"Dull" may be just what this country needs once it's had its fill of Johnson. After all, many thought Theresa May was the leader we needed and she doesn't exactly exude charisma.
Mrs May showed why you shouldn't pick a dull unispiring leader.
But Labour had nobody else - Keith was the only one who wasn't a daft student Citizen Smith knobend.
Leadership will change Starmer as it changes all who reach the pinnacle. Let's see how he performs in 12 months or 24 months rather than judging him on some words on a Saturday morning when few are listening or interested.
I suppose Loto is the pinnacle for Labour leaders not called Blair.
You are spinning like a top all of a sudden. Something bothering you? 😁
Few thought he was even a starter. There were many in life who were smarter. But he finished PM, A CH, an OM, An earl and a Knight of the Garter.
True. But it should also be noted he remains the only political leader of one of the big two parties since 1918 to suffer outright defeat in three general elections. Heath is the closest to that record with two defeats and a hung parliament.
The 28.2% for Burgon and Butler is about the same as the 27.6% for RLB, so that seems to be a decent measure of the Corbyn-till-I-die contingent. I wonder how Momentum views that level of support? Normally for a certain section of the Left it is always a good basis on which to build for the future.
I doubt he will, and of course everyone loves a call for unity at such times, but Starmer shoudl really really only appoint to his shadow cabinet those he genuinely wants there. No jobs to RLB or Burgon out of some obligation, only if he thinks they would do a good job.
To be controversial, the Chinese idea of holding a 3-minute silence to remember the dead of this virus isn't the worst idea I've ever heard.
Yes, we must honour the living and especially those in the front line of this war but we mustn't forget the victims and their families.
The Chinese should hold a 30 minute silence, given how they've under-reported this thing so far.
Well, that's not very helpful so let's get back to the substantive - do you think some form of national commemoration for the dead is or will be appropriate?
The question is what are we supposed to be remembering.
Do we have a national three minutes of silence for the people felled by influenza? How about car accidents? Or cancer?
What good does it achieve?
I understand the reasoning behind a silence to commemorate the war dead, they sacrificed their lives to protect their country and we remember them in the hope that their sacrifices were not in vain, and that there will be no more wars.
So what does a three minute coronavirus silence achieve? A solemn reminder to buy more ventilators next time round? To maybe stop eating bats and pangolins? To all wash our hands more often?
It sounds like virtue signalling to me. Allow people to mourn their own dead in their own way.
Voted Nandy, but pleased we actually have a competent, plausible leader of the Labour Party now. I hope to see Reeves, Cooper, Creasy, and the like, who were excluded by the previous leadership brought into senior frontbench roles. And hopefully their appointments enrage Bastani and the other batshit Corbynistas so much, they decide to fuck off. When these people are opposing Labour from the fringes once again, we'll know we actually have a party which can win power.
The 28.2% for Burgon and Butler is about the same as the 27.6% for RLB, so that seems to be a decent measure of the Corbyn-till-I-die contingent. I wonder how Momentum views that level of support? Normally for a certain section of the Left it is always a good basis on which to build for the future.
I don`t think that Raynor has much more credibility to be honest.
Rayner’s record at education was distinctly mixed. Excellent on lifelong learning and FE, reasonable on primary, positively hapless on secondary.
But she definitely has the ability to think and to speak. She could well be one to surprise on the upside.
She is the friend of a friend whose judgement I trust, and he rates her very highly. I will observe with interest.
Her personal experience of secondary wasn't good, but she's someone who benefited considerably from lifelong learning and FE. It's a sector which has suffered severely during the past 10 years.
Again though, it’s not her experience but her policies I am talking about.
I just worry that if you get secondary wrong - which she would have done - it makes it a great deal harder to claw back through LL later on. It’s like building a house but forgetting to put in deep foundations.
I did a lot of work, including retraining of my own, through the WEA at one point. It was noticeable that those of us who did well at school found the course far easier and indeed, by the finish I was working with others.
I take your point, though, about her being a quick learner, and agree, that, if she stays with Education she'd better get up to speed with secondary. I recall thinking, when I qualified that that was that, and I didn't have to worry about 'education' thereafter. Took me about two years to realise how wrong I was, and how I needed 'lifelong learning', with professionally and otherwise, and I've been involved ever since. Still, in my 80's, involved with the WEA and the U3a.
Praise the Lord. Labour members start to come back to reality.
Quite. Decisive rejection of the Hard Left: best news of the year.
I await further reassurance in the form of right action from Starmer, but one can at least have some degree of confidence that Labour returning to power would not leave us all at the mercy of a malign cult.
