The people who spent years lying about Jeremy Corbyn are mad that people are telling the truth about Sir Keir Starmer. Specifically, they’re upset people are talking about the freebies scandal. They think this is unfair because Labour MPs are acting within the rules, but if we rewind to 2009, when we had the expenses scandal, it wasn’t just MPs who broke the rules who were the problem. It was felt that even when rules were followed, they’d been abused, that MPs were taking advantage of the system. As a result, the rules were tightened to prevent future abuse. The same needs to happen with gifts to MPs, but Starmer feels attacked by this!
The simplest solution would be to clarify the Bribery Act 2010 applies to MPs and will actually be enforced if they accept gifts. Such a suggestion would make a neoliberal’s heads explode., but I used to work in a bank and we weren’t allowed to accept so much as a box of chocolates. It’s not just bank workers this applies to, council workers, doctors and nurses, and people in many other jobs can’t receive gifts. If they do, they face dismissal, fines or imprisonment. It should surely be the same with politicians. In fact, the punishments should be higher because the consequences are bigger.
We are talking about people who are among the top earners in society and should absolutely pay their own way. We are also talking about people who are the most vulnerable to corruption - a form of corruption that would be most damaging to society. No one can sensibly say it’s worse for a nurse to accept a bribe than for a minister, can they?
We should be pushing to remove all forms of bribery from politics, including gifts and corporate donations. This would be one of the most effective ways to fix society. If politicians cannot be bribed, watch how quickly politics gets cleaned up. All the corrupt ones would have to find alternative career paths!
The irony is the media are pushing on this issue for mostly cynical reasons (to push Labour even further right). They don’t seem to understand this could backfire on them by making it harder to influence politicians. Please don’t say anything!
Starmer used to make speeches about political corruption and tell us how dodgy gifts to politicians are. Now he defends the behaviour he used to oppose. There are countless examples of this kind of flipflopping from him though. Another would be how he pledged to scrap university tuition fees and then decided to increase them (even though he benefitted from free university tuition). Lying and manipulating come more naturally to Starmer than they do Boris Johnson and that’s saying something.
The weird thing is Starmer’s supporters opposed Johnson’s lies, but when Starmer lies, they think it’s clever politics. These people have no principles.
The best defence Starmer’s supporters can come up with is that the Tories are also corrupt, but try explaining we shouldn’t vote for corruption, just like we shouldn’t vote for genocide, and they stare at you like you’ve lost your mind.
Starmer has spent his time sucking up to print media, in particular, the Murdoch empire. The thing about print media is they have always been using Starmer. They will gleefully attack the prime minister to pressure him into moving further right and that’s exactly what he will do. And when he does, his premiership will collapse. This is a very obvious trap, but Starmer is too politically naive to see this. I’m guessing Murdoch’s goal is Prime Minister Farage and he may well get his wish.
One thing that seems to have particularly upset Starmer is how broadcast media have dared to challenge him, even though they’ve been gentle. Beth Rigby from Sky News spoke about how Starmer was furious with her for asking about the freebies and kept bringing his son into the conversation, implying this was somehow an attack on his family, only Rigby says she never mentioned his son or his family and was talking specifically about him.
What’s weird is broadcast media were mostly behind Starmer from the beginning. They are mostly neoliberals so he is supposed to be their guy, but the moment he faces the slightest scrutiny, he intimidates and alienates them. This is a reminder that if he had been scrutinised earlier, he would never have become prime minister.
Starmer is in power only because he had the media on his side. Now that he is alienating them, we’re going to see the lowest approval ratings of any prime minister ever. Mark my words.
Embarrassingly, it looks like Starmer is recruiting Jonathan Ashworth to rebuild his public image. Ashworth is the guy who campaigned in the last election by showing his constituents how racist he thought they were and gave the impression he didn’t give a fuck about Gaza. He seemed convinced he was going to keep his seat and then he lost to a pro-Palestinian independent. I therefore fully endorse Ashworth’s appointment as Starmer’s new spinmeister. It would be genuinely funny.
