It's astonishing how thoughtless she can be sometimes.

I couldn't believe that she would write something like this so clearly offensive and ignorant, it's sad that this will probably mean the end of her career. I'm not seeking to defend this letter, but she gets a huge amount of online abuse and threats made against her and I dare say that the coverage surrounding this will only likely exacerbate this.

 

Just why oh why did the Observer publish it?

I kind of feel she deserves it to be honest, if any Tory had written that I’d be seething (as I was over Boris Johnson’s disgusting book!) so really she deserves the same disgust. She is stupid to have even countered it in the first place has she really not got a clue at all after all these years?

No-one comes out of this well. Abbot's comments were bad and to use a "first-draft" nonsense as an excuse is like me going yo a manager and saying my dog ate the report I didn't write.Be an adult and admit to it.

 

But people are purely focusing on the antisemitism part of the letter but ignoring Gypsy, Roma, Travellers whose experience of racism she marginalised.

 

And huge number of MPs make anti trans comments or demonise refugees on a daily basis and they are celebrated by the media and no chance of them losing the whip.

 

She won't come back to Labour as the media will go ape but the whole situation and hypocrisy around her treatment stinks a bit.

I found something good to put in this thread:

 

https://labourlist.org/2023/05/labour-manif...cies-npf-party/

 

Actual policy! (if not costed, because of course)

 

so most of these things have been floated around but it's useful to have them in one place for questions like 'but what's Labour's plan?' - which came up on QT quite a lot last night.

 

Most of it is broadly realistic lefty which I'd take as a step towards dismantling capitalism. The worker's rights section in particular makes for good reading even though there'd still be more to do.

 

e.g.

Ensure that government contracts support our national ambition to boost Britain’s skills and create new apprenticeship and learning opportunities

 

Change the Low Pay Commission’s remit so that alongside median wages and economic conditions, the minimum wage will for the first time reflect the need for pay to take into account the cost of living

 

Stuff like that is framed from the perspective of using businesses and the economy as a way to support people living their lives - Tory framing is always the other way around.

@1678103550885351426

 

Ooft.

Tio right. They're just the Tories 2: This Time We're Not Blue! We need Corbyn back.

Tio right. They're just the Tories 2: This Time We're Not Blue! We need Corbyn back.

I suppose that's one way of ensuring another Labour defeat.

Probably more chance of Corbyn coming back as Leader than Unite dropping donating.

Based on the type of government that Starmer is looking towards creating, I think considering this drastic action from Unite is at least necessary. It looks like it will be directionless, easily controlled by businesses (and not workers), the poll leads absolutely will not last if they're 'holding the spending book' as reports are suggesting and it could well be a Hollande-style disaster which leaves the door easily open for extremist forces to rise.

 

of course you can't say you're going to spend money in this country even when you've... uh... been criticising your opponents for underfunding public services for 13 years... because to do so will open you up to attacks from the media who love to frame politicians as having an open chequebook, but once the reality settles in and they're just doing austerity 2.0 they'll lose support fast from the public.

 

The union won't want to be propping up a government which is worker-hostile. Seems like this motion will just open up their options to donate to other parties if they consider it a better use of funds.

Based on the type of government that Starmer is looking towards creating, I think considering this drastic action from Unite is at least necessary. It looks like it will be directionless, easily controlled by businesses (and not workers), the poll leads absolutely will not last if they're 'holding the spending book' as reports are suggesting and it could well be a Hollande-style disaster which leaves the door easily open for extremist forces to rise.

 

of course you can't say you're going to spend money in this country even when you've... uh... been criticising your opponents for underfunding public services for 13 years... because to do so will open you up to attacks from the media who love to frame politicians as having an open chequebook, but once the reality settles in and they're just doing austerity 2.0 they'll lose support fast from the public.

 

The union won't want to be propping up a government which is worker-hostile. Seems like this motion will just open up their options to donate to other parties if they consider it a better use of funds.

