That Starmer fella...

If incessant infighting, discord and “we won the argument” was all that was needed to win an election, Labour would be unbeatable

That may be. I'm not aware of the right of the Labour party doing that simply because I don't know anything about factions within the Labour party. I just used that moment of opportunism from a random activist as an example of what I have seen....Labour members attacking Labour members.

That’s only what I’m implicating if you can’t read properly, sure.

The Labour left are not loyal, no, but if you think the disloyalty of the Labour left has anywhere near the consequence of the disloyalty of the Labour right - given the Labour right’s relative institutional power and access to friendly journalists in major news outlets - then you are absolutely having yourself and everyone else on.

Last weekend: the times, shadow cabinet ministers briefing against their leader, making it two weekends in a row that they’ve been smearing their own side to the right wing press at a time when everyone should be focussing on the internal crises of the Conservative party. Utterly counterproductive, achieves nothing except to advance the cause of the Labour right. The suggestion it’s in any way comparable to Dr Bastano having said something dumb on Twitter is laughable.

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I had a hard time reading that article and believing that is the kind of thing any current shadow cabinet member would say. Maybe I'm too suspicious but the way that piece is written is very strange for a Times article. Feels more like something written for the sun.

If you go and read opinion pieces written by that journalist he writes awfully similarly to how his shadow cabinet sources have been quoted.

Particularly in the op-eds entitled "Labour leader is a slogan peddler who only paints in primary colours" and "Bombdiggity! Cowabunga! It’s me, the newly funny leader of the opposition"

I'm pretty wary of fallacy of origin but it fails my sniff test.

Yeah. Really weird sound bites there. Colour me bemused.

I find the idea of right leaning Labour folks attacking Starmer a bit of an odd one. do they have someone to replace him with? Of the ‘leadership material’ I thought he was more or less their man.

I haven't looked at the original source for either snippet, but in the text here neither mention Labour's 'right wing'. They sound a lot more like Owen Jones' critique of Starmer.

The job at the moment isn't to set out detailed policies. It is far too early in the election cycle to do that. Starmer may be a dud, but it is too soon to judge. At the moment they are enjoying their longest period of polling ahead of the Tories since 2013.

Hysterical? Not really. You didn't see them throwing all manner of hissy fits and privately briefing journo mates untold amounts of horseshit when Blair/Brown/Milliband were leaders. The Labour right, on the other hand, briefed against Brown, Milliband, Corbyn and are now doing it against Starmer. Poisonous, self-righteous, arrogant fuckwits whose only skill seemingly is making it more difficult for Labour to win elections. Essentially Tories.

Is there a source for it being Labour "right"?

I've not really kept up with the infighting but I thought Starmer was the man for the right and it's the left that's been briefing against him.

Edit: Just read a few more posts asking the same. And isn't Dan Hodges somewhat over to the right beyond most of the current Tory party. I'd be a little suspicious of any inside Labour stories from him.

Labour infighting is so counter productive - we've a common foe, let's focus our attention on defeating them, eh?

Does anyone really believe any stories of Labour infighting from the likes of the Times or the Telegraph? Lots of comments from anonymous senior figures but not attributable of course, so more likely to be made up than anything actually said.

Super counter productive, drives away both traditional Labour voters and, key, the sort of floating voters that decide on an election is won or lost.

There’s only one party that “hates the country”. Let’s start with the current party in government - Russian collusion/influence/funding, destroying the NHS, smashing the Union, wrecking the economy, disrespectful to the royal family (illegal prorogation, telling Charles to wind his neck in), attacking the church, attacking the judiciary, undermining the GFA. Some of these things are not like the others, some don’t particularly boil my potatoes but imagine if these were the actions of Labour!

Focus on the horror show that is wrecking the country. And that’s not, regardless of affiliation, the Labour Party and infighting will only aid the status quo.

Catching up on that I feel like the word briefing has lost all meaning, and I don't think I really knew it in that sense as a word anyway until relatively recently.

Just think of cunts in their grubby grundies now.

Found myself nodding along in agreement with a lot of this:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/21/strikes-starmer-labour-strategy

Yep. Spot on.

The thing is, Labour have a history of offering at best limp support of the trade unions during strikes. I mean, the RMT formally split with Labour nearly 9 years ago.

At this point its almost a Labour thing rather than a Starmer thing. Personally speaking I thought his position of supporting the right to strike but not intervening in the strike negotiations at all was the right way to play it. If he went in all guns blazing on the side of the Unions the tabloids would have another wedge to tap in before the next election.

Seems Starmer can't even maintain his own picket, even whip's going and joining the strike action

Seems Starmer can't even maintain his own picket, even whip's going and joining the strike action

Its shit like this that makes me thing there is literally 0% chance of Labour winning a general election. I totally get that for many Labour MPs its a point of principle to be on the picket line. I respect that. What I don't respect is walking into a Tory and media ambush a few days before two by elections so they can take a swipe at the leader of their party.

Lib Dems finding their niche position quite nicely https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jun/21/johnson-shapps-rail-strike-transport-

‘sleepy Shapps’

Well that’s Grant Shapps totally done for. I’m not anyone would recover from that one : /

Thing is, literally anything can be viewed as a so-called 'wedge issue'. That's kind of the point of opposing a Government, really. The Tories are going to scream 'Back to the 70s' whatever - and they already have despite what Starmer has instructed his front bench to do. So you might as well take a stand rather than this pathetic, lily-livered bullshit we're being fed in the name of 'not falling in to the Tory trap'. Here's the thing. The Tory trap is to get you to accept their legitimacy on ALL the issues, then beat you because they are better at it. They are winning at this hands down right now and no amount of 'but we must not fall in to the trap' is going to change that. The point of having an alternative is actually having an alternative. If you're not offering that, why would anyone vote for it if they don't like the way things are?

They are winning at this hands down right now

The Tories and Boris Johnson are behind in the polls.. By some way.

Labour have even just pulled in front of the Tories on "who would manage the economy better". More people think Starmer would make a good prime minister than Johnson.

Exactly how badly is Starmer actually doing right now? And how much is it parts of the media just briefing that Starmer isn't doing well?

Is this a fair summary of positions on the strike issue?

Conservative: Oppose strikes. Don't do anything to stop them. Blame Labour.

Labour: Support right to strike, talk about cost of living crisis. Demand government take responsibility for preventing strikes.

Lib Dem: support right to strike, oppose strikes by saying that they shouldn't happen but the government needs to find a way to end the dispute.

Three parties. Three positions.