Starmer feels he is being victimised, but the media haven’t really gone after him for the real scandal which is the £4 million he received from a hedge fund (Labour’s largest ever donation) that he didn’t declare until after the election. They’re giving him a free pass and he still thinks he is being picked on. The reason is he has authoritarian instincts and a sense of entitlement. He thinks it’s his right to be prime minister and people should not be allowed to challenge him.
With Corbyn, they had to make up smear after smear until they found one that stuck. They made up the most sickening lies about one of the most thoroughly decent people we’ve ever had in British politics.
With Starmer, all the media are reporting are his actual policies and the fact he has received bribes, sorry gifts from his rich friends. If you’re mad the public aren’t liking your guy because they know the truth about him, you’re not a serious political operator.
Starmer is a guy who was gifted a wardrobe of designer clothes, who even let another man buy his wife clothes, who was getting VIP tickets to Taylor Swift gigs and football matches, and a free penthouse for his son for the summer holidays. Instead of acknowledging how bad this looked, he insisted the public would see it as “fair dos” and vowed to continue receiving expensive “gifts”. He only backed down when no one would let it lie.
People were disgusted the man who cut the Winter Fuel Allowance and is talking of scrapping pensioners’ bus passes and increasing tuition fees was determined to keep lining his pockets. There is this bizarre sense of entitlement like Starmer is saying, “Well, of course I’m taking what I can get! Why else would someone get into politics?”
Starmer is exactly what we said he was all along. He’s what every neoliberal is: someone who gets into politics as a career move, who is motivated only by personal gain. And if you get into politics for those reasons, you are going to enact policies that hurt ordinary people because that is what you are incentivised to do.
If you vote for neoliberals, you’re voting for legalised corruption. And the corruption is only legal because these c***s make the rules.
Here is the thing: no one gives politicians expensive gifts and expects nothing in return, because no one likes politicians! The people who can afford expensive gifts are not exactly the type of people who give money away. In other words, these are not gifts, they are bribes. The relationship is always transactional.
In the case of Lord Alli, there are strong rumours he funded the plot to overthrow Corbyn. If you’re wondering why our politicians are so corrupt it’s because the ones who aren’t corrupt are removed from politics. This is how we end up with bastards who will do things like genocide if it’s better for them personally.The last working-class hero in England.
Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021
Re: and a sour article about Rosie Duffield in the Independent by
Good riddance to Rosie Duffield – she was never a good fit for Labour - The controversial MP for Canterbury has finally realised what the rest of us already knew – it’s just a shame that it took her so long, writes Ryan Coogan
It appears Duffield's main crime in this man's eyes is her gender critical stance, for which she regularly receives death threats and indeed one man was jailed for so threatening her and J K Rowling. For her right to her own opinion, Ryan calls her a provocateur. No wonder too then she supports a free speech organisation. She would appear to be the classic victim of the nastiest side of gender activism, likely pretty strong her university constituency of Canterbury. He describes her views as "heinous" This gender nonsense really has poisoned political debate wherever it occurs. Basically in my mind, gender activists insisting one accepts their definition of gender and its anti-scientific and anti-ffactual basis, are guilty of blackmailing independent minds or opinions to become hypocrites. Well, if it comes to human failings, I think hypocrisy is mightily more dangerous than offending a few thin skinned transgender people. It's hypocrisy that is fuelling the war in Ukraine and the evils inflicted on Gaza, hypocrisy kills millions every year, an honest option on transgender kills no-one.
She also only "abstained" on the matter of the two child cap and winter fuel payment, yet look what happen's in Starmer's Labour party if you vote against. She also voted against the whip to keep the UK in the EU customs union- no credit from Ryan as to a social conscience demonstrated in the only way really available to her. Ryan fails to provide his own view on this matter,
She did though go along with the anti-semitism trope and slur put on Labour, and agree on the the IHRA's definition of anti-semitism.
