The report also complained about the leaders office interfering to hurry up cases in the correct direction and complained about others interfering too. The EHRC says that *all* interference is wrong.
I remember back when Labour councillors etc. started getting investigated for antisemitic remarks, Corbyn's response was basically that the party's investigations procedure was being followed, and one of the criticisms of that response made by lots of people (including here) was that he should be interfering to expedite the process.
Personally I think the EHRC is right, and that nobody should be interfering in these things (perhaps other than general support to be as quick and efficient as possible), and that strong public denouncement of antisemitism should be enough. But I do seem to recall that Corbyn was getting a load of flak at the time for not interfering, so perhaps we shouldn't be surprised if he (or someone at his office, at least) caved into that pressure, and given past form perhaps shouldn't be surprised if that interference was cack-handed and counterproductive.
The report also complained about the leaders office interfering to hurry up cases in the correct direction and complained about others interfering too. The EHRC says that *all* interference is wrong.
I remember back when Labour councillors etc. started getting investigated for antisemitic remarks, Corbyn's response was basically that the party's investigations procedure was being followed, and one of the criticisms of that response made by lots of people (including here) was that he should be interfering to expedite the process.
Personally I think the EHRC is right, and that nobody should be interfering in these things (perhaps other than general support to be as quick and efficient as possible), and that strong public denouncement of antisemitism should be enough. But I do seem to recall that Corbyn was getting a load of flak at the time for not interfering, so perhaps we shouldn't be surprised if he (or someone at his office, at least) caved into that pressure, and given past form perhaps shouldn't be surprised if that interference was cack-handed and counterproductive.
Yeah, I remember that happening a lot. It's going on now too. "Starmer expelled Corbyn and he should now expel others too", that sort of thing. He didn't and he shouldnt. It annoyed me then and it annoys me now. I don't understand how you can read a report that explicitly calls out interference as a problem with the processes, and then use the report to demand the leader interferes. Starmer's rightly keeping out of it, which is good.
I have it on expert advice that schools and hospitals existed before 1997 and continue to do so, that living standards continue to improve at different rates and poverty is back in spades under the intellectual heirs of Blair.
I won’t go one by one through the examples in this fortuitous twitter thread picking nits over whether we agree about all of them, but I think the salient point is
And if you think those policies are basically Tory, how come Tories just spent a decade dismantling most of them?
I have it on expert advice that schools and hospitals existed before 1997 and continue to do so, that living standards continue to improve at different rates and poverty is back in spades under the intellectual heirs of Blair.
I won’t go one by one through the examples in this fortuitous twitter thread picking nits over whether we agree about all of them, but I think the salient point is
And if you think those policies are basically Tory, how come Tories just spent a decade dismantling most of them?
I have it on expert advice that schools and hospitals existed before 1997 and continue to do so, that living standards continue to improve at different rates and poverty is back in spades under the intellectual heirs of Blair.
I won’t go one by one through the examples in this fortuitous twitter thread picking nits over whether we agree about all of them, but I think the salient point is
And if you think those policies are basically Tory, how come Tories just spent a decade dismantling most of them?
It doesn't change my basic point that Blair squandered the opportunity to make a lasting change to much of British society. The contrasts between 1978 and 1997 couldn't be more marked but while Thatcher's legacy remains, Blair's mostly evaporated the minute Labour was out of power and Labour was always going to lose power eventually. The greatest government ever will have failed if the second they are gone everything reverts back to previously.
More nurses, shorter waiting lists etc. were great at the time but having failed to make the argument about why these things were inherently desirable and to permanently change the mindset of the public the Coalition and the Conservatives had no problem getting rid of them as soon as they got in, using Blair's own rhetoric to justify it. My partner is a frontline nurse and hasn't had a payrise in a decade but from the outset of the pandemic was expected to continue home visits with inadequate PPE.
By the end Blairism had been reduced to a number of dogmatic tenets:-
1) The public sector is inherently lazy and inefficient. Public sector workers every action need to be constantly monitored, evaluated and directed from the centre. Always the stick.
2) The private sector is inherently competent and efficient, the Government's job is to step back and let them do whatever they want, faster than you can say "sub-prime lending". Always the carrot.
3) The public sector is inherently less worthy than the private sector (hence the moving Clap for Bankers earlier this year)
4) If extra money can be found for health and education etc. it should not be given to the frontline but should distributed to consultants and private organisations, PFI, Public-Private Partnerships, Out-sourcing, Academies, Free Schools.
5) Any additional public funding has to be always be tied to constant reforms to working practices, organisations and conditions even if the previous round haven't even had a chance to bed in yet. The private sector on the other hand need to be always freed from red-tape.