 

I don't know what people want though, of course Labour want to spend money (as I want them to). If Reeves came out and said we would spend our way out of the mess, our currency would tank again.

 

We're skint as a country, our debt is pretty much 100% to GDP. Borrowing costs are through the roof, taxes high and inflation is not coming down. There's not a magic wand for the solution we're in and spending our way out of it is definitely not the answer. Spend to invest wisely certainly is. I think Labour will spend more, and putting us in more debt is the right thing to do, but it's going to be a rocky 2-3 years before we can start to see that happening imo.

Keir Starmer, the man who when faced with an open goal, thinks he's playing rugby.

 

Ditching the 2 Child Policy (or as I call it, the Catholic Tax) is such a no-brainer, a policy that should win plaudits for Labour from both the economic left-wingers and from socially conservative pro-family voters (and those who are both). Such an easy win, yet one Starmer refuses to grasp.

He is compliant opposition in what is dangerously close to a neoliberal dictatorship. He isn't allowed to change his policy on it. The media oligarchs won't allow it.

A very Tory brained policy to keep this limit alive - definitely running into the bad end of the 'if he's not actually promising anything will change, what's the point of dumping the Tories' and the 'be super careful to avoid the right-wing press' strategy that Labour have been pursuing.

 

if the upcoming by-elections don't go their way (and I'm starting to think they won't) then it's good evidence that the poll lead is vapor and that promising nothing actually gets you nothing

 

I think they've actually been doing abysmally at managing their lead, it should have been politics 101 to slowly have good press to reinforce Starmer's supposed goals this week but that's what hiring self-interested Blairites gets you

You can’t call yourself an alternative and support keeping the Tory rape clause

 

 

Blue, Red or Orangey-Yellow. All shade of tory are the same

And now the left are fighting back https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/j...orth-east-mayor

 

 

Driscoll is standing as an independent and donations are flooding in. He was blocked by Central Office, as so many candidates from the left are, just because he appeared at a talk with Ken Loach - whose done lots through his films in order to stand up for the poorest and most disadvantaged in society.

 

Keir is a disgrace. Out, out, out!! He's as much of a Tory as David Cameron. Voting for Keir is like voting for Csmeron: two sides of the same piece of shit.

There's fair weight to left attacking Starmer, I don't agree with the policy either, but what I think large portions of people are missing is, we are fecking skint. We have no money as a country and borrowing money is going to scare the markets and increase extra burden. Now the solution to this imo is tax rises, but I can't see that being too popular to the middle voters just because a general election.

 

We're not in a good way economically and I don't see things improving for a good 2-3 years.

But every time a progressive moment occurs that’s the right wing defence - we are skint. It’s just a way of stopping progress. We’re the Brits not skint in 1945 too and yet we’re able to create the NHS? It’s funny how we are always skint when it comes to providing public good but when it comes to wars there’s plenty of the pie left to fund them.

 

Who are these scary people in ‘the markets’ we owe money to? Why don’t they get dragged to the Supreme Court and held to account?

Edited July 18, 20231 yr by steve201

There's always ways to raise money and fund it and do it in ways that are investing in the economy - the markets didn't react badly to the TrussKwarteng budget because of overspending, but because its spending plans were dubiously 'trust us, lower taxes will bring more money somehow, eventually' and no real ways to generate money. I think people talk about how it's ruined the economy "so there's no money" (with the media only so happy to reinforce this idea) but forget just how utterly stupid it was as an economic prospect and how literally anything else would be a better spending plan.

 

You can pull the levers in so many different ways that will generate money for the longer term including changing up how money is being spent, but Starmer's Labour have no ambition so will restrict themselves to the politically possible, and it's because they will do that that they will fail.

 

In contrast properly supporting children is actually a good investment in our economy. It's only not being done because of the classist ideas around people with lots of children and Starmer is enthralled to those (right-wing culture war readers & media) and not what should be his base.