“Labour now is rich people telling poor people that other rich people are their problem.”
Father Lenin said the Labour Party was a party of the worst kind of bourgeoisie reactionary. He is as right now as he was then.
I was out exploring Clerkenwell over the weekend and my guide pointed out the pub that Lenin and Joe Stalin used to drink in after work…
+++++
Which is?
It is theoretically possible - and, to me, delightful - that Lenin, Stalin and Hitler all drank in the Fitzroy Tavern on Charlotte St, at the same time. Possibly with a young Aleister Crowley
Morning! Thought I would give this a go after about a decade of lurking. Incidentally, it started when a teacher of mine suggested that checking the betting markets is a better predicter of election results than the polls. My feeling is the assertion has taken some hammering since then and I suspect the market has moved against it (no doubt very profitably).
Off Topic, I was really interested in a comment from a previous thread yesterday that linked to a thread from Ciaran Martin on the constitutionality of the IndyRef and what all this means for the future of the Union. Essentially, there's nothing left to devolve and Federalism means either; very unequal federal system, or the clawing of powers back from Holyrood and the dissolution of England as a political entity. Martin's point about federalism and devolution not being one and the same was very shrewd. My suggestion? Enter the third chamber!
Simply add a House of Nations to Parliament, 100 seats, elected by PR and equally distributed among the Nations. Any legislation requires majorities of 2/4 delegations to pass. So, 13 Seats in England, 13 seats in Wales would see a bill go through (having passed the representatives in the Commons in a majority, indicating broad support). This would limit nationalist parties from blocking, while giving equal representation to the Nations.
Now, I don't know if constitutional fanfiction is something we do here but I'm pretty proud of the idea!
Somebody proposed something fairly similar a few weeks ago. But it has the obvious objection that 5 million Welsh and Northern Irish could defeat something that 60 million English and Scots really want.
Also, it's not true that there's nothing left to devolve. This wikipedia page lists several dozen powers that could be devolved:
For instance, time zones are reserved. But why shouldn't Scotland choose a different time zone from England if it wants? Or weights and measures. If England wants to go Imperial why is it any of Wales's business? Judicial salaries - the same. etc. etc.
If Tories win Hartlepool then it is an absolute cert that Johnson will lead them into the next GE unless he chooses to walk away for more money elsewhere.
Who else in the party can win seats like this? Even the most grumpy backbencher will know he's a winner with people none of the rest can come close to.
Indeed, I cannot see a Sunak or Patel or Gove or Raab or Hunt led Tory Party winning Hartlepool and certainly not with anything like the majority the Boris led Tory Party it seems will get on Thursday.
Just as Trump was the first Republican presidential candidate to win white working class rustbelt Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin since Reagan in 2016, so Boris is the first Tory leader to win large numbers of Northern and Midlands white working class seats since Thatcher and indeed to do even better than she did there
In which case I take it you don't know Sunak. Although Patel, Gove and Raab would all have problems..
Sunak would have more appeal to upper middle class Remain or soft Leave areas of London and the Home Counties like Richmond Park, Esher and Walton, Putney, St Albans and Enfield Southgate and Oxford West and Abingdon than Boris does but less appeal than Boris does in white working class strong Leave areas of the North and Midlands in my view.
Patel, Gove and Raab would have less appeal to either group than Boris, granted
this is a very serious electoral offence. I thought from Guido it was just some home made brownies handed out. This is the very literal definition of 'treating'. People can go to jail for this..
I would look at that again - it seems to be a Labour candidate giving cookies to another Labour candidate.
Not quite the story you are making it out to be - on first glance it looks way bad, and then you check the profiles and see that it's just a thank you for work done.
Just a comment on lockdown, opening up and mental health. I have generally been very supportive of lockdowns and think it was essential on previous occasions.
I am now of the view that we are causing more harm than good. 2/3rds of the population has had at least one vaccine dose. Cases of Covid are where they were last Summer and even deaths are at a low level. I know we are no longer in a true lockdown but there are still impacts. I believe now that more deaths are probably being caused as a result of lockdown than are being saved.
I know within the last week of two suicides (neither I knew closely) - one in their early 40s, the other in their 20s. Whilst no one can say if it wouldn't have happened without lockdowns, it certainly hasn't helped. Both of them had plenty of life to live. We have to give other people in similar situations hope and opportunity. Young people particularly have given up so much to protect the older generations. It is time we started protecting their mental health.
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Labour reject who jumped in the sack to fight like a ferret in 2015 against Corbyn and fought like a ferret every day for 3 years criticises sack fighting.
Said ex Labour hypocrite after quitting sack fighting applies to rejoin Labour in order to fight like a ferret against people like "Laura Pillock"
Rejected for being a divisive nasty name calling piece of work so sad ex sack fighting poster is now politically homeless
Sad tale really
As I said shortly after the event, my abrupt about-face to try and rejoin the Labour Party was done in the middle of a mental health crisis. As that was the stupidest action my illness generated I remain grateful!
Then it cleared, and like Dr Zimsky at the end of The Core dictating notes for his book whilst pinned underneath a nuclear bomb that was about to destroy him and his notes, I looked at myself, asked "what the fuck am I doing" and roared with laughter.
Glad that my mental heath disaster makes you roar with laughter as well.
You called me a toss pot is that part of your condition or are you just a nasty piece of work?
No I called you a tosspot because you are kind of person who takes the piss out of the mentally ill.
Source?
I take the piss out of you because you are a hypocrite who lacks humility and a name calling nasty piece of work.
Source? You taking the piss out of my mental health crisis last year during which I tried to rejoin the Labour Party.
Have no problem you calling me a hypocrite - as always I take the opinions of people I have no respect for under advisement. But taking the piss out of people for having an openly confessed breakdown is what makes you a tosspot.
You are a massive asset to the Labour Party! You and Tarry and Sultana and Pillock and the rest of them.
Labour got the kind of racist centrist leader you wanted over the type of leader BJO liked and Labour are tanking in the polls, clearly it is the Blairite faction you are part of which is the problem in Labour.
Maybe the problem is having so many activists keener to see the opposing faction within their own ranks fail than in winning round voters with some thought through ideas and taking the fight to the Tories?
I joined Labour a few years ago full of enthusiasm and verve excited and hoping to get a Labour government.
Prior to ever joining Labour they weren't worth voting for in an election but I preferred them to the Tories and hoped (a little) that they beat them.
My current attitude of delighting in seeing the evil people running the Labour party fail is my experience of what absolutely awful vile people they are.
Boris Johnson is a far lesser evil than the right of the Labour party, I could never vote Conservative but I would never ever ever vote for those lot on pain of death.
A classic entryist position. Would rather have a Tory government than a Labour government. Which is why Labour are drifting away down the river with you and BJO fighting with Southam et al and not noticing there's a waterfall ahead.
If Tories win Hartlepool then it is an absolute cert that Johnson will lead them into the next GE unless he chooses to walk away for more money elsewhere.
Who else in the party can win seats like this? Even the most grumpy backbencher will know he's a winner with people none of the rest can come close to.
Indeed, I cannot see a Sunak or Patel or Gove or Raab or Hunt led Tory Party winning Hartlepool and certainly not with anything like the majority the Boris led Tory Party it seems will get on Thursday.
Just as Trump was the first Republican presidential candidate to win white working class rustbelt Pennsylvania and Michigan and Wisconsin since Reagan in 2016, so Boris is the first Tory leader to win large numbers of Northern and Midlands white working class seats since Thatcher and indeed to do even better than she did there
And that's both the opportunity and the problem for the Conservatives. Like Trump, Johnson is able to appeal to voters that others simply cannot reach. No question about that.
The question is whether, like Trump, Johnson is too tawdry for high office, and whether he fails against someone whose main attribute is "harmless". And whether, when the time comes, the Conservatives are able to de-Johnson themselves with less pain than the de-Trumpification of the Republicans.
I'm almost tempted to re-write my bet about Esther McVey being the next Conservative leader. Almost.
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Labour reject who jumped in the sack to fight like a ferret in 2015 against Corbyn and fought like a ferret every day for 3 years criticises sack fighting.
Said ex Labour hypocrite after quitting sack fighting applies to rejoin Labour in order to fight like a ferret against people like "Laura Pillock"
Rejected for being a divisive nasty name calling piece of work so sad ex sack fighting poster is now politically homeless
Sad tale really
As I said shortly after the event, my abrupt about-face to try and rejoin the Labour Party was done in the middle of a mental health crisis. As that was the stupidest action my illness generated I remain grateful!
Then it cleared, and like Dr Zimsky at the end of The Core dictating notes for his book whilst pinned underneath a nuclear bomb that was about to destroy him and his notes, I looked at myself, asked "what the fuck am I doing" and roared with laughter.
Glad that my mental heath disaster makes you roar with laughter as well.
You called me a toss pot is that part of your condition or are you just a nasty piece of work?
No I called you a tosspot because you are kind of person who takes the piss out of the mentally ill.
Source?
I take the piss out of you because you are a hypocrite who lacks humility and a name calling nasty piece of work.
Source? You taking the piss out of my mental health crisis last year during which I tried to rejoin the Labour Party.
Have no problem you calling me a hypocrite - as always I take the opinions of people I have no respect for under advisement. But taking the piss out of people for having an openly confessed breakdown is what makes you a tosspot.
You are a massive asset to the Labour Party! You and Tarry and Sultana and Pillock and the rest of them.
Glad we can agree you are a hypocrite
As for the rest of that guff, completely untrue.
Take a good look at the sequence of events this morning.
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Labour reject who jumped in the sack to fight like a ferret in 2015 against Corbyn and fought like a ferret every day for 3 years criticises sack fighting.
Said ex Labour hypocrite after quitting sack fighting applies to rejoin Labour in order to fight like a ferret against people like "Laura Pillock"
Rejected for being a divisive nasty name calling piece of work so sad ex sack fighting poster is now politically homeless
Sad tale really
As I said shortly after the event, my abrupt about-face to try and rejoin the Labour Party was done in the middle of a mental health crisis. As that was the stupidest action my illness generated I remain grateful!
Then it cleared, and like Dr Zimsky at the end of The Core dictating notes for his book whilst pinned underneath a nuclear bomb that was about to destroy him and his notes, I looked at myself, asked "what the fuck am I doing" and roared with laughter.
Glad that my mental heath disaster makes you roar with laughter as well.
You called me a toss pot is that part of your condition or are you just a nasty piece of work?
No I called you a tosspot because you are kind of person who takes the piss out of the mentally ill.
Source?
I take the piss out of you because you are a hypocrite who lacks humility and a name calling nasty piece of work.
Source? You taking the piss out of my mental health crisis last year during which I tried to rejoin the Labour Party.
Have no problem you calling me a hypocrite - as always I take the opinions of people I have no respect for under advisement. But taking the piss out of people for having an openly confessed breakdown is what makes you a tosspot.
You are a massive asset to the Labour Party! You and Tarry and Sultana and Pillock and the rest of them.
Labour got the kind of racist centrist leader you wanted over the type of leader BJO liked and Labour are tanking in the polls, clearly it is the Blairite faction you are part of which is the problem in Labour.
Maybe the problem is having so many activists keener to see the opposing faction within their own ranks fail than in winning round voters with some thought through ideas and taking the fight to the Tories?
I joined Labour a few years ago full of enthusiasm and verve excited and hoping to get a Labour government.
Prior to ever joining Labour they weren't worth voting for in an election but I preferred them to the Tories and hoped (a little) that they beat them.
My current attitude of delighting in seeing the evil people running the Labour party fail is my experience of what absolutely awful vile people they are.
Boris Johnson is a far lesser evil than the right of the Labour party, I could never vote Conservative but I would never ever ever vote for those lot on pain of death.
Yes, but I have heard the other side say the same. Meanwhile the internecine fight goes on.
Take my old patch of Ilford - the Corbynite MP got the seat in unpleasant circumstances and I bet a lot of the councillors I used to know there would be keen to get rid of him and have one of their own hold the seat. Meanwhile while all this is going on, the voters are taken for granted with both wings of the party simply assuming the seat will always be “theirs”. One day something might happen that changes that - as is clearly happening elsewhere - and by then it will be too late.
When most of the campaigning energies and efforts are directed against others on your own side, something is wrong.
Personally I wish the Labour Party would self destruct. But it’s taking too long.
this is a very serious electoral offence. I thought from Guido it was just some home made brownies handed out. This is the very literal definition of 'treating'. People can go to jail for this..
Giving them to children too. Quite inappropriate.
Guido has updated to say another activist has seen them on the streets with these boxes of brownies. If that is true, people are going to be interviewed under caution. They better hope the whole thing is a misunderstanding.
The law seems very clear:
A person shall be guilty of treating if he corruptly, by himself or by any other person, either before, during or after an election, directly or indirectly gives or provides, or pays wholly or in part the expense of giving or providing, any meat, drink, entertainment or provision to or for any person—
for the purpose of corruptly influencing that person or any other person to vote or refrain from voting; or...
I don't know if anybody else heard the Starmer interview on R4 Today this morning, but it was quite interesting. He wasn't very good, actually (see, I am objective). But he did take the opportunity to set out briefly the 5 current top priorities for Labour at the next GE, whenever that is.
His 5 priorities had echoes of Blair's 1997 pledge card. Interestingly, the fifth priority was about bringing an end to the divisions caused by the 'culture war' (although he didn't use that expression, of course). Anyway, signs of an emerging Labour policy platform to fill the current policy vacuum.
What does it mean. According to this article it means "Insiders suggested that levelling up could include four aspects — a regional economic policy; spreading opportunity across the country; improving the outputs and outcomes from public services; and non-economic outcomes of improving “quality of life” and “pride in place”."
Sounds like empty vacuous slogans to me. In Copeland, one issue that lots of the locals mention is the state of the roads. They are awful. As for public services, the local councils are appalling at emptying their recycling centres. One centre - located next to a children's play area and SSI on the beach - is so bad that rubbish is blown about all over the place. The local waste authority is responsible for a statutory nuisance and this in an area dependant on tourism for its living.
I have raised this with the local council, the Tory Mayor and the local Tory councillor. Neither of the latter two even bothered to reply.
"Quality of life" and "pride in place" my arse!
You seem disappointed that reality is different to the political promises of all parties. To be truly cynical, wait to you are 60ish...
Husband told me the local Tory councillor is utterly useless. So my expectations were pretty low and were entirely met.
The council officials have promised to do something but they are based in Whitehaven, live in Carlisle and have never even been to the area. It is a forgotten part of the country. Trudi Harrison comes from here - Bootle - a few miles away. She is local, quite friendly. But she has over the last year been a sad disappointment by comparison with Tim Farron. Being cynical, pork barrel politics has something to be said for it if you get some of the pork. But when you don't even get that, what is the point of any of it?
I tell this story to show the reality of what life is like here and to show up the vacuous nature of this levelling up slogan. We will see whether it amounts to anything substantive in reality. So far the main people who have been levelled up by the Tory party have been the rich who already have rather than the have nots.
I nonetheless expect the Tories to stay in power for a while because Labour are proving to be so bloody useless.
I’m confused. One minute you’re based in Cumbria the next you’re in your garden in West Hampstead
Nothing wrong with multiple houses (or identities) but it does mean you can’t pose as a hard pressed daughter of the provinces if you ALSO have a desirable bolt-hole in the capital
Second home owners certainly aren’t seen as locals
I seem to remember pressing Cyclefree on this at GE2019, with regard to electoral law. She is only allowed to vote at her main residence.
Cyclefree asserted she did not have a second home, as she lived in Cumbria and her husband lived in West Hampstead. So, the claim is that the Cyclefree family did not own a second home, but they owned two 'first homes'
My understanding is that there are tax implications of 'second homes' so it is not just a matter of picking and choosing yourself that your 'second home' is another 'first home'.
But, I don't mind Cyclefree's little ... shall we say ... sleight of hand. Really, I don't.
What is certainly true is that if an MP was doing what Cyclefree was doing -- defining what is a 'second home' as a 'first home' -- we'd never here the end of it in one of her famous homilies against corruption.
I shall retract my talons now.
And I explained at the time and will do so again for the last time.
My husband and I separated for a while because our son's very serious illness, an illness from which he nearly died and for which he was hospitalised in circumstances that do not bear thinking about let alone repeating to strangers pretty much destroyed our marriage and our family. I lived and worked in London and he in Cumbria. He had one home. I had another. I have never breached electoral law. Nor has my husband.
Our decision to try and start a new life together again in Cumbria in our retirement is why things have changed.
You really should not make bitchy and hurtful comments about people you don't know when you don't know the truth about their lives.
Probably time for me to withdraw from this forum frankly. You can bitch away about others instead.
Labour have been a woeful opposition, even under Starmer.
But there is, dare I say it, a touch of hubris in the air this morning. Remember May won Copeland - a Labour seat since forever. Stunning victory etc etc. Trudi Harrison, my MP now, is now Boris's PPS. She has been conspicuously silent on the problems facing farmers and hospitality in the constituency. It is Tim Farron in the neighbouring constituency who has made all the running on this and the plight of outdoor centres. The one big jobs development in the area - the mine - has been put on hold.
Husband takes the cynical view that better to have a Tory MP as there is a chance that an area which has largely been neglected might get something. Daughter sees an MP who has said and done little and has yet to have the meeting with her to discuss the issues around hospitality and small businesses she was promised since before Xmas.
Anyway, a few months after Copeland the Tories lost their majority. Now of course the PM is a better campaigner than May, he won't call a GE etc etc. But still - a touch of humility might not go amiss. The Tories are in danger of taking their new voters just as much for granted as Labour have done, unless there are real and visible improvements.
Improving the roads would be something - round where I live the potholes are something that would disgrace a poor African village.
If there were a by-election in Chingford or Kensington, or Wycombe, Labour would probably win it by a country mile. That article on the Blue Wall was interesting.
this is a very serious electoral offence. I thought from Guido it was just some home made brownies handed out. This is the very literal definition of 'treating'. People can go to jail for this..
Apart from the obvious breaking of the law, wtaf, those are expensive, cost inefficient, and this is for West Yorkshire, which broke 2-1 to Lab in 2016 for the PCC elections, and where Lab were 6% ahead in 2019. Surely this race isn't anywhere near being live?
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Labour reject who jumped in the sack to fight like a ferret in 2015 against Corbyn and fought like a ferret every day for 3 years criticises sack fighting.
Said ex Labour hypocrite after quitting sack fighting applies to rejoin Labour in order to fight like a ferret against people like "Laura Pillock"
Rejected for being a divisive nasty name calling piece of work so sad ex sack fighting poster is now politically homeless
Sad tale really
As I said shortly after the event, my abrupt about-face to try and rejoin the Labour Party was done in the middle of a mental health crisis. As that was the stupidest action my illness generated I remain grateful!
Then it cleared, and like Dr Zimsky at the end of The Core dictating notes for his book whilst pinned underneath a nuclear bomb that was about to destroy him and his notes, I looked at myself, asked "what the fuck am I doing" and roared with laughter.
Glad that my mental heath disaster makes you roar with laughter as well.
You called me a toss pot is that part of your condition or are you just a nasty piece of work?
No I called you a tosspot because you are kind of person who takes the piss out of the mentally ill.
Source?
I take the piss out of you because you are a hypocrite who lacks humility and a name calling nasty piece of work.
Source? You taking the piss out of my mental health crisis last year during which I tried to rejoin the Labour Party.
Have no problem you calling me a hypocrite - as always I take the opinions of people I have no respect for under advisement. But taking the piss out of people for having an openly confessed breakdown is what makes you a tosspot.
You are a massive asset to the Labour Party! You and Tarry and Sultana and Pillock and the rest of them.
Labour got the kind of racist centrist leader you wanted over the type of leader BJO liked and Labour are tanking in the polls, clearly it is the Blairite faction you are part of which is the problem in Labour.
Maybe the problem is having so many activists keener to see the opposing faction within their own ranks fail than in winning round voters with some thought through ideas and taking the fight to the Tories?
I joined Labour a few years ago full of enthusiasm and verve excited and hoping to get a Labour government.
Prior to ever joining Labour they weren't worth voting for in an election but I preferred them to the Tories and hoped (a little) that they beat them.
My current attitude of delighting in seeing the evil people running the Labour party fail is my experience of what absolutely awful vile people they are.
Boris Johnson is a far lesser evil than the right of the Labour party, I could never vote Conservative but I would never ever ever vote for those lot on pain of death.
This is seriously distorted thinking, bordering on disturbed.
SKS is not evil, he is well meaning but boring with few original ideas. Dodds is not evil, she is bright and technically literate but even duller than her boss. Evil was the last regime with its blatant anti-Semitism, its hatred for their own country and the willful blindness that this led to supporting anyone else on the planet that hated us no matter how appalling they were. Labour may not win under SKS but it is no longer a national disgrace and that is progress of a sort.
If you, but more importantly Labour, don't get this then there is no way they are returning to power anytime soon.
