have you quit the labour party yet?

voted #1 for them last time but have serious misgivings about how the SD's seem to have sprung up under their noses populated and followed by what wouldve seemed on the face of it to be the next generation of what ought to have been their candidates and people

*blinks*

just cancelled the dd. Didn't bother with the resignation email. They aren't a party of opposition any more and will only get worse once the guileless fuckwit melt of a leader is stabbed in the back.

By the time my trade union processes the necessary paperwork for my subs to be switched to the non-affiliated political fund, the world as we currently understand it won't exist anyway

Did so earlier this week, both dd and through contact form.

does anyone have any hope

I only joined in December.

I'm thinking about it.

I’ve left the party before, when Miliband was tacking to the right, but am not inclined to do it again yet.

I don’t rate Starmer as a leader but I recognise that the shadow cabinet he has put together is an upgrade on the pre-Corbyn one. It’s also the best we are going to get, either within the Labour Party, or electoral politics in general, any time soon. It’s too early to judge how the policy platform will shake out and whether they’ll cross any of my red lines (triangulation on immigration, welfare, military adventurism, etc) - at which point I may give up completely.

The left isn’t going to retake the Labour Party for a while. The right is far more likely to make a concerted attempt to scuttle Starmer first. Unless there is a particularly compelling reason not to, I’d rather stay to oppose that.

I also look at people like Corbyn, McDonnell, the old guard members, etc, who stuck it out through Kinnock and Blair in the belief that there may be something of value to save and were briefly proved right. They’ve put up with worse.

I joined by making a contribution and canvassing at the last electoon. Whether I decide to stay or leave is a decision I will make later in the year and will depend on what contribution I can make with others locally. Difficult to be more specific as I was navigating through the thing and then covid hit.

I don't know if reading lots of stuff since Starmer's victory is good for the soul really (I was going to ask for a few links but thought the better of it). Give yourself a break for a few weeks.

hope these days is getting 4 pints of milk. There isn't an opposition any more. I didn't vote for 20+ years previously and can easily switch back to that mode. I was born poor as fuck and am used to living poor as fuck and with very low expectations of UK governments and the so called opposition. Fuck 'em all! I've got decades of accumulated hatred and class resentments towards wankers like Starmer and would rather die than give him a vote tbh!

I spent most of the 00's working on the poorest social housing of Yorkshire and don't buy any of the crap about the gains of Blairism. I just despise the Labour Party right now.

Hope is not getting 4 pints of milk, we ended up with that this morning. It means we're not getting any on Saturday

Keir Starmer’s reshuffle is impressive - the Marxist nutters are out; moderate left are in. When this crisis is eventually over, and politics is resumed, the Tories are going to find that the 5 years when there was no opposition and no alternative has come to an abrupt end

— George Osborne (@George_Osborne) April 9, 2020

xp
hah!

Good job Osborne, the guy publishing antisemitic cartoons of Starmer’s cabinet yesterday, has no motive for undermining the Labour Party and can be relied on to play with a straight bat or I’d think he’s trolling.

Could look at the way he has treated the even further right Sadiq Khan for evidence of what he thinks of the ‘soft left’.

Re: hope. I think it's pretty much clear that: 1) a lot of stuff is happening and 2) a lot of it is bad (but some is good too)

We should not divorce 1 from 2 (and the item in the bracket) either.

how good that stuff that is happening rn might be depends on how much you believe this will genuinely be a paradigm shift rather than a precursor for more of the same - but worse.

btw if anyone ever falls into food poverty during this lockdown, just remember Mark G doesn't fall into food poverty but he considers that quite a whimsical thing.

wait is this a ukpol thread ffs i wasnt told

Nah, just trying to keep my own spirits up.

soz if I was harsh there Mark!

xp
Get back to your failed melt thread that was like the worst episode of QI ya cunt!

Basically, it was a metaphor for how things seem to get better before they start to get worse.

