The audience for the Sky Labour Leadership debate voted a Nandy landslide.
Still, I am sure the Leftwaffe know best.
Got something to say or just want fewer pesky ads? Join us... 😊
[Politics] Next leader of the Labour party
- Thread starter Bulldog
- Start date
The audience for the Sky Labour Leadership debate voted a Nandy landslide.
Still, I am sure the Leftwaffe know best.
Bold Seagull
strong and stable with me, or...
He also introduced 'Dignity at Work - Standards of behaviour in the Crown Prosecution Service' at the CPS.
Good article last weekend end about how his DPP role may play out in the media. https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/16/keir-starmer-past-scrutiny
This is spot on - I really don't see Starmer as a right-winger (in Labour terms). I saw him as the more centrist of the three candidates, with Nandy on the right and RLB on the left and certainly someone to keep most of the 2017 pledges (forget the 2019 manifesto, that was a big mistake).
The Miliband analogy is a good one, I see them operating in a similar political landscape but there are key differences, Starmer doesn't have a foreign name and a Marxist parent; he's had a job outside politics (and a high-flying one at that) and I bet he can eat a bacon sandwich properly.
Incidentally, it wouldn't shock me to see Miliband back in a Starmer shadow cabinet - he's a bright bloke who's wasted on the back benches.
Cheer, mate.
It wasn't my post to which you were referring, though, I don't think, unless my mind is further gone that hitherto suspected.
No worries
Garry Nelson's teacher
Well-known member
I watched the Sky debate last night. Starmer was wrongfooted a couple of times and lost a bit of composure. Nandy was the winner for me. Long-Bailey wasn't quite a wooden as usual. But, like the Tory leadership contest, this has gone on too long.
I am sure you hold these views sincerely, but you are completely wrong.
Even with a media owned entirely by Owen Oyston (remember him and his socialist tabloid?) and workers' collectives, Corbyn would still have lost.
If Labour's policy on Brexit was weak and wrong, that's Corbyn's fault:
1. If he did not believe in his own policy he should have resigned.
2. If he didn't believe in his policy but carried it because his party 'forced' him, it is still his fault for bringing in the 'powerless leader doing the bidding of conference' management.
3. If he didn't believe in his policy but was forced into it by a tiny minority of traitor right wing labour MPs 'such as Starmer' then he and the labour party are weak and pathetic, allowing themselves to be overrun by a minority right wing faction.
This is of course all bollocks. Labour's policies were what they were because of Corbyn. Labour lost the election because of Corbyn.
And don't get me started on antisemitism. Someone close to me is adept at explaining why labour is innocent in this regard, how the facts were twisted etc etc. Then, ten minutes, later he will be in full flow, going on about that 'rogue state', Israel and its brutal treatment of the Palestinians. Yes, some elements of the old left can be very one-eyed about racism. Unfortunately for them, those of us with two eyes can see this, and are disgusted.
And it does not matter how much you Corbyn fan-boys go on and on: we lifelong labour voters who despised Militant and who regard what we see of momentum with concern, will not vote labour if Corbyn's followers prevail. I did vote labour last time, but holding my nose. I'm hoping it will be a lot easier next time - if Starmer wins.
Luckily the 'Corbyn interviews Wrong Bailey' interview, clips of which were played on the radio today, will probably bang the final nail in the cyberwoman's coffin.
Starmer is the only hope if we are to avoid another 10 years of tory misrule.
But....you carry on, mate.
Very true about manifestos. I make the effort to look up those of the two main parties (not the waffle, but definitive policies eg taxation) and The Green Party's as I'm in Pavilion. It was one of the attractions to me in 1997 of Blair's Labour … the promise of Commons vote on fox hunting, I wanted it banned.
I doubt the vast majority of voters have ever glanced at them.
Last edited:
My suspicion is Starmer is being judicious about how much of labour's recent past he supports. Once he becomes leader I suspect he will select the policies that are appropriate (for a party of the left to win). I don't think Starmer has revealed his true colours yet.
The only thing that concerns me about him at the moment may seem trivial, but people are affected by subliminals; he has something in common with Tyson Fury. They both have strange tiny voices that don't sit well with their stature. You will recall that Thatcher actually took steps (on advice) to remedy her own vocal shortcomings (it was shrillness in her case).
highflyer
Well-known member
- Jan 21, 2016
- 2,437
My view is that this is both true, and not true.
The obession with 'electability' does seem premature - can't see much opportunity to test that for a few years.
On the other hand, leadership will be critical in other ways over the next few years - I want to hear how Labour will rebuild it's connections and relevance at local level, create mechanisms to communicate with people in a way that can circumvent the billionaire press, build on the internal democratization process that has been started etc. This is all more important in my view than anyone's hair or (relatively minor) policy differences.
