UK Politics Omnishambles: Page 120 - The Arsenal discussion forum and community: One More in the Tolly

UK Politics Omnishambles

Burnwinter

RocktheCasbah And I'm telling you for a fact that at Citizens Advice, where we should have been lapping a guy with his policies up - his leadership horrified everyone. Whether that was wrong of us, maybe, but I don't think Corbyn was ever interested in actually leading.

Corbyn obviously isn't a natural leader, he'd been a fringe character for generations in Labour—albeit one whose fringe positions were often commendable. I guess what I'm trying to get out of you very gently is why you were horrified. I assume his inability to sell himself to the establishment was a big part of it, but it has always seemed that if creeps within Labour weren't bent on wrecking his leadership—and eliminating his former supporters, a task they're still diligently trying to complete—2019 could've been less of a shitshow.

RocktheCasbah

Burnwinter the perception at the time was that Corbyn had entered the leadership contest as a bit of joke, maybe something to stir the pot.

He wasn't supposed to win, but then Momentum happened, floods of youngsters joined the party and voted him in. And we got a backbencher MP, a rabble rouser basically, with little to no front bench experience leading the party as Cameron prepared the ground for the Brexit referendum. Labour actually changed the rules around who could vote in leadership elections following this event. As a member of the union Unite, I (and my colleagues) had been able to vote in leadership elections - although I didn't in this particular one. This has changed now.

Why were we horrified? Because Jeremy Corbyn was the wrong man at the wrong time. And he proved it time and again. The stuff around not wearing a proper suit to Remembrance Day services, not singing the national anthem - small stuff really, but small stuff that matters and cuts through to people, to veterans. Look at what's just happened to Rishi over a perceived lack of respect to veterans at the D-Day commemorations.

Also, the dreadfully poor response to the whole antisemitism affair - something which, had he acknowledged properly, he'd still be in the Labour party now. I don't believe for one second he is racist, I have it on very good authority - my uncle has known him for years, but I can see why people thought he was. And he did nothing to try and disprove that notion - thus rendering the Labour party toxic in 2019.

Qwiss

RocktheCasbah anyone who fell for that anti-Semitism stuff is a complete moron. They're the sort of people who are currently making excuses for genocide and saying "Israel has a right to defend itself".

Burnwinter

RocktheCasbah The realpolitik of Corbyn's "unelectability" remains a distasteful case.

Despite Corbyn's "gaffes" about Remembrance Day or the Queen's Address, he wasn't anywhere near as bad a "retail politician" as is made out—as we've seen with Sunak lately. Corbyn's capacity to respond humanely to incidents such as Grenfell Tower fire has not been seen since. He's also a nice chap, an Arsenal fan, cares about his constituency, makes jam, and so on.

Johnson has a bizarre Islamophobic novel under his belt and a sordid and corrupt private life, but these factors barely affected him due to his popularity with the press and because he's a posh newspaper man himself. Blair's success was built on his intimate ties with Murdoch. If we accept "country suppers" are the rules of the game, it's still a shit game.

The "dreadfully poor response" to the antisemitism affair was the work of Corbyn's opponents within Labour and a hostile press. The leadership's procedural response to the question was not so bad, but it's a challenge to contain relentless spin, slander and briefings. The Al-Jazeera three part series "The Labour Files" provides useful detail on this.

Worth also noting that the "antisemitism affair" occurred against a backdrop of thorough-going Tory racism for which they will never be held to account. For the press it was just a ball they could play with. The Lancet has now estimated 186,000 deaths in Gaza relating to the IDF campaign since October 7, and the Jeremy "friend of Hamas" Corbyn guff looks utterly bankrupt.

End of the day politicians are worthwhile only based on the results they get. However, politics is also a team sport, and if the objective is to be able to stop agreeing the UK is in a state of "managed decline", at some point solidarity is necessary.

Anyway … I'm not a huge fan of Geoffrey Robertson, but his profile on Starmer's history in the law here is quite good, identifying some of his good and bad points.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/jul/07/keir-starmer-prime-minister-geoffrey-robertson

RocktheCasbah

Qwiss that isn't the point, the point is enough people believed it to render Labour completely toxic at the 2019 election. As I've said, I don't think Corbyn is a racist at all, but - unlike you - I do understand why people thought he was.

RocktheCasbah

You're also dealing with an electorate who fell for lies on the side of a big red bus.

Tam

RocktheCasbah "People like Coldplay and voted for the Nazis. You can't trust people, Jeremy." Superhans, perhaps truer now than ever.

Admittedly, I say that having stood at the back of the field at the Pyramid stage last week at my first Glastonbury to take in the spectacle of a headliner.

I'm impressed at Starmer's first few days in office. More a reflection on the standards we've become accustomed to but it's good to have someone quietly going about business with a plan for improvement in mind.

JazzG

We are not a serious country....

JazzG

What the fuck is going on.

Burnwinter

Ew.

flobaba

Hayterz

banduan

gawdalmighty the state of that

Mirth

Almost half of Tory members are in favour of a merger with Reform UK, a survey has found after the upstart party led by Nigel Farage won about 14 per cent of all votes cast (Kieran Gair writes).

The survey from the Party Members Project at Queen Mary University of London and Sussex University, carried out by YouGov, concluded that “membership is split down the middle”, with 47 per cent in favour of a merger with Reform UK and 48 per cent against.

Tories are fucked - no matter how they move, half the party will be alienated.

Thankfully their squabbles aren’t going to drive policy any longer

Kel Varnsen

Mirth

Conservative and moderate parties will all be swallowed by populist movements in the next 5-10 years. It's inevitable and has already happened in several countries.

goon

I actually do think they're in danger of being wiped out if they make the wrong move. And chances are, they are going to make the wrong move.

JazzG

They're gonna have a massive tantrum, blame going everywhere when what they need to do is shut the hell up. Go out and speak to the real world and get out of the Westminster bubble and understand the reasons for their loss won't be found on social media.

JazzG

More interested in social media battles then getting to the root of the issue.

Well they've got 3/4 years to sort themselves out and if Labour actually deliver they won't be getting back anyway. At least try to become respectable opposition who can keep pressure on the government to keep them honest.

JazzG

Gonna be loads of this from the Labour government, things being worse then they realised and they had no choice but to do x, y and z but they had no choice....

Anyone who has followed this at all knows the system has been at breaking point for ages and fair to say the Tories are to blame for it, but it wasn't exactly something they've kept hush and only now coming to light.

goon

Yeah, it’s quite funny hearing everyone before the election saying they’re going to use that justification and that’s exactly what they’ve done 😆

It’s reassuring though. They’re going to have to make a lot of bold, unpopular moves with the right wing press, however they justify it.

JazzG

Stuff like this worries me about Labour. I think Ed Miliband in particular will prove to be a right liability for Starmer. No surprise last 6 or so months he has in a way been benched because he has proven to be a liability even as opposition.

Unless they are about to announce they are gonna build Nuclear plants in everywhere they can as a country we should not be leaving our energy needs to foreign countries. The Russia war showed this, countries scrambling around and begging countries for Gas/Oil. If you are that concerned about Carbon footprint then it is better for the environment that we use our own Gas & Oil.

The coal from West Cumbria was to be used for Steel production. Again we are undermining our own industries and having to rely on foreign governments. Steel production in this country is on it's knees, you'd think of all parties Labour would be propping it up and making sure it stays here.

goon

Fwiw it’s already been denied. Not sure why the Torygraph would spread such misinformation.

JazzG

Fair enough then but a lot of people were reporting that today.

Twisting words is one thing but to outright put out a lie is not on.

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