Doesn't seem likely. But her descent was remarkable - she became little more than a Corbyn mouthpiece, the worst aspects of a career politician, for someone who had not been a frontline political figure (albeit in the public eye on political issues).
But time to enjoy this beautiful sunshine out to celebrate the end of Corbyn.
I doubt he will, and of course everyone loves a call for unity at such times, but Starmer shoudl really really only appoint to his shadow cabinet those he genuinely wants there. No jobs to RLB or Burgon out of some obligation, only if he thinks they would do a good job.
If he manages to get rid of Shami, RLB, Burgon and Butler and replace them with people like Nandy, Phillips, Benn and Cooper he will have made a good start. I suspect there’ll be jobs for some of them though, but perhaps they can be pensioned off as shadow minister for doing very little at the Department for Sweet FA or something.
So Labour continue their tradition that those with penises always come ahead of those with vaginas.
But I think it is fair to say that this time they made the right choice of those available.
Given coronavirus Starmer is head and shoulders best suited for Labour. A boring steady course will work fine if the country turns on the govt. If the country stick with the govt no Labour leader was going to win anyway.
If coronavirus had not occurred it is possible Nandy or Phillips would have had more chance of winning the next election through offering something different.
Penis or vagina.. they are still c×××× and will remain so until they expel momentum and anti semites
I doubt he will, and of course everyone loves a call for unity at such times, but Starmer shoudl really really only appoint to his shadow cabinet those he genuinely wants there. No jobs to RLB or Burgon out of some obligation, only if he thinks they would do a good job.
If he manages to get rid of Shami, RLB, Burgon and Butler and replace them with people like Nandy, Phillips, Benn and Cooper he will have made a good start. I suspect there’ll be jobs for some of them though, but perhaps they can be pensioned off as shadow minister for doing very little at the Department for Sweet FA or something.
That acceptance speech reinforces my scepticism about the "forensic skewering of Boris" theory. That is not what a forensic skewerer sounds like. Mogadon Man.
I thought Keir’s speech was very good, but it’s clear I’m in the minority on that front. I think Labour made the right choice to elect him.
It sounds Ok to me. Perhaps he’s speaking a bit slowly. At least he has a good clear voice, which is half the battle.
Edit - I have to say he comes across as a much better speaker than Johnson.
Seriously? Boris is all over the place when he speaks but he is witty and entertaining and more than capable of landing a killer soundbite. I think those that are looking for forensic questioning from Starmer at PMQs are doomed to disappointment.
That acceptance speech reinforces my scepticism about the "forensic skewering of Boris" theory. That is not what a forensic skewerer sounds like. Mogadon Man.
Perhaps Starmer's task is to become Neil Kinnock and clear out the nutters for the next Tony Blair?
He looks like a PM. He sounds like a PM. And by god it's now very possible he will become the PM if he develops a set of policies which are practical, innovative and designed to deliver social justice in bombed out, post corona Britain.
I misread that as ‘kicking the pensioners out of the NHS,’ which seemed drastic but since Momentum is full of quite selfish young people did make macabre sense...
The question is what are we supposed to be remembering.
Do we have a national three minutes of silence for the people felled by influenza? How about car accidents? Or cancer?
What good does it achieve?
I understand the reasoning behind a silence to commemorate the war dead, they sacrificed their lives to protect their country and we remember them in the hope that their sacrifices were not in vain, and that there will be no more wars.
So what does a three minute coronavirus silence achieve? A solemn reminder to buy more ventilators next time round? To maybe stop eating bats and pangolins? To all wash our hands more often?
It sounds like virtue signalling to me. Allow people to mourn their own dead in their own way.
To an extent, all of that is true and there's pretty strong evidence the majority of those who have perished would (and let's not call a spade a garden implement) not have lasted much longer. That doesn't make their deaths any less of a tragedy for those close to them.
There have been, however, those whose deaths can be attributed directly to Covid-19 whether they be front line health workers or others. I'm not suggesting an annual commemoration but once, when all this is over, just to remember those who are no longer with us, no, I don't think that would be wrong.
I refer you to my "I'm having fun baiting my former colleagues" and "I'll be delighted to be proven wrong" comments from previous posts
Yawn. Lots of your posts are excellent. But your posts on this matter have been tiresome. I dare say I speak for many PBers when I say I’ll be glad to see the back of them!
That acceptance speech reinforces my scepticism about the "forensic skewering of Boris" theory. That is not what a forensic skewerer sounds like. Mogadon Man.
Perhaps Starmer's task is to become Neil Kinnock and clear out the nutters for the next Tony Blair?
I thought Keir’s speech was very good, but it’s clear I’m in the minority on that front. I think Labour made the right choice to elect him.
