That Starmer fella...

Call me a cynic, but I think his lawyers are trying to kill two birds.

Sir KOM Strava

Your mum's barber

Keith just works on many levels though.

I mean, most people would see it as a bad thing when local politicians have more backbone than the national party leader

Didn't realise that fat Dave's blustering on R4 (which I had the misfortune to hear) on Wednesday was compounded with a statement from FD later in the day contradicting his earlier comments. Fat Dave really is a liability.

https://archive.ph/xehRc

Judging from the comments above, it's becoming clear why Keith has no coherent policy on Gaza. A reminder that Keith appears to have no policies at all as we enter the home straight towards a GE.

He absolutely has a coherent policy.

It's a policy of realpolitik looking ahead to how Labour are going to govern based on our strategic relationships with Israel and the US.

I appreciate that people may not like it, or agree with it, but there is nothing inconsistent or incoherent.

On the lack of policy detail - you may disagree with it, but they are deliberately choosing not to release policy details. The conference set out the vision - new homes, new towns, technical colleges and planning reform, Net zero, Ethics in public life. It's assumed that closer to the election these will be fleshed out.... although while Labour are doing their best to sabotage themselves it might not be the best time to get into it.

vgood

His shadow Foreign Sec fell apart discussing the Gaza policy on Wednesday on the wireless and later on the socials.
Maybe they've got a policy now that a third of Lab MPs have essentially rejected the previous woolly mess.

I'll have what you're smoking if you think that 1.5m new houses will be built in 5 years! Who's going to fund the construction with 10 year gilt yields trending at 4.5% currently?

It's no surprise that a realpolitik stance raises questions of political legitimacy on the left, given that most ideas of political realism exclude moral bases. That's why we see more splits in Labour than parties further to the right — if your policy on warfare can be best phrased as a 'pause' by a technocratic front bench, that's a moral issue, and is right to be checked in my view.

That this is an inherent property of left-leaning politics in the UK might also suggest that those with a realpolitik bent should look at that problem and think pragmatically about solutions to it, rather than simply purging a considerable part of their party, and hoping that the conversation will move on.

A strong reading of 'he has no policies' is more that he has no transformative policies. If many of those that you've listed can be in a Conservative manifesto (more homes, noises about apprenticeships, net zero, and planning reform), then it's a status-quo position that's not particularly compelling to many.

Edit: or put more flippantly — Starmer's policy stance sounds more like a 'revenge of the technocrats' than a positive vision of the future.

I don’t think Starmer is hiding what any of his policies are- it’s Super Neoliberalism 2 Turbo. No public spending, relax regulations, encourage business to invest, mash the magic growth button.

Following on from the ‘River to the sea’ discussion, I’m sure the sensibles who were so up in arms over the phrase, will be outraged at the Israeli government tweet showing the Israeli flag painted on the Palestinian Territories.

Not on Twitter so hadn't seen it but (assuming you mean me) obviously yes, not acceptable at all.

Obviously not acceptable.

And that's the key difference between the 'sensibles' and the people who don't see any problem with racist phrases (but only as long as they're directed at Jewish people) - sensibles try to apply moral principles consistently, not based on whether or not the perpetrators are on our 'side'. I'll talk until the cows come home about the myriad moral failings of Israel and their disgusting bombing of Gaza (with the same passion that I'll talk about Hamas's torture, rape and murder of innocent peace activists four weeks ago). I won't whatabout or distract or excuse or minimise either. I just won't tolerate bigotry in the expression of these views.

I also never want to hear anyone refer to Starmer (or Blair) as 'neoliberal' ever again. We had a taste of genuine neoliberal policy when Liz Truss got in. Starmer might not be going far enough for you, but he is not neoliberal. You couldn't even accurately characterise Hunt/Sunak as neoliberal, though they are a pair of utter, utter cunts.

the people who don't see any problem with racist phrases

Cheeky.

Now deleted tweet in question for context

Will take down if people think inappropriate

I also never want to hear anyone refer to Starmer (or Blair) as 'neoliberal' ever again. We had a taste of genuine neoliberal policy when Liz Truss got in. Starmer might not be going far enough for you, but he is not neoliberal. You couldn't even accurately characterise Hunt/Sunak as neoliberal

Hmmn..

https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/neoliberalism/#ExplChalTerm

I've read that several times - where it describes Liz Truss very well, and Blair / Starmer very badly, is in the phrase 'limited welfare state'. Blair unveiled the most wide reaching expansion to the welfare state anyone under 80 had ever seen - it's clearly Starmer's ambition to do something similar. You have a stronger argument to make that Cameron was neoliberal than Blair or Starmer.

Blair ran very tight fiscal and monetary policy for most of his reign. The spending was financed through the growth in tax receipts as the UK benefited from upside business cycle trends. Off balance sheet wheezes like PFI allowed capital investment from the private sector. Sounds pretty nl to me.

10yrs

Along with light touch regulations and lack of enforcement of regulation.

Still I think you'd struggle to really describe him as a proper neoliberal. Unless you're just using it as slur for people you disagree with.

80 years before ‘97 was 1917 — I think you’re being disingenuous here.

The Blair project was typified by a modernising programme, large parts of which were a heady mix of social democracy and market ideas. They’re not totally neoliberal by any means, and that term should be kept solely for the likes of Peter Thiel and advocates of special economic zones, but there has definitely been a thread of neoliberal thought running through all UK politics for the best part of 50 years.

BOE act 1998 too.

I mean, there’s an absolute fucking tonne of scholarly research that places Blair in the neoliberal tradition.

But haven’t we all had enough of experts?