Keir Starmer

[Rascal]

AC simply agrees with the electorate, he also understands them.

AC agrees there is no poverty , that is probably true if you live in a leafy suburb with a good job and your kids go to good schools.

That does not mean it does not exist, their are areas of Manchester that are amongst the poorest in Europe, their are areas of London that are amongst the poorest in Europe.

I live in a council estate in one of the richest areas of Manchester, a mile away from me there is no poverty, there are multi million pound houses and great schools, a mile the other way is one of the poorest estates in Manchester and there is foodbank's.

The electorate might not think their is poverty, but poverty is real, it exists and the UK is one of the most unequal countries on earth. There are areas of extreme wealth and there are areas of extreme poverty within a mile of each other.

It saddens me the electorate choose not to see the poverty, maybe it is because austerity never affected them but it did affect poor areas disproportionately, that is a fact.

The Tories are not interested in poverty, because they are ideologically against the idea of poverty, what do Eton educated buffoons know about living from day to day, not having enough money to buy kids school shoes, going hungry so kids can eat, they do not see it, they do not live it, they do not understand it as they are from gilded backgrounds where poverty does not exist.

 

[Rascal]

If Starmer did resign could Burnham stand as he isn't an MP? Done a quick Google but can't find of you have to be an Mp or not.

Yes, you do not have to be an MP to lead a party, you do not have to be an MP to be Prime Minister, although to be PM you would need to be in parliament. You could be in the House of Lords.

Farage led a party for years without ever being an MP. The Green's leader wasn't an MP, the leader of the BNP wasn't an MP.

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

AC doing his best Comical Ali impression.

What is the centre?

Good question, Its an obvious answer but not easy to answer at the same time. Left leaning conservatism or right leaning labour?

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

AC agrees there is no poverty , that is probably true if you live in a leafy suburb with a good job and your kids go to good schools.

That does not mean it does not exist, their are areas of Manchester that are amongst the poorest in Europe, their are areas of London that are amongst the poorest in Europe.

I live in a council estate in one of the richest areas of Manchester, a mile away from me there is no poverty, there are multi million pound houses and great schools, a mile the other way is one of the poorest estates in Manchester and there is foodbank's.

The electorate might not think their is poverty, but poverty is real, it exists and the UK is one of the most unequal countries on earth. There are areas of extreme wealth and there are areas of extreme poverty within a mile of each other.

It saddens me the electorate choose not to see the poverty, maybe it is because austerity never affected them but it did affect poor areas disproportionately, that is a fact.

The Tories are not interested in poverty, because they are ideologically against the idea of poverty, what do Eton educated buffoons know about living from day to day, not having enough money to buy kids school shoes, going hungry so kids can eat, they do not see it, they do not live it, they do not understand it as they are from gilded backgrounds where poverty does not exist.

I wonder how many of the cabinet went to Eton, genuine question. I agree its not a good place to be brought up and truly understand how all parts of our society live.

 

[Ancient Citizen]

Rumour has it they are doing a pass the parcel with things can only get better as the music. When the music stops you’re out. Currently arguing about who stops the music and if they should have to wear a blindfold.

Starmer has called for an independent judicial inquiry to resolve the problem and Rayner believes the system is systematically stacked against minority groups and believes the music genre should be changed each time it stops to show solidarity to all groups.

Social justice for party players is currently top of the gender, the poorest member of the shadow cabinet gets a state supplied Harmonica to blow and a packed lunch.

lol!

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

I see Starmer said he would take full responsibility for Labours poor showing in the recent elections. He has sacked Angela Rayner. Lol. Clueless

 

[urban genie]

I wonder how many of the cabinet went to Eton, genuine question. I agree its not a good place to be brought up and truly understand how all parts of our society live.

Only Patel, Raab and Williamson went to state schools , the rest were privately educated

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

Only Patel, Raab and Williamson went to state schools , the rest were privately educated

Im not a fan of private schools especially boarding schools and certainly not same sex ones. I will defend peoples rights to send their kids their but thats it.

 

[Ancient Citizen]

Yes, you do not have to be an MP to lead a party, you do not have to be an MP to be Prime Minister, although to be PM you would need to be in parliament. You could be in the House of Lords.

Farage led a party for years without ever being an MP. The Green's leader wasn't an MP, the leader of the BNP wasn't an MP.

That's the answer we were looking for, there was a PM without a seat, but he must have been in the Lords, otherwise it can't happen.
Which means that Burnham can't be leader then, as he's not in the commons or Lords, if this is correct. I didn't know he'd tried though.

 

[ganganvince]

Only Patel, Raab and Williamson went to state schools , the rest were privately educated

@Churchlawtonblue Think there is a few more than that.

