by Atul Hatwal
Keir Starmer is not a Blairite. His closest political ally is Ed Miliband and like the younger Miliband, his politics are those of the soft left. But if the hard left continue to oppose his leadership in their current manner, they’re going to change him. The result will be the mirror image of what they seek; rather than bind him to the 2019 manifesto or constrain him to a more left-wing position, they’re going to Blairform him.
The response of the Corbynites to Labour’s apology to the whistle-blowers over anti-Semitism has been typical. Look no further than J Corbyn himself, who called the decision “political” not ” legal” and has opened himself up to being sued by John Ware from Panorama.
But it’s not just on anti-Semitism that they react in this way, it’s everything. Here’s Matt Zarb Cousin, following the release of the parliamentary Intelligence committee’s Russia report,
The leader of the opposition and the prime minister of the United Kingdom https://t.co/7ple2Kh20D
— Matt Zarb-Cousin (@mattzarb) July 21, 2020
Ahead of the impending Unite leadership election, in the contest to be the candidate for the United Left – Unite’s hard left faction which has dominated the leadership in the past decade – Keir Starmer was used as a wedge issue, an enemy to take on as a demonstration of left wing bona fides. Howard Beckett had this tweet pinned to the top of is Twitter timeline.
Keir Starmer
• Sacked Burgon & Lavery from cabinet
• Criticised BLM
• Pushed for schools opening
• Sacked RLB who disagreed
• Abandoned wealth taxes
• Failed to defend black MPs bullied
• Changed NEC election rules without conferenceI called him out for every single one
— Howard Beckett (@BeckettUnite) July 17, 2020
A politician’s ideological heading at the start of their career is often quite different by the end. The process of politics, their experience on the journey, changes them. When looking for portents of the future for a new soft left leader who is picking up the pieces following a shattering defeat, compare and contrast the Neil Kinnock of 1983 with that of 1992.
The intervening years for Neil Kinnock were a tale of bitter, internecine conflict where the middle ground of Labour was burned by the hard left in the political equivalent of total war.
This Labour leader is at the start of his journey and as the hard left polarise every internal party issue, two factors will reshape Starmer’s outlook just as they did Neil Kinnock’s.
First, he’s going to be praised each time he faces them down, normally followed by a bump in the polls.
This praise will come from his own MPs – the majority of the PLP is solidly against any return to Corbynism and their support will be evident in their public statements, private e-mails and hand-written notes that will find their way to the leader’s office. And it will come from the media who will gleefully support the hard left in turning these issues into perceived tests of strength which will drive Starmer to assert his authority.
The sacking of Rebecca Long Bailey was a case study. Praise and affirmation are addictive, there’s little as empowering as confirmation that you are a wise and decisive leader, especially when the following weekend’s polls show a rise of a couple of points.
Second, the media will apply the leadership ratchet. Each time decisive action is taken, this sets the minimum level of response for future situations. Sacking Rebecca Long Bailey has established a new standard, to which Keir Starmer will be held.
This isn’t an act of particularly partisan anti-Labour bias by the media, just a function of the way politics is reported. Any compromise with the hard left or movement towards their position will be written up as weakness, as a climb-down forced on the leader by a resurgent left.
Keir Starmer has been praised on anti-Semitism for the way he has overruled the hard left, but when he attempted to add some context to his position on Black Lives Matter by walking back his words that this was a ‘moment’ rather than a movement and said he’d participate in training for unconscious bias, the reporting was almost all through the frame of Labour’s leader retreating in the face of criticism from the left.
It won’t have gone unnoticed by either the leader or his advisers and no matter what his instincts, the next time he’s in a similar position, he’ll think twice and most likely hold his tongue. There will be no nuance, just a straight bat, no backing down, no compromise.
More damaging for the hard left, it won’t just be the leader who is changed. The membership will turn against them.
By taking Starmer on so vituperatively, the hard left is making the same mistake that the moderates did after the election of Corbyn. They are forcing the overwhelmingly soft left membership to row in behind their leader time and time again until the established soft left position shifts and settles into one of overt and committed opposition to the hard left.
When I started working for the Labour party in the mid-1990s, one of the most striking aspects of the party was the sense of unity behind Tony Blair. There was precious little in the way of real dissent, some policy debates yes, but broadly the soft left were largely behind the leadership. This was a legacy of the previous decade’s internal battles.
