[NevTheSweeper]

This piece seems to be referencing that polling

The wider issue being that Labour's voter coalition has unpeeled like a banana over the past few years, starting in Scotland and reaching a peak/nadir with the fallout from Brexit & Corbyn in 2019 and beyond.

Corbyn-sympathetic left winger who backed RLB/Burgon during the leadership elections last year?
Starmer isn't - and emphatically never will be - your guy. The Greens will get your vote until he is gone (or "purged").

One of the Glastonbury cool kids responsible for the 2017 Youthquake?
The Greens seem a more natural fit than a Starmer-led Labour Party. Didn't he used to be a cop or summat?

Left-leaning Scottish voter attracted to the idea of Scottish independence?
Already decided to throw in your lot with the SNP some years ago.

Brexity Red Wall voter fed up with all this BLM stuff?
Happy that Corbyn is out, but good old Boris gets your vote for now.

Traumatised Remainer who hates everything about Brexit Britain?
Gutted that Starmer now accepts the end of EU freedom of movement. Lib Dems for you.

Taking all that into account, it's actually quite impressive Labour are still rooted somewhere in the mid-thirties in many of the opinion polls.

What I don't understand is that Starmer has been getting it in the neck, depite having a relatively easy press. The by-election in Batley should be a referendum on the Conservative government, not on the perceived qualities of the Labour leadership. It seems that the party is too divided to hold our corrupt government to account. Why don't all wings of the party split so they can be their true selves, arguing inside their own echo chambers?

[Crabcakes]

Why don't all wings of the party split so they can be their true selves, arguing inside their own echo chambers?

For the exact same reason Corbyn has never stood as an independent or formed his own party*, even now with his relentlessly enthusiastic yet thoroughly unobjective entourage egging him on to do so. Without the Labour branding, they do as well as outfits like the Socialist Worker party and have to face the fact far more people vote for the party than they do for them personally.

Much better therefore to stay in and complain while enjoying all the benefits of a large, relatively well funded organisation and kidding yourself that if you were put in charge you could do so much better and your ideas would be *incredibly* popular. And we all know how that turned out...

*and it's worth remembering here that although people may have issues with Chukka Umunna etc., they at least had the courage of their convictions and did walk away and try and do their own thing.

[Youngian]

Umunna shunned shadow cabinet and then destroyed his political career because he’s just ‘a careerist’.* I was told how this works by a Corbynbot but I can only remember complex mental contortions are involved.

* Anyone who opposed Corbyn or Brexit only had venal self-serving motives according the cultists.

[The Weeping Angel]

[Crabcakes]

Umunna shunned shadow cabinet and then destroyed his political career because he’s just ‘a careerist’.* I was told how this works by a Corbynbot but I can only remember complex mental contortions are involved.

* Anyone who opposed Corbyn or Brexit only had venal self-serving motives according the cultists.

Chukka put HIMSELF out of a job JUST to GET at JEREMY because he's SUCH a disloyal TORY. Whereas Jeremy putting himself out of the party by refusing to retract comments that hugely undercut the efforts to undo the damage his slack approach to antisemitism is entirely selfless and for the good of everyone. Or something.

[Nigredo]

https://news.sky.com/story/labour-keir- ... e-12345377

[Bones McCoy]

https://news.sky.com/story/labour-keir- ... e-12345377

That'll be Andy "Taking the Jockos to court" Burnham.

We all know precisely how Johnson would treat any health related PMQs from Burnham.

We won't take any lessons in healthcare form Corporal Mid-Staffs.

And we all know how Guido, Laura and the rest of the press pack would pile on.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Private Eye now satirising him as Andy Capp.

The MP most favoured is Yvette Cooper. We could have had her as leader back in 2015...

[Crabcakes]

Fucking astounding that the Corbynistas are now having a go at *Starmer* after an excellent PMQs where he made Johnson look like the callous bullshitter he is, because he's apparently using the case of Ollie Bibby to score political points and that Labour support the restrictions so it's hypocrisy.

How fucking thick and/or petty and spiteful do you need to be to pretend that you don't see this is about one rule for Hancock and another for ordinary people (and the devastating effect that has), and instead make it into a "but Starmer supported a Tory policy so he *is* a Tory waah waah".

The isolation policy is and always has been right, because it's a killer pandemic. Supporting it even if you're in opposition is right because to not do so is to at best be obstructive for the sake of it and at worst aligning yourself with cranks.

