UK Politics

[fraybentos1]

Just now, Nobody Interesting said:

What would it take to admit that perhaps, even in a small way, that Labour might not be handling many things that well at the moment or could that never happen regardless of what they do or don't do?

Starmer could open fire with a  kalachnikov into a primary school and Ozanne would back him to the hilt and say it was great strategy

[pink_triangle]

1 minute ago, Nobody Interesting said:

What would it take to admit that perhaps, even in a small way, that Labour might not be handling many things that well at the moment or could that never happen regardless of what they do or don't do?

There are always things that can be done better, unfortunately Starmer doesn’t have the benefit of hindsight. I think he makes more decisions right than wrong, but always room for approval. The question is could another leader handle things better? I struggle to think of anyone.

[fraybentos1]

2 minutes ago, Superscally said:

It amuses me the way that Labour say the BBC loves the Tories and the Tories say they love Labour.

spot on, it isn't perfect but they make mistakes going both ways. Overall I think we are lucky to have the bbc

[steviewevie]

3 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

The reality is as a politician you are going have to backtrack on occasions, the same will be true if he is PM and is the same for politicians all wings of the political spectrum. To expect someone to get it right all the time is unrealistic, you just hope they are right more than wrong and manage the backtracking in the least damaging way.

yes, all very true...but pretending that this isn't a problem and everything is fine is silly. He's had a bad week, it doesn't look good, it gives something for Tories to fling at them, and it justifies what many on the left have been saying too. They'll probably be ok because despite all this party discipline still seems pretty strong.

Edited February 15 by steviewevie

[fraybentos1]

3 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

The reality is as a politician you are going have to backtrack on occasions, the same will be true if he is PM and is the same for politicians all wings of the political spectrum. To expect someone to get it right all the time is unrealistic, you just hope they are right more than wrong and manage the backtracking in the least damaging way.

my only point was the reluctance to admit that he might be able todo something wrong ever bogs this thread down with repeated circular arguments.

of course politicans get things wrong and it fine to observe and admit that

[Ozanne]

4 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

The reality is as a politician you are going have to backtrack on occasions, the same will be true if he is PM and is the same for politicians all wings of the political spectrum. To expect someone to get it right all the time is unrealistic, you just hope they are right more than wrong and manage the backtracking in the least damaging way.

The public generally agree with you too, it shows that the first they really heard of the Rochdale story was when they heard Starmer suspended him (not the time it took to do it) and also shows that they realise he has done a fair bit to combat anti-semitism but there is still more to do. Not everyone was clued into the story to realise how long it did or didn't take Starmer to make the decision, the main thing is that he took action.

[Ozanne]

8 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

There are always things that can be done better, unfortunately Starmer doesn’t have the benefit of hindsight. I think he makes more decisions right than wrong, but always room for approval. The question is could another leader handle things better? I struggle to think of anyone.

Those people will always moan about anything Starmer does, as they don't want Labour to win the next election.

[steviewevie]

ok....anyway...Labour to win both seats tonight?

BET NOW!

(I am going for yes).

[Ozanne]

1 minute ago, steviewevie said:

ok....anyway...Labour to win both seats tonight?

BET NOW!

(I am going for yes).

*kiss of death* but probably yes.

[steviewevie]

one could argue that Starmer took his time to think over this Ali guy especially because of the importance of winning this seat against Galloway.....but another could argue that he is very quick to punish someone from the left for antisemitism in cases that are far from obviously antisemitic and not so quick to punish this guy for his far worse antisemitic comments because he was from his faction of the party..

Edited February 15 by steviewevie

[Nobody Interesting]

18 minutes ago, fraybentos1 said:

spot on, it isn't perfect but they make mistakes going both ways. Overall I think we are lucky to have the bbc

When everyone accuses you of bias then you are doing a grand job of impartiallity.

[pink_triangle]

15 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

yes, all very true...but pretending that this isn't a problem and everything is fine is silly. He's had a bad week, it doesn't look good, it gives something for Tories to fling at them, and it justifies what many on the left have been saying too. They'll probably be ok because despite all this party discipline still seems pretty strong.

I guess it depends on how you define a problem. There are always going to be challenges as leader of the Labour Party and if he becomes PM candidate selection in Rochdale is going to seem like a walk in the park compared to the problems he will have to deal with. I think being PM is a really tough job and he seems as qualified as anyone to make a decent go of it.

As you said party discipline remains strong, I assume because most labour MPs believe they will win.

[steviewevie]

2 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

I guess it depends on how you define a problem. There are always going to be challenges as leader of the Labour Party and if he becomes PM candidate selection in Rochdale is going to seem like a walk in the park compared to the problems he will have to deal with. I think being PM is a really tough job and he seems as qualified as anyone to make a decent go of it.

As you said party discipline remains strong, I assume because most labour MPs believe they will win.

yep...but not sure Starmer has many friends within the Labour movement, infact he is loathed by many on the left...and one day that will be a problem.

[Ozanne]

It also goes to the type of thing Labour is up against when you look at the hysteria ay the beginning of the week over this Rochdale thing in the media and people online; then last night when the Tories suspended a Mayor for anti-semitic behaviour there was barely any noise at all. It highlights the double standards that quite a lot have for both parties.