It sounds Ok to me. Perhaps he’s speaking a bit slowly. At least he has a good clear voice, which is half the battle.
Edit - I have to say he comes across as a much better speaker than Johnson.
Seriously? Boris is all over the place when he speaks but he is witty and entertaining and more than capable of landing a killer soundbite. I think those that are looking for forensic questioning from Starmer at PMQs are doomed to disappointment.
He may be witty, but he’s less focussed than somebody who’s taken one of Blackadder’s suicide pills. He just does not come across plausibly.
To be controversial, the Chinese idea of holding a 3-minute silence to remember the dead of this virus isn't the worst idea I've ever heard.
Yes, we must honour the living and especially those in the front line of this war but we mustn't forget the victims and their families.
The Chinese should hold a 30 minute silence, given how they've under-reported this thing so far.
Well, that's not very helpful so let's get back to the substantive - do you think some form of national commemoration for the dead is or will be appropriate?
The question is what are we supposed to be remembering.
Do we have a national three minutes of silence for the people felled by influenza? How about car accidents? Or cancer?
What good does it achieve?
I understand the reasoning behind a silence to commemorate the war dead, they sacrificed their lives to protect their country and we remember them in the hope that their sacrifices were not in vain, and that there will be no more wars.
So what does a three minute coronavirus silence achieve? A solemn reminder to buy more ventilators next time round? To maybe stop eating bats and pangolins? To all wash our hands more often?
It sounds like virtue signalling to me. Allow people to mourn their own dead in their own way.
Trouble is those that die scarcely have a funeral worth the name. People are not allowed to mourn them in their own way. In some cases they cannot even attend. The picture of the 13 year old being lowered into the earth with no-one who loved him present is awful. The inability to have a proper send-off will be distressing for many. So maybe local churches, synagogues etc could have a service at which their names are read out so that they are not forgotten by the wider community.
Whether it should be national I don’t know. It is certainly worth honouring those professionals who died doing a job helping others.
Voted Nandy, but pleased we actually have a competent, plausible leader of the Labour Party now. I hope to see Reeves, Cooper, Creasy, and the like, who were excluded by the previous leadership brought into senior frontbench roles. And hopefully their appointments enrage Bastani and the other batshit Corbynistas so much, they decide to fuck off. When these people are opposing Labour from the fringes once again, we'll know we actually have a party which can win power.
If Long Bailey and Burgon had somehow won, my post would have been:
Here lies the body of
LABOUR
Born in the fires of the Industrial Revolution, 1874.
Taken ill, 12th September 2015.
Declared dead, 4th April 2020.
In a life well lived, it brought many changes to the British people, including free healthcare and proper universal pensions and benefits. In old age, it turned its back on that and started talking only about its own brilliance.
It has been a torrid time for Labour Party supporters Jonathan and I am pleased that you have reasons to be hopeful again. I’m on the fence on Starmer at the moment because he needs time to bed in. I didn’t really rate him as some did when he was shadowing DExEU, but there’s no doubt he is a much more sensible pick than the previous rabble and I hope for sake of the country that he is able to build a decent and much more effective opposition.
I thought Keir’s speech was very good, but it’s clear I’m in the minority on that front. I think Labour made the right choice to elect him.
Welcome back! Hope you are keeping safe and well.
I like Keir's message, though I think the delivery suffers from over-rehearsal - he'sclearly reading off a carefully-prepared script.
Anyway I'll take boring competence over jolly waffling at this stage in our history any day.
It was great. Hard to do rousing rhetoric of n your back room. For me the first interesting Labour leader in 10 years. A relief that we have someone who could be PM.
I refer you to my "I'm having fun baiting my former colleagues" and "I'll be delighted to be proven wrong" comments from previous posts
Yawn. Lots of your posts are excellent. But your posts on this matter have been tiresome. I dare say I speak for many PBers when I say I’ll be glad to see the back of them!
And that's fine. But when you've stood next to the cult literally rigging selections in front of you, it wasn't an outrageous suggestion that they would rig this one as well.
Anyway, we all now get to enjoy the loony left eat themselves in revulsion.
The question is what are we supposed to be remembering.
Do we have a national three minutes of silence for the people felled by influenza? How about car accidents? Or cancer?
What good does it achieve?
I understand the reasoning behind a silence to commemorate the war dead, they sacrificed their lives to protect their country and we remember them in the hope that their sacrifices were not in vain, and that there will be no more wars.
So what does a three minute coronavirus silence achieve? A solemn reminder to buy more ventilators next time round? To maybe stop eating bats and pangolins? To all wash our hands more often?
