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Every time I turn on the tv they’re interviewing someone from Reform. The news media seem to be treating them as the opposition.
I’ll just say one thing for now Starmer’s much more left wing than he wants people to believe and those who wanted ‘change’ will find out how deluded they were having jumped from the frying pan into the fire.
good luck to all (we are going to need it)It seems more than possible that the Tories will repeat the mistake of Labour following their drubbing in 1979; they – Benn and Foot at least – thought the answer was a move to the left, and the Tories – some of them at least – following this drubbing now seem to think they should move to the right
1979 another time, another place, another world admittedly but I still believe that the majority of the public hover around the centre with a likely slight bias to the right
There’s always been extreme factions around: the Communist Party of Great Britain had a fair following and was something of a thorn in the side of Labour each side of WW2 and had two MPS in Attlee’s post-war administration, but they faded away. Were they the far-left equivalent of the far(ish) right of UKIP and Reform that have pricked the Tories over the last decade or so
Far Leftism and Far Rightism is just soooo…European. We know better, don’t we??
Keir is a socialist at heart. That’s why I voted for him. However he tempers it with pragmatism and realism. For one thing, I thought that most people in this country felt that the railways should be renationalised?’ Good luck, you’re going to need it ‘is what my outgoing Boris Johnson adoring MP said when she was trounced by our new Labour MP; I found it very ungracious and spiteful ( but not unexpected).
“There’s always been extreme factions around: the Communist Party of Great Britain had a fair following and was something of a thorn in the side of Labour each side of WW2”.
There was also the Common Wealth Party, which won five by-elections during WW2.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_Wealth_Party
Only Ernest Millington retained his seat after the war. He joined the Labour Party in 1946. Afterwards, Common Wealth limped on but never won another by-election and eventually called it a day in 1993.
Millington died in 2009. He was the last surviving person to be elected to Parliament before WW2.
After his election he recalled: “I was approached by a Tory MP dressed in civilian clothes and with a hand in his trouser pocket. ‘Your DFC ribbon is worn too wide’. He was, I think, not expecting my reaction. ‘If you are talking to me as an RAF officer: stand to attention; take your hand out of your trouser pocket and address a senior officer as Sir. If you are talking to me as a fellow Member of Parliament, mind your own business and bugger off!’
With regard to Jacqui Smith, she is on record as saying “I don’t think people who have been disgraced should go to the House of Lords”.
What is she doing there, then? She resigned after a particularly bad case of expenses fiddling.
Only a few months ago, she spoke out against people who are not MPs being made ministers: “It slightly suggests that you don’t think there are any of your own backbenchers who are able to do it and there might be a few people that are a bit peeved about it”.
But it is OK if she is appointed, obviously!
More damaging, the Chief Prosecutor in North West England, Nazir Afzal, told BBC radio in 2018 that under Smith’s aegis the Home Office issued a memo to all police forces that the child victims of Pakistani grooming gangs had made “an informed choice” and “it’s not for your police officers to get involved”.
Why is the awful, victim blaming woman anywhere near public office?
and so the madness begins ……
eco zealot Ed Miliband according to a article on my news app says he’s banned all new drilling for oil & gas.
It’s reported this will cost billions in possible legal claims and of course we now have to import even more!
Gee I wonder why Starmer kept him away from the media during the election?
good luck to allCAS wrote: “One feature of the new Parliament is the presence of 72 Liberal Democrats. The most for about 100 years.
they can preen about how impeccably liberal they are while not having to be responsible for anything.”Drone wrote:”That’s the case for any opposition party in an elected dictatorship isn’t it?”
It is but the difference is that the official Opposition will be expected at some point to take power. Labour talked the talk in the last Parliament but now they have to walk the walk in government. They will find governing is a lot more difficult than talking but at least they have taken on that responsibility.
It is different with the Liberal Democrats. First past the post usually delivers a decisive result. That means unless there is a hung Parliament, the LDs are permanently in opposition and are not going to be responsible for anything at a national level (the 2010 to 2015 Parliament was very much the exception).
It is that which makes the LDs a little difficult to bear sometimes. They can parade their liberal virtue like students while politically never having to grow up and take responsibility for government. They have an easy job, which is another reason why smug Davey is so irritating.
Points well made Corker
Idealism met realism during the coalition and the LibDems were for the most part found wanting: in addition to Davey’s abject failure to investigate the Post Office there was Vince Cable who sold off Royal Mail for a relative pittance; a gent who when having the easy job of mumbling from the back benches was lauded by the commentariat as being a sensible thoughtful politician. Likewise Nick Clegg who became little more than Cameron’s puppet and sold his soul to Silicon Valley. Little wonder they got stuffed in the 2015 election.
Opposition is easy, governing is difficult. Prove me wrong please Starmer et al
Not only that but David Laws had to resign from the Cabinet over an expenses scandal and Chris Huhne had to resign over making his wife take a speeding ticket for him.
Scratch the surface and they are not a nice crowd. But it does not stop them from doing their holier than thou routine.
And then there was Jo Swinson. Someone so convinced of her own righteousness and puffed up with self importance that she announced she was going to be Prime Minister after the 2019 election. As it turned out, she received a harsh dose of reality when she could not even retain her own seat. The first party leader to suffer such a fate since WW2.
The Liberal Party, the forerunner of the Liberal Democrats, is still going. It has a grand total of 5 local councillors. 3 of them are in Liverpool. Steve Radford, the party’s leader, has been a councillor in Tue Brook for years.
The party stood candidates in 4 of the city’s 5 parliamentary constituencies. The best they managed was Mr Radford obtaining 2,336 votes in West Derby, almost twice as many as the Liberal Democrat candidate and about 800 more than the Conservative.
My constituency was the only one where the party did not stand a candidate. A pity because I might have voted for them, partly because the other candidates were so awful but also because a classical Liberal party might be just what is required against a stateist Labour Party.
It couldn’t do any worse than a defeated and demoralised Conservative Party which is probably going to choose someone useless as its next leader.
The most worrying thing re the election result is that it was incompetence that lost the tories the election. The fact folk didn’t see their running down of public services as the main issue is worrying though the nhs was by far the most important issue. So if labour can look competent and don’t fight all the time and make a difference to the NHS the next few elections are theirs to lose.
Still think if he improves the lot of the working person that will sway most voters.BTW the calmness in which labour has conducted the first week is impressive. Its probably them just behaving as adults compared to the last few years of chaos. Politicians should be like referees. If they are doing a decent job you don’t notice them. Like the Argentina ref in the scotland game. Had a superb game and didn’t realise he wasn’t European till near the end of the game.
They have made the point , Raynor esp of , saying how hard things really are , it’s to get a lot harder before it gets easier
I recall the last time Labour were in power one of the first things Gordon Brown did was to destroy workers pensions with the joke going round the treasury at the time (only revealed years later) that people wouldn’t notice for about 20 years.
Of course the politicians & civil servants ‘gold plated’ final salary ones were left intact being funded by taxpayers.Btw who else found Starmer’s comment about ‘working people’ not having savings rather chilling?
good luck to all
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