Nothing to do with the subject in hand, I agree. I'm off to bed anyway, gnight.

goodnight mark, sorry for being a bit shitty. i'm beyond fresh rn!

Jealous of your system where a party is a thing you can “join” in a meaningful sense

Here silby on a semi related note we were discussing you on the main thread and you should post there more in our opinion

I’ll see what I can do. I already disappointed lots of folks by forgetting to become a Crystal Palace supporter, as a bit.

Pretty sure imago would not be disappointed by you forgetting to become a Crystal Palace supporter.

"Jealous of your system where a party is a thing you can “join” in a meaningful sense"

it's no good when most of the members are either voting for an insipid establishment melt or the majority that didn't vote because their own "real opposition" media clown wasn't even close to being up to the job. i really miss Corbyn and McD :(

But at least you can quit it now! What a relief.

when posters badmouth them on here I feel like knifing them for real tbh!

re osborne, this bizarre inversion where opposition means no opposition is totally doing my head in, as is the fact that some non tories seem to genuinely believe this

but i never joined the party anyway so w/e

try telling some of these "non tories" that they aren't tories. You'd need medieval torture tools to make them admit it and they've got a "plurality of voices" on their side !

I wonder if to some extent this idea of 'real opposition' depends on your subconscious conception of what opposition is, whether its something external and existential, a replacement - or whether its more managerial. Almost like the opposition as kind of a wing of the government rather than a replacement for it.

We see this sort of stuff when incoming Labour MPs are asked if they're going to be friendly with Conservatives or not (which is a trick question of course). Was it Pidcock that said she couldn't be? But this then seen as not playing the game, not being respectful to Parliament itself. As somehow ooposed to the concept of parliament and democracy itself

that makes a lot of sense actually

it's supposed to be her majesty's most loyal opposition after all

I think this is part of it but maybe something deeper but its not easy to unpick - and it may be a difficult tightrope for the left in general to walk (oppositional but seen as able to work within whatever power structures are in place). Much of this is presentational rather than substantive, so that path is there.

I even think there's something in this, as I don't really know how much mileage there is in the combative or confrontational approach (QT etc is cringe-worthy with this stuff, and the weird mixture of acquiescence and bluster from the media ineffectual). Or at least it shouldn't be the only or even main instrument. McD maybe the only person that was able to do this. Theoretically it should be easier to play this kind of game of appealing to people who view things through this lens as its really just packaging but its not easy to see who that might be (Ro Khanna in the US seems someone that maybe might have it but don't know in UK)

I think we probably need to distinguish between the people pushing this kind of stuff in a kind of fantasy world of 'opponents shaking hands at the end of the day after a fine battle of wills and wits good show pals" and people subconsciously receiving this narrative as 'now we have someone that takes the job seriously instead of just making cheap points" via the media

Also: how about giving it up for the year and maybe returning to it next year.

Are other people that you know simply quitting and just not engaging in any form of politics? And if they aren't what else are they doing? (I may need some tips lol)

I wonder if to some extent this idea of 'real opposition' depends on your subconscious conception of what opposition is, whether its something external and existential, a replacement - or whether its more managerial. Almost like the opposition as kind of a wing of the government rather than a replacement for it.

We see this sort of stuff when incoming Labour MPs are asked if they're going to be friendly with Conservatives or not (which is a trick question of course). Was it Pidcock that said she couldn't be? But this then seen as not playing the game, not being respectful to Parliament itself. As somehow ooposed to the concept of parliament and democracy itself

I see a lot of ppl fading or quitting who are already busy with jobs and kids. seems like the options are just be casually involved with worthy but isolated small-scale stuff or to attempt to pull everything together yourself. no one ever really worked out what they were doing ofc

my position equates precisely onto SV's; little more to add

the ppl railing against despair, the fragmentation of the movement, or bitterly avoiding electoral politics entirely seem to be doing so out of some sense of moral obligation rather than out of any conviction.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVO9PXiUcAAQHHY?format=jpg&name=large

I've not seen any signs of buyer's remorse from any Kier voters yet. If *this* is what they actually I'm amazed they stuck with Corbyn for so long. But I suppose that is the nature of apolitical happy clappers.

onboard/contained

I think many of them had contaminated 99's from Owen Smith's Mr Melty ice cream van.