6) If public spending increase and outcomes improve then then clearly the reforms are working and we should do more of them. If public spending rises and outcomes fail to improve then clearly the reforms haven't gone far enough so we should do more of them.
7) The International Financial Crisis was caused by giving British nurses pay-rises and that Labour will not deserve to be re-elected until they publicly accept this "fact" and own it.
All the foundations for IDS, Lansley and Gove's dreadful reforms were laid by the Blair government and were vocally supported by prominent Blairites whose commitment to those tenets was worth the public disloyalty to Miliband; ideological purity over electability every day of the week. To take us back to the OP one of the reasons Corbyn won the leadership in 2015 was because the standard-bearer of Blairism, Liz Kendall, bizarrely decided to stand on a "Three cheers for Gove" platform and was completely unshaken by coming dead last on 4% of the vote.
The sad thing is 1997 and 2001 gave Blair the political capital to change the weather like Thatcher did in 1978, he could have made the argument for the public sector or the EU or immigration. He didn't. Instead he blew most of it on the Tory dogma of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with a Republican President determined to launch a War of Choice on a false pretext. What other capital remained he squandered, choosing to shell his own side over public sector reforms in the hopes of a nice headline in the Mail and a warm round of applause from the WI. All the while failing to notice that the financial deregulation (again Tory dogma) he so fervently championed was driving the World economy to the edge of the abyss.
His legacy; four straight Conservative wins, Brexit and a hollowed-out Labour Party still dogged by the financial crisis he midwifed.
So yes, Iraq might be ancient history (unless you are unlucky to live there or have served there; I have at least two ex-squaddie mates with apparent PTSD) but the seeds of the Labour Party's destruction remain there if a Blairite took over the Party again, so we've a right to be wary. Remember, Clegg was supposed to be the "heir to Blair", pro-European, socially liberal, economically conservative; the flat-lining of the LD party ever since should act as a warning about how electorally successful that narrow appeal is.
Re: Starmer
Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2020 3:18 pm
by bjn
What LW said. Blairism ultimately undermined any vaguely centrist position within the party, which gifted the incompetent Corbyn the party, which f.cked the country.
Re: Starmer
Posted: Tue Nov 03, 2020 10:06 pm
by nekomatic
Wait, what? It’s a tenet of Blairism that the Blair/Brown government was responsible for the financial crisis? Well, I guess if you draw your definition so widely that the actual attack line used against Blair by the Tories is part of Blairism then ‘Blair was a Tory’ kind of just falls out of the equations.
I broadly agree with your thesis that Blair didn’t do enough to entrench the changes that he made (but presumably only the good ones) - and with some of your criticisms above - but I think the case needs sharpening up a bit if it isn’t supposed to come across as a sub-Corbynista rant.
Wait, what? It’s a tenet of Blairism that the Blair/Brown government was responsible for the financial crisis?
No it's a tenet of the current Blairites that the Coalition/Conservatives analysis of the International Financial Crisis, both cause and response, is correct and should not be challenged.
Namely that Labour "spent all the money" on feather-bedding lazy public sector workers and that harsh austerity and radical reform of the public sector are the only ways to restore stability to the nation's finances and clear the country's credit card.
Any attempt by Labour (particularly under Miliband) to argue that:-
1. this was a deliberate mischaracterisation of the causes of the INTERNATIONAL financial crisis
2. Brown had actually cut the National Debt through-out the majority of the administration
3. contemplating the national debt like a credit card is a fundamental misconception so bad as to be completely incorrect
4. trying to cut your way out of recession is folly and this isn't just some Far-Left fairy-tale but has been a very well-established concept in orthodox economics since the 1930s.
... was immediately undermined by a Blairite giving an interview in the press apologising for the Labour Party's continuing "economic incompetence" and calling on Miliband to give up the "deficit denial" and to accept that austerity is the only "sensible" option. Noting with mock sadness that "Red Ed" has now abandoned the centre ground to the Tories with his far-left ideas such as freezing energy prices or abandoningausterity and really Labour has elected the wrong Miliband and won't be electable again until it has a leader who pledges to give more tax-payers money to Creationists and doesn't look weird with food.
Spoiler:
Re: Starmer
Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2020 2:07 pm
by El Pollo Diablo
Big old NEC walkout because Starmer is a big meanie who is just being mean. Which is obviously totally wise and not in any way anti-helpful to their cause.
However, this is better than anything Iannucci could write:
The walkout did not go as smoothly as intended. One source described how Howard Beckett had given an angry speech ahead of the walkout but then spent an agonising minute attempting to find the button to leave the virtual meeting.
