No admirer of David Davis, permanent winner of Tory shit of the year, every year, but Keir Starmer was a particularly indifferent DPP in the leanest of years, who has thus far made zero impact since his election last year, so I mildly demur from my most esteemed Rt. Hon Friend's thesis.
Losing Seamus Milne would be an improvement if no one replaced him. Total disaster.
I tend to agree with TSE that with Starmer against Davis we have finally got a match up between the shadow cabinet and the real cabinet that the shadow wins. I presumed that Davis was going to be the fall guy when something embarrassing happened in the Brexit negotiations but Fox is now so far in front for that role that Davis is likely to be around for a while. If only Labour had something to say.
Do you really think a dry lawyer who talks like a lawyer (however good a lawyer he is) is the person to take the fight to the Tories on this? Or the one who is going to persuade actual and potential Labour voters?
Given that Labour's position appears to be that:-
1. We should be out of the Single Market; and 2. We should have free movement of people with no limits on immigration.
It's a point of view.
His time at the CPS was not covered in glory. Admittedly the CPS is filled with some real duffers as well as some good lawyers but my experience of them has been abysmal. And the CPS was criticized by the Commons during his time in charge as lacking consistency, leadership and vision.
He may be good on the Great Repeal Bill but as the person to sell Labour's Brexit policy to Labour voters I'm much less convinced. Forensic arguments in Parliament are not what will convince Labour voters.
It'll be a good opportunity for Starmer to build his profile anyway, getting to talk about the political issue that is likely to dominate for the next few years. A potential pitfall is the lack of consensus about elements of Brexit within the Labour party, I doubt he shares Corbyn's lack of support for the single market and he's not the best located MP to talk about immigration as an inner city London MP.
I hear you, cuz. I also have my doubts about TMay. I'd have preferred Boris.
However, we are where we are, and at least she is a cunning politician - much more cunning than Cameron. I suspect she is a better negotiator than him, as well, and will serve the nation honourably during Brexit. She's also more acceptable to Scots, which is important right now.
Her statism annoys me, as it does you, but in the face of Corbyn, and in the knowledge that the white working classes deserve a champion (at last) I will let it go. For now. Let her bind up the wounds of an unequal country.
We can turn ourselves into Singapore-times-a-million later.
Yes the point is we can now choose who do vote for with them having a free hand to persue that direction unencumbered by European Law.
Sure it will be incorporated as UK law on day 1 but that means parliament can repeal bits of it as it sees fit.
Even if we as a country go mad and vote for Corbyn we can throw him out again in five years and start afresh.
No admirer of David Davis, permanent winner of Tory shit of the year, every year, but Keir Starmer was a particularly indifferent DPP in the leanest of years, who has thus far made zero impact since his election last year, so I mildly demur from my most esteemed Rt. Hon Friend's thesis.
My mother knows Keir well - she was a key stakeholder when he was DPP. I shall not repeat her views for fear of attracting my learned friends attention to OGH.
@SkyNewsEditor: #UKIP #Breaking @joncraig understands Mike Hookem MEP denies punching Mr Woolfe, while admitting there was a 'verbal' confrontation
"Mr Woolfe tripped and hit his head against the window, Officer".
Officer in response: I do apologise for your most unfortunate accident on the police station steps tomorrow Sir....
....the good old days before PACE.....
"You see Third World parliaments where this sort of thing happens. It’s not good. It shouldn’t happen. It’s two grown men, getting involved in an altercation. It’s not very seemly behaviour.” said principal witness Nigel... Edit/ clarification for the lawyers, apparently he wasn't in the room.
Losing Seamus Milne would be an improvement if no one replaced him. Total disaster.
I tend to agree with TSE that with Starmer against Davis we have finally got a match up between the shadow cabinet and the real cabinet that the shadow wins. I presumed that Davis was going to be the fall guy when something embarrassing happened in the Brexit negotiations but Fox is now so far in front for that role that Davis is likely to be around for a while. If only Labour had something to say.
Starmer is also a twat. And he will be utterly crippled by the fact his leader is a LEAVER, likewise his Shadow Chancellor. Prediction: he will be invisible, and achieve nothing.
Being a twat does not mean that he is not miles better than Davis.
I would wait to form opinions on Theresa. What has she actually done so far?
*Approval for Hinckley Point; *Approval for fracking; *Explicitly said A50 by March 2017 with an end to freedom of movement;
Hardly a Labour agenda.
