“I didn’t believe Meghan Markle, a huge furor erupted through the day, I was an outrage, I wasn’t allowed to have an opinion that I didn’t believe what she was saying even though it was clear to me in real time as I was watching the interview that there were a number of things which just couldn’t be true.”
“It’s not for me to say whether she felt suicidal, that’s only for her to know,” Morgan told Carlson, per Fox News.
Morgan said, “What I was taking issue with, is she claims she went to two members of the royal household — a senior aide and also human resources. And she told both of them she was feeling suicidal, and need help and both of them rejected that and said that she couldn’t get help because it would be bad for the brand of the royal family. I just find that impossible to believe that you would have two people in the palace who would be that callous to a woman telling them that she was suicidal.”
Morgan told Carlson, “We simply don’t know, and we don’t even know who supposed to have said this, but then Harry was asked the same question, and Harry didn’t say it was several conversations when Meghan was pregnant. He said it was a conversation that happened way before at the start of their relationship, years before Meghan said it happened.
“So now we have a massive inconsistency. One conversation, not two. Maybe a year and a half, two years before Meghan said it happened. She didn’t even hear it. We don’t know the context. We don’t know what was said.”
He said that “the idea that the royal family and the queen in particular are now being depicted as a racist entity, a racist queen presiding over a racist monarchy when she is the head of the commonwealth, I’m sorry I find it completely disgusting.”
Can't say I blame her for dumping this toad for Prince Harry. She dodged a bullet.
“I didn’t believe Meghan Markle, a huge furor erupted through the day, I was an outrage, I wasn’t allowed to have an opinion that I didn’t believe what she was saying even though it was clear to me in real time as I was watching the interview that there were a number of things which just couldn’t be true.”
“It’s not for me to say whether she felt suicidal, that’s only for her to know,” Morgan told Carlson, per Fox News.
Morgan said, “What I was taking issue with, is she claims she went to two members of the royal household — a senior aide and also human resources. And she told both of them she was feeling suicidal, and need help and both of them rejected that and said that she couldn’t get help because it would be bad for the brand of the royal family. I just find that impossible to believe that you would have two people in the palace who would be that callous to a woman telling them that she was suicidal.”
Morgan told Carlson, “We simply don’t know, and we don’t even know who supposed to have said this, but then Harry was asked the same question, and Harry didn’t say it was several conversations when Meghan was pregnant. He said it was a conversation that happened way before at the start of their relationship, years before Meghan said it happened.
“So now we have a massive inconsistency. One conversation, not two. Maybe a year and a half, two years before Meghan said it happened. She didn’t even hear it. We don’t know the context. We don’t know what was said.”
He said that “the idea that the royal family and the queen in particular are now being depicted as a racist entity, a racist queen presiding over a racist monarchy when she is the head of the commonwealth, I’m sorry I find it completely disgusting.”
Can't say I blame her for dumping this toad for Prince Harry. She dodged a bullet.
I too find having a racist queen and a racist monarchy completely disgusting.
Sic transit gloria mundi.
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ElldrenIs a woman dammitceterum censeoRegistered Userregular
The absolute worst shower of bastards imaginable
Who could possibly believe two members of an organization famous for being incapable of handling mental health issues well would be callous about someone’s mental health
No one actually said the queen was racist, or any other member of the actual family for that matter. Criticism of the institution is transformed into criticism of Elizabeth to get people riled up and good and hating about the foreign interloper.
How dare you stand up for yourself while the Queen's consort is sick? TRAITORS!
"I just find that impossible to believe that you would have two people in the palace who would be that callous to a woman telling them that she was suicidal."
Says the person callously dismissing a woman saying that she was suicidal?
Didn't they specifically rule out the Queen as being the particularly racist one?
