Starmer sacks shadow transport minister for appearing on picket line

HolgateCorner said:
The point is Superstu is that striking isn’t a game, it affects a lot of people badly and being gung ho about disrupting society may give you a feel good ‘power to the people’ buzz but millions out there will just see it as causing more problems than there already are. And that will cost Labour votes and simply give us and the unions 5 years of more right wing Tory damage whilst the Labour Party is dragged down by petty internal arguments. Half of the strikers will be Tories but they will still get their type of government back in.
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Or - and bear with me here - millions of working people who are getting nearer and nearer to poverty while they see the 1% running out of room to stuff their money, will think to themselves: '**** I should be in a union!'.
 
ThePrisoner said:
Or - and bear with me here - millions of working people who are getting nearer and nearer to poverty while they see the 1% running out of room to stuff their money, will think to themselves: '**** I should be in a union!'.
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It would be good if they did, one of the worst things that happened for working people under Thatcher was that they and their media managed to blame the unions for the economic problems of the country.
 
HolgateCorner said:
If people want to strike then that is their choice.
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I mean not really. It's very tightly legislated now. You can't just down tools at the drop of a hat. We have some of the tightest trade union restrictions going.

HolgateCorner said:
The Labour Party have to be careful because like it or not it can be very politically damaging to jump on board with it and despite all the ideologist noise and posturing in the posts above we need to get them out.
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Okay. But long term the best way to do that is for Labour to try and change the national discourse. Like it or not the party is the political wing of the trade union movement. If they always join in with the tories saying trade unions are disruptive and a problem and bad news for "normal people" that is ultimately self defeating.
 
exiledinboro said:
There's a counter argument to that in which will be will anyone remember in 2024 (when the general election will be held) that stikes caused inconvenience or Labour didn't take a position

And this matters because it looks like austerity 2.0 but whereas Cameron and Osbourne made cuts poverty will increase by not helping and supporting

And the main news right now is details of help by the Tories to give more money to people

My biggest criticism is I don't think Starmer has any chance of winning an election
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I’m just arguing that Labour leader (not just Starmer) needs to be very careful not to give the Tories and their propaganda machine a subversive angle on this, like nationalisation it’s another elephant trap when the two Tory leader candidates are looking increasingly desperate at their hustings.
 
SuperStu said:
I mean not really. It's very tightly legislated now. You can't just down tools at the drop of a hat. We have some of the tightest trade union restrictions going.



Okay. But long term the best way to do that is for Labour to try and change the national discourse. Like it or not the party is the political wing of the trade union movement. If they always join in with the tories saying trade unions are disruptive and a problem and bad news for "normal people" that is ultimately self defeating.
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I agree with most of that but remember that unions specifically exist to look after and protect their members in an employment situation, the Labour Party is there to hopefully win elections, spend taxation monies wisely, look after foreign affairs, govern for all the country etc etc. The two things are linked but very different.
 
Laughing said:
At what cost to the labour party though. They need to be seen as a government in waiting not a protest party. An extension to this would be at what cost to working families and the uk as a whole? If the tories get in again the country is well and truly ****ed. I can forgive starmer for anything that increases the chances of getting the tories out.

You need to bare in mind that 500k people will decide the next election. They are over 50,white and upper working class.
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If working people keep getting treat like s**t, with wages continuing to decline year on year even after 12 years of savage ideological austerity, if working people who choose to go on strike to try to get a decent pay rise, defend jobs and conditions of service see that the party which is supposed to represent them is doing virtually nothing to help, then the next election may well be decided by more than 500,000 people. I have repeatedly said that I have always and will always vote for whoever is the Labour candidate, at any and every election, but by God, this lot are making it really difficult. By the way, going on strike is never gung ho, it is bloody awful but sometimes there is absolutely no other way to stop yourself and your workmates getting shafted.
 
Not a good look when the ‘lefty’ media are starting to question Starmer’s Labour. Maybe it’s not just a few of us insignificant FMTTM posters who are having their patience stretched to the limit afterall?


www.theguardian.com

What happened to the post-Corbyn vision for Labour? Keir Starmer offers nothing | Neal Lawson

We need bold ideas, courage and hope, but timidity and backpedaling are the hallmarks of this Labour leadership, says Neal Lawson director of Compass
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com
 
gregorgregorovich said:
If working people keep getting treat like s**t, with wages continuing to decline year on year even after 12 years of savage ideological austerity, if working people who choose to go on strike to try to get a decent pay rise, defend jobs and conditions of service see that the party which is supposed to represent them is doing virtually nothing to help, then the next election may well be decided by more than 500,000 people. I have repeatedly said that I have always and will always vote for whoever is the Labour candidate, at any and every election, but by God, this lot are making it really difficult. By the way, going on strike is never gung ho, it is bloody awful but sometimes there is absolutely no other way to stop yourself and your workmates getting shafted.
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How do Labour help the striking workers?

Possibly the best way would be to get into power.
 
I feel sorry for the rail lot, but there's a lot more people who I feel a lot more sorry for, being paid a lot less, with zero chance of any raise or strike power, and loads of them rely on our already expensive public transport.

