June 2020 was around the time I stopped giving Starmer the benefit of doubt as it became obvious that there were problems with him.
Labour cannot win with only the support of English TERFs and racists.
If only I could predict lottery numbers like I can predict political disasters, then I could afford to get the fuck off this shithole island.
Watching as an outsider, it was pretty clear there were problems with most of them, even before the election. (None as bad as any of the Tories, of course.)
Labourâs history as a workers party has not translated smoothly to the modern political landscape. On workerâs rights issues the candidates from 2020 largely agreed (except possibly Long-Bailey, given her former career as a lawyer for private medical conglomerates) and still agree, but on practically any other issue (Brexit, civil rights, foreign policy,âŚ) there is not uniform agreement among the UK workers, and so no one candidate was likely to avoid major opposition within the party.
Once the pandemic is over and Brexit fallout has settled there is some hope that Labour can do some soul-searching and decide on its identity. Meanwhile, I suspect youâre stuck with Pfeffle for a while, unless his latest scandals do him in (they wonât).
And the arrest of the sitting Labour mayor on bribery and intimidation charges.
I hadnât heard that. Does show how we like to extrapolate from purely local issues.
And if those are the options presented then Labour is dead. Maybe I am not being clear enough.
WE NEED SOMETHING DIFFERENT!
We donât need another Corbyn, trying to make 1970s politics work in in the 2020s. We donât need another Blair, trying to make 1990s politics work in the 2020s, We donât need Blue Labour, trying to make 1930s politics work in the 2020s.
WE NEED SOMETHING DIFFERENT!
We need to look at how the world has changed since then. Labour losing places like Hartlepool and the rest of the Red Wall isnât about woke politics, it is about young people who would vote Labour moving to the big cites, where the universities are, where the jobs are. What is left is an aging population in a deteriorating town, a town that will only get worse as the replacement for EU money doesnât appear. Labour is to blame for this as much as the Tories, but it isnât the usual dogwhistles that are the problem, it is the constant move to the right, where everything becomes a zero sum game, where there have to be losers as well as winners. How the fuck did that become acceptable to Labour? Why?
I have been told by that I am not working class, apparently having grown up in a terraced house in a Northern England town alongside people who were labourers and shop assistants isnât enough anymore. The new definition appears to be cishet white English small business owners, if we are to believe the press. Trans people are not working class, even though as a group we are mostly precariat. Disabled people are not working class, unless we are to be brought out as a prop to show how difficult working class carers have it, we certainly arenât meant to have any ideas because that would be ungrateful (Mental playlist: Spasticus Autisticus by Ian Dury). Students arenât working class, because the working class should all be barely literate. People in big cities arenât working class, because cosmopolitan elites or some bigoted bullshit. And now the hatred of the wrong kind of working class starts to appear. People probably think because I live in Oxford I am rich or a university professor, letâs just ignore that a couple of streets away from me someone starved to death when they were cut off their benefits and that my finances are a constant juggling act (I need to pay my bills, but I canât have too much money otherwise I will be cut off my disability benefits and then I also wonât be able to pay my bills). I could probably be used in a study for why people feel disillusioned with Labour, but instead I am invisible and that is by design. People donât want to hear what I have to say, because the truth will hurt a lot of people just like it hurts me every day.
WE NEED SOMETHING DIFFERENT!
We need to move past the belief that any left winger is a Corbynite, we need to move past the idea that Labour can win with milder versions of Tory policies. We need a party who actually looks at where this country is going and will do something to stop the inevitable catastrophe.
If you are looking for a name, I canât give you one. I can give a list of people who I donât think it should be, from all across the political spectrum of the party, but that wonât be helpful. I do have ideas on where to go, but the Labour party wonât listen to me, the old ideas are too entrenched and mine are too fringe.
WE NEED SOMETHING DIFFERENT!
After some days of dealing with the internal Labour bullshit I think that the anarchists have the right idea. I know I was already sympathetic to that view, but having been told that I need to grow up because of that it is shocking and depressing to find that local and national politics are even more childish, schoolyard bullshit with bullying and petty fighting. Maybe I wasnât the one who needed to grow up.
At this point I am expecting a stalking horse, although one who would be acceptable to the soft left and soft right should they manage a Corbyn and actually win a leadership challenge. I honestly donât expect the next Labour leader to become prime minister, the damage of the last couple of years needs to be repaired and that wonât happen overnight. A caretaker leader is needed.
