How can anyone take the Labour Party seriously any more.

[Colin Warnek]

Peer Mandelson was ‘intensely relaxed’ about ‘filthy’ amounts of wealth – and said worrying about working-class voters was a waste of time. Now Keir Starmer hopes bringing him in will appeal to voters who deserted Labour over Brexit​

Keir Starmer has called in former Blair adviser Peter Mandelson to get him out of the hole he has dug for himself, completing his headlong rush back to the worst of ‘New Labour’.


Starmer has no hope of getting near power without winning back the working-class voters he drove away from Labour with his 2018 sabotage of Labour’s promise to hold a new EU referendum with ‘nobody… ruling out remain remain as an option’ – and has embarrassingly draped himself in the Union Flag, as if that’s what working-class people want to see. Unsurprisingly, working-class people see right through the ruse and both Starmer and Labour have fallen sharply in the polls.


So now ‘Forensic’ has decided that the way to save himself is to bring in Peter Mandelson, the elitist peer who infamously said that worrying about working-class voters was a waste of time because ‘they’ve got nowhere to go’:


Mandelson has also said that he was ‘intensely relaxed’ about people becoming ‘filthy rich’ – a guaranteed vote-winner with millions in poverty and approaching another million people out of work because of the Tories’ mishandling of the pandemic crisis.

The same Boris Johnson Tories leaving Starmer flailing in their wake.

Not satisfied with that, Mandelson went on to ‘shake UK politics’ by meeting Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska on his ‘superyacht’, where he chatted cosily with Tory then-Shadow Chancellor George Osborne – and subsequently gave trade concessions that benefited the billionaire by an estimated $50 million:

• 
• 

And, of course, Mandelson was at the heart of attempts to overturn the Brexit referendum result as a director (until 2019) of Open Britain, which promoted the so-called ‘People’s Vote’ campaign – exactly the way to the hearts of the leave-voting towns Labour has to win back to have even a sniff of getting into Downing Street.

Senior Labour back-bencher Jon Trickett recently mocked the ‘strategic genius‘ of Starmer’s disastrous tenure so far. It will be interesting to see what he and other working-class MPs make of this latest fiasco, but it’s a safe bet that working-class voters will be ‘intensely unimpressed’.

Bringing back the Dark Lord to entice the voters back. How clueless can you get.

 

[Soutra]

Surely one of the biggest problems labour have is that they're being judged on much much higher standards than the Tories are. It's not remotely a level playing field.

The majority of criticism you can level at labour, also applies to the Tories and then some. Yet some people slaughter labour for it and use that as a way to justify voting for the cabal of conmen currently running the country. Either that or people abstain thinking they're making a moral stance, but in reality they're facilitating more Tory rule.

Labour absolutely need to do better, be smarter and understand how to win votes more. The fact the system is rigged against them makes that even more important.

But the way some go on you do wonder if some are oblivious to just how utterly inept the self serving shower currently running the show are. All things being sensible labour shouldn't need to do anything to get into power. This is probably the worst government we've ever had.

Instead it seems labour need to be whiter than white, with a leader who is some sort of cross between Kennedy and Nelson Mandela, just to have any sort of chance against the keystone cops led by Worzel Gummage. It's utterly bonkers.

For all that Blair was a canny political operator, he still needed to jump in bed with Murdoch to win elections. For all the talk of policies and "strong opposition" getting the media on your side is still probably the key factor depressingly.

Maybe Tony Blair did court Murdoch and co, but he also presented lots of attractive policies, well targeted and thought out.

There's just too much niche stuff coming out of Labour nowadays. You can't please everyone, but you need to make sure that you please enough people to get elected. This latest stuff from Labour looks like them chucking mud at the wall hoping that some of it will stick.

 

[Colin Warnek]

FFS parroting the shight that Johnson spouts on PM questions as "getting a reputation" is about as pathetic a kowtow as I can think of.

Wanting a strong opposition to Johnson is not a kowtow. In fact it’s the opposite of a kowtow. If Starmer is giving Johnson that kind of easy ammunition whilst we‘ve been through the worst crisis in living memory it shows how pìss weak his leadership has been.