Somewhere between wavering and never - I think it's ony prudent to see how things play out but I don't have high hopes.

Even if you had low hopes they pretty much got dashed yesterday! I thought there might be some Kier voters despairing at a shadow cab with Streeting and JP.

messaging w/ ppl and I can tell they're hoping I'm going to offer some rousing morale-boosting sentiments and I'm just holding off on saying "mb see how it's going in 4-10 years??"

I think that timescale might be oppomistic, but these aren't ordinary times.. You never know.

meanwhile important big brains explain why Crombone was unelectable with his several million more votes than Kieth

I am still not entirely sure whether Pete Paph is doing some kind of Simon Hedges “bit” here

Tonight's Question Time special was FASCINATING. Starmer's answers substantive & specific; his body language relaxed; heartfelt & convincing on restoring integrity & public service to government. All the stuff you'd expect from someone whose all-time favourite album is this one. pic.twitter.com/jNqOIF3Bv5

— Pete Paphides (@petepaphides) June 20, 2024

lol poor Hedges, first twitter makes likes private and then UK commentariat parody-proofs themselves.

Ming the Merciless

As someone's pointing out below the tweet, 60% turnout for that range would be a modest increase

yeah it's always been a thing during my lifetime, the anti-Kieth vote for independents/greens/farage might even inspire a higher youth turnout than usual, who knows - it's an odd GE. Sir John Curtice has been saying this is uncharted waters. If the Tories implode this is like once in a century shit.

Yeah, I mean FPTP is fucked, but maybe some some seats and some strong second places or whatever for, say, Greens (not that they're perfect, but moving the Overton window towards them would be good) would help people consider them as a viable option - or put the fear in Labour that people would? Of course I'll probably have to perform some mental gymnastics to consider that and ignore the same effect with whatever's going to happen with Reform. And yeah, there's reason to hope for 2029, when the climate definitely won't be completely fucked, woo.

apparently Peter Oborne is going to explain in an interview why the Conservative Party is truly finished, perhaps even as an opposition party this afternoon. I wont be watching it because Bastani.

I don't think I've ever encountered a WP fan who was born outside of (roughly) 1963-75?

fwiw I was born in 1976

Gedge was born in 1960, so does that mean he doesn't like his own band?

feel like that's his entire shtick tbh

Xpost*2 and I in 1961

SKSKC thinks WP perfectly distil agony then maybe SKSKC should have wrote for the weekly music press rather than becoming a hotshot human rights lawyer. I'm not calling this the single of the week, because I don't really favouritise anything. If circumstances change by next week I might have to revoke my statement that this single didn't displease me.

Weddoes a big fave of centrist mum du jour Stella Creasy too I believe, is a pattern emerging?

she was at a Shed 7 gig with Therese Coffey and Michael Dugher as well, some of the vilest insects in UK politics fucking love this shite!

Well, a lot of people did.

Fun fact: When Chuck Berry yelled out "you know, there's future parliament out there singing?" On "My ding-a-ling" ?

Well, there wasn't. But Slade were...

Long distance information, give me Dewsbury and Batley

Well, a lot of people did.

Name me one good Shed Seven fan.

little known fact - Erol Alkan was a huge (HUGE) Shed 7 fan.

Whether this backs up the theory or not is another matter, though am siding with the former personally

I live within Shed Seven's geographic heartland, so a lot of good people who I know are very fond of them.

In that case I apologise to Mr Witter and co.

