Mailwatch(ed) Forum

So now, Zarah Sultana MP has said: “There’s people in my party who need to understand when workers go on strike it’s not workers v the public, it’s not the Tube worker v the office worker v the firefighter. It’s workers v the bosses. Pick your side“

What arrant nonsense. There can be nobody at all in the Labour Party who actually thinks that a strike means ”workers vs the public”., and it’s something of a gross insult on Sultana’s part to suggest such a thing. We must assume that she is attacking the leadership (again).

Labour’s leadership, and Labour’s membership, fully recognises and supports the absolute right of organised groups of workers to withdraw their labour in pursuance of improved pay and conditions - and always has done. But “picking your side” as she puts it, is not only quite unnecessary, for an aspirant party of government it is something that could actively jeopardise the party’s prospects of winning the election and returning to government.

A governing party, or a governing party in waiting, does not “pick a side”. It works to try to resolve the causes of any dispute (unless it is this Tory government). It’s difficult, with Sultana, to decide whether this is simply witless naivety, or uncontrolled malice towards the current leadership, and any possibility of it taking the party forward to electoral success. I suspect it may be a rather sickening combination of both deeply flawed postures. What is clear is that Sultana is wrong, with knobs on.

“Picking a side” will do precisely *nothing* to help elect the Labour government that this country, including those working people currently taking strike action, so desperately needs. Posturing, performative gestures of “solidarity” are at base, completely worthless, and the very last thing the Labour Party needs is to sign up to open class war. To paraphrase Lyndon B Johnson, a selfie on a picket line isn’t worth a pitcher of warm spit.

https://www.nationalworld.com/news/pol ... 6onRY90FvA

And they wonder why they are facing deselection as candidates.

For many Labour members it’s party before leadership and it always is, a large section of the membership will switch to the next leader as comfortable as they supported the last.

I don’t think they’ve grasped this in the slightest.

Sultana's seen the light...

Abernathy wrote: ↑Fri Aug 19, 2022 8:00 pm
“Picking a side” will do precisely *nothing* to help elect the Labour government that this country

Not only that, the more Grant Shapps can identify the strike with Labour, the bigger his political incentive for not settling it. Of course Shapps will talk that nonsense anyway, but it's much harder to make it stick if Labour keeps appropriate distance from it.

Blair as Opposition leader gave a masterclass in this stuff during the 1995 rail strikes. British Rail (as I think it still was) had negotiated a settlement that the government thought was too generous IIRC. Blair argued very neatly that the Government had caused the problem by getting involved, so no, he wasn't going to get involved.

I’ve tried to make this argument on twitter but never quite framed it right, it’s not surprisingly that many organisations have settled on disputes without wall to wall media coverage. It works in Shapps favour to keep this going.

Especially when Burgon, Sultana and Tarry keep trying to make it out for their own political gain.

mattomac wrote: ↑Sun Aug 21, 2022 8:13 pm I’ve tried to make this argument on twitter but never quite framed it right, it’s not surprisingly that many organisations have settled on disputes without wall to wall media coverage. It works in Shapps favour to keep this going.

Especially when Burgon, Sultana and Tarry keep trying to make it out for their own political gain.

I've found the same on the Guardian BTL. One thing I've found (and I generally hate it when people do this to me) is that it's quite effective to ask them a question back. "Do you think Starmer standing on picket lines will help settle the strike?" You'll probably get a few "he's too frightened of the Daily Mail" responses, but a few people have liked my comments.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Sun Aug 21, 2022 8:37 pm

mattomac wrote: ↑Sun Aug 21, 2022 8:13 pm I’ve tried to make this argument on twitter but never quite framed it right, it’s not surprisingly that many organisations have settled on disputes without wall to wall media coverage. It works in Shapps favour to keep this going.

Especially when Burgon, Sultana and Tarry keep trying to make it out for their own political gain.

I've found the same on the Guardian BTL. One thing I've found (and I generally hate it when people do this to me) is that it's quite effective to ask them a question back. "Do you think Starmer standing on picket lines will help settle the strike?" You'll probably get a few "he's too frightened of the Daily Mail" responses, but a few people have liked my comments.

It's all about gesture politics to them, incidentally there's been a bin strike in Coventry I don't recall Sultana appearing on the picket lines there.

Did she not? That strike's something of a cause celebre with Unite, so would be surprised if she didn't.

She is strangely aping Starmer when it comes to that…

https://www.coventrytelegraph.net/news/ ... h-22910093

I am pleasantly surprised. Is she facing deselection, and has calculated that a big row with the local Labour council might go down badly?

On the question of “picking a side” as Sultana and other assorted Trots would have it, it strikes me that it’s rather helpful to use the tool favoured by the late Simon Hoggart, which is to turn the question around. In this instance, let’s imagine a Tory MP, say Jacob Rees-Mogg, “picking a side”, and going to stand alongside the CEO of one of the big railway operating companies by a boardroom window, helping to chuck buckets of piss down on top of the picketing strikers, including Sultana, below.

Sounds ridiculous, right? It’s absurd, right? And it would never happen, not just because it’s ridiculous and absurd, but because it’s totally fucking un-necessary. Because it’s a given that the Tories have already “picked their side”, and have no need whatsoever of such grandstanding twattery as picket line selfies, or for that matter tipping buckets of piss out of boardroom windows. Everybody knows which side the Tories are on, and everybody should also know which side Labour is on, Zarah, without any need whatsoever for any posturing “socialist” gestures of “solidarity” . Labour, too, has already “picked a side”.

In short, Labour supports the fundamental right of any organised group of workers to withdraw their labour in order to achieve improvements in pay and conditions, and always has done. It’s a given.

I am so sick of these posturing twats, whose only motive appears to be to discredit a Labour leadership they dislike intensely .

There seems to be a strong thread of "pics or it didn't happen" in politics. Hence Johnson and Truss doing their dress up acts, the personal photographers, the stunts and so on.

For some, unless they see an MP doing a thing, it's "just words" - I'm thinking of the likes of Fenton's twat here. No amount of behind the scenes work can counter one photo of an MP laughing while standing next to a Tory*.

*In Jess Phillips recent book, she makes the point that many MPs will debate and vote along party lines, while personally disagreeing with the issue. While many MPs are happily signed up to everything their party advocates, the more sensible ones will acknowledge that the other side often has a point.

Zarah has an interesting defination of anti-fascist

I suppose you could say Zarah was publicly owned

They don't care about the facts. They say the same thing all the time. See also Jez blaming privatisation for signal failures, not Network Rail.

A rail professional replies to Zarah. The state is way more important in rail than most people think.

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Thu Sep 22, 2022 11:50 am A rail professional replies to Zarah. The state is way more important in rail than most people think.

My brother works for Network Rail and he's pointed out to me that the problem with our railways is less privitisation and more lack of infrastructure.