New Labour LEADER

'Re-Dodds just a quick quote from twitter. Not to be taken seriously at the moment.'
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I thought you had some inside information Whitewave to have mentioned it.

? good lord no. I’ve see Rachel Reeves mentioned as well and Benn as shadow foreign.

All speculation

Philips - shadow home

He has a lot of strong women to choose from.

I have seen Rachel Reeves mentioned a fair bit.

My MP Kylie is good I’d like to see him get a junior post of some sort, maybe related to health? Or foreign as he spent quite a few years VSO

POGS, there is much in your above post I can agree with. However, I believe that within the Parliamentary Labour Party there is the Straight forward left-right division that you describe above, and I do not see that abating in the face of a newly elected leader.

The position is different in the broader Labour movement for in that there is more pragmatism born out of the everyday requirements of trade union activists and their leadership to act in that way.

However, those activists and leadership hold policies such as abolishing anti-trade union legislation, the ending of Zero Hours Contracts and Gig Economy Working conditions as sacrosanct first policies of any leadership of the Labour Parliamentary Party.

The Blair years of leadership never gave the broader movement the abolition of trade union legislation. It brought forward the minimum wage, but at the same time allowed Zero Hours Contracts to come about and the beginnings of Gig Economy working. The foregoing actually made for worse conditions of employment for a great many in our society and made it virtually impossible for the unions to intervene to improve those conditions for workers trapped in such circumstance.

Therefore any move by the new Labour leadership to return back to the so-called centre-left stance of the Blair era will simply not be tolerated by the Broader Labour Movement.

However, within the Parliamentary Labour Party there are many on the right who wish for a nothing else but a staunch return to Blair era policies and style of leadership.

POGS in the above I fear the gulf between the Parliamentary party and the wider Labour movement is unbridgable. In that, I hope I am wrong but at this point in time I cannot see a way through the morass.

Actually the more you think about it the more you realise the talent he has to draw on. What’s the chap called a northern MP was a major or something I always think he’s good even a potential leader.

If Jeremy Corbyn was a great asset to the Tories, I think Keir Starmer will give them a mighty headache!

You two pogs and grandad could be talking about the Tory party.

Both parties are broad churches there will always be division. But the trick of a good leader is to unite. Starmer is aware of this.

Whitewavemark2 the Tory Party is not an offshoot of a much larger organisation such as the Parliamentary Labour Party are.

Sadly there are many in that Parliamentary Party that forget they are part of such and that is leading to the slow but inevitable destruction of the Labour Party at this point in time.

However, we are in unprecedented times of crisis and that may change the views and attitudes of very many over the coming years. For this crisis will not end when the virus is beaten.

So easy to dismiss what the Blair government achieved

Whitewavemark2
'You two pogs and grandad could be talking about the Tory party.'
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Yes we could be if we were doing ' whatabouterry' or discussing the Tory Party but this thread is about Labour, I will leave the ' whatabouterry' to others.
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' Both parties are broad churches there will always be division. But the trick of a good leader is to unite. Starmer is aware of this.-

Any Political Party Leader is aware of' this', any individual with a brain is aware a good leader unites his/her party.

Being ' aware ' is the easy part, getting it to happen is another kettle of fish altogether. The division within the Labour Party since Corbyn/Momentum took over the party has been corrosive.

The Labour Party survived Foot, took 14 years,

i hope it can survive the harm Corbyn-McDonald- Momentum have done

I was struck by the Momentum response to Keir Starmer as leader. They plan to hold him to account to keep his election pledges.
Yes, let’s all focus on that rather than hold the government to account for the problems we face with the current crisis and the impact of nine years of austerity on all public services, including the nhs.
Our CLP voted KS - I’m in the so called northern heartlands. What we heard on the doorstep was “I’ll never vote Labour with that man as leader”. Jeremy was a liability.

I think many who normally vote Labour may be hoping that Momentum and their somewhat malevolent web will be kicked into the long grass.

Whitewave Dan Jarvis?

Anyone here know if its true that Starmer was the CP who threw out the case against Jimmy Saville because there "wasn't enough evidence" ? Did the people who elected him know it ,IF its true?

Paul Gambaccini isn't a fan

I’m sure there are lots trying to dig up dirt on KS, well BJ has had a lot of dirt dug up and look where he is....his fans don’t care.

Anneliese Dodds......ye gods!
Now feeling unsure about Starmer........hope he isn’t a weak leader in wolf’s clothing.

I agree POGS Starmer isn’t all that centrist but compared to Corbyn....!
However only time will tell, and he if gives in to the far left they won’t have a hope in hell of winning another GE.
Labour now has to appeal to many, many other voters.

