[Yug]

There is a sensible bit among the rubbish

...But Blair also suggested it was a mistake for others in the party to seek to remove Starmer as prime minister, saying: “The Labour party is playing with fire; or, more accurately with its future, and that of the country. Whether there is a leadership change or not is irrelevant if it doesn’t start with a policy debate.

“Trying to force the prime minister out, before we know what policy direction we’re bringing in, is not a serious way of conducting ourselves.”

Blair attacked Burnham and his fellow leadership contender Wes Streeting – who has often been cast as a Blairite but rejects the label – for ideas on tax and spending that he said had been rejected by serious governments. He said it was a “perennial delusion” that the party should move left while losing seats to the right, saying it was “dangerous to do it in government”...

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... nald-trump

That quote aside, why is it that when in power Blair was a much better PM than Major, while in retirement Major generally talks sense and Blair spouts thesort of bollocks Badenoch would be proud of?

[Youngian]

Is replacing Net Zero with drill baby drill really a coherent long term strategy, Tony?
Fresh from his calls to help bomb Iran, Blair suggests we move closer to Trump. Like Thatcher in 1989 and unlike Mark Carney in 2026, Blair sounds like he doesn't fully comprehend how the tectonic plates of geopolitics are reforming.

[Boiler]

why is it that when in power Blair was a much better PM than Major, while in retirement Major generally talks sense and Blair spouts thesort of bollocks Badenoch would be proud of?

Blair was always an ersatz Tory, he just hid it well. That, or his wealth has corrupted him.

Either way, he's a cunt.

[Youngian]

Like the Tory Party, Blair appears to have forgot how to shape shift and adapt to changing landscapes. Just heard a talking head suggest Andy Burnham is the person that possesses the political skills that used to make Conservative leaders (and Tony Blair) electable.

[Boiler]

As far as I'm concerned, this whole business is a fuss about nothing and changing leader will be disastrous.

Burnham and his Manc Mafia should stick to running Manchester and fuck off out of it.

As for Streeting... he can just fuck off, along with Philips and her "gobby Brummie" shtick. In the latter's case, as someone else has said, she's her own worst enemy and it undermines the good she has done.

[Abernathy]

The only possible conclusion to draw from Blair's public cogitations, it seems to me, is that he thinks we should simply hand government straight back to the Tories, preferably with Rishi Sunak back in Downing Street.

I think he can safely be ignored, and should be.

[kreuzberger]

I do like Keir; I find him such an agreeable chap. That sentiment would rise exponentially he went round to Blair's and chinned the cunt.

[Oboogie]

Caller on James O'Brien thinks Blair wants Starmer to copy his mistake of following the USA into an illegal war so he's no longer the only one and spread the blame around.
Who knows if the caller's correct, but it's a theory and it's probably more likely than my idea that Blair's been kicked in the head by a horse.

[davidjay]

I'm now more convinced than ever that the worst thing to happen to Labour in living memory was the 2001 election that gave us a landslide victory and Blair a God complex.

[mattomac]

As Clement Attlee said to Laski....

“A period of silence from you would now be welcome”

[The Weeping Angel]

Larry Elliot is unimpressed.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... telligence

AI is a case in point. The UK government is trying to steer a middle way – a very Blairite concept – in its approach. It wants to encourage AI startups while providing the proper regulatory safeguards to protect the public. It doesn’t want regulation to stifle innovation, as it does in the EU, but nor does it want a free-for-all. This seems a sensible approach. Blair, from what he says, seems to have drunk far too much of the Silicon Valley Kool-Aid.

He has also been too quick to jump on the anti-net zero bandwagon, a curious stance for a politician whose government commissioned the groundbreaking Stern review into the economics of climate change two decades ago. The choking off of crude oil shipments through the strait of Hormuz is one reason why Ed Miliband is right to be going big on renewable energy. The UK’s record-breaking temperatures this week are another.

But it is Blair’s failure to accept that the world has changed since he left Downing Street in 2007 that really jars. That change was swift and brutal. Within a month of him stepping down as prime minister, the cracks started to appear in the global financial system that led a year later to the near-collapse of banks around the world.

This was a complete system failure of the free-market liberal model championed by Margaret Thatcher. Attempts to resuscitate that model have been in vain for one simple reason: the model was a complete dud. It didn’t make the economy grow faster, it didn’t lead to higher levels of investment, it didn’t allow wealth to trickle down from rich to poor.


Instead, it led to deindustrialisation on an epic scale and – by reducing the power of trade unions – created a labour market in which employers were able to call all the shots. Labour’s changes to employment rights will shift the pendulum modestly back in favour of workers.

[Youngian]

Britain needs a plan for reindustrialisation that will raise manufacturing’s share of the economy. That will require investment – including public investment – in a range of sectors. It is not just a matter of relying on AI.

Larry doesn't put on any flesh as to why we need to reindustrialise or how. The wheels have come off the Rhineland model and even in Germany manufacturing didn't account for more than a quarter of the economy.

[Tubby Isaacs]

The Guardian are still going on Mandelson’s vetting. Sounds like there were a few things to be worried about. Which of course will lead to an “Olly Robbins was well out of order, Starmer was right” editorial, right?

I keep thinking there must be something they have v Starmer, why this constant harping on about someone sacked months ago?

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Leveson?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Britain needs a plan for reindustrialisation that will raise manufacturing’s share of the economy. That will require investment – including public investment – in a range of sectors. It is not just a matter of relying on AI.

Larry doesn't put on any flesh as to why we need to reindustrialise or how. The wheels have come off the Rhineland model and even in Germany manufacturing didn't account for more than a quarter of the economy.

It all sounds very Alternative Economic Strategy in its assumptions. At least in the seventies, it was natural for Labour to think this way, given its history and support. But it led nowhere where the Cabinet, PLP (let alone voters) were prepared to go. I can't see it being any different now. Is Larry suggesting taking over private pensions?

Very good essay on this era here.

https://shura.shu.ac.uk/13311/3/Singlet ... sector.pdf

[Youngian]

Paul Mason has put some work into a feasible 21st century industrial strategy led by defence and security spending. Trump's withdrawal of US Western leadership makes this approach even more pertinent.

[satnav]

What I have noticed in the last 10 years is that many secondary schools have stopped sending pupils out on work experience which is not great when trying to prepare pupils for the world of work. My son is 26 and when he was at secondary school about half of the year group went out on work experience whilst the rest did a version of work experience in school where they did admin work or had ago at teaching. When my daughter was 15/16 the school didn't offer any work experience because the head said that pupils would get the chance at work experience when they did 'A'-levels. This didn't work out for my daughter because she did her 'A' level during Covid so getting work experience in a hospital was almost impossible.

Luckily my daughter had decided when she was really young that she wanted to be a mid wife so she picked the right GCSES and A levels and remained focussed on her goals. The school helped her write the perfect supporting letter and when she was being interviewed by the different Universities on-line she started off with a couple of Universities that she was not really interested in but by time of her final interview for Sheffield she knew exactly what to say and completely aced the interview and got the offer of a place and she is now completing her second year as a qualified midwife. Sadly most young people don't always have parents and teachers who can push them on to achieve their dreams.