Thank you. I didn’t suspect your sudden desire for Labour to campaign on w class politics was anything more than batting for your team.
The National Anthem is sung lustily and without a heckle at the Labour Party Conference almost as if to remind me why I’m not a member.
You're not a member of the Labour Party??!! Comrade!! I'm stunned! Are you going to tell us you're not actually a Watford supporter next??!!
Stuff Labour says it will do/won’t do from Conference, so far. Will reinstate 45% tax rate. Won’t allow fracking. Will set up National Investment Bank/Fund. Net zero electricity production by 2030.
ISTR this was planned for Labour's 1979 election 'victory' as a mechanism to deal with all the North Sea Oil profits that would coming 'on stream' that year...
Yes, along with abolition of the House of Lords, which Gordon Brown is providing the latest report on imminently, it’s one of those things Labour is always promising. If only they ever got in.
You just need to remember to do whatever The Sun says. Let it do the thinking for you. In other news, have you heard of / watched this? https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/9/25/what-really-happened-during-labours-anti-semitism-crisis Seemed to be quite a bit of noise about it on Lefty Twitter this morning but I didn't have time to dig too deep before work.
The report sets out what we already knew, that the Labour Right systematically sabotaged the Corbyn leadership and anyone associated with it by false allegations and bullying. This continues to this day, with Labour members of the wrong hue suspended or expelled for doing eff all squared other than expressing their democratic rights. The reaction to it also tells us what we knew; that no one cares about unfairness towards the Labour Left. They are considered fair game by everyone. This should be worrying as indicates a deep-seated moral failure in the current leadership. Everyone knows Starmer lied to get their support, then dumped them. But no one cares. The reason I don’t especially want to dwell on it are as follows. No one can pretend that the Corbyn project didn’t have its own massive flaws and contradictions. In no way was Corbyn ever going to be a PM that the troops were going to accept or one that could square his scepticism of the State with running it. In addition, his willingness to follow anti-imperialists down cul-de-sacs meant he attracted hangers on, who while not being real Labour people, mired the project in their silly conspiracies and anti-semitism. Corbyn could have passionately addressed the problem, but he was unable to connect with detractors in the way he could with supporters. The only way for Labour to expunge this horror show is to take power and do some effing good. They cannot possibly be worse than the Tories and much of what they promise is good, but they also look on course to repeat the worst of New Labour and that should worry left and centre alike.
Who'd be a politician, eh? Get pictured in a situation, accused of being a cynical opportunist. Don't get pictured in a situation, get accused of being insincere.
Wow, conference votes to back Proportional Representation. Losing the next election could skewer the Tories forever.
Hmmn. He’s going to find the British People don’t agree on a great deal. However, if it can sideline the spurious Brexit view, that it and its petty hatreds of ‘woke’ stand for the British People and the Working Class in particular, all well and good. The Strictly Come Dancing loving, tolerant majority if you like.
Starmer proposes the creation of Great British Energy a publicly owned energy supplier that will lead the move to net zero and play a similar role to EDF in France. It’s nationalisation, but rather than buy out shareholders it will create capacity and supply. Very much liking this.
I doubt it will be part of Labour's manifesto at the next election. Constitutional change has a huge chance of backfiring, as it is too easy to argue "you only want this because you think it will help you win." It's a tough one. A huge number of votes are wasted in the UK, and the current system props us parties which are comfortable and refuse to modernise. Parties can win even without having the most votes, and it takes votes away from parties whose popularity doesn't translate into seats (e.g. Greens/ Lib Dems). However it does significantly marginalise fringe populist parties and reduces the chance of silly coalitions that can break apart by nefarious means (e.g. Putin's role in removing Draghi and installing a far right party). For me, a greater priority is improving checks and balances for those in charge, before looking at voting systems. We can't ever have PMs trying to pirogue parliament, or overrule ethics committees, or break the law in office again. We also need to make the Lords relevant and not just a system to game and give cushy retirement gifts to friends.
Lol classic Labour. Good speech and conference by Keir. Labour have a 17 point lead in the polls and their policy is finally cutting through and damaging the Tories. Cue MP Rupa Huq to come along and take up all the headlines by making racist comments about Kwarteng. Talk about snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.
I think you are correct. It would be a massive call for a party to get in, benefitting from FPTP and then change it. Somehow it’ll fail to become a priority. I wonder whether there is some form of hybrid system that could be developed that rewards the smaller parties for very large votes, but ultimately it’s going to take a lot of shifting.
First and foremost, I agree they're disgusting racist comments. Shameful. And then yes, from a political perspective what a complete shambles of timing. Makes you wonder where these idiots come from.
What a stupid and indefensible thing for Huq to say. Moreover, why didn’t she even have the semblance of political awareness that comments are always being recorded at these meetings? But then I suppose she didn’t get why it was a problem in the first place. Sigh.
I still think it will be difficult for Labour to get an overall majority at the next GE. The gerrymandering of constituencies, Scotland, the right wing media, etc. will all conspire against them. More likely is that they will have to do a deal with the LDs, who would be certain to make PR a central part of the post GE negotiation. It would be difficult for SKS to reject as the Labour movement is clearly supportive of change.
Yes, in a straight Labour v Tory battle where the latter’s vote share holds up reasonably well there’s no obvious pathway to an outright Labour majority. There’s a tipping point though where if the Tory vote collapses sufficiently a load of middle England constituencies flip to Labour and they’re into double figures majority territory.
Labour’s big target is the large towns, with Watford a key bellwether (or even bedwetter). It won’t get anything rural, but the Tories could well lose seats to the Lib Dems there.
No doubt the costings have been worked out on the back of a fag packet, but in principal, it sounds like a good idea. Shame there was no mention of renationalising the water industry though.
I would like to see it renationalised, but the problem with that is shareholder compensation. Would it be a good use of Government money to buy all the water utility shares at their current value? Or, would it be better to regulate them properly and cap their profits/charges, fine heavily for poor performance? Usually, the time to nationalise is when the sector cannot provide any more and the whole thing is worth buttons. We don’t really have the conditions for that in energy, so growing alternatives is sensible.
Hmm, maybe the latter option is best. Water was such a daft thing to privatise. No competition, just one company charging what it likes and spending as little as possible to maximise its profits - regardless of how sh1t its service to customers becomes. In short, the absolute opposite of what makes capitalism work
Indeed. Any necessary utility or infrastructure should be public owned, for me. Let the market handle the optional stuff and let the public own the stuff you can't live without: water, power, internet, sewage, basic transport links. Necessities aren't an appropriate thing to try and squeeze as much money as possible from.
Very good piece by Will Lloyd - which brought back all those discussions/arguments with my daughter about how Corbyn was an anachronism...
That’s a nasty piece. Whatever the faults of the left, he would be better off examining the faults of the right and centre lest they repeat them in Government; foreign war (the most shameful ever Labour mistake by far), alienation of the working class, a bullying political culture, ‘wealth creation’, privatisation… all the things that lead to 12 years in the wilderness, to UKIP, to Brexit, to Corbyn as a desperate attempt to find a soul. I’m all for Starmer succeeding and very heartened by the proposals for GB Energy. But if people want party unity, then that works in two directions. The reason people are so disheartened by Starmer are his own repressive approach to the left and the promises he made, but did not keep. Taking the piss out of a culture of internationalism and Labour traditions is ***qing low imo. And that crowd are not my people, nor is Corbyn.
This is what I really don't get with Labour's 'left'. You would think that the party's period in government would be a cause for celebrati0n of Blair/Brown's achievements - but no it's a stain of the party's soul. As a part activist, of a certain vintage - you can tell by her description, put it:
