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Sir Keir Starmer - Labour Party Leader

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    Lucas called herself a socialist at a meeting I was at with her and Clive Lewis. Some were surprised as they hadn't heard this before. She was challenged, and then prevaricated. I asked her afterwards, and via social media asked whether the local party whether they agreed/backed her on it (this was when I was running the local Lab media account). Answer came there none, from anywhere. Afaik, the word 'socialism' appears nowhere on her or the Green Party website - one might particularly expect to see it under the 'economy' section, if obe wanted to be called 'socialist'..

    I'm not particularly criticising her for this - she might feel that the word is too tainted, and prefers 'progressive'. Fair enough, but it's also fair for someone to therefore question if she would 'advance socialism'.

    And I agree with you about the Labour Party, it's just one (diminishing...) potential tool.

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      Yeah the Greens don't, as a party, call themselves socialist, for sure. Lucas I've heard describe herself this more than once.

      As things stand I'm not sure I'm voting in London in May. More likely to give Sian Berry a vote than anyone else.

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        Wondering if Lucas would advance socialism in general is a pub debate, but I think if someone is campaigning against Lucas in 2019 on the basis that her election is a decisive factor in whether we get socialism has a different relationship to reality than me.

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          https://twitter.com/solhugheswriter/status/1364247227041001475?s=21

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            David Evans intervening in selections in the NW is like the scorpion stinging the frog carrying it across the river; it's in his nature. It's how he cut his teeth back in the 1990s.

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              Imagine looking at the Labour Party of the last thirty years - and saying David Evans is what you want.

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                https://twitter.com/liamthorpecho/status/1364264897803149317?s=21

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                  https://twitter.com/liamthorpecho/status/1364264913712140290?s=21

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                    Originally posted by NHH View Post
                    Wondering if Lucas would advance socialism in general is a pub debate, but I think if someone is campaigning against Lucas in 2019 on the basis that her election is a decisive factor in whether we get socialism has a different relationship to reality than me.
                    I don't believe anyone mentioned that it might be 'decisive', but then I'm not sure that the 'wild-eyed' bit earlier - whether they were 'parroting' or not - might properly describe whoever might have been outside the school gate.

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                      Looks as though the right are happy to stand against greens to let the Tories in

                      https://twitter.com/grahambsi/status/1364485185924923393?s=21

                      but see also Molly who ensured the corrupt Tory was able to cash in on PPE in Stroud

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                        Everyone should campaign against Akehurst in that seat.

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                          I must be in a reasonable mood - I saw one of his tweets, typed a response and deleted it without sending.

                          (It was a response to "I've been a member of Labour's campaigns for electoral reform since 1990!"

                          "Well, considering you've been at it for 30 years and achieved fuck all, maybe you should consider stepping down and letting someone else have a go.")

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                            Originally posted by johnr View Post

                            I don't believe anyone mentioned that it might be 'decisive', but then I'm not sure that the 'wild-eyed' bit earlier - whether they were 'parroting' or not - might properly describe whoever might have been outside the school gate.
                            Well, as someone at the said school gate, I can only report what justification they gave me when I asked them why on earth they were bothering.

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                              Originally posted by Snake Plissken View Post

                              (It was a response to "I've been a member of Labour's campaigns for electoral reform since 1990!"
                              This is the problem with campaigns for electoral reform. This and the very silly slogans and arguments that are often used. I'm in favour of PR, but the campaigners for it put me off.

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                                Originally posted by NHH View Post

                                Well, as someone at the said school gate, I can only report what justification they gave me when I asked them why on earth they were bothering.
                                I guess I bristle slightly at the 'wild-eyed' description, cos its the sort of thing that was flung at Labour/Corbyn supporters right from the start, mainly in the media but often by right wingers in and outside the Labour Party. Thugs, people who throw bricks through windows, intimidate and gang up on opponents...it was a process of othering that only had parallels with early Green activism.

                                I also knew many of the canvassers, having met them at numerous party meetings. I can't remember any who I would remotely describe as 'wild-eyed'. They all seemed pretty mild-mannered to me, but maybe they were different during the campaign.

