Meanwhile in the Labour Party...

[fromtia]

They are clearly the Jewish Monopoly Club of Stoke Newington having a final showdown on a Sunday night. Also controlling the world .

Well they should find a different table to play on! 

Who are the bald people do you think? Is it like in The Matrix?

[fromtia]

That's very kind.

To be honest I was always disappointed it was Corbyn because he is to me the most lightweight of the Labour left. I can't think of a single domestic policy issue he's ever focused on in his 30 year career - he was always the "foreign minister of the left" so while John McDonnell was thinking about how to change the UK economic system and Diane Abbott was thinking about policing issues, Corbyn was going to Cuba Solidarity Campaign events. I think there was something to the "magic grandpa" criticism that he was basically like a nice-ish, probably well-meaning, left-wing vicar and his supporters were particularly engaged by him/his personality and judged people based on their proximity to him. They were fans - a bit like Trump has fans.

I think John McDonnell or Diane Abbott are far more interesting, policy-focused and would have been far better leaders and advanced the left more. I'm not sure where the good ideas on the Labour left will come from - I still have hopes for Angela Rayner. So much of the UK left is just insanely nostalgic and conservative for some imagined post-war idyll. I blame Tony Benn - people talk about the influence WW2 has on UK politics and I think it's nowhere bigger than on the left: big, centralised public services run by a powerful ministry in London and Benn's obsession a sort of planning that is basically just the war economy. It just doesn't seem to engage with the world we live in. The US and European left seem far more engaged and coming up with far more interesting ideas.

And I think people will look back on Corbyn's leadership and the big issues will be anti-semitism, vacillating on Brexit and failing to win two elections leading to Boris Johnson, Prime Minister

Yeah I think that's a fair assesment of Corbyn. Part of his appeal for me, beyond policy was the kindly geography teacher from sixth form college in 1985 vibe that he had. Not polished or groomed or prepared at all, especially not early on. That appeals to people like me , but it doesn't play well outside of that audience and is quite the liability in a national election. The British electorate still wants a "Strong man" type, a Head Boy, a Soccer Captain who won't flinch when it's time to press the button. I think that one of the lessons of Corbyn ought to be that if you want to advance a left wing policy agenda you best bet is to do it in a technocratic and managerial way, polished and free of the trappings of Islington, Lentils or Angry Protests about events in distant places.

More sort of an Andrew Yang approach than a Bernie Sanders one to make a clumsy comparison.

[fromtia]

I've come to enjoy watching Peter Hitchens do as sort of super-curmudgeon routine, I was obviously a fan of his brother for decades. I want to paraphrase one of his rants from Question Time* where he says something like "It's not absurd to expect the leader of Britains socialist party to be a socialist".

* He's a delight to watch a perfect living synthesis of the Hannibal Buress "Why are you booing?"/Rick Sanchez "I've seen what makes you cheer" memes.

[celedhring]

And Spain gives a useful example of how this wouldn't be any better if there was just a hard left and a centre left party - because PSOE and Podemos have loads of factional infighting too

Brits getting flabbergasted at the infighting within the Spanish left, a fine tradition since May 1937   

[Sheilbh]

So Labour just had elections to the National Executive Committee - I think it's a bit like the US Senate, so regularly refreshed rather than all up at once. But the election was a bit of a wash. The hard left won a few seats (I want to say 4 seats), the centre left won a little bit more (I think just 5). The big losers were the soft left who didn't do very well at all - but they had multiple "lists" going which didn't help.

But they've just had their first meeting which was meant to be the AGM followed by an away day on Zoom. The left are very angry about Corbyn not getting the whip back and also tried to move to get the Fire Brigades Union rep elected as chair (the leadership has been lobbying for Margaret Beckett instead). They then staged a "digital walkout" which was clearly pre-planned - apparently by Laura Pidcock (former MP) and Howard Beckett (FBU rep). Being a Zoom walkout, Beckett gave an angry speech denouncing everything and then apparently spent about a minute trying to leave the meeting

Apparently Beckett called the leadership "a disgrace" and Pidcock said it was a "disgraceful way to treat new members of the NEC". They've since sent a WhatsApp letter to the Labour General Secretary accusing Starmer of "promoting factional division within Labour" and mentioned "the Leaders decision to again promote factionalism". They add that they walked out "to show very clearly how factional the decisions of the current Labour Leader have become. We will be returning to future NEC meetings to be the legitimate voice of the membership and to continue to demand that the party unite and reject the current factional approach of the leader."

Mish Rahman who was on the hard left's slate has put their side of it:

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Mish Rahman
@mish_rahman
Yet again Starmer is trying to play games with democracy and undermine the role of trade unions within our Party. This latest factional attack on the FBU fits a worrying pattern of control-freakery reminiscent of the New Labour years.
There can be no Party unity until Starmer fully understands the need to work with the labour movement and the many tens of thousands of grassroots members who can help deliver a Labour Government.
Our walkout from the NEC today was to remind him of this, and to send a message that we will not put up with petty and repeated attacks on trade unions and members.

I'd just note it seems weird to make repeated accusations of factionalism after your faction stages a walkout - and all NEC members are elected in the same sort of way so they're all legitimate voices of the membership (and in the latest election the centre left candidate came first)....

The hard left in the 80s was very good at this sort of in-fighting because they never left meetings and they knew the rules. This seems a particularly futile stunt because the NEC meeting was still quorate after the walkout so they just proceeded to elect Margaret Beckett as chair and carry on with the AGM as normal just with no representatives from the hard left (an additional nuance is that the hard-left faction couldn't beat Margaret Beckett in 2017 so they changed the rules to elect a chair, they've now reverted back to 2017 and they are referring to "long-standing precedent")

It just feels really basic that you never walk-out if the meeting can carry on without you and they can still make decisions

All in all it feels very:

[Richard Hakluyt]

Johnson and the Tory party are very lucky when it comes to opponents.

[Sheilbh]

Johnson and the Tory party are very lucky when it comes to opponents.

Yes. Sadly it is the custom of the Labour Party after a period in government to spend the next decade or more figthing internal factional battles (often about just how bad the last Labour government was)

Although Johnson is the first PM I can think of since Major who is routinely criticised for basically agreeing with whoever he spoke to last. There's Tory chuntering about this that Johnson just changes his mind constantly and is very influenced by whoever he spoke to last. Of course this is what happens when you choose a protean shapeshifter with no fixed ideology or values as your leader (I think this is why he needed Cummings so much - if you've got no idea what to do with power, hire someone who does have an idea).

[Sheilbh]

There's now legal action to force the publication of letters or emails between Starmer and Corbyn. Apparently Corbyn's team think it will prove there was a deal around his suspension which Starmer has broken. I don't fully understand why they can't just publish them if that's what they want to do.

Edit: To change "no" to "now". Quite important apparently

Separately I love this poll question of Labour Party members:


Have to love a group whose ranking of recent Labour leaders is:
1 - Brown
2 - Miliband
3 - Starmer
4 - Corbyn
5 - Blair



Not fully sure they're desperate enough for power yet.