I believe Starmer is making a huge mistake by following the hostile environment of the Tories’ making. People might care about immigration but we care more about getting a GP appointment, our bin collections, health and social care and robust public services. My case in point is that I sent off the application for renewal of my PIP in August last year. I phoned the DWP to ask how it was progressing as I hadn’t heard anything from them in six months. The chap I spoke to was very friendly and polite but he informed me that my application hadn’t even been looked at yet. On Monday I received a letter saying that due to the delay, my PIP has been automatically extended for a year. I mean, I’m not going to argue with that but the machines of government are not working and this is more likely to push voters towards Reform because neither Labour nor Conservatives are delivering what people so desperately need.
Also, having just watched a few minutes of PMQs, it is chilling how badly people are being treated. My soon-to-be daughter in law came here via the Ukraine scheme and has made a life here with my son. She works so hard and pays her taxes. If everyone coming to this country could work, we’d all be better off. I was also horrified at the film of people being deported. Haven’t we had enough of performative cruelty?
Lovely photo of your Grandad, Adam. I’m glad he made it here and was welcomed.
There was a study done recently by Chris Hanretty at the Royal Holloway University that showed Keir Starmer is further to the right than almost all his Labour MPs scoring 48. Ed Davey of the Lib Dem’s scored 37. Left being lower. Reform and Suella Braverman scored 95.
In the past if an MP’s political convictions changed they’d defect to another party. Not now. Instead, he’s purged the left and is now trying to appeal to Tory voters AND using Reform tactics.
I voted Remain I voted tactically I tried to make excuses for Starmer because HOPE but that’s it. I’m a natural Left Winger.
I think his strategy is, the Left hate Tories ( after the last 14 years who can blame them) so they won’t vote for Reform or Tories so he’s now ignoring the entire left and is pitching his camp in Reform territory as they’re ahead of us now. No matter about the policies, ethical considerations, values. This will backfire. All the political parties with the exceptions of the Greens and LibDems are now lurching to the right. It’s very bad for democracy. Starmer is simply not behaving like a centrist and definitely not a Left wing party. And it’s absolute nonsense to suggest that if anyone can’t stand his politics now it’s because they’re hard-left. He’s not centre-left he’s centre-right or Blue Labour and that’s being generous. Labour can and should be a broad church. I can’t even call KS a progressive Tory now. Especially not after the AI summit. I live in what is now a LibDem seat now previously Tory. I will definitely vote LibDem. Especially now they’re one of the most left-wing parties on offer!
Also well worth a read: hitherto Starmer-supporting Ian Dunt (writing in the i Newspaper) has an excoriating denunciation of Labour's newly-evolved refugee policy, which is now being implemented quietly by the equivalent of Trump's executive orders with no democratic scrutiny.
The government’s morally vacuous ReformCon anti-immigrant, frankly racist, campaign shames us all.
Why not trial letting plausible would-be refugees in by safe routes, processing them super-fast, making political capital from about how many educated, skilled and professional people we have authorised to join the work force and returning the indisputably illegals also super-fast (yes, yes: I know that’s the hard part). Then cut back visas for legal immigration to match off the numbers.
Massive English language and cultural acclimatisation classes to be provided. Faith schools to be severely restricted and in due course banned - to support integration and more broadly promote societal cohesion nationally.
To some extent I am flying a kite here, but we have to have some new liberal but effective immigration policies fast.
The only way to defeat Farage on immigration is to challenge him, not engage in a race to the bottom you can't win.
Poll after poll show people want "lower immigration", but this is in the abstract. If you ask which type of migrant should be cut, they struggle and say NO to doctors, nurses, care workers, scientists or students. This indicates that the public has some understanding of the important role many migrants play and the consequences of stopping
It's impossible to cut migration substantially without cutting these categories and this is the message the Labour govt should be banging home. Some attack lines: "Nigel Farage wants to make NHS waiting lists longer" "Reform UK want to collapse British universities" etc Reform is very weak on the NHS anyway as he doesn't really support it.
This can be accompanied by measures to improve training and educational opportunities for locals for jobs where the country lacks people. Do that & Farage is left with only the genuine racists on his side.
The long road to Rishi Sunak’s defeat was heralded by his priorities. Specifically Stop the Boats. Not some boats but all of them.
He started with Reform UK limited at low single digit polling. At the time of the election Sunak had boosted the appeal of Reform to the mid-teens.
Reform has immigration as its happy place. Like the demonising of the EU it can pretend that all problems will be solved by repelling the migrants.
Labour should be pressing Farage on his anti-union approach. Maybe his proposals to bring private insurance to the NHS.