Re: Starmer
Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2020 5:56 pm
by AMS
But it seems the walkout wasn't big enough to leave the committee inquorate, and the remaining members got to choose the new chair (Margaret Beckett) unanimously.
Re: Starmer
Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2020 6:17 pm
by headshot
TBH, I think it's time the Corbynistas just f.cked off and formed their own student debating club.
TBH, I think it's time the Corbynistas just f.cked off and formed their own student debating club.
No, no, it's the Blairites who are trying to divide the Labour Party, not the Corbynites.
Re: Starmer
Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2020 8:18 pm
by headshot
Splitters.
Re: Starmer
Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2020 8:31 pm
by Bird on a Fire
To be completely honest - and as someone who's voted for three parties, only been a member of the Greens, and thinks both Blair and Corbyn are nobheads in their own ways - I'm not seeing much effort at bridge-building from anybody.
Anyone paying attention would have known that Beckett would be an unpopular with the left of the party. And walkouts are hardly shocking in the labour movement, so there's no need to clutch pearls about it. (The failure to quit zoom is funny though, I'll grant you that)
Big old NEC walkout because Starmer is a big meanie who is just being mean. Which is obviously totally wise and not in any way anti-helpful to their cause.
However, this is better than anything Iannucci could write:
The walkout did not go as smoothly as intended. One source described how Howard Beckett had given an angry speech ahead of the walkout but then spent an agonising minute attempting to find the button to leave the virtual meeting.
To be completely honest - and as someone who's voted for three parties, only been a member of the Greens, and thinks both Blair and Corbyn are nobheads in their own ways - I'm not seeing much effort at bridge-building from anybody.
Anyone paying attention would have known that Beckett would be an unpopular with the left of the party. And walkouts are hardly shocking in the labour movement, so there's no need to clutch pearls about it. (The failure to quit zoom is funny though, I'll grant you that)
I'm in little mood to throw scraps to someone who enables Johnson - and who don't understand how damaging Corbyn's behaviour is. He had a chance to respond to the antisemitism report in a sensible way, instead rejected it - giving Starmer no choice but to withdraw the whip, or lose credibility.
Re: Starmer
Posted: Tue Nov 24, 2020 9:57 pm
by Sciolus
And it increases the contrast with Johnson's support for Patel.
Big old NEC walkout because Starmer is a big meanie who is just being mean. Which is obviously totally wise and not in any way anti-helpful to their cause.
However, this is better than anything Iannucci could write:
The walkout did not go as smoothly as intended. One source described how Howard Beckett had given an angry speech ahead of the walkout but then spent an agonising minute attempting to find the button to leave the virtual meeting.
As an aside it’s odd to see Kilroy-Silk referred to as one of the “moderate sensible” Labour MPs if a tad naive, given his future trajectory straight into the far right and out the other side into oblivion.
To be completely honest - and as someone who's voted for three parties, only been a member of the Greens, and thinks both Blair and Corbyn are nobheads in their own ways - I'm not seeing much effort at bridge-building from anybody.
Anyone paying attention would have known that Beckett would be an unpopular with the left of the party. And walkouts are hardly shocking in the labour movement, so there's no need to clutch pearls about it. (The failure to quit zoom is funny though, I'll grant you that)
I'm in little mood to throw scraps to someone who enables Johnson - and who don't understand how damaging Corbyn's behaviour is. He had a chance to respond to the antisemitism report in a sensible way, instead rejected it - giving Starmer no choice but to withdraw the whip, or lose credibility.
yeh but Beckett was well dodgy on Israel well she was foreign sec, even David Milliband thinks so, so her appointment was obviously intended to wind up people who are totally obsessed with foreign policy in general and Palestine in particular
It's very annoying and sad and stupidly unnecessary that a big chunk of the more obviously socialist part of the UK left has tarnished itself with a reputation for antisemitism. An easy-to-like left would have done very well in the next five years of economic and societal collapse.
To be completely honest - and as someone who's voted for three parties, only been a member of the Greens, and thinks both Blair and Corbyn are nobheads in their own ways - I'm not seeing much effort at bridge-building from anybody.
