Best Of

A coronation is clearly in the best interests of the country and the party.

Burnham has shown he can win an election and he is what MPs want. I don't understand what having a contest will achieve except paralysing the country, for Burnham to win anyway.

He isn't running to just be Labour leader but PM and running the UK and representing us on the world stage. He is also proposing policies left of what Starmer was elected to deliver, he should be tested by Starmer and Streeting in a full leadership contest before he enters Downing Street

Streeting doesn't have the numbers.
How many times do I have to say this?

https://www.politico.eu/article/wes-streeting-have-numbers-challenge-keir-starmer-want-go-quietly/

Mandy Rice-Davies applies.

A contest for the sake of a contest isn’t worth it. Why are you so invested in the success of a government you want to fail anyway? And don’t insult my intelligence with some “for the good of the country” bollocks.

Well Streeting clearly thinks it is and says he has the 80 MPs to nominate him to stand. Starmer also thinks it is and says he will contest any Burnham leadership challenge and as incumbent Labour leader would automatically be on the ballot sent to Labour members

Leaders always say they won't quit. If we never doubt their own words i guess we imagined all the leaders who have quit over the years.

And leadership wannabes often say they have more supporters signed up than they do. That's when they don't hold some back to create the illusion of a bandwaggon.

Heck, MPs sometimes even promise their loyalty to multiple leadership hopefuls.

Shocking how much these politicians say things that aren't true.

The only thing that's more shocking is how credulous many of our top political hacks are.

I assume they aren't, but it's part of the rules of the game, like us overreacting to early results or football commentators not calling out obvious diving and fake injuries.

Here we go again.

Iran closes Strait of Hormuz and accuses US and Israel of violating ceasefire deal

Least surprising news item of the year.

Danny (Dennis) Citrinowicz ,داني سيترينوفيتش
@citrinowicz

As I have argued repeatedly, the current situation in Lebanon is fundamentally incompatible with a sustainable U.S.-Iran agreement.

https://x.com/citrinowicz/status/2068326244584681533

Fuck Bibi

Fuck Israel

They misled Trump into starting this

Now they want to jeopardise the global economy to keep Bibi out of stir and give Bart a boner

I think that is to underestimate just how desperately Trump needed a distraction from the Epstein files.

The fact there has been virtually no change in Makerfield between 2024 and now suggests that it isn’t Labour that’s the problem, it’s Keir Starmer.

The underlying problem is the country wants changes that are 1) too expensive for our budget and/or 2) implausible. So any candidate representing the status quo is going to lose to a change candidate for the next decade at least. Policies, values etc are not that important, if we had a Conservative or Reform govt they would be extremely unpopular too.

Burnham has gone too early - he should have taken over in 2027 and portrayed himself as a change candidate in 2028. It will be very difficult to portray himself as a change candidate when he has been there for a couple of years.

I think Starmer would have worked as a change candidate were it not for winter fuel. Everything that came after was downhill but that was the initial destructive act. I supported the policy but it was utterly toxic against the new Labour coalition as to be fair many Labour MPs said at the time.

Mandelson would have been easily survivable by somebody with more popularity.

From a party POV, he should have made benefit reform a confidence issue and then quit then if it hadn’t passed. Letting that go just gave the PLP the magic money tree. Burnham will have to grapple with that too but he will start with goodwill.

Surely the point of the Labour Party is to attempt to solve national problems with policies that match the culture of the Labour Party?

The WFA cut seemed like an attempt of cod-Thatcherism. No Labour MP went into politics to cheer cutting benefits.

You want to reduce the welfare bill, but are a Labour PM? What do Labour MPs like? Benefits targeted to the poorest, perhaps?

So announce all the old age extras are going in a blender. The result will be means tests/taxed, so as to target the poorest pensioners.

Then you sell that to the MPs as a reform that makes the poor better off, while being fiscally prudent.

No labour MP went into parliament wanting to make a difficult decision. They want to open fetes, garden centres, shops, and do lots of feel good social work while not upsetting anyone.

Taz, and make plenty of cash, expenses, second houses. A lucrative business for useless donkeys.

I saw recently that Glenys Kinnock's estate was valued at about £1.5million. Now she was an MEP for 15 years rather than an MP. But given that she was a teacher before entering politics, it is hard to see how she could have amassed such a fortune.

Politics is clearly about money for the politicians.

Have you seen the price of houses these days?

In the Kinnocks Wales?

Where I live yes, but in Kinnock's Bedwelty or Steve Kinnock's Aberavon no. Anyway I thought the Kinnocks lived in North West London.