Building more houses and cancelling unnecessary medical testing of the chronically ill straddle both right wing Labour and working class Tory lines, which are barely distinguishable on many subjects.
@JohnO- for DD to win Tory shit of the year must be quite an achievement.....there's quite a lot of completion for such a crown
As Ted Heath put it
'The Tory Party consists of “shits, bloody shits and fucking shits.'
That is a fantastic quote.......
Ted Heath is surely turning in his grave. But poor old Cameron.....I cannot even begin to imagine the agony he's experiencing; Theresa May is inflicting upon him the worst kind of living torture. It's pure vitriol.....
Losing Seamus Milne would be an improvement if no one replaced him. Total disaster.
I tend to agree with TSE that with Starmer against Davis we have finally got a match up between the shadow cabinet and the real cabinet that the shadow wins. I presumed that Davis was going to be the fall guy when something embarrassing happened in the Brexit negotiations but Fox is now so far in front for that role that Davis is likely to be around for a while. If only Labour had something to say.
Starmer is also a twat. And he will be utterly crippled by the fact his leader is a LEAVER, likewise his Shadow Chancellor. Prediction: he will be invisible, and achieve nothing.
Being a twat does not mean that he is not miles better than Davis.
Davis is not a twat. He's more of a clown and a chancer. Starmer is a proper twat. An overrated cunny.
That is extremely harsh on clowns and chancers, some of whom can be quite amusing, especially the latter. You should be ashamed of yourself.
I would wait to form opinions on Theresa. What has she actually done so far?
*Approval for Hinckley Point; *Approval for fracking; *Explicitly said A50 by March 2017 with an end to freedom of movement;
Hardly a Labour agenda.
Building more houses and cancelling unnecessary medical testing of the chronically ill straddle both right wing Labour and working class Tory lines, which are barely distinguishable on many subjects.
In fact, they are common sense.
Economic policy kindly donated by Ed, social and education policy kindly donated by Nigel.
Losing Seamus Milne would be an improvement if no one replaced him. Total disaster. .
Even accepting the quality of the leader can be critical, Milne has been terrible. Like direction in a film, you only really notice spin doctors when they are really good or really bad. He has constantly kept bad stories running and generally supported his leader terribly.
@JohnO- for DD to win Tory shit of the year must be quite an achievement.....there's quite a lot of completion for such a crown
As Ted Heath put it
'The Tory Party consists of “shits, bloody shits and fucking shits.'
That is a fantastic quote.......
Ted Heath is surely turning in his grave. But poor old Cameron.....I cannot even begin to imagine the agony he's experiencing; Theresa May is inflicting upon him the worst kind of living torture. It's pure vitriol.....
It is reported during the last Parliament, the Tory whips had a colour coding system for their MPs and crucial votes.
Blue - The loyal Tory MPs who would always vote with the government
Yellow - Loyal Tory MPs who would have a particular issue with that bill/vote, who would need persuading
Brown - For the shits who could be guaranteed to vote against the government no matter what. David Davis' colour was brown for the entirety of the last Parliament.
Losing Seamus Milne would be an improvement if no one replaced him. Total disaster. .
Even accepting the quality of the leader can be critical, Milne has been terrible. Like direction in a film, you only really notice spin doctors when they are really good or really bad. He has constantly kept bad stories running and generally supported his leader terribly.
Messing up the vice puff piece was a classic example, managing to let slip damaging info & piss off a self confessed corbynista.
Oh yes - and Starmer was the DPP during Operation Elveden, during which archaic laws were used to bring charges against journalists which explicitly prevented them from mounting a public interest defence. Most of these cases were thrown out by the higher courts.
Yeah - a brilliant lawyer and so committed to press freedom. Ideal for Labour then. [Sarcasm alert.]
@JohnO- for DD to win Tory shit of the year must be quite an achievement.....there's quite a lot of completion for such a crown
As Ted Heath put it
'The Tory Party consists of “shits, bloody shits and fucking shits.'
That is a fantastic quote.......
Ted Heath is surely turning in his grave. But poor old Cameron.....I cannot even begin to imagine the agony he's experiencing; Theresa May is inflicting upon him the worst kind of living torture. It's pure vitriol.....
It is reported during the last Parliament, the Tory whips had a colour coding system for their MPs and crucial votes.
