[Tubby Isaacs]

Dianne Abbott (who ?) on C4 news said she thought that the applause was “staged”.

What. A. Fucking. Idiot.

Roughly translated, nobody much agreed with her.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Political commentary. And Gaby (who I keep calling Gaby Roslin) isn't by any means among the worst. As someone BTL says, what does this "vision" stuff actually mean? There's a manifesto we can look at, and per Full Fact, lots of it seems to be happening. I don't agree with restricting student and care visas, but if you were so minded, you could say there was a vision there about what level of net immigration is appropriate, and by no means a vision confined only to Farage and Goodwin.

I alighted on Gaby because she actually noted the special needs policy, so is at least doing something beyond the others. One wonders how that policy relates to this "vision thing". Perhaps we could just judge it on its merits?

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Wormald is a Tory placeman.

[Abernathy]

Limb? Out on his treacherous Scotch arse, I hope. I have never trusted that slippery scroat.

Ahem. Treacherous Scottish arse, if you please. As you ought to know, Scotch is a golden nippy drink.

[mattomac]

Maybe it’s not quite dawned on these journalists that the reason there is no obvious replacement because it’s not 2 years into a 5 year term after a election that was a landslide.

Who was Cameron’s challenger? Only Johnson showed up after 5 years, Osborne was his obvious replacement and would without Brexit probably replaced him.

May at a push was also a possibility but Johnson, Truss and Sunak who they ended up on where never PM material.

Nethier is Badenoch or Jenrick.

Blair only ever had Brown. After 14 years a whole list of challengers don’t just show up.

[The Weeping Angel]

Guy can frankly shaft himself with a rusty spanner. He thinks government is incredibly easy and he has all the solutions odd how hes never tested the theory.

Stephen Bush is a massively pompous poor man's Sam Freedman. Freedman tends to concentrate on stuff he's seen close up, or from which he can reasonably draw analogy (so he's seen education reform, as it was called, close up, so he reasonably draws lessons on how you might reform other areas). Bush doesn't seem to have done anything.

"Warmed over Millibandism" is a ridiculous phrase. Milliband in Government is doing stuff way beyond what he contemplated as leader. Reeves is much more expansive in terms of spending and borrowing. Workers rights weren't a Milliband era priority. Nor was planning, which has the potential for the OBR to significantly upgrade growth forecasts.

Of course, lots of critics want more of the stuff Bush hates. Funny old game. And it's easy for this "radical centre" to get above itself. They were almost all telling us the WFA had to go. It did, and was enormously unpopular.

Sam Freedman in his Substack, tried to set out what a post-Starmer future would look like, mostly concluding that not a lot would change, but there might be more emphasis on stuff that appeals to progressives.

[mattomac]

Would depend who the leader is though?

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Wormald is a mandarin one is better off without. Mate of Gove...

[The Weeping Angel]

Would depend who the leader is though?

Possibly, he thinks the likeliest contender is Angela Rayner he sets out what she or he might do on immigration.

Likewise, on immigration it’s unlikely a new leader would completely reverse course. They would probably try to build on the existing deal “small boat” returns deal with France, and would keep many of the changes to legal migration rules that Yvette Cooper introduced when Home Secretary. But they could make a few tweaks to the harshest new rules to indicate a move away from the kind of performative hostility liberal voters find so unappealing. This could include scrapping some of the proposed changes to indefinite leave to remain applications, that would make it harder for people to feel secure here.

Simply by avoiding painful attempts to triangulate in search of voters that are never going to support Labour, a new leader could strengthen their political position by winning back some support that’s gone to the Greens and Liberal Democrats. Starmer is so unpopular not because Tory and Reform voters dislike him – that would be true of any Labour leader – but because he’s lost so much support from his own bloc. Even Streeting, seen as the most “right-wing” of the plausible candidates would be significantly better at appealing to the average liberal voter.

https://samf.substack.com/p/after-starm ... dium=email

[The Weeping Angel]

John Woodcock draws parallels with what happened when James Purnell resigned.

[davidjay]

John Woodcock draws parallels with what happened when James Purnell resigned.

Has anyone pointed out that this came after a three-term government that was out on its feet and still only just lost?

[Tubby Isaacs]

James Purnell, crikey, there’s a political Titan. But he was at least in the Cabinet. Not one PPS has resigned this time.

“Rescue operation” here means not changing PM because nobody has resigned?

[Youngian]

Wasn't Purnell anointed as Blair's dauphin for about three months by whoever (can't remember)?
A Labour John Moore (older viewers may recall his rise which was that of a soggy paper plane rather than meteoric).

[Tubby Isaacs]

It was a pretty brief period which I didn't really notice till it was remarked upon afterwards. Strangely, Mr Purnell left Westminster just as he'd have got the chance to test the popularity of his brilliant ideas as leader of the party.

[Abernathy]

I think I agree with Armsteen that It is Anas Sarwar who should now consider his own position and honourably resign. Whether or not his call for Keir Starmer to resign yesterday was part of a failed clandestine coup attempt in collusion with Wes Streeting, as has been suspected by some, Sarwar went right out on a limb yesterday, completely against the grain of opinion in both the entire cabinet and the Parliamentary Labour Party, and for all I know, the majority view in Scottish Labour. I cannot see how Douglas Alexander, who is supposed to be co-ordinating Labour’s campaign for the Holyrood elections alongside Sarwar, can credibly work with Sarwar for a victory while Sarwar remains in direct conflict with the party’s leadership nationally.

It looks like a very serious misjudgement by Sarwar, for which he arguably should himself resign. I’m aware that as I type this Jenny Chapman is on TV saying that Anas Sarwar & Keir Starmer need to sit down and resolve their differences and present a united front going into the Holyrood elections. Well, maybe. I’m unconvinced.

[mattomac]

Also with the Purnell situation there wasn’t 3 years til the next election.

I have no doubt Starmer won’t lead us into the next election however whoever does need most of our good actions implemented and on board to have any chance of winning. Starmer going now gives us 18 months of most.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Sadly it seems like Sarwar and pals are playing the "our problem was that we were ahead of the game" card. Doubtless they tell interviewers they're too much of a perfectionist as well.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... -challenge

One of the things they want sorted is, ridiculous populist goons, WASPI. Yeah, Starmer! Just come up with £10bn to hand out to (mostly) well off people.

Don't know what the figure would be for Scotland (about one tenth isn't a bad rule of thumb). So £1bn. If you think it's so important, they can pay it out of the Scottish budget, just like the Scottish budget (to Scotland's credit) has paid for child support and the bedroom tax. That's what the Barnett Formula and Devolution are for in my book.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Helpful Andy has popped up, advising Starmer should be "bolder". Boldness like disregarding the financial markets presumably.

Is this the same bloke who scrapped the Clean Air Zone in Manchester? Would have been a political challenge, for sure, but you're either "bold" or you aren't, right?

[davidjay]

I wonder if the reason Sarwar went public was that he'd been assured he wouldn't be alone - for example Eluned Morgan was reckoned to be saying the same thing before she said the opposite. Maybe he'd been led to believe that a few big hitters (Streeting, Rayner?) would follow him. Instead he got Diane Abbott.

[Youngian]

Just an anecdote, a Labour councillor attended an allotment association meeting last night which she was dreading as they weren't known Labour voters. She found herself getting a cheer when she said Keir should stick out the bollocks media noise and get on with the job.
Kinda felt like that about Sunak, at least he wasn't embarrassing the country and if he brings more stability that would be no bad thing.