 

[Churchlawtonblue]

Burnham isnt a great choice either to wishy washy and so desparate about his image didnt he rewrite his wiki page to whitewash his roll in the Stafford Hospital scandal when he was health secretary. I also remember him or his team photoshopping his picture into a fundraising event he didnt even attend. But he is defintely preferable to Khan.

 

[jazzy]

Starmer and labour , are just like the rags & Dippers still living in the past . The world has moved on but they cling on outdated clichés & tactics

 

[BlueAnorak]

Labour are fucked whoever they chose to be in charge of rearranging the deckchairs.
They need to start listening to the concerns of the working/lower classes and stop being the party of middle class university educated left wingers.
Chosing a Remain candidate for Hartlepool? Idiocy on a grand scale.

 

[Mazzarelli's Swiss Cheese]

Burnham isnt a great choice either to wishy washy and so desparate about his image didnt he rewrite his wiki page to whitewash his roll in the Stafford Hospital scandal when he was health secretary. I also remember him or his team photoshopping his picture into a fundraising event he didnt even attend. But he is defintely preferable to Khan.

Seems to be doing a great job as mayor, but I remember him as a pretty abysmal option during the labour leadership race which corbyn won. I suspect the qualitirequired to be a popular labour mayor of a northern city may be different from those required to sort out the party.

 

[The perfect fumble]

The Tories are not interested in poverty, because they are ideologically against the idea of poverty, what do Eton educated buffoons know about living from day to day, not having enough money to buy kids school shoes, going hungry so kids can eat, they do not see it, they do not live it, they do not understand it as they are from gilded backgrounds where poverty does not exist.

You're missing the point mate, the right wing are not ideologically against the idea of poverty, they believe poverty is a result of individuals making poor life choices and therefore falls outside the purview of government.

That's why the Tories are disciples of the dogma of the deserving and undeserving poor, hence this....

Tony Blair backs cross-party calls for new child poverty strategy​

Former PM urges ministers to tackle ‘blight of child poverty’ in UK amid rising inequality caused by Covid

https://www.theguardian.com/society...ew-child-poverty-strategy-uk-inequality-covid

Tony Blair has endorsed cross-party calls for a new national child poverty strategy amid concerns about rising social inequality as a result of the pandemic and forecasts that a third of all UK children could be living below the breadline by 2024.

The former Labour prime minister, whose government’s 1999 flagship strategy took 1 million children out of poverty, urged ministers to rise to the challenge of eradicating child poverty within a generation, calling it “huge and urgent but achievable”.

Blair joined the children’s commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, and a number of figures from across the political spectrum, including the Conservative MP and education committee chair, Robert Halfon, in demanding concerted action to tackle the “blight of child poverty”.

The call comes as the government is under increasing pressure over its refusal to commit to retaining a £20 a week top-up to universal credit beyond April, and amid fresh demands from the footballer Marcus Rashford to overhaul the free school meals system.

.............................

The emphasis on child poverty, rather than their impoverished parents, is straight out of the deserving/undeserving poor playbook. It's the reason it has cross party traction.

Children haven't had the time to make the poor life choices that lead to impoverishment, hence Blair's child poverty strategy, hence Rashford's school meals plea and so on. What Blair is knowingly doing and Rashford is unwittingly doing is peddling the deserving poor (adults) and undeserving poor (children) narrative.

I think it's fair to say that a sizeable chunk of the British electorate believe that those who live slum lives do so because they're slum people, their plight is down to them and them alone, and decent folk are not going to tolerate being taxed in order to subsidise these people's idleness.

Welfare, where it exists at all, should be miserly to incentivise these slackers in to work, the only other agencies that should have anything to do with them is the criminal justice system and charities.

 

[mat]

Starmer and labour , are just like the rags & Dippers still living in the past . The world has moved on but they cling on outdated clichés & tactics

Starmer and his PLP clique still live in 97.

The members live in the present. Numerous policy motions have been rejected or downright ignored by him. Plenty on the fallout over Brexit which he seems to be in denial of the result.

 

[Len Rum]

Labour are fucked whoever they chose to be in charge of rearranging the deckchairs.
They need to start listening to the concerns of the working/lower classes and stop being the party of middle class university educated left wingers.
Chosing a Remain candidate for Hartlepool? Idiocy on a grand scale.

