New Labour LEADER

The Labour Party must not return to the disaster of the 1983
election which brought us Thatcherism for 14 years

He said he we should all look forward,

but the Labour Party must not be return to Blair New Labour polices,

I totally agree with what Grandad1943 said.

granddad43 speaks as a union member, he has said he is not
a Labour Party member

I take it you don’t like Starmer grandad ?

There is no "drive to take the Labour movement back to the sixties or seventies." Britain is now a very different country and economy in a very changed world.

The trade unions operate within a very changed membership base with virtually all of Britains heavy industry sold off and dismantled over many years of Tory rule.

Only those who wish to see one party Tory rule predominate in the United Kingdom still hark back to what is now industrial history.

I would agree that all should look forward especially in these unprecedented times, but that cannot involve anyone believing that the Parliamentary Labour Party can return to Blairs New Labour policies for that will not and cannot happen.

Anyway, I have work to commence with as our Business is now once again operating at full capacity thank goodness. So see you later.

I look forward to what K Starmer will do and an hopeful. There is hardly any AS in Labour more in General pop and Tory as well as islamaphobia. Evening Standard published this cartoon I wonder if BOD will protest this.

There is hardly any only minuscule AS in Labour. Jenny Formby delt with It rigorously after taking over.

I am hoping K Starmer will do well for Labour.

annie I think it’s an option to put fingers in ears and look forward

Whitewavemark2 Quote [Starmer has achieved more in 4 days than Labour has done in the past 4 years”] End Quote.

Whitewavemark2, exactly what has Starmer achieved in those four days you mention whenever they were.

The National Executive Committee has not met with the exception of an online election to fill two seats. Parliament for debate is closed, and all constitutional committees in both the Labour party and the wider movement cannot meet.

So, through all that I would ask again, "what has Starmer changed by way of policy or Labour Party stance on any issue.

I would suggest that the answer to the above would be in reality nothing.

How can we not look back to the 60’s and 70’s when there is drive to take the Labour Party back to these decades

Agree suziewoozie

Right on suzie

Makes us sound old, dwelling on decades ago.

Forward looking is the way to go.

It’s a pity that a thread about the new Labour leader is focussing so much on issues decades old. I accept that we can learn from history but only so much and especially in such unprecedented times. BJ successfully fought an election in December that quite magically managed to portray him as having nothing at all to do with the past 9 years of Tory/ coalition government. It was genius. KS imo has put together a good shrewdly chosen shadow cabinet and has made a top priority in talking to the Jewish communities.

Posters who would rather a left of centre government should be talking up his prospects, not delving back decades with dark prophecies. When we come out of this, there may well have to be a wholesale rethink of many aspects of our social and economic order. I am optimistic that KS will be able to work across the political divides both with the Government and within Labour to achieve this.

Many ( including some GNers) want KS and Labour in general to fail - those of us who don’t should be being more supportive and optimistic. There is much to learn from the Tories on this.

Voxpox and Mid Wales Mike is back ?

While Starmer bends backwards for right-wing Jewish groups, the Tories are making anti-Semitic jokes

voxpoliticalonline.com/2020/04/07/while-starmer-bends-backwards-for-right-wing-jewish-groups-the-tories-are-making-anti-semitic-jokes/

Martin Odoni in The Critique Archives has been less than silent.

He wrote: “Come on, BoD, come on, David Collier, come on, Jonathan Hoffman, and all you other self-righteous Zionist squealers cheaply using Jewish identity as a cover story for Israeli political gain. We know that the Evening Standard is a Tory newspaper, and therefore an ally of yours. But if you ever want to retain the slightest remnant of credibility, you need to protest this more loudly than any deed by anyone you have attacked in the Labour Party over the last five years.

“Because unlike almost all of the deeds you have attacked, this is absolutely explicit. It is an outrageous racial caricature, by the very standards you have insisted on imposing. You cannot apply them selectively.”

“Starmer has achieved more in 4 days than Labour has done in the past 4 years”

Statement from Jewish leaders.

The many power cuts were frightening , the dead not being buried was cruel, the rats scuttling on pavements because the
household rubbish was left to build up outside homes, petrol
stations closed, and these are just a few.

Brought Thatcher to power.

So, changing work practises means accepting Zero-hours contracts and Gig economy working without protest or campaign?

Also, the long-running rail guards dispute is a safety issue that even the Health & Safety Executive have backed the rail unions in regard to.

The rest of your post Davidhs seems to be made up of what is now British industrial history and there are always two sides to such arguments.

However, the world has moved on and so has the Labour movement. It is the Parliamentary Labour Party that seems unable to catch up with that fact.

By the way, the usurper comment was a joke. ?

Usurper?. Grandad you are obviously a Trade Union extremist, but you really don’t get it, with left wing leaders the Labour Party has lost 3 elections in a row, the country does not want a left wing government and never has. Blair and Wilson were both centrist leaders, it all went wrong for Wilson, because the trade unions became dominant and made a pretty good job of destroying the economy. The reforms Wilson made needed doing but increasing public spending by 45% was too much and wage rises for the poorest triggered everyone else wanting to keep the differential.

Trade union power in the 1970s destroyed the Heath and Callaghan governments because they simply would not see reason and inflation reached 25%. The result was most of the manufacturing capacity of the U.K. was lost to Germany, Japan and others who did retain the cooperation of the workforce.

There is nothing wrong with Trades Unions campaigning for better working conditions as long as they accept changing working practices and don’t use power to disrupt the economy. As has been seen recently railway workers have been doing just that in refusing to accept no guards on trains, there is a long list of other disruptive action trying to retain restrictive practices and resist progress

GrandmaFrench apologies I will try to remember how the usurper's name is spelt. ?

Galaxy, in regard to your post @21:15 today, no one is pretending that the Labour Party is successful at this point in time. In that, I have already stated in this thread that I believe that the Parliamentary Labour Party has been "a complete factional waste of space for over a decade".

However, that waste of space did retain two hundred seats at the last general election which with Brexit very much playing against the party that outcome could have been much worse.

However, many would wish to see the Labour Party now transformed into a Conservative Party mark two, but that will not happen, for any move back towards any part of Blairs New Labour will see the party completely destroyed.

Grandad, a very small point, but is there a chance that you could spell the new Labour leader's name correctly? His name is Keir - as in Keir Hardie - and not as you spell it.

Pikachu, in regard to your above post.?????

POGS, there is a one-word answer to your above question "Nowt"

for the trade unions to fall in behind Starmer it will take assurance that his administration should it come to power will abolish at least the most offending sections of the anti-trade union legislation and bring about the ending of zero-hours employment contracts.

Should it not have been brought to an entire end when a Starmer led administration came to power the abolition of Gig Economy terms of employment could be added to the above, but that is already beginning to be brought to an end in many quarters.

The above is all the requirement that the trades unions have asked of the labour party over many decades, but it has never been granted to them despite all the support those unions through its members have given the Parliamentary Labour Party over those very many years.

Grandad

How much do you think the Clause IV arguement/debate will come into the equation for the Unions to fall in behind Starmer, Owt or Nowt?

So long as you realise it is your opinion and others are entitled to theirs. That doesn’t come across.