The centre of gravity in Labour in the 1990s had shifted to the centre to such an extent that Michael Meacher, Bennite candidate for deputy leader in 1983 and latterly employer of Jon Lansman, was content to become a Minister of State in the New Labour government, a position he happily held for six years, voting with the whip on the full gamut of New Labour policies.
Once the Labour party membership makes a fundamental choice, as it did in 1983 with Neil Kinnock, 2015 with Jeremy Corbyn and 2020 with Keir Starmer, the only way for the ideological direction to be reset is electoral calamity. If Keir Starmer makes any progress electorally, even if it falls short of some of the loftier ambitions, the membership will back him to continue his work and further marginalise the hard left.
The reality is that in the upside-down world of 2020, it is the Corbynites who will most effectively deliver the aims of centrists and moderates. They will be the ones who move the Labour leader and his soft left supporters, irrevocably to the middle ground of British politics.
Atul Hatwal is editor of Uncut
Tags: anti-semitism, Atul Hatwal, Blairite, hard left, Keir Starmer, Neil Kinnock
I don’t see Starmer becoming blairite but hid shadow Home Secretary is doing A rather poor new labour impression
In what way are Corbynites trying to force him down a path, except sneering
The comparison with old 1983 labour and Corbynites is wrong
The foot left of 1983 didn’t want to win they cheered when they saw the 83 result, it was a moral victory after 30 years they’d been finally allowed to have the manifesto they wanted,
Corbynites want power at nearly any cost
The tweet saying Starmer hasn’t backed
Black MPs being bullied is wrong some from the internal investigation have been suspended Starmer offered sympathy and set up a inquiry
For all I can see anything anyone did was wrong was tell a journalist Diane Abbott was crying in a toilet
Kinnock faced unions NEC block votes to move us away from disastrous policies which the left / unions didn’t accept has lost us millions of votes( Thatchers union reforms buying back privatised stuff, unilateralism)
When the leader took in unions in the 80’s they’d caused a end to the list sR consensus that out the public If as the unions thought themselves above the law, the grooming gangs and labour councils who ignored it thought themselves above the law
Starmer hasn’t shown a start to taking them on
And whatever ever the Corbynites were their hard left views aren’t part of the grooming gangs
Really I don’t think the media who’d moved to slag Starmer paid any attention ruin to the RLB case it’s not like kinnock the backbencher of 1976 who opposed Denis Healeyz cuts
was the same as starmer whos only crime
Was a 2nd referendum for remain( as bad as that is)
If starmer is too have a battle and is dragging the Party machine: mps along with him the way Kinnock did it’ll be the new intake of MPs who’ll break the whip if there’s a policy that seems a compromise
Controlling the FBU union over Matt wrack stopping freezing speech, or maybe the Tories not accepting Trans Self ID
Labour wanted to win in 97 because there was 8 or so policies where labour said it was moral and the Tories are the bad guys yet now labour just says Aurhoritarian liberal views on victims/ positive discrimination or hate crime, yet for all the talk of guild socialism labour doesn’t want to win seriously
Labour has lost the working class vote
Blair needed to win middle class votes
Although Corbynites wanted to win with Jez as leader they’re not that bothered now with him hind unless they convince themselves Starmer is ind kf them
The late 80’x hard left after seeing thatcher destroy what they had by the end of her second term finally wanted to win, but not at the extent of losing face snd see labour go to the centre
The opponents now of Srarmer are only saving face in as much as the 2nd referendum for remain or identity politics or denying anti semitism
Lost them the last election
And then starmer is ignoring these issues
Unless he decided that he would suspend some corbynite no for misogyny over a woman who got abuse as she felt revealing grooming gangs/ anti semites or Pre Op trans sex pests were excused as its transphobic/ islamophobic
Or the snobs should sneer are brexiters
Then there’s no comparison with Kinnock who got abused getting the party to accept thatchers trade union laws
And starmer who seems just as happy as Ed Miliband/ Corbyn to go for ID middle class voted, think the red wall wouldn’t vote Tory
When it has and it’s more easier for then to do it twice now
William Hague would ein PMQs every week hands down , how did that turn out?
Atul “Remain will win easily. Boris will be irrelevant and immigration will barely register in voters’ choice” Hatwal with another great and thoughtful prediction.