It’s blind kowtowing to weak unelectable leadership after weak unelectable leadership that has got the Labour Party to where it is now.

 

[Colin Warnek]

Surely one of the biggest problems labour have is that they're being judged on much much higher standards than the Tories are. It's not remotely a level playing field.

The majority of criticism you can level at labour, also applies to the Tories and then some. Yet some people slaughter labour for it and use that as a way to justify voting for the cabal of conmen currently running the country. Either that or people abstain thinking they're making a moral stance, but in reality they're facilitating more Tory rule.

Labour absolutely need to do better, be smarter and understand how to win votes more. The fact the system is rigged against them makes that even more important.

But the way some go on you do wonder if some are oblivious to just how utterly inept the self serving shower currently running the show are. All things being sensible labour shouldn't need to do anything to get into power. This is probably the worst government we've ever had.

Instead it seems labour need to be whiter than white, with a leader who is some sort of cross between Kennedy and Nelson Mandela, just to have any sort of chance against the keystone cops led by Worzel Gummage. It's utterly bonkers.

For all that Blair was a canny political operator, he still needed to jump in bed with Murdoch to win elections. For all the talk of policies and "strong opposition" getting the media on your side is still probably the key factor depressingly.

I actually agree with all of this - it’s an unfortunate consequence of the way in which this country is divided, and also highlights how catastrophic New Labour’s loss of Scotland -possibly permanent - is.

 

[HolgateCorner]

Surely one of the biggest problems labour have is that they're being judged on much much higher standards than the Tories are. It's not remotely a level playing field.

The majority of criticism you can level at labour, also applies to the Tories and then some. Yet some people slaughter labour for it and use that as a way to justify voting for the cabal of conmen currently running the country. Either that or people abstain thinking they're making a moral stance, but in reality they're facilitating more Tory rule.

Labour absolutely need to do better, be smarter and understand how to win votes more. The fact the system is rigged against them makes that even more important.

But the way some go on you do wonder if some are oblivious to just how utterly inept the self serving shower currently running the show are. All things being sensible labour shouldn't need to do anything to get into power. This is probably the worst government we've ever had.

Instead it seems labour need to be whiter than white, with a leader who is some sort of cross between Kennedy and Nelson Mandela, just to have any sort of chance against the keystone cops led by Worzel Gummage. It's utterly bonkers.

For all that Blair was a canny political operator, he still needed to jump in bed with Murdoch to win elections. For all the talk of policies and "strong opposition" getting the media on your side is still probably the key factor depressingly.

Totally agree with all that, it’s very hard for Labour to win an election, but it will come and sooner than you think.

For all the barrage that Corbyn took from the media wasn’t he something like 30,000 votes in the key marginals short of getting a majority in 2017?

It needs a sensible campaign focussed on the key issues next time around with nothing on the fringes that the Tory media can get stuck into.

 

[HolgateCorner]

Wanting a strong opposition to Johnson is not a kowtow. In fact it’s the opposite of a kowtow. If Starmer is giving Johnson that kind of ammunition whilst we‘ve been through the worst crisis in living memory it shows how pìss weak his leadership has been.

It’s blind kowtowing to weak unelectable leadership after weak unelectable leadership that has got the Labour Party to where it is now.

With the best will in the world, the ‘worst crisis in living memory’ was caused by a virus from overseas. It would have been a bit like trying to blame Churchill for Hitler.

There will be plenty for Starmer to get stuck into Bunter and co over the coming months when the unemployment and taxes start to bite and the food bank queues get longer.

 

[Corcaigh_the_Cat]

I think a more pertinent question is why was it so easy to get so many who need help from Labour policies to vote for the shower if crooks in government?

Those who ridiculed a policy to have broadband spread to all homes, and there's plenty of dishonest Tory voters on here guilty of it at the time, are silent when the Tory government goes down the same track?

Had a furlough type scheme been suggested by Labour can you imagine the cries on here from the dishonest voters surrounding the issue?

