love* in the time of plague (and by love* i mean brexit* and other dreary matters of uk politics)

someone pointed out even Sunak's BLM statement was better than Starmer's. Seeing as you get treble the scrutiny as Labour leader it is very unfortunate his instincts are so right wing and conservative and he is so unskillful at speaking live that he will have to be managed in future, unless the PLP are quite happy about him alienating everyone except some reanimated neanderthals from Workington and make it the party of provincial angry statue worshippers.

Also agree with Andrew Farrell above: very odd how animated and physical KS is about police.

The problem with 'defund the police' is that it requires too much explanation and additional context to people who might initially be freaked out or are otherwise not inclined to look further into it, and it is almost perfectly designed to be weaponised by malicious actors looking to make sure as many people misinterpet it as possible, and it would be used against Labour on an almost daily basis from now until the next election. Even Corbyn would not be enthusiastically joining in with calls to defund the police in the UK, as other people have mentioned.

But the problem with Starmer's response - and it's a big one - is that he just doesn't just bat the question away or defuse it, he enthusiastically leans into it, rubbishing and dismissing BLM as an organisation in the process, and the timing of it is indefensible. That will be heard by every black person in the UK and it's a pretty big 'fuck off, we know you're going to vote for us anyway' signal. The Telegraph is already gleefully reporting that Starmer is trying to "wriggle out" of his support for BLM and we've talked about the Farage thing already.

I wonder if there's any triangulated response to this that could possibly work, say, higher funding for the police (as well as community projects, mental health etc) in exchange for root-and-branch reform and much stronger sanctions and accountability. But it's all very well saying you're going to weed out institutional racism and quite another to actually deliver on that, they've been failing to do so since Stephen Lawrence. The problem, as ever, is with the kind of person attracted to joining the police.

How widely has this interview been condemned by other black community organisations? It can't be allowed to be dismissed as an objection from disgruntled backbenchers and marginalised white leftists.

very widely, and it still will bc the press & party leadership don’t gaf

When black ppl are dying with *impunity* at the hands of police, our corpses used as props in their selfies, I really don't get how you can dismiss defunding the police as "ridiculous". At least engage with the discussion.

— p-dinheiro™ (@p_dinheiro) June 30, 2020

there's probably no adequate way that the Labour Party can deal with BLM as a movement; if this is an indicator of the inadequacy of the Party (and of electoral politics in general) then that's fine by me, at least Starmz's position is clear and unambiguous.

that's not quite the same as "the Labour Party is useless", but i think it's a good thing if people start to recognise the limits of its tactical use, and in a secondary way a good thing if this incites people to continue struggling to change it, tho personally too much of that feels like a waste of energies better directed elsewhere.

of course the structural realities of police funding and control are v different in the UK and the US, but if the choice of rallying cries is "defund the police" vs "reform the police, preferably after a good old-fashioned cockney enquiry" then i think people shd stick with the former. alienating a particular section of the electorate is the point of it, and that alienation isn't the problem of anybody bar career politicians.

Thankfully that isn't the only choice that exists.

But yeah it's a difference between campaign slogan and something that politicians could realistically do, and even then there's no guarantee they'd be interested in doing so. Bears reiterating that Labour is a fundamentally authoritarian party, always has been and probably always will be.

But the problem with Starmer's response - and it's a big one - is that he just doesn't just bat the question away or defuse it, he enthusiastically leans into it, rubbishing and dismissing BLM as an organisation in the process, and the timing of it is indefensible

That's the key. I'm not even sure if 'defund the police' has much traction within the UK BLM movement - it's nothing like as central as it is in the UK. Dismissing the organisation's objectives as 'nonsense' dismisses demands around the reduction of stop and search, proper investigations into deaths in custody, continued work on institutional racism, the massively disproportionate number of BAME people in jail, etc. You could simply say 'Labour has no interest in discussions around defunding or abolishing the police but we recognise the ongoing work that needs to be done to ensure that policing reflects the values of...., etc, etc'.

I'm not sure if he'd have been so reflexively kneejerk about it if they hadn't criticised him for sacking RLB.

'central as it is in the US'

Bears reiterating that Labour is a fundamentally authoritarian party, always has been and probably always will be.

yeah, i take comfort when that gets exposed. a slogan isn't a programme was my point really. even if the electoral maths was different i wouldn't expect much change to structural inequalities to come out of a political party currently riddled with them. also it's just nice to see the right kind of people shaken up.

'Labour has no interest in discussions around defunding or abolishing the police but we recognise the ongoing work that needs to be done to ensure that policing reflects the values of...., etc, etc'.

This would have been so easy that you have to wonder if yesterday's interview as given was the point, rather than a reflexive kneejerk. And yeah I haven't really heard 'defund the police' used much over here at all.

it was the point and the point was “fuck you”

He could also - though he didn't - have pointed to a report from his own Shadow Justice Secretary, who is black.

