Scrutable

Yes.

"Boring Manager" looks like a vote winner right now.

But Starmer is going through an incompetence phase. As is his team. Blair's team had strength in depth.

plodder wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 27, 2021 6:55 am

the only people who care about policy who actually matter are the donors and the media barons and the shadowy string-pulling spider people.

The thing that's not clear to me is 'how do you see a challenger demonstrating competence if it isn't through messaging popular policies?'. They can't demonstrate competent govt. until afterwards in any direct way.

I'm reminded of the clanger May dropped about care fees. That seemed incompetent precisely because she was proudly broadcasting a policy that her team should have known would be unpopular.

it might* have actually been a sensible policy but literally no-one** cares. They just want to know the PM can negotiate the headlines and make it through the week without f.cking everything up. May clearly could not do that, just not as badly as Corbyn couldn't do it. Major's last cabinet couldn't do it, Brown and Miliband and Howard and IDS couldn't do it either.

Without wanting to discuss it further it's also clear who the dynamic, charismatic leaders were during the referendum campaign.

15-20 minutes of simple armchair musing about societal structures will reveal to you that in order that some people get to be leaders, far larger numbers of people need to prefer to be followers. This will tell you a lot about why revolutions fail, how elections work, what the media need to do in order to sell newspapers etc. We're not oppressed so much as we're willing victims because we're social animals. This is why there's a compelling trope in movies / mythology etc about the downtrodden slave or hostage or working Joe leading the uprising - but of course in reality effective social disruption tends to come from the same group of posh kids who have been taught all their lives to be leaders.

tl;dr Starmer needs to get a grip of his team and his message so he looks like a safe pair of hands. Nothing more.

*obvious answer is obvious
** ditto

So your hypothesis is that 'competent leadership' is mostly signalled by being seen to be able to make your own party obey you?

Yes that makes depressing sense.

No, not just obey. Support. Cheerlead. Be enthusiastic for. Promote. Obviously obedience and discipline is a crucial factor and a team of drones would do OK but that's not landslide territory, which is where people like Starmer need to be aiming given the in-build bias in the media and the widespread mistrust of the Labour brand.

plodder wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 27, 2021 9:19 am

No, not just obey. Support. Cheerlead. Be enthusiastic for. Promote. Obviously obedience and discipline is a crucial factor and a team of drones would do OK but that's not landslide territory, which is where people like Starmer need to be aiming given the in-build bias in the media and the widespread mistrust of the Labour brand.

I don't think he's got the spark or the ideas to generate that kind of passion. Rayner can spark up the remaining party faithful, but she'll come across a mad to middle of the road voters. Who else is there?

No, that's it. They're up against Johnson and Sunak and that's it.

Maybe Tony Blair could come back to politics.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/04/29/styl ... -hair.html

This was almost ponytail territory. 'Status Quo reunion tour' could be the right look for him just now.

plodder wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 27, 2021 9:19 am

No, not just obey. Support. Cheerlead. Be enthusiastic for. Promote. Obviously obedience and discipline is a crucial factor and a team of drones would do OK but that's not landslide territory, which is where people like Starmer need to be aiming given the in-build bias in the media and the widespread mistrust of the Labour brand.

I think this is right. Step one is having enthusiastic support from the (shadow) front bench for the leader, a vision, and a set of flagship policies. They need buy-in from the rest of the party, from MPs and councillors to grassroots campaigners.

With that (small-m) momentum they might have a chance of getting some media coverage that isn't a total assassination. It probably would help to spend some time on Murdoch's yacht like Blair did.

Starmer seems to be trying to get positive coverage from the Tory press without wooing the media barons or the noisier, more active and motivated part of his own party.

Similarly, the left of Labour at some point needs a sense of how much compromise they can get out of the party leadership, so they can rally round the party's vision in good time before the next election (which is still ages away, luckily).

I don't think the current tactic of calling the grassroots silly children is very sensible. Nor is the insistence from some quarters on having "their people" in all the key spots - at the end of the day it just needs to be someone giving them a useful amount of what they want compared with Johnson/Sunak.

It's the old thing about the best being the enemy of the good, which comes out in the form of "What's the point of a centrist Labour government?"

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 26, 2021 2:52 pm

What's needed, I think, is some unity on the left.

The left needs everyone, from student activists (oh noes! not educated young people!) to traditional working class folks to centrist nerds who understand boring things, because it's faced with a struggle so uphill it's practically vertical.

All this Corbyn vs Blair sh.t is boring af.

