Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
Would you stay in an organisation that had (to take a very extreme example) Hitler as leader, in hope of being able to reform it?
If your are against a wrong, or an evil, you get out. You do not become complicit.
Imagine if Corbyn had won in 2019 - as he might have done, with a few small changes. One of those changes are the brave people in Labour who did make a noise, who did leave, helped Corbyn lose.
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
Would you stay in an organisation that had (to take a very extreme example) Hitler as leader, in hope of being able to reform it?
If your are against a wrong, or an evil, you get out. You do not become complicit.
Imagine if Corbyn had won in 2019 - as he might have done, with a few small changes. One of those changes are the brave people in Labour who did make a noise, who did leave, helped Corbyn lose.
Its the von Papen gambit. Stay and serve on the assumption that you can remove all the dodgy shit which the lunatic isn't serious about anyway? Or get the hell out of the country?
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
Would you stay in an organisation that had (to take a very extreme example) Hitler as leader, in hope of being able to reform it?
If your are against a wrong, or an evil, you get out. You do not become complicit.
Imagine if Corbyn had won in 2019 - as he might have done, with a few small changes. One of those changes are the brave people in Labour who did make a noise, who did leave, helped Corbyn lose.
To answer your question, because something is changing here. Labour are getting caught on the back foot, the Tories are grasping the narrative.
Anyone else sensing the current mood shift in tone and political narrative, as Tory’s on PB, in Con Home, out canvassing and just about Everywhere All At Once getting very bullish over how well this Tory fight back is going?
Maybe it’s been a mistake to watch polls so closely for signs of movement, maybe the first signs of the big polling shift and switcheroo in the polls actually indicated by a change of mood and growing confidence we pick up like this from party activists, canvassers and supporters?
It’s real. This is happening.
What - specifically - is happening. The big announcement is a non-policy. It cannot actually deliver even what it states, never mind the Sunak target.
I assume the plan is to pitch the Tories against the leftie establishment. "We would have stopped the boats had it not been for leftie lawyers, the courts, the Rwandans, the navy, the French, so vote for us and we promise to overcome all those enemies of the people in the way we utterly failed to do for the last 14 years" etc etc
"Stop the Boats" only has any prospect of being an electoral bonus if you actually stop the boats. Which you can't. So the group of people who still want the forrin to go home are hugely fed up with you, and the majority who have brains are hugely fed up with you.
Farage is going to demolish you over this policy failure.
Unfortuantely for all of us, the Conservatives have painted themselves into a corner here.
Starting point is that, unless they are prepared to go even further than they have so far, this is one that the government can't win. Even if the lawyers let them. Because even if you can send anyone to Rwanda, the policy collapses the moment Rwanda fills up. Which would take about a day and a half.
If you can't win, the best thing is to minimise the loss. Shut up about the issue, whilst quietly doing what you can. Talk about something else, anything else. But the current Conservative voters won't even let them do that.
The same people that insisted Keir was guilty over beergate and spent days telling us how dodgy it was, are the same people telling us how dodgy Sue Gray is.
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
Would you stay in an organisation that had (to take a very extreme example) Hitler as leader, in hope of being able to reform it?
If your are against a wrong, or an evil, you get out. You do not become complicit.
Imagine if Corbyn had won in 2019 - as he might have done, with a few small changes. One of those changes are the brave people in Labour who did make a noise, who did leave, helped Corbyn lose.
Its the von Papen gambit. Stay and serve on the assumption that you can remove all the dodgy shit which the lunatic isn't serious about anyway? Or get the hell out of the country?
Corbyn was not going to win in 2019. Come on.
2019, very difficult. But 2017 - very possible.
(Edit: 2019 - in hindsight. I remember how terrified I was in the last few minutes before the exit poll, after the shock of how close he came two years previously)
Mr. Pioneers, worth recalling Corbyn came within a few thousand votes of Number 10.
The people on here lauding Starmer for getting rid of Corbyn would have been delighted if Corbyn had won in 2019. They'd now be telling us why Corbyn was right to not arm Ukraine, the country that used to exist near Belarus.
I said we dodged a bullet in not voting Corbyn in. The thing is, I am happy to say I got it wrong, it seems a lot of Tories are not.
The only real Corbyn supporters as far as I could tell in 2019 were me, Kinabalu and BJO
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
Would you stay in an organisation that had (to take a very extreme example) Hitler as leader, in hope of being able to reform it?
If your are against a wrong, or an evil, you get out. You do not become complicit.
Imagine if Corbyn had won in 2019 - as he might have done, with a few small changes. One of those changes are the brave people in Labour who did make a noise, who did leave, helped Corbyn lose.
Corbyn isn’t evil. Wrong, yes.
Actually I feel in hindsight he's at best so incredibly blind to anti-Semitism that he just allows it to fester, unchallenged. At what point is that just racist?
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
Then anti Corbyn Labour MPs Berger and Umunna did try and recreate the gang of 4 with Pro EU Tory MPs like Soubry but rather CUKed it up!
They did but they can hold their heads high having made a stance and kept to their ideals. Imagine if they had been bigger beasts/stayed in politics as appropriate they might have had a shot of returning to and then leading the Labour Party.
Phil Salt needs to.put a quid in the swear box....
Or console himself with the several quid he will earn in franchise cricket when he is not in England's 15 man squad. I think that was his last chance today and although it was not a bad innings it was not nearly enough to trouble the selectors for long.
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
You can stay to reform it, but from the backbenches. That's what many Labour MPs of principle did.
Starmer put his own career prospects ahead of Jews and others in this country and worked to potentially put Corbyn into Downing Street from a position where only a few seats needed to change hands in order to achieve that.
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
You can stay to reform it, but from the backbenches. That's what many Labour MPs of principle did.
Starmer put his own career prospects ahead of Jews and others in this country and worked to potentially put Corbyn into Downing Street from a position where only a few seats needed to change hands in order to achieve that.
Okay.
Lisa Nandy did what you said and she was never close to being voted in. Your proposal would have led to RLB being the leader and the issue still remaining.
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
Would you stay in an organisation that had (to take a very extreme example) Hitler as leader, in hope of being able to reform it?
If your are against a wrong, or an evil, you get out. You do not become complicit.
Imagine if Corbyn had won in 2019 - as he might have done, with a few small changes. One of those changes are the brave people in Labour who did make a noise, who did leave, helped Corbyn lose.
The answer might be "several years ago" of course. These things don't tend to occur at the first time of asking, and are based on a long relationship. Which can be spun negatively.
In the interview he confirms the position became available in October so it is likely that sometime since then he contacted her
He also confirmed he knew her before he came into politics but that is not the issue
He has cultivated a narrative of integrity but looks evasive when I do not understand why he cannot just confirm the date and end the matter
You're trying to ramp this, like you did Beergate.
It's simple. Her day job in the Civil Service will be, unsurprisingly, a politically restricted post, ie it stops her taking part in political activity in her personal life. She has to provide impartial advice to whomever is in government. There's been testimony from Tory politicians that this is what she has done impeccably.
When she stops being a civil servant, she is free to get involved in politics. Ok, so she was very senior so there's a case for ACOBA to look at her appointment. But that doesn't mean she can't have discussions about taking up a new role whilst still being a civil servant - as long as she continues to do her day job impartially. If Starmer's known her for ages why shouldn't they talk about him giving her a job?
Other than those with swivelling eyeballs who have sold their souls to Johnson, there is no suggestion she has ever not been impartial and professional in her role in the civil service. Indeed, at the time her report was released many of those now attacking her praised the report, and her, for her fairness and balance, including Johnson himself.
The suggestion that because she has decided to work for Starmer means her previous work is somehow suspect, or biased, or part of a Labour plot, is poor. This is desperate stuff from Johnson's rotten cabal.
You need to read my posts
I have admonished @HYUFD on suggesting that her report was tainted which clearly it was not
I consistently reject Johnson and his ridiculous attempt to use this as an escape route
However, it is fair to ask when her appointment was discussed and for Starmer to answer
It is also apparent the civil service themselves have concerns over the appointment
It will no doubt be resolved in due course with her taking a period of gardening leave
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
You can stay to reform it, but from the backbenches. That's what many Labour MPs of principle did.
Starmer put his own career prospects ahead of Jews and others in this country and worked to potentially put Corbyn into Downing Street from a position where only a few seats needed to change hands in order to achieve that.
Okay.
Lisa Nandy did what you said and she was never close to being voted in. Your proposal would have led to RLB being the leader and the issue still remaining.
At least Lisa Nandy has principles and can hold her head up high.
I actually have more respect than you do it seems for decent Labour members than to think they'd have automatically voted for RLB had Starmer and other MPs had the backbone to go to the backbenches.
To answer your question, because something is changing here. Labour are getting caught on the back foot, the Tories are grasping the narrative.
Anyone else sensing the current mood shift in tone and political narrative, as Tory’s on PB, in Con Home, out canvassing and just about Everywhere All At Once getting very bullish over how well this Tory fight back is going?
Maybe it’s been a mistake to watch polls so closely for signs of movement, maybe the first signs of the big polling shift and switcheroo in the polls actually indicated by a change of mood and growing confidence we pick up like this from party activists, canvassers and supporters?
It’s real. This is happening.
What - specifically - is happening. The big announcement is a non-policy. It cannot actually deliver even what it states, never mind the Sunak target.
I assume the plan is to pitch the Tories against the leftie establishment. "We would have stopped the boats had it not been for leftie lawyers, the courts, the Rwandans, the navy, the French, so vote for us and we promise to overcome all those enemies of the people in the way we utterly failed to do for the last 14 years" etc etc
"Stop the Boats" only has any prospect of being an electoral bonus if you actually stop the boats. Which you can't. So the group of people who still want the forrin to go home are hugely fed up with you, and the majority who have brains are hugely fed up with you.
Farage is going to demolish you over this policy failure.
Unfortuantely for all of us, the Conservatives have painted themselves into a corner here.
Starting point is that, unless they are prepared to go even further than they have so far, this is one that the government can't win. Even if the lawyers let them. Because even if you can send anyone to Rwanda, the policy collapses the moment Rwanda fills up. Which would take about a day and a half.
If you can't win, the best thing is to minimise the loss. Shut up about the issue, whilst quietly doing what you can. Talk about something else, anything else. But the current Conservative voters won't even let them do that.
The logic of the governments word is that they want to withdraw from UNHCR and the Refugee Convention.
Best case, they are too frit to say it.
More likely, they prefer their legislation to be blocked by the courts as it absolves them (in their voters minds) of dealing with a complex problem and passes the blame onto "liberals".
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
Would you stay in an organisation that had (to take a very extreme example) Hitler as leader, in hope of being able to reform it?
If your are against a wrong, or an evil, you get out. You do not become complicit.
Imagine if Corbyn had won in 2019 - as he might have done, with a few small changes. One of those changes are the brave people in Labour who did make a noise, who did leave, helped Corbyn lose.
Corbyn isn’t evil. Wrong, yes.
Is anti-Semtiism not just wrong, but evil?
Being Jewish enough to be interested in the result, personally.
Corbyn is an example of those in the left who can’t deal with the fact that minority groups can be racist. He can’t criticise or call our people in the Palestinian movement who are hard core antisemitic.
He himself is probably not anti-Semitic. Though several associates are.
This blindspot meant that anti-semitism grew in constrained where Corbyn and his associates were.
Simply abandoning the Labour Party to them would mean that anti-semitism would become “naturalised” there.
To answer your question, because something is changing here. Labour are getting caught on the back foot, the Tories are grasping the narrative.
Anyone else sensing the current mood shift in tone and political narrative, as Tory’s on PB, in Con Home, out canvassing and just about Everywhere All At Once getting very bullish over how well this Tory fight back is going?
Maybe it’s been a mistake to watch polls so closely for signs of movement, maybe the first signs of the big polling shift and switcheroo in the polls actually indicated by a change of mood and growing confidence we pick up like this from party activists, canvassers and supporters?
It’s real. This is happening.
Maybe Moon but their ideas right now are not going to actually do anything.
It could work but it would take full extraordinary rendition treatment - sedatives, nappies, spit hoods, etc.
Suella is a psycho who is nourished by tears of suffering and only by tears of suffering so she'll be up for it but Sunak doesn't have the fortitude to play politics on hardcore mode.
I called last weeks “I have achieved the impossible on Brexit and hard border” announcement a sham that’s going to backfire, because it is - but this “stopping the invasion” announcement I am taking more seriously as a Tory win.
To have any deterrent in place, those travelling need to know you have a deterrent in place. The deterrent being just how pointless their crossing is - because we have ripped up every agreement we had and initially led the way on with rest of world, about how humane humanity must be - but those making these journeys are never going to know that. All they will learn is the traffickers spin, they will never hear of our hard deterrent. That’s why deterrent factor won’t work, in reality.
But then, every Tory politician telling us there must be a deterrent and it will work don’t believe for a second it will, they really arn’t that stupid. This policy works because UK voters will get to know there’s a hard ball deterrent. That’s why it’s a strong policy, that’s where it works. Probably.
I think that there is a genuine question about a senior civil servant who has been at the heart of government policy making taking up a very senior position with the opposition party. But that has nothing to do with the merits or otherwise of Sue Gray's report many months ago or the lies told by Boris Johnson. I think most people can see the difference, to not do so is wilful blindness.
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
You can stay to reform it, but from the backbenches. That's what many Labour MPs of principle did.
Starmer put his own career prospects ahead of Jews and others in this country and worked to potentially put Corbyn into Downing Street from a position where only a few seats needed to change hands in order to achieve that.
Okay.
Lisa Nandy did what you said and she was never close to being voted in. Your proposal would have led to RLB being the leader and the issue still remaining.
At least Lisa Nandy has principles and can hold her head up high.
I actually have more respect than you do it seems for decent Labour members than to think they'd have automatically voted for RLB had Starmer and other MPs had the backbone to go to the backbenches.
You don't know the Labour membership very well then.
To answer your question, because something is changing here. Labour are getting caught on the back foot, the Tories are grasping the narrative.
Anyone else sensing the current mood shift in tone and political narrative, as Tory’s on PB, in Con Home, out canvassing and just about Everywhere All At Once getting very bullish over how well this Tory fight back is going?
Maybe it’s been a mistake to watch polls so closely for signs of movement, maybe the first signs of the big polling shift and switcheroo in the polls actually indicated by a change of mood and growing confidence we pick up like this from party activists, canvassers and supporters?
It’s real. This is happening.
What - specifically - is happening. The big announcement is a non-policy. It cannot actually deliver even what it states, never mind the Sunak target.
I assume the plan is to pitch the Tories against the leftie establishment. "We would have stopped the boats had it not been for leftie lawyers, the courts, the Rwandans, the navy, the French, so vote for us and we promise to overcome all those enemies of the people in the way we utterly failed to do for the last 14 years" etc etc
"Stop the Boats" only has any prospect of being an electoral bonus if you actually stop the boats. Which you can't. So the group of people who still want the forrin to go home are hugely fed up with you, and the majority who have brains are hugely fed up with you.
Farage is going to demolish you over this policy failure.
Unfortuantely for all of us, the Conservatives have painted themselves into a corner here.
Starting point is that, unless they are prepared to go even further than they have so far, this is one that the government can't win. Even if the lawyers let them. Because even if you can send anyone to Rwanda, the policy collapses the moment Rwanda fills up. Which would take about a day and a half.
If you can't win, the best thing is to minimise the loss. Shut up about the issue, whilst quietly doing what you can. Talk about something else, anything else. But the current Conservative voters won't even let them do that.
"Rwanda fills up" - is the UK "full"? Why would Rwanda be "full"?
If you're serious about the policy, then you reach an agreement that every single person who crosses by boat is instantaneously flown overseas. Do not pass go, do not speak to a lawyer, do not have a night in the UK.
Do that and within a day and a half the number of small boats crossing the Channel would drop to zero.
That's exactly what happened in Australia and led to the number of small boat fatalities (which had been quite high) drop to zero and there hasn't been a single fatality from boat migrants as far as I'm aware in Australian waters in the past decade.
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
Would you stay in an organisation that had (to take a very extreme example) Hitler as leader, in hope of being able to reform it?
If your are against a wrong, or an evil, you get out. You do not become complicit.
Imagine if Corbyn had won in 2019 - as he might have done, with a few small changes. One of those changes are the brave people in Labour who did make a noise, who did leave, helped Corbyn lose.
Corbyn isn’t evil. Wrong, yes.
Is anti-Semtiism not just wrong, but evil?
Being Jewish enough to be interested in the result, personally.
Corbyn is an example of those in the left who can’t deal with the fact that minority groups can be racist. He can’t criticise or call our people in the Palestinian movement who are hard core antisemitic.
He himself is probably not anti-Semitic. Though several associates are.
This blindspot meant that anti-semitism grew in constrained where Corbyn and his associates were.
Simply abandoning the Labour Party to them would mean that anti-semitism would become “naturalised” there.
So those brave people who *did* stand down over it were actually harming things, in your view?
Besides, there's an alternate view that also fits. That Starmer actually is not that bothered about anti-Semitism, except as a tool to get power in the party. I don't think that's the case, but it also fits well.
To answer your question, because something is changing here. Labour are getting caught on the back foot, the Tories are grasping the narrative.
Anyone else sensing the current mood shift in tone and political narrative, as Tory’s on PB, in Con Home, out canvassing and just about Everywhere All At Once getting very bullish over how well this Tory fight back is going?
Maybe it’s been a mistake to watch polls so closely for signs of movement, maybe the first signs of the big polling shift and switcheroo in the polls actually indicated by a change of mood and growing confidence we pick up like this from party activists, canvassers and supporters?
It’s real. This is happening.
What - specifically - is happening. The big announcement is a non-policy. It cannot actually deliver even what it states, never mind the Sunak target.
I assume the plan is to pitch the Tories against the leftie establishment. "We would have stopped the boats had it not been for leftie lawyers, the courts, the Rwandans, the navy, the French, so vote for us and we promise to overcome all those enemies of the people in the way we utterly failed to do for the last 14 years" etc etc
"Stop the Boats" only has any prospect of being an electoral bonus if you actually stop the boats. Which you can't. So the group of people who still want the forrin to go home are hugely fed up with you, and the majority who have brains are hugely fed up with you.
