Free as a Dodo: UK Politics Welcomes 2021

i think you have to listen to a man who was there during the Putney Debates

very good

tbh we dont refer to the putney debates itt nearly as much as we should

there is loads of New Model Army threads on ilm tbf!

calzino please

Went to the London Kill The Bill protest last Saturday. From a purely personal pov I was surprised at how unfazed I was to be in a crowd after a year of isolation, and looking around me at all the little sub-groups - queer marxists, Jewish Voice for Labour, a very string sex worker contingent - I did feel a corny "we all made it"* relief.

* aware "we" did not

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E0dH5bDXoAA8IyY?format=jpg&name=360x360

all those pints of lager and the John Lewis stunt and making lots of dubious claims about what Labour run councils can do ... all for nothing!

How happy Boris must be, to be running against Keir in UK popularity polls

"Don't resign, old chap! Don't resign..."

When you consider that Ed was often polling ahead and how well it went in 2015, then perhaps he needs to start offering something markedly different to the electorate than what we've already got. Because managerialist Nu Labour competence, platitudes and flags isn't cutting it.

Helen Lewis thinks he's doing a great job and was using Biden as an example of why he is still a work in progress and he should deliver his *radical* policies rather than talk them up to get onside with malingering lefties. Lets see how that works out for him.

Biden is bad but it’s utter bullshit to say that his 2020 campaign was significantly to the right of how he’s actually governing. if centrist observer columnists are saying that it’s very easily disproved.

HL was basically saying exactly that on R4. There might have been some surprise from some quarters at Biden's repudiation of trickle-down economics and attempting a far more radical tax and spend plan than has been seen in the US for decades but I thought he did campaign on a reconstruction agenda rather more of the same.

the lesson of biden is you must support your local mediocre white man because he might surprise you (?)

for HLew being a racist middle class liberal is synonymous with doing a great job, she should know

I'm not surprised that Helen Lewis would support KS and attack socialists.

But I struggle to see how even she can make out a case that it's *going well for KS*, when he is apparently doing worse than the socialist that he, she, et al, worked for years to undermine and repeatedly said couldn't be Labour leader because of bad polls etc.

Well KS tolerates the member for Canterbury and HL was losing her shit about Corbyn saying his pronouns on a video about lgbt+ rights once, so it is really just a question of one’s priorities.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E0hY8ytWQAA5Xgm?format=jpg&name=large

oof bruising Hartlepool poll. And if Tracey Brabin wins the W Yorkshire mayoral election then there will be another "red wall" byelection in Batley & Spen to give Kieth further nightmares.

Brabin won unopposed after Jo Cox was murdered but in 2019 a lot of people voted tory, it's hard to predict how it would go post-brexit - but if Kieth decides to parachute one of his arsehole mates in like in Hartlepool - then its much more grimly predictable.

just checked + Brabin is the 1/10 fav to win the W Yorkshire Mayoral election

Hartlepool poll had 310 respondents. That’s not a poll, that’s a focus group.

and if there were 2100 respondents do you think it would be a much brighter picture for Kieth? I personally don't think it would!

some of the other polls have Labour slightly higher, but all of them predict a clear Tory win.

Keir Starmer was insisting again that Labour's result in 2019 was the worst since 1935. Actually 1935 was a good year for Labour. And 2019 was better than 1983, 1987, 2010 or 2015. Labour lost badly in 1935 because of the electoral system, not lack of support.

— David Edgerton (@DEHEdgerton) May 4, 2021

the day Kieth got schooled by the Prof!

just checked + Brabin is the 1/10 fav to win the W Yorkshire Mayoral election

― calzino, Tuesday, 4 May 2021 08:28 (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

How come? I'd have thought the issues labour is supposed to be having in die rote Mauer would make West Yorkshire a very realistic target for the tories.

Kieth is on track to actually deliver the worst labour result since 1931 though lol

Brabin will get a lot of support in the Heavy Woollen District where she grew up and I presume she'll be popular in other bits of W Yorkshire, perhaps she can transcend the current Labour Party malaise in "the wall" because she used to be on Corrie!

Me staying home on 6th May pic.twitter.com/alodr6uNGu

— peach ☭ (@peachlux_) May 4, 2021

That's right

If Thomas Mair ran in the Batley and Spen byelection he'd easily save his deposit wouldn't he

Lol I'd missed that Sadiq Khan thing at the time, only found out via an aside in James Butler's review of Owen Hatherley's latest in the lrb. Also my first covid vaccine is the day before so lol

I have my postal ballot. Fuck filing that in.

Unlike the rest of you I will not abandon Count Binface in his hour of need.

xxp

when Brabin ran unopposed by the tories in 2016 byelection the English Independence candidate was someone listed as "Corbyn Anti"!

Khan will win but on a small turnout that govt will use as justification for further emasculation of mayoral powers

Might vote for Brabin on an accelerationist tip just to force another byelection for Kieth to lose!

Weirdly, such craven pandering to the right by Khan doesn't seem to have stopped fascists on the internet calling him an islamic fundamentalist <quizzical face emoji>

This was pretty good at the time and for anyone going on about Starmer's excuses I'm afraid he doesn't give a shit.

Coming back to this on Starmer/Ainsely policy making, because parts of the left are going to be trying to push left policy on Starmer particularly if Thursday's a disaster. This profoundly misunderstands the Starmer project. https://t.co/3yYj955GP3 pic.twitter.com/Te2LtwqSuX

— Tom Gann (@Tom_Gann) May 4, 2021

What will change this is bad stuff happening (events dear boy) and a protest movement that is severely disruptive.

"If Thomas Mair ran in the Batley and Spen byelection he'd easily save his deposit wouldn't he"

a ridiculous suggestion, he was born in Scotland

He should run for leader of the DUP.

He'd definitely be assured of votes.

I strongly agree with the refusal to vote for Khan because he is a reactionary weasel.

But I would never not vote. The only question is whom to vote for. I think Green, but there are tinier progressive parties that can tempt. We used to have a local 'people before profit' one where I live.

I think some left Lab will vote for Sian Berry but, some commies aides they end up as Lib Dems in disguise a lot of the time.

Might vote for Piers Crobnysm just for lols

I’d vote for Khan if I had the vote purely to wind up the crypto- (and far less crypto-) Islamophobes.

I’d vote for Khan if I had the vote purely to wind up the crypto- (and far less crypto-) Islamophobes.

How to keep over 10M voters motivated

Expectation management from Keir Starmer: “I don’t think anybody realistically thought it was possible to turn the Labour Party around from its worst GE result since 1935 to a position to win the GE within one year. It was always going to take longer than that.” @BBCr4today

— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) May 4, 2021

A lot, lot longer..

The Toynbee article today is interesting:

Voters have no excuse, with Keir Starmer and his frontbench a thoroughly electable, decent and honest alternative compared with the rogues’ gallery opposite. As Johnson arms himself with a hyped-up culture war of English nationalism and Brexit tribalism, he thrives on a more dangerously divided country.

Why oh why will people not vote for the party the press had collectively determined was Marxist, anti-semitic, anti-white, anti-British and pro-terrorist when they've gone to all the trouble of changing the leader.