Corbyn had flaws, was attacked by the media and undermined by Labour politicians to the right of him. Starmer has flaws, is largely ignored by the media, and disliked by a lot of the grassroots. Pick your poison.

If there were a one-year moratorium on internecine pissing matches Labour might have a chance of putting across a consistent, coherent counter-narrative. You know, if they had one.

They're "more divided than ever", apparently https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... age-stance

Andy McDonald resigned over Labour’s failure to support a £15-an-hour minimum wage and said the party was “more divided than ever”. The Guardian understands Labour activists opposed to Starmer are intending to capitalise on the resignation with a protest to demand the living wage rise during his speech on Wednesday.

A senior Labour official said: “This is clearly a pathetic orchestrated attempt to undermine the changes happening in the party. We won’t be losing any sleep over this attempt at sabotaging Labour conference.”

Several shadow cabinet ministers expressed anger at links with the former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, whose ex-media adviser Andy Whittaker helped coordinate the announcement of McDonald’s departure.

Concern had also been raised internally about an event at the Momentum fringe festival where McDonald had been due to speak with the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who currently has the Labour whip suspended.

Len McCluskey, the former Unite general secretary, called McDonald “a really decent man” and said: “He makes the point that Keir was elected on a radical platform and yet he has abandoned that radical platform and the party is moving more and more away from it.”

Mish Rahman, a Momentum member of the Labour NEC, said: “Labour has to be the party of working people not bosses. During the leadership election it seemed like Starmer understood this, but this resignation proves he does not.”

Richard Burgon, the former shadow cabinet minister, said McDonald had “put up with an awful lot to drive through a superb programme of workers’ rights … To instruct him to drop his principles on wages and sick pay was a huge misjudgment of Andy and the movement.”

Gfamily wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 27, 2021 10:53 am

It's the old thing about the best being the enemy of the good, which comes out in the form of "What's the point of a centrist Labour government?"

There is that. I'd like to vote for a centrist Labour manifesto that would pivot to the left the way the Tories always go right after being elected.

Instead of resigning, lefty Labourites should hang around and be the equivalent of the Conservatives' implacable ERG backbenchers.

There's a trade-off between being electable, and not squandering the opportunity to effect useful lasting change.

f.ck's sake. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... tion-rules

Still obsessed with Corbyn. Needs to stop looking over his shoulder and start looking forward.

sheldrake wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 27, 2021 9:54 am

I don't think he's got the spark or the ideas to generate that kind of passion. Rayner can spark up the remaining party faithful, but she'll come across a mad to middle of the road voters.

So the two of them can do something like the good cop/bad cop routine, where Rayner says what's necessary and Starmer looks statesmanlike, softening the blow,

jdc wrote: ↑

Mon Sep 27, 2021 9:44 pm

Bird on a Fire wrote: ↑

Sun Sep 26, 2021 2:52 pm

What's needed, I think, is some unity on the left.

The left needs everyone, from student activists (oh noes! not educated young people!) to traditional working class folks to centrist nerds who understand boring things, because it's faced with a struggle so uphill it's practically vertical.

All this Corbyn vs Blair sh.t is boring af.

Corbyn had flaws, was attacked by the media and undermined by Labour politicians to the right of him. Starmer has flaws, is largely ignored by the media, and disliked by a lot of the grassroots. Pick your poison.

If there were a one-year moratorium on internecine pissing matches Labour might have a chance of putting across a consistent, coherent counter-narrative. You know, if they had one.

They're "more divided than ever", apparently https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... age-stance

Andy McDonald resigned over Labour’s failure to support a £15-an-hour minimum wage and said the party was “more divided than ever”. The Guardian understands Labour activists opposed to Starmer are intending to capitalise on the resignation with a protest to demand the living wage rise during his speech on Wednesday.

A senior Labour official said: “This is clearly a pathetic orchestrated attempt to undermine the changes happening in the party. We won’t be losing any sleep over this attempt at sabotaging Labour conference.”

Several shadow cabinet ministers expressed anger at links with the former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, whose ex-media adviser Andy Whittaker helped coordinate the announcement of McDonald’s departure.

Concern had also been raised internally about an event at the Momentum fringe festival where McDonald had been due to speak with the former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who currently has the Labour whip suspended.

Len McCluskey, the former Unite general secretary, called McDonald “a really decent man” and said: “He makes the point that Keir was elected on a radical platform and yet he has abandoned that radical platform and the party is moving more and more away from it.”

Mish Rahman, a Momentum member of the Labour NEC, said: “Labour has to be the party of working people not bosses. During the leadership election it seemed like Starmer understood this, but this resignation proves he does not.”

