Best Of

Give me fucking strength.

It seems now those baying most this weekend for some kind of flag waving revolution of the hard right up from the streets are now tweeting it is a disgrace that apparently kids today don't know that the Battle of Britain helped beat the erm... checks notes...Nazis.

So is your contention that all 300k who went on the march are Nazis? Do not you see how that kind of rhetoric fuels actual violence. Some idiot might get it in their head that shooting or stabbing these people is "good" because they're "Nazis anyway".

This is exactly the kind of stupidity that leads to people killing other people for no reason.

They went to a rally organised by a far right racist with multiple convictions for violence and fraud, the speakers were also far right racists, and many of the chants were racist.

So it may well be that not all of the 110 000 or so on the march are far right racists, but they are at the very least willing to be in the company of far right racists.

So they're not all Nazis, is what you're saying?

I haven't called any of them Nazis, not even "Tommy Robinson" himself.

Musk's speech was a replacement theory call to arms, Yaxley-Lennon was fully on board.

You can call them what you like, but if they walk like a duck and quack like a duck they are ducks.

Your Party gets going:

Today, we advance the process of founding our new party — one that belongs to its members, not to the establishment.

Britain’s political class is united. They pursue war and profit, while our lives get worse. For too long, the rich have set this country’s political agenda. Not any more.

Our party will take the power back.

Achieving this objective requires a mass democratic movement that meets people where they’re at, organises with them to build power in our communities and lays strong foundations to transform our country.

We can do this. But it’ll take all of us.

In the next two weeks, we will kick off the full founding process: opening our membership portal, initiating wide democratic debate and publishing draft versions of our four core founding documents — our Political Statement, Constitution, Rules, and Organisational Strategy. These documents will be drafts in the truest sense, ready to be edited and evolved. Members will be able to comment, suggest changes, and track how each document develops.

Alongside this online process, Your Party will host huge regional deliberative meetings where thousands of members come together to listen to each other, break bread and debate the founding documents face to face. From Norwich to Newcastle, we’ll foster a political culture of healthy discussion and disagreement, enabling thousands to weigh in with their ideas, questions and concerns.

In November, thousands of in-person founding conference delegates will be chosen by lottery to ensure a fair balance of gender, region, and background. These delegates will have a big responsibility – to debate the founding documents, propose amendments and vote on them at the conference. The final decision will be up to all members through an online, secure, one-member-one-vote system.

This process aims to combine the best of different democratic traditions: individual and collective views, in-person deliberation in assemblies, sortition to keep things fair and representative, and direct voting to give every member a final say.

And we want to go further. We know Your Party can - and must - be even bigger. Keep an eye on your inbox to get involved in The People Speak, a massive door knocking campaign to ask people what they want from a new party and inviting them to join in.

Timeline at a glance:

September: Membership opens, first draft documents published and regional assemblies start.
October: Assemblies continue, draft documents revised, online vote on party name.
November: Delegates selected, amendments submitted, founding conference takes place.



In Solidarity,
Your Party

Has Jezza specified which Sept, Oct and Nov?

Snide remark aside, the snails pace will kill off any momentum they may have had. Polanskis nicked it

Does anyone know who Polanski is? Other than us old fart political geeks.

YP have been having rolling regional rallies

Well we will see in May what impact they have

Give me fucking strength.

It seems now those baying most this weekend for some kind of flag waving revolution of the hard right up from the streets are now tweeting it is a disgrace that apparently kids today don't know that the Battle of Britain helped beat the erm... checks notes...Nazis.

So is your contention that all 300k who went on the march are Nazis? Do not you see how that kind of rhetoric fuels actual violence. Some idiot might get it in their head that shooting or stabbing these people is "good" because they're "Nazis anyway".

This is exactly the kind of stupidity that leads to people killing other people for no reason.

They went to a rally organised by a far right racist with multiple convictions for violence and fraud, the speakers were also far right racists, and many of the chants were racist.

So it may well be that not all of the 110 000 or so on the march are far right racists, but they are at the very least willing to be in the company of far right racists.

So they're not all Nazis, is what you're saying?

Off thread: Daughter #3 did the eleven plus today.
We don't really expect her to pass. When her oldest sister did it passing was the preserve of the top 25%, now it's significantly harder. And, what with the ADHD, she faces her own challenges. Still, she did her best and - in contrast to many - didn't come out crying. She didn't panic when unfamiliar material came up. So I'm proud of her.
We'll now be £2-3k a year better off as six years of paying for tutors (two years for each child).