Just heard Jonathan Ashworth say the reason UK was late to lockdown was because we thought this epidemic was going to be like swine flu. This statement is patently ridiculous. The genome of SARS-CoV-2 was published in January and we knew then it was a coronavirus, not swine flu.

— richard horton (@richardhorton1) June 30, 2020

jesus wept

A positive of Starmer rubbishing BLM like this is that it pushes 'defund' more and more to the conversation as a thing.

Surely Ashworth meant it like it would have the same impact in the UK as swine flu did. He's still a chump.

I'd want to hear it in context as it's not a reason for why the UK was later than other countries. That was a political call.

he's fucking awful and when mostly the rest of Europe were locking down it was pretty clear this mofo was no H1N1

tbh it's been tempting to flip 'defund the police' back at Tories given their policy over the last ten years was to do exactly that

there is line between treading carefully because "the GBP don't like to see pols making cheap political capital from the Rona" and just being a complete fucking useless idiot.

"We also clap for those who make our NHS possible: our innovators, our wealth creators, our capitalists and financiers." https://t.co/hve0sI2ea4

— alex hern (@alexhern) June 30, 2020

omg clap for Branson!

(xxp) Yes, ironically, the Tories have been defunding the police for years.

was just listening to the press conference while making breakfast, glad i missed the clap for billionaires bit

Covid had been fucking Italy for almost a month before they eventually locked down here. Was very clear it wasn’t on the same level as swine flu.

Ashworth a dick but at the same time:

A call for caution please. Media are escalating anxiety by talking of a “killer virus” + “growing fears”. In truth, from what we currently know, 2019-nCoV has moderate transmissibility and relatively low pathogenicity. There is no reason to foster panic with exaggerated language.

— richard horton (@richardhorton1) January 24, 2020

Clap for capitalists! #Clapitalists

He really went there huh

It might, *might* have explained why the government was so lackadaisical in preparing for the threat in January and February, perhaps they also thought it would be like SARS and not really make its way over here. It is the absolute flimsiest excuse for not locking down early given what had already been happening in Italy, France and Spain.

Ashworth really shouldn't have said "we" there, as if he had anything to do with it.

I think what Ashworth was groping for is that they were following the pandemic flu playbook, which is basically true (but they were always doomed because they'd cut the knees off even the flu response with austerity)

100 staff working in 13 care homes across Leicestershire have been told 'you're sacked' unless you accept two weeks less paid holiday, a 30% cut in wages, scrapping sick pay scheme plus more. This is the reality of a broken, privatised system where profit trumps people.

— Chris Jenkinson (@UNISONRegSec) June 29, 2020

"Why then, is the new national security adviser a political appointee with no proven expertise in national security?" asks former prime minister Theresa May

Michael Gove says not all national security advisers have been "steeped in the security world"https://t.co/7R5crkq6sE pic.twitter.com/aQE810tiBp

— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) June 30, 2020

O_o

"Bad experts still bad, experts suggest"

The post has apparently only existed since the Cameron government which is probably a factor in why Cummings and Gove think it's so open to them fucking with.

Fucking hell, the look of loathing and contempt on May's face. I know she looks like that most of the time but she really hates Gove.

a rare moment of alignment with the rest of the human race

Yes.

Quite remarkable.

It's amazing. I also think there are going to be more Tories that hate the announcements today, too. I wonder how long he keep this lot together – signing a pledge to GBD is different from agreeing to all the other shit

Love too see it.

Though I'm sure Starmzy will put her in her place soon.

I wonder how long he keep this lot together

it would be a shame if the tory party split, then there wouldn't be any more "countdown to inevitable tory party split" thinkpieces that i've been enjoying since 2016.

https://i.imgur.com/P88TmoE.png

We need ZS to add some laser beams shooting from her eyes

a bunch of spooks and wannabe spooks fighting over spook stuff is the kind of political stand the country needs right now

On a fundamental level Tories understand power and will do virtually anything to get it and hold onto it, it's not in their nature to split, although as we've seen they can be a big man for a purge on occasion.

(xpost - tbf if this appointment fucks up it's going to do so very badly indeed)

glad to see she's still wearing weird shit around her neck

Also they've got a big fuck off majority they can afford to carry some disgruntled backbenchers.

They don't really, though - SBush OTM with the "Labour had a landslide loss, but the Tories didn't get a landslide majority". They've already had some lossees to backbenchers, can definitely see this getting messy with what's to come.

meanwhile in 20pts ahead corner:

New from Labour NEC. Lara McNeill asks Keir Starmer if he will uphold same zero tolerance approach on antisemitism to Rachel Reeves' praise for Nancy Astor

He said "I'm not going to discuss that"

Also refused to be drawn on BLM - one source says he is in "no mood to compromise"

— Gabriel Pogrund (@Gabriel_Pogrund) June 30, 2020

lmao

"There is a balance that must be struck, between law and order..."