[Politics] Labour Party meltdown incoming.......

[nevergoagain]

But in general things seem to be going okay don't they. We've had no new strikes, threats of strikes have been removed, we seem to be getting on with other countries instead of pissing them off, we're investigating new ways of sorting out asylum issues. And so on.

Other than the Winter Fuel Payment, which has been a right royal PR disaster that could have been avoided, not a lot has 'gone wrong' indicating that we're in for a rough time has it?

We're getting pretty much what we voted for as a country. Stability and common sense.

Have they? OK Train drivers have accepted as have the JD's but they've already said they want more. GP's are still threatening strikes, border force already are, job centre security guards (apparently) and I read this morning that pharmacists are also now considering work to rule. It's the eternal problem, you give to one group and the other groups want the same treatment. It's not an easy thing to fix when the money clearly isn't there, I'm glad I don't have to sort it all out.

 

[nevergoagain]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czxgdgkew81o - Interesting article from Mason about Sue Grey, suggests tensions behind the scenes, not just about her salary.

 

[cunning fergus]

A lot of prominent people are fairly frequently stating that the is honest, scrupulous, has enormous integrity and so on. Maybe you don’t know him as well as they do.

Yes, a similar group of prominent people said similar about Huw Edwards when the Sun exposed his noncery………..ignorance is strength isn’t it?

 

[cunning fergus]

But in general things seem to be going okay don't they. We've had no new strikes, threats of strikes have been removed, we seem to be getting on with other countries instead of pissing them off, we're investigating new ways of sorting out asylum issues. And so on.

Other than the Winter Fuel Payment, which has been a right royal PR disaster that could have been avoided, not a lot has 'gone wrong' indicating that we're in for a rough time has it?

We're getting pretty much what we voted for as a country. Stability and common sense.

I think some of this crisis is overblown, however Starmer nailed his colours firmly to a number of masts in opposition and following a landslide victory where it was clear he won due to huge public rejection of the Tories.

Ergo, he was not popular like Blair in 97, and his political radar and advisors should have told him that, and therefore, like he said outside No 10, tread lightly on peoples lives.

Tot is possible that ALL of the storm of issues we are digesting can be explained in forensic technical detail, but the general public are not political nerds and will judge of perceptions (deserved or undeserved).

At the moment Two Tier Keir is being usurped by Free Gear Keir, and that is the disaster. So, he is now a joke…….the Jason Lee of international leaders.

For those of us that were either agnostic about a Labour victory or happy to see the back of the wretched Tories, TTK or FGK has already disappointed, and in my view he won’t be able to last it out.

 

[cunning fergus]

I don’t give a shit about any of this. It’s just small potatoes. Nobody I know IRL gives a toss either.

The number of people in politics who are there for the money are tiny. For many, it’s a short, perilous career with your job security completely taken out of your hands by people above you. Look at Stephen Lloyd, exemplary Lib and later Independent MP for Eastbourne. Lost his job to a Tory despite being enormously popular, because national politics almost always overrides constituency issues. Out of a job through no fault of his own and scrambling around for a new career.

The huge majority of the top guys, the Oxbridge set - businesspeople, landlords, lawyers etc - most would make vastly more money in the private sector.

The PM’s salary is what some top CEO’s earn in a week when bonuses are factored in.

The majority of politicians are genuinely in it for a combination of a desire to make change, a desire for power and control and sometimes a desire to represent their communities.

So no, I don’t begrudge the PM being given hospitality at the football, or an expensive pair of spectacles.

What I do resent is Boris Johnson and his cabinet boozing it up during lockdown, while ordinary people were prevented from visiting dying loved ones.

Priorities, people. This is just a smear campaign from the right wing media to tide over until a real scandal happens.

If you’re right the polling and popularity ratings of FGK (or TTK) and Labour will hold steady and you won’t need to de-construct the storm. By the way, they aren’t and based on past rampant hypocrisy by PMs etc. I doubt for him they will recover.

In my view a PM that stands for impeccable public service and anti sleaze will suffer when some fella bankrolling his missus wardrobe gets free security passes to No 10 etc. That’s before political advisors get parachuted into civil service posts.

He will also suffer because when he is telling the public of economic black holes and likely increasing taxes/benefit cuts for pensioners he is getting hundreds of thousands of shit for free.