I wonder how rail pay increases over the last decade compare to the average person, or other public sector workers like nurses etc.
 
Andy_W said:
I feel sorry for the rail lot, but there's a lot more people who I feel a lot more sorry for, being paid a lot less, with zero chance of any raise or strike power, and loads of them rely on our already expensive public transport.

I wonder how rail pay increases over the last decade compare to the average person, or other public sector workers like nurses etc.
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Scumbag
 
gregorgregorovich said:
If working people keep getting treat like s**t, with wages continuing to decline year on year even after 12 years of savage ideological austerity, if working people who choose to go on strike to try to get a decent pay rise, defend jobs and conditions of service see that the party which is supposed to represent them is doing virtually nothing to help, then the next election may well be decided by more than 500,000 people. I have repeatedly said that I have always and will always vote for whoever is the Labour candidate, at any and every election, but by God, this lot are making it really difficult. By the way, going on strike is never gung ho, it is bloody awful but sometimes there is absolutely no other way to stop yourself and your workmates getting shafted.
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You needed to paragraph long responses. But beside that, the labour party are doing virtualy nothing to help the poor. No they ate doing actually nothing to help the poor. They cannot without forming a government.

Good on you for sticking to a principle that helps most, regardless of your distaste for what starmer is doing.
 
Andy_W said:
I feel sorry for the rail lot, but there's a lot more people who I feel a lot more sorry for, being paid a lot less, with zero chance of any raise or strike power, and loads of them rely on our already expensive public transport.

I wonder how rail pay increases over the last decade compare to the average person, or other public sector workers like nurses etc.
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Isn’t that just falling headfirst into the trap though?
Pitting worker against worker?
Shouldn’t they ALL have as much right to meaningful payrises?
If we get into the realms of ‘well these guys in this industry deserve it more that those guys in that industry’, we are doing the government’s work for them.
I’s just a race to the bottom. Divide and conquer again.
 
FabioPorkpie said:
Isn’t that just falling headfirst into the trap though?
Pitting worker against worker?
Shouldn’t they ALL have as much right to meaningful payrises?
If we get into the realms of ‘well these guys in this industry deserve it more that those guys in that industry’, we are doing the government’s work for them.
I’s just a race to the bottom. Divide and conquer again.
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It’s why the right wing media and talk shows spend so much time comparing rail salaries with that of nurses etc. Sad that it’s such a basic tactic but obviously cuts through.
 
Andy_W said:
I feel sorry for the rail lot, but there's a lot more people who I feel a lot more sorry for, being paid a lot less, with zero chance of any raise or strike power, and loads of them rely on our already expensive public transport.

I wonder how rail pay increases over the last decade compare to the average person, or other public sector workers like nurses etc.
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What was Starmer's position on nurses payrises again? Oh that's right, it was less than the tories ended up agreeing to wasn't it?
 
FabioPorkpie said:
Isn’t that just falling headfirst into the trap though?
Pitting worker against worker?
Shouldn’t they ALL have as much right to meaningful payrises?
If we get into the realms of ‘well these guys in this industry deserve it more that those guys in that industry’, we are doing the government’s work for them.
I’s just a race to the bottom. Divide and conquer again.
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That's what I mean, hopefully they'll support the other workers when they want pay rises too.

Not worker against worker, I mean worker with worker, and hopefully they all vote against the government largely responsible for their year on year effective cuts.

The people at the bottom should be getting the highest rises, as they're the ones who suffer most when inflation increases.
 
SuperStu said:
What was Starmer's position on nurses payrises again? Oh that's right, it was less than the tories ended up agreeing to wasn't it?
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Do you try and find the bad in every single situation? But anyway, he's not in charge, and which specific date where you referring to this time?

Everything I've read is him putting constant pressure on for nurses pay rises and said government offerings had not been anywhere near enough, if they've offered more then that's a good thing, take it and go again.

If he'd been in power for 12 years (like the Tories), then the nurses pay and their conditions would be in a much better state than they are now.
 
Andy_W said:
Do you try and find the bad in every single situation?
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Yes ;)

Andy_W said:
and which specific date where you referring to this time?
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🤣March 2021. I'll await a reply from you referencing 2020 shall I?

Andy_W said:
Everything I've read is him putting constant pressure on for nurses pay rises and said government offerings had not been anywhere near enough
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Sounds like you've been using your imagination again.

https://twitter.com/x/status/1369307263144443908

Back when nurses pay was front page news Starmer refused, multiple times in interviews, to suggest any figure other than the tories pledged 2.1%. The tories ended up increasing their offer to 3%, easily outflanking Starmer.

It's similar to this week in a way. He's so scared of doing or saying anything that could be criticised he ends up making it easy for the tories to outflank him however they choose.
 
Laughing said:
You needed to paragraph long responses. But beside that, the labour party are doing virtualy nothing to help the poor. No they ate doing actually nothing to help the poor. They cannot without forming a government.

Good on you for sticking to a principle that helps most, regardless of your distaste for what starmer is doing.
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Thanks for the English lesson. You need to spellcheck your posts, "No they ate".
 
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