Farage is going to demolish you over this policy failure.
Unfortuantely for all of us, the Conservatives have painted themselves into a corner here.
Starting point is that, unless they are prepared to go even further than they have so far, this is one that the government can't win. Even if the lawyers let them. Because even if you can send anyone to Rwanda, the policy collapses the moment Rwanda fills up. Which would take about a day and a half.
If you can't win, the best thing is to minimise the loss. Shut up about the issue, whilst quietly doing what you can. Talk about something else, anything else. But the current Conservative voters won't even let them do that.
And here is the comedy gold bit. Rwanda's capacity to take asylum seekers. Go ask them - they aren't hiding the fact that they wouldn't have taken planeloads had we sent them.
So look at the hurdles to cross: 1. Catch all the refugees - itself not as easy as suggested 2. House the refugees - we need to build an awful lot of additional capacity according to the government's own projections. And nowhere they have tried to do so will accept this - HUGE local protests. Because of 3. Secure the refugees. They keep walking off or being abducted. So having forced a concentration camp into a locality over the raging protests of their MP / Council / Residents / Rent a Racist mob you now need to have a significant force to guard them 4. Illegalise the refugees. It isn't as simple as banishing them. Or extracting ourselves from our post-war obligations. All 3 steps so far will go to court and the government itself is likely to be threatened with international action for breech of conventions. More "Enemies of the People" tactics only likely to unlock media exposure of the catastrophic cuts to the criminal justice system 5. Fly the refugees. It won't be a domestic carrier. Assume a hire-in from somewhere far away at vast cost. Assume it actually is licensed and safe. And the first refugee flight actually leaves. Once it lands in Rwanda, that is Rwanda full up.
So another round of TORIES TO STOP THE FORRIN INVADERS headlines and another round of abject failure to deliver anything at all.
And @MoonRabbit thinks this wins the Tories the next election!
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
Would you stay in an organisation that had (to take a very extreme example) Hitler as leader, in hope of being able to reform it?
If your are against a wrong, or an evil, you get out. You do not become complicit.
Imagine if Corbyn had won in 2019 - as he might have done, with a few small changes. One of those changes are the brave people in Labour who did make a noise, who did leave, helped Corbyn lose.
Corbyn isn’t evil. Wrong, yes.
Is anti-Semtiism not just wrong, but evil?
Being Jewish enough to be interested in the result, personally.
Corbyn is an example of those in the left who can’t deal with the fact that minority groups can be racist. He can’t criticise or call our people in the Palestinian movement who are hard core antisemitic.
He himself is probably not anti-Semitic. Though several associates are.
This blindspot meant that anti-semitism grew in constrained where Corbyn and his associates were.
Simply abandoning the Labour Party to them would mean that anti-semitism would become “naturalised” there.
So those brave people who *did* stand down over it were actually harming things, in your view?
Besides, there's an alternate view that also fits. That Starmer actually is not that bothered about anti-Semitism, except as a tool to get power in the party. I don't think that's the case, but it also fits well.
To answer your question, because something is changing here. Labour are getting caught on the back foot, the Tories are grasping the narrative.
Anyone else sensing the current mood shift in tone and political narrative, as Tory’s on PB, in Con Home, out canvassing and just about Everywhere All At Once getting very bullish over how well this Tory fight back is going?
Maybe it’s been a mistake to watch polls so closely for signs of movement, maybe the first signs of the big polling shift and switcheroo in the polls actually indicated by a change of mood and growing confidence we pick up like this from party activists, canvassers and supporters?
It’s real. This is happening.
What - specifically - is happening. The big announcement is a non-policy. It cannot actually deliver even what it states, never mind the Sunak target.
I assume the plan is to pitch the Tories against the leftie establishment. "We would have stopped the boats had it not been for leftie lawyers, the courts, the Rwandans, the navy, the French, so vote for us and we promise to overcome all those enemies of the people in the way we utterly failed to do for the last 14 years" etc etc
"Stop the Boats" only has any prospect of being an electoral bonus if you actually stop the boats. Which you can't. So the group of people who still want the forrin to go home are hugely fed up with you, and the majority who have brains are hugely fed up with you.
Farage is going to demolish you over this policy failure.
Unfortuantely for all of us, the Conservatives have painted themselves into a corner here.
Starting point is that, unless they are prepared to go even further than they have so far, this is one that the government can't win. Even if the lawyers let them. Because even if you can send anyone to Rwanda, the policy collapses the moment Rwanda fills up. Which would take about a day and a half.
If you can't win, the best thing is to minimise the loss. Shut up about the issue, whilst quietly doing what you can. Talk about something else, anything else. But the current Conservative voters won't even let them do that.
The logic of the governments word is that they want to withdraw from UNHCR and the Refugee Convention.
Best case, they are too frit to say it.
More likely, they prefer their legislation to be blocked by the courts as it absolves them (in their voters minds) of dealing with a complex problem and passes the blame onto "liberals".
To be fair, a strategy that involves lots of public blame for "leftie lawyers" isn't irrational given that the leader of the opposition is Sir Keir Starmer KC.
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
You can stay to reform it, but from the backbenches. That's what many Labour MPs of principle did.
Starmer put his own career prospects ahead of Jews and others in this country and worked to potentially put Corbyn into Downing Street from a position where only a few seats needed to change hands in order to achieve that.
Okay.
Lisa Nandy did what you said and she was never close to being voted in. Your proposal would have led to RLB being the leader and the issue still remaining.
At least Lisa Nandy has principles and can hold her head up high.
I actually have more respect than you do it seems for decent Labour members than to think they'd have automatically voted for RLB had Starmer and other MPs had the backbone to go to the backbenches.
You don't know the Labour membership very well then.
Would you have voted for RLB had Starmer gone to the backbenches?
Why do you think so little of Labour members? I don't agree with their politics, but I don't think most Labour members are antisemitic.
I think that there is a genuine question about a senior civil servant who has been at the heart of government policy making taking up a very senior position with the opposition party. But that has nothing to do with the merits or otherwise of Sue Gray's report many months ago or the lies told by Boris Johnson. I think most people can see the difference, to not do so is wilful blindness.
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
Would you stay in an organisation that had (to take a very extreme example) Hitler as leader, in hope of being able to reform it?
If your are against a wrong, or an evil, you get out. You do not become complicit.
Imagine if Corbyn had won in 2019 - as he might have done, with a few small changes. One of those changes are the brave people in Labour who did make a noise, who did leave, helped Corbyn lose.
Corbyn isn’t evil. Wrong, yes.
Is anti-Semtiism not just wrong, but evil?
Being Jewish enough to be interested in the result, personally.
Corbyn is an example of those in the left who can’t deal with the fact that minority groups can be racist. He can’t criticise or call our people in the Palestinian movement who are hard core antisemitic.
He himself is probably not anti-Semitic. Though several associates are.
This blindspot meant that anti-semitism grew in constrained where Corbyn and his associates were.
Simply abandoning the Labour Party to them would mean that anti-semitism would become “naturalised” there.
I think that the problem is that he is a very stupid man who finds it difficult to distinguish between the racist and repugnant policies of the Jewish state and Jewish people generally. He is even less conscious of others that he is happy to associate with who do the same. It is a very important distinction.
The answer might be "several years ago" of course. These things don't tend to occur at the first time of asking, and are based on a long relationship. Which can be spun negatively.
In the interview he confirms the position became available in October so it is likely that sometime since then he contacted her
He also confirmed he knew her before he came into politics but that is not the issue
He has cultivated a narrative of integrity but looks evasive when I do not understand why he cannot just confirm the date and end the matter
Oh, yes - I think he's doing exactly the wrong thing. "Obviously, I've known Sue since before I went into politics. I have wanted to work with her for a long time. This position became available in October and I/[whoever] contacted her [in]formally about it at that time. She was one of a very short list of candidates and I'm delighted she accepted." would seem reasonable, as you can then repeat it ad nauseam depending on which part the interviewer decides to press on.
You'd have thought that there would be a script for this?
I understand Civil Servants have moved into these positions many times before ... but the appointment of Sue Gray (notwithstanding her personal qualities) does look to me like a Labour mistake, because she ended up playing an important role in defenestration of a Tory PM.
It looks wrong, even if isn't.
The way it looks is very important in politics.
I'm confused. When the Gray report came out it exonerated Boris Johnson. A whitewash that didn't even investigate the dodgy stuff. Lauded by Johnson and his cabinet and PB Tories as a definitive line drawn and lets move on.
Yet now it, and not Pinchergate, actually brought him down?
It was a combination of events that sucker-punched the government. Most (perhaps all) had roots in Johnson's character flaws. Individually, he would probably have survived them.
If you truly believe that the Gray report was "A whitewash that didn't even investigate the dodgy stuff.", then you should be vociferously arguing against Gray taking a senior position in the Labour party. Because it would mean she was complicit in such a whitewash, and that's the last sort of person you want in that sort of role.
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
Would you stay in an organisation that had (to take a very extreme example) Hitler as leader, in hope of being able to reform it?
If your are against a wrong, or an evil, you get out. You do not become complicit.
Imagine if Corbyn had won in 2019 - as he might have done, with a few small changes. One of those changes are the brave people in Labour who did make a noise, who did leave, helped Corbyn lose.
Corbyn isn’t evil. Wrong, yes.
Is anti-Semtiism not just wrong, but evil?
Being Jewish enough to be interested in the result, personally.
Corbyn is an example of those in the left who can’t deal with the fact that minority groups can be racist. He can’t criticise or call our people in the Palestinian movement who are hard core antisemitic.
He himself is probably not anti-Semitic. Though several associates are.
This blindspot meant that anti-semitism grew in constrained where Corbyn and his associates were.
Simply abandoning the Labour Party to them would mean that anti-semitism would become “naturalised” there.
Yes, that sounds about right. Corbyn's sympathy for the Palestinian cause made him blind to the antisemitic views of some of those he supported, which was foolhardy and potentially dangerous. But calling him evil is setting rather a low bar for the definition of the word.
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
Would you stay in an organisation that had (to take a very extreme example) Hitler as leader, in hope of being able to reform it?
If your are against a wrong, or an evil, you get out. You do not become complicit.
Imagine if Corbyn had won in 2019 - as he might have done, with a few small changes. One of those changes are the brave people in Labour who did make a noise, who did leave, helped Corbyn lose.
Corbyn isn’t evil. Wrong, yes.
Is anti-Semtiism not just wrong, but evil?
Being Jewish enough to be interested in the result, personally.
Corbyn is an example of those in the left who can’t deal with the fact that minority groups can be racist. He can’t criticise or call our people in the Palestinian movement who are hard core antisemitic.
He himself is probably not anti-Semitic. Though several associates are.
This blindspot meant that anti-semitism grew in constrained where Corbyn and his associates were.
Simply abandoning the Labour Party to them would mean that anti-semitism would become “naturalised” there.
So those brave people who *did* stand down over it were actually harming things, in your view?
Besides, there's an alternate view that also fits. That Starmer actually is not that bothered about anti-Semitism, except as a tool to get power in the party. I don't think that's the case, but it also fits well.
The answer might be "several years ago" of course. These things don't tend to occur at the first time of asking, and are based on a long relationship. Which can be spun negatively.
In the interview he confirms the position became available in October so it is likely that sometime since then he contacted her
He also confirmed he knew her before he came into politics but that is not the issue
He has cultivated a narrative of integrity but looks evasive when I do not understand why he cannot just confirm the date and end the matter
Oh, yes - I think he's doing exactly the wrong thing. "Obviously, I've known Sue since before I went into politics. I have wanted to work with her for a long time. This position became available in October and I/[whoever] contacted her [in]formally about it at that time. She was one of a very short list of candidates and I'm delighted she accepted." would seem reasonable, as you can then repeat it ad nauseam depending on which part the interviewer decides to press on.
You'd have thought that there would be a script for this?
I understand Civil Servants have moved into these positions many times before ... but the appointment of Sue Gray (notwithstanding her personal qualities) does look to me like a Labour mistake, because she ended up playing an important role in defenestration of a Tory PM.
It looks wrong, even if isn't.
The way it looks is very important in politics.
I'm confused. When the Gray report came out it exonerated Boris Johnson. A whitewash that didn't even investigate the dodgy stuff. Lauded by Johnson and his cabinet and PB Tories as a definitive line drawn and lets move on.
Yet now it, and not Pinchergate, actually brought him down?
As is usual, it was a culmination of many things. He could have survived Pincher-gate if his hands were clean before. His hands were filthy, and Party-gate was part of the filth (along with Patterson-gate and Wallpaper-gate).
I am not suggesting that Labour have done anything wrong. They have no doubt played by the book.
But, politics isn't fair. The look of things is very important. If you don't like that, you should not be in politics but in another career.
To give another example, I don't for a moment believe Jeremy Corbyn is personally anti-semitic. Nor does @NickPalmer who knows him better than anyone on this blog.
However, he bungled things and was supported by some antisemitic followers, so Corbyn ended up looking anti-semitic.
It was a major mistake by Corbyn not to realize how things would look
The answer might be "several years ago" of course. These things don't tend to occur at the first time of asking, and are based on a long relationship. Which can be spun negatively.
In the interview he confirms the position became available in October so it is likely that sometime since then he contacted her
He also confirmed he knew her before he came into politics but that is not the issue
He has cultivated a narrative of integrity but looks evasive when I do not understand why he cannot just confirm the date and end the matter
Oh, yes - I think he's doing exactly the wrong thing. "Obviously, I've known Sue since before I went into politics. I have wanted to work with her for a long time. This position became available in October and I/[whoever] contacted her [in]formally about it at that time. She was one of a very short list of candidates and I'm delighted she accepted." would seem reasonable, as you can then repeat it ad nauseam depending on which part the interviewer decides to press on.
You'd have thought that there would be a script for this?
I understand Civil Servants have moved into these positions many times before ... but the appointment of Sue Gray (notwithstanding her personal qualities) does look to me like a Labour mistake, because she ended up playing an important role in defenestration of a Tory PM.
It looks wrong, even if isn't.
The way it looks is very important in politics.
I'm confused. When the Gray report came out it exonerated Boris Johnson. A whitewash that didn't even investigate the dodgy stuff. Lauded by Johnson and his cabinet and PB Tories as a definitive line drawn and lets move on.
Yet now it, and not Pinchergate, actually brought him down?
It was a combination of events that sucker-punched the government. Most (perhaps all) had roots in Johnson's character flaws. Individually, he would probably have survived them.
If you truly believe that the Gray report was "A whitewash that didn't even investigate the dodgy stuff.", then you should be vociferously arguing against Gray taking a senior position in the Labour party. Because it would mean she was complicit in such a whitewash, and that's the last sort of person you want in that sort of role.
Well JRM said the report was good and now he is saying she's stitched up Johnson.
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
You can stay to reform it, but from the backbenches. That's what many Labour MPs of principle did.
Starmer put his own career prospects ahead of Jews and others in this country and worked to potentially put Corbyn into Downing Street from a position where only a few seats needed to change hands in order to achieve that.
Okay.
Lisa Nandy did what you said and she was never close to being voted in. Your proposal would have led to RLB being the leader and the issue still remaining.
At least Lisa Nandy has principles and can hold her head up high.
I actually have more respect than you do it seems for decent Labour members than to think they'd have automatically voted for RLB had Starmer and other MPs had the backbone to go to the backbenches.
You don't know the Labour membership very well then.
Would you have voted for RLB had Starmer gone to the backbenches?
Why do you think so little of Labour members? I don't agree with their politics, but I don't think most Labour members are antisemitic.
No but I am not in the majority of the membership when Keir was going up for it.
I can tell you for a fact if it had been RLB vs Nandy, RLB would have won.
One of the unfortunate consequences of Corbyn/Labour being successfully defined as anti-semitic is that political discourse changed such that any criticism of the Israeli government in this country also became defined, by key stakeholders, as anti-semitic.
As a result, criticism of the current Israeli regime's despicable behaviour is very muted and not spoken of much in 'polite society'. To his credit, David Lammy has voiced some doubts about what they are up to.
To answer your question, because something is changing here. Labour are getting caught on the back foot, the Tories are grasping the narrative.
Anyone else sensing the current mood shift in tone and political narrative, as Tory’s on PB, in Con Home, out canvassing and just about Everywhere All At Once getting very bullish over how well this Tory fight back is going?
Maybe it’s been a mistake to watch polls so closely for signs of movement, maybe the first signs of the big polling shift and switcheroo in the polls actually indicated by a change of mood and growing confidence we pick up like this from party activists, canvassers and supporters?
It’s real. This is happening.
What - specifically - is happening. The big announcement is a non-policy. It cannot actually deliver even what it states, never mind the Sunak target.
I assume the plan is to pitch the Tories against the leftie establishment. "We would have stopped the boats had it not been for leftie lawyers, the courts, the Rwandans, the navy, the French, so vote for us and we promise to overcome all those enemies of the people in the way we utterly failed to do for the last 14 years" etc etc
"Stop the Boats" only has any prospect of being an electoral bonus if you actually stop the boats. Which you can't. So the group of people who still want the forrin to go home are hugely fed up with you, and the majority who have brains are hugely fed up with you.
Farage is going to demolish you over this policy failure.
Unfortuantely for all of us, the Conservatives have painted themselves into a corner here.
Starting point is that, unless they are prepared to go even further than they have so far, this is one that the government can't win. Even if the lawyers let them. Because even if you can send anyone to Rwanda, the policy collapses the moment Rwanda fills up. Which would take about a day and a half.
If you can't win, the best thing is to minimise the loss. Shut up about the issue, whilst quietly doing what you can. Talk about something else, anything else. But the current Conservative voters won't even let them do that.
And here is the comedy gold bit. Rwanda's capacity to take asylum seekers. Go ask them - they aren't hiding the fact that they wouldn't have taken planeloads had we sent them.
