[davidjay]

If I were a politician, I’d quote opponents as often as I could. Makes you look non-partisan.

I’m remembering Jez in 2017. There seemed to be a lot about extra cops in the campaign, and not all that much about natural Jez topics. And he was quite right.

Good point well made. I've had many a conversation with non-political people who ask why 'they' can't all get together and work out what's best for the country.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Ha ha ha ha. We're on to "Labour are just as bad/ at least the Tories aren't self-righteous" line already.

Starmer's shocking hypocrisy was to have a pension that the Tories set up for him and not take advantage of its special tax benefits, which he'll abolish if he wins an election.

The second jobs "hypocrisy" is some Labour MPs (including one who's black, who you'll be amazed to hear has got a lot of attention) having a second job at the moment. There's an argument for Labour to ban its own MPs now, but I think that would be shooting itself in the foot with media and journalism work, effectively giving up your side's voice in the media while the Government MPs keep their megaphone. Either ban them for everybody or don't.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Actual MSP here.

[Abernathy]

That’s fairly desperate stuff. Another Angry Wank was doing something similar today, though at much greater and more tedious length, basically having a(nother) go at Starmer for having the temerity simply to mention Margaret Thatcher.

[The Weeping Angel]

[davidjay]

There are, amazingly, some good points made on that thread, namely the idea of using Thatcher's words against her party.

[Oboogie]

The angle of this story which, in my view, is getting insufficient attention is the lack of research these people did prior to contacting the fake company. In effect these Zoom conversations are job interviews. Now, I prepare for interviews by reading up on the potential employer. If I was headhunted by a company I'd never heard of (as in this case), I'd need to know who they are and what they do so that I can demonstrate my value to the company. Yes, I'd look at their website but also I'd be looking for news articles about their past projects.
If I found nothing I'd smell several rats.
If I was a former minister of the crown, those smelly rats would all be carrying very loud alarm bells.
These former ministers either failed to spot those smelly rats, ignored them or, and I expect this is most likely, didn't check out the company at all.
Has anybody asked the other 16 MPs why they didn't swallow the bait?
If Led By Donkeys can pull this off, what could the Chinese or Russian governments achieve?
Surely this story should be of interest to the security services?

[Bones McCoy]

Hancock's Half Hour.

800 quid, you must be joking - that's almost a 10 pack of surgical gloves.

[mattomac]

The angle of this story which, in my view, is getting insufficient attention is the lack of research these people did prior to contacting the fake company. In effect these Zoom conversations are job interviews. Now, I prepare for interviews by reading up on the potential employer. If I was headhunted by a company I'd never heard of (as in this case), I'd need to know who they are and what they do so that I can demonstrate my value to the company. Yes, I'd look at their website but also I'd be looking for news articles about their past projects.
If I found nothing I'd smell several rats.
If I was a former minister of the crown, those smelly rats would all be carrying very loud alarm bells.
These former ministers either failed to spot those smelly rats, ignored them or, and I expect this is most likely, didn't check out the company at all.
Has anybody asked the other 16 MPs why they didn't swallow the bait?
If Led By Donkeys can pull this off, what could the Chinese or Russian governments achieve?
Surely this story should be of interest to the security services?

You have to consider this is Kwarteng and Hancock the former seemed somewhat amused at a funeral for reasons we still don't know.

[Andy McDandy]

Even David Amess asked more questions before campaigning on Cake.

[Oboogie]

Help please!

I keep seeing posts calling Starmer a liar and accusing him of breaking his promises. I've genuinely no idea what this relates to. When I've tried asking, I usually get no reply at all, if I do, it's just abusive so I'm none the wiser.
What's on the charge sheet?

[Abernathy]

Help please!

I keep seeing posts calling Starmer a liar and accusing him of breaking his promises. I've genuinely no idea what this relates to. When I've tried asking, I usually get no reply at all, if I do, it's just abusive so I'm none the wiser.
What's on the charge sheet?

It's nominally about the ten aspirational "pledges" that Starmer made during his campaign to be elected leader (https://keirstarmer.com/plans/10-pledges/), all of which the Trots basically allege him either to have dropped or broken, and which constitute Starmer's mendacious betrayal of "true Labour values". These are the people who - seriously- think that we should just re-publish Labour's 2019 election manifesto at the next general election.

Oddly enough, Jeremy Corbyn also made ten pledges during his leadership campaign (https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/ ... 018083e053), not a single one of which has ever been fulfilled, or is ever going to be - mainly because they are all predicated on Corbyn becoming Prime Minister - something which Corbyn himself demonstrated emphatically to be totally impossible. But the Trots don't like to talk about that very particular betrayal.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Jez they’re reassuring the public that Labour won’t overspend by chucking about “£500bn”. The chance of that money being spent was probably not high.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Sir Keir promising a one year council tax freeze. Worked for the SNP and Tories, I suppose. But hardly screams local areas finding their own solutions, does it?

