Mailwatch(ed) Forum

Jez has popped up to criticise the lack of policy debate around the leadership question. Possibly because the government already has policies and got elected on the back of a manifesto which it is mostly fulfilling. Obviously some things will change, but to think that a selectorate of Labour members get to make radical changes to that is anathema to me, and I suspect to the markets.

It’s a government not the school politics society. Get on with it.

Burnham has no democratic mandate to diverge from the manifesto. If he doesn't want to deliver that manifesto, he needs to call an early election and get his own mandate.

I’ve just renewed my membership; have I done the right thing ?

Watchman wrote: ↑Sat Jun 20, 2026 5:47 pm I’ve just renewed my membership; have I done the right thing ?

I’m close to leaving

Tubby Isaacs wrote: ↑Wed Jun 17, 2026 8:26 pm I'm also surprised by how much the Left have bought into the inevitability of Faragism in 2029. More people really don't like it than do.

Those of us of a certain age may recall "Mikey Mikey", a poster on the old site who was about as stereotypical a student union SWPer as you could imagine. A Jezzite of course. However, he broke off his chanting of the gospel according to St Jeremy when the Mango Mussolini was elected for the first time. The opportunity to sneer at all us optimistic centrists with our naive faith in the basic decency of people, was too hard to resist.

There's something deeply nihilistic about any political extreme. Commonly "hopefully it gets so bad that they're begging us to take over, because we're the only ones with a plan". After all, it worked for Lenin.

If I could buy a vote in any leadership election I would, just to vote for Starmer. But I won't get one from my Union which is strictly politically neutral as it's a subsidiary of Prospect.

But the way Labour is heading, I'll not be rejoining any time soon.

mattomac wrote: ↑Sun Jun 21, 2026 2:41 pm

Watchman wrote: ↑Sat Jun 20, 2026 5:47 pm I’ve just renewed my membership; have I done the right thing ?

I’m close to leaving

Please don't. If the good people leave, who is there remaining?

The other side of the coin is why remain in a party that's just becoming another "me first, everyone later" party?

I didn't hear it this morning on the Toady programme because by 06:10 I was sick of Robinson, ZephyrZodiac and all the other cunts creaming their pants over another scalp but I gather Neil Kinnock had some sage words on this matter. Five PMs in four years just makes this country look shit, with a completely out of control media calling the shots - there's no other way to describe it.

Elsewhere, somebody made the wry observation that for a country that decided it didn't want to be part of Europe, it has fully embraced the politics of Italy past...

Five PMs in four years just makes this country look shit, with a completely out of control media calling the shots - there's no other way to describe it.

That's exactly the thought I had. In all the previous years following politics im struggling to think of a PM being hounded out of office as over the past few years.

Watchman wrote: ↑Mon Jun 22, 2026 9:28 am

Five PMs in four years just makes this country look shit, with a completely out of control media calling the shots - there's no other way to describe it.

That's exactly the thought I had. In all the previous years following politics im struggling to think of a PM being hounded out of office as over the past few years.

The trouble is, it's not just the media: it's Starmer's own self-serving back-benchers and Burnham's fucking acolytes thinking that his taking a few buses into local government control will fix all the country's problems.

I need a break from this shit, I really do.

I'm becoming more and more aware of how little the electorate know about Burnham which leads me to question how popular he actually is. People are pointing to the Makerfield result* and claiming that means he's popular across the nation. I'm yet be convinced.

*popular local Mayor wins by-election within his Mayoralty against a shit opponent who kept alienating people.

Oboogie wrote: ↑Mon Jun 22, 2026 1:10 pm I'm becoming more and more aware of how little the electorate know about Burnham which leads me to question how popular he actually is. People are pointing to the Makerfield result* and claiming that means he's popular across the nation. I'm yet be convinced.

It's more a question of "He's not Starmer, whom I've been told to hate and was even worse than Liz Truss as a PM"

Plus the usual "liar, genocide enabler, transphobe" etc. shite.

I've already seen him accused of genocide complicity.

Well, that didn't take long...

Malcolm Armsteen wrote: ↑Mon Jun 22, 2026 2:11 pm I've already seen him accused of genocide complicity.

Was it Chris Mason, the bastard comb-over offspring of Ann Widdicombe and Dick Littlejohn?

The transphobe accusation is equally transferrable, on Twitter last night, "I won't vote for a party which wants to kill me, whoever leads it" - hundreds of likes.

"Burnham's a Mossad agent" can't be far behind.

Farage will be having the best day he's had for ages.

From Take a Wild Guess on Zelo Street:

Burnham?

The Burnham that voted in favour of the illegal Iraq war that killed hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis? That served in the Quisling Blair/Brown spiv gangs?

That Burnham?

Then again, they only seem to have time for Jez and Di, regardless.

I guess that period of blissful silence from Fenton and his alter ego couldn't last forever...

Today is arguably a fairly shit day for many aspects, but worth bearing in mind that Burnham will still be better at his absolute worst than:

* Jez
* Streeting
And then, to be fair a big gap, but also:
* Boris
* Truss
* Sunak
* May
* Cameron
* Badenoch
And then another big gap:
* Farage

Well, perhaps. But will he be better than Keir Starmer? When he is faced with precisely the same constraints, barriers, and intractable problems that Starmer has been (successfully) grappling with for (barely) the past two years ?