This is lazy analysis. Just because there's been some big political shifts in one area doesn't mean they cant be some in another.
If the Tories win Hartlepool by the amount suggested and IF (big if) the national polling is actually in the region of a 2% lead, rather than 10%, that suggests some big swings to Labour elsewhere...
I agree. What has made the Tories so successful over the last decade is the increased efficiency of their vote compared to the days when they got within 3% of Blair and he got a very comfortable majority. This has happened so far because the very considerable ebbing of their strength in the south of England has merely reduced their majorities whilst they have suddenly become much more competitive in the midlands, the east and now the north.
But as Labour is finding in reverse there is a tipping point in these things. The seats Labour took for granted whilst it went fishing in the suburbs and university towns of the south have bitten back and it is all too possible that southern seats which were much more remainer, much more liberal and much more dominated by professional classes will in turn get fed up being taken for granted.
Overall this is a good thing. It was not healthy that the Tories were content to get a majority with only the odd rural seat north of Birmingham and the inability of Labour to relate to our most economically successful areas outside of the actual cities meant that they had little to say in that area. A situation where both our major parties have a fair degree of representation from most of our country improves the chances of the government being aware of the needs of all of the country.
Most of the problems there arise from the voting system, which directs all the political attention to those areas considered marginal, and neglects the safer areas for any party.
Whilst that is undoubtedly true it seems to me that Labour is going through an identity crises where they will become more potent in seats that are more like them, that is middle class, professional, well educated, dominated by the public sector and frankly rather more interested in the privileges of such people than those who have very little.
Those with little have caught on. They may come to realise that Boris doesn't really give a toss about them either but at least he pretends to listen and he is amusing rather than patronising.
"pretends to listen"? He delivered them their verdict on Brexit. Labour were set against doing so.
Yes, pretends to listen. Do the people of Hartlepool want Brexit because it is Brexit, or because what they hope it will bring them? Pools is a classic post industrial left behind backwater. People want back the jobs and prosperity and pride and hope that was taken from them. Brexit was the silver bullet to cure these ills which is why they were so enthusiastic for it.
Where the Tories will struggle is that they can't deliver what was promised. I have no doubt that Hartlepool will be thrown a few scraps once it goes Tory but it won't change the fundamental problems with the town and the region. One prime example - local Tories very excited by the prospect of a free port and how it will restore industry. Except that a free port makes it easier to IMPORT, it will do nothing but harm for local industry. But as nothing but harm has been on the menu for 40 years people are desperate and will try anything.
When salvation fails to arrive? Thats when the Tories are screwed. Not to Labour's benefit you understand, we're going to see a rise of the hard right. Think UKIP/Brexit with paramilitary activists...
I guess that they aren’t going to work in the new GE factory then?
A perfect example. Can you show me where in the Mayor's remit he has had anything to do with GE coming to Teesside? Its got literally fuck all to do with him and the same would have been true if (shudder) Jessie Joe Jacobs becomes mayor. She also claims all kinds of crap that are absolutely miles outside the remit of this non-job.
That’s changing the question. You said that the Freeport would do nothing for residents. GE is opening a factory there because it. That will do something for residents.
I don’t care whether it was the mayor, the monkey or a giraffe from London Zoo that achieved it. But from what he has said - and he may be lying of course - the major has been advocating strongly for the Freeport so he had a role and deserves a share of the credit
Oh give over. GE want a tax break to set up in the free port so that they can use imported parts to assemble products to be exported. Local industry doesn't get a boost from a freeport it gets demolished by them. We know freeports don't work, we have shut them all down - specifically the *Tories* shut them down in 2012.
Mayor Houchen has presided over a net loss of jobs and despite the new GE factory the loss will only accelerate with the freeport completely sinking anything that isn't in the free zone. And what does this freeport zone do? Allow busines to function as if it was still in the EU. Yay...
"Assemble products to be exported" is another description of . . . manufacturing. It is industry.
There is a major difference between a factory - where you make stuff - and an assembly plant - where you screw stuff together made in factories. Far easier to shut down an assembly shed and direct the parts to a different assembly shed than it is to shut the actual factories who make them.
The other big "factory" on Teesside(ish) that is a big risk is Hitachi. It makes literally nothing there that can't be done in its other factories and unlike either Kasado or even Ansaldo it can only make for the UK market.
What utter bollocks. A factory is where you ‘make something on a large scale using machinery’.
Unless you know of ‘factories’ which have their own iron mines from which they smelt their own steel, like mao’s iron working peasants in the early 60s, then anything any factory does can quite easily be moved elsewhere. This is the essential lesson of modernity
It's a matter of value added - how much work is actually done locally and how many people are employed there...
Nissan - manufacturing - the assembly plant is in the middle with a lot of the parts made by other suppliers locally.
Hitach Rail - assembly - the plant doesn't add much from other local suppliers, everything is shipped in boxes from Japan and then assembled here.
A factory is, by definition, a place where you ‘make something on a large scale using machinery’. Everything else is tedious medieval theology, and equally meaningless. Indeed, increasingly meaningless, in an era of 3D printing and AI. Soon you will be able to manufacture anywhere
On that note, this is remarkable
‘Merging DNA with quantum computing - really amazing and lethal’
2 minutes. Watch it. The world is on the brink of exceptional changes. I’m not sure many have grasped this
you are asking someone whose two favourite books are Out of Control (from 1992 and covers stuff that video) and the Inevitable - both by Kevin Kelly.
The future is already here it's just unevenly distributed - Hitachi is old school, Nissan mid range Mercedes, Mclaren and Red Bull cutting edge with 3d printing doing everything.
As for AI that's literally the software I'm launching this week - AI and Open Banking providing a real time solution that is otherwise done at best quarterly and very labour intensive.
I firmly believe we are approaching a singularity of technology on a par with, or even greatly exceeding, the advent of industrialised electricity in the early 20th century. Possibly greater than the Industrial Revolution itself
It is all colliding at once, Covid has accelerated things
Remember the title of the 2016 book I referenced - it's all inevitable - the only thing Covid has done is accelerate remote working by 10-20 years in a 4 week period.
this is a very serious electoral offence. I thought from Guido it was just some home made brownies handed out. This is the very literal definition of 'treating'. People can go to jail for this..
I would look at that again - it seems to be a Labour candidate giving cookies to another Labour candidate.
Not quite the story you are making it out to be - on first glance it looks way bad, and then you check the profiles and see that it's just a thank you for work done.
this is a very serious electoral offence. I thought from Guido it was just some home made brownies handed out. This is the very literal definition of 'treating'. People can go to jail for this..
I would look at that again - it seems to be a Labour candidate giving cookies to another Labour candidate.
Not quite the story you are making it out to be - on first glance it looks way bad, and then you check the profiles and see that it's just a thank you for work done.
Yes, i saw that after posted, it only has legs if the second part that Guido added is true: "Local LibDem councillor Tom Gordon noted he’s now seen Brabin “out & about with boxes of brownies on them that say ‘Vote Labour’ on them”
this is a very serious electoral offence. I thought from Guido it was just some home made brownies handed out. This is the very literal definition of 'treating'. People can go to jail for this..
I would look at that again - it seems to be a Labour candidate giving cookies to another Labour candidate.
Not quite the story you are making it out to be - on first glance it looks way bad, and then you check the profiles and see that it's just a thank you for work done.
No, it's more than that. From Guido:
Local LibDem councillor Tom Gordon noted he’s now seen Brabin “out & about with boxes of brownies on them that say ‘Vote Labour’ on them”, asking the West Yorkshire Police whether it would be considered an electoral offence under treating laws.
‘Chinese military leaders believe that they will have the capabilities to force unification with Taiwan within a year—we need to act now. @WSJ, @AlastairGale’
How can Labour be 2% behind nationally but 17% behind in Hartlepool? Either one poll is wrong, the other poll is wrong, or the Tories are losing ground much quicker in other areas than people realise.
I expect Thursday to yield some very interesting results elsewhere in the country.
No doubt each party will pour over them in detail, and look to talk up their successes.
No 10 has admitted it has no idea what its flagship "levelling up" policy means so has appointed @NeilDotObrien to provide some substance. Fine piece in FT by @SebastianEPayne. Suspect @MichaelBarber9 on reaching No 10 to provide his delivery expertise found no policy to deliver.
This is why I was suggesting that Street would be ideal for the role. He seems to have plenty of ideas with a cross party appeal.
"No 10 has admitted it has no idea what its flagship "levelling up" policy means"
No idea why they don't know what it means to be honest. It is clear what it means. Sprinkle small, but press worthy amounts of money around the North and Red Wall seats so that it looks like Johnson gives a flying f*ck. Build a bridge here, do up some shopping streets there and so on.
Or alternatively, you could look at why these areas are being drained of capital and investment by London, look at what the inhibiting factors of growth are whether that is infrastructure, transport, specialist education, whatever, and think seriously about how you make these places that are attractive to invest and live in again (ie tidy up the mess and detritus of the past, make sure that that there is decent housing available, better schools etc).
The Tories can no more level up these areas than Labour did - the same issues still exist albeit with both of them seeing them from opposite sides. The economy is seriously and increasingly unbalanced with resources and the ability to participate increasingly out of range no matter how many hours people work.
Neither of the big parties can see beyond the next electoral cycle and - thanks to firstly crap management and communist unions and latterly the need to declare quarterly stock market profits - neither can industry.
Unless we actually start planning for the long term things will just get worse. Sure, people will get thrown trinkets like a big telly and an iPhone. But their ability to actually progress just diminishes year after year. The Tories don't recognise the problem so have no chance of levelling up. Labour recognised it, decided it was too hard and instead just blamed their lack of progress on the Tories.
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Labour reject who jumped in the sack to fight like a ferret in 2015 against Corbyn and fought like a ferret every day for 3 years criticises sack fighting.
Said ex Labour hypocrite after quitting sack fighting applies to rejoin Labour in order to fight like a ferret against people like "Laura Pillock"
Rejected for being a divisive nasty name calling piece of work so sad ex sack fighting poster is now politically homeless
Sad tale really
As I said shortly after the event, my abrupt about-face to try and rejoin the Labour Party was done in the middle of a mental health crisis. As that was the stupidest action my illness generated I remain grateful!
Then it cleared, and like Dr Zimsky at the end of The Core dictating notes for his book whilst pinned underneath a nuclear bomb that was about to destroy him and his notes, I looked at myself, asked "what the fuck am I doing" and roared with laughter.
Glad that my mental heath disaster makes you roar with laughter as well.
You called me a toss pot is that part of your condition or are you just a nasty piece of work?
No I called you a tosspot because you are kind of person who takes the piss out of the mentally ill.
Source?
I take the piss out of you because you are a hypocrite who lacks humility and a name calling nasty piece of work.
Source? You taking the piss out of my mental health crisis last year during which I tried to rejoin the Labour Party.
Have no problem you calling me a hypocrite - as always I take the opinions of people I have no respect for under advisement. But taking the piss out of people for having an openly confessed breakdown is what makes you a tosspot.
You are a massive asset to the Labour Party! You and Tarry and Sultana and Pillock and the rest of them.
Labour got the kind of racist centrist leader you wanted over the type of leader BJO liked and Labour are tanking in the polls, clearly it is the Blairite faction you are part of which is the problem in Labour.
Maybe the problem is having so many activists keener to see the opposing faction within their own ranks fail than in winning round voters with some thought through ideas and taking the fight to the Tories?
I joined Labour a few years ago full of enthusiasm and verve excited and hoping to get a Labour government.
Prior to ever joining Labour they weren't worth voting for in an election but I preferred them to the Tories and hoped (a little) that they beat them.
My current attitude of delighting in seeing the evil people running the Labour party fail is my experience of what absolutely awful vile people they are.
Boris Johnson is a far lesser evil than the right of the Labour party, I could never vote Conservative but I would never ever ever vote for those lot on pain of death.
Yes, but I have heard the other side say the same. Meanwhile the internecine fight goes on.
Take my old patch of Ilford - the Corbynite MP got the seat in unpleasant circumstances and I bet a lot of the councillors I used to know there would be keen to get rid of him and have one of their own hold the seat. Meanwhile while all this is going on, the voters are taken for granted with both wings of the party simply assuming the seat will always be “theirs”. One day something might happen that changes that - as is clearly happening elsewhere - and by then it will be too late.
When most of the campaigning energies and efforts are directed against others on your own side, something is wrong.
Personally I wish the Labour Party would self destruct. But it’s taking too long.
The best way to get the Labour Party to self destruct would be PR. It would also cause the party formally known as Conservative to do the same. For both those reasons PR will not happen.
I don't know if anybody else heard the Starmer interview on R4 Today this morning, but it was quite interesting. He wasn't very good, actually (see, I am objective). But he did take the opportunity to set out briefly the 5 current top priorities for Labour at the next GE, whenever that is.
His 5 priorities had echoes of Blair's 1997 pledge card. Interestingly, the fifth priority was about bringing an end to the divisions caused by the 'culture war' (although he didn't use that expression, of course). Anyway, signs of an emerging Labour policy platform to fill the current policy vacuum.
What does it mean. According to this article it means "Insiders suggested that levelling up could include four aspects — a regional economic policy; spreading opportunity across the country; improving the outputs and outcomes from public services; and non-economic outcomes of improving “quality of life” and “pride in place”."
Sounds like empty vacuous slogans to me. In Copeland, one issue that lots of the locals mention is the state of the roads. They are awful. As for public services, the local councils are appalling at emptying their recycling centres. One centre - located next to a children's play area and SSI on the beach - is so bad that rubbish is blown about all over the place. The local waste authority is responsible for a statutory nuisance and this in an area dependant on tourism for its living.
I have raised this with the local council, the Tory Mayor and the local Tory councillor. Neither of the latter two even bothered to reply.
"Quality of life" and "pride in place" my arse!
You seem disappointed that reality is different to the political promises of all parties. To be truly cynical, wait to you are 60ish...
Husband told me the local Tory councillor is utterly useless. So my expectations were pretty low and were entirely met.
The council officials have promised to do something but they are based in Whitehaven, live in Carlisle and have never even been to the area. It is a forgotten part of the country. Trudi Harrison comes from here - Bootle - a few miles away. She is local, quite friendly. But she has over the last year been a sad disappointment by comparison with Tim Farron. Being cynical, pork barrel politics has something to be said for it if you get some of the pork. But when you don't even get that, what is the point of any of it?
I tell this story to show the reality of what life is like here and to show up the vacuous nature of this levelling up slogan. We will see whether it amounts to anything substantive in reality. So far the main people who have been levelled up by the Tory party have been the rich who already have rather than the have nots.
I nonetheless expect the Tories to stay in power for a while because Labour are proving to be so bloody useless.
I’m confused. One minute you’re based in Cumbria the next you’re in your garden in West Hampstead
Nothing wrong with multiple houses (or identities) but it does mean you can’t pose as a hard pressed daughter of the provinces if you ALSO have a desirable bolt-hole in the capital
Second home owners certainly aren’t seen as locals
I seem to remember pressing Cyclefree on this at GE2019, with regard to electoral law. She is only allowed to vote at her main residence.
Cyclefree asserted she did not have a second home, as she lived in Cumbria and her husband lived in West Hampstead. So, the claim is that the Cyclefree family did not own a second home, but they owned two 'first homes'
My understanding is that there are tax implications of 'second homes' so it is not just a matter of picking and choosing yourself that your 'second home' is another 'first home'.
But, I don't mind Cyclefree's little ... shall we say ... sleight of hand. Really, I don't.
What is certainly true is that if an MP was doing what Cyclefree was doing -- defining what is a 'second home' as a 'first home' -- we'd never here the end of it in one of her famous homilies against corruption.
I shall retract my talons now.
Our own Isle of Wight MP gets a lot of muttering on the basis people wonder whether he really has a main home here.
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Labour reject who jumped in the sack to fight like a ferret in 2015 against Corbyn and fought like a ferret every day for 3 years criticises sack fighting.
Said ex Labour hypocrite after quitting sack fighting applies to rejoin Labour in order to fight like a ferret against people like "Laura Pillock"
Rejected for being a divisive nasty name calling piece of work so sad ex sack fighting poster is now politically homeless
Sad tale really
As I said shortly after the event, my abrupt about-face to try and rejoin the Labour Party was done in the middle of a mental health crisis. As that was the stupidest action my illness generated I remain grateful!
Then it cleared, and like Dr Zimsky at the end of The Core dictating notes for his book whilst pinned underneath a nuclear bomb that was about to destroy him and his notes, I looked at myself, asked "what the fuck am I doing" and roared with laughter.
Glad that my mental heath disaster makes you roar with laughter as well.
You called me a toss pot is that part of your condition or are you just a nasty piece of work?
No I called you a tosspot because you are kind of person who takes the piss out of the mentally ill.
Source?
I take the piss out of you because you are a hypocrite who lacks humility and a name calling nasty piece of work.
Source? You taking the piss out of my mental health crisis last year during which I tried to rejoin the Labour Party.
Have no problem you calling me a hypocrite - as always I take the opinions of people I have no respect for under advisement. But taking the piss out of people for having an openly confessed breakdown is what makes you a tosspot.
You are a massive asset to the Labour Party! You and Tarry and Sultana and Pillock and the rest of them.
Labour got the kind of racist centrist leader you wanted over the type of leader BJO liked and Labour are tanking in the polls, clearly it is the Blairite faction you are part of which is the problem in Labour.
Maybe the problem is having so many activists keener to see the opposing faction within their own ranks fail than in winning round voters with some thought through ideas and taking the fight to the Tories?
I joined Labour a few years ago full of enthusiasm and verve excited and hoping to get a Labour government.
Prior to ever joining Labour they weren't worth voting for in an election but I preferred them to the Tories and hoped (a little) that they beat them.
My current attitude of delighting in seeing the evil people running the Labour party fail is my experience of what absolutely awful vile people they are.
Boris Johnson is a far lesser evil than the right of the Labour party, I could never vote Conservative but I would never ever ever vote for those lot on pain of death.
A classic entryist position. Would rather have a Tory government than a Labour government. Which is why Labour are drifting away down the river with you and BJO fighting with Southam et al and not noticing there's a waterfall ahead.
The position I have adopted is the classic Blairite position, you should learn from your enemies and I learned from you and the terrible people you support.
The only difference is I hope a Labour who will do nothing to help normal people loses because it won't help normal people but can get back to something that will.
The Blairite POV is purely inspired by wealthy old white men who can't get over the fact it isn't the 90's anymore and are prepared to destroy any hope of better government to rediscover their youth (through Blairite politics)
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Labour reject who jumped in the sack to fight like a ferret in 2015 against Corbyn and fought like a ferret every day for 3 years criticises sack fighting.
Said ex Labour hypocrite after quitting sack fighting applies to rejoin Labour in order to fight like a ferret against people like "Laura Pillock"
Rejected for being a divisive nasty name calling piece of work so sad ex sack fighting poster is now politically homeless
Sad tale really
As I said shortly after the event, my abrupt about-face to try and rejoin the Labour Party was done in the middle of a mental health crisis. As that was the stupidest action my illness generated I remain grateful!
Then it cleared, and like Dr Zimsky at the end of The Core dictating notes for his book whilst pinned underneath a nuclear bomb that was about to destroy him and his notes, I looked at myself, asked "what the fuck am I doing" and roared with laughter.
Glad that my mental heath disaster makes you roar with laughter as well.
You called me a toss pot is that part of your condition or are you just a nasty piece of work?
No I called you a tosspot because you are kind of person who takes the piss out of the mentally ill.
Source?
I take the piss out of you because you are a hypocrite who lacks humility and a name calling nasty piece of work.
Source? You taking the piss out of my mental health crisis last year during which I tried to rejoin the Labour Party.
Have no problem you calling me a hypocrite - as always I take the opinions of people I have no respect for under advisement. But taking the piss out of people for having an openly confessed breakdown is what makes you a tosspot.
You are a massive asset to the Labour Party! You and Tarry and Sultana and Pillock and the rest of them.
Labour got the kind of racist centrist leader you wanted over the type of leader BJO liked and Labour are tanking in the polls, clearly it is the Blairite faction you are part of which is the problem in Labour.
Maybe the problem is having so many activists keener to see the opposing faction within their own ranks fail than in winning round voters with some thought through ideas and taking the fight to the Tories?
I joined Labour a few years ago full of enthusiasm and verve excited and hoping to get a Labour government.
Prior to ever joining Labour they weren't worth voting for in an election but I preferred them to the Tories and hoped (a little) that they beat them.
My current attitude of delighting in seeing the evil people running the Labour party fail is my experience of what absolutely awful vile people they are.
Boris Johnson is a far lesser evil than the right of the Labour party, I could never vote Conservative but I would never ever ever vote for those lot on pain of death.
This is seriously distorted thinking, bordering on disturbed.
