frankPodmore

frankPodmore, 2 hours ago

Wes Streeting also ruled out Liz Truss joining.

Interesting question, though: would they accept Humza Yousaf? The people must be told!

frankPodmore, 12 hours ago

This is the sunk costs fallacy. If a policy is bad, you scrap it, you don’t stick with it just because it’s there already.

frankPodmore, 8 hours ago

True, but they do move money through here, not just people. Plus, the plans include actually working with France and the EU, not just picking arguments to keep the europhobes happy.

frankPodmore, 2 days ago

Bizarre day where both Kate Osamor and Natalie Elphicke (re)join the PLP.

frankPodmore, 2 days ago (edited 2 days ago)

This is an utterly bizarre defection. Going to be a lot of consternation in her local CLP if they’re expected to go doorknocking for a prominent Boris Johnson supporter!

EDIT: Per The Guardian, she’s not standing again.

frankPodmore, 2 days ago

Apparently not, as she’s not standing again! Says something about how much Sunak’s own MPs hate him that, rather than quietly quitting in a few months, they’re knifing him on the way out by defecting.

frankPodmore, 2 days ago (edited 1 day ago)

Yes, the principle is ‘Labour governments are good, do things that make Labour governments more likely.’

Think about it: the message Sunak is trying this week is: ‘voting Labour will lead to chaos’. Yet another Tory MP defecting totally undermines that argument, because it paints the Conservatives, not Labour, as being out of control. That’s a win for Labour.

Secondly, what has Labour’s message been since Sunak took power? It’s been: ‘Sunak is weak’. This makes him look weak. Another win.

Sunak is convinced banging on about small boats will save him. A Tory MP quitting because he hasn’t stopped the boats undermines one of the few lines he thinks works. That leaves him with nothing to say, making him again look both out of control and weak.

The downside for Labour is that Natalie Elphicke is clearly a nutter. But, that doesn’t detract from any of the above. Most people have never heard of her. She’s only going to be a Labour MP for a few months. So, overall it’s a win for Labour.

frankPodmore, 2 days ago

People have said exactly this about every Labour government, right down to the cliche about the ties. And yet, somehow, despite being Tories, all those LABOUR goverments somehow did a whole load of very Labour things! Amazing!

frankPodmore, 2 days ago

This is nothing but arrogant posturing. Who put you in charge of what the party of the workers should and shouldn’t do?

frankPodmore, 2 days ago

So, your position is… what? That the government should stagger on? That they can be trusted to deal with immigration?

frankPodmore, 2 days ago

You are hearing dog whistles where there are no dog whistles.

frankPodmore, 2 days ago

What is an ‘anti worker view’?

frankPodmore, 2 days ago

My main worry is that she’s just so mad that she might cause trouble for us even in the limited time she’s going to be in the PLP. If I were in Starmer’s shoes, I’d have had her sign some sort of contract promising not to speak to the press, at all, ever.

frankPodmore, 1 day ago

That’s not an anti worker view, it’s a description, either accurate or not, of a few shouty people at a protest.

frankPodmore, 1 day ago (edited 1 day ago)

Starmer isn’t condoning her message; it’s the other way around. She’s been a critic of the Conservative immigration policy, and now she’s effectively saying ‘Labour’s immigration policy is better’ - which it is. There’s not the slightest hint that Labour’s policy, which is much like what you’ve said you’d like to see, has changed.

frankPodmore, 1 day ago

There you go, some actual facts! Much easier to have a conversation when we talk about those instead of grandstanding, isn’t it?

I don’t agree with her votes on union issues, of course. But now she’s joined the party promising to reverse those, she’s implicitly endorsed reversing them. I assume she voted with the Whip. Maybe she’s changed her mind on that stuff, maybe not; maybe she never believed it and just did what the Whips said. I guess we’ll see if and how her voting record changes now she’s joined Labour.

She’s also campaigned for rent controls, which puts her to the left of current Labour policy. So, where does that leave us? She’s anti-worker but pro-renter? She’s left of some MPs, right of some others, so… just like every MP, then?

frankPodmore, 2 days ago

Yeah, I signed up to one of the group-buying schemes that Sadiq Khan brought in, in theory to make it cheaper to put solar panels on your house. The company that got the contract ended up going bust, so no solar panels for me! At least I got the deposit back.

frankPodmore, 3 days ago (edited 2 days ago)

It won’t change anything, as you say, but it would be controversial both domestically and internationally. For starters, politicians generally won’t say anything specific about even apolitical, uncontroversial crimes, in case they prejudice any future trials. Obviously, this is neither apolitical nor uncontroversial.

Also, it wouldn’t actually silence his critics on this, precisely because it won’t change anything. The war will continue, so people would just start demanding that he demand issuing arrest warrants for Israeli government ministers who come to the UK, or trade embargoes, or whatever.

frankPodmore, 2 days ago

See? This is exactly my point. Even the mere hypothesis that he might say something about genocide has led you on to another demand. I’m not criticising you for this, nor am I saying that it’s a bad thing. My point was simply that acknowledging genocide wouldn’t do anything to silence his critics over Gaza, and I feel I’ve demonstrated that.

frankPodmore, 2 days ago (edited 2 days ago)

It’s just not true that he’s not said anything. Not saying the exact thing you’d like is not the same as saying nothing. Literally the first result when I searched Ecosia was ‘Sir Keir Starmer calls for Gaza “ceasefire that lasts”’. This was obviously not the first thing he’d said, because it was a shift from his previous position that it wasn’t the right time for a ceasefire (and, indeed, his previous egregious comments that seemed to defend Israel shutting off the water supplies, which he also either walked back or clarified, depending on your level of sympathy). Finally, here he is yesterday reiterating his position that the Rafah offensive must not go ahead. Obviously, these examples both collectively and individually show that you are wrong when you say ‘he’s not saying anything’ about Gaza, as he has said quite a lot about it and, as the example from yesterday shows, keeps saying more things in response to new developments. I sincerely do not see why you think you can have this discussion when you’re making such flatly inaccurate claims about it.

We know that people wouldn’t stop criticising him over Gaza because, a couple of months ago, people were saying ‘All we want is for him to call for a ceasefire’. He did. Now they say ‘All we want is for him to call it a genocide.’ If he does that, they will say ‘All we want is [new thing]’. I’ve proved this point already: I raised a hypothetical way someone might continue to criticise him, and you instantly took it up and agreed that it would be a valid criticism.

Seriously though, please go and do some research so that you can criticise Starmer for his actual position on this. I agree with you that his position is, and has been, the wrong one. Where I disagree with you is 1) on the facts, which I have proved; 2) on the likely consequences of any comments he might make about genocide.

frankPodmore, 3 days ago

Sorry!

In the original cut they did use the Latin alphabet, so this is, incredibly, yet another thing George Lucas did to make the first film retroactively annoying.