Anyone paying attention would have known that Beckett would be an unpopular with the left of the party. And walkouts are hardly shocking in the labour movement, so there's no need to clutch pearls about it. (The failure to quit zoom is funny though, I'll grant you that)
I'm in little mood to throw scraps to someone who enables Johnson - and who don't understand how damaging Corbyn's behaviour is. He had a chance to respond to the antisemitism report in a sensible way, instead rejected it - giving Starmer no choice but to withdraw the whip, or lose credibility.
yeh but Beckett was well dodgy on Israel well she was foreign sec, even David Milliband thinks so, so her appointment was obviously intended to wind up people who are totally obsessed with foreign policy in general and Palestine in particular
Beckett is a former Labour foreign secretary. I expect that her appointment was intended to put the portfolio in the hands of someone with experience. Everything isn't just about Israel.
It's very annoying and sad and stupidly unnecessary that a big chunk of the more obviously socialist part of the UK left has tarnished itself with a reputation for antisemitism. An easy-to-like left would have done very well in the next five years of economic and societal collapse.
It would be wrong to view anti-Semitism in the British radical left as a temporary aberration over the past five years. Anti-Semitism has a long history among European socialists, Jews have long been portrayed as being extreme versions of capitalists, and communist regimes persecuted Jews. (Yes I know that Trotsky and other prominent leftists were Jewish, that just goes to show how illogical racism is).
To be completely honest - and as someone who's voted for three parties, only been a member of the Greens, and thinks both Blair and Corbyn are nobheads in their own ways - I'm not seeing much effort at bridge-building from anybody.
Anyone paying attention would have known that Beckett would be an unpopular with the left of the party. And walkouts are hardly shocking in the labour movement, so there's no need to clutch pearls about it. (The failure to quit zoom is funny though, I'll grant you that)
I'm in little mood to throw scraps to someone who enables Johnson - and who don't understand how damaging Corbyn's behaviour is. He had a chance to respond to the antisemitism report in a sensible way, instead rejected it - giving Starmer no choice but to withdraw the whip, or lose credibility.
This. Corbyn's insistence on ego over electability, and his refusal to campaign for party policy during the referendum campaign, and those who enabled both do not deserve kid gloves when they act like spoiled children.
To be completely honest - and as someone who's voted for three parties, only been a member of the Greens, and thinks both Blair and Corbyn are nobheads in their own ways - I'm not seeing much effort at bridge-building from anybody.
Anyone paying attention would have known that Beckett would be an unpopular with the left of the party. And walkouts are hardly shocking in the labour movement, so there's no need to clutch pearls about it. (The failure to quit zoom is funny though, I'll grant you that)
I'm in little mood to throw scraps to someone who enables Johnson - and who don't understand how damaging Corbyn's behaviour is. He had a chance to respond to the antisemitism report in a sensible way, instead rejected it - giving Starmer no choice but to withdraw the whip, or lose credibility.
This. Corbyn's insistence on ego over electability, and his refusal to campaign for party policy during the referendum campaign, and those who enabled both do not deserve kid gloves when they act like spoiled children.
Don't save all your blame for the Labour left. Corbyn is crap at politicing, but to be fair to him, the perceptions of his electability were not helped by many of the right wing of Labour spending their time attacking their own rather than the Tories. Divided parties don't win elections. Unfortunately it now it seems that a lot of the left want to return the favour now they're not in charge. Labour won't win unless they unite and both wings stop concentrating on internal politics.
Re: Starmer
Posted: Wed Nov 25, 2020 4:52 pm
by Bird on a Fire
Exactly. I actually think the Corbyn fan club is being about as mature as the right of the party was after his nomination, with all the resignations and briefings and stuff. That doesn't make it ok, not least because Starmer himself wasn't involved in all that (unlike Beckett), but it does make it unsurprising.
Uniting the party is going to take some work from both sides, and at the moment I'm not really seeing it from either.
Exactly. I actually think the Corbyn fan club is being about as mature as the right of the party was after his nomination, with all the resignations and briefings and stuff. That doesn't make it ok, not least because Starmer himself wasn't involved in all that (unlike Beckett), but it does make it unsurprising.
Uniting the party is going to take some work from both sides, and at the moment I'm not really seeing it from either.
Approximately the first thing Corbyn did with the party was take a dive in the referendum campaign, because he's a massive europhobe who sides against western europe on approximately everything, including supporting genocide deniers because they gave cover to Milosevic. There was a reason the sane members of the Labour party didn't get on with Corbynites, and Corbynites do not have an equivalent reason.
And no, I don't feel I need to coddle the feelings of racists and their enablers at this point, especially not as Corbyn was electoral poison that landed us in the f.cking mess we are in right now, both with Brexit and with Johnson. Cutting him out is working, Labour are ahead in the polls, something they never were under Corbyn, and in order to win back the voters that actually put Labour in power, rather just appeal to the masturbatory fantasies of one wing of the party, a clean break with Corbynism is essential.