So look at the hurdles to cross: 1. Catch all the refugees - itself not as easy as suggested 2. House the refugees - we need to build an awful lot of additional capacity according to the government's own projections. And nowhere they have tried to do so will accept this - HUGE local protests. Because of 3. Secure the refugees. They keep walking off or being abducted. So having forced a concentration camp into a locality over the raging protests of their MP / Council / Residents / Rent a Racist mob you now need to have a significant force to guard them 4. Illegalise the refugees. It isn't as simple as banishing them. Or extracting ourselves from our post-war obligations. All 3 steps so far will go to court and the government itself is likely to be threatened with international action for breech of conventions. More "Enemies of the People" tactics only likely to unlock media exposure of the catastrophic cuts to the criminal justice system 5. Fly the refugees. It won't be a domestic carrier. Assume a hire-in from somewhere far away at vast cost. Assume it actually is licensed and safe. And the first refugee flight actually leaves. Once it lands in Rwanda, that is Rwanda full up.
So another round of TORIES TO STOP THE FORRIN INVADERS headlines and another round of abject failure to deliver anything at all.
And @MoonRabbit thinks this wins the Tories the next election!
Their capacity is that they'll take what we pay them to take. They've had this arrangement with multiple nations previously, and the United Nations, before. Which is why its all the more amusing that people want to appeal to the UNHRC that this is "illegal" when the UNHRC has this arrangement with Rwanda and is part of the legal precedent.
If you want them to take more, then you need to pay more, everything has a price and they're no more "full" than the UK is "full". Racists saying the UK is "full" are full of shit and saying it about another country is no more tolerant.
You have to be serious though if you're going to do it, and put your money and law where your mouth is. So far, the Government doesn't seem to be willing to do either. If you get serious about it, then the journeys across the Channel would drop to zero almost overnight, and then Rwanda wouldn't actually need to take any more, since people wouldn't be making the journey anymore, since people don't want to pay people smugglers in order to end up in Rwanda.
The answer might be "several years ago" of course. These things don't tend to occur at the first time of asking, and are based on a long relationship. Which can be spun negatively.
In the interview he confirms the position became available in October so it is likely that sometime since then he contacted her
He also confirmed he knew her before he came into politics but that is not the issue
He has cultivated a narrative of integrity but looks evasive when I do not understand why he cannot just confirm the date and end the matter
Oh, yes - I think he's doing exactly the wrong thing. "Obviously, I've known Sue since before I went into politics. I have wanted to work with her for a long time. This position became available in October and I/[whoever] contacted her [in]formally about it at that time. She was one of a very short list of candidates and I'm delighted she accepted." would seem reasonable, as you can then repeat it ad nauseam depending on which part the interviewer decides to press on.
You'd have thought that there would be a script for this?
I understand Civil Servants have moved into these positions many times before ... but the appointment of Sue Gray (notwithstanding her personal qualities) does look to me like a Labour mistake, because she ended up playing an important role in defenestration of a Tory PM.
It looks wrong, even if isn't.
The way it looks is very important in politics.
I'm confused. When the Gray report came out it exonerated Boris Johnson. A whitewash that didn't even investigate the dodgy stuff. Lauded by Johnson and his cabinet and PB Tories as a definitive line drawn and lets move on.
Yet now it, and not Pinchergate, actually brought him down?
It was a combination of events that sucker-punched the government. Most (perhaps all) had roots in Johnson's character flaws. Individually, he would probably have survived them.
If you truly believe that the Gray report was "A whitewash that didn't even investigate the dodgy stuff.", then you should be vociferously arguing against Gray taking a senior position in the Labour party. Because it would mean she was complicit in such a whitewash, and that's the last sort of person you want in that sort of role.
I do think her report was a whitewash and said so at the time. She didn't even investigate the Abba party as one example.
As for whomever Starmer appoints to the Labour party how is that anything to do with me, or even something I care one way or another about?
To answer your question, because something is changing here. Labour are getting caught on the back foot, the Tories are grasping the narrative.
Anyone else sensing the current mood shift in tone and political narrative, as Tory’s on PB, in Con Home, out canvassing and just about Everywhere All At Once getting very bullish over how well this Tory fight back is going?
Maybe it’s been a mistake to watch polls so closely for signs of movement, maybe the first signs of the big polling shift and switcheroo in the polls actually indicated by a change of mood and growing confidence we pick up like this from party activists, canvassers and supporters?
It’s real. This is happening.
What - specifically - is happening. The big announcement is a non-policy. It cannot actually deliver even what it states, never mind the Sunak target.
I assume the plan is to pitch the Tories against the leftie establishment. "We would have stopped the boats had it not been for leftie lawyers, the courts, the Rwandans, the navy, the French, so vote for us and we promise to overcome all those enemies of the people in the way we utterly failed to do for the last 14 years" etc etc
"Stop the Boats" only has any prospect of being an electoral bonus if you actually stop the boats. Which you can't. So the group of people who still want the forrin to go home are hugely fed up with you, and the majority who have brains are hugely fed up with you.
Farage is going to demolish you over this policy failure.
Unfortuantely for all of us, the Conservatives have painted themselves into a corner here.
Starting point is that, unless they are prepared to go even further than they have so far, this is one that the government can't win. Even if the lawyers let them. Because even if you can send anyone to Rwanda, the policy collapses the moment Rwanda fills up. Which would take about a day and a half.
If you can't win, the best thing is to minimise the loss. Shut up about the issue, whilst quietly doing what you can. Talk about something else, anything else. But the current Conservative voters won't even let them do that.
"Rwanda fills up" - is the UK "full"? Why would Rwanda be "full"?
If you're serious about the policy, then you reach an agreement that every single person who crosses by boat is instantaneously flown overseas. Do not pass go, do not speak to a lawyer, do not have a night in the UK.
Do that and within a day and a half the number of small boats crossing the Channel would drop to zero.
That's exactly what happened in Australia and led to the number of small boat fatalities (which had been quite high) drop to zero and there hasn't been a single fatality from boat migrants as far as I'm aware in Australian waters in the past decade.
That's the evidence that this isn't a serious policy.
The Rwandan government has defended the controversial asylum agreement but said it only has the capacity to hold 200 migrants currently.
The African nation had originally agreed to take up to 1,000 migrants from the UK in a trial deal worth £120million.
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
You can stay to reform it, but from the backbenches. That's what many Labour MPs of principle did.
Starmer put his own career prospects ahead of Jews and others in this country and worked to potentially put Corbyn into Downing Street from a position where only a few seats needed to change hands in order to achieve that.
Okay.
Lisa Nandy did what you said and she was never close to being voted in. Your proposal would have led to RLB being the leader and the issue still remaining.
At least Lisa Nandy has principles and can hold her head up high.
I actually have more respect than you do it seems for decent Labour members than to think they'd have automatically voted for RLB had Starmer and other MPs had the backbone to go to the backbenches.
You don't know the Labour membership very well then.
Would you have voted for RLB had Starmer gone to the backbenches?
Why do you think so little of Labour members? I don't agree with their politics, but I don't think most Labour members are antisemitic.
No but I am not in the majority of the membership when Keir was going up for it.
I can tell you for a fact if it had been RLB vs Nandy, RLB would have won.
Starmer could have resigned to the backbenches when the antisemitism news broke and run for the leadership from the backbenches then - and could have beaten RLB.
He was willing to put his career ahead of standing up to antisemitism though and stood in the Shadow Cabinet with Corbyn seeking to make Corbyn PM. Simply saying "the British people will reject him, so I can stand with him" isn't principles.
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
You can stay to reform it, but from the backbenches. That's what many Labour MPs of principle did.
Starmer put his own career prospects ahead of Jews and others in this country and worked to potentially put Corbyn into Downing Street from a position where only a few seats needed to change hands in order to achieve that.
Okay.
Lisa Nandy did what you said and she was never close to being voted in. Your proposal would have led to RLB being the leader and the issue still remaining.
At least Lisa Nandy has principles and can hold her head up high.
I actually have more respect than you do it seems for decent Labour members than to think they'd have automatically voted for RLB had Starmer and other MPs had the backbone to go to the backbenches.
You don't know the Labour membership very well then.
Would you have voted for RLB had Starmer gone to the backbenches?
Why do you think so little of Labour members? I don't agree with their politics, but I don't think most Labour members are antisemitic.
No but I am not in the majority of the membership when Keir was going up for it.
I can tell you for a fact if it had been RLB vs Nandy, RLB would have won.
Starmer could have resigned to the backbenches when the antisemitism news broke and run for the leadership from the backbenches then - and could have beaten RLB.
He was willing to put his career ahead of standing up to antisemitism though and stood in the Shadow Cabinet with Corbyn seeking to make Corbyn PM. Simply saying "the British people will reject him, so I can stand with him" isn't principles.
To answer your question, because something is changing here. Labour are getting caught on the back foot, the Tories are grasping the narrative.
Anyone else sensing the current mood shift in tone and political narrative, as Tory’s on PB, in Con Home, out canvassing and just about Everywhere All At Once getting very bullish over how well this Tory fight back is going?
Maybe it’s been a mistake to watch polls so closely for signs of movement, maybe the first signs of the big polling shift and switcheroo in the polls actually indicated by a change of mood and growing confidence we pick up like this from party activists, canvassers and supporters?
It’s real. This is happening.
What - specifically - is happening. The big announcement is a non-policy. It cannot actually deliver even what it states, never mind the Sunak target.
I assume the plan is to pitch the Tories against the leftie establishment. "We would have stopped the boats had it not been for leftie lawyers, the courts, the Rwandans, the navy, the French, so vote for us and we promise to overcome all those enemies of the people in the way we utterly failed to do for the last 14 years" etc etc
"Stop the Boats" only has any prospect of being an electoral bonus if you actually stop the boats. Which you can't. So the group of people who still want the forrin to go home are hugely fed up with you, and the majority who have brains are hugely fed up with you.
Farage is going to demolish you over this policy failure.
Unfortuantely for all of us, the Conservatives have painted themselves into a corner here.
Starting point is that, unless they are prepared to go even further than they have so far, this is one that the government can't win. Even if the lawyers let them. Because even if you can send anyone to Rwanda, the policy collapses the moment Rwanda fills up. Which would take about a day and a half.
If you can't win, the best thing is to minimise the loss. Shut up about the issue, whilst quietly doing what you can. Talk about something else, anything else. But the current Conservative voters won't even let them do that.
"Rwanda fills up" - is the UK "full"? Why would Rwanda be "full"?
If you're serious about the policy, then you reach an agreement that every single person who crosses by boat is instantaneously flown overseas. Do not pass go, do not speak to a lawyer, do not have a night in the UK.
Do that and within a day and a half the number of small boats crossing the Channel would drop to zero.
That's exactly what happened in Australia and led to the number of small boat fatalities (which had been quite high) drop to zero and there hasn't been a single fatality from boat migrants as far as I'm aware in Australian waters in the past decade.
That's the evidence that this isn't a serious policy.
The Rwandan government has defended the controversial asylum agreement but said it only has the capacity to hold 200 migrants currently.
The African nation had originally agreed to take up to 1,000 migrants from the UK in a trial deal worth £120million.
Yes, they could scale up, but that would be a lot of investment to create capacity that would be used once.
"originally ... trial deal".
When Australia did this there was a trial sending only a few, then it was switched to everybody who crosses by boat with no exceptions.
If you're expecting lots of legal challenges then there's not much point spending more up front, but once the legal challenges are resolved then if you're serious then you can scale up rapidly - and then scale back down again as once you're serious, then people will stop making that journey.
You have to be serious about it though, and I'm not convinced the Government are. But that doesn't mean that the idea is a non-starter, the idea would work if the Government are serious about it.
The answer might be "several years ago" of course. These things don't tend to occur at the first time of asking, and are based on a long relationship. Which can be spun negatively.
In the interview he confirms the position became available in October so it is likely that sometime since then he contacted her
He also confirmed he knew her before he came into politics but that is not the issue
He has cultivated a narrative of integrity but looks evasive when I do not understand why he cannot just confirm the date and end the matter
Oh, yes - I think he's doing exactly the wrong thing. "Obviously, I've known Sue since before I went into politics. I have wanted to work with her for a long time. This position became available in October and I/[whoever] contacted her [in]formally about it at that time. She was one of a very short list of candidates and I'm delighted she accepted." would seem reasonable, as you can then repeat it ad nauseam depending on which part the interviewer decides to press on.
You'd have thought that there would be a script for this?
I understand Civil Servants have moved into these positions many times before ... but the appointment of Sue Gray (notwithstanding her personal qualities) does look to me like a Labour mistake, because she ended up playing an important role in defenestration of a Tory PM.
It looks wrong, even if isn't.
The way it looks is very important in politics.
I'm confused. When the Gray report came out it exonerated Boris Johnson. A whitewash that didn't even investigate the dodgy stuff. Lauded by Johnson and his cabinet and PB Tories as a definitive line drawn and lets move on.
Yet now it, and not Pinchergate, actually brought him down?
As is usual, it was a culmination of many things. He could have survived Pincher-gate if his hands were clean before. His hands were filthy, and Party-gate was part of the filth (along with Patterson-gate and Wallpaper-gate).
I am not suggesting that Labour have done anything wrong. They have no doubt played by the book.
But, politics isn't fair. The look of things is very important. If you don't like that, you should not be in politics but in another career.
To give another example, I don't for a moment believe Jeremy Corbyn is personally anti-semitic. Nor does @NickPalmer who knows him better than anyone on this blog.
However, he bungled things and was supported by some antisemitic followers, so Corbyn ended up looking anti-semitic.
It was a major mistake by Corbyn not to realize how things would look
For ages I called Corbyn a 'passive' anti-Semite. In that he was not personally anti-Semitic, but was so blind to it that he could not call out anti-Semitism when it happened around him.
Then something happened (and I forget what), and I decided he was actually an active anti-Semite. Which I think is where I still stand.
Corbyn defines himself openly as being 'anti-racist'. He tells himself that he is, and because of that, any accusations of racism cannot be true, and are terrible slurs. But he does not explore what it *means* to be against racism; for instance what 'racism' is, and how it can vary between countries and societies. He knows, and therefore he's happy he cannot be racist. Ditto anti-Semitism. Of course he isn't anti-Semitic, because he's argued against racism all his life. Even if he did not recognise common anti-Semitic tropes.
Either's he's so unutterably thick as for the above to be true, or he is, in fact, anti-Semitic. And he may be many things, but he isn't thick.
The answer might be "several years ago" of course. These things don't tend to occur at the first time of asking, and are based on a long relationship. Which can be spun negatively.
In the interview he confirms the position became available in October so it is likely that sometime since then he contacted her
He also confirmed he knew her before he came into politics but that is not the issue
He has cultivated a narrative of integrity but looks evasive when I do not understand why he cannot just confirm the date and end the matter
Oh, yes - I think he's doing exactly the wrong thing. "Obviously, I've known Sue since before I went into politics. I have wanted to work with her for a long time. This position became available in October and I/[whoever] contacted her [in]formally about it at that time. She was one of a very short list of candidates and I'm delighted she accepted." would seem reasonable, as you can then repeat it ad nauseam depending on which part the interviewer decides to press on.
You'd have thought that there would be a script for this?
I understand Civil Servants have moved into these positions many times before ... but the appointment of Sue Gray (notwithstanding her personal qualities) does look to me like a Labour mistake, because she ended up playing an important role in defenestration of a Tory PM.
It looks wrong, even if isn't.
The way it looks is very important in politics.
I'm confused. When the Gray report came out it exonerated Boris Johnson. A whitewash that didn't even investigate the dodgy stuff. Lauded by Johnson and his cabinet and PB Tories as a definitive line drawn and lets move on.
Yet now it, and not Pinchergate, actually brought him down?
It was a combination of events that sucker-punched the government. Most (perhaps all) had roots in Johnson's character flaws. Individually, he would probably have survived them.
If you truly believe that the Gray report was "A whitewash that didn't even investigate the dodgy stuff.", then you should be vociferously arguing against Gray taking a senior position in the Labour party. Because it would mean she was complicit in such a whitewash, and that's the last sort of person you want in that sort of role.
I do think her report was a whitewash and said so at the time. She didn't even investigate the Abba party as one example.
As for whomever Starmer appoints to the Labour party how is that anything to do with me, or even something I care one way or another about?
To answer your question, because something is changing here. Labour are getting caught on the back foot, the Tories are grasping the narrative.
Anyone else sensing the current mood shift in tone and political narrative, as Tory’s on PB, in Con Home, out canvassing and just about Everywhere All At Once getting very bullish over how well this Tory fight back is going?
Maybe it’s been a mistake to watch polls so closely for signs of movement, maybe the first signs of the big polling shift and switcheroo in the polls actually indicated by a change of mood and growing confidence we pick up like this from party activists, canvassers and supporters?
It’s real. This is happening.
What - specifically - is happening. The big announcement is a non-policy. It cannot actually deliver even what it states, never mind the Sunak target.
I assume the plan is to pitch the Tories against the leftie establishment. "We would have stopped the boats had it not been for leftie lawyers, the courts, the Rwandans, the navy, the French, so vote for us and we promise to overcome all those enemies of the people in the way we utterly failed to do for the last 14 years" etc etc
"Stop the Boats" only has any prospect of being an electoral bonus if you actually stop the boats. Which you can't. So the group of people who still want the forrin to go home are hugely fed up with you, and the majority who have brains are hugely fed up with you.
Farage is going to demolish you over this policy failure.
Unfortuantely for all of us, the Conservatives have painted themselves into a corner here.
Starting point is that, unless they are prepared to go even further than they have so far, this is one that the government can't win. Even if the lawyers let them. Because even if you can send anyone to Rwanda, the policy collapses the moment Rwanda fills up. Which would take about a day and a half.
If you can't win, the best thing is to minimise the loss. Shut up about the issue, whilst quietly doing what you can. Talk about something else, anything else. But the current Conservative voters won't even let them do that.
The logic of the governments word is that they want to withdraw from UNHCR and the Refugee Convention.
Best case, they are too frit to say it.
More likely, they prefer their legislation to be blocked by the courts as it absolves them (in their voters minds) of dealing with a complex problem and passes the blame onto "liberals".