I recommend this
https://conservativewoman.co.uk/the-tories-surrender-in-the-culture-wars-will-bring-them-down?fbclid=IwAR2Abyta_Wm3G8YbGY2QkaQpGjYn9IAsIWdMaw6Fo8ALhky7brSohNYN_Zo
Labour needs tory votes to win, *if labour wants to win
https://unherd.com/2020/07/why-boris-johnson-just-keeps-on-winning/
This is labours trouble Starmer can do a blair tough on crime and causes of crime the people who feel the causes of crime are poverty can interpret it as a call to end austerity, as this wouldn’t put off young people fed up with too much stop & search/ e Racial profiling assuming the worse (not the left doesn’t assume young black people are liberal)
Tough in crime can be interpreted introduce new laws such as increasing the equality act to include religion/ Misogyny or cultural appropriation
With our realising Blair needn’t the causes of crime or the powers of conservatism were holding the country up
Meant that he felt personal responsibility and the trade unions were to blame and socially conservative not accepting his globalisation
But labour won’t ever be able to get socially conservative culturally Tory voters over without putting off young politics metropolitan labour voters in the culture war
I fail to see why Howard Beckett has a problem with anyone criticising BLM – they are a marxist organisation, already heavily infiltrated by the SWP here in UK. And we also had the disgusting spectacle of Starmer belittling himself by ‘taking the knee’, along with his pet puppy the rather dim Angela Rayner.
It’s still true block votes from cliques get preferred candidates in place think then have a run of the mill in who gets to control( run the party)
I remember when Bernie grant said in Martha Osamor not getting to Be Vauxhall’s labour candidate if black people cant stand for parliament they’ll find other ways of expressing their views and they will be violent
It’s Like MLK quote about Free speech
Is stopped then rioting is the voice of the un heard
BLM violence is partly due to stop search and labour won’t call it out through fear of losing new labour votes
The front bench is The problem
There was no way labour was ever gonna win with 2nd referendum for remain or Corbyn as leader
The real fight till and how many tory voters are socially conservative in the Culture war
A fight which is a mix of Culture of
cultrual Marxism
And Marx like many other communists were racists
Section 60 should be restricted to football matches and concerts: festivals
Decriminalise cannabis
S & S isnt racist profiling in any other thing than little old ladies aren’t searched in a metal detector arch
When going through a train station
It’s just fact gangs tend to gang around car parks and going to the car we get looked at like we’re in gangs
The couture war That
has
United the working class who voted Tory for the 1st time
I don’t see that there’s much to Starmer one way or the other. The only thing he has going in his favour is that he isn’t the odious Corbyn. He’s also quite predictable in his choices, promoting dim birds like Rayner to well above weight-punching level. Even Cooper and Reeves outshine her, for heaven’s sake.
Blair was lucky – and had thugs like Campbell behind him. Not much genuine fire in his belly, though, unlike Neil Kinnock (who was more than capable of making a fool of himself in different ways, especially after the election results came in).
I expect the kind of conscience-stricken middle-class dimwits I know will go for Starmer (but, then, it took them a year or two to twig Corbyn), mostly because of his pro-European credentials. Can’t imagine him saying anything contentious about immigration or taking any interest whatever in working-class concerns. Still, neither did Harold Wilson or his crowd.
As for being ‘Tory-Lite’, the mainstream Labour Party has been that since the days of Arthur Henderson. The trouble is, the nutters – Laski, Zilliacus, Bevan, Benn – have always shouted the loudest.
Still think this should all be in the past. Kier Starmer is now our leader – of course he is going to change things and if this means a move to the centre then surely that is no bad thing – elections are won from the centre and so far Kier is going in the right direction. Some mistakes may occur on the way, but generally on the right road. Look, we really do have to have a change from this awful government. Johnson, is doing himself no favours every time he opens his mouth – says he is a man of the people but does he reward those who have done good deeds- no – gives his Brexit pals entrance to the House of Lords. Same old Tories – feathering their own nest.
Labours vote is so stacked in the cities now
If the Tories keep on 40% even if labour were on 44% the Tories would have more MPs due to the brilliant strategy of labours let’s get Ex Libdem votes in, Er the Cities
Naturally no-one belonging to the Labour Party would ever dream of feathering their own nest, or allowing their nearest and dearest to do so. Perish the thought. Investigate the shenanigans of the late Donald Dewar or Mrs.Jack Straw – or Mr.Anthony Blair.