Blue - The loyal Tory MPs who would always vote with the government
Yellow - Loyal Tory MPs who would have a particular issue with that bill/vote, who would need persuading
Brown - For the shits who could be guaranteed to vote against the government no matter what. David Davis' colour was brown for the entirety of the last Parliament.
And 2005-10, 2001-05, 1997-2001 and 1992-97, (when he was the whip for Maastricht and then Minister for Europe constantly moaning that he should be promoted to Cabinet. He was reasonably servile 1987-92 though.
I hear you, cuz. I also have my doubts about TMay. I'd have preferred Boris.
However, we are where we are, and at least she is a cunning politician - much more cunning than Cameron. I suspect she is a better negotiator than him, as well, and will serve the nation honourably during Brexit. She's also more acceptable to Scots, which is important right now.
Her statism annoys me, as it does you, but in the face of Corbyn, and in the knowledge that the white working classes deserve a champion (at last) I will let it go. For now. Let her bind up the wounds of an unequal country.
We can turn ourselves into Singapore-times-a-million later.
Hmm, so far her cunning had been survival. I'm not convinced that she's got enough cunning to keep herself at the top, not without any major allies or power brokers in her camp. Remember that Dave kept the party disciplined by having Osborne dole out favours and jobs, who has she got?
Delivering budget after budget that increases state spending and with it taxes is going to wear down her natural support base and she'll be relying on there being no opposition, weirdly, on the centre right or economically liberal wing.
What irks me is that after years of Labour delivering big government she didn't learn those lessons, which makes me think she's not very smart. Definitely not as clever as Boris or Osborne. I think she realises it too, which makes her dangerous.
Losing Seamus Milne would be an improvement if no one replaced him. Total disaster. .
Even accepting the quality of the leader can be critical, Milne has been terrible. Like direction in a film, you only really notice spin doctors when they are really good or really bad. He has constantly kept bad stories running and generally supported his leader terribly.
Agreed. Can't help feeling that the fiasco on the train must have been the final straw. Who thought that was a good idea?
Oh yes - and Starmer was the DPP during Operation Elveden, during which archaic laws were used to bring charges against journalists which explicitly prevented them from mounting a public interest defence. Most of these cases were thrown out by the higher courts.
Yeah - a brilliant lawyer and so committed to press freedom. Ideal for Labour then. [Sarcasm alert.]
Oh yes - and Starmer was the DPP during Operation Elveden, during which archaic laws were used to bring charges against journalists which explicitly prevented them from mounting a public interest defence. Most of these cases were thrown out by the higher courts.
Yeah - a brilliant lawyer and so committed to press freedom. Ideal for Labour then. [Sarcasm alert.]
The Simon Walsh case too.
Yes, I'd forgotten that. An utter disgrace.
So another overrated lawyer with poor judgment and a disregard for individual rights and press freedom.
Being a good lawyer does not automatically make one a good MP. Grieve is a good lawyer and I think was good in his legal roles.
But to make the transition to an effective Minister or Shadow takes something more. I'm not sure Starmer has it. Apart from anything else, he always looks terrified or worried.
I hear you, cuz. I also have my doubts about TMay. I'd have preferred Boris.
However, we are where we are, and at least she is a cunning politician - much more cunning than Cameron. I suspect she is a better negotiator than him, as well, and will serve the nation honourably during Brexit. She's also more acceptable to Scots, which is important right now.
Her statism annoys me, as it does you, but in the face of Corbyn, and in the knowledge that the white working classes deserve a champion (at last) I will let it go. For now. Let her bind up the wounds of an unequal country.
We can turn ourselves into Singapore-times-a-million later.
Hmm, so far her cunning had been survival. I'm not convinced that she's got enough cunning to keep herself at the top, not without any major allies or power brokers in her camp. Remember that Dave kept the party disciplined by having Osborne dole out favours and jobs, who has she got?
Delivering budget after budget that increases state spending and with it taxes is going to wear down her natural support base and she'll be relying on there being no opposition, weirdly, on the centre right or economically liberal wing.
What irks me is that after years of Labour delivering big government she didn't learn those lessons, which makes me think she's not very smart. Definitely not as clever as Boris or Osborne. I think she realises it too, which makes her dangerous.