If only we could ask William who it was, but he's off on a sudden flurry of "I can't be racist, some of my favourite subjects are black" activities
This is all true. Meghan and Harry have been brilliant in how they've criticised the royal family and have made it clear there are boundaries they won't cross. Personally, I don't see how the queen isn't embroiled in this racist shit but if that's true I think they're smart enough to know not to say that out loud, because that might turn the British public against them more than they are. It's the queen, an icon more than a person - it's just not worth it. I'd like to know who authorised taking the couple's security away and not allowing their son into the royal line, that's horrendous shit.
Best for Britain is a think tank, image is from The Times, about YouGov polling for the Mail on Sunday
Your periodic reminder (especially for our US readers) that a poll of Labour members is not equivalent to a poll of Labour voters
It wouldn't matter either way, Labour are on track to lose the Hartlepool by-election, meaning I'm not just imagining Keir's complete non-presence. To put that in perspective, the Tories haven't held Hartlepool in 50 years.
There are a bunch of northern constituencies that the Tories won in the last election that haven't been held by them for decades previously. If it wasn't for the Brexit party taking a huge chunk of votes it's very possible that they would have won Hartlepool in 2019.
Losing Hartlepool is bad for Labour and Starmer, and doesn't bode well for how he's coming across, but Hartlepool was on the edge before he got the job.
Didn't they specifically rule out the Queen as being the particularly racist one?
If only we could ask William who it was, but he's off on a sudden flurry of "I can't be racist, some of my favourite subjects are black" activities
This is all true. Meghan and Harry have been brilliant in how they've criticised the royal family and have made it clear there are boundaries they won't cross. Personally, I don't see how the queen isn't embroiled in this racist shit but if that's true I think they're smart enough to know not to say that out loud, because that might turn the British public against them more than they are. It's the queen, an icon more than a person - it's just not worth it. I'd like to know who authorised taking the couple's security away and not allowing their son into the royal line, that's horrendous shit.
The 'not allowing their son into the royal line' part would have been George V. Nothing horrendous about it, just protocol. I have no doubt that Harry of all people would know that, just more shit stirring from a couple that only have their victimhood to shill anymore. I seem to remember that Andrews kids don't have security either as non-working royals so if I'm right that's not without precedent either.
Best for Britain is a think tank, image is from The Times, about YouGov polling for the Mail on Sunday
Your periodic reminder (especially for our US readers) that a poll of Labour members is not equivalent to a poll of Labour voters
It wouldn't matter either way, Labour are on track to lose the Hartlepool by-election, meaning I'm not just imagining Keir's complete non-presence. To put that in perspective, the Tories haven't held Hartlepool in 50 years.
Not sure that's on Starmer entirely. Brexit party got 25% of the vote in 2019 there, and you'd never guess which party is getting basically all of that vote this time around. Spoiler: It's the Tories.
It doesn't vindicate his strategy though. Anyone who is a big fan of Brexit is going to vote for the party that actually delivered Brexit, while people looking for the country to move closer to the EU in any way, shape, or form, are likely to be less than impressed with what he's currently doing. Starmer is probably boned whatever he does honestly, but I think he's going to have to hit the Brexit situation head on sooner rather than later. Especially since the vaccination situation might mean that the UK can maybe sorta try and go back to normal.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
If Starmer ran on a rejoin campaign he would get fucking obliterated
Labour Remainers are just going to have to vote for Starmer and accept he is not going to run on a rejoin campaign. Another labour leader might in future if he won. But not this time around. Brexit has won, we have seen that in no less than three national votes
I mean losing Hartlepool, if it happens, won't have nothing to do with Starmer's performance as leader, but it's not the be-all and end-all either.
It looks like the vaccination program is doing incredibly well, and bad Brexit news is being pushed down the news agenda by it. Even better for Leavers, the EU looks to have fucked up in eight different ways and is doing comparatively worse than us is getting things back to normal, giving them plentiful ammunition to claim this PROVES leaving the EU was good and brilliant. A client print media sector reinforces this, and the government's majority is big enough and shorn of any meaningful critics during Johnson's pre-election purge to get away with almost anything.