However, Starmer’s Labour is, according to John Harris of the Guardian, Stalinism if it was run by Alan Partridge. Fighting on Farage’s own turf will only enhance Farage.
Having watched Sunak get sucked in Starmer seems to want some of that too.
It's about time Labour grew some balls and presented a coherent vision, and created an alternate, humanitarian, framing of the issues. Why can't they understand that aping other political parties is always a losing strategy. As Groucho Marx put it:
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others."
I had the privilege, back in the 1990s, of befriending a man who was running a large academic publishing company in Australia. He had arrived there in 1945 on a boat as a 20-something refugee from WW2, without a penny or a friend in the world. He was put to work in S Australia digging a new railway by hand, along with hundreds of other male refugees. Until the day came when a civil servant arrived on a jeep, and shouted out: ‘anyone here with a university degree?’ That was the start for him of a journey back to the kind of work he was doing, in Central Europe, before Hitler arrived. He loved his adopted country for giving him the opportunity; he even forgave it the months of hard labour. But why not cut to the chase and take people’s abilities straight off the bat?
Thanks for this Adam. We need more opposition to this drift to the hard right. As racism grows it will be further encouraged if all politicians are trying to court "public opinion" rather than doing the decent thing, dealing with the economic causes. This is a self confirming downward spiral to a racist state and I think we all know what that means. I never expected this from Labour, it is shameful.
It is hard to describe how colossally idiotic Labour’s attempt at beating Farage appears. We now have Facebook groups using Reform colours, not mentioning Labour but run by numbskull activists who think they can out Farage Farage. I’ve said in no uncertain terms what I think. Much more of this and I’ll be outside the tent pissing in.
Hi Adam. I used to know someone - the father of a friend - who was also Polish and also escaped a gulag. He fought at Monte Casino before ending up in the UK and living here for the rest of his life. He told me that you had a chance of surviving in the extreme cold and harsh conditions if you were between 25 and 35. Anyone not in the prime of life and peak condition would not survive very long. The difference between the Soviet camps and Nazi camps was that they weren't set up for the purpose of working people to death. Primo Levy makes this point too in If This Is A Man. That may sound like a distinction without a difference, but it is the difference between callous negligence and active evil.
I believe Starmer is making a huge mistake by following the hostile environment of the Tories’ making. People might care about immigration but we care more about getting a GP appointment, our bin collections, health and social care and robust public services. My case in point is that I sent off the application for renewal of my PIP in August last year. I phoned the DWP to ask how it was progressing as I hadn’t heard anything from them in six months. The chap I spoke to was very friendly and polite but he informed me that my application hadn’t even been looked at yet. On Monday I received a letter saying that due to the delay, my PIP has been automatically extended for a year. I mean, I’m not going to argue with that but the machines of government are not working and this is more likely to push voters towards Reform because neither Labour nor Conservatives are delivering what people so desperately need.
Also, having just watched a few minutes of PMQs, it is chilling how badly people are being treated. My soon-to-be daughter in law came here via the Ukraine scheme and has made a life here with my son. She works so hard and pays her taxes. If everyone coming to this country could work, we’d all be better off. I was also horrified at the film of people being deported. Haven’t we had enough of performative cruelty?
Lovely photo of your Grandad, Adam. I’m glad he made it here and was welcomed.
There was a study done recently by Chris Hanretty at the Royal Holloway University that showed Keir Starmer is further to the right than almost all his Labour MPs scoring 48. Ed Davey of the Lib Dem’s scored 37. Left being lower. Reform and Suella Braverman scored 95.
In the past if an MP’s political convictions changed they’d defect to another party. Not now. Instead, he’s purged the left and is now trying to appeal to Tory voters AND using Reform tactics.
I voted Remain I voted tactically I tried to make excuses for Starmer because HOPE but that’s it. I’m a natural Left Winger.
I think his strategy is, the Left hate Tories ( after the last 14 years who can blame them) so they won’t vote for Reform or Tories so he’s now ignoring the entire left and is pitching his camp in Reform territory as they’re ahead of us now. No matter about the policies, ethical considerations, values. This will backfire. All the political parties with the exceptions of the Greens and LibDems are now lurching to the right. It’s very bad for democracy. Starmer is simply not behaving like a centrist and definitely not a Left wing party. And it’s absolute nonsense to suggest that if anyone can’t stand his politics now it’s because they’re hard-left. He’s not centre-left he’s centre-right or Blue Labour and that’s being generous. Labour can and should be a broad church. I can’t even call KS a progressive Tory now. Especially not after the AI summit. I live in what is now a LibDem seat now previously Tory. I will definitely vote LibDem. Especially now they’re one of the most left-wing parties on offer!
