Tag Archives: Keir

Anti-Labour labels appear at shops linked to donors after Starmer scrapped Palestine recognition plan

Has anybody else seen this?

A friend has sent This Site a few images of altered labels at shops whose owners are known to be Labour Party donors, after Keir Starmer u-turned on recognising Palestinian statehood.

The image above was taken at a branch of Sainsburys, one would conclude.

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They’ve done a bit of research and have located a template for these rogue labels, which you can see here.

Although I understand such campaigns have been carried out to good effect on peak shopping days in the past, it would be hugely irresponsible for This Writer to suggest using these labels as the basis of your own campaign

So I won’t.


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Napoleon complex? Starmer shrinks his wife for Christmas card

Compare and contrast: at rear, the original image with Mrs Starmer standing tall; at front, the shrunk-down version with shadowed face while hubby’s face is highlighted.

It seems Rishi Sunak isn’t the only small man in UK politics: Keir Starmer seems to have an actual psychological disorder related to his stature.

Here’s what has happened:

The image on the right is the original; on the left is the doctored photo in which Starmer has not only shrunk the missus down to less than his own height but has also cast her in shadow.

If I did that to Mrs Mike on a card, she’d have my guts for garters!

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Some of us have taken this as a sign that Starmer has a very particular inferiority complex:

And that wants you to let it run the UK? Bad idea!


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Labour’s ‘boil a frog’ tactic is pulling the party away from voters but towards rich donors

Many years ago, a right-wing cuckoo in the Labour Party called Peter Mandelson assured the party’s then-leaders that they could shift their policies as far to the political right as they fancied because Labour voters didn’t have anywhere else to go.

He was wrong; at every general election after the 1997 landslide, the party lost voters as socialists abandoned what they saw increasingly as a party of Tories in red ties. It took the arrival of Jeremy Corbyn as leader to reverse the trend, with the re-injection of genuinely transformative policies.

And we all know what happened to him: right-wingers he had allowed to remain in the party (in the belief that it should be a genuinely “broad church”, whatever that means?) stabbed him in the back and sabotaged the 2017 (and probably the 2019) general election, eventually forcing him out.

Now, under Mandelson acolyte Keir Starmer, Labour is once-again a hard-right party. He has abandoned any “continuity Corbyn” left-wing pledges in order to follow policies that are indistinguishable from those of Rishi Sunak’s current Conservative government.

Despite this, Starmer’s Substitute Tory Party (formerly Labour) is being tipped to win the next general election by a landslide. Why?

It could be because the Sunak government is now blatantly corrupt, with new evidence of ministers (including the prime minister) lining their own pockets and those of their cronies in big business emerging every day.

It could also be because Starmer has drip-fed his right-wing policies into Labour’s programme for government slowly – giving party members and tribal followers an opportunity to forget (or simply fail to notice) the cumulative lurch to the far right that they represent:

Look at the recent announcement that a Labour government will continue to inflict poverty on 1.1 million UK children in defiance of the party’s own reason for existing (lifting working and working-class people out of poverty).

After this announcement, polls showed no lessening of enthusiasm for a Labour government – and only 20 Labour MPs seem keen to remind their leaders of the party’s duty to its members and supporters:

Why the lurch rightwards?

Obviously this is where Starmer’s political loyalties lie. He was never interested in re-balancing the economy to stop rich employers from impoverishing their workers, or to stop the destruction of our environment for the sake of a quick profit, or to stop the privatisation of our national treasures like the NHS for another quick profit.

But there’s a financial necessity too. One clear detrimental result of his rightward lurch has been an exodus of members away from a Labour Party they now consider toxic. This, along with a series of poor financial decisions, mean Starmer’s party very quickly frittered away the more-than £12 million Jeremy Corbyn had put in its bank account.

It needed funds – and went looking in the same place as the Tories:

The result is clear: two parties – Labour and the Tories – with the same policies, because they have the same people bankrolling them.

And with Starmer’s Labour working for big business, another element of the UK’s broken political system is coming into clearer focus:

That’s right. It seems the UK has been controlled by the same tiny group of super-rich influencers for many decades, with the wishes of voters coming a distant second to their selfish desires.

Continuing to vote for Labour means continuing to let this tiny minority run the rest of us into the ground for their own profit and perverse enjoyment.

It makes no sense at all.

And yet the polls show that is exactly what the majority of people want.

If you know anybody who has been misled or is deluded in this way, then for the sake of the United Kingdom and everyone in it, please explain their mistake to them. It might take a while but it will be worth it in the long run.