During the pandemic, all voters have wanted is to escape this horror. Listen to every conversation, and what you hear is vaccination dates, longing for unlocking, the chance to hug grandchildren and wistful hopes of holidays.
“Why doesn’t he define himself?”, ask some critics impatiently, as Labour’s public approval ratings tumble. Where’s his vision? Do something! Reshuffle, turn left, shout louder, attack!
What these critics forget is that politics is a seesaw with simple political physics. When the government is up, the opposition is down, and vice versa. This government now has an 86% approval rating – yes, 86% – on the vaccination programme, the only subject in town. Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, tells me he can think of virtually no similar approval rating happening before on the top issue of the day. Scientific genius and the efficiency of the NHS have gifted Boris Johnson an undeserved bounty. Parked at the other end of the seesaw, no amount of political vision could rescue Starmer from this downward bump.
This is not a remotely unreasonable analysis. It is hard for the Leader of the Opposition to get their position across in the media in normal times, it is harder when there is a massive year+ long crisis that is consuming all media and electorate attention, and it is even harder when the sole thing that people give a shit about right now is getting out of the pandemic through a vaccination program that is going very well. Once we get some sort of semblance of normal life back and the Johnson gov's austerity measures 2.0 and corruption kick in I feel like there will be a fall back towards Starmer who can then start giving the government a really hard kicking when people are actually interested in listening to such things.
Voters are waiting for their "brexit bonus" and believe that Labour want to take it away from them (as told to them by the media/conservatives). Until that changes,the voters have shown that they will tolerate just about anything.
Not saying that Labour have been perfect since 2016 or anything (they certainly haven't), just that it is extremely difficult to counter such a message. Not sure what they can do at this point.
During the pandemic, all voters have wanted is to escape this horror. Listen to every conversation, and what you hear is vaccination dates, longing for unlocking, the chance to hug grandchildren and wistful hopes of holidays.
“Why doesn’t he define himself?”, ask some critics impatiently, as Labour’s public approval ratings tumble. Where’s his vision? Do something! Reshuffle, turn left, shout louder, attack!
What these critics forget is that politics is a seesaw with simple political physics. When the government is up, the opposition is down, and vice versa. This government now has an 86% approval rating – yes, 86% – on the vaccination programme, the only subject in town. Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, tells me he can think of virtually no similar approval rating happening before on the top issue of the day. Scientific genius and the efficiency of the NHS have gifted Boris Johnson an undeserved bounty. Parked at the other end of the seesaw, no amount of political vision could rescue Starmer from this downward bump.
This is not a remotely unreasonable analysis. It is hard for the Leader of the Opposition to get their position across in the media in normal times, it is harder when there is a massive year+ long crisis that is consuming all media and electorate attention, and it is even harder when the sole thing that people give a shit about right now is getting out of the pandemic through a vaccination program that is going very well. Once we get some sort of semblance of normal life back and the Johnson gov's austerity measures 2.0 and corruption kick in I feel like there will be a fall back towards Starmer who can then start giving the government a really hard kicking when people are actually interested in listening to such things.
As much as I think Starmer has mishandled some of the opportunities he has had, I agree with a lot of this. When you think that there are, at best, basically two times in year when actual media attention (for the general public, not us weirdos who follow this stuff) is really given to the opposition party - local elections and the conference - and both of those were disrupted by COVID, it wouldn't surprise me if there's a reasonable swath of voters who don't know he's actually the leader. Plenty might think it's still Corbyn.
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
During the pandemic, all voters have wanted is to escape this horror. Listen to every conversation, and what you hear is vaccination dates, longing for unlocking, the chance to hug grandchildren and wistful hopes of holidays.
“Why doesn’t he define himself?”, ask some critics impatiently, as Labour’s public approval ratings tumble. Where’s his vision? Do something! Reshuffle, turn left, shout louder, attack!