One thing I would put money on - the next election will have a very different flavour to the last one. Four or five years is always a long time in politics. But these next few years may be centuries in political terms (as the last three years have been).
Garry Nelson's teacher
Well-known member
I think I preferred Maggie the strident milk-snatcher to Maggie the husky-voiced seductress. (But better still, no Maggie at all.)
highflyer
Well-known member
- Jan 21, 2016
- 2,437
Yes, I also have question mark in my mind about how trustworthy he really is.
And this is what might incline me towards another candidate who's integrity cannot be questioned.
SockMonster
Well-known member
As it happens I understand that he is currently working on his presentation skills etc
He needs to as compared to Lisa Nandy he’s a mouse.
Thunder Bolt
Silly old bat
Yep, I'm sure a barrister, a QC, who has been in court many, many times, presenting cases to a jury, has to work on his presentation skills.
BenGarfield
Active member
I want to get you started on anti-semitism. Can you explain why you believe critism of israel is antisemitic? I think your friend is entirely correct - and so too does the Jewish leading contender for the Democratic party nomination in the USA, whose relatives suffered in the holocaust, when he in a recent democratic contenders debate in south Carolina, stated that,
“I actually lived in Israel for some months. But what I happen to believe is that right now, sadly, tragically, in Israel through Bibi Netanyahu you have a reactionary racist who is now running that country,” he added.
Mr Sanders said Israel’s independence and security should be protected, but that “you cannot ignore the suffering of the Palestinian people.”
Do you think that if Sanders was a member of the Labour party he should be expelled for anti-semitism?
Don't I know it. The guru who reshaped her public image and insisted on vocal coaching was a guy called Gordon Reece. For reasons that are complex to go into, my sister was living in his house in 1978 and I wasn't allowed to visit her as I was seen as a dangerous leftie who may have spotted how he was trying to remake Thatcher.
Selling yourself to the public as a potential prime minister is very different from doing a dry day job in chambers and committee rooms. I have given thousands of lectures to students and research folk, but my presentation skills in other contexts were (perhaps still are) rubbish, and I did two bouts of media training when I was on the executive of my professional organization. Starmer will certainly get coached. All sensible organisations train their public facing people. That said, I can certainly see momentum labour eschewing such bourgoise frippery but, even so, someone appears to have told Corbyn to cut his hair, keep his beard nicely trimmed and wear a tie
SockMonster
Well-known member
Nevertheless i know he is working on the way he presents himself. It is one thing standing up in court and talking to a jury/judge etc and I would suggest quite another standing in front of the nation and asking for its approval. The former is largely a technical exercise that needs enormous clarity and preparation (something that has surely helped him massively in his political career of course), the latter is much more about impression, as well as technical skill etc. The public are in my opinion, very impressionable. We are affected by how someone looks and sounds as much as by what they say.
I absolutely do not think that criticism of Israel is antisemitic and never said that. I would say that if I had to join some queues for criticising nation states, there are a few other queues I'd join before I'd move on to Israel. For example, Syria, Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, India, Pakistan, Burma, Indonesia.....And to be honest, if you can find anywhere on NSC me getting especially exercised about any of these nations I'd be surprised. I'm mostly focused on things I can affect, like the UK.
My issue with labour and antisemitism is that Corbyn didn't deal with the accusations, as part of the general impression Corbyn labour gave of being clunky and head-in-the-sandy. That said there were certainly examples of people in labour conflating the state of Israel with the people of Israel and with Jews. Corbyn simply didn't deal with this.
Of course I agree that Bibi is a reactionary racist. I have loathed him for decades. I would add liar, crook and criminal. But that is not enough for me to cheer every time Palestinians set off a rocket or bomb, like some people do.
Of course I don't think that criticism of Israel is antisemitic. But I do worry about people who will share a platform with militant Islamists but who wouldn't be seen dead sharing a platform with an Israeli spokesman. And I worry about people who still say (to my face) that all the problems in the middle east, from the Saudi tyranny of its own people (especially the women) through to Isis are all the result of the existence of the state of Israel. One particular person I have in mind is a fierce critic of Israel in this context, and a fierce Corbyn suppoter.
Of course I don't believe the labour party is institutionally antisemitic. I just believe that under Corbyn it was useless at dealing with the issue of antisemitism. Hopefully that and some other things will change soon.
Comrade Sam
Comrade Sam
This is precisely where you're coming from. Holding your nose to vote for a party with principles. Did you hold your nose voting Labour when they were bombing the middle East into the stone age, or turning our schools into academies, or unleashing PFI on our hospitals, or asbos on our children. Some of us couldn't bare to rubber stamp that sort of behaviour and so Labour suddenly representing an alternative inspired hundreds of thousands to join and nearly win a general election inspite of the Chicken Coup by the PLP. And I'm a Jew that has applauded Corbyn's defence of the the Palestinians.