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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » The lockdown continues to paralyse the country, LAB might have a new leader but the party’s battle over anti-semitism goes on
What to make of the latest bout of Labour in-fighting? (Or, as it might just as easily have been described: Part 197 of the The People’s Front for Judaea vs The Popular Front of Judaea.)
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Ignore it and say a bit more about the fact that thousands of people are dead and the entire nation imprisoned in their own homes due to the government's incompetence.
The big picture is that more infighting within Labour won’t do them any favours, although may hardly be noticed in the current news environment. It does however offer Starmer the choice of going for the Kinnock approach of taking on and getting rid of the hard left, but I suspect he won’t take it. End of story, really.
On the other hand, Guido’s managed to get a copy of the full, unredacted, 850 page report. Even he isn’t publishing it though, which suggests it’s very explosive indeed.
My guess would be that most of it is the Corbynites who wrote the report ranting about the moderates who didn't like them taking over the party.
He (Guido) probably doesn't see the point in helping out said Corbynites, and he certainly doesn't want to prejudice the EHCR investigation.
A lot of the names mentioned are also going to be members of staff - as opposed to politicians or elected officers - which presents privacy issues.
He quite likes everyone knowing he has a full copy though, just in case people start thinking they can put out a carefully redacted version to help their own cause.
The report itself was not produced with the knowledge of the NEC or the current party leadership. The legal advice has not been shared. At a minimum what this demonstrates is the utter dysfunctionality of the party machine. All this presents Starmer with a major opportunity at a time wnen no-one outside the party is watching.
But I think if Keir Starmer did want to play it to his advantage then purging Momentum and anti-semitism would be a good look.
Anyone in Labour who blocked Corbyn coming to power will be an utter hero to the electorate.
Not that it matters anyway. Our real hero, Boris, will romp to victory next time.
My understanding of Philip’s proposal to Elizabeth (and it should be noted I am not an expert on this) is that it was extremely half-hearted and done more as a possible way of trying to keep England within Catholicism than anything else. Even at the time he made his offer he was negotiating to marry a French princess which doesn’t suggest enthusiasm.
Thank you for the information about your 9x great grandfather, who was clearly not a wide man.
Professor Vallance alluded to this yesterday when he said this week would be very difficult.
A more complete sense of its irrelevance could not be more aptly demonstrated. A chance for Starmer to act? One would hope so bu don't hold your breath - he stayed quiet throughout the worst years of the AS scandal whilst a loyal member of Jeremy Corbyn's shadow cabinet.
I gather that the moderates are accused of undermining the Corbynites, at a time that the Corbynites were trying to drive out the moderates. Sounds like the central office was a nest of vipers.
Is this an accurate precis?
https://twitter.com/HTTP_Lovecraft/status/1249766257244745736?s=19
Just incase you are wondering that's not a positive statement about developments.
Edit - although I take it this means he is over his CV19 infection?
Marvellous man. The new Tony Blair.
Perhaps the biggest difference is that the ERG succeeded.
From the summary of the report at the beginning, it appears reasonably sensible and balanced in its assessment and its own conclusions.
The problem, or issue, is that the body of the report sets out verbatim and at length numerous online conversations between various key Labour Party figures - staffers rather than politicians - which contain a litany of bad language, appalling comments,sexism, racism, extremely personal comments about colleagues, Hitler analogies, death wishes, and all...you name it, and reveal an utterly appalling attitude and toxic atmosphere at Labour HQ. The report makes the point repeatedly that ordinary members have been expelled from Labour for much less.
It also opens a window on to the bitter hatred and factionalism within the party. Which is far worse than anyone who knows the party from the outside could have imagined.
Do you think it well for them? No, no it did not
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/04/13/us/elections/live-analysis-wisconsin.html
Karofsky has smashed the GOP Kelly by 6 percentage points.
Ooft.
To nests of vipers, that is.
He has won me over. For now.
As for morality - Blair was a mendacious shyster and a philanderer too with a giant sense of entitlement. And the most successful Labour leader ever.
Boris will sweep this country before him doing what he did when he was Mayor of London: winning a Labour electorate.
Boris is the new Blair. Politically and socially.
The report certainly doesn't suggest that Starmer's apology was unnecessary - if anything it underlines the need for it, since it is claiming that Labour party officials did not investigate these claims (albeit in order to damage the leader).
As to who benefits: the Tories, obviously, although they will perhaps not wish to focus on it too much at the present time.
But I suspect one reason it was released is because Starmer is choosing his team. Possibly he was considering some of the individuals mentioned in the report.
Trust in the Labour party is going to be in even shorter supply.
Will you also roundly condemn the fact that key figures within the Labour party deliberately extended the distress of the victims of anti-semitism by losing their complaints down the back of the sofa, falsely claiming the perpetrators were not Labour members, etc., in order to make Jeremy Corbyn's team 'look bad'. Displaying a breathtakingly callous disregard for their feelings and using them as pawns in a factional war?
Ignore it and say a bit more about the fact that thousands of people are dead and the entire nation imprisoned in their own homes due to the government's incompetence.
Just out of interest, is it the fact that we are in “lockdown” that is due to the Govt’s incompetence or is that just a byproduct? Is there any country currently under lockdown conditions that you don’t believe to be led by an incompetent Govt? Given that you clearly don’t believe lockdown to be a necessary policy measure?
I’m not quite sure where you got the idea that we are imprisoned within our own homes from though? Perhaps you are confusing us with another country?
It's going to be most amusing to watch this. The slow expurgation of the Right. In this regard Boris will be aided by Cummings who loathes the ERG.
If we had stopped to consider this, it would have been obvious. The man who won Labour London for the tories and hosted HIGNFY was never going to be a bible-basher of the far right. He's a people's man. Like Blair, a chameleon without ideology. Except that he passionately believes in society and, now, the NHS. Just like Tony.
