[Boiler]

Key difference, Mandleson resigned.... twice.

No-one above Johnson to sack him though...

[Tubby Isaacs]

Why? He's still got a very useful political brain.

Yesterday's man. It's like William Hague bringing back Cecil Parkinson. And Cecil hadn't gratuitously annoyed lots of Tory members.

Blair obviously rated Mandelson, but didn't fight for him very hard in 2001 when he had to resign over the not exactly heinous crime of phoning up Mike O'Brien to ask about the Hindujahs' passports. (O'Brien didn't do the Hindujahs a favour, btw). If Blair in 2001 wanted to put distance between himself and Mandelson, I think Starmer would be well advised to do so in 2021.

[Youngian]

Perhaps Mandelson’s brain should be picked on a more arms-length causal basis. Like Sir Humphrey with his predecessor Arnold at their club.

[mattomac]

Key difference, Mandleson resigned.... twice.

No-one above Johnson to sack him though...

Yeah but Cummings, Jendrick, Patel and Hancock did didn’t they?

[Youngian]

Imagine sticking up Lavery, an old Commie mate of Scargill to woo over C2s in Essex. Not so familiar with Batley but I’ll guess they’ll think he’s away with the fairies as well.

[mattomac]

Rules out Corbyn, Attlee and Wilson then.

Jo Cox’s parents were working class but she went to Grammar school and then LSE, see how utterly bullshit this is.

One of my parents worked in engineering and manual work the other worked at the tax office and later the ONS.

You would say one was and one wasn’t yet my dad owned his own company for a while (yet he worked his way up and we were never really well off). He finished his career driving and maintenance on Buses, ironically he had started that way as well but on Trains instead of buses

I’ve worked in a corner shop, retail shop, job centre plus and now at a university, like so many kids my age to be fair the first two will be usual. Problem is would you call them working class jobs and the money to run for parliament requires that you’ve got high in a Union or worked for an MP or other job.

Wouldn’t be against the candidate being local, generally I think they should, Tracy Brabin was an actress who went to grammar school and then Loughborough and the University of Arts. No doubt she may have had jobs in her younger life but under Lavery’s assumption of the “working class” she wouldn’t fit nether would Jo Cox.

Ian worked himself up through the unions through YTS and then at the colliery, maybe he hasn’t noticed but the collieries started to close mass scale just after he started work there. I would say a fair few of the jobs that contestants on quiz shows at the time said they worked now longer exist.

That world doesn’t exist and as those people the sons and daughters of that older generation get old themselves they no longer have the connection with the Labour Party.

Labour connect with cities and big towns, they connect with all groups in those cities and towns, that’s the lesson we need to look to, not tokenism.

Lavery must know as NUM leader when there were no longer any mines, why can Labour win in Wales under Mark Drakeford, a guy who studied Latin at school and was a University lecturer and professor and yet can’t under a former director of public prosecutions in England.

And Working class has fuck all to do with it, it’s understanding society as a whole from those at the top to the very bottom.

[Youngian]

Wales under Mark Drakeford, a guy who studied Latin at school and was a University lecturer and professor and yet can’t under a former director of public prosecutions in England.

Culture dividing line right there: Those who are impressed by a leader who’s studied Latin. And those impressed by a leader using cod Latin phrases desperate to show how clever he is.

[Andy McDandy]

Tracy Brabin was an actress who went to grammar school and then Loughborough and the University of Arts. No doubt she may have had jobs in her younger life but under Lavery’s assumption of the “working class” she wouldn’t fit nether would Jo Cox.

But don't you know that anyone who has worked in the arts is a pampered luvvie with no connection to the real world (apart from Michael Caine, he's alright)? Toby Young told me so after he learned about Mrs "Eurovision" Thunberg.

[Samanfur]

My opinion on Lavery and his beatification of a very particular kind of working class has been expressed here before, more than once.

Students working hand to mouth in big cities are working class. Ethnic minority nurses and taxi drivers are working class.

Lavery doesn't recognise anyone whose education extended beyond the Butler Act.

[Youngian]

Left brained science workers in places like Cambridge also know nothing about the real world. ‘Too clever by half’ people.

[Samanfur]

Lavery is on record as using the word 'intellectual' as an insult in interviews.

[Andy McDandy]

Just got images of the Monty Python playwright sketch now. "You! Yer had ter go poncin' off to Barnsley! You an' yer coal minin' friends!".

Class depends on relative power, not on whether you work in an office or not. TBF the average coal miner probably had (thanks to union power) more clout that the average call centre worker does.

[kettle]

This country's definitions of class are very odd. We treat it like a genetic condition, or a social function, and not a factor of economic means. So someone born in the 50s who never went to university but retired from a good factory job with a nice pension who owns his ex-council house is "working class, salt of the earth", whilst his grandson who studied at uni and is now £60k in debt and living in a flatshare with seven other guys doing Deliveroo and paying 1/2 his salary for the privilege is "fancy metropolitan elite", despite having a far more precarious financial position and worse prospects.

[Tubby Isaacs]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ane-abbott

Losing byelection would be ‘curtains’ for Keir Starmer, says Diane Abbott
Labour left wing would back leadership run by Andy Burnham if party loses Batley and Spen, Corbyn ally says

Diane Abbott, who doesn't know that Andy Burnham isn't an MP.

[Oboogie]

Wait til someone tells Diane Abbott that Andy Burnham served under Blair!

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I feel sorry for Abbott. She was once a young hope, heir to Bernie Grant, now she's a figure of ridicule, wrong-stepping her way into obscurity.

Should have stayed away from Randy Jez.

[davidjay]

I feel sorry for Abbott. She was once a young hope, heir to Bernie Grant, now she's a figure of ridicule, wrong-stepping her way into obscurity.

Should have stayed away from Randy Jez.

The poster girl for the Jez generation. They just can't see why she gets so much abuse.

[The Weeping Angel]

Wait til someone tells Diane Abbott that Andy Burnham served under Blair!

Wait till she finds out she could have voted for Andy back in 2015.

[Andy McDandy]

Hey, back then he was a quisling Blairite centrist traitor melt etc.

[Nigredo]

I wonder how much traction Burnham will get when the righter side of the fourth estate recycle "Mid-Staffs" and "Wrecked Manchester's economy" ad infinitum.