From your lips to all our ears. When you say that, you donât just speak for the UK, or Europe, or the âwest,â or âdeveloped nations,â but for the whole damn world. All of us need just exactly that. I hope that all of us working together can create some very real change. We need to work across all these arbitrary lines that weâve built up around ourselves so they can finally be seen for what they are - historically contextual and human made - and understood as being entirely mutable and improved for the good of all of us.
You are one of the people here that always teaches me something new almost every time we talk. We need more truth out of you, because your truth helps us understand the world and how it functions better. Keep speaking the truth, because some people are listening, hearing, and trying to change things for the better.
Also, I came to post thisâŚ
Boris Johnson doesnât believe in democracy⌠film at 11!
I see, so when Starmer talks about taking full responsibility for the results he just means sacking others? Got it.
It feels like England is going down a very different and dangerous path to the devolved nations, the SNP almost had a clean sweep in Scotland and Labour have done very well in Wales. Partly i think because theyâve both handled the pandemic response a lot better.
Sack a woman, because the men canât take responsibility. And she is one of the few pro-trans voices in the party. 
ETA:
Starmer really is doubling down on appealing to the right wing voters who didnât vote for him on Thursday. Those demotions are only soft left MPs, there arenât any far left shadow cabinet ministers left.
Please donât make Jess Phillips chief whip or shadow minister for health. I could cope with her as shadow foreign minister, she might actually do some good there.
https://twitter.com/politicsforali/status/1391121378796089348?s=21
Oh, great. 
Luke âNuke first, ask questions laterâ Akehurst just lost to the Green Party 
Weâre still stuck with him on the NEC though 
Luke Akehurst is Labour Hard-right. Pro nukes, pro middle east wars, abusive attitude to anyone even slightly left wing. I donât know how he is still in the Labour party.
He also thinks that the Freikorps were socialist (and is disturbingly supportive about them).
And a YouTube âpranksterâ is beating Laurence Fox.
Will there be a video?
Oh, you mean beating him in the election. Thatâs good too, I guess.
Final Scottish election results in:
Almost no change- SNP and Greens up, Labour and Lib Dems down:
BBC news spinning this as a loss for the SNP, because they didnât get an overall majority, in a proportional electoral system that awas designed to avoid giving a single party a majority.
Meanwhile, There are at least some people in Labour finally proposing another direction for the party:
No, youâre being clear. Iâm not disagreeing with you.
This year is the 40th anniversary of the Limehouse Declaration. Revisiting the language, much of it could have been written this year (despite the fact that its authors were mainly leaving from the blue side of the party, and as a misguided reaction to Michael Foot, one of my favorite UK politicians):
We seek to reverse Britainâs economic decline. We want to create an open, classless and more equal society, one which rejects ugly prejudices based upon sex, race or religion.
We do not believe the fight for the ideals we share and for the recovery of our country should be limited only to politicians. It will need the support of men and women in all parts of our society.
We do not believe in the politics of an inert centre merely representing the lowest common denominator between two extremes.
We want more, not less, radical change in our society, but with a greater stability of direction.
We recognise that for those people who have given much of their lives to the Labour Party, the choice that lies ahead will be deeply painful. But we believe that the need for a realignment of British politics must now be faced.
Unfortunately, all that this defection from Labour led to was two landslide victories for Thatcher.
Not that great a spin
The Scottish voting system was specifically designed to prevent any one party having a majority in the 129-seat parliament - although the SNP did manage to do so in the 2011 election.
The SNP is also creaking with sleaze and division which they will have to deal with before hitting the referendum trail.
Sam Allardyce might be available.
Nope. Heâs just sacked Rayner instead. Because thatâll help.
But heâs a Ukip type isnât he?
Joey Bartonâs politics fit but heâs also one of the people most likely to hit de Pfeffel with the mace repeatedly, and while that might be entertaining itâs not the change I envision.
Neville Southall is also available, but if people didnât like Corbyn then they will hate him. He would be a safe pair of hands though.
I donât know what Nigel Pearsonâs politics are (He did drop a player for vocally supporting the BNP, which is a good start), but he might have the right reputation to get Labour out of this mess, and he did sign most of the Leicester team that Ranieri turned into Premier League champions.
I donât think any of them could do any worse than Starmer.
Edit:
Alex Ferguson is a member of the Labour Party, isnât he? People might object if he gets back into Europe though.
The rumours are that she and Starmer have been fighting each other for months, presumably Rayner telling him that he is losing core supporters and Labour party members with his lack of leadership, Starmer denying this, then she gets sacked for not being loyal or something.
Sheâs still deputy leader, and Starmer canât remove her from that job.
And while we are at it: demanding loyalty from curatorsâŚ
Fucking hell but the Tories are evil shits.