Hmm, just thought of a great name for a new concise-post social media site... Rick's Shed.

new display name just dropped

another amusing anecdote you say, sir kieth? give us a sec *puts ear defenders on, contemplates jumping out of the window*

i think these stories might be a glimpse of the real Kieth because surely to god know professional PR guru would be signing off on them

it's in the style of his meandering Valentine's Day in Newcastle one that people couldn't believe was real. He is a boss who is used to being tolerated rather than ever getting told any harsh truths, so he says I thought that went down well. And one of subordinates says er .. yes .. it did.

I think it would be amusing to hear to what Mandelson is saying in private conversations about Kieth's public performances.

McSweeney, maybe Streeting too. i'm sure they're gritting their teeth thru this shit until it's expedient to get rid

BREAKING: Labour candidate Kevin Craig is under investigation by the Gambling Commission because he is understood to have bet against himself in his own constituency.

Truly the Joey Barton of politics

another highest quality "generation K" Labour candidate, only the finest!

Someone is either desperate for Corbyn to win or Corbyn to lose...

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/article/2024/jun/26/man-arrested-after-alleged-honeytrap-plot-targeting-men-in-political-circles

just another normal Kieth day of standing up for transphobia, ramping up anti-immigrant rhetoric and dismissing proportional representation

so much Change

The huge number of British Bangladeshis in H&StP will be really angry about this.

It's actually kind of scary this self-important, brittle, narcissistic sociopath is going to be pm in just a week's time

my only solace is the queue of villains in his own party who'll be lining up to get rid of him

in a work meeting this week someone from the policy department characterised the labour manifesto as “the word change over and over and lots of pictures of kier starmer”

lol, the Labour betting guy has said he intended to donate his winnings to charity if it had been a winning bet

They all say that! Reminder that Dawn Foster won 4k betting £20 that Corbyn would win the leadership, placing the bet before any nominations happened, when SCG had just put him forward. Bookies gave her 200-1. She gave half to refugee charities but if anyone in the world ought to have kept their takings, it was her.

Everyone's understandably moved onto Starmer's racism now but I did think this this morning was great fun:

"Do you think the current council tax bands and system are fair?

Liz Kendall: "... we're not going to be changing [them], & let me explain why... we've got to be honest about what our priorities are, and our priorities are not to be raising Income Tax, VAT or National Insurance" pic.twitter.com/ePci9kqegp

— Saul Staniforth (@SaulStaniforth) June 26, 2024

"Erm, I think you'll find life isn't fair???"

These people are not prepared for how hated they are going to be. Thought I don't rule out the possibility that they feed off it like black lodge spirits on garmonbozia

One of those Labour Party emails, supposedly from Starmer ... "When I became leader of the Labour Party, we had just been handed our worst defeat in more than 80 years. There were serious questions about our party’s future and the scale of the task at hand was not lost on me." Seems such a weird message to be going for.

NEW: Deputy Leader of Tower Hamlets Labour group has resigned from the party over Starmer’s Bangladesh comments.

Councillor Sabina Akhtar says:

‘I cannot be proud of this party anymore when the leader singles out my community and insults my Bangladeshi identity’

— Shehab Khan ITV (@ShehabKhan) June 26, 2024

Aspun Begum has spoke out without naming the devil

This story too...

“Labour headquarters had been angry with the traction Owusu-Nepaul was getting. “At one point [Jovan] was getting more retweets than Keir Starmer. The officials were furious with him and said he was distracting [from] Starmer’s campaign.” https://t.co/uHcgr9Sdal

— Joe Guinan (@joecguinan) June 26, 2024

there aren't any real ppl who retweet Kier Starmer tweets. I really fucking hate these cunts more every day.

FFS, that Owusu-Nepaul story is wearying.

maybe i'll keep it in here or something idk

TIL Jonathan Ashworth's wife is... Emilie Oldknow. Guess they deserve each-other.

I think they’re separated/no longer married?

Not having a great year, Jonathan.

No wonder he emanates divorced dad energy.

Labour sent me an election questionnaire and when they asked for fundraising suggestions, mine was Peter Mandelson dunk tank, £10 per shot.