You have to accept that Cameron and Osborne, by their own measures, completely fucked up. They lost the biggest vote of their lives - an allegedly unlosable vote - through utter ineptitude. Through arrogance, stupidity and laziness. Overrated halfwits. I'm glad they lost but we must judge them as they judge themselves and on that basis they are the biggest failures in recent British political history. They were out-manuevered, comprehensively, by Farage and Boris, and yes even Ms May.
I don't want inept posh twats in charge of my country any more. Get rid of these flailing gimps. "I want to be prime minister because I think I'd be quite good at it". FUCK OFF.
Bring on the grammar school girls. They've served us well before.
Is David Cameron the only PM ever to lose a referendum? (Accepting that there have been very few?)
DC was often criticised by the left for being out-of-touch (for which read 'posh') - and I never really bought it; or at least never really saw it as important; Posh people can be perfectly in touch. But actually, it proved his undoing; he completely misunderstood how eurosceptic Britain really was. A leader who better understood his own nation would have had a much better idea of what sort of a deal the British electorate would accept.
You have to accept that Cameron and Osborne, by their own measures, completely fucked up. They lost the biggest vote of their lives - an allegedly unlosable vote - through utter ineptitude. Through arrogance, stupidity and laziness. Overrated halfwits. I'm glad they lost but we must judge them as they judge themselves and on that basis they are the biggest failures in recent British political history. They were out-manuevered, comprehensively, by Farage and Boris, and yes even Ms May.
I don't want inept posh twats in charge of my country any more. Get rid of these flailing gimps. "I want to be prime minister because I think I'd be quite good at it". FUCK OFF.
Bring on the grammar school girls. They've served us well before.
Oh yes, and I'm quite glad they fucked it. Very happy, in fact. However, it is clear that Osborne and Boris are both of incredible intellect, though Ossie doesn't have the common touch. Smarter than the PM, for sure.
I'm a Cameroon at heart (though maybe not as much as TSE) so I'm sceptical about TMay anyway, but so far her economic policies are basically Ed Miliband on steroids. Not exactly what I signed up and donate to the Tory party for.
On Dave's comment, it's one of those I can't get too worked up about. I sort of liked the fact that he went into politics on the basis that he'd be good at it rather than as part of some moral crusade as our current PM seems to be on. I want the leader to lead, not moralise.
I hear you, cuz. I also have my doubts about TMay. I'd have preferred Boris.
However, we are where we are, and at least she is a cunning politician - much more cunning than Cameron. I suspect she is a better negotiator than him, as well, and will serve the nation honourably during Brexit. She's also more acceptable to Scots, which is important right now.
Her statism annoys me, as it does you, but in the face of Corbyn, and in the knowledge that the white working classes deserve a champion (at last) I will let it go. For now. Let her bind up the wounds of an unequal country.
We can turn ourselves into Singapore-times-a-million later.
Hmm, so far her cunning had been survival. I'm not convinced that she's got enough cunning to keep herself at the top, not without any major allies or power brokers in her camp. Remember that Dave kept the party disciplined by having Osborne dole out favours and jobs, who has she got?
Delivering budget after budget that increases state spending and with it taxes is going to wear down her natural support base and she'll be relying on there being no opposition, weirdly, on the centre right or economically liberal wing.
What irks me is that after years of Labour delivering big government she didn't learn those lessons, which makes me think she's not very smart. Definitely not as clever as Boris or Osborne. I think she realises it too, which makes her dangerous.
She is not increasing spending, just spreading austerity out beyond 2020 and making it less deep to soften the blow, she is also not raising taxes. However from Disraeli to Macmillan to May the Tories have never been a wholly economically liberal party but often quite paternalist, the Liberals actually have a longer history of laissez-faire, maintained today through the Orange Book group. There is also little appetite for a libertarian UKIP, it is is the populist version which has got them the votes
I have just got home and read the shadow cabinet news. Jeremy Corbyn must be a Tory plant. He simply must be. Diane Abbott as Home Secretary? It seems like he is deliberately alienating the white working class Brexit voters Labour need so much. He already had Emily Thornberry as shadow foreign and she mocked flying the England flag. Now someone with a long history of anti-white comments as shadow home. It defies belief.
Comments
Grrrr. Third like Ricci.
Fourth like Sebby.
Must be a parallel universe, only The PM is appointing people to 'Great Offices of State.
There appears to be a God, and (s)he isn't Ted's.
https://twitter.com/DPRK_News/status/784105917344284672
You really can tell why jezza only managed 2 Es at a-level.
