Durham Police to Investigate Kier Starmer over breaking lockdown rules

Callistemon21

MaizieD

Presumably you didn't understand my response to Galaxy as you didn't pick on her post to which I was responding.

They were both in the quote, Callistemon.

Galaxy wished he'd been more careful of the optics. The response, IMO, would be, 'Why should he have to be when he was doing nothing wrong?'

I'd already explained that, because of its position, it's virtually impossible to see clearly from the road anything that might be 'going on' in the Miners Hall, so the need to 'consider the optics' really might not have been uppermost in the minds of people who had more important things to do.

And your comment came just after I'd been on a twitter thread questioning the young video snooper's 'just passing by' story where I was driven to despair by a tweeter who was insisting that the Miners Hall was deliberately chosen for the 'party' as it was difficult to see much from the road... (It's only the Durham LP's HQ, of course). My reaction to your question was 'well, you just can't win; leave the blinds open and you're not considering the optics, close them and people will conclude you've something to hide...

Perhaps I shouldn't have reacted negatively to something meant in fun, but when a decent man's future is on the line as the result of a well orchestrated hate campaign it's hard to keep a sense of humour.

"If he gets away with not breaking the law"

Owen Jones is getting a lot of flak today from Starmer supporters over his piece in yesterday's Guardian.

He's right about this:

[Starmer’s] team has avoided making the argument for transformative policies, which this country vitally needs, because even if they believed them to be politically desirable they fear that doing so will invite a media onslaught. But it didn’t matter; the press has unleashed mayhem on him anyway.

I'm reminded of the 1970s TV political drama Bill Brand (available to view on YT). It's a very different country now but Brand’s ideology was and is sound. The words that still ring in my ears from that are those of the centre-right Labour PM (in the drama) who said we use unemployment as a weapon against inflation. Not unlike what Johnson was saying last week on TV except that poverty is now the weapon.

MaizieD

Presumably you didn't understand my response to Galaxy as you didn't pick on her post to which I was responding.

MaizieD

Callistemon21

Galaxy

He appears to me to be a good man and compared to Johnson he is a saint. That doesnt stop me wishing he had been a bit more careful of the optics.

Why didn't they close the blinds!!

Did you not see the picture of the Miners Hall I posted a day or two ago? It's nowhere near the road and set at an angle to it. You'd have to enter the grounds to see into the building.

But what a daft question.. Why would you close the blinds when you're not doing anything wrong?

But then, from reading loads of responses on twitter and here it seems that some people have such unpleasantly twisted minds that they can turn the most innocent and mundane actions into evidence of heinous wrongdoing.

But what a daft question.. Why would you close the blinds when you're not doing anything wrong?

This whole incident is ridiculous so did you honestly think I was being serious?

As an aside. I read but don’t post on Twitter.

What I have noticed are the rise in people “liking” Starmers tweets since “beergate”

varian

The Morning Star (formerly The Daily Worker) is a left wing national newspaper, most would say far-left, but it only has a tiny circulation.

That’s the one?.

The Morning Star (formerly The Daily Worker) is a left wing national newspaper, most would say far-left, but it only has a tiny circulation.

That post was about the guardian and replying to daisyanne

Well, if you read their editorials and comment pages, they are consistently critical of left wing policies - so people like Corbyn get very short shrift.

Neither can they be described as strong Starmer supporters. In the past they have supported the Liberals at election time.

So I think that they are more centre than left of centre.

One thing they are not are supporters of the right wing of the Tory party, but they have supported more central Tory policy. Not that there has been much of that over the past 10 years.

After the fraudulent referendum of 2016, analysis showed newspaper readership to be the most powerful influence on voters. More that 80% of UK newspaper readers read those with a strong right wing pro-leave bias. The Sun and Daliy Mail are the most widely read, hence most influential.

The UK could have abolished general elections and just asked Rupert Murdoch who he wanted to be Prime Minister to save time and money. Since Harold Wilson won the 1974 election, not one Prime Minister has been elected in a general election without the backing of Rupert Murdoch.

I suppose that depends where your centre is WWM. I would agree with the pole that the Guardian is definitely left of centre - it started as the Manchester Guardian after all. That was a centre of social change at that point.

I agree too that those on the far-right would see it as being far-left, as they would see it as being that far away from what they believe. Around 16% of the population being far-right seems about right. As I think I have said before, they are just very loud .

I often read the i (in addition to the Guardian) and find it a very fair newspaper.

There is no very left wing publication unless you include some of the publications that used to be around in the 70s and 80s - can’t remember what they were called or even if they still exist.

The guardian is a centrist publication. It is seen at left wing because it is frequently but not always critical of the Tory party.

That doesn’t make it left wing as it never extols left wing policies.