To be fair, a strategy that involves lots of public blame for "leftie lawyers" isn't irrational given that the leader of the opposition is Sir Keir Starmer KC.
Irrational? No, it works to an extent to deflect attention from their persistent failures at good government.
Deeply damaging to and divisive for the country? Failing both refugees and our own population? Absolutely.
The answer might be "several years ago" of course. These things don't tend to occur at the first time of asking, and are based on a long relationship. Which can be spun negatively.
In the interview he confirms the position became available in October so it is likely that sometime since then he contacted her
He also confirmed he knew her before he came into politics but that is not the issue
He has cultivated a narrative of integrity but looks evasive when I do not understand why he cannot just confirm the date and end the matter
Oh, yes - I think he's doing exactly the wrong thing. "Obviously, I've known Sue since before I went into politics. I have wanted to work with her for a long time. This position became available in October and I/[whoever] contacted her [in]formally about it at that time. She was one of a very short list of candidates and I'm delighted she accepted." would seem reasonable, as you can then repeat it ad nauseam depending on which part the interviewer decides to press on.
You'd have thought that there would be a script for this?
I understand Civil Servants have moved into these positions many times before ... but the appointment of Sue Gray (notwithstanding her personal qualities) does look to me like a Labour mistake, because she ended up playing an important role in defenestration of a Tory PM.
It looks wrong, even if isn't.
The way it looks is very important in politics.
I'm confused. When the Gray report came out it exonerated Boris Johnson. A whitewash that didn't even investigate the dodgy stuff. Lauded by Johnson and his cabinet and PB Tories as a definitive line drawn and lets move on.
Yet now it, and not Pinchergate, actually brought him down?
It was a combination of events that sucker-punched the government. Most (perhaps all) had roots in Johnson's character flaws. Individually, he would probably have survived them.
If you truly believe that the Gray report was "A whitewash that didn't even investigate the dodgy stuff.", then you should be vociferously arguing against Gray taking a senior position in the Labour party. Because it would mean she was complicit in such a whitewash, and that's the last sort of person you want in that sort of role.
I do think her report was a whitewash and said so at the time. She didn't even investigate the Abba party as one example.
As for whomever Starmer appoints to the Labour party how is that anything to do with me, or even something I care one way or another about?
He's very likely to be the next PM. Therefore how he runs the Labour Party is important as a sign towards how he's going to run the country.
The answer might be "several years ago" of course. These things don't tend to occur at the first time of asking, and are based on a long relationship. Which can be spun negatively.
In the interview he confirms the position became available in October so it is likely that sometime since then he contacted her
He also confirmed he knew her before he came into politics but that is not the issue
He has cultivated a narrative of integrity but looks evasive when I do not understand why he cannot just confirm the date and end the matter
Oh, yes - I think he's doing exactly the wrong thing. "Obviously, I've known Sue since before I went into politics. I have wanted to work with her for a long time. This position became available in October and I/[whoever] contacted her [in]formally about it at that time. She was one of a very short list of candidates and I'm delighted she accepted." would seem reasonable, as you can then repeat it ad nauseam depending on which part the interviewer decides to press on.
You'd have thought that there would be a script for this?
I understand Civil Servants have moved into these positions many times before ... but the appointment of Sue Gray (notwithstanding her personal qualities) does look to me like a Labour mistake, because she ended up playing an important role in defenestration of a Tory PM.
It looks wrong, even if isn't.
The way it looks is very important in politics.
I'm confused. When the Gray report came out it exonerated Boris Johnson. A whitewash that didn't even investigate the dodgy stuff. Lauded by Johnson and his cabinet and PB Tories as a definitive line drawn and lets move on.
Yet now it, and not Pinchergate, actually brought him down?
It was a combination of events that sucker-punched the government. Most (perhaps all) had roots in Johnson's character flaws. Individually, he would probably have survived them.
If you truly believe that the Gray report was "A whitewash that didn't even investigate the dodgy stuff.", then you should be vociferously arguing against Gray taking a senior position in the Labour party. Because it would mean she was complicit in such a whitewash, and that's the last sort of person you want in that sort of role.
Well JRM said the report was good and now he is saying she's stitched up Johnson.
I think he was referring William H. White's 1887 repiort. That's modern enough for him.
Besides, I don't take anything Jacob Rees-Work has to say seriously.
To answer your question, because something is changing here. Labour are getting caught on the back foot, the Tories are grasping the narrative.
Anyone else sensing the current mood shift in tone and political narrative, as Tory’s on PB, in Con Home, out canvassing and just about Everywhere All At Once getting very bullish over how well this Tory fight back is going?
Maybe it’s been a mistake to watch polls so closely for signs of movement, maybe the first signs of the big polling shift and switcheroo in the polls actually indicated by a change of mood and growing confidence we pick up like this from party activists, canvassers and supporters?
It’s real. This is happening.
What - specifically - is happening. The big announcement is a non-policy. It cannot actually deliver even what it states, never mind the Sunak target.
I assume the plan is to pitch the Tories against the leftie establishment. "We would have stopped the boats had it not been for leftie lawyers, the courts, the Rwandans, the navy, the French, so vote for us and we promise to overcome all those enemies of the people in the way we utterly failed to do for the last 14 years" etc etc
"Stop the Boats" only has any prospect of being an electoral bonus if you actually stop the boats. Which you can't. So the group of people who still want the forrin to go home are hugely fed up with you, and the majority who have brains are hugely fed up with you.
Farage is going to demolish you over this policy failure.
Unfortuantely for all of us, the Conservatives have painted themselves into a corner here.
Starting point is that, unless they are prepared to go even further than they have so far, this is one that the government can't win. Even if the lawyers let them. Because even if you can send anyone to Rwanda, the policy collapses the moment Rwanda fills up. Which would take about a day and a half.
If you can't win, the best thing is to minimise the loss. Shut up about the issue, whilst quietly doing what you can. Talk about something else, anything else. But the current Conservative voters won't even let them do that.
The logic of the governments word is that they want to withdraw from UNHCR and the Refugee Convention.
Best case, they are too frit to say it.
More likely, they prefer their legislation to be blocked by the courts as it absolves them (in their voters minds) of dealing with a complex problem and passes the blame onto "liberals".
To be fair, a strategy that involves lots of public blame for "leftie lawyers" isn't irrational given that the leader of the opposition is Sir Keir Starmer KC.
Irrational? No, it works to an extent to deflect attention from their persistent failures at good government.
Deeply damaging to and divisive for the country? Failing both refugees and our own population? Absolutely.
Deeply damaging to and divisive for the country is now par for the course on both sides.
I think that there is a genuine question about a senior civil servant who has been at the heart of government policy making taking up a very senior position with the opposition party. But that has nothing to do with the merits or otherwise of Sue Gray's report many months ago or the lies told by Boris Johnson. I think most people can see the difference, to not do so is wilful blindness.
That is my view
And did the same apply when Lord Frost was made a government minister?
I can't understand Starmer's evasions about when Sue Gray was approached. Endlessly muttering that 'there was nothing improper' while refusing to answer a perfectly benign question, in itself creates an impression of suspicion. It's quite bizarre and dissembling never works - he should know that by now.
But that's been obvious for years, well before he became MoL, let alone PM.
So what dos that say about the Conservative Party that let the fetid contents of the toilet bowl run the country?
Remember how criticism of Johnson used to be shouted down by "Boris Derangement Syndrome"? And some of the criticisms probably were deranged. But it was also a convenient way to shut down genuine issues with BoJo, which were obvious from before he entered politics.
That used to drive me nuts. What I suffered from - and I really did - was Boris Derangement Syndrome Derangement Syndrome. The vast majority of barbs levelled against him were merited. The problem was the opposite - for too long he normalized previously unthinkable behaviour such that things which should have got everyone angry and indignant were greeted largely with a weary chuckle or at best a shrug. Similar to Trump in this regard, although Trump is a bigger and nastier phenomenon.
I can't understand Starmer's evasions about when Sue Gray was approached. Endlessly muttering that 'there was nothing improper' while refusing to answer a perfectly benign question, in itself creates an impression of suspicion. It's quite bizarre and dissembling never works - he should know that by now.
Maybe it's 4D chess and he wants to keep this in the news because Labour think it reminds people of Johnson and Partygate.
The charge sheet against Starmer from his opponents has got slightly longer, but remains pretty thin gruel. They haven't got much on him.
Sue Gray. Served in Corbyn's SC. Beer and curry. Jimmy Saville. Boring. Lives in Islington. Lawyer. Supports Arsenal. Something about donkeys. Attended a school that subsequently went private.
I reckon a bit more substance will be needed for his defeat to be guaranteed.
I can't understand Starmer's evasions about when Sue Gray was approached. Endlessly muttering that 'there was nothing improper' while refusing to answer a perfectly benign question, in itself creates an impression of suspicion. It's quite bizarre and dissembling never works - he should know that by now.
If he's known her since his time as DPP, perhaps they've been in regular contact all along?
ACOBA face a test too. Apparently some of their members were appointed by Sue Gray. If true, then they should recuse themselves from any decision on her application to avoid the perception of bias.
I think that there is a genuine question about a senior civil servant who has been at the heart of government policy making taking up a very senior position with the opposition party. But that has nothing to do with the merits or otherwise of Sue Gray's report many months ago or the lies told by Boris Johnson. I think most people can see the difference, to not do so is wilful blindness.
That is my view
And did the same apply when Lord Frost was made a government minister?
Frost left the civil service in 2013 and became CEO of the Scotch Whisky Association
Frost was appointed by Johnson in November 2016, three years later, so no they are not comparable
To answer your question, because something is changing here. Labour are getting caught on the back foot, the Tories are grasping the narrative.
Anyone else sensing the current mood shift in tone and political narrative, as Tory’s on PB, in Con Home, out canvassing and just about Everywhere All At Once getting very bullish over how well this Tory fight back is going?
Maybe it’s been a mistake to watch polls so closely for signs of movement, maybe the first signs of the big polling shift and switcheroo in the polls actually indicated by a change of mood and growing confidence we pick up like this from party activists, canvassers and supporters?
It’s real. This is happening.
What - specifically - is happening. The big announcement is a non-policy. It cannot actually deliver even what it states, never mind the Sunak target.
I assume the plan is to pitch the Tories against the leftie establishment. "We would have stopped the boats had it not been for leftie lawyers, the courts, the Rwandans, the navy, the French, so vote for us and we promise to overcome all those enemies of the people in the way we utterly failed to do for the last 14 years" etc etc
"Stop the Boats" only has any prospect of being an electoral bonus if you actually stop the boats. Which you can't. So the group of people who still want the forrin to go home are hugely fed up with you, and the majority who have brains are hugely fed up with you.
Farage is going to demolish you over this policy failure.
Unfortuantely for all of us, the Conservatives have painted themselves into a corner here.
Starting point is that, unless they are prepared to go even further than they have so far, this is one that the government can't win. Even if the lawyers let them. Because even if you can send anyone to Rwanda, the policy collapses the moment Rwanda fills up. Which would take about a day and a half.
If you can't win, the best thing is to minimise the loss. Shut up about the issue, whilst quietly doing what you can. Talk about something else, anything else. But the current Conservative voters won't even let them do that.
"Rwanda fills up" - is the UK "full"? Why would Rwanda be "full"?
If you're serious about the policy, then you reach an agreement that every single person who crosses by boat is instantaneously flown overseas. Do not pass go, do not speak to a lawyer, do not have a night in the UK.
Do that and within a day and a half the number of small boats crossing the Channel would drop to zero.
That's exactly what happened in Australia and led to the number of small boat fatalities (which had been quite high) drop to zero and there hasn't been a single fatality from boat migrants as far as I'm aware in Australian waters in the past decade.
That's the evidence that this isn't a serious policy.
The Rwandan government has defended the controversial asylum agreement but said it only has the capacity to hold 200 migrants currently.
The African nation had originally agreed to take up to 1,000 migrants from the UK in a trial deal worth £120million.
Yes, they could scale up, but that would be a lot of investment to create capacity that would be used once.
"originally ... trial deal".
When Australia did this there was a trial sending only a few, then it was switched to everybody who crosses by boat with no exceptions.
If you're expecting lots of legal challenges then there's not much point spending more up front, but once the legal challenges are resolved then if you're serious then you can scale up rapidly - and then scale back down again as once you're serious, then people will stop making that journey.
You have to be serious about it though, and I'm not convinced the Government are. But that doesn't mean that the idea is a non-starter, the idea would work if the Government are serious about it.
Last year, there were 45000 small boat migrants, concentrated in the summer months. Rwanda are reckoning on processing claims in 3 months, and currently have one hostel with 200 beds. You need something about 50 times bigger if you plan to deport everyone.
If these numbers are right, https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/asylum-boats-statistics/ the Australian small boat migration peaked at less than one thousand a year. In that case, something like Rwanda might work. In the UK context, it's a cruel trick the government are playing on the gullible.
I can't understand Starmer's evasions about when Sue Gray was approached. Endlessly muttering that 'there was nothing improper' while refusing to answer a perfectly benign question, in itself creates an impression of suspicion. It's quite bizarre and dissembling never works - he should know that by now.
Yes. If the actual answer was ‘a month ago’, then he’d have said that straight.
That he doesn’t give a straight answer, suggests that the answer is less than helpful, with at least some overlap with her enquiry into the government from last year.
To answer your question, because something is changing here. Labour are getting caught on the back foot, the Tories are grasping the narrative.
Anyone else sensing the current mood shift in tone and political narrative, as Tory’s on PB, in Con Home, out canvassing and just about Everywhere All At Once getting very bullish over how well this Tory fight back is going?
Maybe it’s been a mistake to watch polls so closely for signs of movement, maybe the first signs of the big polling shift and switcheroo in the polls actually indicated by a change of mood and growing confidence we pick up like this from party activists, canvassers and supporters?
It’s real. This is happening.
What - specifically - is happening. The big announcement is a non-policy. It cannot actually deliver even what it states, never mind the Sunak target.
I assume the plan is to pitch the Tories against the leftie establishment. "We would have stopped the boats had it not been for leftie lawyers, the courts, the Rwandans, the navy, the French, so vote for us and we promise to overcome all those enemies of the people in the way we utterly failed to do for the last 14 years" etc etc
"Stop the Boats" only has any prospect of being an electoral bonus if you actually stop the boats. Which you can't. So the group of people who still want the forrin to go home are hugely fed up with you, and the majority who have brains are hugely fed up with you.
Farage is going to demolish you over this policy failure.
Unfortuantely for all of us, the Conservatives have painted themselves into a corner here.
Starting point is that, unless they are prepared to go even further than they have so far, this is one that the government can't win. Even if the lawyers let them. Because even if you can send anyone to Rwanda, the policy collapses the moment Rwanda fills up. Which would take about a day and a half.
If you can't win, the best thing is to minimise the loss. Shut up about the issue, whilst quietly doing what you can. Talk about something else, anything else. But the current Conservative voters won't even let them do that.
And here is the comedy gold bit. Rwanda's capacity to take asylum seekers. Go ask them - they aren't hiding the fact that they wouldn't have taken planeloads had we sent them.
So look at the hurdles to cross: 1. Catch all the refugees - itself not as easy as suggested 2. House the refugees - we need to build an awful lot of additional capacity according to the government's own projections. And nowhere they have tried to do so will accept this - HUGE local protests. Because of 3. Secure the refugees. They keep walking off or being abducted. So having forced a concentration camp into a locality over the raging protests of their MP / Council / Residents / Rent a Racist mob you now need to have a significant force to guard them 4. Illegalise the refugees. It isn't as simple as banishing them. Or extracting ourselves from our post-war obligations. All 3 steps so far will go to court and the government itself is likely to be threatened with international action for breech of conventions. More "Enemies of the People" tactics only likely to unlock media exposure of the catastrophic cuts to the criminal justice system 5. Fly the refugees. It won't be a domestic carrier. Assume a hire-in from somewhere far away at vast cost. Assume it actually is licensed and safe. And the first refugee flight actually leaves. Once it lands in Rwanda, that is Rwanda full up.
So another round of TORIES TO STOP THE FORRIN INVADERS headlines and another round of abject failure to deliver anything at all.
And @MoonRabbit thinks this wins the Tories the next election!
Their capacity is that they'll take what we pay them to take. They've had this arrangement with multiple nations previously, and the United Nations, before. Which is why its all the more amusing that people want to appeal to the UNHRC that this is "illegal" when the UNHRC has this arrangement with Rwanda and is part of the legal precedent.
If you want them to take more, then you need to pay more, everything has a price and they're no more "full" than the UK is "full". Racists saying the UK is "full" are full of shit and saying it about another country is no more tolerant.
You have to be serious though if you're going to do it, and put your money and law where your mouth is. So far, the Government doesn't seem to be willing to do either. If you get serious about it, then the journeys across the Channel would drop to zero almost overnight, and then Rwanda wouldn't actually need to take any more, since people wouldn't be making the journey anymore, since people don't want to pay people smugglers in order to end up in Rwanda.
Rwanda says they can take 200. How much are you prepared to take to get that up to 1,000? or 10,000? Or however many we need cumulatively?
"Send them to Rwanda" appeals to children. But if we can't send them to Rwanda because Rwanda won't take them, this isn't going to work is it?
"You need to pay more" FFS and LOL - you know better than the Rwandan government about the ability or willingness of Rwanda to do what you demand.
They'd better watch out. Or we'll get out the Big Guns and send HYUFD in his little tank to sort them out.
EDIT have @HYUFD and Lt Gruber ever been seen in the same room?
"Matt Hancock rejected advice from England’s Chief Medical Officer to replace the 14-day Covid quarantine with five days of testing because it would “imply we’ve been getting it wrong”.
Mr Hancock was told by Prof Sir Chris Whitty in Nov 2020 it would be “pretty well as good” for contacts of positive Covid cases to test for five days “in lieu” of a fortnight’s isolation. WhatsApp messages between the two men have also revealed that the 14-day quarantine period had likely been “too long all along”. "
This is one of the areas I suggested should be looked at yesterday. There was no feedback looking to distinguish between necessary precautions that worked and unnecessary precautions that might have seemed reasonable but did not in fact work. If Hancock refused to improve the guidance because he was scared it might be argued that he was wrong earlier then he is a fool.
