Thread 11 Starmer: Will that Phone Call Be To Harris or to Trump? (the decidedly superior looking cats thread)

[BIossomtoes]

New thread.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5195566-thread-10-starmer-first-female-chancellor-delivers-the-budget?page=40&reply=139578573

Fair.

But then I guess you don’t forget Stalin. Or Pol Pot. Or Honecker. Or, as their apologists, Hugh Dalton, Beatrice Webb, Bevan, Scargill, Benn, Corbyn and the rest of the useful idiots.

👍

Oh come on, I'm Scottish. I still bang on about Bannockburn.

Donkeys live a very long time.

I've literally never heard anyone call Tony Benn an idiot.

Nor me. Nor Beatrice Webb or Bevan.

Yes.

Just not with women in it.

By Tony Benn I assume you mean The Viscount Stansgate?

”Useful idiots” is the term given to starry-eyed communist acolytes who would promote the cause while the regimes they supported or excused butchered, tortured and repressed many millions.

Scargill would probably be in Reform now, to be honest.

I'm a bit confused by the list. Is it just a list of socialists?

Dalton is a really odd inclusion.

That's possibly your definition of useful idiot.

Some might call Trump ( or even Johnson) Putin's useful idiot.

They might do. And it can obviously be reapplied as necessary. But that’s not where the term comes from.

Scargill was far from hero worshipped by FIL and his friends (all miners).

Largely apocryphal.

Were they from Nottinghamshire?

Genuinely... I am interested as to why Dalton, committed Zionist, probably racist and definitely not a gentle hippy pacifist or a Communist is on the list.

Nope. Northeast. They thought he was a gobshite!

Have a look at Labour and the Gulag, by Giles Udy.

A man who writes for UnHerd, The Telegraph and The Mail?

I am sure I could also point you in directions to read about some Tories.

Bonnie Greer nails it talking about the non existent special relationship between the UK and the US. We're fucked as far as that

x.com/holte/status/1854658722808607195?t=PpuJPczfe1KURgctyDJs8w&s=19

"Be a flea, annoy and confuse"

So Kemi Badenoch's first Shadow Cabinet meeting began with a presentation on "how to do opposition well", delivered by... Iain Duncan Smith

https://x.com/AdamBienkov/status/1854655329511813464

IDS was such an effective leader of the opposition. (sarcasm)

If anyone can learn anything from him it's that you can't lead if you're merely following what you think your party or supporters want from you, unless you have the brass neck of someone like Farrage.

Scrolling down, Mrs DS seemed to be doing the same sort of loud thinking that Mrs Jenrick did on Saturday.

Excellent speech from BG there.

IDS opens KBs shadow cabinet? She has well and truly nailed her colours to the mast now. I guess she didn't have many to choose from.

if it’s early to opine on Labour success then so to for Badenoch. I am not a fan but she has the Devil’s own job. She has also not appointed a deputy which is may be a mistake.

The most awful thing about opposition is the lack of resources. The government have all of them. I think that is where Badenoch will struggle.

Anyway she must build her team. The better it is, the more it should keep Labour accountable. If it’s going to be a load of culture war bullshit then really she won’t be doing the actual job.

I don’t know why she’s chosen someone whose leadership only lasted two years and was kicked out on a vote of no confidence

She has also not appointed a deputy which is may be a mistake.

Because it's going to cause a split somewhere. Either they are Team Kemi (and so a potential replacement) or Team Not Kemi (and so a potential replacement).

Despite the medias complicity. the Tory party is a quagmire that cannot be built on right now.

In a weird way, a Trump win might have been the worst thing for them. Now there is an expectation they will try to leapfrog Reform to the far right.

I don’t know but what is clear is that a lot of the Parliamentary party don’t like her, and a lot of her opponents are on the back benches. Senior Tories do like her, but they aren’t in the shitfest that is in opposition. They have already had their careers.

If it’s going to be a load of culture war bullshit then really she won’t be doing the actual job

A lot of the MN Badenoch fans want exactly that, They don't give a toss about her other policies.