That’s not an endorsement for any other politician or political party either, its the depressing acceptance of the tragic vacuous degeneracy of our polical classes and the wider establishment.

Plus ca change as they say in France.

 

[Is it PotG?]

Angela Rayner is wrong to target towns and villages in her quest to build 1.5m extra houses, an influential think tank has said. The Resolution Foundation said building more properties in expensive areas that were not near particularly productive jobs would do little to help the Government boost growth.

 

[Bodian]

I think some of this crisis is overblown, however Starmer nailed his colours firmly to a number of masts in opposition and following a landslide victory where it was clear he won due to huge public rejection of the Tories.

Ergo, he was not popular like Blair in 97, and his political radar and advisors should have told him that, and therefore, like he said outside No 10, tread lightly on peoples lives.

Tot is possible that ALL of the storm of issues we are digesting can be explained in forensic technical detail, but the general public are not political nerds and will judge of perceptions (deserved or undeserved).

At the moment Two Tier Keir is being usurped by Free Gear Keir, and that is the disaster. So, he is now a joke…….the Jason Lee of international leaders.

For those of us that were either agnostic about a Labour victory or happy to see the back of the wretched Tories, TTK or FGK has already disappointed, and in my view he won’t be able to last it out.

Yes - but just because he might be 'unpopular' doesn't mean that everything is a disaster and the country is suffering. Which is what the post I was responding to was saying.

 

[Bry Nylon]

He will also suffer because when he is telling the public of economic black holes and likely increasing taxes/benefit cuts for pensioners he is getting hundreds of thousands of shit for free.

Agree with this - it all feels a bit Animal Farm.

If only Starmer's problems were confined to what is happening outside Downing Street. Inside, Sue Gray has been a deeply divisive and pretty much universally disliked and distrusted figure around the cabinet table for months (as revealed on here, weeks before the press started running with it). There is a dawning realisation amongst many ministers that having finally achieved office, the plans for a Labour government that Sue has been diligently drafting over the past 18-months don't seem to include them.

Poor old Wes Streeting was apparently pretty fed up that having done the hard yards on the NHS in opposition, SKS stole his thunder at the King's Fund gig last week when he laid out the government's vision for NHS reform. Little Wes was nowhere to be seen, quietly relegated on that day's media grid to trailing SKSs speech on a round of breakfast radio and telly slots. (Apparently his mood wasn't improved when many colleagues privately shared the view that he would actually have done a far better job at presenting his work than his boss).

 

[LamieRobertson]

Have they? OK Train drivers have accepted as have the JD's but they've already said they want more. GP's are still threatening strikes, border force already are, job centre security guards (apparently) and I read this morning that pharmacists are also now considering work to rule. It's the eternal problem, you give to one group and the other groups want the same treatment. It's not an easy thing to fix when the money clearly isn't there, I'm glad I don't have to sort it all out.

Plus a lot of ”we are going to” which remains to be seen whether it actually happens

 

[Guinness Boy]

Yes, a similar group of prominent people said similar about Huw Edwards when the Sun exposed his noncery………..ignorance is strength isn’t it?

Ah, I see you did have your computer on this morning. You must just have forgotten to answer my question about the nonce who was part of the far right riots on the Edwards thread.

I was worried you might have considered a 4585th post an NSC Career, or maybe been spooked by an Asian bloke with a backpack. Turns out you were just dodging the question.

 

[Bozza]

He really does a whole library of tweets which aren't aging very well at all.

 

[cunning fergus]

Yes - but just because he might be 'unpopular' doesn't mean that everything is a disaster and the country is suffering. Which is what the post I was responding to was saying.

I think that’s a matter of opinion and timing, we know for many the “suffering” is already in the post and an imminent budget that is seeking to resolve an economic black hole is likely to deliver more of the same.

The “disaster” is the cack handiness with which this is all being dealt with, overlayed with rank hypocrisy given the importance FGK (or TTK) placed on the need for impeccable public service pre and post election.

It didn’t need to be like this, and certainly could have been avoided if FGK and his advisors had lined up the political moons on his 100k plus freebie list.

That they didn’t stinks of a new cohort of shithouses, but more authoritarian than the last if you chuck in the wholly unnecessary smoking ban they floated post election.

 

[Is it PotG?]