SKS is not evil, he is well meaning but boring with few original ideas. Dodds is not evil, she is bright and technically literate but even duller than her boss. Evil was the last regime with its blatant anti-Semitism, its hatred for their own country and the willful blindness that this led to supporting anyone else on the planet that hated us no matter how appalling they were. Labour may not win under SKS but it is no longer a national disgrace and that is progress of a sort.
this is a very serious electoral offence. I thought from Guido it was just some home made brownies handed out. This is the very literal definition of 'treating'. People can go to jail for this..
Apart from the obvious breaking of the law, wtaf, those are expensive, cost inefficient, and this is for West Yorkshire, which broke 2-1 to Lab in 2016 for the PCC elections, and where Lab were 6% ahead in 2019. Surely this race isn't anywhere near being live?
Yes, it must just be a small batch for activists. I dont believe any candidate with an agent would make such a foolish mistake.
Labour’s woes boil down to the fact that their traditional heartlands are big fans of Brexit. They think Brexit will bring back the glory days. They are willing to give the Tories a try, ‘cos Brexit.
So if Brexit is a success the Red Wall will continue to crumble and Labour are fucked. If Brexit is shit, and there’s no discernible improvement in these areas, then the Tories won’t be trusted again for a long time.
That’s it. Everything else is froth.
The Tories need to get money flowing to the left behind areas. I’m sceptical that will happen. Time will tell.
It's a very good warning. Trump tried this too, and many rebounded to Biden when he didn't deliver.
This rather ignores that this seat (or its predecessor) last returned a Tory in 1959. The Red Wall seems to be continuing to crumble.
Yet, what about elsewhere in the country? In my rather leafy Bucks village I have yet to see a single Tory banner. A few Labour but many Green signs. Locally the Greens have done quite well before and I would expect that to continue. Locally they don't have to worry about some of their more bonkers national policies. As a traditional Tory I am tempted to give them my vote in the locals which I would never do in a general election.
Speaking as a Tory, I'd vote for Labour before I voted Green.
They are utter luddite reductionist communitarian fundamentalists.
There’s no reason to believe the party wouldn’t follow the same path toward more moderate respectability, if our political system offered it the same chance to grow that the German Greens, who started with a similar mindset, have had.
I don't think my opinions on Labour matter to the Tories - I left the party and have now moved north of the wall to a place almost completely devoid of Labour. Still see the Tories as the principle opponents to defeat though, with a big LD push to try and double our list seat representation in the NE taking a seat off the Tories.
How can Labour be 2% behind nationally but 17% behind in Hartlepool? Either one poll is wrong, the other poll is wrong, or the Tories are losing ground much quicker in other areas than people realise.
Or, the Tories aren’t losing ground when it comes to actual elections
Polls are an expression of theoretical interest. A Tinder swipe. Elections, by contrast, are actual sex
If they were we wouldn't have a problem with turnout.
I don't know if anybody else heard the Starmer interview on R4 Today this morning, but it was quite interesting. He wasn't very good, actually (see, I am objective). But he did take the opportunity to set out briefly the 5 current top priorities for Labour at the next GE, whenever that is.
His 5 priorities had echoes of Blair's 1997 pledge card. Interestingly, the fifth priority was about bringing an end to the divisions caused by the 'culture war' (although he didn't use that expression, of course). Anyway, signs of an emerging Labour policy platform to fill the current policy vacuum.
What does it mean. According to this article it means "Insiders suggested that levelling up could include four aspects — a regional economic policy; spreading opportunity across the country; improving the outputs and outcomes from public services; and non-economic outcomes of improving “quality of life” and “pride in place”."
Sounds like empty vacuous slogans to me. In Copeland, one issue that lots of the locals mention is the state of the roads. They are awful. As for public services, the local councils are appalling at emptying their recycling centres. One centre - located next to a children's play area and SSI on the beach - is so bad that rubbish is blown about all over the place. The local waste authority is responsible for a statutory nuisance and this in an area dependant on tourism for its living.
I have raised this with the local council, the Tory Mayor and the local Tory councillor. Neither of the latter two even bothered to reply.
"Quality of life" and "pride in place" my arse!
You seem disappointed that reality is different to the political promises of all parties. To be truly cynical, wait to you are 60ish...
Husband told me the local Tory councillor is utterly useless. So my expectations were pretty low and were entirely met.
The council officials have promised to do something but they are based in Whitehaven, live in Carlisle and have never even been to the area. It is a forgotten part of the country. Trudi Harrison comes from here - Bootle - a few miles away. She is local, quite friendly. But she has over the last year been a sad disappointment by comparison with Tim Farron. Being cynical, pork barrel politics has something to be said for it if you get some of the pork. But when you don't even get that, what is the point of any of it?
I tell this story to show the reality of what life is like here and to show up the vacuous nature of this levelling up slogan. We will see whether it amounts to anything substantive in reality. So far the main people who have been levelled up by the Tory party have been the rich who already have rather than the have nots.
I nonetheless expect the Tories to stay in power for a while because Labour are proving to be so bloody useless.
I’m confused. One minute you’re based in Cumbria the next you’re in your garden in West Hampstead
Nothing wrong with multiple houses (or identities) but it does mean you can’t pose as a hard pressed daughter of the provinces if you ALSO have a desirable bolt-hole in the capital
Second home owners certainly aren’t seen as locals
I seem to remember pressing Cyclefree on this at GE2019, with regard to electoral law. She is only allowed to vote at her main residence.
Cyclefree asserted she did not have a second home, as she lived in Cumbria and her husband lived in West Hampstead. So, the claim is that the Cyclefree family did not own a second home, but they owned two 'first homes'
My understanding is that there are tax implications of 'second homes' so it is not just a matter of picking and choosing yourself that your 'second home' is another 'first home'.
But, I don't mind Cyclefree's little ... shall we say ... sleight of hand. Really, I don't.
What is certainly true is that if an MP was doing what Cyclefree was doing -- defining what is a 'second home' as a 'first home' -- we'd never here the end of it in one of her famous homilies against corruption.
I shall retract my talons now.
And I explained at the time and will do so again for the last time.
My husband and I separated for a while because our son's very serious illness, an illness from which he nearly died and for which he was hospitalised in circumstances that do not bear thinking about let alone repeating to strangers pretty much destroyed our marriage and our family. I lived and worked in London and he in Cumbria. He had one home. I had another. I have never breached electoral law. Nor has my husband.
Our decision to try and start a new life together again in Cumbria in our retirement is why things have changed.
You really should not make bitchy and hurtful comments about people you don't know when you don't know the truth about their lives.
Probably time for me to withdraw from this forum frankly. You can bitch away about others instead.
I am of course sorry to hear all this.
My only point is that 'a second home' is something that is formally defined by the tax authorities. You have to declare your family's main residence.
Because there are tax implications.
And there are also implications with regard to electoral law (which certainly in Wales are routinely flouted).
On the BBC quiz show "Pointless" last week there was a round where contestants had to identify politicians from their photos. The aim was to identify the MP that scored the lowest in terms of members of the public surveyed recognising them. The programme was filmed since Covid regulations came in. Keir Starmer had 46 per cent recognition with the public, Anneliese Dodds 3 and Angela Rayner 4. The opposition doesn't seem to be cutting through with members of the public.
Not the opposition, everyone but the PM. Rishi Sunak joined Keir Starmer in the 40s, for example. And Ed Davey...well...
I don't this reflects at all on Lab/Con. It's just the nature of opposition.
I think that’s an impressively high set of numbers for Hancock, Patel, Starmer and Sinai. Suspect they are much higher than baseline recognition
This rather ignores that this seat (or its predecessor) last returned a Tory in 1959. The Red Wall seems to be continuing to crumble.
Yet, what about elsewhere in the country? In my rather leafy Bucks village I have yet to see a single Tory banner. A few Labour but many Green signs. Locally the Greens have done quite well before and I would expect that to continue. Locally they don't have to worry about some of their more bonkers national policies. As a traditional Tory I am tempted to give them my vote in the locals which I would never do in a general election.
Speaking as a Tory, I'd vote for Labour before I voted Green.
They are utter luddite reductionist communitarian fundamentalists.
There’s no reason to believe the party wouldn’t follow the same path toward more moderate respectability, if our political system offered it the same chance to grow that the German Greens, who started with a similar mindset, have had.
Late enough in the thread to trigger Godwin's Law? Small parties don't always moderate themselves when they get bigger.
No 10 has admitted it has no idea what its flagship "levelling up" policy means so has appointed @NeilDotObrien to provide some substance. Fine piece in FT by @SebastianEPayne. Suspect @MichaelBarber9 on reaching No 10 to provide his delivery expertise found no policy to deliver.
This is why I was suggesting that Street would be ideal for the role. He seems to have plenty of ideas with a cross party appeal.
"No 10 has admitted it has no idea what its flagship "levelling up" policy means"
No idea why they don't know what it means to be honest. It is clear what it means. Sprinkle small, but press worthy amounts of money around the North and Red Wall seats so that it looks like Johnson gives a flying f*ck. Build a bridge here, do up some shopping streets there and so on.
Or alternatively, you could look at why these areas are being drained of capital and investment by London, look at what the inhibiting factors of growth are whether that is infrastructure, transport, specialist education, whatever, and think seriously about how you make these places that are attractive to invest and live in again (ie tidy up the mess and detritus of the past, make sure that that there is decent housing available, better schools etc).
The Tories can no more level up these areas than Labour did - the same issues still exist albeit with both of them seeing them from opposite sides. The economy is seriously and increasingly unbalanced with resources and the ability to participate increasingly out of range no matter how many hours people work.
Neither of the big parties can see beyond the next electoral cycle and - thanks to firstly crap management and communist unions and latterly the need to declare quarterly stock market profits - neither can industry.
Unless we actually start planning for the long term things will just get worse. Sure, people will get thrown trinkets like a big telly and an iPhone. But their ability to actually progress just diminishes year after year. The Tories don't recognise the problem so have no chance of levelling up. Labour recognised it, decided it was too hard and instead just blamed their lack of progress on the Tories.
I am not pretending for a moment that it is easy but the list I have produced is not rocket science. London is a stunning success whose continued progress is essential for UK plc but we do need to recognise that some of that progress comes at the cost of other regions including Scotland and we need to think constructively about what we can do about that. Education, transport/connectivity and housing are basic steps to give these communities a chance. Its not much to ask.
this is a very serious electoral offence. I thought from Guido it was just some home made brownies handed out. This is the very literal definition of 'treating'. People can go to jail for this..
I would look at that again - it seems to be a Labour candidate giving cookies to another Labour candidate.
Not quite the story you are making it out to be - on first glance it looks way bad, and then you check the profiles and see that it's just a thank you for work done.
No, it's more than that. From Guido:
Local LibDem councillor Tom Gordon noted he’s now seen Brabin “out & about with boxes of brownies on them that say ‘Vote Labour’ on them”, asking the West Yorkshire Police whether it would be considered an electoral offence under treating laws.
Asking West Yorkshire Police over whom she will be the boss come Friday?
An accusation of treating was seen in the 2015 United Kingdom general election where the UK Independence Party candidate for Southampton Itchen, Kim Rose was accused of treating for giving out sausage rolls at a community event;[8] however, Hampshire Constabulary said they would take no action over the allegation.[9]
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Labour reject who jumped in the sack to fight like a ferret in 2015 against Corbyn and fought like a ferret every day for 3 years criticises sack fighting.
Said ex Labour hypocrite after quitting sack fighting applies to rejoin Labour in order to fight like a ferret against people like "Laura Pillock"
Rejected for being a divisive nasty name calling piece of work so sad ex sack fighting poster is now politically homeless
Sad tale really
As I said shortly after the event, my abrupt about-face to try and rejoin the Labour Party was done in the middle of a mental health crisis. As that was the stupidest action my illness generated I remain grateful!
Then it cleared, and like Dr Zimsky at the end of The Core dictating notes for his book whilst pinned underneath a nuclear bomb that was about to destroy him and his notes, I looked at myself, asked "what the fuck am I doing" and roared with laughter.
Glad that my mental heath disaster makes you roar with laughter as well.
You called me a toss pot is that part of your condition or are you just a nasty piece of work?
No I called you a tosspot because you are kind of person who takes the piss out of the mentally ill.
Source?
I take the piss out of you because you are a hypocrite who lacks humility and a name calling nasty piece of work.
Source? You taking the piss out of my mental health crisis last year during which I tried to rejoin the Labour Party.
Have no problem you calling me a hypocrite - as always I take the opinions of people I have no respect for under advisement. But taking the piss out of people for having an openly confessed breakdown is what makes you a tosspot.
You are a massive asset to the Labour Party! You and Tarry and Sultana and Pillock and the rest of them.
Labour got the kind of racist centrist leader you wanted over the type of leader BJO liked and Labour are tanking in the polls, clearly it is the Blairite faction you are part of which is the problem in Labour.
Maybe the problem is having so many activists keener to see the opposing faction within their own ranks fail than in winning round voters with some thought through ideas and taking the fight to the Tories?
I joined Labour a few years ago full of enthusiasm and verve excited and hoping to get a Labour government.
Prior to ever joining Labour they weren't worth voting for in an election but I preferred them to the Tories and hoped (a little) that they beat them.
My current attitude of delighting in seeing the evil people running the Labour party fail is my experience of what absolutely awful vile people they are.
Boris Johnson is a far lesser evil than the right of the Labour party, I could never vote Conservative but I would never ever ever vote for those lot on pain of death.
This is seriously distorted thinking, bordering on disturbed.
SKS is not evil, he is well meaning but boring with few original ideas. Dodds is not evil, she is bright and technically literate but even duller than her boss. Evil was the last regime with its blatant anti-Semitism, its hatred for their own country and the willful blindness that this led to supporting anyone else on the planet that hated us no matter how appalling they were. Labour may not win under SKS but it is no longer a national disgrace and that is progress of a sort.
There are few political figures that I would describe as "scum" , but Corbyn (and his deluded loyal supporters) definitely fall into that category along with Alex Salmond and Nick Griffin. Repulsive characters. People that blindly follow such people need psychological help.
Just a comment on lockdown, opening up and mental health. I have generally been very supportive of lockdowns and think it was essential on previous occasions.
I am now of the view that we are causing more harm than good. 2/3rds of the population has had at least one vaccine dose. Cases of Covid are where they were last Summer and even deaths are at a low level. I know we are no longer in a true lockdown but there are still impacts. I believe now that more deaths are probably being caused as a result of lockdown than are being saved.
I know within the last week of two suicides (neither I knew closely) - one in their early 40s, the other in their 20s. Whilst no one can say if it wouldn't have happened without lockdowns, it certainly hasn't helped. Both of them had plenty of life to live. We have to give other people in similar situations hope and opportunity. Young people particularly have given up so much to protect the older generations. It is time we started protecting their mental health.
I was debating this with DavidL yesterday - for me the policy of lockdown in England came too late was lifted far too early with the inevitable big pile of bodies. In January Teesside felt like an absolute plague-zone, with very few trips outside as pox ripped its way through my area in alarming numbers.
That was then, this is now. numbers are rapidly dropping and unlike last time we have a significant proportion of the population vaccinated. There is still a significant risk in reimporting new strains and in transmission through the under 40s where few have been jabbed. But the arguments for lockdowns are fading fast.
What I doubt we are about to see the back of are restrictions on foreign travel and mask-wearing. The former will have restrictions either into the country people want to go to or on the way home - more countries will be amber or red than are green. And the latter? I doubt that all barring a hardcore of libertarians will burn their masks on day 1 of them no longer being mandatory.
this is a very serious electoral offence. I thought from Guido it was just some home made brownies handed out. This is the very literal definition of 'treating'. People can go to jail for this..
I would look at that again - it seems to be a Labour candidate giving cookies to another Labour candidate.
Not quite the story you are making it out to be - on first glance it looks way bad, and then you check the profiles and see that it's just a thank you for work done.
No, it's more than that. From Guido:
Local LibDem councillor Tom Gordon noted he’s now seen Brabin “out & about with boxes of brownies on them that say ‘Vote Labour’ on them”, asking the West Yorkshire Police whether it would be considered an electoral offence under treating laws.
Asking West Yorkshire Police over whom she will be the boss come Friday?
An accusation of treating was seen in the 2015 United Kingdom general election where the UK Independence Party candidate for Southampton Itchen, Kim Rose was accused of treating for giving out sausage rolls at a community event;[8] however, Hampshire Constabulary said they would take no action over the allegation.[9]
So really nothing to see here....
The fact that she will be PCC is irrelevant surely, or does that make her immune from this law?
I don't know if anybody else heard the Starmer interview on R4 Today this morning, but it was quite interesting. He wasn't very good, actually (see, I am objective). But he did take the opportunity to set out briefly the 5 current top priorities for Labour at the next GE, whenever that is.
His 5 priorities had echoes of Blair's 1997 pledge card. Interestingly, the fifth priority was about bringing an end to the divisions caused by the 'culture war' (although he didn't use that expression, of course). Anyway, signs of an emerging Labour policy platform to fill the current policy vacuum.
What does it mean. According to this article it means "Insiders suggested that levelling up could include four aspects — a regional economic policy; spreading opportunity across the country; improving the outputs and outcomes from public services; and non-economic outcomes of improving “quality of life” and “pride in place”."
Sounds like empty vacuous slogans to me. In Copeland, one issue that lots of the locals mention is the state of the roads. They are awful. As for public services, the local councils are appalling at emptying their recycling centres. One centre - located next to a children's play area and SSI on the beach - is so bad that rubbish is blown about all over the place. The local waste authority is responsible for a statutory nuisance and this in an area dependant on tourism for its living.
I have raised this with the local council, the Tory Mayor and the local Tory councillor. Neither of the latter two even bothered to reply.
"Quality of life" and "pride in place" my arse!
You seem disappointed that reality is different to the political promises of all parties. To be truly cynical, wait to you are 60ish...
Husband told me the local Tory councillor is utterly useless. So my expectations were pretty low and were entirely met.
The council officials have promised to do something but they are based in Whitehaven, live in Carlisle and have never even been to the area. It is a forgotten part of the country. Trudi Harrison comes from here - Bootle - a few miles away. She is local, quite friendly. But she has over the last year been a sad disappointment by comparison with Tim Farron. Being cynical, pork barrel politics has something to be said for it if you get some of the pork. But when you don't even get that, what is the point of any of it?
I tell this story to show the reality of what life is like here and to show up the vacuous nature of this levelling up slogan. We will see whether it amounts to anything substantive in reality. So far the main people who have been levelled up by the Tory party have been the rich who already have rather than the have nots.
I nonetheless expect the Tories to stay in power for a while because Labour are proving to be so bloody useless.
I’m confused. One minute you’re based in Cumbria the next you’re in your garden in West Hampstead
Nothing wrong with multiple houses (or identities) but it does mean you can’t pose as a hard pressed daughter of the provinces if you ALSO have a desirable bolt-hole in the capital
Second home owners certainly aren’t seen as locals
I seem to remember pressing Cyclefree on this at GE2019, with regard to electoral law. She is only allowed to vote at her main residence.
Cyclefree asserted she did not have a second home, as she lived in Cumbria and her husband lived in West Hampstead. So, the claim is that the Cyclefree family did not own a second home, but they owned two 'first homes'
My understanding is that there are tax implications of 'second homes' so it is not just a matter of picking and choosing yourself that your 'second home' is another 'first home'.
But, I don't mind Cyclefree's little ... shall we say ... sleight of hand. Really, I don't.
What is certainly true is that if an MP was doing what Cyclefree was doing -- defining what is a 'second home' as a 'first home' -- we'd never here the end of it in one of her famous homilies against corruption.
I shall retract my talons now.
And I explained at the time and will do so again for the last time.
My husband and I separated for a while because our son's very serious illness, an illness from which he nearly died and for which he was hospitalised in circumstances that do not bear thinking about let alone repeating to strangers pretty much destroyed our marriage and our family. I lived and worked in London and he in Cumbria. He had one home. I had another. I have never breached electoral law. Nor has my husband.
Our decision to try and start a new life together again in Cumbria in our retirement is why things have changed.
You really should not make bitchy and hurtful comments about people you don't know when you don't know the truth about their lives.
Probably time for me to withdraw from this forum frankly. You can bitch away about others instead.
Calm down. You’re a highly valued and much respected citizen of the PB village! I merely queried, quite innocently, where you really lived - and you over-reacted. Stay. Your contributions are excellent (especially on civil liberties and the madder elements of Wokery)
this is a very serious electoral offence. I thought from Guido it was just some home made brownies handed out. This is the very literal definition of 'treating'. People can go to jail for this..
Apart from the obvious breaking of the law, wtaf, those are expensive, cost inefficient, and this is for West Yorkshire, which broke 2-1 to Lab in 2016 for the PCC elections, and where Lab were 6% ahead in 2019. Surely this race isn't anywhere near being live?
If she's guilty of breaking election law on this then could that trigger a by-election before long if she does win?