Heard a good dsecription of the novara lot ruining the laobur party it’s the Woke mans burden
When labour lose the next election imagine a book “Labours northern discomfort” the German Christian Democrats who have Keynsian Socialist policies would have been a model to have heklped Labour win and Ester mcvey MP’s Blue collar conservatives, will see Labour not win Stoke in Trent or lose councillors in Medway kent like brenchan Chilton or Vince mable Or even the fact the 2nd generation migrants moved out of inner London to outer,who stop voting Labour
So the indigenous population moved from to the surrounding parts of the cities to the Shires and a assumption that 2nd generation of migrant parents who moved would still vote labour so labour could win seats in the surrounding areas of the cities as the demographics worked in their favour, I can see labour not keeping councillors in outer London, I know black people eho wsnt to leave London there’s too many Nigerian muslims there,
I can see why a black person doens’ tlike to go out of london. If people want to travel out of London, but a why do they have a resentment and why do you think white people might not want to go to London or want to get out of it
Trans despite some labour in Essex like natacha Kennedy, Conservative MP Jackie Doyle price who took the Seat thurrock off labour in 2010 a seat Labour held in 1983 with a majority of 80, now has a 12k majority , has spoke out against the self defining of people who they’re not, Yet they falsely call Blue labour not homophobic
The blairites and Corbyn ones ,teaming up for a 2 nd referendum for remain. As a Corbynite in London was a idenitity politics fluffy woke and a blairite was a neo , liberal, liberal have more in common than they’d like to admit
Lots of momentum constituencies obsessed with the revolution are calling white people racist and femenists transphobes are collapsing but breaking the rules To gain the party they’ll destroy it too clear off
And then the party is finished, they dont care what they did and blame eveyone else
The trouble is momentum spend everyone’s time on complaining that the alternatuve is evil and yet are equally unable to see reality
Both Councillors princess Bright and Tele Lawal, and Trevor Philips we’re saying how in demanding the BLM statements aren’t calling for anything
What if teams of people disagree, Take if a person with with a foreign sounding surname goes for car insurance are they less likely to get insurance or stop at a airport,
,And white identity politics backlash happens this movcement will do more harm than good And yet so many People don’t realise a assumption ,of the working class even those in the left were racist by the 60’s up north yet feel the north has privelege it can be poor without mentioning freedom Of choice but only if you have the money from the state,
Much, much, much more ‘feathering of nests’ and underhand dealing goes on in the Tory Party. Now we have contracts worth millions going to Tory pals for useless face masks – this is tax payers money here. Cummings connection to those given the contract for the useless app. Jenrick and the housing contact. Grayling and the ferry contract. This is the present Government here – this is our money they are squandering. This is mismanagement on an epic scale.
Watched the incident with Dawn Butler on TV.
Well didn’t she make an absolute fool of herself. Petulant, mouthey, self-entitled and arrogant. If any ordinary person spoke to the Police like that during a routine stop it would have been cuffs, down the cells and a POA charge.
She’s an MP – she needs to learn to show leadership, be publicly seen to co-operate with the Police willingly 100% of the time and accept that there are major major knife, gun and drug problems within the black community in London and the Police – as they were trying to explain to the idiot, routinely check the occupants of cars registered out of area.
She isn’t fit to be a parish councillor and any clown that thinks the British voter is going to put a Labour government into Office if clowns like that could end up in Cabinet is seriously deluding themselves.
She’s a disgrace.
Tafia Quite
The Anti semitism inquiry and grooming gang ones come quick enough to shut these bigots up
And Stopping a car isn’t stop & search
Does Anne strike anyone as just a touch naive? I loathe Johnson and his cronies, probably more than I disliked Margaret Thatcher or Cameron. But Blair, Mandelson etc. were clearly up to no good, filling their boots with gusto.
Drove past the house of the late Marxist Ken Coates the other day, a former rectory behind massive gates. How the other half lives or what? Starmer had better watch his back once the media grow tired of him. Bound to be something in his closet.
