Burnham has been blocked!

[Ohcrap082024]

Just being reported on BBC news now. The NEC has met and refused to allow Andy Burnham to stand in the by-election. This is looking very bad for Starmer.

Couldn't agree more. Whatever you think about Blair, he had some decent politicians in his cabinet. I could weep when I see the calibre now. I had hopes for Streeting but his wings are clipped. Mahmoud seems OK.

I'm neither, and I'll be voting Labour, albeit in a somewhat 'least worst option' way because the Greens are loons, the Lib Dems are non-entities, and hell would freeze over before I'd vote Tory or Reform.

Absolutely. Another Mancunion here and completely agree. I’m getting very tired of the Starmer bashing. We had enough Prime Minister merry go round with the last lot. No one can fix the mess they made in 18 months. You can’t just swipe right on Prime Ministers.

You’d lose your money.

Is sock puppets the new go-to instead of accusing people of being bots?

By the way, you can't name change on a thread, so it's a totally baseless accusation.

Sock puppet, bot, don’t care about poor people , Russian, racist, stupid, gammon, transphobe ….there’s a huge long list of words intended to shut down any debate when you don’t agree with them. It’s not really working anymore though.

There’s also the evidence free accusation that anyone who disagrees with you is a benefit claimant and when that doesn’t work they must work in the public sector. But apparently that’s fine.

Yep. Given the numbers who dislike Starmer it’s a nonsense claim.

Evidence free? Public sector workers support Labour at around 45% as opposed to 15% of electorate in general. How is there an equivalence between pointing out obvious self interest and calling people racist or Russian spies?

Because you’re assuming that everyone with views to the left of yours must fit that stereotype. You assumed I fell into one of those two categories because of your blind prejudice not on the basis of any evidence.

Generally yes most remaining Labour supporters are state dependent on benefits or public sector workers, generally not all. Why else would you support them?
Where as in general non Labour supporters are clearly not Russian agents or racists.
Its an odd victim mentality that draws an equivalence between these.

Why else would I support them? Seriously? Not everyone is motivated by self interest. Because I don’t want millions of children living in poverty, I don’t want people living on the streets and I do want a functioning health service in which people have to wait months for care. I could go on but I strongly suspect I’d be wasting my time.

Now you’re insinuating that non Labour supporters don’t want these things? You can’t help yourself, it’s an ingrained mindset. You’ve jumped from Russian agents, racists to wanting children living in poverty. It’s not going to work, people don’t even bother arguing anymore because it’s so ridiculous.

I haven’t jumped anywhere. I haven’t called anyone a Russian agent or a racist. I voted for a government that would at least attempt to solve those issues to replace the one that spent 14 years actively making them worse. Anyone who voted for that government quite clearly displayed their lack of concern at the ballot box.

Of course you haven’t implied that 85% of the electorate who don’t support Labour (according to opinion polls) are Russian agents, racist gammons who want children to live in poverty and who just don’t know what is best for them. That would be crazy 🙄.

That 85% is because they’ve alienated so many people.

Not in all. Ours is still on.

If you vote for a government that has policies that mean millions of children live in poverty it’s not illogical to assume you’re not unduly concerned about them. Of course it’s also crazy to assume that everyone who votes for a left wing government is either benefit dependent or a public sector worker, yet here you are.

Yes, and I agree. But, as I said in my previous post, I live on a large under privileged council estate in a major city. The flag of St George is flying from every lamp post and adorning most windows in the blocks of flats. The main topic of conversation is immigration, immigration and immigration. It is blamed for every conceivable problem in the country, even things that cannot possibly be related. There is no point in trying to engage in more insightful conversation and by that I don't mean antangonistic. I'm not that stupid and I don't want to end up with a brick through my window (a strong possibility). So excuse me for my despairing words but this is the world I live in every day and you might feel the same if it was yours.

You’re still not getting it because of this odd mindset, just because someone doesn’t vote Labour it doesn’t make them a Russian agent, it doesn’t make them Racist, it doesn’t make them a ‘gammon’, it doesn’t make them not care about children. You’re talking about 85% of the electorate!! I used to find these sort of views funny until we had a Government that appears to share them and bases policies around resentment for these non existent ‘enemies of the people’ , now it’s not so funny.

When you're at the bottom of society it's easy to look for someone to blame. The right wing press (which constitutes most of the UK papers) are making absolutely sure that no-one is in any doubt who's fault it is. It's a ploy as old as time, a classic example of which is Nazi Germany and, as we are now witnessing, the States. Divide (and deflect) and rule.

It could be some great conspiracy making people not face that Labour know what’s best for them or it could just be that people like pubs?
Great work getting Nazi in 👍

What?

But hasn't this always been the case? You see a certain section of the electorate who 'blame everything on immigration' who you don't want to engage in conversation. Fine. But their vote carries as much weight as yours, whether they are uneducated or not.
We have always had uneducated voters who haven't put any deep thought into their vote, other than 'this is a Labour town, we always vote labour' or 'My family have always voted Tory'.

Getting the word Nazi in, it was a good effort