Agree with this. Science isn't fixed, and the capacity of government to react to changing circumstances and new information is one of the important questions to be explored.
To answer your question, because something is changing here. Labour are getting caught on the back foot, the Tories are grasping the narrative.
Anyone else sensing the current mood shift in tone and political narrative, as Tory’s on PB, in Con Home, out canvassing and just about Everywhere All At Once getting very bullish over how well this Tory fight back is going?
Maybe it’s been a mistake to watch polls so closely for signs of movement, maybe the first signs of the big polling shift and switcheroo in the polls actually indicated by a change of mood and growing confidence we pick up like this from party activists, canvassers and supporters?
It’s real. This is happening.
What - specifically - is happening. The big announcement is a non-policy. It cannot actually deliver even what it states, never mind the Sunak target.
I assume the plan is to pitch the Tories against the leftie establishment. "We would have stopped the boats had it not been for leftie lawyers, the courts, the Rwandans, the navy, the French, so vote for us and we promise to overcome all those enemies of the people in the way we utterly failed to do for the last 14 years" etc etc
"Stop the Boats" only has any prospect of being an electoral bonus if you actually stop the boats. Which you can't. So the group of people who still want the forrin to go home are hugely fed up with you, and the majority who have brains are hugely fed up with you.
Farage is going to demolish you over this policy failure.
Unfortuantely for all of us, the Conservatives have painted themselves into a corner here.
Starting point is that, unless they are prepared to go even further than they have so far, this is one that the government can't win. Even if the lawyers let them. Because even if you can send anyone to Rwanda, the policy collapses the moment Rwanda fills up. Which would take about a day and a half.
If you can't win, the best thing is to minimise the loss. Shut up about the issue, whilst quietly doing what you can. Talk about something else, anything else. But the current Conservative voters won't even let them do that.
The logic of the governments word is that they want to withdraw from UNHCR and the Refugee Convention.
Best case, they are too frit to say it.
More likely, they prefer their legislation to be blocked by the courts as it absolves them (in their voters minds) of dealing with a complex problem and passes the blame onto "liberals".
To be fair, a strategy that involves lots of public blame for "leftie lawyers" isn't irrational given that the leader of the opposition is Sir Keir Starmer KC.
Irrational? No, it works to an extent to deflect attention from their persistent failures at good government.
Deeply damaging to and divisive for the country? Failing both refugees and our own population? Absolutely.
Deeply damaging to and divisive for the country is now par for the course on both sides.
Only one "side" has been in power for a very long time.
I can't understand Starmer's evasions about when Sue Gray was approached. Endlessly muttering that 'there was nothing improper' while refusing to answer a perfectly benign question, in itself creates an impression of suspicion. It's quite bizarre and dissembling never works - he should know that by now.
Yes. If the actual answer was ‘a month ago’, then he’d have said that straight.
That he doesn’t give a straight answer, suggests that the answer is less than helpful, with at least some overlap with her enquiry into the government from last year.
Hmm, if that were indeed the case, then things do get rather more problematic, don't they?
The answer might be "several years ago" of course. These things don't tend to occur at the first time of asking, and are based on a long relationship. Which can be spun negatively.
In the interview he confirms the position became available in October so it is likely that sometime since then he contacted her
He also confirmed he knew her before he came into politics but that is not the issue
He has cultivated a narrative of integrity but looks evasive when I do not understand why he cannot just confirm the date and end the matter
Oh, yes - I think he's doing exactly the wrong thing. "Obviously, I've known Sue since before I went into politics. I have wanted to work with her for a long time. This position became available in October and I/[whoever] contacted her [in]formally about it at that time. She was one of a very short list of candidates and I'm delighted she accepted." would seem reasonable, as you can then repeat it ad nauseam depending on which part the interviewer decides to press on.
You'd have thought that there would be a script for this?
I understand Civil Servants have moved into these positions many times before ... but the appointment of Sue Gray (notwithstanding her personal qualities) does look to me like a Labour mistake, because she ended up playing an important role in defenestration of a Tory PM.
It looks wrong, even if isn't.
The way it looks is very important in politics.
I'm confused. When the Gray report came out it exonerated Boris Johnson. A whitewash that didn't even investigate the dodgy stuff. Lauded by Johnson and his cabinet and PB Tories as a definitive line drawn and lets move on.
Yet now it, and not Pinchergate, actually brought him down?
As is usual, it was a culmination of many things. He could have survived Pincher-gate if his hands were clean before. His hands were filthy, and Party-gate was part of the filth (along with Patterson-gate and Wallpaper-gate).
I am not suggesting that Labour have done anything wrong. They have no doubt played by the book.
But, politics isn't fair. The look of things is very important. If you don't like that, you should not be in politics but in another career.
To give another example, I don't for a moment believe Jeremy Corbyn is personally anti-semitic. Nor does @NickPalmer who knows him better than anyone on this blog.
However, he bungled things and was supported by some antisemitic followers, so Corbyn ended up looking anti-semitic.
It was a major mistake by Corbyn not to realize how things would look
For ages I called Corbyn a 'passive' anti-Semite. In that he was not personally anti-Semitic, but was so blind to it that he could not call out anti-Semitism when it happened around him.
Then something happened (and I forget what), and I decided he was actually an active anti-Semite. Which I think is where I still stand.
Corbyn defines himself openly as being 'anti-racist'. He tells himself that he is, and because of that, any accusations of racism cannot be true, and are terrible slurs. But he does not explore what it *means* to be against racism; for instance what 'racism' is, and how it can vary between countries and societies. He knows, and therefore he's happy he cannot be racist. Ditto anti-Semitism. Of course he isn't anti-Semitic, because he's argued against racism all his life. Even if he did not recognise common anti-Semitic tropes.
Either's he's so unutterably thick as for the above to be true, or he is, in fact, anti-Semitic. And he may be many things, but he isn't thick.
It was Corbyn's comment about Jews not understanding British irony that exposed the underlying seam of anti-semitism. It was also remarkably stupid, as no-one does irony better.
p.s. apologies for absence on here but I'm travelling. Not bragging about it nor posting pointless pictures from bars, beaches, or any other spot. It's lovely to get away and I'll leave it at that.
To answer your question, because something is changing here. Labour are getting caught on the back foot, the Tories are grasping the narrative.
Anyone else sensing the current mood shift in tone and political narrative, as Tory’s on PB, in Con Home, out canvassing and just about Everywhere All At Once getting very bullish over how well this Tory fight back is going?
Maybe it’s been a mistake to watch polls so closely for signs of movement, maybe the first signs of the big polling shift and switcheroo in the polls actually indicated by a change of mood and growing confidence we pick up like this from party activists, canvassers and supporters?
It’s real. This is happening.
What - specifically - is happening. The big announcement is a non-policy. It cannot actually deliver even what it states, never mind the Sunak target.
I assume the plan is to pitch the Tories against the leftie establishment. "We would have stopped the boats had it not been for leftie lawyers, the courts, the Rwandans, the navy, the French, so vote for us and we promise to overcome all those enemies of the people in the way we utterly failed to do for the last 14 years" etc etc
"Stop the Boats" only has any prospect of being an electoral bonus if you actually stop the boats. Which you can't. So the group of people who still want the forrin to go home are hugely fed up with you, and the majority who have brains are hugely fed up with you.
Farage is going to demolish you over this policy failure.
Unfortuantely for all of us, the Conservatives have painted themselves into a corner here.
Starting point is that, unless they are prepared to go even further than they have so far, this is one that the government can't win. Even if the lawyers let them. Because even if you can send anyone to Rwanda, the policy collapses the moment Rwanda fills up. Which would take about a day and a half.
If you can't win, the best thing is to minimise the loss. Shut up about the issue, whilst quietly doing what you can. Talk about something else, anything else. But the current Conservative voters won't even let them do that.
The logic of the governments word is that they want to withdraw from UNHCR and the Refugee Convention.
Best case, they are too frit to say it.
More likely, they prefer their legislation to be blocked by the courts as it absolves them (in their voters minds) of dealing with a complex problem and passes the blame onto "liberals".
To be fair, a strategy that involves lots of public blame for "leftie lawyers" isn't irrational given that the leader of the opposition is Sir Keir Starmer KC.
Irrational? No, it works to an extent to deflect attention from their persistent failures at good government.
Deeply damaging to and divisive for the country? Failing both refugees and our own population? Absolutely.
Deeply damaging to and divisive for the country is now par for the course on both sides.
Only one "side" has been in power for a very long time.
It's perfectly possible for the opposition - especially in a hung parliament - to act in a way which is deeply damaging to and divisive for the country.
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
You can stay to reform it, but from the backbenches. That's what many Labour MPs of principle did.
Starmer put his own career prospects ahead of Jews and others in this country and worked to potentially put Corbyn into Downing Street from a position where only a few seats needed to change hands in order to achieve that.
Okay.
Lisa Nandy did what you said and she was never close to being voted in. Your proposal would have led to RLB being the leader and the issue still remaining.
At least Lisa Nandy has principles and can hold her head up high.
I actually have more respect than you do it seems for decent Labour members than to think they'd have automatically voted for RLB had Starmer and other MPs had the backbone to go to the backbenches.
You don't know the Labour membership very well then.
Would you have voted for RLB had Starmer gone to the backbenches?
Why do you think so little of Labour members? I don't agree with their politics, but I don't think most Labour members are antisemitic.
No but I am not in the majority of the membership when Keir was going up for it.
I can tell you for a fact if it had been RLB vs Nandy, RLB would have won.
Starmer could have resigned to the backbenches when the antisemitism news broke and run for the leadership from the backbenches then - and could have beaten RLB.
He was willing to put his career ahead of standing up to antisemitism though and stood in the Shadow Cabinet with Corbyn seeking to make Corbyn PM. Simply saying "the British people will reject him, so I can stand with him" isn't principles.
He wouldn't have won.
So he didn't stand up against anti-semitism in Labour for three years "because he wouldn't have won".
Right. What a ringing endorsement to vote for Starmer in 2024....
To answer your question, because something is changing here. Labour are getting caught on the back foot, the Tories are grasping the narrative.
Anyone else sensing the current mood shift in tone and political narrative, as Tory’s on PB, in Con Home, out canvassing and just about Everywhere All At Once getting very bullish over how well this Tory fight back is going?
Maybe it’s been a mistake to watch polls so closely for signs of movement, maybe the first signs of the big polling shift and switcheroo in the polls actually indicated by a change of mood and growing confidence we pick up like this from party activists, canvassers and supporters?
It’s real. This is happening.
What - specifically - is happening. The big announcement is a non-policy. It cannot actually deliver even what it states, never mind the Sunak target.
I assume the plan is to pitch the Tories against the leftie establishment. "We would have stopped the boats had it not been for leftie lawyers, the courts, the Rwandans, the navy, the French, so vote for us and we promise to overcome all those enemies of the people in the way we utterly failed to do for the last 14 years" etc etc
"Stop the Boats" only has any prospect of being an electoral bonus if you actually stop the boats. Which you can't. So the group of people who still want the forrin to go home are hugely fed up with you, and the majority who have brains are hugely fed up with you.
Farage is going to demolish you over this policy failure.
Unfortuantely for all of us, the Conservatives have painted themselves into a corner here.
Starting point is that, unless they are prepared to go even further than they have so far, this is one that the government can't win. Even if the lawyers let them. Because even if you can send anyone to Rwanda, the policy collapses the moment Rwanda fills up. Which would take about a day and a half.
If you can't win, the best thing is to minimise the loss. Shut up about the issue, whilst quietly doing what you can. Talk about something else, anything else. But the current Conservative voters won't even let them do that.
"Rwanda fills up" - is the UK "full"? Why would Rwanda be "full"?
If you're serious about the policy, then you reach an agreement that every single person who crosses by boat is instantaneously flown overseas. Do not pass go, do not speak to a lawyer, do not have a night in the UK.
Do that and within a day and a half the number of small boats crossing the Channel would drop to zero.
That's exactly what happened in Australia and led to the number of small boat fatalities (which had been quite high) drop to zero and there hasn't been a single fatality from boat migrants as far as I'm aware in Australian waters in the past decade.
That's the evidence that this isn't a serious policy.
The Rwandan government has defended the controversial asylum agreement but said it only has the capacity to hold 200 migrants currently.
The African nation had originally agreed to take up to 1,000 migrants from the UK in a trial deal worth £120million.
Yes, they could scale up, but that would be a lot of investment to create capacity that would be used once.
"originally ... trial deal".
When Australia did this there was a trial sending only a few, then it was switched to everybody who crosses by boat with no exceptions.
If you're expecting lots of legal challenges then there's not much point spending more up front, but once the legal challenges are resolved then if you're serious then you can scale up rapidly - and then scale back down again as once you're serious, then people will stop making that journey.
You have to be serious about it though, and I'm not convinced the Government are. But that doesn't mean that the idea is a non-starter, the idea would work if the Government are serious about it.
Last year, there were 45000 small boat migrants, concentrated in the summer months. Rwanda are reckoning on processing claims in 3 months, and currently have one hostel with 200 beds. You need something about 50 times bigger if you plan to deport everyone.
If these numbers are right, https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/asylum-boats-statistics/ the Australian small boat migration peaked at less than one thousand a year. In that case, something like Rwanda might work. In the UK context, it's a cruel trick the government are playing on the gullible.
No you don't, you're making the classic fallacy of assuming that people don't change their behaviour when the law gets changed. There wouldn't be 45,000 crossing if everyone was being flown to Rwanda, there'd be zero crossing, you only need an agreement that everybody is taken and start it to great fanfare in the winter months not the summer months.
The numbers would drop to zero if you're serious about sending everyone. When the summer comes, people won't be trying to cross anymore if they know they'll get a one-way ticket to Rwanda if they do. So there wouldn't be 45k in the first place.
The answer might be "several years ago" of course. These things don't tend to occur at the first time of asking, and are based on a long relationship. Which can be spun negatively.
In the interview he confirms the position became available in October so it is likely that sometime since then he contacted her
He also confirmed he knew her before he came into politics but that is not the issue
He has cultivated a narrative of integrity but looks evasive when I do not understand why he cannot just confirm the date and end the matter
Oh, yes - I think he's doing exactly the wrong thing. "Obviously, I've known Sue since before I went into politics. I have wanted to work with her for a long time. This position became available in October and I/[whoever] contacted her [in]formally about it at that time. She was one of a very short list of candidates and I'm delighted she accepted." would seem reasonable, as you can then repeat it ad nauseam depending on which part the interviewer decides to press on.
You'd have thought that there would be a script for this?
I understand Civil Servants have moved into these positions many times before ... but the appointment of Sue Gray (notwithstanding her personal qualities) does look to me like a Labour mistake, because she ended up playing an important role in defenestration of a Tory PM.
It looks wrong, even if isn't.
The way it looks is very important in politics.
I'm confused. When the Gray report came out it exonerated Boris Johnson. A whitewash that didn't even investigate the dodgy stuff. Lauded by Johnson and his cabinet and PB Tories as a definitive line drawn and lets move on.
Yet now it, and not Pinchergate, actually brought him down?
It was a combination of events that sucker-punched the government. Most (perhaps all) had roots in Johnson's character flaws. Individually, he would probably have survived them.
If you truly believe that the Gray report was "A whitewash that didn't even investigate the dodgy stuff.", then you should be vociferously arguing against Gray taking a senior position in the Labour party. Because it would mean she was complicit in such a whitewash, and that's the last sort of person you want in that sort of role.
I do think her report was a whitewash and said so at the time. She didn't even investigate the Abba party as one example.
As for whomever Starmer appoints to the Labour party how is that anything to do with me, or even something I care one way or another about?
You're not interested in cleaner politics then?
I am awaiting someone demonstrating that appointing a former civil servant to be his Chief of Staff is not clean politics. The appointment is specifically to bring in someone who knows how government works to assist in what he hopes is their transition to government. Apparently he has known her for years, she's suddenly available having been shafted by Simon Case, so he made the appointment.
Its only dirty politics if Starmer manipulated Simon Case into attending one of the parties. Then manipulated Johnson into appointing Case into heading the investigation. Then manipulating the media to expose case and then Case having to recuse himself, then Johnson appointing Gray, then manipulating Rees-Mogg and the entire Tory party and their client media to praise Gray, then had Gray miss out all the juicy stuff that would have sunk Johnson, then manipulated Johnson, the Tories and their media to sing her praises. And to have Case ignore her promotion desires. And finally hire her as Chief of Staff.
Cleaner politics? If that is a dirty plot then I am more concerned that Starmer's first speech outside Downing Street isn't "His Majesty has asked me to form a government", but instead is "KNEEL BEFORE ZOD".
I can't understand Starmer's evasions about when Sue Gray was approached. Endlessly muttering that 'there was nothing improper' while refusing to answer a perfectly benign question, in itself creates an impression of suspicion. It's quite bizarre and dissembling never works - he should know that by now.
Yes. If the actual answer was ‘a month ago’, then he’d have said that straight.
That he doesn’t give a straight answer, suggests that the answer is less than helpful, with at least some overlap with her enquiry into the government from last year.
Hmm, if that were indeed the case, then things do get rather more problematic, don't they?
Starmer’s already admitted that they’ve known each other for years, presumamably since his time as DPP, so it’s not a massive stretch to think they have been in regular contact with each other since then.
Which could be spun a whole number of ways, from her report being a stitch-up to get Johnson in political trouble, to it being a whitewash to get Starmer out of his own ‘lockdown party’ hole.
The answer might be "several years ago" of course. These things don't tend to occur at the first time of asking, and are based on a long relationship. Which can be spun negatively.
In the interview he confirms the position became available in October so it is likely that sometime since then he contacted her
He also confirmed he knew her before he came into politics but that is not the issue
He has cultivated a narrative of integrity but looks evasive when I do not understand why he cannot just confirm the date and end the matter
Oh, yes - I think he's doing exactly the wrong thing. "Obviously, I've known Sue since before I went into politics. I have wanted to work with her for a long time. This position became available in October and I/[whoever] contacted her [in]formally about it at that time. She was one of a very short list of candidates and I'm delighted she accepted." would seem reasonable, as you can then repeat it ad nauseam depending on which part the interviewer decides to press on.