[Spoonman]

How fucking thick and/or petty and spiteful do you need to be to pretend that you don't see this is about one rule for Hancock and another for ordinary people (and the devastating effect that has), and instead make it into a "but Starmer supported a Tory policy so he *is* a Tory waah waah".

You get the feeling that if Alex said "Do not nail your penis to a plank of wood" and Starmer concurred...

...use your imagination to fill in the rest.

[Andy McDandy]

Once met a LD councillor who expressed his total belief in the "any idea from the other party is a crap idea and we won't support it because if it were any good we'd have thought of it" school of thought, and then spent the next few minutes listening to people tell him why they were disillusioned with politicians.

[Crabcakes]

https://news.sky.com/story/labour-keir- ... e-12345377

"People who liked it when northern man moaned about Tories on live TV claim 'grass definitely greener' on other side of fence"

[mattomac]

https://news.sky.com/story/labour-keir- ... e-12345377

"People who liked it when northern man moaned about Tories on live TV claim 'grass definitely greener' on other side of fence"

Ah so he isn't a Blairite Tory.... The party membership has twice had the option to vote for him.

[Crabcakes]

Good speech from Starmer. Suspect it will fall on deaf ears in some places, but hopefully may get through to some others.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/li ... -live-news

[Tubby Isaacs]

Have they put John Mann and Tony Benn in charge of policy?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... nomic-plan

Labour has announced a new post-Brexit economic vision for the UK involving ambitious plans to “make, sell and buy more in Britain” as it seeks to build a strongly patriotic policy platform with which to take on the Tories.

Emboldened by its morale-boosting victory in Thursday’s Batley and Spen byelection, in which the party halted Tory advances into its strongholds in traditional manufacturing areas, the move marks the opening shot in a new campaign to be led by Keir Starmer focused on jobs and the battle against crime in all local communities.

In her first major intervention since being appointed shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves also said that Labour would ensure far more public contracts are awarded to British businesses, as opposed to handing them to overseas firms.

Have to see the working, but I can see this either being a damp squib or provoking a tit for tat against successful British exporters. We've got enough on our plate there already.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Harold Wilson playbook.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I've lots of respect for him, but haven't things rather moved on in the last 50 years? And much easier to follow through on protectionism in those days. And I don't really like the Brexit opportunity bollocks in this.

Reeves said the post-Brexit, post-pandemic world offered new opportunities for a radical rethink of attitudes to job creation, raising standards and developing skills.

“As we recover from the pandemic, we have a chance to seize new opportunities and shape a new future for Britain,” she declared.

“Labour will get our economy firing on all cylinders by giving people new skills for the jobs of the future here in the UK, bringing security and resilience back to our economy and public services, and helping our high streets thrive again.

“Post-pandemic and post Brexit, we should be rethinking how we support our businesses, strengthen our supply chains and give people the skills they need to succeed. The decade ahead is crucial.”

I don't think Reeves believes this protectionist stuff for a second.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Which parts of the plan do you object to?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... nomic-plan

[Tubby Isaacs]

The absence of any sense that this cuts both ways. We have successful exporters too, and we're not the only place to think it would be nice to keep the work "at home", especially with services. We need as close to the Single Market back as we can get away with politically (I'm not expecting Labour to run on Bollocks to Brexit). Not more trade barriers dressed up as post-Brexit opportunity.

Just this example.

Labour will also highlight how only one UK-based firm was shortlisted for £2.5bn of contracts for track and tunnel systems of the new HS2 high speed rail network.

There's some good work already being done in training staff for HS2 and other big projects. But with big projects, you get them done, with the best suppliers. Otherwise they cost more, take longer and the Treasury tries to stop you doing any more.

[Youngian]

Labour has been critical of the government’s approach to public procurement. Lucy Powell accused ministers of “failing to back British steelmaking” earlier this year after UK manufacturers missed out on £25m of funding for projects. https://labourlist.org/2021/07/rachel-r ... n-britain/

No ideological objection to more protectionism where it is useful (CAP preferable to global market forces in food production and national corn laws) but it usually falls to pieces when you write it down. Lucy Powell should ask Harley Davidson what happened when Trump backed US steel. Raw material costs rose so they shut down US production and moved to Asia.

Closed market procurement leads to expensive client state cronyism and has reciprocal consequences for service exporters. Tories and their donors already have their snouts in the procurement trough. Bad economics and dangerous politics.