Richard Burgon, the former shadow cabinet minister, said McDonald had “put up with an awful lot to drive through a superb programme of workers’ rights … To instruct him to drop his principles on wages and sick pay was a huge misjudgment of Andy and the movement.”

There's certainly something to be said for the old adage that neither the Conservatives nor Labour are really a single party, but a loose coalition of right- and left-leaning groups, much more like the political landscape of much of Western Europe.

The Tories have always been a mix of fiscal oriented low tax free-market capitalists and the more closed-trade nationalists. The capitalists could usually keep the nationalists in check, but Brexit has allowed the nationalists their time in the sun. Labour is a mix of social equality and equal opportunities advocates (thereby promoting free-movement) and trade unionists (who are often protectionists). (Yes, it's a lot more complicated, but this allows a simple Johari-window explanation for idiots!)

Brexit aligned the Tory nationalists with the trade union protectionists while the free-market capitalists and free-movement advocates were naturally Remainers. But the last election was framed in such a way that the Tories retained their traditional cores and won votes from Labour protectionists, winning three of the Johari windows.

From afar, it seems as if Starmer is confused as to whether he should be aiming to win back the trade unionists or try to prise the free-market capitalists out from the Tory camp (something Blair & Brown seemed to be able to do in '97).

Complicated by the fact that Blair is toxic due to Iraq, so everything centrist or capitalist is seen as cover for warmongering.

'capitalists vs nationalists' is very much an oversimplification of conservative thought. There are libertarians who thought the EU represented an overly bureaucratic and unaccountable political body in the ERG, for example. Then amongst those libertarians there are hardline thatcherites and people who think the NHS should be funded properly because they're devout Christians and they understand what the effect on the poor would be if they privatised absolutely everything.

I would call the Tory remainers 'corporatists'. They mainly represent the entrenched moneyed interests that plodder described above, not small businesses and entrepreneurs (or many grassroots tories).

Good example. Marc Francois is indeed a simplification of conservative thinking.

Martin_B wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 28, 2021 4:36 am

There's certainly something to be said for the old adage that neither the Conservatives nor Labour are really a single party, but a loose coalition of right- and left-leaning groups, much more like the political landscape of much of Western Europe.

The Tories have always been a mix of fiscal oriented low tax free-market capitalists and the more closed-trade nationalists. The capitalists could usually keep the nationalists in check, but Brexit has allowed the nationalists their time in the sun. Labour is a mix of social equality and equal opportunities advocates (thereby promoting free-movement) and trade unionists (who are often protectionists). (Yes, it's a lot more complicated, but this allows a simple Johari-window explanation for idiots!)

Yes, its a consequence of first past the post voting that the two big parties are informal coalitions of interests that in the rest of Western Europe would be split into 4-5 different parties (which would then have to agree upon a formal coalition in order to govern).

<penny drops>

thanks chops, never put those two things together before - I had in reverse (PR leads to coalitions) but never the opposite

Woodchopper wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 28, 2021 8:55 am

Martin_B wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 28, 2021 4:36 am

There's certainly something to be said for the old adage that neither the Conservatives nor Labour are really a single party, but a loose coalition of right- and left-leaning groups, much more like the political landscape of much of Western Europe.

The Tories have always been a mix of fiscal oriented low tax free-market capitalists and the more closed-trade nationalists. The capitalists could usually keep the nationalists in check, but Brexit has allowed the nationalists their time in the sun. Labour is a mix of social equality and equal opportunities advocates (thereby promoting free-movement) and trade unionists (who are often protectionists). (Yes, it's a lot more complicated, but this allows a simple Johari-window explanation for idiots!)

Yes, its a consequence of first past the post voting that the two big parties are informal coalitions of interests that in the rest of Western Europe would be split into 4-5 different parties (which would then have to agree upon a formal coalition in order to govern).

In PR news, Labour conference voted down the PR motion yesterday. The membership supported it, but it was blocked by the unions.

Which has made a lot of people very cross indeed.

nekomatic wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 28, 2021 11:47 am

Which has made a lot of people very cross indeed.

To be be fair, I think that cold be said of just about every motion.

monkey wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 28, 2021 12:02 pm

nekomatic wrote: ↑

Tue Sep 28, 2021 11:47 am

Which has made a lot of people very cross indeed.

To be be fair, I think that cold be said of just about every motion.

heh

Problem with PR is it would f.ck Labour.
Problem with not PR is it f.cks the smaller parties who could otherwise form coalitions with Labour.

The lib dems already died on this hill.