It sounds like virtue signalling to me. Allow people to mourn their own dead in their own way.
To an extent, all of that is true and there's pretty strong evidence the majority of those who have perished would (and let's not call a spade a garden implement) not have lasted much longer. That doesn't make their deaths any less of a tragedy for those close to them.
There have been, however, those whose deaths can be attributed directly to Covid-19 whether they be front line health workers or others. I'm not suggesting an annual commemoration but once, when all this is over, just to remember those who are no longer with us, no, I don't think that would be wrong.
Fair enough. I don't think a one-off silence when phrased in that way is a bad idea. Especially for the front line workers who have lost their lives in the course of saving others. I just don't want it to become another example of poppy-ism, as I fear the clap for carers is becoming as it becomes a regular thing.
The question remains though, is when will this be over, in any meaningful sense? At what point do you, in the manner of George W Bush, unfurl the giant "mission accomplished" banner and declare job done?
This looks unhappily like it will rumble on for months and probably even years, at a lower level.
I also think the experience of developing countries will make what we are going through look like a picnic.
The one thing covid 19 has seen is huge public private cooperation in the NHS
This will no doubt be the model for the future as the NHS and care sector are transformed
Though our private patients are rather nonplussed by the nationalisation of Leicesters private hospitals for a couple of months. The COVID19 virus is a tremendous social equalizer.
For now, for today, he has to. The journey away from the Corbyn Manifesto of 2019 will now begin and if there is a Labour Conference this year I think we will see clear signs of a move away from that agenda back to more centrist positions but it will be incremental.
Starmer, as Blair before him, will be aware a quarter of the party doesn't support him and won't support his move away from Corbyn but the question is what will that quarter do? Sit on their hands (pace pro-European Conservatives) and wait or run off a form a new party which will be crushed electorally?
Starmer knows any losses on the left will be more than made up by gains in the centre - his problem will be those who didn't vote for the Conservatives but voted for Boris. As with Trump, the core supporters follow the man not the brand.
Many on here have posited a competent centrist Democrat candidate would defeat Trump - Biden is about as good as it gets it seems. Over here, Starmer may emerge as a realistic and credible alternative PM and the victory of 1997 was won by those who came to accept the Labour Party under Blair was a non-socialist party of the centre or centre-left after 18 years of Conservative Government.
That is, I think, Starmer's journey - to be the Blair of the mid to late 2020s. How that manifests in policy terms remains to be seen - current events have transformed the ideological landscape.
Voted Nandy, but pleased we actually have a competent, plausible leader of the Labour Party now. I hope to see Reeves, Cooper, Creasy, and the like, who were excluded by the previous leadership brought into senior frontbench roles. And hopefully their appointments enrage Bastani and the other batshit Corbynistas so much, they decide to fuck off. When these people are opposing Labour from the fringes once again, we'll know we actually have a party which can win power.
Doesn't seem likely. But her descent was remarkable - she became little more than a Corbyn mouthpiece, the worst aspects of a career politician, for someone who had not been a frontline political figure (albeit in the public eye on political issues).
But time to enjoy this beautiful sunshine out to celebrate the end of Corbyn.
Shami wasn’t even any good as a lawyer. Third-rate - and with no principles other than self-interest. Look at her behaviour at the LSE over Ghaddaffi. That was a bloody great clue that she would do whatever her paymasters wanted over anti-semitism.
I do hope Dr Rosena gets a high profile role. She has impressed.
The election of Starmer and Rayner in normal times would have been a huge event with live coverage and no doubt lots of enthusiasm and interviews to camera
Today has been such a low key event because of covid 19 it will hardly register in the wider public and that is unfortunate
Comments
Sir Keir won.
Easily.
Your conspiracy theories notwithstanding.
The relief that Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbott have gone is fabulous and I now hope labour under Starmer will provide a good constructive opposition
I fully understand the happiness of the labour contingent on here and will credit Starmer when it is deserved
Starmer 56.1%
LB 29.3
Nandy 14.6
Registered supporters
Starmer 78.6
Nandy 16.4
LB 5
Affiliates
Starmer 53.1
Nandy 24.6
LB 22.3
https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1246379523165339649?s=20
https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/1246379557017595904?s=20
(My first degree was in Economics. I like numbers.)
Sir Kieir Starmer won with a clear mandate.
One can see he looks PM material,
Please sack Shami.
Please.
Thank you.
Edit - I have to say he comes across as a much better speaker than Johnson.
Do we have a national three minutes of silence for the people felled by influenza? How about car accidents? Or cancer?
What good does it achieve?