You'd have thought that there would be a script for this?
I understand Civil Servants have moved into these positions many times before ... but the appointment of Sue Gray (notwithstanding her personal qualities) does look to me like a Labour mistake, because she ended up playing an important role in defenestration of a Tory PM.
Of course Corbyn wasn't the only 2019 party leader with a long record of anti-semitism/racism. Can you tell me why Mr Sunak et al agreed to serve under Boris Johnson? Its a really easy answer by the way and exactly the same one applies to Starmer.
Of course Corbyn wasn't the only 2019 party leader with a long record of anti-semitism/racism. Can you tell me why Mr Sunak et al agreed to serve under Boris Johnson? Its a really easy answer by the way and exactly the same one applies to Starmer.
Why didn't Rishi Sunak resign before GE19 and fight Johnson from the backbenches?
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
You can stay to reform it, but from the backbenches. That's what many Labour MPs of principle did.
Starmer put his own career prospects ahead of Jews and others in this country and worked to potentially put Corbyn into Downing Street from a position where only a few seats needed to change hands in order to achieve that.
Okay.
Lisa Nandy did what you said and she was never close to being voted in. Your proposal would have led to RLB being the leader and the issue still remaining.
At least Lisa Nandy has principles and can hold her head up high.
I actually have more respect than you do it seems for decent Labour members than to think they'd have automatically voted for RLB had Starmer and other MPs had the backbone to go to the backbenches.
You don't know the Labour membership very well then.
Would you have voted for RLB had Starmer gone to the backbenches?
Why do you think so little of Labour members? I don't agree with their politics, but I don't think most Labour members are antisemitic.
No but I am not in the majority of the membership when Keir was going up for it.
I can tell you for a fact if it had been RLB vs Nandy, RLB would have won.
Starmer could have resigned to the backbenches when the antisemitism news broke and run for the leadership from the backbenches then - and could have beaten RLB.
He was willing to put his career ahead of standing up to antisemitism though and stood in the Shadow Cabinet with Corbyn seeking to make Corbyn PM. Simply saying "the British people will reject him, so I can stand with him" isn't principles.
He wouldn't have won.
So he didn't stand up against anti-semitism in Labour for three years "because he wouldn't have won".
Right. What a ringing endorsement to vote for Starmer in 2024....
Presumably you resigned your Tory membership to fight Johnson's racism?
The reality is that if Starmer hadn't done what he did, anti-Semitism would still be a problem and you'd be telling us that every day. But then you hate him anyway so why bother and convince you?
The answer might be "several years ago" of course. These things don't tend to occur at the first time of asking, and are based on a long relationship. Which can be spun negatively.
In the interview he confirms the position became available in October so it is likely that sometime since then he contacted her
He also confirmed he knew her before he came into politics but that is not the issue
He has cultivated a narrative of integrity but looks evasive when I do not understand why he cannot just confirm the date and end the matter
Oh, yes - I think he's doing exactly the wrong thing. "Obviously, I've known Sue since before I went into politics. I have wanted to work with her for a long time. This position became available in October and I/[whoever] contacted her [in]formally about it at that time. She was one of a very short list of candidates and I'm delighted she accepted." would seem reasonable, as you can then repeat it ad nauseam depending on which part the interviewer decides to press on.
You'd have thought that there would be a script for this?
I understand Civil Servants have moved into these positions many times before ... but the appointment of Sue Gray (notwithstanding her personal qualities) does look to me like a Labour mistake, because she ended up playing an important role in defenestration of a Tory PM.
It looks wrong, even if isn't.
The way it looks is very important in politics.
I'm confused. When the Gray report came out it exonerated Boris Johnson. A whitewash that didn't even investigate the dodgy stuff. Lauded by Johnson and his cabinet and PB Tories as a definitive line drawn and lets move on.
Yet now it, and not Pinchergate, actually brought him down?
It was a combination of events that sucker-punched the government. Most (perhaps all) had roots in Johnson's character flaws. Individually, he would probably have survived them.
If you truly believe that the Gray report was "A whitewash that didn't even investigate the dodgy stuff.", then you should be vociferously arguing against Gray taking a senior position in the Labour party. Because it would mean she was complicit in such a whitewash, and that's the last sort of person you want in that sort of role.
I do think her report was a whitewash and said so at the time. She didn't even investigate the Abba party as one example.
As for whomever Starmer appoints to the Labour party how is that anything to do with me, or even something I care one way or another about?
You're not interested in cleaner politics then?
I am awaiting someone demonstrating that appointing a former civil servant to be his Chief of Staff is not clean politics. The appointment is specifically to bring in someone who knows how government works to assist in what he hopes is their transition to government.
You don't see any issue with headhunting a current civil servant to help bring down the government?
Of course Corbyn wasn't the only 2019 party leader with a long record of anti-semitism/racism. Can you tell me why Mr Sunak et al agreed to serve under Boris Johnson? Its a really easy answer by the way and exactly the same one applies to Starmer.
Which other 2019 party leader had a long history of anti-semitism or another form of racism? Ideally your answer should extend outside of three specific articles which have been analysed to death and turned out to actually not be racist at all.
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
Would you stay in an organisation that had (to take a very extreme example) Hitler as leader, in hope of being able to reform it?
If your are against a wrong, or an evil, you get out. You do not become complicit.
Imagine if Corbyn had won in 2019 - as he might have done, with a few small changes. One of those changes are the brave people in Labour who did make a noise, who did leave, helped Corbyn lose.
Corbyn isn’t evil. Wrong, yes.
Is anti-Semtiism not just wrong, but evil?
Being Jewish enough to be interested in the result, personally.
Corbyn is an example of those in the left who can’t deal with the fact that minority groups can be racist. He can’t criticise or call our people in the Palestinian movement who are hard core antisemitic.
He himself is probably not anti-Semitic. Though several associates are.
This blindspot meant that anti-semitism grew in constrained where Corbyn and his associates were.
Simply abandoning the Labour Party to them would mean that anti-semitism would become “naturalised” there.
Yes, that sounds about right. Corbyn's sympathy for the Palestinian cause made him blind to the antisemitic views of some of those he supported, which was foolhardy and potentially dangerous. But calling him evil is setting rather a low bar for the definition of the word.
Do we think the "Palestinian cause" is in any teensy-weensy way anti-semitic.
To answer your question, because something is changing here. Labour are getting caught on the back foot, the Tories are grasping the narrative.
Anyone else sensing the current mood shift in tone and political narrative, as Tory’s on PB, in Con Home, out canvassing and just about Everywhere All At Once getting very bullish over how well this Tory fight back is going?
Maybe it’s been a mistake to watch polls so closely for signs of movement, maybe the first signs of the big polling shift and switcheroo in the polls actually indicated by a change of mood and growing confidence we pick up like this from party activists, canvassers and supporters?
It’s real. This is happening.
What - specifically - is happening. The big announcement is a non-policy. It cannot actually deliver even what it states, never mind the Sunak target.
I assume the plan is to pitch the Tories against the leftie establishment. "We would have stopped the boats had it not been for leftie lawyers, the courts, the Rwandans, the navy, the French, so vote for us and we promise to overcome all those enemies of the people in the way we utterly failed to do for the last 14 years" etc etc
"Stop the Boats" only has any prospect of being an electoral bonus if you actually stop the boats. Which you can't. So the group of people who still want the forrin to go home are hugely fed up with you, and the majority who have brains are hugely fed up with you.
Farage is going to demolish you over this policy failure.
Unfortuantely for all of us, the Conservatives have painted themselves into a corner here.
Starting point is that, unless they are prepared to go even further than they have so far, this is one that the government can't win. Even if the lawyers let them. Because even if you can send anyone to Rwanda, the policy collapses the moment Rwanda fills up. Which would take about a day and a half.
If you can't win, the best thing is to minimise the loss. Shut up about the issue, whilst quietly doing what you can. Talk about something else, anything else. But the current Conservative voters won't even let them do that.
And here is the comedy gold bit. Rwanda's capacity to take asylum seekers. Go ask them - they aren't hiding the fact that they wouldn't have taken planeloads had we sent them.
So look at the hurdles to cross: 1. Catch all the refugees - itself not as easy as suggested 2. House the refugees - we need to build an awful lot of additional capacity according to the government's own projections. And nowhere they have tried to do so will accept this - HUGE local protests. Because of 3. Secure the refugees. They keep walking off or being abducted. So having forced a concentration camp into a locality over the raging protests of their MP / Council / Residents / Rent a Racist mob you now need to have a significant force to guard them 4. Illegalise the refugees. It isn't as simple as banishing them. Or extracting ourselves from our post-war obligations. All 3 steps so far will go to court and the government itself is likely to be threatened with international action for breech of conventions. More "Enemies of the People" tactics only likely to unlock media exposure of the catastrophic cuts to the criminal justice system 5. Fly the refugees. It won't be a domestic carrier. Assume a hire-in from somewhere far away at vast cost. Assume it actually is licensed and safe. And the first refugee flight actually leaves. Once it lands in Rwanda, that is Rwanda full up.
So another round of TORIES TO STOP THE FORRIN INVADERS headlines and another round of abject failure to deliver anything at all.
And @MoonRabbit thinks this wins the Tories the next election!
Their capacity is that they'll take what we pay them to take. They've had this arrangement with multiple nations previously, and the United Nations, before. Which is why its all the more amusing that people want to appeal to the UNHRC that this is "illegal" when the UNHRC has this arrangement with Rwanda and is part of the legal precedent.
If you want them to take more, then you need to pay more, everything has a price and they're no more "full" than the UK is "full". Racists saying the UK is "full" are full of shit and saying it about another country is no more tolerant.
You have to be serious though if you're going to do it, and put your money and law where your mouth is. So far, the Government doesn't seem to be willing to do either. If you get serious about it, then the journeys across the Channel would drop to zero almost overnight, and then Rwanda wouldn't actually need to take any more, since people wouldn't be making the journey anymore, since people don't want to pay people smugglers in order to end up in Rwanda.
Rwanda says they can take 200. How much are you prepared to take to get that up to 1,000? or 10,000? Or however many we need cumulatively?
"Send them to Rwanda" appeals to children. But if we can't send them to Rwanda because Rwanda won't take them, this isn't going to work is it?
"You need to pay more" FFS and LOL - you know better than the Rwandan government about the ability or willingness of Rwanda to do what you demand.
They'd better watch out. Or we'll get out the Big Guns and send HYUFD in his little tank to sort them out.
EDIT have @HYUFD and Lt Gruber ever been seen in the same room?
200 is what Rwanda agreed to for a trial, it doesn't mean they can't or won't take more with more cash. Like the old joke with the actress goes, we know what you are now we're just haggling over price.
Israel reached a similar agreement with Rwanda years ago and 4000 were sent to Rwanda under it, not 200, so yes Rwanda has the capacity to take thousands not hundreds. If you were to implement a policy that absolutely every migrant who arrived on a small boat would automatically be sent to Rwanda then I expect we'd end up sending fewer there than Israel did, since the number of crossings would dry up before you hit 4000.
The answer might be "several years ago" of course. These things don't tend to occur at the first time of asking, and are based on a long relationship. Which can be spun negatively.
In the interview he confirms the position became available in October so it is likely that sometime since then he contacted her
He also confirmed he knew her before he came into politics but that is not the issue
He has cultivated a narrative of integrity but looks evasive when I do not understand why he cannot just confirm the date and end the matter
Oh, yes - I think he's doing exactly the wrong thing. "Obviously, I've known Sue since before I went into politics. I have wanted to work with her for a long time. This position became available in October and I/[whoever] contacted her [in]formally about it at that time. She was one of a very short list of candidates and I'm delighted she accepted." would seem reasonable, as you can then repeat it ad nauseam depending on which part the interviewer decides to press on.
You'd have thought that there would be a script for this?
I understand Civil Servants have moved into these positions many times before ... but the appointment of Sue Gray (notwithstanding her personal qualities) does look to me like a Labour mistake, because she ended up playing an important role in defenestration of a Tory PM.
It looks wrong, even if isn't.
The way it looks is very important in politics.
I'm confused. When the Gray report came out it exonerated Boris Johnson. A whitewash that didn't even investigate the dodgy stuff. Lauded by Johnson and his cabinet and PB Tories as a definitive line drawn and lets move on.
Yet now it, and not Pinchergate, actually brought him down?
As is usual, it was a culmination of many things. He could have survived Pincher-gate if his hands were clean before. His hands were filthy, and Party-gate was part of the filth (along with Patterson-gate and Wallpaper-gate).
I am not suggesting that Labour have done anything wrong. They have no doubt played by the book.
But, politics isn't fair. The look of things is very important. If you don't like that, you should not be in politics but in another career.
To give another example, I don't for a moment believe Jeremy Corbyn is personally anti-semitic. Nor does @NickPalmer who knows him better than anyone on this blog.
However, he bungled things and was supported by some antisemitic followers, so Corbyn ended up looking anti-semitic.
It was a major mistake by Corbyn not to realize how things would look
For ages I called Corbyn a 'passive' anti-Semite. In that he was not personally anti-Semitic, but was so blind to it that he could not call out anti-Semitism when it happened around him.
Then something happened (and I forget what), and I decided he was actually an active anti-Semite. Which I think is where I still stand.
Corbyn defines himself openly as being 'anti-racist'. He tells himself that he is, and because of that, any accusations of racism cannot be true, and are terrible slurs. But he does not explore what it *means* to be against racism; for instance what 'racism' is, and how it can vary between countries and societies. He knows, and therefore he's happy he cannot be racist. Ditto anti-Semitism. Of course he isn't anti-Semitic, because he's argued against racism all his life. Even if he did not recognise common anti-Semitic tropes.
Either's he's so unutterably thick as for the above to be true, or he is, in fact, anti-Semitic. And he may be many things, but he isn't thick.
He is definitely 100% anti-semitic. But he believes he isn't racist because he doesn't think you can be racist if you "punch up" and as far as he is concerned, as the Jews run the world, then any anti-Jewish sentiment is sticking it to the man and wholly justified.
It's the same with the poor. Lab believe the poor are heroes and say that they want to help them out of poverty. But as soon as they are no longer poor, and have moved out of that wafer-thin band of being "acceptably ok off" and become rich, then they are the enemy.
Same with Jews. When they were poor and downtrodden and needed saving post WWII Lab couldn't get enough of them. As they became strong they became the enemy.
To answer your question, because something is changing here. Labour are getting caught on the back foot, the Tories are grasping the narrative.
Anyone else sensing the current mood shift in tone and political narrative, as Tory’s on PB, in Con Home, out canvassing and just about Everywhere All At Once getting very bullish over how well this Tory fight back is going?
Maybe it’s been a mistake to watch polls so closely for signs of movement, maybe the first signs of the big polling shift and switcheroo in the polls actually indicated by a change of mood and growing confidence we pick up like this from party activists, canvassers and supporters?
It’s real. This is happening.
What - specifically - is happening. The big announcement is a non-policy. It cannot actually deliver even what it states, never mind the Sunak target.
I assume the plan is to pitch the Tories against the leftie establishment. "We would have stopped the boats had it not been for leftie lawyers, the courts, the Rwandans, the navy, the French, so vote for us and we promise to overcome all those enemies of the people in the way we utterly failed to do for the last 14 years" etc etc
"Stop the Boats" only has any prospect of being an electoral bonus if you actually stop the boats. Which you can't. So the group of people who still want the forrin to go home are hugely fed up with you, and the majority who have brains are hugely fed up with you.
Farage is going to demolish you over this policy failure.
Unfortuantely for all of us, the Conservatives have painted themselves into a corner here.
Starting point is that, unless they are prepared to go even further than they have so far, this is one that the government can't win. Even if the lawyers let them. Because even if you can send anyone to Rwanda, the policy collapses the moment Rwanda fills up. Which would take about a day and a half.
If you can't win, the best thing is to minimise the loss. Shut up about the issue, whilst quietly doing what you can. Talk about something else, anything else. But the current Conservative voters won't even let them do that.
"Rwanda fills up" - is the UK "full"? Why would Rwanda be "full"?
If you're serious about the policy, then you reach an agreement that every single person who crosses by boat is instantaneously flown overseas. Do not pass go, do not speak to a lawyer, do not have a night in the UK.
Do that and within a day and a half the number of small boats crossing the Channel would drop to zero.
That's exactly what happened in Australia and led to the number of small boat fatalities (which had been quite high) drop to zero and there hasn't been a single fatality from boat migrants as far as I'm aware in Australian waters in the past decade.
That's the evidence that this isn't a serious policy.
The Rwandan government has defended the controversial asylum agreement but said it only has the capacity to hold 200 migrants currently.
The African nation had originally agreed to take up to 1,000 migrants from the UK in a trial deal worth £120million.
Yes, they could scale up, but that would be a lot of investment to create capacity that would be used once.
"originally ... trial deal".
When Australia did this there was a trial sending only a few, then it was switched to everybody who crosses by boat with no exceptions.
If you're expecting lots of legal challenges then there's not much point spending more up front, but once the legal challenges are resolved then if you're serious then you can scale up rapidly - and then scale back down again as once you're serious, then people will stop making that journey.
You have to be serious about it though, and I'm not convinced the Government are. But that doesn't mean that the idea is a non-starter, the idea would work if the Government are serious about it.
Last year, there were 45000 small boat migrants, concentrated in the summer months. Rwanda are reckoning on processing claims in 3 months, and currently have one hostel with 200 beds. You need something about 50 times bigger if you plan to deport everyone.
If these numbers are right, https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/asylum-boats-statistics/ the Australian small boat migration peaked at less than one thousand a year. In that case, something like Rwanda might work. In the UK context, it's a cruel trick the government are playing on the gullible.
No you don't, you're making the classic fallacy of assuming that people don't change their behaviour when the law gets changed. There wouldn't be 45,000 crossing if everyone was being flown to Rwanda, there'd be zero crossing, you only need an agreement that everybody is taken and start it to great fanfare in the winter months not the summer months.