....the good old days before PACE.....
I tend to agree with TSE that with Starmer against Davis we have finally got a match up between the shadow cabinet and the real cabinet that the shadow wins. I presumed that Davis was going to be the fall guy when something embarrassing happened in the Brexit negotiations but Fox is now so far in front for that role that Davis is likely to be around for a while. If only Labour had something to say.
Given that Labour's position appears to be that:-
1. We should be out of the Single Market; and
2. We should have free movement of people with no limits on immigration.
It's a point of view.
His time at the CPS was not covered in glory. Admittedly the CPS is filled with some real duffers as well as some good lawyers but my experience of them has been abysmal. And the CPS was criticized by the Commons during his time in charge as lacking consistency, leadership and vision.
He may be good on the Great Repeal Bill but as the person to sell Labour's Brexit policy to Labour voters I'm much less convinced. Forensic arguments in Parliament are not what will convince Labour voters.
Sure it will be incorporated as UK law on day 1 but that means parliament can repeal bits of it as it sees fit.
Even if we as a country go mad and vote for Corbyn we can throw him out again in five years and start afresh.
'The Tory Party consists of “shits, bloody shits and fucking shits.'
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/may/04/russell-brand-endorsed-labour-tories-should-be-worried
There are 4 great offices not 3. Hancock accepted the error but then included May (who was not one of the 3 offices Corbyn referenced).
*Approval for Hinckley Point;
*Approval for fracking;
*Explicitly said A50 by March 2017 with an end to freedom of movement;
Hardly a Labour agenda.
Building more houses and cancelling unnecessary medical testing of the chronically ill straddle both right wing Labour and working class Tory lines, which are barely distinguishable on many subjects.
In fact, they are common sense.
Ted Heath is surely turning in his grave. But poor old Cameron.....I cannot even begin to imagine the agony he's experiencing; Theresa May is inflicting upon him the worst kind of living torture. It's pure vitriol.....
Tyson
SeanT
Just like the old days.
https://youtu.be/lrShn8PeTz8
Blue - The loyal Tory MPs who would always vote with the government
Yellow - Loyal Tory MPs who would have a particular issue with that bill/vote, who would need persuading
Brown - For the shits who could be guaranteed to vote against the government no matter what. David Davis' colour was brown for the entirety of the last Parliament.
(Or so he says....)
Lewis kicked sideways.
Yeah - a brilliant lawyer and so committed to press freedom. Ideal for Labour then. [Sarcasm alert.]
And for JohnO's benefit......Trotsky is still sound and well....... I know you care....
Victory; is ours again
We are the scourge of the land and sea
Beastly Brexiters are we.
Delivering budget after budget that increases state spending and with it taxes is going to wear down her natural support base and she'll be relying on there being no opposition, weirdly, on the centre right or economically liberal wing.
What irks me is that after years of Labour delivering big government she didn't learn those lessons, which makes me think she's not very smart. Definitely not as clever as Boris or Osborne. I think she realises it too, which makes her dangerous.
Jez just doesn't care anymore
No one has the faintest idea who they are, and people have long given up caring. Only a few hundred thousand nuts take any notice.
If you want a half decent fight these days you have to pay attention to UKIP.
So another overrated lawyer with poor judgment and a disregard for individual rights and press freedom.
Being a good lawyer does not automatically make one a good MP. Grieve is a good lawyer and I think was good in his legal roles.
But to make the transition to an effective Minister or Shadow takes something more. I'm not sure Starmer has it. Apart from anything else, he always looks terrified or worried.
DC was often criticised by the left for being out-of-touch (for which read 'posh') - and I never really bought it; or at least never really saw it as important; Posh people can be perfectly in touch. But actually, it proved his undoing; he completely misunderstood how eurosceptic Britain really was. A leader who better understood his own nation would have had a much better idea of what sort of a deal the British electorate would accept.
I'm a Cameroon at heart (though maybe not as much as TSE) so I'm sceptical about TMay anyway, but so far her economic policies are basically Ed Miliband on steroids. Not exactly what I signed up and donate to the Tory party for.
On Dave's comment, it's one of those I can't get too worked up about. I sort of liked the fact that he went into politics on the basis that he'd be good at it rather than as part of some moral crusade as our current PM seems to be on. I want the leader to lead, not moralise.
Hur-hur-hur......
:-)