What a kind, considerate chap we have at the helm.

A real man of the people.

https://news.sky.com/story/pm-says-...he-didnt-accept-free-arsenal-tickets-13217907

 

[cunning fergus]

What a kind, considerate chap we have at the helm.

A real man of the people.

https://news.sky.com/story/pm-says-...he-didnt-accept-free-arsenal-tickets-13217907

An interesting position to take if he was a PM with popular appeal?

Dare I say Free Gear Keir could learn from his predecessor……another Arsenal fan that watched from them from the stands as leader of the opposition, and would have continued had he become PM.

IMO obvs.

 

[Bozza]

"Someone in No10 or close to No10 is leaking stories to cause maximum damage to the PM’s most senior staff member.

And this isn’t happening a couple of years into the premiership. It’s happening a couple of MONTHS in. And yes it’s important to put this in context – it’s not exactly going to bring down a government, or thwart the legislative programme, let’s not get too carried away.

But still. It points to a level of dysfunction in the political operation."

 

[Bozza]

Another govt insider adds: “It’s about how it looks to the public that they’re all rowing over how much Sue gets paid. People had enough of internal warfare with the Tories.”

 

[DavidinSouthampton]

Yes, a similar group of prominent people said similar about Huw Edwards when the Sun exposed his noncery………..ignorance is strength isn’t it?

I hardly think the two are comparable. Starmer has a long record of doing top jobs well and honestly. One of my brothers-in-law is a fairly senior public prosecutor who rated him very highly. Helena Kennedy on Newsnight recently said he is a man of the utmost integrity and as straight as anything.
but you’re not going to listen.

 

[rippleman]

What a kind, considerate chap we have at the helm.

A real man of the people.

https://news.sky.com/story/pm-says-...he-didnt-accept-free-arsenal-tickets-13217907

Starmer certainly hasn't helped himself by accepting free corporate hospitality from Arsenal.

I totally understand and fully accept the security issues of him "standing on the terraces" and that the cost of his personal security is significantly less if he is in corporate hospitality. All good. No problem.

But what Starmer appears to have overlooked (and I've not heard any journalist argue this point with him) is that it is actually possible to PAY for corporate hospitality. He isn't obliged to accept a freebie and open himself up to suggestions that Arsenal / the EPL are expecting something in return.

With a salary around £170K PA he can certainly afford to pay for corporate hospitality (and indeed a few suits).

He is coming across to me as rather politically naive and doing himself no favours at all whilst laying himself open to the accusation "they are all the same".

 

[bazbha]

But in general things seem to be going okay don't they. We've had no new strikes, threats of strikes have been removed, we seem to be getting on with other countries instead of pissing them off, we're investigating new ways of sorting out asylum issues. And so on.

Other than the Winter Fuel Payment, which has been a right royal PR disaster that could have been avoided, not a lot has 'gone wrong' indicating that we're in for a rough time has it?

We're getting pretty much what we voted for as a country. Stability and common sense.

Next time one of the kids demands £100 a week pocket money I'll just cough up and feel I've done a good job as its stopped them sulking. Wont ask them to do any extra chores in return though. If I struggle with paying the bills later I'll chuck it on the credit card. That's just common sense yeah?

 

[cunning fergus]

I hardly think the two are comparable. Starmer has a long record of doing top jobs well and honestly. One of my brothers-in-law is a fairly senior public prosecutor who rated him very highly. Helena Kennedy on Newsnight recently said he is a man of the utmost integrity and as straight as anything.
but you’re not going to listen.

In terms of their “wrongdoing” sure they are absolutely not comparable, in terms of establishment types, Labour Party shills not reading the general public room to defend the miscreants it’s directly comparable.

The Granny Harmer Starmer may have plenty of personal integrity, I don’t doubt that for a second, he’s a leading barrister so he will find a way to play by the rules. That is after all what good barristers do, find ways to make the unlawful lawful.

That point accepted, he is a political half wit. As mentioned above, taking advantage of thousands of pounds of freebies is not a good look, especially if you are trying to be PM. Accepting thousands of pounds of freebies and telling people that they are having benefits cut is suicidal.

The 2024 general election had a worryingly low turn out, public disaffection with the whole political class is at an all time low, he promised outside No 10 a Government of public service and so he has built the gallows of his own demise. Idiot.