Beckett’s ‘silly cow’ comment shows Starmer has turned Labour into a cess pit
The shenanigans after yesterday’s (March 11) meeting of Labour’s National Executive Committee make This Writer glad not to be a member of that party any more.
The fact that Margaret Beckett is being allowed to continue as chair of the NEC after calling fellow committee member Laura Pidcock a “silly cow” on a Zoom meeting is unacceptable.
Pidcock had made a perfectly reasonable point after a motion to recall Labour’s party conference had been rejected with no vote taken, in a snub to party democracy.
The motion sought to recall the full party conference, possibly to coincide with Labour’s women’s conference in June, for reasons This Writer set out in a previous article:
The motion… reads: “Discussion in local Labour Party meetings has been suppressed; motions banned; scores of activists suspended; and anger and disillusionment is exploding across our lay membership across the party.
“Members are leaving in droves and many more are expressing frustration and dissatisfaction at the attack on democracy and free speech. Many members are saying it doesn’t feel like the Labour Party anymore.”
There is also frustration after several ex-officials suspended over the contents of a damning leaked report have been let back into Labour.
These are serious, party-splitting concerns, and it is unacceptable that Laura Pidcock, asking how members could have this out-of-hand rejection of those concerns explained to them, was dismissed as a “silly cow”.
The reaction on the social media was unequivocal:
I remember sitting in on an NEC meeting where expelling Simon Danczuk was discussed after he’d sent explicit messages to a minor. Margaret Beckett argued against it on the basis we “need a by-election like a hole in the head”. Can see from this she’s still stinking the place out https://t.co/lcZP6epU54
— Matt Zarb-Cousin (@mattzarb) March 11, 2021
This is NOT how ANYONE should speak to a colleague, let alone the chair of Labour's sovereign body! 'Dame' Margaret Beckett should step down with immediate effect, such bullying, disgusting behaviour will never be tolerated. https://t.co/qI5HHrrBwP
— Damien Willey 🟢 🔴 (@KernowDamo) March 11, 2021
Margaret Beckett should be removed before she has the opportunity to resign.
Breaking: NEC chair Margaret Beckett abuses Pidcock during Zoom: "silly cow" https://t.co/vbLgioz9oR via @skwawkbox
— Rachael Swindon (@Rachael_Swindon) March 11, 2021
One thing's for sure if someone had called Margaret Beckett a "silly cow" at the NEC meeting today they would already be suspended
— Fanxxxxtastic-Trada (@Fanxxxxtastic) March 11, 2021
https://twitter.com/DanielKebedeNEU/status/1370086374100066310
The last commenter is right: this is indeed Keir Starmer’s Labour.
And he has made it a cess pit.
I am delighted that I am not a member of an organisation that puts Starmer and Beckett in positions of seniority that they clearly do not merit. I have a feeling that many other Labour members will also abandon the party in the face of this ill-treatment.
And I expect the general public will do the same at the May elections.
Source: Labour MP Margaret Beckett apologises over ‘silly cow’ remark – BBC News
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Well, there you have a perfect example of the contempt this damn cult of new Labour 2.0 holds members in…
Hodge calling a fellow member a “Silly cow” just shows naked contempt and she should be forced to resign from the NEC and as a member of the Labour party!!!
I bet she does neither and the cult will circle the wagons and ignore the calls for her to resign as they really don’t give a flying F’ what members say or do unless they’re socialist can you imagine the shared howls of contempt if it was the other way round?
I am so glad I resigned my membership there is no way I could ever support this vile right wing cult!
I think that is what is called a ‘Freudian slip’ there – it was Margaret Beckett who made that remark, but we all know the sort of language Hodge uses!
Don’t think Starmer is entirely responsible for the amount of manure sloshing around the Labour Party. Apart from Beckett there’s Hodge & the odious Phillips among others, all of whom are pretty good at muck spreading. Why any true socialist who is still a party member, should believe they can reclaim Labour is beyond me. They’ve had 30 years to stock Labour with their own kind and trying to turn them is wasting time when we could be building a decent socialist party.
Said the old duffer…..Blair, blair! Will Old Labour never llearn……the young are Labour’s only chance of getting back in government and the young will want localism.
What’s the relevance to this story?
Really, it’s ridiculous for some of us to get our knickers into a twist over a murmured comment not meant for all to hear when there’s real work to do on the left. Keep on tory bashing, keep on telling the world that it needs the left to make it a better place.
The real work that the left needs to do includes cleaning up the Labour Party.
Really, “a murmured comment not meant for all to hear”. So that’s acceptable then, when we all know if it was the other way round there would be howls of outrage and no doubt suspension. Isn’t calling this out ‘real work’?