Also well worth a read: hitherto Starmer-supporting Ian Dunt (writing in the i Newspaper) has an excoriating denunciation of Labour's newly-evolved refugee policy, which is now being implemented quietly by the equivalent of Trump's executive orders with no democratic scrutiny.
Thanks!
The government’s morally vacuous ReformCon anti-immigrant, frankly racist, campaign shames us all.
Why not trial letting plausible would-be refugees in by safe routes, processing them super-fast, making political capital from about how many educated, skilled and professional people we have authorised to join the work force and returning the indisputably illegals also super-fast (yes, yes: I know that’s the hard part). Then cut back visas for legal immigration to match off the numbers.
Massive English language and cultural acclimatisation classes to be provided. Faith schools to be severely restricted and in due course banned - to support integration and more broadly promote societal cohesion nationally.
To some extent I am flying a kite here, but we have to have some new liberal but effective immigration policies fast.
The only way to defeat Farage on immigration is to challenge him, not engage in a race to the bottom you can't win.
Poll after poll show people want "lower immigration", but this is in the abstract. If you ask which type of migrant should be cut, they struggle and say NO to doctors, nurses, care workers, scientists or students. This indicates that the public has some understanding of the important role many migrants play and the consequences of stopping
It's impossible to cut migration substantially without cutting these categories and this is the message the Labour govt should be banging home. Some attack lines: "Nigel Farage wants to make NHS waiting lists longer" "Reform UK want to collapse British universities" etc Reform is very weak on the NHS anyway as he doesn't really support it.
This can be accompanied by measures to improve training and educational opportunities for locals for jobs where the country lacks people. Do that & Farage is left with only the genuine racists on his side.
The long road to Rishi Sunak’s defeat was heralded by his priorities. Specifically Stop the Boats. Not some boats but all of them.
He started with Reform UK limited at low single digit polling. At the time of the election Sunak had boosted the appeal of Reform to the mid-teens.
Reform has immigration as its happy place. Like the demonising of the EU it can pretend that all problems will be solved by repelling the migrants.
Labour should be pressing Farage on his anti-union approach. Maybe his proposals to bring private insurance to the NHS.
However, Starmer’s Labour is, according to John Harris of the Guardian, Stalinism if it was run by Alan Partridge. Fighting on Farage’s own turf will only enhance Farage.
Having watched Sunak get sucked in Starmer seems to want some of that too.
It's about time Labour grew some balls and presented a coherent vision, and created an alternate, humanitarian, framing of the issues. Why can't they understand that aping other political parties is always a losing strategy. As Groucho Marx put it:
"Those are my principles, and if you don't like them... well, I have others."
I had the privilege, back in the 1990s, of befriending a man who was running a large academic publishing company in Australia. He had arrived there in 1945 on a boat as a 20-something refugee from WW2, without a penny or a friend in the world. He was put to work in S Australia digging a new railway by hand, along with hundreds of other male refugees. Until the day came when a civil servant arrived on a jeep, and shouted out: ‘anyone here with a university degree?’ That was the start for him of a journey back to the kind of work he was doing, in Central Europe, before Hitler arrived. He loved his adopted country for giving him the opportunity; he even forgave it the months of hard labour. But why not cut to the chase and take people’s abilities straight off the bat?
Thanks for this Adam. We need more opposition to this drift to the hard right. As racism grows it will be further encouraged if all politicians are trying to court "public opinion" rather than doing the decent thing, dealing with the economic causes. This is a self confirming downward spiral to a racist state and I think we all know what that means. I never expected this from Labour, it is shameful.
It is hard to describe how colossally idiotic Labour’s attempt at beating Farage appears. We now have Facebook groups using Reform colours, not mentioning Labour but run by numbskull activists who think they can out Farage Farage. I’ve said in no uncertain terms what I think. Much more of this and I’ll be outside the tent pissing in.
Hi Adam. I used to know someone - the father of a friend - who was also Polish and also escaped a gulag. He fought at Monte Casino before ending up in the UK and living here for the rest of his life. He told me that you had a chance of surviving in the extreme cold and harsh conditions if you were between 25 and 35. Anyone not in the prime of life and peak condition would not survive very long. The difference between the Soviet camps and Nazi camps was that they weren't set up for the purpose of working people to death. Primo Levy makes this point too in If This Is A Man. That may sound like a distinction without a difference, but it is the difference between callous negligence and active evil.
PS lovely pictures of your grandfather(?) and his compatriots. You must be very proud of him.