It's a marvel to behold. We have our Tony Blair back in No.10 Downing Street. A man of immense charisma who will continue to sweep the country to victory in successive elections by paying absolutely no attention to the loons on the right-wing.
It's glorious. For the ERG a case of, 'be careful what you wish for.'
I love you Boris. Can I have your babies too please?
(The last sentence is a joke. The rest deadly serious.)
"But [the safety net] went too far. If children have a problem, it is society that is at fault. There is no such thing as society. There is living tapestry of men and women and people and the beauty of that tapestry and the quality of our lives will depend upon how much each of us is prepared to take responsibility for ourselves and each of us prepared to turn round and help by our own efforts those who are unfortunate."
The last one is new to me. Do you have any evidence for it?
"Academic politics are so vicious precisely because the stakes are so small."
But yes. Just like Tony. They're very similar people and both able to cater for soft right and soft left voters.
I am, genuinely, more optimistic for the future of this country than I have been for ages and ages. Once this virus is sorted we've a PM who believes in most of the values of society that I do. And he's a libertarian. Boris has a mantra that if it doesn't harm anyone you should be able to live how you want. I think we'll see some wonderful social reforms which will have the right wing spitting venom.
The only question now is how many General Elections Boris will win on the trot. 3 or 4?
That Thatcher quote on 'no such thing as society' is even worse in full. She was a person of her time: bitterly opposed to the unionisation of this country and hell bent on privatisation. She passionately believed that industry should be the arbiter, including on climate change. Under her selfishness didn't just flourish, it was encouraged. She didn't extend her economic liberalism into ethics and morals. She was a ghastly throwback to the 1950's and when Tony won in 1992 it was like a dam bursting on the pent up angst of several generations.
In this she was utterly and profoundly mistaken and a million miles from Boris.
I told ya'. We have Tony Blair back in Downing Street. A marvel to behold.
Although there's a small element of playfulness about my suggestion that Boris is the new Tony Blair, the greater part is serious. Boris is no right-wing ideologue. He's savaged Thatcher's appalling mantra about society and he has now made a passionate championing of the NHS after a near-death experience.
He won Labour London by reaching out across the centre into the soft left. And that is precisely what he is now doing in this nation.
He's my hero.
Unless you buy into the conspiracy that I'm Sean. And so's my wife.
If so, you’re talking havers.
There's a Brexit angle, there's an incompetence angle and thanks to Matt Hancock there's a 'they attacked the nurses!' angle.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/13/uk-missed-three-chances-to-join-eu-scheme-to-bulk-buy-ppe
Anyone doubting the motivation of the Never Trumpers needs to think again.
https://twitter.com/KateBennett_DC/status/1249827745938505730?s=09
How has that shown itself since he has been elected PM with a majority of 80?
Freeloading Christmas holiday in Mustique
Not obeying his own social distancing rules.
Moving his pregnant mistress into Downing St.
The Leopard hasn't changed his spots.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/boris-broth-could-soup-speed-prime-ministers-recovery-coronavirus/
Any left leaning voter in the USA who helps to enable 4 more years of the orange lunatic should be utterly shamed and is beneath contempt .
I’m not quite sure where you got the idea that we are imprisoned within our own homes from though? Perhaps you are confusing us with another country?
Edmund is only interested in extolling the virtues of a Labour government - everything else is collatoral damage.
My understanding is that a Labour leader does not have the powers that a Conservative leader has to simply re-design the party machine.
Perhaps those with more knowledge could fill in some details?
Keir should expel the MPs who signed the deathwish demand. Publish the report in full would open the Labour Party to be sued to death for libel and egregious data protection breeches. A report which is clearly factional, clearly pulled together as an exoneration of the Jeremy by his faction at the expense of the party. Calling for such a thing brings the party into disrepute.
Doing so would create a mass walk-out. This is a Good Thing. The lunatics can go and join Galloway's Workers Party or form their own various "Unity" trot parties where everyone can ignore them. Better to get on with it and remove the cult now before it can do any more damage - indeed swift and decisive action would firmly cement Starmer's position and standing amongst the key demographic - former Labour voters. Follow it with a "the party lost your trust. We are sorry. We have acted" broadcast would be hugely powerful.
We are likely years away from an election where the government has a substantial majority. Cutting this group of MPs makes no difference to the parliamentary arithmetic, and I'd love to see Lloyd-Mole vote with the Tories in a strop having been expelled from Labour.
Get it done Keir. Get 'Em Out By Friday.
He can also get his MPs on board with a moderate relaxtion of planning laws. Get building up and running with the ability for anybody to get planning permission for up to say three new houses, no questions asked. But you'll have to pay Capital Gains on the uplift in value - no exemptions, no offsets of previous losses.
It's also clear that, even if all (or almost all) of the anti-Semitism was coming from one wing of the party, there were other issues (the Bex Bailey affair in particular) that seemed to imply a rather more widespread problem.
Whatever "cultural" issues the Labour party has that preclude its institutional moral compass from operating effectively, I'd be surprised if they were fixable simply by "kicking out all the far left entryists".
I see that the Telegraph has a headline about 'Boris Broth'. Did a well known PBer write the article?
The state of what happened in Wisconsin with the voting situation was wretched. Good result despite that (or because of that?), it sounds like.
That is good news. Let's hope Trump and Bolsonaro get it too.
https://twitter.com/jamesjohnson252/status/1249955974271643648
What Starmer should do, I don't know. But obviously, obviously not this.
I could vote for Labour under Starmer even though I find him smug. By his enemies shall we know him.
https://twitter.com/jennifermerode/status/1249950265308000257?s=21