[mattomac]

I'm a bit disappointed with that but then the localising plan will tell us the detail in that, if central government is releasing the funds along with the localisation of services then its fine.

It's freezing council tax rises (which the Tories did) and then just standing there going yeah you fund it.

As for Starmer's pledges

1. Can't do in opposition but has talked enough about this to make it likely.

2. Can't do this in opposition - Haven't heard much about it but there is potential to reform this so I expect some changes.

3. Can't do this in opposition - but it has been one of his key pledges and was part of the 5 he mentioned recently

4. Can't do this in opposition - No suggestion Labour won't do this.

5. Can't do this in opposition - Already suggested the nationalisation of Rail, the others he has dismissed but then common ownership isn't nationalisation so we will see, Mail will likely happen anyhow looking at the situation and the Green Energy plan will be. Water and existing energy seems to be the ones that are harder to see any movement on.

6 - Can't do in opposition - but yeah some of this it seems will be broken, yet some we are yet to see, it would be good if Starmer did actually promise full voting rights in this sense.

7 - Can't do in opposition - There was some rough waters over Labour's position in supporting strikes though it was mainly non affliated unions, Starmer has seemingly been less vocal on this as the strikes did not seem to hurt Labour, but I wouldn't say this was broken.

8 - Can't do in opposition - No suggestion this won't be done and Brown wrote a paper that had a launch less than a year ago.

9 - Rather vague and to be honest very little bar some murmurings from Forde that this isn't being put in place, the Labour party is far better on AS than it was for starters, would be nice to see a few more women, BAME and LGBTQs Candidates win selections, maybe the shift on GR puts this down as broken but it's a wet Tuesday policy when in government.

10. - I would say most of this is done, he says unite the party and people focus on that but we have 470.000 members reported by the NEC at the last meeting, this is lower on the inflated figures Labour had during the first couple of years of Corbyn but £3 one off payments will do that.

There is no place for any form of racism in the party, if you have Labour values then you share that, if you pick and choose what racism that you are oppose then sorry leave as Starmer said.

All in all Labour can't deliver 8 currently, look to be delivering at least 5, probably will deliver on more, so something that's rather throw away and aimed at members it's actually one of the better ones.

[Crabcakes]

The real test for Starmer is whether he is like Biden or like Obama. Obama promised much but in the end didn’t actually deliver much (with the caveat he was hamstring by congress). Biden campaigned mildly but has been much more progressive in office, albeit with some setbacks and mis-steps. Those bawling about how everything is unambitious compared to Corbyn need to bear in mind that Starmer is laser focused on one thing - getting elected. Once in there is every reason to believe the agenda will be more progressive based on his history, and not ‘more Tories’ based on a general grumpiness that he’s not magic grandpa.

[MisterMuncher]

Starmer will give you a tenner. Corbyn can promise you a grand.

[The Weeping Angel]

Christ almighty

https://archive.fo/9KFNs#selection-1031.235-1038.0

The way people are reacting to this you'd think he'd call for all Trans people to be exterminated.

He adds: “There are some people who identify as a different gender to the one they are born with. It’s a very small number and that is why the Gender Recognition Act was passed [in 2004].
“To recognise that they need legal support and a framework and most people don’t disagree with that, and that’s the framework within which we ought to look at these issues. But simply turning it into a toxic divide advances the cause of no one, the cause of women or those that don’t identify with the gender that they were born into. And it’s also a pattern of behaviour of the last ten years which is now turning everything into a toxic culture, when it possibly can, which is the last resort of politicians who have nothing substantive to say on the issue.”

On the subject of children, Starmer, who has a son and daughter with his wife, Victoria, is also clear that there is a need for greater transparency from teachers. It follows a Policy Exchange report last week which found that only 39 out of 140 English secondary schools were “reliably informing” parents when pupils identified as trans or questioned their gender.
Starmer says: “Look, of course I’d want to know. I say that as a parent. I would want to know and I think the vast majority of parents would want to know. That’s why we have to have national guidance on it and they should try to make it cross-party, because it’s not helpful to parents or schools to have this as just a toxic divide when what’s needed is practical, common sense advice.”

[The Weeping Angel]

From another forum Starmer supports concentration camps for asylum seekers. It's based on this

[Tubby Isaacs]

What's this? Dogwhistle to have picture of the Prime Minister up when criticising his government?

What "case" is she talking about? It's surely a criticism of sentencing in general. What does she think Starmer had to do with Saville? In any case, that was a decision to prosecute or not, which is different to sentences that the guilty receive.