How can Labour be 2% behind nationally but 17% behind in Hartlepool? Either one poll is wrong, the other poll is wrong, or the Tories are losing ground much quicker in other areas than people realise.
Thanks. Yes, shades of that tension between state and national polling we saw with WH20.
Usually I favour the national but here - with Hartlepool - I think we have a genuine special case. The "true" GE19 result (adjusted for BXP) was a Con win. I'm assessing against that and factoring in (i) we are coming early out of the pandemic due to a vaccine success associated with the government, (ii) a government which also delivered the promised Good Hard Leave so desired by the denizens of this seat, (iii) people have had little time for Labour and Starmer with Covid being such a blanket story, and (iv) Johnson has particular appeal to the WWC demographic being as he's a "bit of a character" and "not like normal politicians".
They are the tea leaves and the resulting brew tastes bitter and of only one thing. Cons win this by-election.
In GE2015 under Milliband
Lab = 14,076 Cons + UKIP 8,256 + 11,052 = 19,308
Under your logic (and that of other centrists) the true GE15 result was a Con win.
Ge2017 under Corbyn
Lab = 21,969 Cons + UKIP 14,319 + 4,801 = 19,120
Unelectable Corbyn smashed the Tories + right of Tory party combined in his first election in Hartlepool, surely electable Starmer can do even better than that?
Or is it that is impossible for Starmer to match Corbyn because Corbyn is an electoral savant (ONLY by the standards of comparing to other recent Labour leaders) and Starmer is actually the unelectable one?
Makes you think about all those idiots claiming any other Labour leader would be 20 points ahead
I'm not a centrist! Jeez, Jezz. Talk about the insults flying. I'm on the left. But the Cons will win Hartlepool for the reasons I explained. It's the same analysis I did on the day the by-election was called. It's untainted by bias, done to steer my betting and earn punditry kudos points.
And bias is everywhere when it comes to what this means for Starmer. Both left and right of Labour are choked with it and are incapable of analyzing the result correctly. One side will (wrongly) say it's proof that Starmer is a stone cold loser. The other side will (wrongly) claim it means nothing other than he needs more time to undo the damage caused by Corbyn.
In fact it has little to do with who the leader is. Neither btw was the GE19 disaster about Corbyn and being too leftist. GE17 showed we can do well from the left and with a left wing leader. The appeal of Brexit and "Boris" in the places that mattered electorally was the key to the Con landslide. That election was unwinnable. It was superbly set up - the People vs Parliament dynamic - by Johnson and Cummings and "Get Brexit Done" (in that context and climate) was unstoppable. They reran the eu Ref and united the Leave vote. It was genius and don't let anybody tell you otherwise.
As for Starmer, I'm neither sold on him (I voted for Nandy) nor writing him off. This has been an exceptional period and we're about to move out if it. Let's see how things look in a year. If we're still doing badly then, ok, time to worry and maybe make a change.
this is a very serious electoral offence. I thought from Guido it was just some home made brownies handed out. This is the very literal definition of 'treating'. People can go to jail for this..
Apart from the obvious breaking of the law, wtaf, those are expensive, cost inefficient, and this is for West Yorkshire, which broke 2-1 to Lab in 2016 for the PCC elections, and where Lab were 6% ahead in 2019. Surely this race isn't anywhere near being live?
Look North was saying a couple of days ago it was close.
this is a very serious electoral offence. I thought from Guido it was just some home made brownies handed out. This is the very literal definition of 'treating'. People can go to jail for this..
Giving them to children too. Quite inappropriate.
Guido has updated to say another activist has seen them on the streets with these boxes of brownies. If that is true, people are going to be interviewed under caution. They better hope the whole thing is a misunderstanding.
The law seems very clear:
A person shall be guilty of treating if he corruptly, by himself or by any other person, either before, during or after an election, directly or indirectly gives or provides, or pays wholly or in part the expense of giving or providing, any meat, drink, entertainment or provision to or for any person—
for the purpose of corruptly influencing that person or any other person to vote or refrain from voting; or...
The bloody box says "vote Labour" on it.
Wowsers. Have they done this just as a gift to an activist? Otherwise not only is it illegal, they look a wee bit expensive so I'd love to see their expenses return afterwards.
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Labour reject who jumped in the sack to fight like a ferret in 2015 against Corbyn and fought like a ferret every day for 3 years criticises sack fighting.
Said ex Labour hypocrite after quitting sack fighting applies to rejoin Labour in order to fight like a ferret against people like "Laura Pillock"
Rejected for being a divisive nasty name calling piece of work so sad ex sack fighting poster is now politically homeless
Sad tale really
As I said shortly after the event, my abrupt about-face to try and rejoin the Labour Party was done in the middle of a mental health crisis. As that was the stupidest action my illness generated I remain grateful!
Then it cleared, and like Dr Zimsky at the end of The Core dictating notes for his book whilst pinned underneath a nuclear bomb that was about to destroy him and his notes, I looked at myself, asked "what the fuck am I doing" and roared with laughter.
Glad that my mental heath disaster makes you roar with laughter as well.
You called me a toss pot is that part of your condition or are you just a nasty piece of work?
No I called you a tosspot because you are kind of person who takes the piss out of the mentally ill.
Source?
I take the piss out of you because you are a hypocrite who lacks humility and a name calling nasty piece of work.
Source? You taking the piss out of my mental health crisis last year during which I tried to rejoin the Labour Party.
Have no problem you calling me a hypocrite - as always I take the opinions of people I have no respect for under advisement. But taking the piss out of people for having an openly confessed breakdown is what makes you a tosspot.
You are a massive asset to the Labour Party! You and Tarry and Sultana and Pillock and the rest of them.
Labour got the kind of racist centrist leader you wanted over the type of leader BJO liked and Labour are tanking in the polls, clearly it is the Blairite faction you are part of which is the problem in Labour.
Maybe the problem is having so many activists keener to see the opposing faction within their own ranks fail than in winning round voters with some thought through ideas and taking the fight to the Tories?
I joined Labour a few years ago full of enthusiasm and verve excited and hoping to get a Labour government.
Prior to ever joining Labour they weren't worth voting for in an election but I preferred them to the Tories and hoped (a little) that they beat them.
My current attitude of delighting in seeing the evil people running the Labour party fail is my experience of what absolutely awful vile people they are.
Boris Johnson is a far lesser evil than the right of the Labour party, I could never vote Conservative but I would never ever ever vote for those lot on pain of death.
This is seriously distorted thinking, bordering on disturbed.
SKS is not evil, he is well meaning but boring with few original ideas. Dodds is not evil, she is bright and technically literate but even duller than her boss. Evil was the last regime with its blatant anti-Semitism, its hatred for their own country and the willful blindness that this led to supporting anyone else on the planet that hated us no matter how appalling they were. Labour may not win under SKS but it is no longer a national disgrace and that is progress of a sort.
Starmer isn't releasing the Forde report because kicking out the racists would kill his support in the party.
I know to some here racism is only a failure to support the brutal oocupation of Palestine rather than actual racism against minorities but there is a reason Labour are losing votes among minorities and younger people (two groups most against racism)
We have swapped an anti racist leader for a racist one.
I realise it is the kind of racism many rich white people who temporarily pretended to care about racism don't actually care about so it doesn't matter.
In fact many wealthy older white people will be delighted Labour now has a racist leader, even if it means the Conservatives have no opposition and are losing votes and popularity as a result.
Don't be too happy about it though, in the medium to long term the racists who like Starmer will be mostly dead whilst the anti racists who supported Corbyn will still be alive and kicking.
So only matter of time before Labour goes back to (greater) electability and anti racism to the dismay of many racists
this is a very serious electoral offence. I thought from Guido it was just some home made brownies handed out. This is the very literal definition of 'treating'. People can go to jail for this..
I would look at that again - it seems to be a Labour candidate giving cookies to another Labour candidate.
Not quite the story you are making it out to be - on first glance it looks way bad, and then you check the profiles and see that it's just a thank you for work done.
No, it's more than that. From Guido:
Local LibDem councillor Tom Gordon noted he’s now seen Brabin “out & about with boxes of brownies on them that say ‘Vote Labour’ on them”, asking the West Yorkshire Police whether it would be considered an electoral offence under treating laws.
Asking West Yorkshire Police over whom she will be the boss come Friday?
An accusation of treating was seen in the 2015 United Kingdom general election where the UK Independence Party candidate for Southampton Itchen, Kim Rose was accused of treating for giving out sausage rolls at a community event;[8] however, Hampshire Constabulary said they would take no action over the allegation.[9]
So really nothing to see here....
The fact that she will be PCC is irrelevant surely, or does that make her immune from this law?
I was actually thinking more of the second bit - past examples haven't been prosecuted and it feels like a very desperate tactic.
Then again Guido will go with any story no matter how minor as he needs to file X stories a day.
this is a very serious electoral offence. I thought from Guido it was just some home made brownies handed out. This is the very literal definition of 'treating'. People can go to jail for this..
I would look at that again - it seems to be a Labour candidate giving cookies to another Labour candidate.
Not quite the story you are making it out to be - on first glance it looks way bad, and then you check the profiles and see that it's just a thank you for work done.
No, it's more than that. From Guido:
Local LibDem councillor Tom Gordon noted he’s now seen Brabin “out & about with boxes of brownies on them that say ‘Vote Labour’ on them”, asking the West Yorkshire Police whether it would be considered an electoral offence under treating laws.
Asking West Yorkshire Police over whom she will be the boss come Friday?
An accusation of treating was seen in the 2015 United Kingdom general election where the UK Independence Party candidate for Southampton Itchen, Kim Rose was accused of treating for giving out sausage rolls at a community event;[8] however, Hampshire Constabulary said they would take no action over the allegation.[9]
So really nothing to see here....
The fact that she will be PCC is irrelevant surely, or does that make her immune from this law?
Think of it as just being like Boris Johnson being the final arbiter on if Boris Johnson broke the ministerial code.
this is a very serious electoral offence. I thought from Guido it was just some home made brownies handed out. This is the very literal definition of 'treating'. People can go to jail for this..
I would look at that again - it seems to be a Labour candidate giving cookies to another Labour candidate.
Not quite the story you are making it out to be - on first glance it looks way bad, and then you check the profiles and see that it's just a thank you for work done.
No, it's more than that. From Guido:
Local LibDem councillor Tom Gordon noted he’s now seen Brabin “out & about with boxes of brownies on them that say ‘Vote Labour’ on them”, asking the West Yorkshire Police whether it would be considered an electoral offence under treating laws.
Asking West Yorkshire Police over whom she will be the boss come Friday?
An accusation of treating was seen in the 2015 United Kingdom general election where the UK Independence Party candidate for Southampton Itchen, Kim Rose was accused of treating for giving out sausage rolls at a community event;[8] however, Hampshire Constabulary said they would take no action over the allegation.[9]
So really nothing to see here....
Looking closely, I don't think that example is particularly relevant. That was catering for a party event. Giving out freebies while out canvassing is completely different.
this is a very serious electoral offence. I thought from Guido it was just some home made brownies handed out. This is the very literal definition of 'treating'. People can go to jail for this..
I would look at that again - it seems to be a Labour candidate giving cookies to another Labour candidate.
Not quite the story you are making it out to be - on first glance it looks way bad, and then you check the profiles and see that it's just a thank you for work done.
That's good, because as silly as it seems a box of treats with party branding exhorting people to vote for said party looks bad.
But the police dont give a crap about that level of thing.
this is a very serious electoral offence. I thought from Guido it was just some home made brownies handed out. This is the very literal definition of 'treating'. People can go to jail for this..
I would look at that again - it seems to be a Labour candidate giving cookies to another Labour candidate.
Not quite the story you are making it out to be - on first glance it looks way bad, and then you check the profiles and see that it's just a thank you for work done.
No, it's more than that. From Guido:
Local LibDem councillor Tom Gordon noted he’s now seen Brabin “out & about with boxes of brownies on them that say ‘Vote Labour’ on them”, asking the West Yorkshire Police whether it would be considered an electoral offence under treating laws.
Asking West Yorkshire Police over whom she will be the boss come Friday?
An accusation of treating was seen in the 2015 United Kingdom general election where the UK Independence Party candidate for Southampton Itchen, Kim Rose was accused of treating for giving out sausage rolls at a community event;[8] however, Hampshire Constabulary said they would take no action over the allegation.[9]
So really nothing to see here....
The fact that she will be PCC is irrelevant surely, or does that make her immune from this law?
I was actually thinking more of the second bit - past examples haven't been prosecuted and it feels like a very desperate tactic.
Then again Guido will go with any story no matter how minor as he needs to file X stories a day.
You missed the fact that Lutfur Rahman was convicted on this offence then?
Giving away what looks like professionally made boxes of treats with Vote Labour literally printed on them looks rather worse than simply sausage rolls.
this is a very serious electoral offence. I thought from Guido it was just some home made brownies handed out. This is the very literal definition of 'treating'. People can go to jail for this..
I would look at that again - it seems to be a Labour candidate giving cookies to another Labour candidate.
Not quite the story you are making it out to be - on first glance it looks way bad, and then you check the profiles and see that it's just a thank you for work done.
No, it's more than that. From Guido:
Local LibDem councillor Tom Gordon noted he’s now seen Brabin “out & about with boxes of brownies on them that say ‘Vote Labour’ on them”, asking the West Yorkshire Police whether it would be considered an electoral offence under treating laws.
Asking West Yorkshire Police over whom she will be the boss come Friday?
An accusation of treating was seen in the 2015 United Kingdom general election where the UK Independence Party candidate for Southampton Itchen, Kim Rose was accused of treating for giving out sausage rolls at a community event;[8] however, Hampshire Constabulary said they would take no action over the allegation.[9]
So really nothing to see here....
The fact that she will be PCC is irrelevant surely, or does that make her immune from this law?
Think of it as just being like Boris Johnson being the final arbiter on if Boris Johnson broke the ministerial code.
Can't think of a better judge. He wouldn't even have to spend any time questioning anyone as he'd know all the details anyway. Marvellously efficient.
Edit: who am I kidding, he'd have definitely forgotten.
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Labour reject who jumped in the sack to fight like a ferret in 2015 against Corbyn and fought like a ferret every day for 3 years criticises sack fighting.
Said ex Labour hypocrite after quitting sack fighting applies to rejoin Labour in order to fight like a ferret against people like "Laura Pillock"
Rejected for being a divisive nasty name calling piece of work so sad ex sack fighting poster is now politically homeless
Sad tale really
As I said shortly after the event, my abrupt about-face to try and rejoin the Labour Party was done in the middle of a mental health crisis. As that was the stupidest action my illness generated I remain grateful!
Then it cleared, and like Dr Zimsky at the end of The Core dictating notes for his book whilst pinned underneath a nuclear bomb that was about to destroy him and his notes, I looked at myself, asked "what the fuck am I doing" and roared with laughter.
Glad that my mental heath disaster makes you roar with laughter as well.
You called me a toss pot is that part of your condition or are you just a nasty piece of work?
No I called you a tosspot because you are kind of person who takes the piss out of the mentally ill.
Source?
I take the piss out of you because you are a hypocrite who lacks humility and a name calling nasty piece of work.
Source? You taking the piss out of my mental health crisis last year during which I tried to rejoin the Labour Party.
Have no problem you calling me a hypocrite - as always I take the opinions of people I have no respect for under advisement. But taking the piss out of people for having an openly confessed breakdown is what makes you a tosspot.
You are a massive asset to the Labour Party! You and Tarry and Sultana and Pillock and the rest of them.
Labour got the kind of racist centrist leader you wanted over the type of leader BJO liked and Labour are tanking in the polls, clearly it is the Blairite faction you are part of which is the problem in Labour.
Maybe the problem is having so many activists keener to see the opposing faction within their own ranks fail than in winning round voters with some thought through ideas and taking the fight to the Tories?
I joined Labour a few years ago full of enthusiasm and verve excited and hoping to get a Labour government.
Prior to ever joining Labour they weren't worth voting for in an election but I preferred them to the Tories and hoped (a little) that they beat them.
My current attitude of delighting in seeing the evil people running the Labour party fail is my experience of what absolutely awful vile people they are.
Boris Johnson is a far lesser evil than the right of the Labour party, I could never vote Conservative but I would never ever ever vote for those lot on pain of death.
This is seriously distorted thinking, bordering on disturbed.
SKS is not evil, he is well meaning but boring with few original ideas. Dodds is not evil, she is bright and technically literate but even duller than her boss. Evil was the last regime with its blatant anti-Semitism, its hatred for their own country and the willful blindness that this led to supporting anyone else on the planet that hated us no matter how appalling they were. Labour may not win under SKS but it is no longer a national disgrace and that is progress of a sort.
There are few political figures that I would describe as "scum" , but Corbyn (and his deluded loyal supporters) definitely fall into that category along with Alex Salmond and Nick Griffin. Repulsive characters. People that blindly follow such people need psychological help.
I imagine Corbyn hung around with too many Black people and poor people for an upstanding citizen like yourself.
Starmer who keeps his distance from such uncouth elements probably right up your street.
Morning! Thought I would give this a go after about a decade of lurking. Incidentally, it started when a teacher of mine suggested that checking the betting markets is a better predicter of election results than the polls. My feeling is the assertion has taken some hammering since then and I suspect the market has moved against it (no doubt very profitably).
Off Topic, I was really interested in a comment from a previous thread yesterday that linked to a thread from Ciaran Martin on the constitutionality of the IndyRef and what all this means for the future of the Union. Essentially, there's nothing left to devolve and Federalism means either; very unequal federal system, or the clawing of powers back from Holyrood and the dissolution of England as a political entity. Martin's point about federalism and devolution not being one and the same was very shrewd. My suggestion? Enter the third chamber!
Simply add a House of Nations to Parliament, 100 seats, elected by PR and equally distributed among the Nations. Any legislation requires majorities of 2/4 delegations to pass. So, 13 Seats in England, 13 seats in Wales would see a bill go through (having passed the representatives in the Commons in a majority, indicating broad support). This would limit nationalist parties from blocking, while giving equal representation to the Nations.
Now, I don't know if constitutional fanfiction is something we do here but I'm pretty proud of the idea!
Why should Wales & Scotland with about 10% of the population get a veto?
I’m a fan of having over-representation for the regions in the upper house but they shouldn’t get an extra lock
this is a very serious electoral offence. I thought from Guido it was just some home made brownies handed out. This is the very literal definition of 'treating'. People can go to jail for this..
Apart from the obvious breaking of the law, wtaf, those are expensive, cost inefficient, and this is for West Yorkshire, which broke 2-1 to Lab in 2016 for the PCC elections, and where Lab were 6% ahead in 2019. Surely this race isn't anywhere near being live?
Look North was saying a couple of days ago it was close.
I think LAB should get it
If Labour are 3rd in Scotland, down in Wales, lose Hartlepool, WMids, Teeside, and WYorks then it will be an awful night for Starmer. If you'd have told someone in 2014 that those last 4 were probable results then they'd have looked at you veyr funny indeed.
this is a very serious electoral offence. I thought from Guido it was just some home made brownies handed out. This is the very literal definition of 'treating'. People can go to jail for this..
I would look at that again - it seems to be a Labour candidate giving cookies to another Labour candidate.
Not quite the story you are making it out to be - on first glance it looks way bad, and then you check the profiles and see that it's just a thank you for work done.
No, it's more than that. From Guido:
Local LibDem councillor Tom Gordon noted he’s now seen Brabin “out & about with boxes of brownies on them that say ‘Vote Labour’ on them”, asking the West Yorkshire Police whether it would be considered an electoral offence under treating laws.
Asking West Yorkshire Police over whom she will be the boss come Friday?
An accusation of treating was seen in the 2015 United Kingdom general election where the UK Independence Party candidate for Southampton Itchen, Kim Rose was accused of treating for giving out sausage rolls at a community event;[8] however, Hampshire Constabulary said they would take no action over the allegation.[9]
So really nothing to see here....
The fact that she will be PCC is irrelevant surely, or does that make her immune from this law?
I was actually thinking more of the second bit - past examples haven't been prosecuted and it feels like a very desperate tactic.
Then again Guido will go with any story no matter how minor as he needs to file X stories a day.
He also adores even minor scandal - itll even get him on to Tory stories.
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Labour reject who jumped in the sack to fight like a ferret in 2015 against Corbyn and fought like a ferret every day for 3 years criticises sack fighting.
Said ex Labour hypocrite after quitting sack fighting applies to rejoin Labour in order to fight like a ferret against people like "Laura Pillock"
Rejected for being a divisive nasty name calling piece of work so sad ex sack fighting poster is now politically homeless
Sad tale really
As I said shortly after the event, my abrupt about-face to try and rejoin the Labour Party was done in the middle of a mental health crisis. As that was the stupidest action my illness generated I remain grateful!
Then it cleared, and like Dr Zimsky at the end of The Core dictating notes for his book whilst pinned underneath a nuclear bomb that was about to destroy him and his notes, I looked at myself, asked "what the fuck am I doing" and roared with laughter.
