In the news

Starmers history he must know if he's in trouble or not.

Very true. Given what we've been through in last 20 odd years with regards to political leaders:

1. Man who lied to take us into an illegal war with no credible exit plan, all because he didn't want to stand up to the Americans when they were (rightly) very angry.
   
2. Man who schemed and briefed against his predecessor because it was "his turn".
   
3. Dickhead who ruined the country because he was trying to be clever and silence lunatics in his own party and in the process allowed their lying bullshit to become mainstream then ran away.
   
4. Idiot who wanted the job but didn't agree with the political realities of where her party was so ummed and ahhed only making things worse.
   
5. Wheredoifuckingstart
   
   

I'd much rather believe that he is doing this to buck the trend and demonstrate his, and his parties, integrity. I realise that this is being pretty naive but if he and the Labour party can convince me of it I'll not work for the entire period of purdah at the next general election and volunteer round the fucking clock for them.

Not much choice really. It's a bit of a gamble given how glaringly shit Durham plod seem to be and anything might happen.
Will be interesting to see how punchy he is about being sure no rules were broken.
If the police come out with the Cummings line of 'it was against the rules, but we would only have given a warning' he'll be buggered on attacking over partygate.
If he gets a fine and goes, I could see Johnson calling a snap election while there's no leader.
But if he's cleared then really does put even more pressure on Johnson. Particularly if Johnson gets another fine or two over the coming weeks.

will be pretty funny if the rakefinder general has to resign over this - seems like a high risk, low reward strategy to me

I could see Johnson calling a snap election while there's no leader

Honestly this could work for the best, no leader = noone for the tory rags to attack. I reckon Labour could win an election if they campaign with one leader then swap like a week before the actual day.

I just saw that the Durham MP who sent the "new evidence" to the police hosted a work curry in the same week. I have no idea how somebody can be numb to the hipocracy.

The idiot was posting about it on facebook.

I'm disappointed Starmer didn't say ' We're just innocent men'.

And then you’ve got Owen Jones writing this whopping pile of steaming pony https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/may/09/policies-keir-starmer-labour-leader-boris-johnson-beergate

“Starmer, on the other hand, ran for the leadership of the Labour party on what must be one of the most duplicitous campaigns in modern British political history”. Seriously Owen?

On the subject of Keir-bashing, could someone summarise this for me? My time is too valuable to read it for myself https://www.newstatesman.com/ideas/2022/04/tell-us-who-you-really-are-keir-starmer

Yeah him and the novara media lot have been barely able to contain there glee at beergate, even to the point of just repeating Boris Johnson it was just cake defence of the mail and the telegraph.

^^ It basically recommends using unsalted butter for the roux and and chilling the pastry overnight in the fridge.

He was eating food and drinking a drink at a meal time. Let’s move on.

Boris was at multiple parties and should fuck off with his ramble of Tory cunts.

Good for them. My son beseeched me to 'vote for Jeremy Corbyn'.

Finger on the pulse there, that lad.

What are you having for dinner tonight, Kier?

GOOSE.

Their position is two parts intellectually bankrupt to one part deluded - “let’s repeat what didn’t work twice, we know it will if only we say it louder a third time”.

But I guess they at least won the argument while delivering the worst result in 80+ years as well as a huge majority for a risible PM. So there is that.

Labour bringing the receipts that they were working late
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/may/09/labour-says-can-prove-starmer-team-worked-past-1am-beergate-night

Well... he did pledge to continue with the policies that had proven popular in 2017, and encouraged the highest Labour vote share since 2001 despite very poor leadership.

And since then... very little in the way of policies, but a Shadow Health Secretary meeting with Blackrock, articles in The Sun and emphasising a 'toughness on crime' don't bode well.

I say this as someone who would still genuinely like to see him as PM, but he hasn't shown a lot of integrity in the way he's dealt with Labour policy so far.

Fair but “one of the most duplicitous campaigns in modern British political history” is clearly bollocks

Owen Jones is a stupid kid who gets too much attention.

What would beat it? Nick Clegg's tuition fee pledge?

https://bylinetimes.com/2022/04/06/boris-johnson-conservative-broken-manifesto-promises-2019/

He's the same age as me and I'm apparently not a child anymore Robert.

Yet we're all constantly told that this was "priced in" by the shrewd people who voted him in.

Apparently that plus “no top down reorganisation of the NHS”, hug a husky/get rid of all this green crap, the £350M bus (or any of Leave’s greatest hits), the over ready deal, the plan to fix social care etc.

According to Owen, Starmer beats the lot

The difference is that Johnson can make and break all of those campaign policies without any controversy because his voters still think he's moving in their direction. Starmer's perceived duplicity is that he fundamentally moved against the left of the membership after pledging to bring them along. The reason it's not a big deal is because it's the membership not the electorate.