What these critics forget is that politics is a seesaw with simple political physics. When the government is up, the opposition is down, and vice versa. This government now has an 86% approval rating – yes, 86% – on the vaccination programme, the only subject in town. Rob Ford, professor of political science at the University of Manchester, tells me he can think of virtually no similar approval rating happening before on the top issue of the day. Scientific genius and the efficiency of the NHS have gifted Boris Johnson an undeserved bounty. Parked at the other end of the seesaw, no amount of political vision could rescue Starmer from this downward bump.
This is not a remotely unreasonable analysis. It is hard for the Leader of the Opposition to get their position across in the media in normal times, it is harder when there is a massive year+ long crisis that is consuming all media and electorate attention, and it is even harder when the sole thing that people give a shit about right now is getting out of the pandemic through a vaccination program that is going very well. Once we get some sort of semblance of normal life back and the Johnson gov's austerity measures 2.0 and corruption kick in I feel like there will be a fall back towards Starmer who can then start giving the government a really hard kicking when people are actually interested in listening to such things.
The big risk there is that Starmer hasn't really been laying much groundwork to go after the Brexit situation. Or if he has, it's gotten no traction in the press, which is a totally separate thing. So unless things are seriously, massively, pear shaped by June or July, that plus whipping for the deal kind of puts him in a bad position.
I can't believe that Johnson is going to come out of this doing so much better than he should due to the efforts of the NHS. A group that has had it's budget slashed by the Tories over they years, got 20% of their 2020 compensation in the form of clapping, and will be the first up on the privatization block when Johnson thinks he can get away with it. The 2021 writers are just going whole hog on the Alanis Morissette irony.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
What Starmer needs to do is restore the credibility of the Labour Party
Before they can win, they need to at least be credible in the eyes of the electorate. Right now they are not. Or rather, right now they are much more credible than they were a year ago and hopefully that will continue.
I know this is a complaint as old as the hills but god damn I get tired of this country treating the Tories like they are the default. We criticise them for acting like they have a total entitlement to rule but, that hasn't come out of nowhere, it's basically the way the electorate treats them. For Labour to win, they have to show up, have everything going well, make no mistakes, be perfectly co-ordinated and have no outside factors go against them. For the Tories to win they just have to show up on a day when Labour hasn't checked every single box in that list. The electorate will let the Tories do things on a daily basis they would crucify any other political party for.
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
What Starmer needs to do is restore the credibility of the Labour Party
Before they can win, they need to at least be credible in the eyes of the electorate. Right now they are not. Or rather, right now they are much more credible than they were a year ago and hopefully that will continue.
How's that happen when there's an 80 seat majority in Parliament? Serious question that, since the a parliamentary system doesn't exactly give the opposition much (any) power, especially when the government has that big a margin in seats. Are we just talking about giving some baller speeches and laying out a clear vision about twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom or whatever?
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
Well how did the Tories do it when the Labour Party had an even bigger majority? How did Labour do it in the 90s? They needed to persuade the electorate that they could be trusted with the government i.e. be credible.
Corbyn (and I voted for Corbyn, and defended him in this thread many times) ultimately wasn't credible and was rejected by the electorate. Like, historically so. The Labour Party was tied to Corbyn and similarly appeared by association to be not credible and have outlandish ideas about what was possible in the eyes of voters, to be unreliable, anti-British etc. Starmer needs to convince people that no, we are credible, we can be trusted, your business/family/job/future/security/etc will be safe with us. And that's what he is trying to do now, it seems. But people right now are not particularly interested in listening to the leader of the opposition because people right now are interested in the Coronavirus Pandemic and the Vaccine Program and the end of Lockdown and vanishingly little else outside of people who are very into politics and they are not really persuadable anyway.
The opposition doesn't have any real power, no. But that doesn't stop governments from changing hands. It didn't in 2010 and it didn't in 1997. It does happen. It can happen. But it only happens if you come off as being like, you know, like you actually are the best thing for the country.