DaisyAnne

I have felt that too,*Iam*. Much of the TV news now references the newspaper headlines.

In a YouGov poll, five out of the eight leading newspapers were identified by the public as right-wing. The Daily Mail - often quoted on both Sky and the BBC - was seen as "very right-wing by 44% of the public - far ahead of any other paper. In contrast the Guardian was seen as "very-left wing" by only 16%.

If the TV news is using these papers to feed their newsgathering - which they seem to be doing - we are getting news broadcasts from a source the British public recognises as biased to the right and far-right. There seems to be very little investigative journalism on the part of those who should not be showing bias.

Having said that, Channel 4 is still carrying out good investigative journalism. Mind you, look what the government is trying to do to them

Interesting about the Guardian percentage. I wish more GNers who spend their time decrying it, without actually reading it, would read it. They might then realise that it's not as left leaning as they thought.

They would certainly wise to do so WWM

Did I read that Wikipedia refuses any entries that emanate from the Daily Mail, because they are so unreliable?

I have felt that too,*Iam*. Much of the TV news now references the newspaper headlines.

In a YouGov poll, five out of the eight leading newspapers were identified by the public as right-wing. The Daily Mail - often quoted on both Sky and the BBC - was seen as "very right-wing by 44% of the public - far ahead of any other paper. In contrast the Guardian was seen as "very-left wing" by only 16%.

If the TV news is using these papers to feed their newsgathering - which they seem to be doing - we are getting news broadcasts from a source the British public recognises as biased to the right and far-right. There seems to be very little investigative journalism on the part of those who should not be showing bias.

Having said that, Channel 4 is still carrying out good investigative journalism. Mind you, look what the government is trying to do to them

We had the heavily redacted Russia Report ages ago, *Wwmk2'. It told us lots of worrying stuff that has been quietly ignored..

What we really need is the tories out of office and some strong light thrown on their very murky dealings. Preferably in a court of law ?

Good posts folks?

We need the Sue Gray report

We need the Russia report

They are mounting up aren’t they?

Callistemon21

Galaxy

He appears to me to be a good man and compared to Johnson he is a saint. That doesnt stop me wishing he had been a bit more careful of the optics.

Why didn't they close the blinds!!

Did you not see the picture of the Miners Hall I posted a day or two ago? It's nowhere near the road and set at an angle to it. You'd have to enter the grounds to see into the building.

But what a daft question.. Why would you close the blinds when you're not doing anything wrong?

But then, from reading loads of responses on twitter and here it seems that some people have such unpleasantly twisted minds that they can turn the most innocent and mundane actions into evidence of heinous wrongdoing.

The student who filmed at the Miners Hall is the son of Breitbart writer, James Delingpole. The footage was sent to Lawrence Fox, a right wing foolish former actor turned right wing activist. J Delingpoke was an Oxford contemporary of Johnson.
I’m not a conspiracy fan but I’m concerned the Daily Mail seems to set the agenda for bbc news to follow. It’s lazy journalism. No independent analysis, simply repeat whatever line the Mail is pushing.
We need independent journalists. Watergate set the tone, we need it more than ever

Saetana

Someone who was there spoke to the Sunday Times - by all means check it out for yourselves.

How accurate was what they told the Sunday Times? Starmer is offering evidence that would, if necessary, stand up in court. This article is nothing more than gossip. Goodness, a newspaper spreading fake news on behalf of the Far-Right; such a surprise.

You say They did not "stop to eat" - they ate and drank and then went back to their hotels/homes. This was not a work break, it was a social gathering at the end of a working day - no problem under normal circumstances but it did break covid rules at the time.
Will you swear to that knowledge under oath? You don't have any true evidence so why spread this fake news on GN? It is just malicious tittle-tattle. It turns out the whole thing was a self-destructive move by the Tory Party who do nothing for the country and people's future but everything they can to secure their personal futures. They can't even lie efficiently.

When you have some actual evidence I will believe there was always a problem; that they had done something wrong. Many will think like this. We know the character of this Tories government and its supporters and we know the character of Starmer. Blaming Starmer to get themselves off the hook will also backfire as truth has such an annoying habit of coming out and showing the Tory government for exactly what it is - a bunch of wide-boy liars.

Labour says they have date and time stamped evidence, which cannot be altered, to show they worked afterwards. In which case, no rules were broken, as it was an election campaign.

It looks like the whole thing, to try and smear Starmer, has backfired on the Tories and the right wing press, who are now accusing Starmer of pressurising the police..

Desperate stuff. ?

Galaxy

He appears to me to be a good man and compared to Johnson he is a saint. That doesnt stop me wishing he had been a bit more careful of the optics.

Why didn't they close the blinds!!