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Experts ask: ‘why vote Labour? Starmer’s running a Substitute Tory Party!’

Rachel Reeves and Keir Starmer: they are laughing at all the tribal Labour supporters they think don’t have any choice but to vote for them – even though their current policy platform will deliberately harm millions of those voters.

Here’s the issue: Keir Starmer’s neoliberal, right-wing Labour Party is in pole position (or should that be “poll” position) to win the next general election by a landslide – but has the same policies as Rishi Sunak’s Tory government.

Starmer, and his shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, have both said they will not impose any policies that change the current status quo that is making the super-rich much richer, driving working people and the poor further into poverty, and ushering privatisation into public services to make them cash cows for fat cats (as we’ve seen with energy and water).

So, what is the point of voting for their party?

It’s actually worse than ‘Tory Fibs’ is suggesting. Starmer, Reeves and the rest don’t just want power for its own sake – they want it in order to ensure that power cannot be taken by anybody with plans that would actually improve the quality of life here, with public services that actually serve the public well, fair pay for everyone and a social security system that doesn’t persecute people who need help.

Influential people are now starting to accept that this is the situation. It is the reason academics have contacted Starmer, urging him to change his mind.

The letter by 70 economists and social policy experts, states that they

are concerned that your current economic programme for government will not transform the economic orthodoxy that has made this country poorer, less cohesive and more unequal than fifteen years ago.

The maintenance or extension of cuts in the current economic climate will only serve to deepen the poverty and hardship many are already facing.

They urge Starmer to turn

from an out of date, economically and socially destructive approach towards a model which improves wellbeing, works in alignment with our environment, and achieves social justice.

Failure to table an alternative will mean not only wasting that opportunity but many lives and futures as well.

Unpack that a bit:

Starmer Labour’s current approach is out of date.

It is economically and socially destructive.

And the party’s current policies will destroy many lives.

Alternative – workable – policies are suggested all the time. Here’s one, from a former Labour leader:

But it has fallen on deaf ears. Starmer isn’t interested.

His attitude represents a huge u-turn for party still known as “Labour” and its leader. Only a few years ago, he was claiming that his party would replace the current system with something completely different. But this week Justin Madders, Starmer’s shadow minister for employment rights, confirmed that this had been abandoned for a “continuity Tory” approach:

Here’s Damo to explain Starmer’s – and Reeves’s – economic policy, and why it is so harmful, in a little more detail:

It seems clear that Starmer has undergone a major change of heart, turning away from the people Labour is supposed to serve, and towards the city fat cats who are leeching our money away from us.

Madders tried desperately to deny any such change during his media turn:

Saul Staniforth (above) is right: if a leader’s principles depend on economic circumstances, then they are not principles. If they were principles, Starmer would have the economic circumstances under constant review, with a demand out to all his advisers for them to provide him at all times with plans that would achieve the needs of those principles in any situation.

The situation now has been summed up – again by ‘Tory Fibs’ – thus:

Yes. Both are failing us – the citizens of the UK.

In times like this, the electorate has a duty to look elsewhere for a government-in-waiting – not to cling to forlorn hopes that Starmer is a secret socialist who will turn back to the left as soon as he has installed himself in Downing Street. We see no evidence for this at all.

The Green Party has good economic plans. So do the Independents who used to represent Labour but have left because of the likes of Starmer and Reeves.

Have you looked at what they are offering? Or are you determined to vote for policies that will harm you terribly, simply because of some outdated tribal loyalty?

Now is the time to work out what you stand for – and to demand it from your representatives.


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Rachel Reeves admits there is no point voting for Labour any more

The truth: if you oppose the Conservatives, you MUST now oppose Keir Starmer’s Labour as well – because they are on the same side as the Conservatives.

Obviously, she didn’t say it in as many words.

But the Labour Party was brought into being in order to re-balance the UK’s system of government so that people who had to work – or seek work – for a living would have improved rights and a fair share of the profits accruing from the work they did.

Part of the latter would come from pay deals, and part from a re-distribution of wealth using progressive taxation.

Keir Starmer’s version of that party has already kicked any plan for improved workers’ rights into the long grass, and his attitude to the current wave of strikes and the cost of living crisis shows that his party won’t be imposing better pay for workers on profit-gouging bosses.

And now Rachel Reeves is telling us there won’t be any change to progressive taxation under a Starmer Party government.

His Labour will support the current, corrupt system from the first day of any government it forms to the last.