I know this is a complaint as old as the hills but god damn I get tired of this country treating the Tories like they are the default. We criticise them for acting like they have a total entitlement to rule but, that hasn't come out of nowhere, it's basically the way the electorate treats them. For Labour to win, they have to show up, have everything going well, make no mistakes, be perfectly co-ordinated and have no outside factors go against them. For the Tories to win they just have to show up on a day when Labour hasn't checked every single box in that list. The electorate will let the Tories do things on a daily basis they would crucify any other political party for.
People vote for the party they think represents their values. That we ended up with the party of self interest, resentment of the other and low brow bigotry says more about the electorate than those they voted for. The labour strongholds in the north were only undone when Farage and his ilk found a way to leverage the unfounded notion that it was all the fault of johny foreigner that things weren't working out for them.
Starmer needs to let the government hang itself, and it will, and relentlessly point that out and when people start paying attention a bit more then that message will start to sink in.
And he does have the advantage of; the Tory party will hang itself. The economy is going to shit. The Union is falling apart. Austerity 2.0 is coming. And the Tories will always look our for their mates and not be particularly clever about it.
In the meantime he needs to basically clear out the antisemitism, clear out the nutters (and there are absolutely some nutters in that party), and be honest with the Labour Party about what they can ride on. And you'll notice that Cameron had to do that too. Have you watched the conferences where he told his party "I am pro the NHS, I am pro gay marriage" and they are all sat there looking miserable? Starmer needs to say to the conference "yeah I am pro police, I am pro defence, I am pro security services, I am pro business" and people will sit there with a face like thunder but does anyone, seriously, whatever their personal politics (and mine are not those things!) think for a moment that if Starmer ran on, say for example, abolishing the police that he would last five minutes? He wouldn't last five seconds. He'd never ever ever win on that platform.
And he won't win if he goes with rejoin the EU. Just never. Never ever. The Labour Party needs to realise that. Really it does. If it can't and it splits behind him over it we've already lost.
Well he does have an argument against that, the deal is bad but no deal would have been catastrophic so it would have been irresponsible to not try to mitigate the damage as much as possible
That sounds sensible and grown-up
The problem is that if he says "being outside the EU is doing damage" then Johnson says "well do you want to rejoin then?" and he says "no" and Johnson says well what do you want? Get off the fence! Stop prevaricating! etc
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
Shitty
Argument works better if he hadn't whipped the vote and if the bill hadn't passed by all the votes ever. Those two things combine to make it look like Labour were big fans.
Starmer could be making noise about rejoining Erasmus and other sort of stuff like that. That wouldn't solve the main issues with Brexit, but looking to rejoin things like the single market (even if possible in a reasonable time period) is probably too close to rejoining the EU for a lot of people.
The core issue is that a large chunk of the UK supports a completely ass policy, and they don't seem to be changing their mind anytime soon.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
Banking on the opposition imploding and costing them votes is a bad gamble and always has been. It works for the Tories but it hasn't ever worked for labour. There is no low the Tories could sink to that will cross the line for the English electorate.
Regardless of what state the Tories are in Labour still have to be free pudding and blowjobs to be in with a chance and right now they're not.
In the meantime he needs to basically clear out the antisemitism, clear out the nutters (and there are absolutely some nutters in that party), and be honest with the Labour Party about what they can ride on. And you'll notice that Cameron had to do that too. Have you watched the conferences where he told his party "I am pro the NHS, I am pro gay marriage" and they are all sat there looking miserable? Starmer needs to say to the conference "yeah I am pro police, I am pro defence, I am pro security services, I am pro business" and people will sit there with a face like thunder but does anyone, seriously, whatever their personal politics (and mine are not those things!) think for a moment that if Starmer ran on, say for example, abolishing the police that he would last five minutes? He wouldn't last five seconds. He'd never ever ever win on that platform.
Part of Labour's problem is that as well as having huge internal divisions over what positions it should hold, it has a huge internal split over whether they should pick positions and persuade voters they're the right ones, or whether they should choose positions a large portion of voters already hold.