The numbers would drop to zero if you're serious about sending everyone. When the summer comes, people won't be trying to cross anymore if they know they'll get a one-way ticket to Rwanda if they do. So there wouldn't be 45k in the first place.
You might not need 45k, but you need way more than 0.2k.
Punishing bad behaviour is one of the things I have to know about, because I'm a teacher.
And as such, I can tell you that a punishment system that reaches capacity is worse than useless. You can do a jumbo jet full of migrants to great fanfare. But as it stands, then you probably can't send anyone for three months. Shortly after your "ooh, they're sending people to Rwanda", you get "ah, they've stopped because they have no capacity".
Trust me on this one. If you really want to go draconian, you really have to go really big. Or you're worse off than you were before.
The answer might be "several years ago" of course. These things don't tend to occur at the first time of asking, and are based on a long relationship. Which can be spun negatively.
In the interview he confirms the position became available in October so it is likely that sometime since then he contacted her
He also confirmed he knew her before he came into politics but that is not the issue
He has cultivated a narrative of integrity but looks evasive when I do not understand why he cannot just confirm the date and end the matter
Oh, yes - I think he's doing exactly the wrong thing. "Obviously, I've known Sue since before I went into politics. I have wanted to work with her for a long time. This position became available in October and I/[whoever] contacted her [in]formally about it at that time. She was one of a very short list of candidates and I'm delighted she accepted." would seem reasonable, as you can then repeat it ad nauseam depending on which part the interviewer decides to press on.
You'd have thought that there would be a script for this?
I understand Civil Servants have moved into these positions many times before ... but the appointment of Sue Gray (notwithstanding her personal qualities) does look to me like a Labour mistake, because she ended up playing an important role in defenestration of a Tory PM.
It looks wrong, even if isn't.
The way it looks is very important in politics.
I'm confused. When the Gray report came out it exonerated Boris Johnson. A whitewash that didn't even investigate the dodgy stuff. Lauded by Johnson and his cabinet and PB Tories as a definitive line drawn and lets move on.
Yet now it, and not Pinchergate, actually brought him down?
It was a combination of events that sucker-punched the government. Most (perhaps all) had roots in Johnson's character flaws. Individually, he would probably have survived them.
If you truly believe that the Gray report was "A whitewash that didn't even investigate the dodgy stuff.", then you should be vociferously arguing against Gray taking a senior position in the Labour party. Because it would mean she was complicit in such a whitewash, and that's the last sort of person you want in that sort of role.
I do think her report was a whitewash and said so at the time. She didn't even investigate the Abba party as one example.
As for whomever Starmer appoints to the Labour party how is that anything to do with me, or even something I care one way or another about?
You're not interested in cleaner politics then?
I am awaiting someone demonstrating that appointing a former civil servant to be his Chief of Staff is not clean politics. The appointment is specifically to bring in someone who knows how government works to assist in what he hopes is their transition to government.
You don't see any issue with headhunting a current civil servant to help bring down the government?
True, that job is normally left for back stabbing cabinet colleagues. Who will stand up for them?
F1: backed Perez each way at 7 (boosted) to win. All the Verstappen and Alonso chat has lef tsome to neglect the fact Perez was over a pit stop ahead of Alonso. For him to be profitable if the each way aspect only comes in is daft. The Red Bull was just faster than everyone else.
To answer your question, because something is changing here. Labour are getting caught on the back foot, the Tories are grasping the narrative.
Anyone else sensing the current mood shift in tone and political narrative, as Tory’s on PB, in Con Home, out canvassing and just about Everywhere All At Once getting very bullish over how well this Tory fight back is going?
Maybe it’s been a mistake to watch polls so closely for signs of movement, maybe the first signs of the big polling shift and switcheroo in the polls actually indicated by a change of mood and growing confidence we pick up like this from party activists, canvassers and supporters?
It’s real. This is happening.
What - specifically - is happening. The big announcement is a non-policy. It cannot actually deliver even what it states, never mind the Sunak target.
I assume the plan is to pitch the Tories against the leftie establishment. "We would have stopped the boats had it not been for leftie lawyers, the courts, the Rwandans, the navy, the French, so vote for us and we promise to overcome all those enemies of the people in the way we utterly failed to do for the last 14 years" etc etc
"Stop the Boats" only has any prospect of being an electoral bonus if you actually stop the boats. Which you can't. So the group of people who still want the forrin to go home are hugely fed up with you, and the majority who have brains are hugely fed up with you.
Farage is going to demolish you over this policy failure.
Unfortuantely for all of us, the Conservatives have painted themselves into a corner here.
Starting point is that, unless they are prepared to go even further than they have so far, this is one that the government can't win. Even if the lawyers let them. Because even if you can send anyone to Rwanda, the policy collapses the moment Rwanda fills up. Which would take about a day and a half.
If you can't win, the best thing is to minimise the loss. Shut up about the issue, whilst quietly doing what you can. Talk about something else, anything else. But the current Conservative voters won't even let them do that.
"Rwanda fills up" - is the UK "full"? Why would Rwanda be "full"?
If you're serious about the policy, then you reach an agreement that every single person who crosses by boat is instantaneously flown overseas. Do not pass go, do not speak to a lawyer, do not have a night in the UK.
Do that and within a day and a half the number of small boats crossing the Channel would drop to zero.
That's exactly what happened in Australia and led to the number of small boat fatalities (which had been quite high) drop to zero and there hasn't been a single fatality from boat migrants as far as I'm aware in Australian waters in the past decade.
That's the evidence that this isn't a serious policy.
The Rwandan government has defended the controversial asylum agreement but said it only has the capacity to hold 200 migrants currently.
The African nation had originally agreed to take up to 1,000 migrants from the UK in a trial deal worth £120million.
Yes, they could scale up, but that would be a lot of investment to create capacity that would be used once.
"originally ... trial deal".
When Australia did this there was a trial sending only a few, then it was switched to everybody who crosses by boat with no exceptions.
If you're expecting lots of legal challenges then there's not much point spending more up front, but once the legal challenges are resolved then if you're serious then you can scale up rapidly - and then scale back down again as once you're serious, then people will stop making that journey.
You have to be serious about it though, and I'm not convinced the Government are. But that doesn't mean that the idea is a non-starter, the idea would work if the Government are serious about it.
Last year, there were 45000 small boat migrants, concentrated in the summer months. Rwanda are reckoning on processing claims in 3 months, and currently have one hostel with 200 beds. You need something about 50 times bigger if you plan to deport everyone.
If these numbers are right, https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/asylum-boats-statistics/ the Australian small boat migration peaked at less than one thousand a year. In that case, something like Rwanda might work. In the UK context, it's a cruel trick the government are playing on the gullible.
No you don't, you're making the classic fallacy of assuming that people don't change their behaviour when the law gets changed. There wouldn't be 45,000 crossing if everyone was being flown to Rwanda, there'd be zero crossing, you only need an agreement that everybody is taken and start it to great fanfare in the winter months not the summer months.
The numbers would drop to zero if you're serious about sending everyone. When the summer comes, people won't be trying to cross anymore if they know they'll get a one-way ticket to Rwanda if they do. So there wouldn't be 45k in the first place.
You might not need 45k, but you need way more than 0.2k.
Punishing bad behaviour is one of the things I have to know about, because I'm a teacher.
And as such, I can tell you that a punishment system that reaches capacity is worse than useless. You can do a jumbo jet full of migrants to great fanfare. But as it stands, then you probably can't send anyone for three months. Shortly after your "ooh, they're sending people to Rwanda", you get "ah, they've stopped because they have no capacity".
Trust me on this one. If you really want to go draconian, you really have to go really big. Or you're worse off than you were before.
If it's a PR stunt, none of this applies.
I completely agree with you, then you need to go big and for this to work it needs to apply to everyone.
However do you agree with me that if it were draconian and applied to everyone, then it would work, and the numbers would be much smaller than 45,000? Perhaps closer to the 4,000 that they took from Israel under a similar scheme a few years ago?
Given the fact that we're a sovereign country and can do whatever we like, why not just say we can shoot dead on sight anyone attempting to enter the country llegally?
The answer might be "several years ago" of course. These things don't tend to occur at the first time of asking, and are based on a long relationship. Which can be spun negatively.
In the interview he confirms the position became available in October so it is likely that sometime since then he contacted her
He also confirmed he knew her before he came into politics but that is not the issue
He has cultivated a narrative of integrity but looks evasive when I do not understand why he cannot just confirm the date and end the matter
Oh, yes - I think he's doing exactly the wrong thing. "Obviously, I've known Sue since before I went into politics. I have wanted to work with her for a long time. This position became available in October and I/[whoever] contacted her [in]formally about it at that time. She was one of a very short list of candidates and I'm delighted she accepted." would seem reasonable, as you can then repeat it ad nauseam depending on which part the interviewer decides to press on.
You'd have thought that there would be a script for this?
I understand Civil Servants have moved into these positions many times before ... but the appointment of Sue Gray (notwithstanding her personal qualities) does look to me like a Labour mistake, because she ended up playing an important role in defenestration of a Tory PM.
It looks wrong, even if isn't.
The way it looks is very important in politics.
I'm confused. When the Gray report came out it exonerated Boris Johnson. A whitewash that didn't even investigate the dodgy stuff. Lauded by Johnson and his cabinet and PB Tories as a definitive line drawn and lets move on.
Yet now it, and not Pinchergate, actually brought him down?
It was a combination of events that sucker-punched the government. Most (perhaps all) had roots in Johnson's character flaws. Individually, he would probably have survived them.
If you truly believe that the Gray report was "A whitewash that didn't even investigate the dodgy stuff.", then you should be vociferously arguing against Gray taking a senior position in the Labour party. Because it would mean she was complicit in such a whitewash, and that's the last sort of person you want in that sort of role.
I do think her report was a whitewash and said so at the time. She didn't even investigate the Abba party as one example.
As for whomever Starmer appoints to the Labour party how is that anything to do with me, or even something I care one way or another about?
You're not interested in cleaner politics then?
I am awaiting someone demonstrating that appointing a former civil servant to be his Chief of Staff is not clean politics. The appointment is specifically to bring in someone who knows how government works to assist in what he hopes is their transition to government.
You don't see any issue with headhunting a current civil servant to help bring down the government?
To help govern after this one has been brought down (aka beaten at the GE). This is where SKS needs the help. The 'brought down' bit is child's play now.
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
You can stay to reform it, but from the backbenches. That's what many Labour MPs of principle did.
Starmer put his own career prospects ahead of Jews and others in this country and worked to potentially put Corbyn into Downing Street from a position where only a few seats needed to change hands in order to achieve that.
Okay.
Lisa Nandy did what you said and she was never close to being voted in. Your proposal would have led to RLB being the leader and the issue still remaining.
At least Lisa Nandy has principles and can hold her head up high.
I actually have more respect than you do it seems for decent Labour members than to think they'd have automatically voted for RLB had Starmer and other MPs had the backbone to go to the backbenches.
You don't know the Labour membership very well then.
Would you have voted for RLB had Starmer gone to the backbenches?
Why do you think so little of Labour members? I don't agree with their politics, but I don't think most Labour members are antisemitic.
No but I am not in the majority of the membership when Keir was going up for it.
I can tell you for a fact if it had been RLB vs Nandy, RLB would have won.
Starmer could have resigned to the backbenches when the antisemitism news broke and run for the leadership from the backbenches then - and could have beaten RLB.
He was willing to put his career ahead of standing up to antisemitism though and stood in the Shadow Cabinet with Corbyn seeking to make Corbyn PM. Simply saying "the British people will reject him, so I can stand with him" isn't principles.
Starmer might have won from the backbenches, had he resigned and chosen to join those openly seeking to undermine Corbyn's leadership from there. But by taking the actions that he did, Starmer greatly improved the chances that he would win. And his actions have been vindicated, in that he not only won but has since rescued Labour from the utter abyss that it had sunk into under Corbyn.
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
Would you stay in an organisation that had (to take a very extreme example) Hitler as leader, in hope of being able to reform it?
If your are against a wrong, or an evil, you get out. You do not become complicit.
Imagine if Corbyn had won in 2019 - as he might have done, with a few small changes. One of those changes are the brave people in Labour who did make a noise, who did leave, helped Corbyn lose.
Its the von Papen gambit. Stay and serve on the assumption that you can remove all the dodgy shit which the lunatic isn't serious about anyway? Or get the hell out of the country?
Corbyn was not going to win in 2019. Come on.
The polling certainly said so. It strikes me that a lot of people who voted for Pangloss Johnson found Corbyn to be a convenient fig leaf. Quite a few of them were stout defenders of PM Johnson’s subsequent arseholery for a VERY long time.
The majority of Conservative MPs will not vote to suspend Johnson, not least as it would see further leakage from the Tories to RefUK.
Plus of course Sue Gray who wrote the original report on Johnson's partygate breaches now works for Starmer
And thus the justifications of the MPs will go.
Boris apologised for the breaches she wrote about and yet they are actually arguing, in effect, that she must have made it all up somehow because she's Labour.
It does seem somewhat politically naive of Starmer, to have hired Gray before the enquiry into Johnson was complete. He’s giving the Tory MPs ammunition to get behind Johnson, when many of them might have been at best on the fence.
It's entirely possible Starmer does not have the best interests of the Conservative Party at heart.....
The majority of Conservative MPs will not vote to suspend Johnson, not least as it would see further leakage from the Tories to RefUK.
Plus of course Sue Gray who wrote the original report on Johnson's partygate breaches now works for Starmer
And thus the justifications of the MPs will go.
Boris apologised for the breaches she wrote about and yet they are actually arguing, in effect, that she must have made it all up somehow because she's Labour.
It does seem somewhat politically naive of Starmer, to have hired Gray before the enquiry into Johnson was complete. He’s giving the Tory MPs ammunition to get behind Johnson, when many of them might have been at best on the fence.
It's entirely possible Starmer does not have the best interests of the Conservative Party at heart.....
Impossible, Twitter has told me he is a Tory after all.
The thing is, the BoD, JLM and EHRC have all said Starmer has done the right thing. If anti-Semitism was still a big problem for Labour these critics would have a point but it isn't. So therefore this is just Tories being Tories, they don't actually care about the issue itself.
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
Would you stay in an organisation that had (to take a very extreme example) Hitler as leader, in hope of being able to reform it?
If your are against a wrong, or an evil, you get out. You do not become complicit.
Imagine if Corbyn had won in 2019 - as he might have done, with a few small changes. One of those changes are the brave people in Labour who did make a noise, who did leave, helped Corbyn lose.
Corbyn isn’t evil. Wrong, yes.
Is anti-Semtiism not just wrong, but evil?
Being Jewish enough to be interested in the result, personally.
Corbyn is an example of those in the left who can’t deal with the fact that minority groups can be racist. He can’t criticise or call our people in the Palestinian movement who are hard core antisemitic.
He himself is probably not anti-Semitic. Though several associates are.
This blindspot meant that anti-semitism grew in constrained where Corbyn and his associates were.
Simply abandoning the Labour Party to them would mean that anti-semitism would become “naturalised” there.
Yes, that sounds about right. Corbyn's sympathy for the Palestinian cause made him blind to the antisemitic views of some of those he supported, which was foolhardy and potentially dangerous. But calling him evil is setting rather a low bar for the definition of the word.
Do we think the "Palestinian cause" is in any teensy-weensy way anti-semitic.
That probably says everything that needs to be said about the far-right's accusations of anti-semitism against Corbyn.
Given the fact that we're a sovereign country and can do whatever we like, why not just say we can shoot dead on sight anyone attempting to enter the country llegally?
Just make them all stateless. That's the solution to all our problems.
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
Would you stay in an organisation that had (to take a very extreme example) Hitler as leader, in hope of being able to reform it?
If your are against a wrong, or an evil, you get out. You do not become complicit.
Imagine if Corbyn had won in 2019 - as he might have done, with a few small changes. One of those changes are the brave people in Labour who did make a noise, who did leave, helped Corbyn lose.
Its the von Papen gambit. Stay and serve on the assumption that you can remove all the dodgy shit which the lunatic isn't serious about anyway? Or get the hell out of the country?
Corbyn was not going to win in 2019. Come on.
The polling certainly said so. It strikes me that a lot of people who voted for Pangloss Johnson found Corbyn to be a convenient fig leaf. Quite a few of them were stout defenders of PM Johnson’s subsequent arseholery for a VERY long time.
I voted for Johnson and don't regret it for one moment, despite the fact that I yield to no one in my estimation of him as a solipsistic, incompetent, lying twat.
The risk of Jezza getting into No.10 was just too high.
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
Would you stay in an organisation that had (to take a very extreme example) Hitler as leader, in hope of being able to reform it?
If your are against a wrong, or an evil, you get out. You do not become complicit.
Imagine if Corbyn had won in 2019 - as he might have done, with a few small changes. One of those changes are the brave people in Labour who did make a noise, who did leave, helped Corbyn lose.
Corbyn isn’t evil. Wrong, yes.
Is anti-Semtiism not just wrong, but evil?
Being Jewish enough to be interested in the result, personally.
Corbyn is an example of those in the left who can’t deal with the fact that minority groups can be racist. He can’t criticise or call our people in the Palestinian movement who are hard core antisemitic.
He himself is probably not anti-Semitic. Though several associates are.
This blindspot meant that anti-semitism grew in constrained where Corbyn and his associates were.
Simply abandoning the Labour Party to them would mean that anti-semitism would become “naturalised” there.
Yes, that sounds about right. Corbyn's sympathy for the Palestinian cause made him blind to the antisemitic views of some of those he supported, which was foolhardy and potentially dangerous. But calling him evil is setting rather a low bar for the definition of the word.
Do we think the "Palestinian cause" is in any teensy-weensy way anti-semitic.
What’s your preferred term for the miserable condition that Palestinian people find themselves in?
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
Would you stay in an organisation that had (to take a very extreme example) Hitler as leader, in hope of being able to reform it?
If your are against a wrong, or an evil, you get out. You do not become complicit.