Now we have a real hair brained scheme to build a tunnel between Scotland and Ireland and where is the criticism, where are the 'cant afford it' shower?

 

[SuperStu]

As a labour leaning centrist and believer (for now) in Sir Kier, can I just suggest the only reason that will prevent a Labour government is if the Corbynites keep undermining their own leadership and party. A GE win in 4 yrs really should not be too difficult to achieve given the mayhem caused by the tories allowing the virus free rein to kill many of their supposed traditional voters (the elderly), their ongoing woeful mishandling of the pandemic and the economic disaster that is yet to rear its head with higher taxes and unemployment. The young that become eligible to vote who have had their education hampered and in some cases ruined will not forget in a hurry.

Col I have to say I think you're totally wrong on this on two counts.

Firstly, in defence of Starmer - the next election is impossible, never mind too difficult. Labour need to 120 odd gains to get a majority of 1. They're obviously not getting any of the Scottish seats so they need to be looking down to about seat #150 on their target list. By that point you're expecting a swing to Labour across the country of about 12 or 13%. Simply not happening.

And that's before the tories bring in their new boundary changes!

Secondly, in defence of "Corbynites" you can't blame Labour inevitably losing on them or their conduct. That's totally disingenuous. For one thing they have nothing like the media reach that Labour's right wing MPs had over the last 4 years - there isn't constant news stories now quoting an anonymous "senior Labour figure" slating the party. But more to the point they haven't been the ones to pick the fights that are going on. Starmer's NEC committee looked at Corbyn's case after the EHRC report came out and unanimously decided he wasn't to be expelled. Starmer could have dropped it then and there and let it lie. Instead he withdraws the whip from Corbyn and has spent the last 4 months expelling any CLP secretaries that are found to have even talked about it. It was completely unnecessary and obvious to cause problems.

Imagine if Steve Gibson banned any Boro fans who dared criticise Assombalonga. After a while that'd obviously have an affect on the crowds (I know, what's a crowd?) and when it did you could hardly blame the banned Boro fans for having not been more supportive.

 

[SuperStu]

Poor old Starmer, fancy spending his entire first year tirelessly avoiding any policies, any harsh opposition to the tories in Parliament, kicking the left out of the party, and putting all his eggs in to one basket labelled competence...

...Only for Boris to go and pull the world's most impressive vaccination programme out his *rse.

Now Starmer's stuck. He can't in any serious way claim he'd have been more competent on the vaccination roll out as there's so little room for improvement. He can't now go back over the old coals of when the different lockdowns should have began or ended as then he's playing in to the Captain Hindsight dig. He can't now swing left with a bunch of new policies as it'll look as fake and phoney as the flag stuff did the other week.

As I said in the previous comment it was always impossible for Labour to win the next election irrespective of who the Labour was or what they did. But Starmer's played an absolute stinker so far IMO.

 

[SuperStu]

Surely one of the biggest problems labour have is that they're being judged on much much higher standards than the Tories are. It's not remotely a level playing field.

The majority of criticism you can level at labour, also applies to the Tories and then some. Yet some people slaughter labour for it and use that as a way to justify voting for the cabal of conmen currently running the country. Either that or people abstain thinking they're making a moral stance, but in reality they're facilitating more Tory rule.

Labour absolutely need to do better, be smarter and understand how to win votes more. The fact the system is rigged against them makes that even more important.

But the way some go on you do wonder if some are oblivious to just how utterly inept the self serving shower currently running the show are. All things being sensible labour shouldn't need to do anything to get into power. This is probably the worst government we've ever had.

Instead it seems labour need to be whiter than white, with a leader who is some sort of cross between Kennedy and Nelson Mandela, just to have any sort of chance against the keystone cops led by Worzel Gummage. It's utterly bonkers.

For all that Blair was a canny political operator, he still needed to jump in bed with Murdoch to win elections. For all the talk of policies and "strong opposition" getting the media on your side is still probably the key factor depressingly.

Agree with all this, and the media landscape is getting worse with the two fox style news channels we're getting.