The second is a much more viable electoral strategy, but doesn't sit well with the membership.
It may be that Labour are just fucked in the short to medium term and nothing short of a truly incredible leader who captures the public imagination can turn things around in that time. William Hague wasn't a great leader for the Tories but he wasn't a catastrophic one (he used to handily give Blair a drubbing in PMQs on a regular basis) and he failed to move the needle a single inch, because the public had, for a period of several years, made up their mind about the Tories being corrupt sleaze merchants and weren't about to think again. It wasn't until Cameron came on to the scene that the Tories got another shot, and even then, even on top of the financial crisis, the public still only put them into power with the Lib Dems.
Using the *weighted* figures, you get GE2019 vote as...
LAB: 47%
CON: 46%
BXP: 3%
LDM: 2%
OTH: 1%
When the actual result was... LAB 38%, CON 29%, BXP 26%, LDM 4%, OTH 3%.
Suggesting that the BXP voters are vastly underrepresented in this poll.
Election Maps UK is a twitter account for nerds who track voting.
They've spotted that the polling for Hartlepool didn't bother to check with many BXP voters to see who they're voting for this time.
We could be looking at false recall here. I predict a bunch of BXP voters were "traditional" Tory voters who have 'fprgptten' that they voted not-Tory at the last election.
But yes, there is a reason why constituency polling is infamously unreliable.
Using the *weighted* figures, you get GE2019 vote as...
LAB: 47%
CON: 46%
BXP: 3%
LDM: 2%
OTH: 1%
When the actual result was... LAB 38%, CON 29%, BXP 26%, LDM 4%, OTH 3%.
Suggesting that the BXP voters are vastly underrepresented in this poll.
Election Maps UK is a twitter account for nerds who track voting.
They've spotted that the polling for Hartlepool didn't bother to check with many BXP voters to see who they're voting for this time.
We could be looking at false recall here. I predict a bunch of BXP voters were "traditional" Tory voters who have 'fprgptten' that they voted not-Tory at the last election.
But yes, there is a reason why constituency polling is infamously unreliable.
That's fair, I just can't believe they didn't try to find more bxp voters to poll
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Galloway is asking for it because he is a nobody irrelevance.
Salmond, for all that he is a cunt who should do some sea getting into, has nothing to do with this.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
https://deadline.com/2021/04/piers-morgan-meghan-markle-tucker-carlson-1234728135/
Can't say I blame her for dumping this toad for Prince Harry. She dodged a bullet.
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I too find having a racist queen and a racist monarchy completely disgusting.
How dare you stand up for yourself while the Queen's consort is sick? TRAITORS!
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Best for Britain is a think tank, image is from The Times, about YouGov polling for the Mail on Sunday
Your periodic reminder (especially for our US readers) that a poll of Labour members is not equivalent to a poll of Labour voters
If only we could ask William who it was, but he's off on a sudden flurry of "I can't be racist, some of my favourite subjects are black" activities
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This is all true. Meghan and Harry have been brilliant in how they've criticised the royal family and have made it clear there are boundaries they won't cross. Personally, I don't see how the queen isn't embroiled in this racist shit but if that's true I think they're smart enough to know not to say that out loud, because that might turn the British public against them more than they are. It's the queen, an icon more than a person - it's just not worth it. I'd like to know who authorised taking the couple's security away and not allowing their son into the royal line, that's horrendous shit.
It wouldn't matter either way, Labour are on track to lose the Hartlepool by-election, meaning I'm not just imagining Keir's complete non-presence. To put that in perspective, the Tories haven't held Hartlepool in 50 years.
Losing Hartlepool is bad for Labour and Starmer, and doesn't bode well for how he's coming across, but Hartlepool was on the edge before he got the job.
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The 'not allowing their son into the royal line' part would have been George V. Nothing horrendous about it, just protocol. I have no doubt that Harry of all people would know that, just more shit stirring from a couple that only have their victimhood to shill anymore. I seem to remember that Andrews kids don't have security either as non-working royals so if I'm right that's not without precedent either.