I understand the reasoning behind a silence to commemorate the war dead, they sacrificed their lives to protect their country and we remember them in the hope that their sacrifices were not in vain, and that there will be no more wars.
So what does a three minute coronavirus silence achieve? A solemn reminder to buy more ventilators next time round? To maybe stop eating bats and pangolins? To all wash our hands more often?
It sounds like virtue signalling to me. Allow people to mourn their own dead in their own way.
I hope to see Reeves, Cooper, Creasy, and the like, who were excluded by the previous leadership brought into senior frontbench roles. And hopefully their appointments enrage Bastani and the other batshit Corbynistas so much, they decide to fuck off. When these people are opposing Labour from the fringes once again, we'll know we actually have a party which can win power.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Labour_Party_leadership_election
I recall thinking, when I qualified that that was that, and I didn't have to worry about 'education' thereafter. Took me about two years to realise how wrong I was, and how I needed 'lifelong learning', with professionally and otherwise, and I've been involved ever since. Still, in my 80's, involved with the WEA and the U3a.
I await further reassurance in the form of right action from Starmer, but one can at least have some degree of confidence that Labour returning to power would not leave us all at the mercy of a malign cult.
'o Rome of luck inborn, reborn beneath my consulship!'
(The famously awful line from a epic poem in praise of Cicero's consulship - which he had to write himself, because no one else wanted to...)
But time to enjoy this beautiful sunshine out to celebrate the end of Corbyn.
Starmer is without any shadow of a doubt the worst LOTO since Corbyn.
Kick Dyson out off the NHS ?
Ladbrokes rather slow - becoming a pattern, I'm afraid.
There have been, however, those whose deaths can be attributed directly to Covid-19 whether they be front line health workers or others. I'm not suggesting an annual commemoration but once, when all this is over, just to remember those who are no longer with us, no, I don't think that would be wrong.
This will no doubt be the model for the future as the NHS and care sector are transformed
A change from the usual comments on here.
Whether it should be national I don’t know. It is certainly worth honouring those professionals who died doing a job helping others.
https://twitter.com/PeoplesMomentum/status/1246379177458184194?s=20
https://twitter.com/PeoplesMomentum/status/1246379296022843392?s=20
https://twitter.com/PeoplesMomentum/status/1246379634784194561?s=20
Anyway I'll take boring competence over jolly waffling at this stage in our history any day.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/12/labour-frontbenchers-rule-out-serving-in-jeremy-corbyn-shadow-cabinet
Here lies the body of
LABOUR
Born in the fires of the Industrial Revolution, 1874.
Taken ill, 12th September 2015.
Declared dead, 4th April 2020.
In a life well lived, it brought many changes to the British people, including free healthcare and proper universal pensions and benefits. In old age, it turned its back on that and started talking only about its own brilliance.
Rest in peace.
I am extremely pleased that Rugby Union Commentator, Nigel Starmer-Smith is now Labour Leader. I always preferred him to Cliff Morgan anyway!
A sensible measure of a such a lop-sided distribution, but it still seems very high.
Overjoyed that Keir Starmer has won .
Anyway, we all now get to enjoy the loony left eat themselves in revulsion.
The question remains though, is when will this be over, in any meaningful sense? At what point do you, in the manner of George W Bush, unfurl the giant "mission accomplished" banner and declare job done?
This looks unhappily like it will rumble on for months and probably even years, at a lower level.
I also think the experience of developing countries will make what we are going through look like a picnic.
Starmer, as Blair before him, will be aware a quarter of the party doesn't support him and won't support his move away from Corbyn but the question is what will that quarter do? Sit on their hands (pace pro-European Conservatives) and wait or run off a form a new party which will be crushed electorally?
Starmer knows any losses on the left will be more than made up by gains in the centre - his problem will be those who didn't vote for the Conservatives but voted for Boris. As with Trump, the core supporters follow the man not the brand.
Many on here have posited a competent centrist Democrat candidate would defeat Trump - Biden is about as good as it gets it seems. Over here, Starmer may emerge as a realistic and credible alternative PM and the victory of 1997 was won by those who came to accept the Labour Party under Blair was a non-socialist party of the centre or centre-left after 18 years of Conservative Government.
That is, I think, Starmer's journey - to be the Blair of the mid to late 2020s. How that manifests in policy terms remains to be seen - current events have transformed the ideological landscape.
I do hope Dr Rosena gets a high profile role. She has impressed.
Today has been such a low key event because of covid 19 it will hardly register in the wider public and that is unfortunate
Nandy more popular with affiliates (?Trade Unionists) than RLB, but a clear win for Starmer in all categories.
https://twitter.com/SocialistVoice/status/1246381284441677825