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I saw Ed Milliband talk [phone it in from his constituency in Donny for reasons unknown] at the Hay Festival* on the climate with Professor Emeritus Sir Dave King. Ed seemed very committed, knowledgeable and fired up to do the best he can do for climate change, while also being pragmatic. He argued with the crowd at points, including disagreeing with someone who said endless growth wouldn’t work (don’t know where I stand on this) and with an emotional and aggressive just stop oiler about their methods. The only silly thing he said was a reference to just stop oil protesters stopping people seeing dying relatives in hospital, as if that is the only reason anyone drives…
In short I was much more impressed than I expected to be, but I’ve just listened to Rachel Reeves on The Rest Is Politics and she sounded just like Starmer - said a lot without saying a lot.
*is this golf club? maybe tofu wokerati. Excited to find out.
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but I’ve just listened to Rachel Reeves on The Rest Is Politics and she sounded just like Starmer - said a lot without saying a lot.
Found this in the golf club thread and traced it back.
Listened to this too and was disappointed, she didn’t come across great. Agreed with Stewart, load of sound bites, and didn’t come across as personable at all. His questions around finances were legitimate but she wouldn’t converse and got prickly. Was a bit awkward. Thought that was going to be a better listen
Labour seem to be running an unopinionated soft-Tory line... so desperate to get in power that they're afraid of offending the vast majority of possible voters.
I would love to see 50 year vision plans, really strong lines on education, health, social mobility.
They knew an election was coming this year, and knew it could come as early as May... readiness is no excuse for such a weakly opinioned start.
I know I cannot expect Labour to actually be a party of the left, or to do as the French and make long-term plans to bring trade and wealth to all, or to face the elephant in the room of how screwed up Brexit has been... but I don't even see them calling out the Tories on the Cass report, facing the crisis in higher education, working to provide better trade conditions for business... or anything really.
I mean sheesh... with so much invested in HS2 and that being half-hearted now due to the Tories... reverse that shit and get it back on track, as Tokyo proved a long time ago that economic activity relates to the capture area of a 1-2 hour commute, and if you can expand the economic zone to include a lot of the Midlands and a little of the North, then that's a huge deal.
So far... just from what has reached the press, I am firmly unimpressed.
That I was donating to the Lib Dems, Green, and a couple of indepedents only a few weeks ago, as a lifelong Labour voter, shows that I'm very disillusioned in a soft-Tory version of Labour.