Imagine if Corbyn had won in 2019 - as he might have done, with a few small changes. One of those changes are the brave people in Labour who did make a noise, who did leave, helped Corbyn lose.
Corbyn isn’t evil. Wrong, yes.
Is anti-Semtiism not just wrong, but evil?
Being Jewish enough to be interested in the result, personally.
Corbyn is an example of those in the left who can’t deal with the fact that minority groups can be racist. He can’t criticise or call our people in the Palestinian movement who are hard core antisemitic.
He himself is probably not anti-Semitic. Though several associates are.
This blindspot meant that anti-semitism grew in constrained where Corbyn and his associates were.
Simply abandoning the Labour Party to them would mean that anti-semitism would become “naturalised” there.
Yes, that sounds about right. Corbyn's sympathy for the Palestinian cause made him blind to the antisemitic views of some of those he supported, which was foolhardy and potentially dangerous. But calling him evil is setting rather a low bar for the definition of the word.
Do we think the "Palestinian cause" is in any teensy-weensy way anti-semitic.
Is that an ironic question?! The answer is No. The Palestinians have an historic, justified grievance against the state of Israel (and the powers that enabled Israel’s creation and ‘overlooked’ the excesses that followed)
Has that grievance often shaded into outright Jew-hatred? Yes, of course. And it is this line that Corbyn has crossed, many times, wittingly or not
Let us be honest about the utterly desperate and embarrassing position the Tory Party is in.
A PM fined for lying and then sacked by his own MPs for lying, is now being defended by the very people that sacked him on the grounds he was "stitched up". This is post truth, it is lies, they are playing the public for absolute fools.
The Tory Party needs to go and re-discover honesty and integrity as clearly right now it is completely bankrupt of it.
The problem is that Labour supporters tend to be the same. Look at all the Labour figures who defended Corbyn whilst he was leader - including Starmer. It's their team, so they'll defend it whatever.
Something needs to change. As I have admitted honestly, I did fall into this trap and intend never to do so again. So I say this as somebody who has come from that place, something has to be done.
IMV there are several aspects to this. I'd like to see a little more compassion. Politicians are people too, and make mistakes. Some mistakes can be forgivable, especially when acted on with limited information (see Covid etc), or in fraught circumstances. Persecuting people who make honest well-meant mistakes just causes people to hide stuff, and that's bad for everyone.
And that means as much for your opponents as your side.
I had been increasingly and vocally unhappy for a while. My naïve 'back the underdog' approach had led me to briefly back Corbyn followed by a rapid "what have I done" and then horror as what appeared to be a tidal wave of trots poured into the party both locally and nationally.
I went to the CLP antisemitism training session - a mandatory meeting imposed on all CLPs by HQ in response to the increasing furore about what Jeremy was saying and who he was associating with. The party training document had a strident definition of AS and why it was wrong signed by Jeremy. And as trots foamed on in anger at some good friends' contributions in the meeting, I read again the AS definition signed by JC, and looked at the photos of JC marching behind a clearly AS banner next to AS signs, which his own document said was AS, felt this cleansing calm, stood up and walked out of the meeting and the Labour Party.
You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. Replace Jeremy as leader and purge the trots. Had he not done so then we'd probably have Wrong-Daily as leader and Boris would be stepping corruption up to ever greater levels. I was a nobody, I could quit. Starmer could not.
"You can't say "ah but Keir Starmer" because for someone in his position the national interest is to stay and fight the cancer. "
That's not a very convincing excuse IMO. Starmer stayed in because he wanted to be leader.
Do you stay to reform an organisation or abandon it?
History says that leaving the Labour Party out of principal lengthened the period, in the 80s when Labour previous made itself unelectable. And didn’t get the leavers (ha!) into power either.
If Starmer & Co. had redone the Gang Of Four, Corbynism would have lasted much longer.
Would you stay in an organisation that had (to take a very extreme example) Hitler as leader, in hope of being able to reform it?
If your are against a wrong, or an evil, you get out. You do not become complicit.
Imagine if Corbyn had won in 2019 - as he might have done, with a few small changes. One of those changes are the brave people in Labour who did make a noise, who did leave, helped Corbyn lose.
Corbyn isn’t evil. Wrong, yes.
Is anti-Semtiism not just wrong, but evil?
Being Jewish enough to be interested in the result, personally.
Corbyn is an example of those in the left who can’t deal with the fact that minority groups can be racist. He can’t criticise or call our people in the Palestinian movement who are hard core antisemitic.
He himself is probably not anti-Semitic. Though several associates are.
This blindspot meant that anti-semitism grew in constrained where Corbyn and his associates were.
Simply abandoning the Labour Party to them would mean that anti-semitism would become “naturalised” there.
Yes, that sounds about right. Corbyn's sympathy for the Palestinian cause made him blind to the antisemitic views of some of those he supported, which was foolhardy and potentially dangerous. But calling him evil is setting rather a low bar for the definition of the word.
Do we think the "Palestinian cause" is in any teensy-weensy way anti-semitic.
No. It is anti the way the Israeli Government treats the Palestinians which has got much worse recently. Many Jews are horrified by the latest developments and are protesting loudly.
There may be anti-Jews who also support the Palestinian cause just as there are many anti-Palestinians who support Netanhayu.
The way Palestinians are being treated by the Israeli government and the settler movement is an absolute disgrace. And no - I'm definitely not antisemitic.
Comments
Corbyn was not going to win in 2019. Come on.
Starting point is that, unless they are prepared to go even further than they have so far, this is one that the government can't win. Even if the lawyers let them. Because even if you can send anyone to Rwanda, the policy collapses the moment Rwanda fills up. Which would take about a day and a half.
If you can't win, the best thing is to minimise the loss. Shut up about the issue, whilst quietly doing what you can. Talk about something else, anything else. But the current Conservative voters won't even let them do that.
Anyone want to disagree with my conclusions here?
(Edit: 2019 - in hindsight. I remember how terrified I was in the last few minutes before the exit poll, after the shock of how close he came two years previously)
Starmer put his own career prospects ahead of Jews and others in this country and worked to potentially put Corbyn into Downing Street from a position where only a few seats needed to change hands in order to achieve that.
Apparently, they got to know one another over a beer and curry during lockdown.
Lisa Nandy did what you said and she was never close to being voted in. Your proposal would have led to RLB being the leader and the issue still remaining.
I have admonished @HYUFD on suggesting that her report was tainted which clearly it was not
I consistently reject Johnson and his ridiculous attempt to use this as an escape route
However, it is fair to ask when her appointment was discussed and for Starmer to answer
It is also apparent the civil service themselves have concerns over the appointment
It will no doubt be resolved in due course with her taking a period of gardening leave
I actually have more respect than you do it seems for decent Labour members than to think they'd have automatically voted for RLB had Starmer and other MPs had the backbone to go to the backbenches.
Best case, they are too frit to say it.
More likely, they prefer their legislation to be blocked by the courts as it absolves them (in their voters minds) of dealing with a complex problem and passes the blame onto "liberals".
Corbyn is an example of those in the left who can’t deal with the fact that minority groups can be racist. He can’t criticise or call our people in the Palestinian movement who are hard core antisemitic.
He himself is probably not anti-Semitic. Though several associates are.
This blindspot meant that anti-semitism grew in constrained where Corbyn and his associates were.
Simply abandoning the Labour Party to them would mean that anti-semitism would become “naturalised” there.
To have any deterrent in place, those travelling need to know you have a deterrent in place. The deterrent being just how pointless their crossing is - because we have ripped up every agreement we had and initially led the way on with rest of world, about how humane humanity must be - but those making these journeys are never going to know that. All they will learn is the traffickers spin, they will never hear of our hard deterrent. That’s why deterrent factor won’t work, in reality.
But then, every Tory politician telling us there must be a deterrent and it will work don’t believe for a second it will, they really arn’t that stupid. This policy works because UK voters will get to know there’s a hard ball deterrent. That’s why it’s a strong policy, that’s where it works. Probably.
If you're serious about the policy, then you reach an agreement that every single person who crosses by boat is instantaneously flown overseas. Do not pass go, do not speak to a lawyer, do not have a night in the UK.
Do that and within a day and a half the number of small boats crossing the Channel would drop to zero.
That's exactly what happened in Australia and led to the number of small boat fatalities (which had been quite high) drop to zero and there hasn't been a single fatality from boat migrants as far as I'm aware in Australian waters in the past decade.
Besides, there's an alternate view that also fits. That Starmer actually is not that bothered about anti-Semitism, except as a tool to get power in the party. I don't think that's the case, but it also fits well.
So look at the hurdles to cross:
1. Catch all the refugees - itself not as easy as suggested
2. House the refugees - we need to build an awful lot of additional capacity according to the government's own projections. And nowhere they have tried to do so will accept this - HUGE local protests. Because of
3. Secure the refugees. They keep walking off or being abducted. So having forced a concentration camp into a locality over the raging protests of their MP / Council / Residents / Rent a Racist mob you now need to have a significant force to guard them
4. Illegalise the refugees. It isn't as simple as banishing them. Or extracting ourselves from our post-war obligations. All 3 steps so far will go to court and the government itself is likely to be threatened with international action for breech of conventions. More "Enemies of the People" tactics only likely to unlock media exposure of the catastrophic cuts to the criminal justice system
5. Fly the refugees. It won't be a domestic carrier. Assume a hire-in from somewhere far away at vast cost. Assume it actually is licensed and safe. And the first refugee flight actually leaves. Once it lands in Rwanda, that is Rwanda full up.
So another round of TORIES TO STOP THE FORRIN INVADERS headlines and another round of abject failure to deliver anything at all.
And @MoonRabbit thinks this wins the Tories the next election!
Why do you think so little of Labour members? I don't agree with their politics, but I don't think most Labour members are antisemitic.
If you truly believe that the Gray report was "A whitewash that didn't even investigate the dodgy stuff.", then you should be vociferously arguing against Gray taking a senior position in the Labour party. Because it would mean she was complicit in such a whitewash, and that's the last sort of person you want in that sort of role.
I am not suggesting that Labour have done anything wrong. They have no doubt played by the book.
But, politics isn't fair. The look of things is very important. If you don't like that, you should not be in politics but in another career.
To give another example, I don't for a moment believe Jeremy Corbyn is personally anti-semitic. Nor does @NickPalmer who knows him better than anyone on this blog.
However, he bungled things and was supported by some antisemitic followers, so Corbyn ended up looking anti-semitic.
It was a major mistake by Corbyn not to realize how things would look
I can tell you for a fact if it had been RLB vs Nandy, RLB would have won.
As a result, criticism of the current Israeli regime's despicable behaviour is very muted and not spoken of much in 'polite society'. To his credit, David Lammy has voiced some doubts about what they are up to.
If you want them to take more, then you need to pay more, everything has a price and they're no more "full" than the UK is "full". Racists saying the UK is "full" are full of shit and saying it about another country is no more tolerant.
You have to be serious though if you're going to do it, and put your money and law where your mouth is. So far, the Government doesn't seem to be willing to do either. If you get serious about it, then the journeys across the Channel would drop to zero almost overnight, and then Rwanda wouldn't actually need to take any more, since people wouldn't be making the journey anymore, since people don't want to pay people smugglers in order to end up in Rwanda.
As for whomever Starmer appoints to the Labour party how is that anything to do with me, or even something I care one way or another about?
The Rwandan government has defended the controversial asylum agreement but said it only has the capacity to hold 200 migrants currently.
The African nation had originally agreed to take up to 1,000 migrants from the UK in a trial deal worth £120million.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/rwanda-asylum-deal-uk-asylum-seekers-yolande-makolo-b1014266.html
Yes, they could scale up, but that would be a lot of investment to create capacity that would be used once.
He was willing to put his career ahead of standing up to antisemitism though and stood in the Shadow Cabinet with Corbyn seeking to make Corbyn PM. Simply saying "the British people will reject him, so I can stand with him" isn't principles.
When Australia did this there was a trial sending only a few, then it was switched to everybody who crosses by boat with no exceptions.
If you're expecting lots of legal challenges then there's not much point spending more up front, but once the legal challenges are resolved then if you're serious then you can scale up rapidly - and then scale back down again as once you're serious, then people will stop making that journey.
You have to be serious about it though, and I'm not convinced the Government are. But that doesn't mean that the idea is a non-starter, the idea would work if the Government are serious about it.
Then something happened (and I forget what), and I decided he was actually an active anti-Semite. Which I think is where I still stand.
Corbyn defines himself openly as being 'anti-racist'. He tells himself that he is, and because of that, any accusations of racism cannot be true, and are terrible slurs. But he does not explore what it *means* to be against racism; for instance what 'racism' is, and how it can vary between countries and societies. He knows, and therefore he's happy he cannot be racist. Ditto anti-Semitism. Of course he isn't anti-Semitic, because he's argued against racism all his life. Even if he did not recognise common anti-Semitic tropes.
Either's he's so unutterably thick as for the above to be true, or he is, in fact, anti-Semitic. And he may be many things, but he isn't thick.
Deeply damaging to and divisive for the country? Failing both refugees and our own population? Absolutely.
Besides, I don't take anything Jacob Rees-Work has to say seriously.
Sue Gray. Served in Corbyn's SC. Beer and curry. Jimmy Saville. Boring. Lives in Islington. Lawyer. Supports Arsenal. Something about donkeys. Attended a school that subsequently went private.
I reckon a bit more substance will be needed for his defeat to be guaranteed.
It will be interesting to see if they do.
Frost was appointed by Johnson in November 2016, three years later, so no they are not comparable
If these numbers are right,
https://www.refugeecouncil.org.au/asylum-boats-statistics/
the Australian small boat migration peaked at less than one thousand a year. In that case, something like Rwanda might work. In the UK context, it's a cruel trick the government are playing on the gullible.
That he doesn’t give a straight answer, suggests that the answer is less than helpful, with at least some overlap with her enquiry into the government from last year.
"Send them to Rwanda" appeals to children. But if we can't send them to Rwanda because Rwanda won't take them, this isn't going to work is it?
"You need to pay more" FFS and LOL - you know better than the Rwandan government about the ability or willingness of Rwanda to do what you demand.
They'd better watch out. Or we'll get out the Big Guns and send HYUFD in his little tank to sort them out.
EDIT have @HYUFD and Lt Gruber ever been seen in the same room?
Science isn't fixed, and the capacity of government to react to changing circumstances and new information is one of the important questions to be explored.
Unsure 32%
Hamza 31%
Forbes 25%
Regan 11%
No clear winner there.
Right. What a ringing endorsement to vote for Starmer in 2024....
The numbers would drop to zero if you're serious about sending everyone. When the summer comes, people won't be trying to cross anymore if they know they'll get a one-way ticket to Rwanda if they do. So there wouldn't be 45k in the first place.
Its only dirty politics if Starmer manipulated Simon Case into attending one of the parties. Then manipulated Johnson into appointing Case into heading the investigation. Then manipulating the media to expose case and then Case having to recuse himself, then Johnson appointing Gray, then manipulating Rees-Mogg and the entire Tory party and their client media to praise Gray, then had Gray miss out all the juicy stuff that would have sunk Johnson, then manipulated Johnson, the Tories and their media to sing her praises. And to have Case ignore her promotion desires. And finally hire her as Chief of Staff.
Cleaner politics? If that is a dirty plot then I am more concerned that Starmer's first speech outside Downing Street isn't "His Majesty has asked me to form a government", but instead is "KNEEL BEFORE ZOD".
Which could be spun a whole number of ways, from her report being a stitch-up to get Johnson in political trouble, to it being a whitewash to get Starmer out of his own ‘lockdown party’ hole.
PB Tories oddly quiet about that
The reality is that if Starmer hadn't done what he did, anti-Semitism would still be a problem and you'd be telling us that every day. But then you hate him anyway so why bother and convince you?
Israel reached a similar agreement with Rwanda years ago and 4000 were sent to Rwanda under it, not 200, so yes Rwanda has the capacity to take thousands not hundreds. If you were to implement a policy that absolutely every migrant who arrived on a small boat would automatically be sent to Rwanda then I expect we'd end up sending fewer there than Israel did, since the number of crossings would dry up before you hit 4000.
It's the same with the poor. Lab believe the poor are heroes and say that they want to help them out of poverty. But as soon as they are no longer poor, and have moved out of that wafer-thin band of being "acceptably ok off" and become rich, then they are the enemy.
Same with Jews. When they were poor and downtrodden and needed saving post WWII Lab couldn't get enough of them. As they became strong they became the enemy.
Punishing bad behaviour is one of the things I have to know about, because I'm a teacher.
And as such, I can tell you that a punishment system that reaches capacity is worse than useless. You can do a jumbo jet full of migrants to great fanfare. But as it stands, then you probably can't send anyone for three months. Shortly after your "ooh, they're sending people to Rwanda", you get "ah, they've stopped because they have no capacity".
Trust me on this one. If you really want to go draconian, you really have to go really big. Or you're worse off than you were before.
If it's a PR stunt, none of this applies.
Betting PostF1: backed Perez each way at 7 (boosted) to win. All the Verstappen and Alonso chat has lef tsome to neglect the fact Perez was over a pit stop ahead of Alonso. For him to be profitable if the each way aspect only comes in is daft. The Red Bull was just faster than everyone else.
However do you agree with me that if it were draconian and applied to everyone, then it would work, and the numbers would be much smaller than 45,000? Perhaps closer to the 4,000 that they took from Israel under a similar scheme a few years ago?
He was appointed Johnson's chief of staff in 2020, 9 years after he left the civil service, so not comparable
It strikes me that a lot of people who voted for Pangloss Johnson found Corbyn to be a convenient fig leaf. Quite a few of them were stout defenders of PM Johnson’s subsequent arseholery for a VERY long time.
The risk of Jezza getting into No.10 was just too high.
Has that grievance often shaded into outright Jew-hatred? Yes, of course. And it is this line that Corbyn has crossed, many times, wittingly or not
There may be anti-Jews who also support the Palestinian cause just as there are many anti-Palestinians who support Netanhayu.
The way Palestinians are being treated by the Israeli government and the settler movement is an absolute disgrace. And no - I'm definitely not antisemitic.