Ryan also attempts a whitewash of Starmer's and Labour failings
To be clear, I’m not saying that Labour’s first 10 weeks have been all that bad. In terms of scandals, a lot of the charges against them have been relatively weak sauce, particularly when compared to the laundry list of ignobilities foisted upon this nation by their predecessors. As far as I’m concerned, there isn’t a pair of glasses or football box expensive enough to put Keir Starmer anywhere near the likes of Boris Johnson.
You'll know I suppose, living in the UK, a bit more about Rosie Duffield's qualities or lack of them more than I do, but to me, apart from her attitude on anti-semitism, she sounds to me to be a reasonably principled MP, as much as any of them are.
Re: and a sour article about Rosie Duffield in the Independent by
First, apologies for the typos, I was in a bit of hurry and the print was very small on my screen. eg option = opinion.
I mentioned this matter to my wife, had she heard of Rosie Duffield? It produced an immediate reaction, she knew all about her gender critical views that arise from her support for women's rights, and told me that an MP in the House of Commons had stood over her in some threatening way in regard to these views, , and her leader and party totally failed to support her then. I can't presently find a video of this event.
I have since also found out she gave a moving speech about her own experience of serious domestic abuse. The videos I am now watching seem to provide a positive view of Rosie and her political principles and comments under them are also supportive. .
As was predicted by many, including contributors here and including myself, Starmer's authoritarian leadership and his failure to allow for any form of radical dissent might have brought him quite a victory in the House of Commons, but they will have come with a very high price in sustaining any sort of cohesiveness in the party in time. Labour is not just a party, but it's a movement and an ideology of which radicalism is or should be a major part. Starmer has failed all this, and without those fundamental underpinnings, the party will start to disintegrate, not just in the parliament, but in the grudging support it temporarily gained in the citizenry.
Re: and a sour article about Rosie Duffield in the Independent by
"...they will have come with a very high price in sustaining any sort of cohesiveness in the party in time"
There's no problem with that: they were nearly all on-board Starmers pirate boat beforehand & there's but a few stragglers of no consequence left.
"...Labour is not just a party, but it's a movement and an ideology of which radicalism is or should be a major part...without those fundamental underpinnings, the party will start to disintegrate... "
Good grief John... that train left the station a while ago.
It certainly is not a "movement" any more and it's present ideology is craven managerial-capitalism. Some would say the "Labour" you are talking about was always a mirage...or mere wishful thinking but it's of no consequence now as even the pretence of such a party is long gone.
Re: and a sour article about Rosie Duffield in the Independent by
Perhaps I'm being a bit thin skinned, but was my opinion really that outdated or useless , Ken? Thanks for reading my post, though, but you have neglected to say anything at all about the main reason for my posting, and that's Rosie Duffield resigning the Labour whip - I would have been interested to hear what others thought about this, as I don't live in the UK and I am not au fait with all British politics.
Re: and a sour article about Rosie Duffield in the Independent by
"...but you have neglected to say anything at all about the main reason for my posting, and that's Rosie Duffield resigning the Labour whip - I would have been interested to hear what others thought about this. "
-I'd commented on this in an earlier post. To give you some degree of the calibre of what's left in Labour one of her fellow Labour MPs Nadia Whittome: a member of Labours "Socialist Campaign Group"...I kid you not, stated that Duffield: "...should never have been allowed the privilege of resigning. Labour should have withdrawn the whip long ago... "
And her crime? "...Rosie Duffield has made a political career out of dehumanising one of the most marginalised groups in society."
Well that sounds quite damning...was it Poor people? The Disabled ? The Unemployed? The Mentaly ill? The Homeless? Gypsies and Travellers? State pensioners with two bar heaters in damp council houses?
No...It was for pointing out that men who chose to masquerade in wigs and frocks aren't actually women.
-That's how totally broken the Labour party is: it's irredeemable.
Re: and a sour article about Rosie Duffield in the Independent by
on September 29, 2024, 4:12 pm