Labour is finished – as a party representing working and working-class people. A change of name is in order but Starmer won’t go that far because he wants tribal party supporters to keep voting for him and his cronies, following the Peter Mandelson maxim that they don’t have anywhere else to go.

This Writer isn’t convinced about that, though.

The Green Party offer of a £70 billion wealth tax is looking mighty attractive just now.

You might also take a look at what the Breakthrough Party is doing.

And there are myriad Independents springing up to offer alternatives.

But those are thoughts for the future.

The message today is that if you don’t want to see Tory policies and corruption continue, then you must not vote for either the Conservatives or Labour at the next election.


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Economists please note: high inflation may be A POLITICAL CHOICE

This is fine: the image above was originally about climate change but it may be applied equally well to Rishi Sunak’s attitude to the economy. Political policy in the UK for the past 40 years and more has been to impoverish you, together with all the poor people who voted for him and his ilk, thereby allowing it to happen.

All the Tory talk about getting inflation down seems to have confused some people who have failed to consider that high inflation may actually be Conservative government policy.

Look at the usually-excellent Simon Wren-Lewis’s latest Mainly Macro piece, in which he takes issue with left-wing opinions about his current diagnosis of the inflation problem.

He reckons the answer is for private sector wage rises to come down, probably by way of reducing economic demand which will lead to a reduction in the workforce – and, thereby, a recession. This opinion appears to be shared with the Bank of England, whose continual interest rate hikes seem to be an attempt to force the UK’s economy to go backwards.

The problem with that is simple: ordinary working- and even some middle-class people are struggling to make ends meet. Many simply can’t and are going into debt. His solution to the inflation problem will bake that inability to afford the cost of living into the UK economy.

With the Tory government lying to us that workers’ wages are the cause of high inflation and the Bank of England doing as described above, there seems to be only one logical conclusion to draw:

High inflation is a Conservative government policy. It is intended to drive the UK’s lower-paid citizens deep into poverty so you cannot afford the necessities of life.

Just roll that around your mind for a moment.

Think about the real causes of inflation: huge increases in the prices of energy and food, and huge increases in the salaries of FTSE100 executives.

The government could, in theory, neutralise these inflationary pressures through taxation – but the theory fails in practice: as Professor Wren-Lewis notes, the energy firms are multi-national corporations whose profits are received overseas, so there is nothing the government can do about them.

Looking back through history, we see that the reason overseas shareholders have been able to take control of our formerly-nationalised utility firms (energy isn’t the only subject area to have been treated this way, of course; water springs instantly to mind) is privatisation.

The answer should be re-nationalisation – but the Tory government (and also Keir Starmer’s STP – Substitute Tory Party) won’t countenance that; it is against their ideology. This indicates, again, that high inflation that drives you into poverty is a political choice. Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer want you to starve.

In the private sector, we see that the salaries of FTSE100 executives have risen by an average of 16 per cent in the last year alone, despite the fact that there has been no real growth in production in the last 15 years since the Great Recession. The money for their pay rise has to come from somewhere and the logical source is the pay packets of employees; they are taking the rises that should go to you.

That’s if they haven’t increased the prices of their goods or services, of course. If they have then they are still taking the rises that should go to you, while also increasing prices so you can’t afford what your employer sells.

The answer – the way to stop this irresponsible upward drain of corporate funds into executive bank accounts – is to tax executive pay at a rate high enough to make this practice unviable. Again, both Rishi Sunak’s Tories and Keir Starmer’s Tories have refused to do this so – again – we must conclude that the executive wage inflation that puts us all into poverty is a political choice.

Professor Wren-Lewis rightly points out that, where employees have won wage increases intended to match inflation caused mainly by high energy prices, their employers have put prices up; this indicates that shifting the real-terms wage cut onto the profits of other firms won’t work and just generates more inflation.

Professor Wren-Lewis goes on to discuss the reason real wages in the UK have not grown in the last 15 years. As already mentioned above, besides the energy and food price hikes, it is the fact that productivity growth has been extremely weak. There have also been two large devaluations of the Pound.

The low productivity – and one of the depreciations – were caused by Brexit. This is another political policy of the Conservative government that is also supported by Keir Starmer’s STP and may therefore be seen as further proof that the party of government (and that of Opposition) intends to impoverish you as a matter of policy.

Brexit also makes causing a recession more attractive to the government and the party that wants to form a government. Neither of them want inflation to continue running rampant forever; it would eventually wipe out the gains they have made for their very rich friends, so they’ll want to bring it down.