Tafia and John P Reid – you’re both racists.
my local Labour Party 25 years ago , was divided among working and middle class areas( we only win councillors in the working class ones)
The working class part being a clique of Methodist trade union working men’s clubs who’d use block votes to get preferred candidates in place ,then 25 years ago realising labour needed middle class votes to win , dozens of middle class members joined in the posh bit used block votes to get themselves in preferred places to take over running the seat to get a chance for them to stand to be councillors in the working class areas
They tried to undermine the working class members with the perception it was only the white working class who are racist( there’s probably more middle class white racists in the posh part of the area but it’s not highlighted)
A boundary change happened 15 years ago we inherited more working class areas and it became 50% working class labour leave and 50% middle class remain
And the middle class clique couldn’t bare the thought they’d lost their hold on the clique started screaming racist towards the working class why don’t you F off and go join the Tories, Yet all they did was turn the working class against each other And ignored the working class view thinking they’d never vote Tory The good intentions of thinking the Labour Party needed to be over taken by the middle class 25 years ago to win and by calling the working class racist it was a way they could control the party without a fight while ignoring working class concerns assuming just get a labour gov’t in power would keep the working class happy wouldn’t see the working class feel being called racist an insult to the point that they’d realise the Labour Party does nothing for the working class And there’s more to life than money
The sneering at the working class of red pillar boxes fried breakfast it stretched to persist a sense of Belonging until the End of this society saw Brexit and trump
We told first generation migrants to integrate and as Julie burchill said of the oh so caring types ,they didn’t live with the working class who had their communities changed and as Northern Churches went They didn’t want to talk and Created A new demographic
, The White Working Class dying in London so moved to Essex stopped voting labour so the labour party Blamed the electorate
It’s a much to say labour has lost the working class it’s something not understood by liberal authoritarianism At how the Working Class was perceived ended with the stretch to those egos as Labour was in a semi flex, suffice to say we were expected to dance to the tune of the middle class It’s educated men who should listen to the advice Orwell book the road to Wigan pier/ in fairness there were people speaking out about how labour would lose the working class vote like Ann Cryer but New Labour didn’t want to hear it , Other traditional working class things like Apprentships were dismissed as The YTS was brought in and they were a con To get the unemployment figures Down apprentices were replaced as it sounded too much like Socialist
Southwark yuppie replaced the working class scum A demographic that also affected BAME working class as they came in ,in their High Rise flats and the working class couldn’t compete with their ideals and the likes of the blue collar worker was driven out in the New area that became like soho
the area of the Un-Educated, yet the selling of council homes without replacing them was a case of selling the family silver it was the unacceptable face of capitalism, as the housing crisis has grown out of it, now
Anne, you only read the headlines and even the at a piss-poor standard. The masks are FFP2 filtered masks. They are fully compliant for use right across the EU, within the UK private health sector and within the NHS itself but not in actual frontline hospitals.
The reason is the masks have ear loops and the NHS will only allow headloops on FFP2 filter masks inside frontline hospitals.
The masks are not useless and no money has been wasted. They will be used in GP surgeries, community health clinics, care homes, dental surgeries, home visit nurses and home visit carers.
Even my squinty-eyed cat knows this. People thicker than him (and boy is he stupid) don’t.
You can grade yourself on the squinty-eyed cat scale.
Has anyone noticed we’re in the grips of a flu epidemic?
Flu has now been a more common cause of death than Covid-19 for seven weeks in a row, since June 19. A total of 6,626 people died of flu between June 19 and July 31, compared to 2,992 victims of coronavirus.
Likewise more people are now dying of pneumonia than Covid and not only that, fewer people are dying across the board than the five-year average and the much hallowed ‘excess deaths’ is not only falling, but on current trends will be negative by the end of the year.
Not only that, the economy is tanking because we went into lockdown too soon, went to
deep and are taking too long to come out of it.
Anosrep
Don’t tell my wife(unless you mean racist towards white or Asian or Jews?)
anosrep – I have been stopped by police dozens of times. I don’t mind, I always co-operate and you are obviously a cretin. The Police Officer she was ranting at was trying to explain to her what happened but thehalfwit would not stop ranting. She wasn’t stopped. The car was, because an officer put one digit wrong into the NPR computer and as a result the car didn’t match the number plate. They wouldn’t have been doing that at all if her community behaved itself. The sooner all Police Forces emulate North Wales Police and bring in mandatory drug swabbing of every vehicle they stop for any reason at all, and always prosecuting/cautioning positive swabs, the better. Ordinary people do not rant like that.
Now then, back to business. As everyone knows, Labour winning a majority without winning in Scotland has never happened (not that they’ve won a majority very often anyway). The latest poling is in for Scotland and the onward masrch of the SNP continues, largely at Labour’s expense.
Figures are
HOLYROOD (constituency/Regional List)
SNP – 57/47%
Tory – 20/21%
Lab – 14/14%
LDem – 6/6%
Grn – 1/6%
Oth – 1/6%
(*16/17 year-olds have the vote at Scottish Parliament level and a proportional amount of 16/17 year olds are in the sample).