Not sure that's on Starmer entirely. Brexit party got 25% of the vote in 2019 there, and you'd never guess which party is getting basically all of that vote this time around. Spoiler: It's the Tories.
It doesn't vindicate his strategy though. Anyone who is a big fan of Brexit is going to vote for the party that actually delivered Brexit, while people looking for the country to move closer to the EU in any way, shape, or form, are likely to be less than impressed with what he's currently doing. Starmer is probably boned whatever he does honestly, but I think he's going to have to hit the Brexit situation head on sooner rather than later. Especially since the vaccination situation might mean that the UK can maybe sorta try and go back to normal.
Labour Remainers are just going to have to vote for Starmer and accept he is not going to run on a rejoin campaign. Another labour leader might in future if he won. But not this time around. Brexit has won, we have seen that in no less than three national votes
It looks like the vaccination program is doing incredibly well, and bad Brexit news is being pushed down the news agenda by it. Even better for Leavers, the EU looks to have fucked up in eight different ways and is doing comparatively worse than us is getting things back to normal, giving them plentiful ammunition to claim this PROVES leaving the EU was good and brilliant. A client print media sector reinforces this, and the government's majority is big enough and shorn of any meaningful critics during Johnson's pre-election purge to get away with almost anything.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/06/sleeze-tory-governments-gift-keir-starmer-labour
This is not a remotely unreasonable analysis. It is hard for the Leader of the Opposition to get their position across in the media in normal times, it is harder when there is a massive year+ long crisis that is consuming all media and electorate attention, and it is even harder when the sole thing that people give a shit about right now is getting out of the pandemic through a vaccination program that is going very well. Once we get some sort of semblance of normal life back and the Johnson gov's austerity measures 2.0 and corruption kick in I feel like there will be a fall back towards Starmer who can then start giving the government a really hard kicking when people are actually interested in listening to such things.
Not saying that Labour have been perfect since 2016 or anything (they certainly haven't), just that it is extremely difficult to counter such a message. Not sure what they can do at this point.
As much as I think Starmer has mishandled some of the opportunities he has had, I agree with a lot of this. When you think that there are, at best, basically two times in year when actual media attention (for the general public, not us weirdos who follow this stuff) is really given to the opposition party - local elections and the conference - and both of those were disrupted by COVID, it wouldn't surprise me if there's a reasonable swath of voters who don't know he's actually the leader. Plenty might think it's still Corbyn.
The big risk there is that Starmer hasn't really been laying much groundwork to go after the Brexit situation. Or if he has, it's gotten no traction in the press, which is a totally separate thing. So unless things are seriously, massively, pear shaped by June or July, that plus whipping for the deal kind of puts him in a bad position.
I can't believe that Johnson is going to come out of this doing so much better than he should due to the efforts of the NHS. A group that has had it's budget slashed by the Tories over they years, got 20% of their 2020 compensation in the form of clapping, and will be the first up on the privatization block when Johnson thinks he can get away with it. The 2021 writers are just going whole hog on the Alanis Morissette irony.
Before they can win, they need to at least be credible in the eyes of the electorate. Right now they are not. Or rather, right now they are much more credible than they were a year ago and hopefully that will continue.
How's that happen when there's an 80 seat majority in Parliament? Serious question that, since the a parliamentary system doesn't exactly give the opposition much (any) power, especially when the government has that big a margin in seats. Are we just talking about giving some baller speeches and laying out a clear vision about twirling, twirling, twirling towards freedom or whatever?