The way to do that, according to Prof Wren-Lewis, is to reduce the demand for goods produced by most firms, as this will lead to a reduced demand for labour; firms then lay off workers, meaning more people are seeking employment, meaning in turn that jobseekers will be more likely to accept a job that pays lower wages.

Before Brexit, politicians could always rely on an influx of cheap labour from Europe. That isn’t available now, so they consider recession to be the only alternative. Remember: their future is safe.

Demand is already coming down because people simply can’t afford to buy as much as they used to, due to the real-terms wage cuts they have suffered. The Bank of England’s interest rate rises are hammering that change home.

We may therefore conclude that recession, job losses, further deprivation and misery are all policy points of the Conservative government, and of Keir Starmer’s STP.

Professor Wren-Lewis ends his piece by quoting Bertrand Russell: “Ask yourself only what are the facts, and what is the truth that the facts bear out. Never let yourself be diverted either by what you wish to believe, or by what you think would have beneficent social effects if it were believed.”

Sadly, he fails to follow his own (and Russell’s) advice.

The truth that the facts bear out is that privatisation, executive pay rises, Brexit, austerity (the other driver of the Pound’s depreciation) and interest rate rises are all intended to push the majority of UK citizens into poverty.

Other solutions besides reducing demand by causing a recession and mass unemployment are available – but the low-quality politicians with whom we have accepted that Parliament should be filled are not interested in them; their only concern is filling their own bank accounts.

Our concern must now be to put a stop to this.


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Keir Starmer’s ‘last lie’ evokes memories of another lame duck political leader

Keir Starmer: politicians press their lips together like this when they realise they have said something they shouldn’t have.

Cringe, Britain!

Keir Starmer, leader of the political party that is still nominally known as Labour, was the subject of a ‘question and answer’ article in The Guardian, in which he was asked to reveal the last lie he told.

His response evoked memories of Theresa May, before the 2017 general election, trying to talk about the “naughtiest” thing she ever did:

Here’s Theresa May’s howler, preserved for posterity in a TV interview:

These politicians – they always try to squirm out of these questions that are intended to make them look… human, at least. And they always end up looking grotesque. Remember when former US President Bill Clinton admitted smoking cannabis but said he didn’t inhale?

This Writer likes another question in the same Guardian article, because it has a certain quality of prediction about it:

What single thing would improve the quality of your life?
Having more time to spend with Vic and the kids.

Many’s the failed politician who has quit in order to “spend more time with [their] family”.

This Writer certainly hopes that Starmer’s wish comes true soon.


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Starmer SCRAPS (not ‘waters down’) his pledge to strengthen workers’ rights

Keir Starmer: if he bothered to do some work instead of lounging around listening to right-wing donors, he’d known that protecting workers’ rights means employers’ productivity and profitability improves. His claim that watering down those rights is pro-business is ridiculously silly.

Keir Starmer has really done it this time; he has scrapped the Labour Party’s reason for existence.

In case it hasn’t occurred to you, the “Labour” in that party’s title means it was created to represent working people and people who have to seek work in order to make a living.

Not very long ago, Starmer pledged (he loves to pledge) stronger rights for workers if his party were to form a government.

Now that pledge is as much a part of history as all the others he has made:

Let’s be clear on this: Starmer has gone on the record many times, stating that his word is his bond and if he makes a pledge, he’ll stick by it (the following clip discusses renationalisations of privatised national utilities and the scrapping of university tuition fees, which are both Starmer pledges that have since been consigned to history):

Saul Staniforth points out that Starmer’s supporters have excuses for his decisions to withdraw all the pledges he made when he became leader of what was still, then, the Labour Party. But Saul also clarifies that the same conditions are not relevant to the pledge on workers’ rights:

It seems clear from shadow minister Stephen Morgan’s interview response below that the pledge on workers’ rights is now history:

Here’s the at-a-glance guide to what Starmer has done:

Alternatively, follow the link below for a more in-depth examination:

Amazingly, Angela Rayner is still claiming that the policy is intact and the only difference is that, now, the way it will be implemented is being laid out:

But nobody is taking that seriously, including leading figures within the party:

Ultimately, last week’s announcement means just one thing to most people:

And finally: here’s Damo with exactly the kind of earthy commentary we should expect from him:

The punchline is that Starmer’s claim that scrapping this policy is pro-business… is childish nonsense.

Firms whose employees have strong rights and support are more successful than those whose workers don’t – because their job security instils loyalty, pride in their work and a genuine desire for the entire business to prosper. They are healthier in body and mind, and more productive.