Get your point but how do they appeal to 'working class' voters and at the same keep the right wing economic Tory voters happy?
The Tories have a formula for this -a little bit of pork barrel money for red wall seats ( and no others), with a side salad of nationalism and anti immigration throw in and tax cuts for their traditional base, always of course with the media onside for the messaging.
Labour can't pull of this double Con. To distinguish themselves from the Tories they would have to go big in their former working class seats with proper infrastructure spending ( a la Jezza not just Tory pork), this would restrict any scope for tax cuts to traditional Tories ( in fact tax rises could be necessary) and they would also get lambasted for excessive borrowing which would frighten off that right wing Tory base, and probably many working class voters if the Tory Sun lays into Labour!
Big problem.

 

[Len Rum]

You're missing the point mate, the right wing are not ideologically against the idea of poverty, they believe poverty is a result of individuals making poor life choices and therefore falls outside the purview of government.

That's why the Tories are disciples of the dogma of the deserving and undeserving poor, hence this....

Tony Blair backs cross-party calls for new child poverty strategy​

Former PM urges ministers to tackle ‘blight of child poverty’ in UK amid rising inequality caused by Covid

https://www.theguardian.com/society...ew-child-poverty-strategy-uk-inequality-covid

Tony Blair has endorsed cross-party calls for a new national child poverty strategy amid concerns about rising social inequality as a result of the pandemic and forecasts that a third of all UK children could be living below the breadline by 2024.

The former Labour prime minister, whose government’s 1999 flagship strategy took 1 million children out of poverty, urged ministers to rise to the challenge of eradicating child poverty within a generation, calling it “huge and urgent but achievable”.

Blair joined the children’s commissioner for England, Anne Longfield, and a number of figures from across the political spectrum, including the Conservative MP and education committee chair, Robert Halfon, in demanding concerted action to tackle the “blight of child poverty”.

The call comes as the government is under increasing pressure over its refusal to commit to retaining a £20 a week top-up to universal credit beyond April, and amid fresh demands from the footballer Marcus Rashford to overhaul the free school meals system.

.............................

The emphasis on child poverty, rather than their impoverished parents, is straight out of the deserving/undeserving poor playbook. It's the reason it has cross party traction.

Children haven't had the time to make the poor life choices that lead to impoverishment, hence Blair's child poverty strategy, hence Rashford's school meals plea and so on. What Blair is knowingly doing and Rashford is unwittingly doing is peddling the deserving poor (adults) and undeserving poor (children) narrative.

I think it's fair to say that a sizeable chunk of the British electorate believe that those who live slum lives do so because they're slum people, their plight is down to them and them alone, and decent folk are not going to tolerate being taxed in order to subsidise these people's idleness.

Welfare, where it exists at all, should be miserly to incentivise these slackers in to work, the only other agencies that should have anything to do with them is the criminal justice system and charities.

This is true.
It's a big aspect of social conservatism of the working class which the Tories can tap into.
Another is the scroungers on benefits ( Osborne's curtain twitchers watching while honest decent working people go to work). Used to justify huge swaithes of austerity cuts in all areas of expenditure.
Throw in the traditional Tory appeal on nationalism and anti immigration and now Brexit and you can see the difficulty Labour face in their former heartlands.

 

[BlueAnorak]

Get your point but how do they appeal to 'working class' voters and at the same keep the right wing economic Tory voters happy?
The Tories have a formula for this -a little bit of pork barrel money for red wall seats ( and no others), with a side salad of nationalism and anti immigration throw in and tax cuts for their traditional base, always of course with the media onside for the messaging.
Labour can't pull of this double Con. To distinguish themselves from the Tories they would have to go big in their former working class seats with proper infrastructure spending ( a la Jezza not just Tory pork), this would restrict any scope for tax cuts to traditional Tories ( in fact tax rises could be necessary) and they would also get lambasted for excessive borrowing which would frighten off that right wing Tory base, and probably many working class voters if the Tory Sun lays into Labour!
Big problem.

It really doesn't take too much effort to support people on the way up the ladder whilst supporting those who fall off - often through no fault of their own.
As to tax. Covid has fucked over most chances of spending on services in the short to medium term. The only way to get this is to invest in business futures (deferring taxation till the profits from the investment start to come through).
This will trigger inflation to some degree and make government bonds more expensive to pay back. When this happens, the party that provides public savings bonds at a slightly higher level of return than on savings will reap the reward of those who have savings but feel they get next to no interest from it.

 

[Len Rum]

It really doesn't take too much effort to support people on the way up the ladder whilst supporting those who fall off - often through no fault of their own.
As to tax. Covid has fucked over most chances of spending on services in the short to medium term. The only way to get this is to invest in business futures (deferring taxation till the profits from the investment start to come through).
This will trigger inflation to some degree and make government bonds more expensive to pay back. When this happens, the party that provides public savings bonds at a slightly higher level of return than on savings will reap the reward of those who have savings but feel they get next to no interest from it.

OK but how is that going to level up in the red wall areas?