Glad that my mental heath disaster makes you roar with laughter as well.
You called me a toss pot is that part of your condition or are you just a nasty piece of work?
No I called you a tosspot because you are kind of person who takes the piss out of the mentally ill.
Source?
I take the piss out of you because you are a hypocrite who lacks humility and a name calling nasty piece of work.
Source? You taking the piss out of my mental health crisis last year during which I tried to rejoin the Labour Party.
Have no problem you calling me a hypocrite - as always I take the opinions of people I have no respect for under advisement. But taking the piss out of people for having an openly confessed breakdown is what makes you a tosspot.
You are a massive asset to the Labour Party! You and Tarry and Sultana and Pillock and the rest of them.
Labour got the kind of racist centrist leader you wanted over the type of leader BJO liked and Labour are tanking in the polls, clearly it is the Blairite faction you are part of which is the problem in Labour.
Maybe the problem is having so many activists keener to see the opposing faction within their own ranks fail than in winning round voters with some thought through ideas and taking the fight to the Tories?
I joined Labour a few years ago full of enthusiasm and verve excited and hoping to get a Labour government.
Prior to ever joining Labour they weren't worth voting for in an election but I preferred them to the Tories and hoped (a little) that they beat them.
My current attitude of delighting in seeing the evil people running the Labour party fail is my experience of what absolutely awful vile people they are.
Boris Johnson is a far lesser evil than the right of the Labour party, I could never vote Conservative but I would never ever ever vote for those lot on pain of death.
This is seriously distorted thinking, bordering on disturbed.
SKS is not evil, he is well meaning but boring with few original ideas. Dodds is not evil, she is bright and technically literate but even duller than her boss. Evil was the last regime with its blatant anti-Semitism, its hatred for their own country and the willful blindness that this led to supporting anyone else on the planet that hated us no matter how appalling they were. Labour may not win under SKS but it is no longer a national disgrace and that is progress of a sort.
Starmer isn't releasing the Forde report because kicking out the racists would kill his support in the party.
I know to some here racism is only a failure to support the brutal oocupation of Palestine rather than actual racism against minorities but there is a reason Labour are losing votes among minorities and younger people (two groups most against racism)
We have swapped an anti racist leader for a racist one.
I realise it is the kind of racism many rich white people who temporarily pretended to care about racism don't actually care about so it doesn't matter.
In fact many wealthy older white people will be delighted Labour now has a racist leader, even if it means the Conservatives have no opposition and are losing votes and popularity as a result.
Don't be too happy about it though, in the medium to long term the racists who like Starmer will be mostly dead whilst the anti racists who supported Corbyn will still be alive and kicking.
So only matter of time before Labour goes back to (greater) electability and anti racism to the dismay of many racists
I literally don’t understand this. In what way is Starmer ‘racist’?!
The position I have adopted is the classic Blairite position, you should learn from your enemies and I learned from you and the terrible people you support.
The only difference is I hope a Labour who will do nothing to help normal people loses because it won't help normal people but can get back to something that will.
The Blairite POV is purely inspired by wealthy old white men who can't get over the fact it isn't the 90's anymore and are prepared to destroy any hope of better government to rediscover their youth (through Blairite politics)
For clarity (a) I was a Brownite not a Blairite, and (b) having left the party my views on Blair / Brown or whoever can hardly be described as being part of any Labour faction.
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Labour reject who jumped in the sack to fight like a ferret in 2015 against Corbyn and fought like a ferret every day for 3 years criticises sack fighting.
Said ex Labour hypocrite after quitting sack fighting applies to rejoin Labour in order to fight like a ferret against people like "Laura Pillock"
Rejected for being a divisive nasty name calling piece of work so sad ex sack fighting poster is now politically homeless
Sad tale really
As I said shortly after the event, my abrupt about-face to try and rejoin the Labour Party was done in the middle of a mental health crisis. As that was the stupidest action my illness generated I remain grateful!
Then it cleared, and like Dr Zimsky at the end of The Core dictating notes for his book whilst pinned underneath a nuclear bomb that was about to destroy him and his notes, I looked at myself, asked "what the fuck am I doing" and roared with laughter.
Glad that my mental heath disaster makes you roar with laughter as well.
You called me a toss pot is that part of your condition or are you just a nasty piece of work?
No I called you a tosspot because you are kind of person who takes the piss out of the mentally ill.
Source?
I take the piss out of you because you are a hypocrite who lacks humility and a name calling nasty piece of work.
Source? You taking the piss out of my mental health crisis last year during which I tried to rejoin the Labour Party.
Have no problem you calling me a hypocrite - as always I take the opinions of people I have no respect for under advisement. But taking the piss out of people for having an openly confessed breakdown is what makes you a tosspot.
You are a massive asset to the Labour Party! You and Tarry and Sultana and Pillock and the rest of them.
Labour got the kind of racist centrist leader you wanted over the type of leader BJO liked and Labour are tanking in the polls, clearly it is the Blairite faction you are part of which is the problem in Labour.
Maybe the problem is having so many activists keener to see the opposing faction within their own ranks fail than in winning round voters with some thought through ideas and taking the fight to the Tories?
I joined Labour a few years ago full of enthusiasm and verve excited and hoping to get a Labour government.
Prior to ever joining Labour they weren't worth voting for in an election but I preferred them to the Tories and hoped (a little) that they beat them.
My current attitude of delighting in seeing the evil people running the Labour party fail is my experience of what absolutely awful vile people they are.
Boris Johnson is a far lesser evil than the right of the Labour party, I could never vote Conservative but I would never ever ever vote for those lot on pain of death.
This is seriously distorted thinking, bordering on disturbed.
SKS is not evil, he is well meaning but boring with few original ideas. Dodds is not evil, she is bright and technically literate but even duller than her boss. Evil was the last regime with its blatant anti-Semitism, its hatred for their own country and the willful blindness that this led to supporting anyone else on the planet that hated us no matter how appalling they were. Labour may not win under SKS but it is no longer a national disgrace and that is progress of a sort.
There are few political figures that I would describe as "scum" , but Corbyn (and his deluded loyal supporters) definitely fall into that category along with Alex Salmond and Nick Griffin. Repulsive characters. People that blindly follow such people need psychological help.
I imagine Corbyn hung around with too many Black people and poor people for an upstanding citizen like yourself.
Starmer who keeps his distance from such uncouth elements probably right up your street.
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Labour reject who jumped in the sack to fight like a ferret in 2015 against Corbyn and fought like a ferret every day for 3 years criticises sack fighting.
Said ex Labour hypocrite after quitting sack fighting applies to rejoin Labour in order to fight like a ferret against people like "Laura Pillock"
Rejected for being a divisive nasty name calling piece of work so sad ex sack fighting poster is now politically homeless
Sad tale really
As I said shortly after the event, my abrupt about-face to try and rejoin the Labour Party was done in the middle of a mental health crisis. As that was the stupidest action my illness generated I remain grateful!
Then it cleared, and like Dr Zimsky at the end of The Core dictating notes for his book whilst pinned underneath a nuclear bomb that was about to destroy him and his notes, I looked at myself, asked "what the fuck am I doing" and roared with laughter.
Glad that my mental heath disaster makes you roar with laughter as well.
You called me a toss pot is that part of your condition or are you just a nasty piece of work?
No I called you a tosspot because you are kind of person who takes the piss out of the mentally ill.
Source?
I take the piss out of you because you are a hypocrite who lacks humility and a name calling nasty piece of work.
Source? You taking the piss out of my mental health crisis last year during which I tried to rejoin the Labour Party.
Have no problem you calling me a hypocrite - as always I take the opinions of people I have no respect for under advisement. But taking the piss out of people for having an openly confessed breakdown is what makes you a tosspot.
You are a massive asset to the Labour Party! You and Tarry and Sultana and Pillock and the rest of them.
Labour got the kind of racist centrist leader you wanted over the type of leader BJO liked and Labour are tanking in the polls, clearly it is the Blairite faction you are part of which is the problem in Labour.
Maybe the problem is having so many activists keener to see the opposing faction within their own ranks fail than in winning round voters with some thought through ideas and taking the fight to the Tories?
I joined Labour a few years ago full of enthusiasm and verve excited and hoping to get a Labour government.
Prior to ever joining Labour they weren't worth voting for in an election but I preferred them to the Tories and hoped (a little) that they beat them.
My current attitude of delighting in seeing the evil people running the Labour party fail is my experience of what absolutely awful vile people they are.
Boris Johnson is a far lesser evil than the right of the Labour party, I could never vote Conservative but I would never ever ever vote for those lot on pain of death.
This is seriously distorted thinking, bordering on disturbed.
SKS is not evil, he is well meaning but boring with few original ideas. Dodds is not evil, she is bright and technically literate but even duller than her boss. Evil was the last regime with its blatant anti-Semitism, its hatred for their own country and the willful blindness that this led to supporting anyone else on the planet that hated us no matter how appalling they were. Labour may not win under SKS but it is no longer a national disgrace and that is progress of a sort.
I know to some here racism is only a failure to support the brutal oocupation of Palestine
You might be more persuasive with the rest of the argument if you hadn't started with this dog whistle.
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Labour reject who jumped in the sack to fight like a ferret in 2015 against Corbyn and fought like a ferret every day for 3 years criticises sack fighting.
Said ex Labour hypocrite after quitting sack fighting applies to rejoin Labour in order to fight like a ferret against people like "Laura Pillock"
Rejected for being a divisive nasty name calling piece of work so sad ex sack fighting poster is now politically homeless
Sad tale really
As I said shortly after the event, my abrupt about-face to try and rejoin the Labour Party was done in the middle of a mental health crisis. As that was the stupidest action my illness generated I remain grateful!
Then it cleared, and like Dr Zimsky at the end of The Core dictating notes for his book whilst pinned underneath a nuclear bomb that was about to destroy him and his notes, I looked at myself, asked "what the fuck am I doing" and roared with laughter.
Glad that my mental heath disaster makes you roar with laughter as well.
You called me a toss pot is that part of your condition or are you just a nasty piece of work?
No I called you a tosspot because you are kind of person who takes the piss out of the mentally ill.
Source?
I take the piss out of you because you are a hypocrite who lacks humility and a name calling nasty piece of work.
Source? You taking the piss out of my mental health crisis last year during which I tried to rejoin the Labour Party.
Have no problem you calling me a hypocrite - as always I take the opinions of people I have no respect for under advisement. But taking the piss out of people for having an openly confessed breakdown is what makes you a tosspot.
You are a massive asset to the Labour Party! You and Tarry and Sultana and Pillock and the rest of them.
Labour got the kind of racist centrist leader you wanted over the type of leader BJO liked and Labour are tanking in the polls, clearly it is the Blairite faction you are part of which is the problem in Labour.
Maybe the problem is having so many activists keener to see the opposing faction within their own ranks fail than in winning round voters with some thought through ideas and taking the fight to the Tories?
I joined Labour a few years ago full of enthusiasm and verve excited and hoping to get a Labour government.
Prior to ever joining Labour they weren't worth voting for in an election but I preferred them to the Tories and hoped (a little) that they beat them.
My current attitude of delighting in seeing the evil people running the Labour party fail is my experience of what absolutely awful vile people they are.
Boris Johnson is a far lesser evil than the right of the Labour party, I could never vote Conservative but I would never ever ever vote for those lot on pain of death.
This is seriously distorted thinking, bordering on disturbed.
SKS is not evil, he is well meaning but boring with few original ideas. Dodds is not evil, she is bright and technically literate but even duller than her boss. Evil was the last regime with its blatant anti-Semitism, its hatred for their own country and the willful blindness that this led to supporting anyone else on the planet that hated us no matter how appalling they were. Labour may not win under SKS but it is no longer a national disgrace and that is progress of a sort.
Starmer isn't releasing the Forde report because kicking out the racists would kill his support in the party.
I know to some here racism is only a failure to support the brutal oocupation of Palestine rather than actual racism against minorities but there is a reason Labour are losing votes among minorities and younger people (two groups most against racism)
We have swapped an anti racist leader for a racist one.
I realise it is the kind of racism many rich white people who temporarily pretended to care about racism don't actually care about so it doesn't matter.
In fact many wealthy older white people will be delighted Labour now has a racist leader, even if it means the Conservatives have no opposition and are losing votes and popularity as a result.
Don't be too happy about it though, in the medium to long term the racists who like Starmer will be mostly dead whilst the anti racists who supported Corbyn will still be alive and kicking.
So only matter of time before Labour goes back to (greater) electability and anti racism to the dismay of many racists
You are a deluded nutter. If it wasn't for the fact that you are supporting a genuine anti-Semite cnut I would think you quite worth laughing at for your incomprehensible stupidity, but the fact that you are supporting, and are a clear apologist for said lying anti-semite I rather wish you would go back to the sewer from which you came. Anti-Semites and their apologists such as yourself are nothing short of scum.
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Labour reject who jumped in the sack to fight like a ferret in 2015 against Corbyn and fought like a ferret every day for 3 years criticises sack fighting.
Said ex Labour hypocrite after quitting sack fighting applies to rejoin Labour in order to fight like a ferret against people like "Laura Pillock"
Rejected for being a divisive nasty name calling piece of work so sad ex sack fighting poster is now politically homeless
Sad tale really
As I said shortly after the event, my abrupt about-face to try and rejoin the Labour Party was done in the middle of a mental health crisis. As that was the stupidest action my illness generated I remain grateful!
Then it cleared, and like Dr Zimsky at the end of The Core dictating notes for his book whilst pinned underneath a nuclear bomb that was about to destroy him and his notes, I looked at myself, asked "what the fuck am I doing" and roared with laughter.
Glad that my mental heath disaster makes you roar with laughter as well.
You called me a toss pot is that part of your condition or are you just a nasty piece of work?
No I called you a tosspot because you are kind of person who takes the piss out of the mentally ill.
Source?
I take the piss out of you because you are a hypocrite who lacks humility and a name calling nasty piece of work.
Source? You taking the piss out of my mental health crisis last year during which I tried to rejoin the Labour Party.
Have no problem you calling me a hypocrite - as always I take the opinions of people I have no respect for under advisement. But taking the piss out of people for having an openly confessed breakdown is what makes you a tosspot.
You are a massive asset to the Labour Party! You and Tarry and Sultana and Pillock and the rest of them.
Labour got the kind of racist centrist leader you wanted over the type of leader BJO liked and Labour are tanking in the polls, clearly it is the Blairite faction you are part of which is the problem in Labour.
Maybe the problem is having so many activists keener to see the opposing faction within their own ranks fail than in winning round voters with some thought through ideas and taking the fight to the Tories?
I joined Labour a few years ago full of enthusiasm and verve excited and hoping to get a Labour government.
Prior to ever joining Labour they weren't worth voting for in an election but I preferred them to the Tories and hoped (a little) that they beat them.
My current attitude of delighting in seeing the evil people running the Labour party fail is my experience of what absolutely awful vile people they are.
Boris Johnson is a far lesser evil than the right of the Labour party, I could never vote Conservative but I would never ever ever vote for those lot on pain of death.
This is seriously distorted thinking, bordering on disturbed.
SKS is not evil, he is well meaning but boring with few original ideas. Dodds is not evil, she is bright and technically literate but even duller than her boss. Evil was the last regime with its blatant anti-Semitism, its hatred for their own country and the willful blindness that this led to supporting anyone else on the planet that hated us no matter how appalling they were. Labour may not win under SKS but it is no longer a national disgrace and that is progress of a sort.
Starmer isn't releasing the Forde report because kicking out the racists would kill his support in the party.
I know to some here racism is only a failure to support the brutal oocupation of Palestine rather than actual racism against minorities but there is a reason Labour are losing votes among minorities and younger people (two groups most against racism)
We have swapped an anti racist leader for a racist one.
I realise it is the kind of racism many rich white people who temporarily pretended to care about racism don't actually care about so it doesn't matter.
In fact many wealthy older white people will be delighted Labour now has a racist leader, even if it means the Conservatives have no opposition and are losing votes and popularity as a result.
Don't be too happy about it though, in the medium to long term the racists who like Starmer will be mostly dead whilst the anti racists who supported Corbyn will still be alive and kicking.
So only matter of time before Labour goes back to (greater) electability and anti racism to the dismay of many racists
I blame George Orwell in part. People read novels like 1984 and Animal Farm and took them as instruction manuals rather than a warning. A better illustration of the concept of doublethink would be hard to conceive of.
I don't know if anybody else heard the Starmer interview on R4 Today this morning, but it was quite interesting. He wasn't very good, actually (see, I am objective). But he did take the opportunity to set out briefly the 5 current top priorities for Labour at the next GE, whenever that is.
His 5 priorities had echoes of Blair's 1997 pledge card. Interestingly, the fifth priority was about bringing an end to the divisions caused by the 'culture war' (although he didn't use that expression, of course). Anyway, signs of an emerging Labour policy platform to fill the current policy vacuum.
What does it mean. According to this article it means "Insiders suggested that levelling up could include four aspects — a regional economic policy; spreading opportunity across the country; improving the outputs and outcomes from public services; and non-economic outcomes of improving “quality of life” and “pride in place”."
Sounds like empty vacuous slogans to me. In Copeland, one issue that lots of the locals mention is the state of the roads. They are awful. As for public services, the local councils are appalling at emptying their recycling centres. One centre - located next to a children's play area and SSI on the beach - is so bad that rubbish is blown about all over the place. The local waste authority is responsible for a statutory nuisance and this in an area dependant on tourism for its living.
I have raised this with the local council, the Tory Mayor and the local Tory councillor. Neither of the latter two even bothered to reply.
"Quality of life" and "pride in place" my arse!
You seem disappointed that reality is different to the political promises of all parties. To be truly cynical, wait to you are 60ish...
Husband told me the local Tory councillor is utterly useless. So my expectations were pretty low and were entirely met.
The council officials have promised to do something but they are based in Whitehaven, live in Carlisle and have never even been to the area. It is a forgotten part of the country. Trudi Harrison comes from here - Bootle - a few miles away. She is local, quite friendly. But she has over the last year been a sad disappointment by comparison with Tim Farron. Being cynical, pork barrel politics has something to be said for it if you get some of the pork. But when you don't even get that, what is the point of any of it?
I tell this story to show the reality of what life is like here and to show up the vacuous nature of this levelling up slogan. We will see whether it amounts to anything substantive in reality. So far the main people who have been levelled up by the Tory party have been the rich who already have rather than the have nots.
I nonetheless expect the Tories to stay in power for a while because Labour are proving to be so bloody useless.
I’m confused. One minute you’re based in Cumbria the next you’re in your garden in West Hampstead
Nothing wrong with multiple houses (or identities) but it does mean you can’t pose as a hard pressed daughter of the provinces if you ALSO have a desirable bolt-hole in the capital
Second home owners certainly aren’t seen as locals
I seem to remember pressing Cyclefree on this at GE2019, with regard to electoral law. She is only allowed to vote at her main residence.
Cyclefree asserted she did not have a second home, as she lived in Cumbria and her husband lived in West Hampstead. So, the claim is that the Cyclefree family did not own a second home, but they owned two 'first homes'
My understanding is that there are tax implications of 'second homes' so it is not just a matter of picking and choosing yourself that your 'second home' is another 'first home'.
But, I don't mind Cyclefree's little ... shall we say ... sleight of hand. Really, I don't.
What is certainly true is that if an MP was doing what Cyclefree was doing -- defining what is a 'second home' as a 'first home' -- we'd never here the end of it in one of her famous homilies against corruption.
I shall retract my talons now.
And I explained at the time and will do so again for the last time.
My husband and I separated for a while because our son's very serious illness, an illness from which he nearly died and for which he was hospitalised in circumstances that do not bear thinking about let alone repeating to strangers pretty much destroyed our marriage and our family. I lived and worked in London and he in Cumbria. He had one home. I had another. I have never breached electoral law. Nor has my husband.
Our decision to try and start a new life together again in Cumbria in our retirement is why things have changed.
You really should not make bitchy and hurtful comments about people you don't know when you don't know the truth about their lives.
Probably time for me to withdraw from this forum frankly. You can bitch away about others instead.
Very sorry to hear this - I wish you and your family all the best. There's certainly no expectation on my part (or for any other poster on here, for that matter) that they should have to justify their private lives to others.
I don't know if anybody else heard the Starmer interview on R4 Today this morning, but it was quite interesting. He wasn't very good, actually (see, I am objective). But he did take the opportunity to set out briefly the 5 current top priorities for Labour at the next GE, whenever that is.
His 5 priorities had echoes of Blair's 1997 pledge card. Interestingly, the fifth priority was about bringing an end to the divisions caused by the 'culture war' (although he didn't use that expression, of course). Anyway, signs of an emerging Labour policy platform to fill the current policy vacuum.
What does it mean. According to this article it means "Insiders suggested that levelling up could include four aspects — a regional economic policy; spreading opportunity across the country; improving the outputs and outcomes from public services; and non-economic outcomes of improving “quality of life” and “pride in place”."
