[Andy McDandy]

Also, playing at school governor loses its appeal when your own kids are no longer there.

[Samanfur]

Kate Hollern has resigned from the Shadow Cabinet in fall out from the Michael Hill accusations.

I don't think I'd ever even heard of her until just now. Glancing down the list of current Labour MP's, it's surprising how few familiar names there are at the moment.

MP for Blackburn. Corbyn's former PPS.

Married to my branch's former chairman, until he died a few years ago. Still let us use her house as one of our election day command centres, pre-pandemic. Normally very pleasant.

I'll be interested to see how this works out, as I suspect will quite a few people around here.

[mattomac]

McDonnell urges Labour leadership to promote Burgon and Long-Bailey

"Becky Long-Bailey was in my team and she was one of the sharpest I'd ever met," he said.

Of Richard Burgon, McDonnell said: "I think he was one of the sharpest shadow cabinet ministers that we had and he was good on his feet on the floor of the house.

"People underestimate him - a good, young lawyer, knows his stuff. I think held the government well to account." https://www.theneweuropean.co.uk/brexit ... io-7968854

I can’t remember what rubbish he had in his manifesto but I remember each idea was sillier than the last. I thought McDonnell had better judgement than that.

I remember RLB written all the policies for Labour, she never slept which just sounds like an unhealthy work life balance

[Bones McCoy]

Also, playing at school governor loses its appeal when your own kids are no longer there.

Especially if you can trade up to an Acedemy Chain job (I've got school stuff on my CV) and coin a bigger mint.

[Arrowhead]

I see Lord Adonis, having surveyed the latest round of opinion polls, has hit the panic button labelled "Time for Blair"

Adonis was useful when Brexit looked like it could still either be prevented or softened, but that time (alas) has now well and truly passed.

[kettle]

His obsession with Tony Blair is really weird. He also seems to live in some sort of bubble unaware that Blair is profoundly unpopular with the public, and that the New Labour trick won't work a second time. The world has moved on and the safe seats Blair could ignore whilst chasing the centre ground just don't exist anymore.

[Boiler]

Before long, Labour is going to have to take a long, hard look in the mirror as it is in danger of becoming an outflanked irrelevance; the Tories are now the big-spending party whilst the Greens are being more radical and seem more in touch with those who face economic hardship on a daily basis.

If it doesn't, it will soon be as irrelevant as the Lib Dems.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

I'm not sure why Andrew Adonis™ Adonis is so fixated on Tony Blair, though I have thoughts, but it's a bit easier to track in the other direction.

A lot of the issues with Blair are due to his religious beliefs, which for a while seemed to border on mania. This was in the early 2000s when he was moving towards Catholicism, spurred on by Cherie and Adonis™, alongside Bush, who incidentally persuaded him that the invasion of Iraq was a quasi-religious war. Or mission, at least. Adonis is a religious freak (though not Catholic) and was behind the drive to faith schools, and the issue which actually led to the sacking of Estelle Morris (she saw them as divisive and regressive and said so). From my own knowledge Blair, advised by Adonis, was at that time prepared to accept creationism as an act of faith. So he acted as a spiritual mentor to Blair (alongside Monsignor Mark O'Toole), and I think takes ownership of him.

[Boiler]

I'm not sure why Andrew Adonis™ Adonis is so fixated on Tony Blair, though I have thoughts, but it's a bit easier to track in the other direction.

A lot of the issues with Blair are due to his religious beliefs, which for a while seemed to border on mania. This was in the early 2000s when he was moving towards Catholicism, spurred on by Cherie and Adonis™, alongside Bush, who incidentally persuaded him that the invasion of Iraq was a quasi-religious war. Or mission, at least. Adonis is a religious freak (though not Catholic) and was behind the drive to faith schools, and the issue which actually led to the sacking of Estelle Morris (she saw them as divisive and regressive and said so). From my own knowledge Blair, advised by Adonis, was at that time prepared to accept creationism as an act of faith. So he acted as a spiritual mentor to Blair (alongside Monsignor Mark O'Toole), and I think takes ownership of him.

<fx: reads, slowly raises eyebrows and widens eyes to maximum>

Wasn't this all about the time certain individuals were getting very hot under the (dog)collar about ordaining women in the CofE and an exodus to Catholicism occurred? Memory's getting a bit foggy. I do remember Estelle Morris being rather good in that post.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

That was earlier, I believe. Widdlecombe made her gesture against teh gayz in 1993.

[Boiler]

I'd click the "informative" button except we not got one any more.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I think this is basically bollocks from Wren-Lewis here (who seems to have appointed himself a Covid expert). That would involved a Covid rate way lower than anywhere in Western Europe apart from the famed international crossroads that is Denmark, which funnily enough wasn't as badly hit by the Kent Variant as the UK. What would he suggest Labour say when Wales is quoted back at them (where I think the government did reasonably well)? How on earth could this attack on Johnson stick?

As you were, Anneliese.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Interesting.

[Boiler]

A comment on what Labour apparently stands for spotted elsewhere:

Screenshot_2021-05-20 Train announcement causes offence to one person.png (4.66 KiB) Viewed 8924 times

[Crabcakes]

Interesting.

There's a big Sikh community round here, and one of the local councillors is a sikh and he gets a massive chunk of loyalty vote. Regrettably he's a Tory, but by all accounts does at least seem to get stuff done and not be a headbanger.

Goes to show the strength of having a big, ready-made community backing though.

[Boiler]

Jon Cruddas on Labour's travails.

Cruddas says he hopes to contribute to this work, but he remains troubled by how far the party has drifted from its traditional working-class roots - and fallen into the arms of "Remainia", a land inhabited by young, educated, networked professionals who campaigned for Britain to stay in the EU, and who now make up much of the party's membership.

He is also alarmed by influential voices on the left who promote utopian visions of a Fourth Industrial Revolution, where robots do all the work, and the masses are pacified by a "universal basic income".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57204335

This latter one smacks of the laughable "Luxury Communism".

[Tubby Isaacs]

Who are these influential voices on the left? Sure, there are a lot of people who think that there will be tons of surplus labour because of AI, but just seen as something which will happen, it's not a utopian vision. And they don't seem to be all that near the leadership of the Labour Party. Various people support UBI, by no means all people who believe in the imminent disappearance of unskilled work.

What policies are implied by Cruddas there? Government intervention to slow down the growth of robots?

[Arrowhead]

Oh FFS, “Remainia” - otherwise known as literally the entire United Kingdom for several decades until a bunch of shark-eyed grifters and charlatans took over and helped Boris the Ledge deliver his steaming hot turd.

I understand the wider points Cruddas is making, but the likes of Burnham and himself are going to have to do a lot better when addressing their Remain contingent. Muttering nonsense about Remainia or “embracing Brexit” isn’t going to cut it, unless they wish to oversee an exodus of voters to the Lib Dems.

[Malcolm Armsteen]

If these cretins continue this course the party will be reduced to irrelevancy. And justifiably so.

[Youngian]

I don’t understand why Cruddas is suggesting Remainers are opposed to his work security agenda or in favour of global neoliberal corporatism having more power over national governments. Does he think Tony Benn and Chavez are the architects of Brexit?
And what’s more most of the freelancing ‘urban elite’ would give their right arm for the full diary of a spark in Dagenham. Who has no interest in trade unions or ‘community’ (whatever that means).