[pink_triangle]

17 minutes ago, fraybentos1 said:

my only point was the reluctance to admit that he might be able todo something wrong ever bogs this thread down with repeated circular arguments.

of course politicans get things wrong and it fine to observe and admit that

I think however that people are guilty of reading too much into the “wrong “ and the impact it will have. I think if you set a baseline for expectation compared to day one of taking the job, most would consider him better than par. To me the priorities were make labour electable and unite the party, I think he has generally done a good job here.

You also have to consider what he has achieved and ask the question could anyone else do better. People questioned whether labour had picked the right Milliband, conservatives should have selected Ken Clarke etc. I have not heard anyone make any intellectual argument how labour would be in a better position if they had picked Long Bailey who was the only real alternative.

[pink_triangle]

2 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

yep...but not sure Starmer has many friends within the Labour movement, infact he is loathed by many on the left...and one day that will be a problem.

I think Starmer doesn’t have many close friends, neither does he have many enemies. I am hoping that means we get new labour without the Blair/Brown infighting. You say he is loathed by many on the left, but who are  talking about here? People like Owen Jones changing likes and retweets? Corbynites who have left the party?

[steviewevie]

1 minute ago, pink_triangle said:

I think Starmer doesn’t have many close friends, neither does he have many enemies. I am hoping that means we get new labour without the Blair/Brown infighting. You say he is loathed by many on the left, but who are  talking about here? People like Owen Jones changing likes and retweets? Corbynites who have left the party?

Yes, them. They aren't an insignificant amount of people...maybe Labour doesn't need them at the moment as they try and win these red wall and blue wall seats...but one day they might need that part of the coalition back. Blair's New Labour weren't kicking or keeping people out so ruthlessly like Starmer's lot have been.

[fraybentos1]

5 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

I think however that people are guilty of reading too much into the “wrong “ and the impact it will have. I think if you set a baseline for expectation compared to day one of taking the job, most would consider him better than par. To me the priorities were make labour electable and unite the party, I think he has generally done a good job here.

You also have to consider what he has achieved and ask the question could anyone else do better. People questioned whether labour had picked the right Milliband, conservatives should have selected Ken Clarke etc. I have not heard anyone make any intellectual argument how labour would be in a better position if they had picked Long Bailey who was the only real alternative.

Starmer is meh at best, there is no denying he has turned things round and Labour enjoy a commanding lead in the polls.

It would also to be silly to think that a huge chunk of the turnaround is the fact that the Tories have totally and utterly imploded and have had scandal after scandal 

[Ozanne]

7 minutes ago, pink_triangle said:

I think however that people are guilty of reading too much into the “wrong “ and the impact it will have. I think if you set a baseline for expectation compared to day one of taking the job, most would consider him better than par. To me the priorities were make labour electable and unite the party, I think he has generally done a good job here.

He will never admit that Starmer has done a good job on anything, he's just anti-Labour so will jump on any excuse to moan about him. I think most people won't really be bothered by the Rochdale story and if they hear about it will think it's good the guy has been suspended. They won't sit there and bemoan the hours it took to get there.

[Ozanne]

3 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Yes, them. They aren't an insignificant amount of people...maybe Labour doesn't need them at the moment as they try and win these red wall and blue wall seats...but one day they might need that part of the coalition back. Blair's New Labour weren't kicking or keeping people out so ruthlessly like Starmer's lot have been.

New Labour didn't need to kick as many people out, Kinnock had done that hard work in the years before. Remember people were saying that Starmer would need to be a Kinnock-like figure at first.

Edited February 15 by Ozanne

[steviewevie]

Just now, Ozanne said:

New Labour didn't need to kick people out, Kinnock had done that hard work in the years before. Remember people were saying that Starmer would need to be a Kinnock-like figure at first.

There was a while bunch of lefties on the Labour backbenches when Blair was PM...they didn't exactly get on, but there weren't outright moves to remove them like has happened under Starmer.

[Neil]

1 hour ago, steviewevie said:

bring back conscription

brought up in an army town, i know the army have their own violence problems.

Edited February 15 by Neil

[Ozanne]

Just now, steviewevie said:

There was a while bunch of lefties on the Labour backbenches when Blair was PM...they didn't exactly get on, but there weren't outright moves to remove them like has happened under Starmer.

Yeah that's true, I was thinking more of Labour members that have needed to be booted out. Saying that though, were those members saying the type of anti-semitic comments back then that they are now? Genuine question as I was quite young back then.

[mattiloy]

5 minutes ago, Nobody Interesting said:

When everyone accuses you of bias then you are doing a grand job of impartiallity.

The problem is that when the right say the BBC is bias they mean Gary lineker on twitter, the presenter of a football programme, and maybe one or two sh*t satirical shows on bbcr4 that nobody listens to.
 

When the left say the bbc is bias they mean everyone who has anything to do with any of the bbc’s news/politics output- the news (what they choose to cover both online and on the tv), question time, newsnight, the today show, panorama. At best you get some token Labour voice from the right of the party also slagging off whatever left wing thing they want to attack this week.

So its not really the same is it.

[steviewevie]

actually reading this I may have been talking poop about Blair...

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