I'm pretty ambivalent about the grammar school system. The whole process of what ten year olds in Trafford (and adjacent postcodes) have to go through seems ridiculous and ridiculously costly. Still, we've done pretty well out of it: my oldest two have ended up at what are probably the right schools for them; my youngest will probably also end up at the right school for her (indeed, if she does have, it will cause us a problem, so memtally geared are we all to the local High school).

Anyway - the rest of year 6 will be a breeze now.
What did she choose for her post-11+ treat? A small box of Ferrero Rocher.

Best of luck to her.

Seems odd to hear of the 'eleven plus' these days.

Still decides every secondary attended in Kent, Bucks and Lincolnshire, as well as grammar entry in Chelmsford, Colchester, Southend, Bromley, Redbridge, Kingston Upon Thames, Poole, Trafford and Ripon and Rugby.

Grammars along with selective private schools still dominate the top 100 schools for Oxbridge entry and hence entry to the top of the most elite professions.

'Of these 100 schools, 48 are independent, 23 are grammar, 19 are sixth-form colleges, 7 are comprehensives or academies and a further 3 are education colleges.'
https://www.locrating.com/Blog/oxfordandcambridgeoffers.aspx/covid-19-schools-map.aspx

Your Party gets going:

Today, we advance the process of founding our new party — one that belongs to its members, not to the establishment.

Britain’s political class is united. They pursue war and profit, while our lives get worse. For too long, the rich have set this country’s political agenda. Not any more.

Our party will take the power back.

Achieving this objective requires a mass democratic movement that meets people where they’re at, organises with them to build power in our communities and lays strong foundations to transform our country.

We can do this. But it’ll take all of us.

In the next two weeks, we will kick off the full founding process: opening our membership portal, initiating wide democratic debate and publishing draft versions of our four core founding documents — our Political Statement, Constitution, Rules, and Organisational Strategy. These documents will be drafts in the truest sense, ready to be edited and evolved. Members will be able to comment, suggest changes, and track how each document develops.

Alongside this online process, Your Party will host huge regional deliberative meetings where thousands of members come together to listen to each other, break bread and debate the founding documents face to face. From Norwich to Newcastle, we’ll foster a political culture of healthy discussion and disagreement, enabling thousands to weigh in with their ideas, questions and concerns.

In November, thousands of in-person founding conference delegates will be chosen by lottery to ensure a fair balance of gender, region, and background. These delegates will have a big responsibility – to debate the founding documents, propose amendments and vote on them at the conference. The final decision will be up to all members through an online, secure, one-member-one-vote system.

This process aims to combine the best of different democratic traditions: individual and collective views, in-person deliberation in assemblies, sortition to keep things fair and representative, and direct voting to give every member a final say.

And we want to go further. We know Your Party can - and must - be even bigger. Keep an eye on your inbox to get involved in The People Speak, a massive door knocking campaign to ask people what they want from a new party and inviting them to join in.

Timeline at a glance:

September: Membership opens, first draft documents published and regional assemblies start.
October: Assemblies continue, draft documents revised, online vote on party name.
November: Delegates selected, amendments submitted, founding conference takes place.



In Solidarity,
Your Party

Still think Our Party would have been a better name.

I don't think it helps Starmer that he has no substantial power base or ultra-loyalists within the Labour Party. I recall reading an article mentioning that there is no such thing as "Starmerism" and that in itself is instructive, I think.

He doesn't really believe in anything (he's not even confidently wedded to pragmatism, which Blair and Thatcher both had, aside from their overarching orthodoxies). And that makes it hard to inspire loyalty.

Most other PMs had to build a base of loyal, fellow travellers within their party - look at Thatcher, Blair, Brown, Cameron, Johnson - all good examples of this. Starmer instead inherited a party where the most ambitious figures were desperate to stop losing, and as a result I suspect that a lot of this iron-fisted party management style that people lauded him for was a bit of luck - in that the party was so weary of defeat people just accepted it. Compare this to New Labour, where the same desperation existed but the architects of that project realised they needed more.

This is now coming back to bite him, because now he is politically short of friends, who is there to help him? Who are his loyal lieutenants ready to ride to the rescue? Burnham clearly now sees himself as a rival. Rayner wasn't a "ride or die" ally, often on leadership manoeuvres herself. Streeting also has one eye on the top job. The closest he has is Reeves, who is also utterly discredited - and even for her, he couldn't back her in the Commons as she sobbed next to him. He also simply doesn't have the ace up his sleeve that other PMs had - the underpinning vision, the ideology, the team moving towards a common goal - that saved them and gave them allies through their darker hours.

The Starmer story is one of a man who was parachuted into the top of politics, who got very lucky but who ultimately lacks the skills that make a good political leader.