“I take my responsibilities seriously. I did not lie” - UK politics June 23 on

Bring on a hung parliament

Bring on the Rochdale by-election.

Damien Egan said 14 years of Conservative governments had "sucked the hope out of our country"

every time I see Starmer & Reeves doing Labour messaging it feels like another 14 years of having hope sucked out of you, plus boot stamping on yr face

"The voters of [insert name of constituency when the sitting MP has either died or disgraced themselves and which will revert to their party come the next General Election] have sent a clear message to Downing Street..."

Repeat ad infinitum

great, some dead-eyed unprincipled weasels wearing red rosettes have won a couple of by-elections. I'll bake a cake.

Egan's husband is ex IDF and working as a global IDF recruiter, so safe to he's part of Labour's friends of genocide clique.

Am I reading that right? the swing in Wellingborough is purely down to Conservatives staying home? Almost no votes going to Labour at all?

Conservatives to get most seats 7/1
Conservatives overall majority 14/1

If so, "to get most seats" looks really good right now, 7/1 with only two possible outcomes

Yes, just checked, more people voted Conservative in 2019 than voted for all parties combined in 2024, big turnout drop. I'm not sure how common that is for by-elections though

It's low but not shockingly so - I had a quick look at the by-elections in the 2015-2017 parliament, the drop runs from 20% (Copeland) to 59% (Batley and Spen, the Jo Cox replacement) - 41% for Wellingborough is about middle of the pack - 49% for Kingswood would be second-worse though.

profiles in courage pt 98273

Labour has called for “an immediate humanitarian ceasefire” in Gaza for the first time in an attempt to head off what threatens to be the biggest rebellion against Keir Starmer since he became party leader.

Opposition whips published a 237-word amendment to a Scottish National party motion on Tuesday setting out the party’s stance on the Middle East crisis, which they hope Labour MPs will back instead of a separate amendment from the SNP calling more bluntly for an immediate ceasefire.

The Labour wording goes further than the party has in the past in calling for a ceasefire. Last weekend, Starmer said he wanted the fighting to “stop now”, but he has been reluctant to back an immediate and permanent ceasefire given that Hamas has threatened to carry out further attacks like the one on 7 October.

While the amendment backs a “humanitarian ceasefire”, it clarifies that it does not want Israel to stop fighting as long as Hamas continues to threaten violence.

"Can I shock you...I love ceasefires." partridge.jpg

🚨 Confirmed: Labour is whipping its MPs to *abstain* on the SNP motion if it can't amend it. https://t.co/M8477Qja30

— Emilio Casalicchio (@e_casalicchio) February 20, 2024

Wouldn't be surprised if this is what ends up happening because absolutely everything about the Labour Party is a confidence trick

unbelievably grim

Israel are killing as many people every 4 or 5 days as died in the hamas attack, eat shit keir starmer

what surprised me was people i assumed were reasonably smart falling for Kieth's "call for a ceasefire" bit in the first place

Semantic hairs split down to the root in equivocating between a cessation of fighting and a ceasefire, these things are vastly important to the electorate of course

Yes, bait n switch is now baked into every single public statement, policy announcement, etc

UPDATE I understand Keir Starmer will order his MPs to vote against the SNP’s motion calling for a Gaza ceasefire for the reason I explain below (he hates the SNP’s charge that Israel is engaging in the collective punishment of Palestinians). He knows many of his MPs will rebel… https://t.co/vY1zwPCKOq

— Robert Peston (@Peston) February 20, 2024

Our director of strategy Luke Akehurst

Really told on myself there by saying "our". Something in my Reptilian brain still adheres to the Labour party

The reptile bit

Keir Starmer was beaten up as teenager trying to defend gay friend, book reveals https://t.co/5NguE6M5Ba

— The Guardian (@guardian) February 21, 2024

you know that bit in 8 mile when eminem chides that other rapper for being homophobic?

anyway my first thought was "not hard enough" because I'm a monster

Source: Trust me bro

I mean boys will be boys something along those lines could easily have happened but so what

a bullied kid aligning himself with the bigger bullies makes enough sense to me as a psychological explanation - not that that's the angle he's going for by (presumably) telling the guardian to highlight this bit

the bit about him getting a good shoeing once could well be true!

