That Starmer fella...

No, its a total failure of leadership to allow it to happen.

So he should have sacked them, then?

No, but that's a straw man as it isn't what I said. You've claimed several times on here that this report vindicates your view that they threw the 2017 election, which is just a lie - it expressly says otherwise.

Is lying about the contents of an independent report to try and justify your factional view ok, then?

one side had a massive democratic mandate to do what it was doing

Sure, if you are only interested in the Labour membership*, and completely ignore the much larger and more significant mandate from the general public for MPs and their staff to represent their constituents however they think best.

* all members of political parties are weirdos in my view. Most people don't have the time, money, or passion that is required to actually get involved in a political party. I joined the Greens for a bit and will freely admit I am a weirdo

So he should have sacked them, then?

If they had done something illegal or against the rules, yes. Otherwise, he should have stopped the infighting from happening in the first place, which he didn't. Either way is a failure of leadership.

o he should have sacked them, then?

Question...does it work both ways? Starmer is leader of Labour. There are elements on the left of the party who are taking every opportunity to undermine him...should he sack them?

Probably yes. Corbyn did seem to struggle at controlling the various elements of the party and probably did need to be a bit more personally ruthless, even if that involved getting rid of people.

The whole thing reads like a shitshow with factions more focussed on battling each other and everything being a weapon rather than being dealt with sensibly. Anti-semitism was the most obvious example with one faction suggesting that it was all a big conspiracy and the other faction suggesting it was a giant issue whereas in reality it needed to be accepted it was an issue, deal with it and move on.

To be honest I assumed that most of the senior non-elected staff from that period had been shuffled out, are a lot still in?

Oh, don't get me wrong, I don't think he led at all well in this respect. I think he should have been as 'Stalinist' as he was accused of being and told the lot to either work with him or get fucked. That he didn't do this quite probably emboldened his detractors, something countless anonymous briefings and staged resignations, etc. would have no doubt reinforced.

He's already suspended/kicked out thousands on spurious grounds. I thought that's what he was doing anyway.

My guess is whoever it is trying to undermine him took a look at how his faction behaved 2015-2019 and thought: "Oh, that's how you do it."

I feel like I can see how wide your eyes are and the spittle in the corners of your mouth. Take a step back man, you've jumped up to have a big old rant seemingly against people who are mostly on your side round here, if not in the details, certainly in general feeling. It's like a 101 in how to not make friends but alienate people.

To be honest I assumed that most of the senior non-elected staff from that period had been shuffled out, are a lot still in?

Some have moved on, some were suspended and are now back in the fold.

You have a point. I was extremely pissed off and hot last night and today I've got too much to do, so I'm stepping away for the time being.

As this quote says:

No, its a total failure of leadership to allow it to happen.

Happy to be corrected, but I don't think the Leader has any control over the General Secretary's office. They are elected by the NEC. In which case Corbyn was stuck with Head Office acting in opposition to him.

There are elements on the left of the party who are taking every opportunity to undermine him...should he sack them?

Where have you been?!

I kinda wish that for the final PMQs Starmer had just listed all the lies Johson has told and just kept asking him if he was a liar until Hoyle threw him out.

Where have you been?!

Reading the news and trying to base my opinions on objective facts rather than spin.

I'm aware of Starmer throwing "Resist, Socialist Appeal", "Labour in Exile Network" and "Labour Against the Witchhunt" out of the party, alongside other groups who claimed that the antisemitism accusations were "smears" or a "witchhunt".

I'm not aware of many people being fired for opposing him.

Blackford good as usual

Happy to be corrected, but I don't think the Leader has any control over the General Secretary's office. They are elected by the NEC. In which case Corbyn was stuck with Head Office acting in opposition to him.

As I said, the whole thing is a farcical shitshow. With both sides of the debate desperate to scratch each other's eyes out.

all members of political parties are weirdos

I see this line a lot from people who are “the MPs should choose the leader as they are more representative of the public” and I always think…you think members of parties are weird…have you seen MPs???

Anyway, a huge chunk of Labour members are members because they are part of a union, so this line of reasoning doesn’t even hold for Labour. Unless you want to say being in a union is also weird.

Reading the news and trying to base my opinions on objective facts rather than spin.

I try to do the same yet we've ended up seemingly on different sides of the fence!

I'm not sure we're on the other side of the fence to each other. I think we both want to see an end to this Labour infighting.

Cross posting on both the relevant threads. I thought this was a pretty even handed interpretation of the report.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jul/20/forde-report-labour-factionalism

I think Johnson's insult of "bollard" at Starmer is a good description of him recently.

Standing still and doing little might also work in his favour against the public school billionaire with austerity and dodgy finances, and the eager but lightweight opportunist.

I think Johnson's insult of "bollard" at Starmer is a good description of him recently.

lets hope world bollard association takes notice of this

They weren't impressed

https://twitter.com/WorldBollard/status/1549751681100955648

What the fuck is wrong with Kier Starmer?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-62325842