dubious melts and jokers and seeing RLB as the next leader. I'm not asking for much.

my melt-dar game is strong. In 40 odd years I'm yet to see a Labour pol who I've dismissed as a complete cunt prove me wrong, if anything they've always turned out much worse than my initial misgivings about them.

the broadband policy was one of the ones that really hit in the election! you can argue with the “and another thing” way that new investment policies were drip fed and also to meadway’s point about the prioritisation of nationalisation, but it seems daft to drop something that played well. also you can give cities control over bus franchising very easily. david miliband has been struggling through that particular thicket of central gov and obstruction admin for a few years.