In the book, Keir Starmer: The Biography, Starmer adds: “When I’m told how ‘things were better in the old days’, people forget about the ways Britain has become less cruel and less full of hate. We can all take some pride in that.”

"i'm doing my part to ensure that britain remains steadfast at its current level of cruelty and hatred by refusing to defend trans rights"

it's curious that as far as I know this has never been mentioned by Starmer before, there was nothing about it in the Eagleton book either. And he's not exactly a reticent kind of politician when it comes to opportunities for spinning himself as a good guy.

speaking of spinning himself as a good guy, check out the tone of the author describing starmer's angry reaction to his niece being subjected to a homophobic attack

“Starmer’s anger over what happened to his niece, and – despite his best efforts with the police – the failure to prosecute those responsible, is an emotion you rarely see from him in public,” Baldwin writes. “For my part, I think the argument made casually by a lot of people these days that he stands for nothing is well wide of the mark.”

fuck that, i wanna see kieth go full death wish on the perps

the argument that he stands for nothing is well wide of the mark because he didn't like it when his niece was physically assaulted

well i'm convinced lads, he's a man of strongly-held principles after all

it puts a completely different light on his right-wing authoritarian cop tendencies and all the vile stuff he did while he was DPP.

Do you know that Keir Starmer once told McDonalds to go away *swoon*

His principled refusal to learn how to copy and paste.

the highlight of McLibel, well the only clip of it I've watched tbh, revealed that Kieth didn't know how to use floppy discs and created a low level hostile work environment by talking to his staff like they were shit.

i'm waiting for "Starmer used to drink 20 pints a day" reveal

probably best to avoid that line in case he reminds people of the time he decked a deliveroo rider with his car after enjoying a deliciously refreshing non-alcoholic beverage at a nearby pub

that's his tough stance on the gig economy i reckon

what on earth is the need for a big fuckoff SUV when you live in North London other than just making the pissed up arsehole driving it have an inflated sense of superiority . I hate everything about this guy.

So it seems like Lindsay Hoyle has rewritten the Commons rules, against advice, to save Starmer's bacon. Get rid of the biased cunt.

there needs to be more protection for MPs, it's unacceptable that they receive death threats from members of the, um, Labour Party

Corbyn 4 Speaker

nm he likes being an actual MP too much

Can anyone do a tldr on what happened with hoyle today and why i should care? feels like dropping into a shit soap opera.

I think basically Starmer, acting like a gangster PM elect, threatened ArseHoyle's future speakership if he didn't break with standard parliamentary procedures to protect his ass from a Labour rebellion. The kind of lawless behaviour FBPEs had no truck with when Boris Johnson did it. Probably a poor summary but I don't really gaf what goes on these days.

This seems like a pretty succinct summary

To clarify, Labour masterminded a parliamentary manoeuvre to avoid a vote on an awkward SNP motion and then instead of owning that they’ve blamed protestors, thus prompting a new moral panic about politically active muslims?

— Michael Walker (@michaeljswalker) February 22, 2024

Labour's message to us?

We will not act as an Opposition nor will we let anyone else act as an Opposition.

There will be no opposition. Fuck you all.

— Priyamvada Gopal © (@PriyamvadaGopal) February 21, 2024

Also a pretty succinct summary

Just the other day I was slightly surprised to find Starmer seemingly on the right side of history on the Operation Spanner Wiki page:

There was immediate criticism of the investigation and trial in 1990, with the Gay London Policing Group describing the sentences as "outrageous" and Andrew Puddephat, general secretary of Liberty, calling for a "right to privacy enshrined in law".[52] Keir Starmer said the judiciary had "effectively imposed its morality on others" and argued the "unrepresentative make-up of the judiciary makes it ill-equipped to do this".[63] The Pink Paper branded the case a homophobic "show trial" designed to "get a clear ruling on the illegality of S&M sex, especially amongst gay men".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Spanner

Michael Martin resigned after 22 MPs expressed no confidence in him, Hoyle is up to 53 (and counting)

... just gone up to 54!