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                                  Originally posted by Nefertiti2 View Post
                                  Looks as though the right are happy to stand against greens to let the Tories in...but see also Molly who ensured the corrupt Tory was able to cash in on PPE in Stroud
                                  Those examples (or any of potentially hundreds the various oppo parties could list) are just whataboutery (from all of us). They each add to the problem rather than balancing an argument

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                                    Strange. Re Liverpool, Owen Jones has posted that having looked into the matter, he concludes that the reasons they've detonated the short list of three are "complicated" and a case of "shambolic incompetence" rather than the stitch-up it looks like, though he fully understands why it would look that way. However, he says he's unable to go into more detail, for some reason. I can understand if something grave were to emerge about one of the candidates but all three?

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                                      Originally posted by TonTon View Post

                                      This is the problem with campaigns for electoral reform. This and the very silly slogans and arguments that are often used. I'm in favour of PR, but the campaigners for it put me off.
                                      Which silly arguments?

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                                        Originally posted by wingco View Post
                                        Strange. Re Liverpool, Owen Jones has posted that having looked into the matter, he concludes that the reasons they've detonated the short list of three are "complicated" and a case of "shambolic incompetence" rather than the stitch-up it looks like, though he fully understands why it would look that way. However, he says he's unable to go into more detail, for some reason. I can understand if something grave were to emerge about one of the candidates but all three?
                                        I think it might be the case that one of the candidates had something that could come out, the hierarchy looked at it and thought 'Waah, what if the others are similar? We better get rid of the whole lot'...

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                                          Possibly.

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                                            https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1364570570977853449

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                                              I'm getting a sense too that the Liverpool thing isn't a straightforward anti-left witch-hunt. It's an anti-democracy one, for sure, and rooted in the control-freak member-hating inclinations of regional and national party bureaucracies (North-West Regional Labour are likely as awful as, say, London Region are - a nasty, self-perpetuating machine).

                                              Going back to the Hancock-resignation thing, Starmer could easily have phrased it as "if a member of my cabinet had been exposed as being improper with public money and public contracts in the time of pandemic, I would ask them to consider their position." But "it's not what the public wants to see" is just about the most fuckwitted, politically inept thing he's said in his 11 months in charge.

                                              It's terrible politics, and the fact that he's only been an MP such a short time is really showing. As is David Evans' untrammelled reign.

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                                                Originally posted by johnr View Post

                                                I guess I bristle slightly at the 'wild-eyed' description, cos its the sort of thing that was flung at Labour/Corbyn supporters right from the start, mainly in the media but often by right wingers in and outside the Labour Party. Thugs, people who throw bricks through windows, intimidate and gang up on opponents...it was a process of othering that only had parallels with early Green activism.

                                                I also knew many of the canvassers, having met them at numerous party meetings. I can't remember any who I would remotely describe as 'wild-eyed'. They all seemed pretty mild-mannered to me, but maybe they were different during the campaign.
                                                I never saw anyone who was a thug, myself, but saw lots of people online on Brighton FB groups who were terrible advocates and examples of Corbynite politics. They didn't seem to realise that honey is better than vinegar at catching the wasp and absolutely no idea that speaking like a Maoist Red Guard denouncing claques of enemies of the working classes was bloody awful look. It's one of those caricatures that can't be completely rebutted as a calumny because there was _enough_ based on reality to create the stereotype, even though the prevalence of the stereotype was vastly overplayed by the Labour right and further right of them.

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                                                  Fair enough. I've avoided Facebook like the plague, forever.

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                                                    The worst of everyone and everything is always magnified on Facebook and Twitter. But yeah, it was a jarring feature of the Corbyn years to contrast the overwhelmingly kind, gentle and thoughtful people one met on the Left at Labour gatherings with the "howling mob" depicted elsewhere. Of course, even the kindest and most thoughtful of people can be wrong, and damagingly so sometimes, and can talk shit on the internet that genuinely upsets people - and some on the Corbyn Left certainly did. But there's an accepted wisdom about the "Corbyn Cult" that really wasn't rooted in reality. And it's still important to say this.

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