Corbyn (and I voted for Corbyn, and defended him in this thread many times) ultimately wasn't credible and was rejected by the electorate. Like, historically so. The Labour Party was tied to Corbyn and similarly appeared by association to be not credible and have outlandish ideas about what was possible in the eyes of voters, to be unreliable, anti-British etc. Starmer needs to convince people that no, we are credible, we can be trusted, your business/family/job/future/security/etc will be safe with us. And that's what he is trying to do now, it seems. But people right now are not particularly interested in listening to the leader of the opposition because people right now are interested in the Coronavirus Pandemic and the Vaccine Program and the end of Lockdown and vanishingly little else outside of people who are very into politics and they are not really persuadable anyway.
The opposition doesn't have any real power, no. But that doesn't stop governments from changing hands. It didn't in 2010 and it didn't in 1997. It does happen. It can happen. But it only happens if you come off as being like, you know, like you actually are the best thing for the country.
People vote for the party they think represents their values. That we ended up with the party of self interest, resentment of the other and low brow bigotry says more about the electorate than those they voted for. The labour strongholds in the north were only undone when Farage and his ilk found a way to leverage the unfounded notion that it was all the fault of johny foreigner that things weren't working out for them.
And he does have the advantage of; the Tory party will hang itself. The economy is going to shit. The Union is falling apart. Austerity 2.0 is coming. And the Tories will always look our for their mates and not be particularly clever about it.
In the meantime he needs to basically clear out the antisemitism, clear out the nutters (and there are absolutely some nutters in that party), and be honest with the Labour Party about what they can ride on. And you'll notice that Cameron had to do that too. Have you watched the conferences where he told his party "I am pro the NHS, I am pro gay marriage" and they are all sat there looking miserable? Starmer needs to say to the conference "yeah I am pro police, I am pro defence, I am pro security services, I am pro business" and people will sit there with a face like thunder but does anyone, seriously, whatever their personal politics (and mine are not those things!) think for a moment that if Starmer ran on, say for example, abolishing the police that he would last five minutes? He wouldn't last five seconds. He'd never ever ever win on that platform.
And he won't win if he goes with rejoin the EU. Just never. Never ever. The Labour Party needs to realise that. Really it does. If it can't and it splits behind him over it we've already lost.
But he could at least acknowledge the damage it is doing but I believe communication has gone out to MPs to not mention it all....
Though he did shoot himself in the foot by voting for the deal so as mentioned here before any criticism will be met with "you voted for it".
That sounds sensible and grown-up
The problem is that if he says "being outside the EU is doing damage" then Johnson says "well do you want to rejoin then?" and he says "no" and Johnson says well what do you want? Get off the fence! Stop prevaricating! etc
Starmer could be making noise about rejoining Erasmus and other sort of stuff like that. That wouldn't solve the main issues with Brexit, but looking to rejoin things like the single market (even if possible in a reasonable time period) is probably too close to rejoining the EU for a lot of people.
The core issue is that a large chunk of the UK supports a completely ass policy, and they don't seem to be changing their mind anytime soon.
Regardless of what state the Tories are in Labour still have to be free pudding and blowjobs to be in with a chance and right now they're not.
Part of Labour's problem is that as well as having huge internal divisions over what positions it should hold, it has a huge internal split over whether they should pick positions and persuade voters they're the right ones, or whether they should choose positions a large portion of voters already hold.
The second is a much more viable electoral strategy, but doesn't sit well with the membership.
I have to believe that there is a way to government for the Labour Party in this country. Otherwise there's not really any point in bothering
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Election Maps UK is a twitter account for nerds who track voting.
They've spotted that the polling for Hartlepool didn't bother to check with many BXP voters to see who they're voting for this time.
We could be looking at false recall here. I predict a bunch of BXP voters were "traditional" Tory voters who have 'fprgptten' that they voted not-Tory at the last election.
But yes, there is a reason why constituency polling is infamously unreliable.
I made a game, it has penguins in it. It's pay what you like on Gumroad.
Currently Ebaying Nothing at all but I might do in the future.
That's fair, I just can't believe they didn't try to find more bxp voters to poll
Source is an editor from Politico.
Nice to see some actual opposition from Labour.
Hope that none of them break ranks. We'll see how many Tories rebel on it.