Is Starmer seriously going to resign???

[Swayingpalmtrees]

I have been waiting for a thread to come up about this, but I can't see one to date. I can't believe Keir Starmer has now said he will resign (and Angela Rayner as well) Potentially leaving the Labour party with no leader at all!

Looking at the 'evidence' that is well known and has been published, it appears the Indian takeaway was pre ordered (due to its size) and pre planned according to the staff at the Indian and the leaked memo, it did include quite a number of people and bottles of beer etc and drinking. It was late into the night, so not work related, and no one is suggesting anyone continued to work afterwards as it was so late. I don't see how this is any different to the No10 arrangements! So how on earth will they avoid a fine??

Sir Keir's speech was so wobbly I actually thought he was resigning there and then, and although I appreciate the sentiments of integrity and honour, where on earth does that leave the LP with under two years to the election or less?

Who would replace him? Do we have any thoughts on a plan of any kind?

I am kind of aghast, we are in the middle of a European war, on the cusp of potentially WW3, I am not sure this is a responsible action given the seriousness of our predicament with Russia whom are threatening us on a weekly basis with nuclear war. At the very very least, we need a firm hand on the tiller, so to speak, we do not have time to be squabbling over beer and cheese.
AIBU?

I mean, what else would you expect in a healthcare setting? They’ll probably be among the last people who need to mask up.

She hasn’t name changed. That name’s been around for a while. She likes royal threads.

You're just special people unlike us plebs

They will be internal rules not laws.

There was best practice for offices but you did not have to legally socially distance from everyone in offices.

No I don’t mean nurses dealing with the public, because that’s not analogous to the sort of gathering we are talking about. I mean worker:colleague interaction, not worker:public, which is different.

Eg I’m a criminal lawyer, worked on an prosecution advocacy team for a large chunk of the pandemic from September 2020. Mask requirements at certain times in court, but we mixed with colleagues without masks in an office type environment when necessary. Social distancing where possible, but it wasn’t always possible.

i think many just don’t get what it was like having to do face to face jobs during the pandemic. It wasn’t just NHS and shops.

The clue is in the title, “social” distancing. Not workplace distancing.

I mean worker:colleague interaction Nurses and doctors are colleagues and have to interact with each other all the time

Yeah I felt super special working 12-16 hour days at the office, before retiring to my dingy one-bedroom apartment, because my job required me to carry on as normal.

Sorry I suppose I did move to a small but less-dingy 2 bedroom apartment at some point last year, when our previous landlord was unable to get on top of certain infestations.

But yeah, I guess that’s just a marker of being a ‘special person’.

The papers have always been more on the right what we have now that we didn’t before is social media.
Blair as we know won over a section of the press which was certainly helpful

and as with any party leader Tory or Labour not everyone is going to be happy. Starmer has done a good job at pushing the left of the party back but he isn’t connecting with voters as much as Labour need the party leader to be doing

Not everyone in the Tory party was behind Johnson but come election time they tend to keep party squabbles behind closed doors. Labour tend to air theirs

Beer gate isn’t Labour’s biggest issue it’s wining back and winning over voters and it’s not looking particularly good at the moment.

Really? I've thankfully never encountered her before.

I think Stammer is putting the police in a difficult position by saying I will resign if given a fine.

This seems like a tactic to me.

Another observation straight from the Daily Mail.

Straight from the Daily Mail. Discredit Durham Police.

Which is why I said ‘I don’t mean nurses dealing with the public’.

Yeah.

Cunning.

Whereas Johnson's making it clear he intended and intends to go right on being the first PM to break the law and stay in office was just so damn ethical. Wholly motivated by the desire to put no pressure on the police.

That Johnson: bloody great guy.

Oh.

Just to be clear - that was all sarcasm.

Felt I'd better spell that out because there are a few on the thread who would reach for their copy of Collins/OED if I told them 'gullible' isn't in the dictionary.

There was no lockdown rule that said people shouldn't have beer to wash down their food.

What Starmer was vocal about was Johnson's blatant rule breaking, including having his wife and decorator at the birthday get-together - to say nothing of his repeated lies to Parliament.

It is a handful of Whatsapp messages from aides, this can not, in my humble opinion be called a 'dossier' by anyone's standards - although I am sure they would lead you to believe there are A4 folders stretching far and wide of evidence. If it exists we have yet to hear about it.

What on earth are you talking about, OP? What we have is reports from the Labour Party of the evidence they have compiled. How can you decide you know more about that evidence than they do? They have, for instance, indicated that it includes time stamped edits of documents and videos.

Didn't he travel up north having tested positive too?

I love the fact the same posters that minimise beer and curry were literally frothing at the mouth about cake and cheese at No10.

The hypocrisy clearly extends beyond the political parties.

Which posters, and when exactly were they literally frothing at the mouth? Have you got links? You need to put up or shut up.

And I don't think you know what "literally" means.

No it wasn't. Because the rule was about gatherings during lockdown which didn't come within any of the relevant exemptions, not about sharing food. Johnson's gathering didn't come within exemptions because, for instance, it included his wife and interior designer. Starmer's came fairly and squarely within the exemption for gatherings reasonably necessary for the purposes of an election campaign, so he didn't commit any offence.

If he hadn't said he would resign if found guilty, you and those like you would be posting impassioned threads about how that would make it difficult for him to regain authority.

The truth is that you and your mates have realised you made a massive blooper which has enabled Starmer to demonstrate real integrity and left Johnson floundering and looking like the dishonest, unprincipled lying incompetent that he is. And you're trying and failing to repair it.

They'd been working together for hours. What difference would distancing in the evening have made? And no-one needed to wear masks whilst eating.

Suppose he'd refused to answer all the reporters and interviewers who asked him whether he would resign, how would you have interpreted that?

Something tells me you wouldn't have been on here commenting on how honourable he was being refusing to put the police in a difficult position ...

I doubt he will be fined so we will be stuck seeing his smarmy face on the tv 🤮