Sounds like empty vacuous slogans to me. In Copeland, one issue that lots of the locals mention is the state of the roads. They are awful. As for public services, the local councils are appalling at emptying their recycling centres. One centre - located next to a children's play area and SSI on the beach - is so bad that rubbish is blown about all over the place. The local waste authority is responsible for a statutory nuisance and this in an area dependant on tourism for its living.
I have raised this with the local council, the Tory Mayor and the local Tory councillor. Neither of the latter two even bothered to reply.
"Quality of life" and "pride in place" my arse!
You seem disappointed that reality is different to the political promises of all parties. To be truly cynical, wait to you are 60ish...
Husband told me the local Tory councillor is utterly useless. So my expectations were pretty low and were entirely met.
The council officials have promised to do something but they are based in Whitehaven, live in Carlisle and have never even been to the area. It is a forgotten part of the country. Trudi Harrison comes from here - Bootle - a few miles away. She is local, quite friendly. But she has over the last year been a sad disappointment by comparison with Tim Farron. Being cynical, pork barrel politics has something to be said for it if you get some of the pork. But when you don't even get that, what is the point of any of it?
I tell this story to show the reality of what life is like here and to show up the vacuous nature of this levelling up slogan. We will see whether it amounts to anything substantive in reality. So far the main people who have been levelled up by the Tory party have been the rich who already have rather than the have nots.
I nonetheless expect the Tories to stay in power for a while because Labour are proving to be so bloody useless.
I’m confused. One minute you’re based in Cumbria the next you’re in your garden in West Hampstead
Nothing wrong with multiple houses (or identities) but it does mean you can’t pose as a hard pressed daughter of the provinces if you ALSO have a desirable bolt-hole in the capital
Second home owners certainly aren’t seen as locals
I seem to remember pressing Cyclefree on this at GE2019, with regard to electoral law. She is only allowed to vote at her main residence.
Cyclefree asserted she did not have a second home, as she lived in Cumbria and her husband lived in West Hampstead. So, the claim is that the Cyclefree family did not own a second home, but they owned two 'first homes'
My understanding is that there are tax implications of 'second homes' so it is not just a matter of picking and choosing yourself that your 'second home' is another 'first home'.
But, I don't mind Cyclefree's little ... shall we say ... sleight of hand. Really, I don't.
What is certainly true is that if an MP was doing what Cyclefree was doing -- defining what is a 'second home' as a 'first home' -- we'd never here the end of it in one of her famous homilies against corruption.
I shall retract my talons now.
And I explained at the time and will do so again for the last time.
My husband and I separated for a while because our son's very serious illness, an illness from which he nearly died and for which he was hospitalised in circumstances that do not bear thinking about let alone repeating to strangers pretty much destroyed our marriage and our family. I lived and worked in London and he in Cumbria. He had one home. I had another. I have never breached electoral law. Nor has my husband.
Our decision to try and start a new life together again in Cumbria in our retirement is why things have changed.
You really should not make bitchy and hurtful comments about people you don't know when you don't know the truth about their lives.
Probably time for me to withdraw from this forum frankly. You can bitch away about others instead.
Very sorry to hear this - I wish you and your family all the best. There's certainly no expectation on my part (or for any other poster on here, for that matter) that they should have to justify their private lives to others.
Please don't leave the forum.
Agreed. A treat to have you here @Cyclefree, both above and below the line.
How can Labour be 2% behind nationally but 17% behind in Hartlepool? Either one poll is wrong, the other poll is wrong, or the Tories are losing ground much quicker in other areas than people realise.
Thanks. Yes, shades of that tension between state and national polling we saw with WH20.
Usually I favour the national but here - with Hartlepool - I think we have a genuine special case. The "true" GE19 result (adjusted for BXP) was a Con win. I'm assessing against that and factoring in (i) we are coming early out of the pandemic due to a vaccine success associated with the government, (ii) a government which also delivered the promised Good Hard Leave so desired by the denizens of this seat, (iii) people have had little time for Labour and Starmer with Covid being such a blanket story, and (iv) Johnson has particular appeal to the WWC demographic being as he's a "bit of a character" and "not like normal politicians".
They are the tea leaves and the resulting brew tastes bitter and of only one thing. Cons win this by-election.
In GE2015 under Milliband
Lab = 14,076 Cons + UKIP 8,256 + 11,052 = 19,308
Under your logic (and that of other centrists) the true GE15 result was a Con win.
Ge2017 under Corbyn
Lab = 21,969 Cons + UKIP 14,319 + 4,801 = 19,120
Unelectable Corbyn smashed the Tories + right of Tory party combined in his first election in Hartlepool, surely electable Starmer can do even better than that?
Or is it that is impossible for Starmer to match Corbyn because Corbyn is an electoral savant (ONLY by the standards of comparing to other recent Labour leaders) and Starmer is actually the unelectable one?
Makes you think about all those idiots claiming any other Labour leader would be 20 points ahead
I'm not a centrist! Jeez, Jezz. Talk about the insults flying. I'm on the left. But the Cons will win Hartlepool for the reasons I explained. It's the same analysis I did on the day the by-election was called. It's untainted by bias, done to steer my betting and earn punditry kudos points.
And bias is everywhere when it comes to what this means for Starmer. Both left and right of Labour are choked with it and are thus incapable of analyzing the loss correctly. One side will (wrongly) say it's proof that Starmer is a stone cold loser. The other side will (wrongly) claim it means nothing other than he needs more time to undo the damage caused by Corbyn.
In fact it's not much to do with who the leader is. Neither btw was the GE19 disaster about Corbyn and being too leftist. GE17 showed we can do well from the left and with a left wing leader. The appeal of Brexit and "Boris" in the places that mattered electorally was the key to the Con landslide. That election was unwinnable. It was superbly set up - the People vs Parliament dynamic - by Johnson and Cummings and "Get Brexit Done" (in that context and climate) was unstoppable. They reran the eu Ref and united the Leave vote. It was genius and don't let anybody tell you otherwise.
As for Starmer, I'm neither sold on him (I voted for Nandy) nor writing him off. This has been an exceptional period and we're about to move out if it. Let's see how things look in a year. If we're still doing badly then, ok, time to worry and maybe make a change.
I did think about including a disclaimer that I was using your post to argue a point I wanted to make against centrists rather than you particulalry... I probably should have!
Also Corbyn's opponents had no time for discussing the real issues beyond using absolutely everything as a stick to attack their factional enemies with. It is obviously stupid to run things like this but as with football refereeing the most important thing (IMO) is consistency.
I intend to lunge in on the Blairites with leg breaking two footed studs up tackles at every opportunity without receiving a card, as they didn't either, then it is fair for everyone.
Although I apologise for using you as a proxy to get at them.
This rather ignores that this seat (or its predecessor) last returned a Tory in 1959. The Red Wall seems to be continuing to crumble.
Yet, what about elsewhere in the country? In my rather leafy Bucks village I have yet to see a single Tory banner. A few Labour but many Green signs. Locally the Greens have done quite well before and I would expect that to continue. Locally they don't have to worry about some of their more bonkers national policies. As a traditional Tory I am tempted to give them my vote in the locals which I would never do in a general election.
Speaking as a Tory, I'd vote for Labour before I voted Green.
They are utter luddite reductionist communitarian fundamentalists.
There’s no reason to believe the party wouldn’t follow the same path toward more moderate respectability, if our political system offered it the same chance to grow that the German Greens, who started with a similar mindset, have had.
Late enough in the thread to trigger Godwin's Law? Small parties don't always moderate themselves when they get bigger.
Prior to achieving power, there is still a historical argument.
It is theoretically possible - and, to me, delightful - that Lenin, Stalin and Hitler all drank in the Fitzroy Tavern on Charlotte St, at the same time. Possibly with a young Aleister Crowley
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Labour reject who jumped in the sack to fight like a ferret in 2015 against Corbyn and fought like a ferret every day for 3 years criticises sack fighting.
Said ex Labour hypocrite after quitting sack fighting applies to rejoin Labour in order to fight like a ferret against people like "Laura Pillock"
Rejected for being a divisive nasty name calling piece of work so sad ex sack fighting poster is now politically homeless
Sad tale really
As I said shortly after the event, my abrupt about-face to try and rejoin the Labour Party was done in the middle of a mental health crisis. As that was the stupidest action my illness generated I remain grateful!
Then it cleared, and like Dr Zimsky at the end of The Core dictating notes for his book whilst pinned underneath a nuclear bomb that was about to destroy him and his notes, I looked at myself, asked "what the fuck am I doing" and roared with laughter.
Glad that my mental heath disaster makes you roar with laughter as well.
You called me a toss pot is that part of your condition or are you just a nasty piece of work?
No I called you a tosspot because you are kind of person who takes the piss out of the mentally ill.
Source?
I take the piss out of you because you are a hypocrite who lacks humility and a name calling nasty piece of work.
Source? You taking the piss out of my mental health crisis last year during which I tried to rejoin the Labour Party.
Have no problem you calling me a hypocrite - as always I take the opinions of people I have no respect for under advisement. But taking the piss out of people for having an openly confessed breakdown is what makes you a tosspot.
You are a massive asset to the Labour Party! You and Tarry and Sultana and Pillock and the rest of them.
Labour got the kind of racist centrist leader you wanted over the type of leader BJO liked and Labour are tanking in the polls, clearly it is the Blairite faction you are part of which is the problem in Labour.
Maybe the problem is having so many activists keener to see the opposing faction within their own ranks fail than in winning round voters with some thought through ideas and taking the fight to the Tories?
I joined Labour a few years ago full of enthusiasm and verve excited and hoping to get a Labour government.
Prior to ever joining Labour they weren't worth voting for in an election but I preferred them to the Tories and hoped (a little) that they beat them.
My current attitude of delighting in seeing the evil people running the Labour party fail is my experience of what absolutely awful vile people they are.
Boris Johnson is a far lesser evil than the right of the Labour party, I could never vote Conservative but I would never ever ever vote for those lot on pain of death.
This is seriously distorted thinking, bordering on disturbed.
SKS is not evil, he is well meaning but boring with few original ideas. Dodds is not evil, she is bright and technically literate but even duller than her boss. Evil was the last regime with its blatant anti-Semitism, its hatred for their own country and the willful blindness that this led to supporting anyone else on the planet that hated us no matter how appalling they were. Labour may not win under SKS but it is no longer a national disgrace and that is progress of a sort.
Starmer isn't releasing the Forde report because kicking out the racists would kill his support in the party.
I know to some here racism is only a failure to support the brutal oocupation of Palestine rather than actual racism against minorities but there is a reason Labour are losing votes among minorities and younger people (two groups most against racism)
We have swapped an anti racist leader for a racist one.
I realise it is the kind of racism many rich white people who temporarily pretended to care about racism don't actually care about so it doesn't matter.
In fact many wealthy older white people will be delighted Labour now has a racist leader, even if it means the Conservatives have no opposition and are losing votes and popularity as a result.
Don't be too happy about it though, in the medium to long term the racists who like Starmer will be mostly dead whilst the anti racists who supported Corbyn will still be alive and kicking.
So only matter of time before Labour goes back to (greater) electability and anti racism to the dismay of many racists
I literally don’t understand this. In what way is Starmer ‘racist’?!
Supports the brutal occupation of Palestine apparently. Not that this is about obsessive fixation on Israel.
This rather ignores that this seat (or its predecessor) last returned a Tory in 1959. The Red Wall seems to be continuing to crumble.
Yet, what about elsewhere in the country? In my rather leafy Bucks village I have yet to see a single Tory banner. A few Labour but many Green signs. Locally the Greens have done quite well before and I would expect that to continue. Locally they don't have to worry about some of their more bonkers national policies. As a traditional Tory I am tempted to give them my vote in the locals which I would never do in a general election.
Speaking as a Tory, I'd vote for Labour before I voted Green.
They are utter luddite reductionist communitarian fundamentalists.
There’s no reason to believe the party wouldn’t follow the same path toward more moderate respectability, if our political system offered it the same chance to grow that the German Greens, who started with a similar mindset, have had.
Late enough in the thread to trigger Godwin's Law? Small parties don't always moderate themselves when they get bigger.
Prior to achieving power, there is still a historical argument.
It was definitely tongue-in-cheek. I agree with the point that parties have to moderate themselves to appeal to more voters. More so in systems like FPTP, perhaps, given how punishing it is for smaller parties.
A murder-accused PC Tasered an ex-footballer for six times longer than is standard before kicking him twice in the head, a court heard.
PC Benjamin Monk is charged with the murder of Dalian Atkinson during an altercation in Shropshire, in 2016.
He appeared at Birmingham Crown Court for the first day of his trial with co-accused PC Mary Ellen Bettley-Smith, who is charged with assault.
The former Aston Villa star died after he was Tasered for 33 seconds....
...While he was unresponsive, the court heard the police officers "set about him".
Mr Monk kicked him in the head with such force imprints of his boot laces were left in two locations on Mr Atkinson's forehead while Ms Bettley-Smith used her baton to strike him "a number of times" while he lay still in the road, the court was told.
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Labour reject who jumped in the sack to fight like a ferret in 2015 against Corbyn and fought like a ferret every day for 3 years criticises sack fighting.
Said ex Labour hypocrite after quitting sack fighting applies to rejoin Labour in order to fight like a ferret against people like "Laura Pillock"
Rejected for being a divisive nasty name calling piece of work so sad ex sack fighting poster is now politically homeless
Sad tale really
As I said shortly after the event, my abrupt about-face to try and rejoin the Labour Party was done in the middle of a mental health crisis. As that was the stupidest action my illness generated I remain grateful!
Then it cleared, and like Dr Zimsky at the end of The Core dictating notes for his book whilst pinned underneath a nuclear bomb that was about to destroy him and his notes, I looked at myself, asked "what the fuck am I doing" and roared with laughter.
Glad that my mental heath disaster makes you roar with laughter as well.
You called me a toss pot is that part of your condition or are you just a nasty piece of work?
No I called you a tosspot because you are kind of person who takes the piss out of the mentally ill.
Source?
I take the piss out of you because you are a hypocrite who lacks humility and a name calling nasty piece of work.
Source? You taking the piss out of my mental health crisis last year during which I tried to rejoin the Labour Party.
Have no problem you calling me a hypocrite - as always I take the opinions of people I have no respect for under advisement. But taking the piss out of people for having an openly confessed breakdown is what makes you a tosspot.
You are a massive asset to the Labour Party! You and Tarry and Sultana and Pillock and the rest of them.
Labour got the kind of racist centrist leader you wanted over the type of leader BJO liked and Labour are tanking in the polls, clearly it is the Blairite faction you are part of which is the problem in Labour.
Maybe the problem is having so many activists keener to see the opposing faction within their own ranks fail than in winning round voters with some thought through ideas and taking the fight to the Tories?
I joined Labour a few years ago full of enthusiasm and verve excited and hoping to get a Labour government.
Prior to ever joining Labour they weren't worth voting for in an election but I preferred them to the Tories and hoped (a little) that they beat them.
My current attitude of delighting in seeing the evil people running the Labour party fail is my experience of what absolutely awful vile people they are.
Boris Johnson is a far lesser evil than the right of the Labour party, I could never vote Conservative but I would never ever ever vote for those lot on pain of death.
This is seriously distorted thinking, bordering on disturbed.
SKS is not evil, he is well meaning but boring with few original ideas. Dodds is not evil, she is bright and technically literate but even duller than her boss. Evil was the last regime with its blatant anti-Semitism, its hatred for their own country and the willful blindness that this led to supporting anyone else on the planet that hated us no matter how appalling they were. Labour may not win under SKS but it is no longer a national disgrace and that is progress of a sort.
Starmer isn't releasing the Forde report because kicking out the racists would kill his support in the party.
I know to some here racism is only a failure to support the brutal oocupation of Palestine rather than actual racism against minorities but there is a reason Labour are losing votes among minorities and younger people (two groups most against racism)
We have swapped an anti racist leader for a racist one.
I realise it is the kind of racism many rich white people who temporarily pretended to care about racism don't actually care about so it doesn't matter.
In fact many wealthy older white people will be delighted Labour now has a racist leader, even if it means the Conservatives have no opposition and are losing votes and popularity as a result.
Don't be too happy about it though, in the medium to long term the racists who like Starmer will be mostly dead whilst the anti racists who supported Corbyn will still be alive and kicking.
So only matter of time before Labour goes back to (greater) electability and anti racism to the dismay of many racists
I literally don’t understand this. In what way is Starmer ‘racist’?!
Seems like rather ominous precedence for Brabin. Might the election need to be re-run if she is guilty of this and wins?
Rahman had to do a lot more to get his election overturned than just treat, if memory serves. And the local parties left it to individuals to do it didn't they?
It is theoretically possible - and, to me, delightful - that Lenin, Stalin and Hitler all drank in the Fitzroy Tavern on Charlotte St, at the same time. Possibly with a young Aleister Crowley
Bet none of the feckers got their round in
This reminds me of the time in 1913 when HItler, Stalin, Trotsky and Freud were all in Vienna.
this is a very serious electoral offence. I thought from Guido it was just some home made brownies handed out. This is the very literal definition of 'treating'. People can go to jail for this..
Apart from the obvious breaking of the law, wtaf, those are expensive, cost inefficient, and this is for West Yorkshire, which broke 2-1 to Lab in 2016 for the PCC elections, and where Lab were 6% ahead in 2019. Surely this race isn't anywhere near being live?
Look North was saying a couple of days ago it was close.
I think LAB should get it
If Labour are 3rd in Scotland, down in Wales, lose Hartlepool, WMids, Teeside, and WYorks then it will be an awful night for Starmer. If you'd have told someone in 2014 that those last 4 were probable results then they'd have looked at you veyr funny indeed.
Labour should still win the London Mayoralty and Assembly comfortably and make gains in the county council elections where they were 11% behind the Tories in 2017.
Starmer is lucky Corbyn did so badly the last time the county council seats were elected so Labour can only go up there
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Labour reject who jumped in the sack to fight like a ferret in 2015 against Corbyn and fought like a ferret every day for 3 years criticises sack fighting.
Said ex Labour hypocrite after quitting sack fighting applies to rejoin Labour in order to fight like a ferret against people like "Laura Pillock"
Rejected for being a divisive nasty name calling piece of work so sad ex sack fighting poster is now politically homeless
Sad tale really
As I said shortly after the event, my abrupt about-face to try and rejoin the Labour Party was done in the middle of a mental health crisis. As that was the stupidest action my illness generated I remain grateful!
Then it cleared, and like Dr Zimsky at the end of The Core dictating notes for his book whilst pinned underneath a nuclear bomb that was about to destroy him and his notes, I looked at myself, asked "what the fuck am I doing" and roared with laughter.
Glad that my mental heath disaster makes you roar with laughter as well.
You called me a toss pot is that part of your condition or are you just a nasty piece of work?
No I called you a tosspot because you are kind of person who takes the piss out of the mentally ill.
Source?
I take the piss out of you because you are a hypocrite who lacks humility and a name calling nasty piece of work.
Source? You taking the piss out of my mental health crisis last year during which I tried to rejoin the Labour Party.
Have no problem you calling me a hypocrite - as always I take the opinions of people I have no respect for under advisement. But taking the piss out of people for having an openly confessed breakdown is what makes you a tosspot.
You are a massive asset to the Labour Party! You and Tarry and Sultana and Pillock and the rest of them.
Labour got the kind of racist centrist leader you wanted over the type of leader BJO liked and Labour are tanking in the polls, clearly it is the Blairite faction you are part of which is the problem in Labour.
Maybe the problem is having so many activists keener to see the opposing faction within their own ranks fail than in winning round voters with some thought through ideas and taking the fight to the Tories?
I joined Labour a few years ago full of enthusiasm and verve excited and hoping to get a Labour government.
Prior to ever joining Labour they weren't worth voting for in an election but I preferred them to the Tories and hoped (a little) that they beat them.
My current attitude of delighting in seeing the evil people running the Labour party fail is my experience of what absolutely awful vile people they are.
Boris Johnson is a far lesser evil than the right of the Labour party, I could never vote Conservative but I would never ever ever vote for those lot on pain of death.
This is seriously distorted thinking, bordering on disturbed.
SKS is not evil, he is well meaning but boring with few original ideas. Dodds is not evil, she is bright and technically literate but even duller than her boss. Evil was the last regime with its blatant anti-Semitism, its hatred for their own country and the willful blindness that this led to supporting anyone else on the planet that hated us no matter how appalling they were. Labour may not win under SKS but it is no longer a national disgrace and that is progress of a sort.
There are few political figures that I would describe as "scum" , but Corbyn (and his deluded loyal supporters) definitely fall into that category along with Alex Salmond and Nick Griffin. Repulsive characters. People that blindly follow such people need psychological help.