Firms that treat their employees as they will be able to continue treating them under Starmer’s new policy… well, they go under. And then the bosses blame the workers they mistreated.

Starmer would know that if he had bothered to do any research.

Sadly, it seems he doesn’t know the meaning of work.


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Is latest council loss REALLY a ‘bounce’ against Labour’s attack on workers’ rights?

Let’s answer the headline question straight away: This Writer doesn’t think so.

Keir Starmer’s announcement that he’s abandoning yet another pledge – this one to strengthen the rights of UK employees – probably came too late to influence the results of last week’s council elections.

It’s more likely to be part of a long-term shift towards Independent candidates that we saw enacted across the country at the local elections in May.

For clarity: the Ayresome ward in Middlesbrough has been won from Labour by an Independent candidate:

This Writer knows little about the winner apart from her name: Jackie Young. From what I can see, she is not a former Labour Party member, as so many of those who took seats from Keir Starmer’s party in May were.

My guess, then, is that she was offering policies that voters in Ayresome actually wanted, as opposed to the current Starmer Party we-do-what-we-want-because-you-have-to-vote-for-us nonsense. I’m willing to stand corrected if necessary, but experience suggests that’s how it is.

Remember what happened in May, when and expected Starmerite landslide turned into a trickle of extra seats for Labour while the Green Party and a large number of Independents who had been booted out of Starmer’s party (or had left of their own accord) cleaned up?

Here’s a reminder from Vox Political‘s article of May 5:

But the biggest kick in the teeth for the main parties – especially Labour – is the strong performance of councillors who have been expelled from that party for being too left-wing (other excuses are available).

Usually when a person leaves a political party – or is, as in these cases, removed – and stand as an independent, they sink without a trace. Look at the performance of the Labour quitters who formed Change UK while Jeremy Corbyn was in charge, and then lost their seats in the 2019 general election.

Instead, independent left-wing candidates are retaining their seats across England.

Here are a few examples:

This is in Portsmouth:

This is in Windsor:

To me, this indicates that people are starting to give up on political tribalism – they’re not all voting for candidates just because of the name of the party those people represent.

Instead, they are voting for the people they know will represent them.

We should bear in mind that these are council elections in wards with low electorates and low turnouts.

But council election results are regarded as forecasts for general elections.

The times are changing. The Parliamentary elites have tried to dictate the policies we can support and the people available to get our vote – and across the country, people are saying they’re not going to put up with it.

It’s the way we are. We’ll put up with a lot – but there come a point when someone will try to tell us what to do and we’ll say: “No.”

Keir Starmer won’t learn any lessons from this. My impression is that he’s too deeply into the pockets of right-wing donors to hear the pleas of those who actually vote election candidates onto councils and into Parliament.

Let us hope they make their message clear when the general election is finally called.


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Do voters really want Labour – or not?

Keir Starmer: his promises constantly turn out to be lies but people seem determined to vote for his party, even though its only confirmed policies are already being inflicted on us by the Tories.

The people of the UK seem to be in two minds about the party that still claims to lead the Labour movement, despite being led by Keir Starmer, a man who has betrayed most of the promises he has made to party members and is soon likely to turn his back on the rest.

A poll by Redfield and Wilton Strategies suggests that almost two-thirds of people do not trust Starmer’s party to handle the cost-of-living crisis (and nobody can blame them, when he offers us absolutely no policies with which to do so):

But polling for Channel 4 News shows Labour would have a landslide victory with around 460 seats if a general election took place now:

Why are people saying they’ll vote for Starmer’s party, even though they don’t trust him to do anything to help them?

One possibility presents itself. But wouldn’t it be depressing if Starmer’s cynical belief that voters have nowhere else to go apart from his shabby STP (Substitute Tory Party) was proved correct?

Then again, polls carried out when election-time rules on neutral reporting aren’t being enforced have been known to reverse themselves dramatically when those rules come into play.

And Starmer has some serious opposition on what he still claims is his own side:

Damo is right: Starmer seems to be selling policy to the highest bidder while the unions and party members dither over whether to abandon him.

Is it because voters (and the unions) see no alternatives?

There are alternatives, of course – but it seems too many people are buying into that hoary old Liberal Democrat propaganda that voting for anybody other than the party that came second last time will let the Tories back in.

The message from this site is simple:

DO YOUR RESEARCH!

Find out who, in your constituency, is putting forward policies that you actually need and support them.

Any policy at all would be better than what Keir Starmer is offering.

Are you planning to vote Labour at the next general election? If so – why?


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