Starmer is the most credible Labour leader for many years and 56% of the members backed him, which is a decent majority. If he keeps the militant left under control he has a good chance of winning an election, there is talk of Momentum holding him to account - they have lost a lot of momentum and will fade into obscurity. The Labour Party is it’s own worst enemy allowing extremists to hold sway, Kinnock could have been PM if Militant Tendency had not spoiled it.

So don’t talk about turning the clock back 40 yrs, tackle the injustices that we face today and give him a chance of getting elected.

callistum yes! That’s him? thank you.

pogs of course you see Starmer as a threat if being compared to Johnson..
I am not a bit surprised that you have come in all guns blazing, but you have yet to provide evidence of your assertion concerning your flip flopping claim.

I can provide thousands with regard to Johnson, as well as absolute evidence of his lies etc.

With regards to his DPP role and the charge paddyann is trying to lay on him.

I have copied and pasted a report - in this case from the ES but there is masses of evidence out there. Starmer as DPP took the responsibility for the apparent failure of the CPS in not challenging the way the police reached their conclusions over Saville. He of course was not personally responsible, but as head of the CPS apologised for its failings as any good head should.

“Jimmy Savile could have been prosecuted for sex offences while he was still alive but for blunders by police and lawyers, it was revealed today.

Britain’s chief prosecutor apologised for the failure to pursue four separate allegations against the BBC star, one made as recently as four years ago.

Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer said there were failures by police in Sussex and Surrey and by the principal lawyer in dealing with the allegations. He issued a personal apology for the mistakes by the Crown Prosecution Service and announced a series of changes to improve the investigation of allegations by child victims.
A review of the CPS decisions and the police action concluded that a prosecution could have been possible in three out of the four cases. At the time the CPS lawyer concluded that because none of the victims wished to give evidence, no prosecutions could be brought.

However, the review of their actions by the DPP found police should have told victims they were not alone in making complaints, and that the CPS lawyer should have challenged police conclusions.

The first police investigation was sparked by a complaint to officers in Surrey in 2007. A woman, now in her mid-forties, told Surrey police that Savile assaulted a girl of 14 or 15 at the Duncroft Children’s home in Staines in the late Seventies.

Surrey police launched an inquiry and two further allegations against Savile were revealed, one involving an assault on a 14-year-old outside Stoke Mandeville Hospital in 1973. Another police inquiry was launched in 2008 by Sussex Police after a complaint that Savile assaulted a woman in her twenties in a caravan in Sussex. An inquiry by the CPS into these complaints revealed that both forces became aware of each other’s inquiries.

In October 2009, the CPS reviewing lawyer with responsibility for the cases advised that since none of the complainants was “prepared to support any police action”, no prosecutions could be brought.

The review by the CPS chief legal advisor Alison Levitt QC concluded there was no evidence of any “improper motives” in the decisions by either police or lawyers. But she said the CPS lawyer should have challenged the police conclusions and sought to build a prosecution against Savile.”

Starmer has sent the following letter to Marie van der Zil,

pbs.twimg.com/media/EUyqr4eWAAE2280?format=jpg&name=large

As for those who think it unfair to ' dig up dirt', criticise or state facts about Starmer and his history, perversely whilst not bothering when it happens to others at times, then I ask why?

It is obvious Keir Starmer will come in for extra scrutiny now he is a leader of a political party, why not?

You can only ' dig up dirt ' if it is there to be found. It also depends what we as individuals consider to be classed as ' dirt ' when it comes to what we think of others.

Starmer is not going to be different to any other politician and during the Labour Leadership Campaign some tried to tarnish his name but they were not the hated Red Rags, they were from the other candidates camp.

Starmer has certainly received a mixed review of his time as Director of Public Prosecutions over the years and no doubt there will be a resurgence of past stories for good or bad but that will be another case of ' being in the eye of the beholder'.

As mentioned ' fans don' t care ' but others who know little about him will be no doubt be interested to form their opinion.

Whitewave

'pogs of course you see Starmer as a threat if being compared to Johnson..
I am not a bit surprised that you have come in all guns blazing, but you have yet to provide evidence of your assertion concerning your flip flopping claim.'
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All guns blazing! You mean challenging your perceptions and opinions.

I don' t see Starmer as a threat to Johnson or visa versa. I am interested to watch, listen and learn how the 2 leaders will spar over the coming years.

At this precise catastrophic time in our history I am glad it is now Starmer in charge and not Corbyn and Starmer 'has' accepted the Prime Ministers offer to meet and hopefully put aside politics of a devicive nature /political point scoring, to work cross party over the COVID 19 outbreak. As I said previously what a difference a day makes.