I imagine Corbyn hung around with too many Black people and poor people for an upstanding citizen like yourself.
Starmer who keeps his distance from such uncouth elements probably right up your street.
For one thing you sad deluded little man I do not find Starmer to be in any way "up my street" , except he is clearly not an anti-Semite. If your monumentally stupid remark about black people was intended to suggest that I am a racist I would ask that you step out from the protection your rather childish nom de plume, and let us take it from there. I have reported your remark to the moderator and I very much hope it gets you a ban.
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Labour reject who jumped in the sack to fight like a ferret in 2015 against Corbyn and fought like a ferret every day for 3 years criticises sack fighting.
Said ex Labour hypocrite after quitting sack fighting applies to rejoin Labour in order to fight like a ferret against people like "Laura Pillock"
Rejected for being a divisive nasty name calling piece of work so sad ex sack fighting poster is now politically homeless
Sad tale really
As I said shortly after the event, my abrupt about-face to try and rejoin the Labour Party was done in the middle of a mental health crisis. As that was the stupidest action my illness generated I remain grateful!
Then it cleared, and like Dr Zimsky at the end of The Core dictating notes for his book whilst pinned underneath a nuclear bomb that was about to destroy him and his notes, I looked at myself, asked "what the fuck am I doing" and roared with laughter.
Glad that my mental heath disaster makes you roar with laughter as well.
You called me a toss pot is that part of your condition or are you just a nasty piece of work?
No I called you a tosspot because you are kind of person who takes the piss out of the mentally ill.
Source?
I take the piss out of you because you are a hypocrite who lacks humility and a name calling nasty piece of work.
Source? You taking the piss out of my mental health crisis last year during which I tried to rejoin the Labour Party.
Have no problem you calling me a hypocrite - as always I take the opinions of people I have no respect for under advisement. But taking the piss out of people for having an openly confessed breakdown is what makes you a tosspot.
You are a massive asset to the Labour Party! You and Tarry and Sultana and Pillock and the rest of them.
Labour got the kind of racist centrist leader you wanted over the type of leader BJO liked and Labour are tanking in the polls, clearly it is the Blairite faction you are part of which is the problem in Labour.
Maybe the problem is having so many activists keener to see the opposing faction within their own ranks fail than in winning round voters with some thought through ideas and taking the fight to the Tories?
I joined Labour a few years ago full of enthusiasm and verve excited and hoping to get a Labour government.
Prior to ever joining Labour they weren't worth voting for in an election but I preferred them to the Tories and hoped (a little) that they beat them.
My current attitude of delighting in seeing the evil people running the Labour party fail is my experience of what absolutely awful vile people they are.
Boris Johnson is a far lesser evil than the right of the Labour party, I could never vote Conservative but I would never ever ever vote for those lot on pain of death.
This is seriously distorted thinking, bordering on disturbed.
SKS is not evil, he is well meaning but boring with few original ideas. Dodds is not evil, she is bright and technically literate but even duller than her boss. Evil was the last regime with its blatant anti-Semitism, its hatred for their own country and the willful blindness that this led to supporting anyone else on the planet that hated us no matter how appalling they were. Labour may not win under SKS but it is no longer a national disgrace and that is progress of a sort.
Starmer isn't releasing the Forde report because kicking out the racists would kill his support in the party.
I know to some here racism is only a failure to support the brutal oocupation of Palestine rather than actual racism against minorities but there is a reason Labour are losing votes among minorities and younger people (two groups most against racism)
We have swapped an anti racist leader for a racist one.
I realise it is the kind of racism many rich white people who temporarily pretended to care about racism don't actually care about so it doesn't matter.
In fact many wealthy older white people will be delighted Labour now has a racist leader, even if it means the Conservatives have no opposition and are losing votes and popularity as a result.
Don't be too happy about it though, in the medium to long term the racists who like Starmer will be mostly dead whilst the anti racists who supported Corbyn will still be alive and kicking.
So only matter of time before Labour goes back to (greater) electability and anti racism to the dismay of many racists
You are a deluded nutter. If it wasn't for the fact that you are supporting a genuine anti-Semite cnut I would think you quite worth laughing at for your incomprehensible stupidity, but the fact that you are supporting, and are a clear apologist for said lying anti-semite I rather wish you would go back to the sewer from which you came. Anti-Semites and their apologists such as yourself are nothing short of scum.
You can get as upset as you want about it but the racist base of Starmer is much older than Corbyns base so Labour won't be a racist party for long, it will belong to the current young and minorities who are racists and you view as sewer dwellers.
Best part is I'm young and healthy enough to be around to probably see it happen, if it is any nconsolation all you angry old guys who hate Corbyn/Black people/ Muslims will be mostly gone then so you won't have to worry about it, the country can stay racist until your generation loses its voting power.
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Labour reject who jumped in the sack to fight like a ferret in 2015 against Corbyn and fought like a ferret every day for 3 years criticises sack fighting.
Said ex Labour hypocrite after quitting sack fighting applies to rejoin Labour in order to fight like a ferret against people like "Laura Pillock"
Rejected for being a divisive nasty name calling piece of work so sad ex sack fighting poster is now politically homeless
Sad tale really
As I said shortly after the event, my abrupt about-face to try and rejoin the Labour Party was done in the middle of a mental health crisis. As that was the stupidest action my illness generated I remain grateful!
Then it cleared, and like Dr Zimsky at the end of The Core dictating notes for his book whilst pinned underneath a nuclear bomb that was about to destroy him and his notes, I looked at myself, asked "what the fuck am I doing" and roared with laughter.
Glad that my mental heath disaster makes you roar with laughter as well.
You called me a toss pot is that part of your condition or are you just a nasty piece of work?
No I called you a tosspot because you are kind of person who takes the piss out of the mentally ill.
Source?
I take the piss out of you because you are a hypocrite who lacks humility and a name calling nasty piece of work.
Source? You taking the piss out of my mental health crisis last year during which I tried to rejoin the Labour Party.
Have no problem you calling me a hypocrite - as always I take the opinions of people I have no respect for under advisement. But taking the piss out of people for having an openly confessed breakdown is what makes you a tosspot.
You are a massive asset to the Labour Party! You and Tarry and Sultana and Pillock and the rest of them.
Labour got the kind of racist centrist leader you wanted over the type of leader BJO liked and Labour are tanking in the polls, clearly it is the Blairite faction you are part of which is the problem in Labour.
Maybe the problem is having so many activists keener to see the opposing faction within their own ranks fail than in winning round voters with some thought through ideas and taking the fight to the Tories?
I joined Labour a few years ago full of enthusiasm and verve excited and hoping to get a Labour government.
Prior to ever joining Labour they weren't worth voting for in an election but I preferred them to the Tories and hoped (a little) that they beat them.
My current attitude of delighting in seeing the evil people running the Labour party fail is my experience of what absolutely awful vile people they are.
Boris Johnson is a far lesser evil than the right of the Labour party, I could never vote Conservative but I would never ever ever vote for those lot on pain of death.
This is seriously distorted thinking, bordering on disturbed.
SKS is not evil, he is well meaning but boring with few original ideas. Dodds is not evil, she is bright and technically literate but even duller than her boss. Evil was the last regime with its blatant anti-Semitism, its hatred for their own country and the willful blindness that this led to supporting anyone else on the planet that hated us no matter how appalling they were. Labour may not win under SKS but it is no longer a national disgrace and that is progress of a sort.
Starmer isn't releasing the Forde report because kicking out the racists would kill his support in the party.
I know to some here racism is only a failure to support the brutal oocupation of Palestine rather than actual racism against minorities but there is a reason Labour are losing votes among minorities and younger people (two groups most against racism)
We have swapped an anti racist leader for a racist one.
I realise it is the kind of racism many rich white people who temporarily pretended to care about racism don't actually care about so it doesn't matter.
In fact many wealthy older white people will be delighted Labour now has a racist leader, even if it means the Conservatives have no opposition and are losing votes and popularity as a result.
Don't be too happy about it though, in the medium to long term the racists who like Starmer will be mostly dead whilst the anti racists who supported Corbyn will still be alive and kicking.
So only matter of time before Labour goes back to (greater) electability and anti racism to the dismay of many racists
I literally don’t understand this. In what way is Starmer ‘racist’?!
How can Labour be 2% behind nationally but 17% behind in Hartlepool? Either one poll is wrong, the other poll is wrong, or the Tories are losing ground much quicker in other areas than people realise.
Thanks. Yes, shades of that tension between state and national polling we saw with WH20.
Usually I favour the national but here - with Hartlepool - I think we have a genuine special case. The "true" GE19 result (adjusted for BXP) was a Con win. I'm assessing against that and factoring in (i) we are coming early out of the pandemic due to a vaccine success associated with the government, (ii) a government which also delivered the promised Good Hard Leave so desired by the denizens of this seat, (iii) people have had little time for Labour and Starmer with Covid being such a blanket story, and (iv) Johnson has particular appeal to the WWC demographic being as he's a "bit of a character" and "not like normal politicians".
They are the tea leaves and the resulting brew tastes bitter and of only one thing. Cons win this by-election.
Labour aren't 2 points behind nationally. Such evidence that there is points to being 5-6 points behind if it were a GE vote. All the wildly varying polls average out and are consistent with Tories 42 Lab 36 (within a point or so each way).
Single elections such as Hartlepool lead to distorted voting patterns because of the concentrated focus and the Tories vote isn't split this time. The 17 point gap in a small poll is subject to a 5 pt margin of error either way. All boringly consistent.
If the Brexit party vote splits well in favour of the Tories they will win; if not they probably won't. I think Labour will squeak home, but the evidence, such as it is, for that is getting weaker.
Seems like rather ominous precedence for Brabin. Might the election need to be re-run if she is guilty of this and wins?
It really isn't.
This is the sausage roll precedent.
I don't see how they are related. That was catering for a party event.
Nope it was a community event.
Described as a "party event":
A UKIP parliamentary candidate is to be questioned over allegations he tried to influence voters by giving away sausage rolls at a party event featuring snooker star Jimmy White.
No 10 has admitted it has no idea what its flagship "levelling up" policy means so has appointed @NeilDotObrien to provide some substance. Fine piece in FT by @SebastianEPayne. Suspect @MichaelBarber9 on reaching No 10 to provide his delivery expertise found no policy to deliver.
This is why I was suggesting that Street would be ideal for the role. He seems to have plenty of ideas with a cross party appeal.
"No 10 has admitted it has no idea what its flagship "levelling up" policy means"
No idea why they don't know what it means to be honest. It is clear what it means. Sprinkle small, but press worthy amounts of money around the North and Red Wall seats so that it looks like Johnson gives a flying f*ck. Build a bridge here, do up some shopping streets there and so on.
Or alternatively, you could look at why these areas are being drained of capital and investment by London, look at what the inhibiting factors of growth are whether that is infrastructure, transport, specialist education, whatever, and think seriously about how you make these places that are attractive to invest and live in again (ie tidy up the mess and detritus of the past, make sure that that there is decent housing available, better schools etc).
The Tories can no more level up these areas than Labour did - the same issues still exist albeit with both of them seeing them from opposite sides. The economy is seriously and increasingly unbalanced with resources and the ability to participate increasingly out of range no matter how many hours people work.
Neither of the big parties can see beyond the next electoral cycle and - thanks to firstly crap management and communist unions and latterly the need to declare quarterly stock market profits - neither can industry.
Unless we actually start planning for the long term things will just get worse. Sure, people will get thrown trinkets like a big telly and an iPhone. But their ability to actually progress just diminishes year after year. The Tories don't recognise the problem so have no chance of levelling up. Labour recognised it, decided it was too hard and instead just blamed their lack of progress on the Tories.
I am not pretending for a moment that it is easy but the list I have produced is not rocket science. London is a stunning success whose continued progress is essential for UK plc but we do need to recognise that some of that progress comes at the cost of other regions including Scotland and we need to think constructively about what we can do about that. Education, transport/connectivity and housing are basic steps to give these communities a chance. Its not much to ask.
No it isn't and I agree with your diagnosis! Its just this funny idea that the Tories seem to think they are the party to deliver it. And its all made worse by Brexit. It doesn't matter that punters didn't recognise the EU regional development money - it did exist. Now that cash has gone and the Tories are not going to replace it. As an example - Cornwall needs £700m across 10 years just to replace the EU money and is being offered an initial £1.8m https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-55279468
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Labour reject who jumped in the sack to fight like a ferret in 2015 against Corbyn and fought like a ferret every day for 3 years criticises sack fighting.
Said ex Labour hypocrite after quitting sack fighting applies to rejoin Labour in order to fight like a ferret against people like "Laura Pillock"
Rejected for being a divisive nasty name calling piece of work so sad ex sack fighting poster is now politically homeless
Sad tale really
As I said shortly after the event, my abrupt about-face to try and rejoin the Labour Party was done in the middle of a mental health crisis. As that was the stupidest action my illness generated I remain grateful!
Then it cleared, and like Dr Zimsky at the end of The Core dictating notes for his book whilst pinned underneath a nuclear bomb that was about to destroy him and his notes, I looked at myself, asked "what the fuck am I doing" and roared with laughter.
Glad that my mental heath disaster makes you roar with laughter as well.
You called me a toss pot is that part of your condition or are you just a nasty piece of work?
No I called you a tosspot because you are kind of person who takes the piss out of the mentally ill.
Source?
I take the piss out of you because you are a hypocrite who lacks humility and a name calling nasty piece of work.
Source? You taking the piss out of my mental health crisis last year during which I tried to rejoin the Labour Party.
Have no problem you calling me a hypocrite - as always I take the opinions of people I have no respect for under advisement. But taking the piss out of people for having an openly confessed breakdown is what makes you a tosspot.
You are a massive asset to the Labour Party! You and Tarry and Sultana and Pillock and the rest of them.
Labour got the kind of racist centrist leader you wanted over the type of leader BJO liked and Labour are tanking in the polls, clearly it is the Blairite faction you are part of which is the problem in Labour.
Maybe the problem is having so many activists keener to see the opposing faction within their own ranks fail than in winning round voters with some thought through ideas and taking the fight to the Tories?
I joined Labour a few years ago full of enthusiasm and verve excited and hoping to get a Labour government.
Prior to ever joining Labour they weren't worth voting for in an election but I preferred them to the Tories and hoped (a little) that they beat them.
My current attitude of delighting in seeing the evil people running the Labour party fail is my experience of what absolutely awful vile people they are.
Boris Johnson is a far lesser evil than the right of the Labour party, I could never vote Conservative but I would never ever ever vote for those lot on pain of death.
This is seriously distorted thinking, bordering on disturbed.
SKS is not evil, he is well meaning but boring with few original ideas. Dodds is not evil, she is bright and technically literate but even duller than her boss. Evil was the last regime with its blatant anti-Semitism, its hatred for their own country and the willful blindness that this led to supporting anyone else on the planet that hated us no matter how appalling they were. Labour may not win under SKS but it is no longer a national disgrace and that is progress of a sort.
Starmer isn't releasing the Forde report because kicking out the racists would kill his support in the party.
I know to some here racism is only a failure to support the brutal oocupation of Palestine rather than actual racism against minorities but there is a reason Labour are losing votes among minorities and younger people (two groups most against racism)
We have swapped an anti racist leader for a racist one.
I realise it is the kind of racism many rich white people who temporarily pretended to care about racism don't actually care about so it doesn't matter.
In fact many wealthy older white people will be delighted Labour now has a racist leader, even if it means the Conservatives have no opposition and are losing votes and popularity as a result.
Don't be too happy about it though, in the medium to long term the racists who like Starmer will be mostly dead whilst the anti racists who supported Corbyn will still be alive and kicking.
So only matter of time before Labour goes back to (greater) electability and anti racism to the dismay of many racists
I literally don’t understand this. In what way is Starmer ‘racist’?!
He is racist because those who decide who is racist have so decided. Who are you to question them? And why do you think you are owed an explanation or proof?
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Labour reject who jumped in the sack to fight like a ferret in 2015 against Corbyn and fought like a ferret every day for 3 years criticises sack fighting.
Said ex Labour hypocrite after quitting sack fighting applies to rejoin Labour in order to fight like a ferret against people like "Laura Pillock"
Rejected for being a divisive nasty name calling piece of work so sad ex sack fighting poster is now politically homeless
Sad tale really
As I said shortly after the event, my abrupt about-face to try and rejoin the Labour Party was done in the middle of a mental health crisis. As that was the stupidest action my illness generated I remain grateful!
Then it cleared, and like Dr Zimsky at the end of The Core dictating notes for his book whilst pinned underneath a nuclear bomb that was about to destroy him and his notes, I looked at myself, asked "what the fuck am I doing" and roared with laughter.
Glad that my mental heath disaster makes you roar with laughter as well.
You called me a toss pot is that part of your condition or are you just a nasty piece of work?
No I called you a tosspot because you are kind of person who takes the piss out of the mentally ill.
Source?
I take the piss out of you because you are a hypocrite who lacks humility and a name calling nasty piece of work.
Source? You taking the piss out of my mental health crisis last year during which I tried to rejoin the Labour Party.
Have no problem you calling me a hypocrite - as always I take the opinions of people I have no respect for under advisement. But taking the piss out of people for having an openly confessed breakdown is what makes you a tosspot.
You are a massive asset to the Labour Party! You and Tarry and Sultana and Pillock and the rest of them.
Labour got the kind of racist centrist leader you wanted over the type of leader BJO liked and Labour are tanking in the polls, clearly it is the Blairite faction you are part of which is the problem in Labour.
Maybe the problem is having so many activists keener to see the opposing faction within their own ranks fail than in winning round voters with some thought through ideas and taking the fight to the Tories?
I joined Labour a few years ago full of enthusiasm and verve excited and hoping to get a Labour government.
Prior to ever joining Labour they weren't worth voting for in an election but I preferred them to the Tories and hoped (a little) that they beat them.
My current attitude of delighting in seeing the evil people running the Labour party fail is my experience of what absolutely awful vile people they are.
Boris Johnson is a far lesser evil than the right of the Labour party, I could never vote Conservative but I would never ever ever vote for those lot on pain of death.
This is seriously distorted thinking, bordering on disturbed.
SKS is not evil, he is well meaning but boring with few original ideas. Dodds is not evil, she is bright and technically literate but even duller than her boss. Evil was the last regime with its blatant anti-Semitism, its hatred for their own country and the willful blindness that this led to supporting anyone else on the planet that hated us no matter how appalling they were. Labour may not win under SKS but it is no longer a national disgrace and that is progress of a sort.
Starmer isn't releasing the Forde report because kicking out the racists would kill his support in the party.
I know to some here racism is only a failure to support the brutal oocupation of Palestine rather than actual racism against minorities but there is a reason Labour are losing votes among minorities and younger people (two groups most against racism)
We have swapped an anti racist leader for a racist one.
I realise it is the kind of racism many rich white people who temporarily pretended to care about racism don't actually care about so it doesn't matter.
In fact many wealthy older white people will be delighted Labour now has a racist leader, even if it means the Conservatives have no opposition and are losing votes and popularity as a result.
Don't be too happy about it though, in the medium to long term the racists who like Starmer will be mostly dead whilst the anti racists who supported Corbyn will still be alive and kicking.
So only matter of time before Labour goes back to (greater) electability and anti racism to the dismay of many racists
You are a deluded nutter. If it wasn't for the fact that you are supporting a genuine anti-Semite cnut I would think you quite worth laughing at for your incomprehensible stupidity, but the fact that you are supporting, and are a clear apologist for said lying anti-semite I rather wish you would go back to the sewer from which you came. Anti-Semites and their apologists such as yourself are nothing short of scum.
You can get as upset as you want about it but the racist base of Starmer is much older than Corbyns base so Labour won't be a racist party for long, it will belong to the current young and minorities who are racists and you view as sewer dwellers.
Best part is I'm young and healthy enough to be around to probably see it happen, if it is any nconsolation all you angry old guys who hate Corbyn/Black people/ Muslims will be mostly gone then so you won't have to worry about it, the country can stay racist until your generation loses its voting power.
I think Labour can only win if Corbynites and Blairites come to some accommodation, or, as others have mentioned, split in two and rejoin in elections under a coalition stretching across to the Greens and Liberal Democrats too.
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Labour reject who jumped in the sack to fight like a ferret in 2015 against Corbyn and fought like a ferret every day for 3 years criticises sack fighting.
Said ex Labour hypocrite after quitting sack fighting applies to rejoin Labour in order to fight like a ferret against people like "Laura Pillock"
Rejected for being a divisive nasty name calling piece of work so sad ex sack fighting poster is now politically homeless
Sad tale really
As I said shortly after the event, my abrupt about-face to try and rejoin the Labour Party was done in the middle of a mental health crisis. As that was the stupidest action my illness generated I remain grateful!
Then it cleared, and like Dr Zimsky at the end of The Core dictating notes for his book whilst pinned underneath a nuclear bomb that was about to destroy him and his notes, I looked at myself, asked "what the fuck am I doing" and roared with laughter.
Glad that my mental heath disaster makes you roar with laughter as well.
You called me a toss pot is that part of your condition or are you just a nasty piece of work?
No I called you a tosspot because you are kind of person who takes the piss out of the mentally ill.
Source?
I take the piss out of you because you are a hypocrite who lacks humility and a name calling nasty piece of work.
Source? You taking the piss out of my mental health crisis last year during which I tried to rejoin the Labour Party.
Have no problem you calling me a hypocrite - as always I take the opinions of people I have no respect for under advisement. But taking the piss out of people for having an openly confessed breakdown is what makes you a tosspot.
You are a massive asset to the Labour Party! You and Tarry and Sultana and Pillock and the rest of them.
Labour got the kind of racist centrist leader you wanted over the type of leader BJO liked and Labour are tanking in the polls, clearly it is the Blairite faction you are part of which is the problem in Labour.
Maybe the problem is having so many activists keener to see the opposing faction within their own ranks fail than in winning round voters with some thought through ideas and taking the fight to the Tories?
I joined Labour a few years ago full of enthusiasm and verve excited and hoping to get a Labour government.
Prior to ever joining Labour they weren't worth voting for in an election but I preferred them to the Tories and hoped (a little) that they beat them.
My current attitude of delighting in seeing the evil people running the Labour party fail is my experience of what absolutely awful vile people they are.
Boris Johnson is a far lesser evil than the right of the Labour party, I could never vote Conservative but I would never ever ever vote for those lot on pain of death.
This is seriously distorted thinking, bordering on disturbed.
SKS is not evil, he is well meaning but boring with few original ideas. Dodds is not evil, she is bright and technically literate but even duller than her boss. Evil was the last regime with its blatant anti-Semitism, its hatred for their own country and the willful blindness that this led to supporting anyone else on the planet that hated us no matter how appalling they were. Labour may not win under SKS but it is no longer a national disgrace and that is progress of a sort.
Starmer isn't releasing the Forde report because kicking out the racists would kill his support in the party.
I know to some here racism is only a failure to support the brutal oocupation of Palestine rather than actual racism against minorities but there is a reason Labour are losing votes among minorities and younger people (two groups most against racism)
We have swapped an anti racist leader for a racist one.
I realise it is the kind of racism many rich white people who temporarily pretended to care about racism don't actually care about so it doesn't matter.
In fact many wealthy older white people will be delighted Labour now has a racist leader, even if it means the Conservatives have no opposition and are losing votes and popularity as a result.
Don't be too happy about it though, in the medium to long term the racists who like Starmer will be mostly dead whilst the anti racists who supported Corbyn will still be alive and kicking.
So only matter of time before Labour goes back to (greater) electability and anti racism to the dismay of many racists
I blame George Orwell in part. People read novels like 1984 and Animal Farm and took them as instruction manuals rather than a warning. A better illustration of the concept of doublethink would be hard to conceive of.
Explain the logic of Labour losing in the groups most opposed to racism (young and minorities)
If the centrists and right wing fairly tale about Corbyn being racist and Starmer being anti racist were true the opposite would happen.
Starmer seems most popular (comparatively to Corbyn) among groups most in favour of racism (older white people) the same groups were Corbyn is least popular.
I know this might be hard to hear but is it possible it is you that is wrong rather than the children Mr Skinner?
Hartlepool 2015 Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9 Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0 Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017 Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9 Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3 P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019 Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8 S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3 Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
You really are stupid enough to go there? Then again why not - Corbyn won Hartlepool 9 times after his election to Parliament. You see that Peter Mandelson - they only voted for him knowing that the Beard of the Year was in parliament as their true representative. Now that Corbyn has been booted out of the Labour Party Pools is going Tory - nuff said.
If they remove IDStarmer and reinstate the Jeremy, all the people who were LLLLL across the contact sheet who said "I'm not voting for him" will vote for him.
Your really so stupid to try the its Corbyns fault despite the facts.
First Labour loss since 1959
Fairy Nuff we know your obsessed you should move on.
No no no, the loss of the red wall predates Corbyn so it isn't his fault. The dam has been eroded over time, with no maintenance done by an arrogant local Labour hierarchy who think they are born to rule because its all the Tories fault.
Labour's problem is that the dam burst thanks to Brexit. What you propose is that Labour go back to the failed Corbyn experiment, have a slate of wazzocks like Sam Tarry, Zarah Sultana and Laura Pillock as MPs and double down on policy so that Labour only talk to the bottom 5% and blame everything on the top 1% and say fuck all to everyone else.
Labour's solution is not Starmer. Labour's solution is not Corbyn. It is not either / or you tosspot. As I tweeted earlier this morning the left and right in Labour fight like ferrets in a sack and neither side understand why you're in the sack in the first place.
Labour reject who jumped in the sack to fight like a ferret in 2015 against Corbyn and fought like a ferret every day for 3 years criticises sack fighting.
Said ex Labour hypocrite after quitting sack fighting applies to rejoin Labour in order to fight like a ferret against people like "Laura Pillock"
Rejected for being a divisive nasty name calling piece of work so sad ex sack fighting poster is now politically homeless
Sad tale really
As I said shortly after the event, my abrupt about-face to try and rejoin the Labour Party was done in the middle of a mental health crisis. As that was the stupidest action my illness generated I remain grateful!
Then it cleared, and like Dr Zimsky at the end of The Core dictating notes for his book whilst pinned underneath a nuclear bomb that was about to destroy him and his notes, I looked at myself, asked "what the fuck am I doing" and roared with laughter.
Glad that my mental heath disaster makes you roar with laughter as well.
You called me a toss pot is that part of your condition or are you just a nasty piece of work?
No I called you a tosspot because you are kind of person who takes the piss out of the mentally ill.
Source?
I take the piss out of you because you are a hypocrite who lacks humility and a name calling nasty piece of work.
Source? You taking the piss out of my mental health crisis last year during which I tried to rejoin the Labour Party.
Have no problem you calling me a hypocrite - as always I take the opinions of people I have no respect for under advisement. But taking the piss out of people for having an openly confessed breakdown is what makes you a tosspot.
You are a massive asset to the Labour Party! You and Tarry and Sultana and Pillock and the rest of them.
Labour got the kind of racist centrist leader you wanted over the type of leader BJO liked and Labour are tanking in the polls, clearly it is the Blairite faction you are part of which is the problem in Labour.
Maybe the problem is having so many activists keener to see the opposing faction within their own ranks fail than in winning round voters with some thought through ideas and taking the fight to the Tories?
I joined Labour a few years ago full of enthusiasm and verve excited and hoping to get a Labour government.
Prior to ever joining Labour they weren't worth voting for in an election but I preferred them to the Tories and hoped (a little) that they beat them.
My current attitude of delighting in seeing the evil people running the Labour party fail is my experience of what absolutely awful vile people they are.
Boris Johnson is a far lesser evil than the right of the Labour party, I could never vote Conservative but I would never ever ever vote for those lot on pain of death.
This is seriously distorted thinking, bordering on disturbed.
SKS is not evil, he is well meaning but boring with few original ideas. Dodds is not evil, she is bright and technically literate but even duller than her boss. Evil was the last regime with its blatant anti-Semitism, its hatred for their own country and the willful blindness that this led to supporting anyone else on the planet that hated us no matter how appalling they were. Labour may not win under SKS but it is no longer a national disgrace and that is progress of a sort.
Starmer isn't releasing the Forde report because kicking out the racists would kill his support in the party.
I know to some here racism is only a failure to support the brutal oocupation of Palestine rather than actual racism against minorities but there is a reason Labour are losing votes among minorities and younger people (two groups most against racism)
We have swapped an anti racist leader for a racist one.
I realise it is the kind of racism many rich white people who temporarily pretended to care about racism don't actually care about so it doesn't matter.
In fact many wealthy older white people will be delighted Labour now has a racist leader, even if it means the Conservatives have no opposition and are losing votes and popularity as a result.
Don't be too happy about it though, in the medium to long term the racists who like Starmer will be mostly dead whilst the anti racists who supported Corbyn will still be alive and kicking.
So only matter of time before Labour goes back to (greater) electability and anti racism to the dismay of many racists
You are a deluded nutter. If it wasn't for the fact that you are supporting a genuine anti-Semite cnut I would think you quite worth laughing at for your incomprehensible stupidity, but the fact that you are supporting, and are a clear apologist for said lying anti-semite I rather wish you would go back to the sewer from which you came. Anti-Semites and their apologists such as yourself are nothing short of scum.
You can get as upset as you want about it but the racist base of Starmer is much older than Corbyns base so Labour won't be a racist party for long, it will belong to the current young and minorities who are racists and you view as sewer dwellers.
Best part is I'm young and healthy enough to be around to probably see it happen, if it is any nconsolation all you angry old guys who hate Corbyn/Black people/ Muslims will be mostly gone then so you won't have to worry about it, the country can stay racist until your generation loses its voting power.
Comments
BRIAN: We mustn't fight each other! Surely we should be united against the common enemy!
EVERYONE: The Judean People's Front?!
+++++
Which is?
It is theoretically possible - and, to me, delightful - that Lenin, Stalin and Hitler all drank in the Fitzroy Tavern on Charlotte St, at the same time. Possibly with a young Aleister Crowley
Also, it's not true that there's nothing left to devolve. This wikipedia page lists several dozen powers that could be devolved:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserved_and_excepted_matters#List_of_reserved_matters
For instance, time zones are reserved. But why shouldn't Scotland choose a different time zone from England if it wants? Or weights and measures. If England wants to go Imperial why is it any of Wales's business? Judicial salaries - the same. etc. etc.
@AlexSalmond thinks Boris will be gone in two weeks! Watch the full exclusive interview with @MichaelLCrick: https://www.mailplus.co.uk/tv/the-michael-crick-report/68237/alex-salmond-exclusive-the-union-will-outlive-boris-hell-be-gone-in-two-weeks
https://twitter.com/mailplus/status/1389546598313648129/video/1
Patel, Gove and Raab would have less appeal to either group than Boris, granted
Not quite the story you are making it out to be - on first glance it looks way bad, and then you check the profiles and see that it's just a thank you for work done.
I am now of the view that we are causing more harm than good. 2/3rds of the population has had at least one vaccine dose. Cases of Covid are where they were last Summer and even deaths are at a low level. I know we are no longer in a true lockdown but there are still impacts. I believe now that more deaths are probably being caused as a result of lockdown than are being saved.
I know within the last week of two suicides (neither I knew closely) - one in their early 40s, the other in their 20s. Whilst no one can say if it wouldn't have happened without lockdowns, it certainly hasn't helped. Both of them had plenty of life to live. We have to give other people in similar situations hope and opportunity. Young people particularly have given up so much to protect the older generations. It is time we started protecting their mental health.
Take my old patch of Ilford - the Corbynite MP got the seat in unpleasant circumstances and I bet a lot of the councillors I used to know there would be keen to get rid of him and have one of their own hold the seat. Meanwhile while all this is going on, the voters are taken for granted with both wings of the party simply assuming the seat will always be “theirs”. One day something might happen that changes that - as is clearly happening elsewhere - and by then it will be too late.
When most of the campaigning energies and efforts are directed against others on your own side, something is wrong.
Personally I wish the Labour Party would self destruct. But it’s taking too long.
A person shall be guilty of treating if he corruptly, by himself or by any other person, either before, during or after an election, directly or indirectly gives or provides, or pays wholly or in part the expense of giving or providing, any meat, drink, entertainment or provision to or for any person—
for the purpose of corruptly influencing that person or any other person to vote or refrain from voting; or...
The bloody box says "vote Labour" on it.
My husband and I separated for a while because our son's very serious illness, an illness from which he nearly died and for which he was hospitalised in circumstances that do not bear thinking about let alone repeating to strangers pretty much destroyed our marriage and our family. I lived and worked in London and he in Cumbria. He had one home. I had another. I have never breached electoral law. Nor has my husband.
Our decision to try and start a new life together again in Cumbria in our retirement is why things have changed.
You really should not make bitchy and hurtful comments about people you don't know when you don't know the truth about their lives.
Probably time for me to withdraw from this forum frankly. You can bitch away about others instead.
SKS is not evil, he is well meaning but boring with few original ideas. Dodds is not evil, she is bright and technically literate but even duller than her boss. Evil was the last regime with its blatant anti-Semitism, its hatred for their own country and the willful blindness that this led to supporting anyone else on the planet that hated us no matter how appalling they were. Labour may not win under SKS but it is no longer a national disgrace and that is progress of a sort.
RemindMe! 2 weeks.
From where i am standing I am a Socialist but would support a non Socialist leader if they can win Labour an election.
I have only once in my lifetime not voted Labour (in the immediate aftermath of Iraq)
I dont see SKS as that person who can win Labour an Election unfortunately, but would love to be proved wrong.
I respect your opinion and that you sincerely believe he can.
Neither @TheJezziah or @RochdalePioneers are voting Labour currently which is Labours issue methinks.
"Local LibDem councillor Tom Gordon noted he’s now seen Brabin “out & about with boxes of brownies on them that say ‘Vote Labour’ on them”
Local LibDem councillor Tom Gordon noted he’s now seen Brabin “out & about with boxes of brownies on them that say ‘Vote Labour’ on them”, asking the West Yorkshire Police whether it would be considered an electoral offence under treating laws.
‘Chinese military leaders believe that they will have the capabilities to force unification with Taiwan within a year—we need to act now. @WSJ, @AlastairGale’
https://twitter.com/osmastro/status/1389550615089631236?s=21
No doubt each party will pour over them in detail, and look to talk up their successes.
Neither of the big parties can see beyond the next electoral cycle and - thanks to firstly crap management and communist unions and latterly the need to declare quarterly stock market profits - neither can industry.
Unless we actually start planning for the long term things will just get worse. Sure, people will get thrown trinkets like a big telly and an iPhone. But their ability to actually progress just diminishes year after year. The Tories don't recognise the problem so have no chance of levelling up. Labour recognised it, decided it was too hard and instead just blamed their lack of progress on the Tories.
The only difference is I hope a Labour who will do nothing to help normal people loses because it won't help normal people but can get back to something that will.
The Blairite POV is purely inspired by wealthy old white men who can't get over the fact it isn't the 90's anymore and are prepared to destroy any hope of better government to rediscover their youth (through Blairite politics)
So, the Tories must deliver.
My only point is that 'a second home' is something that is formally defined by the tax authorities. You have to declare your family's main residence.
Because there are tax implications.
And there are also implications with regard to electoral law (which certainly in Wales are routinely flouted).
I wish your family all the best.
and from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treating_(law)#:~:text=Treating occurs when an election,one year imprisonment or both.
An accusation of treating was seen in the 2015 United Kingdom general election where the UK Independence Party candidate for Southampton Itchen, Kim Rose was accused of treating for giving out sausage rolls at a community event;[8] however, Hampshire Constabulary said they would take no action over the allegation.[9]
So really nothing to see here....
Hartlepool 2015
Iain Wright Lab 14,076 35.6 -6.9
Philip Broughton UKIP11,052 28.0 21.0
Richard Royal Con 8,256 20.9 -7.2
Hartlepool 2017
Mike Hill Lab 21,969 52.5 16.9
Carl Jackson Con14,319 34.2 13.3
P Broughton UKIP4,801 11.5 -16.5
Hartlepool 2019
Mike Hill Lab 15,464 37.7 -14.8
S Houghton Con 11,869 28.9 -5.3
Richard Tice BXP 10,603 25.8 25.8
Hartlepool 2021 CON GAIN first time not Labour since 1959
SKS fans please explain how SKS has managed this
That was then, this is now. numbers are rapidly dropping and unlike last time we have a significant proportion of the population vaccinated. There is still a significant risk in reimporting new strains and in transmission through the under 40s where few have been jabbed. But the arguments for lockdowns are fading fast.
What I doubt we are about to see the back of are restrictions on foreign travel and mask-wearing. The former will have restrictions either into the country people want to go to or on the way home - more countries will be amber or red than are green. And the latter? I doubt that all barring a hardcore of libertarians will burn their masks on day 1 of them no longer being mandatory.
And bias is everywhere when it comes to what this means for Starmer. Both left and right of Labour are choked with it and are incapable of analyzing the result correctly. One side will (wrongly) say it's proof that Starmer is a stone cold loser. The other side will (wrongly) claim it means nothing other than he needs more time to undo the damage caused by Corbyn.
In fact it has little to do with who the leader is. Neither btw was the GE19 disaster about Corbyn and being too leftist. GE17 showed we can do well from the left and with a left wing leader. The appeal of Brexit and "Boris" in the places that mattered electorally was the key to the Con landslide. That election was unwinnable. It was superbly set up - the People vs Parliament dynamic - by Johnson and Cummings and "Get Brexit Done" (in that context and climate) was unstoppable. They reran the eu Ref and united the Leave vote. It was genius and don't let anybody tell you otherwise.
As for Starmer, I'm neither sold on him (I voted for Nandy) nor writing him off. This has been an exceptional period and we're about to move out if it. Let's see how things look in a year. If we're still doing badly then, ok, time to worry and maybe make a change.
I think LAB should get it
I know to some here racism is only a failure to support the brutal oocupation of Palestine rather than actual racism against minorities but there is a reason Labour are losing votes among minorities and younger people (two groups most against racism)
We have swapped an anti racist leader for a racist one.
I realise it is the kind of racism many rich white people who temporarily pretended to care about racism don't actually care about so it doesn't matter.
In fact many wealthy older white people will be delighted Labour now has a racist leader, even if it means the Conservatives have no opposition and are losing votes and popularity as a result.
Don't be too happy about it though, in the medium to long term the racists who like Starmer will be mostly dead whilst the anti racists who supported Corbyn will still be alive and kicking.
So only matter of time before Labour goes back to (greater) electability and anti racism to the dismay of many racists
Then again Guido will go with any story no matter how minor as he needs to file X stories a day.
But the police dont give a crap about that level of thing.
Giving away what looks like professionally made boxes of treats with Vote Labour literally printed on them looks rather worse than simply sausage rolls.
Edit: who am I kidding, he'd have definitely forgotten.
Starmer who keeps his distance from such uncouth elements probably right up your street.
I’m a fan of having over-representation for the regions in the upper house but they shouldn’t get an extra lock
Seems like rather ominous precedence for Brabin. Might the election need to be re-run if she is guilty of this and wins?
Please don't leave the forum.
Also Corbyn's opponents had no time for discussing the real issues beyond using absolutely everything as a stick to attack their factional enemies with. It is obviously stupid to run things like this but as with football refereeing the most important thing (IMO) is consistency.
I intend to lunge in on the Blairites with leg breaking two footed studs up tackles at every opportunity without receiving a card, as they didn't either, then it is fair for everyone.
Although I apologise for using you as a proxy to get at them.
This is the sausage roll precedent.
A murder-accused PC Tasered an ex-footballer for six times longer than is standard before kicking him twice in the head, a court heard.
PC Benjamin Monk is charged with the murder of Dalian Atkinson during an altercation in Shropshire, in 2016.
He appeared at Birmingham Crown Court for the first day of his trial with co-accused PC Mary Ellen Bettley-Smith, who is charged with assault.
The former Aston Villa star died after he was Tasered for 33 seconds....
...While he was unresponsive, the court heard the police officers "set about him".
Mr Monk kicked him in the head with such force imprints of his boot laces were left in two locations on Mr Atkinson's forehead while Ms Bettley-Smith used her baton to strike him "a number of times" while he lay still in the road, the court was told.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-56979521
https://socialistworker.co.uk/art/51076/Starmers+no+anti+racist
Starmer is lucky Corbyn did so badly the last time the county council seats were elected so Labour can only go up there
Best part is I'm young and healthy enough to be around to probably see it happen, if it is any nconsolation all you angry old guys who hate Corbyn/Black people/ Muslims will be mostly gone then so you won't have to worry about it, the country can stay racist until your generation loses its voting power.
Eye opening stuff, to be sure.
"My brain is saying 'lets go', but my heart is saying 'no'", to misquote a popular songstress...
Single elections such as Hartlepool lead to distorted voting patterns because of the concentrated focus and the Tories vote isn't split this time. The 17 point gap in a small poll is subject to a 5 pt margin of error either way. All boringly consistent.
If the Brexit party vote splits well in favour of the Tories they will win; if not they probably won't. I think Labour will squeak home, but the evidence, such as it is, for that is getting weaker.
A UKIP parliamentary candidate is to be questioned over allegations he tried to influence voters by giving away sausage rolls at a party event featuring snooker star Jimmy White.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-hampshire-32234567
If the centrists and right wing fairly tale about Corbyn being racist and Starmer being anti racist were true the opposite would happen.
Starmer seems most popular (comparatively to Corbyn) among groups most in favour of racism (older white people) the same groups were Corbyn is least popular.
I know this might be hard to hear but is it possible it is you that is wrong rather than the children Mr Skinner?