This would give the SNP 74 seats in the 129 Seat Scottosh Parliament.
———————
WESTMINSTER
SNP – 54%
Con – 20%
Lab – 16%
LDem – 5%
Grn – 2%
Oth – 3%
————————
IndyRef 2 – Yes-53%, No- 47%
———————
This isn’t a one-off. This collapse in Labour in Scotland has been going on now for several years, relentlessly, a bit at a time. It is however far far worse for Labour than that. Even if they did manage to end up the largest party in a General Election, they would be unable to form a coalition government because they would be unable to meet the SNP’s primary and non-negotiable condition – the devolution of the Section Order (the right of Holyrood call an Indy Ref whenever they want, as often as they want, on their terms, at their leisure), with the guarentee that Westminster and Westminster based parties keep their noses out of it. Labour – in particular people on this site, need to start realising something with regards to Scotland – the tories being in Westminster suits the SNP. If they can’t have independence, they prefer a Tory government in London because it literally drives Scots into the arms of the SNP.
Labour is trapped there between a very big rock and a very hard place. If it remains a unionist party it is finished and it’s decline will continue. (There are whole constituencies up there that have membership in dozens and actual activists at zero). If it becomes a federalist party the Scots will piss themselves laughing – that strain of politic is regarded as infantile and and an insult. If it becomes an independence party that destroys it’s electoral ambitions for Westminster.
The SNP knows that Westminster is largely a pointless paper exercise for them for the remainder of this Parliament because of BoJo’s unassailable majority. As a result, it can – and will, devote all of it’s time and manpower at wiping out Labour and the LDems north of the border once and for all.
And a word of warning to Labour. Polling in Scotland for the last three polls now has shown that the inclusion of 16/17 year olds into the mix lowers Labour’s vote and raises the SNP, LDems, & Greens in ever-increasing numbers. Similar is manifesting in Wales with regards Plaid, LDem & Green – their vote increases, largely at Labour’s expense).
Anostep. Home Office figures for the period Mar 2017 to Mar 2019 for convictions.
White People killing Black : 11 convictions
Black people killing white: 45 convictions
Black people killing black : 81 convictions
Now, would you like to discuss figures for muggings, weapons, drugs, child rape?
So, Tafia and John are ‘racists’, are they? Or is that just an assumption, a bit of lazy thinking?
Enoch Powell, some of you may remember, when asked by some mud-stirring fool was he a racist, said of course, if what was meant was that some Indians were superior to some whites. There are plenty of Labour supporters of my acquaintance who never see a black or brown face from one year to the other unless perhaps they are having a curry delivered. They’re in the leafy suburbs or exclusive villages.
Then we have the moronic ‘Islamophobia’. Is it so difficult for some to grasp that others might develop a distaste for suicide bombers, Sharia-peddlers, one-armed rabble-rousers and rapists? Yet my best pal at University happened to be a Muslim, albeit a privileged one from Singapore.
I have a strong liking for mutton, rice and peas but I don’t have much sympathy for the likes of Dawn Butler. And nor would I if it was, say, Rees-Mogg who was pulled up by the cops.
As for Starmer, let him remain a centrist. Let him argue on behalf of Europe or the EU. I have no problem with that. The young of this country will want their say sooner or later.
By the way, does anyone still miss John Smith or think that Labour may have missed a trick by not badgering Alan Johnson a little more forecefully?
Anosrep having got 7 black female candidates elected with my campaigns organised campaigns for 3 more
I was called a thug member of the EDL And worked for the BNP, , the more extreme the insults. When it got to the “toy town communists” Im compared to hopkins and Tom Robinson .
The incompetence goes on – Williamson making a mess of A level grades. Another promoted beyond his abilities.
Whatever Keir Starmer does or does not turn into, I very much doubt whether he will do anything to tackle that dreadful organization that calls itself the National Health Service, with its rainbow-displaying, doorstep-clapping hordes of idiots. Labour must – repeat, must – rethink its entire relationship with the Welfare State, not fall back upon lazy tributes to Bevan and his chums. This is 2020, not 1948. Then get a grip on the police and education.
Anne, as the most stupid of people know, education is 100% devolved. Willliamson only decides what England will do.
England decided to use an alogrithm – on the advice of experts from OfQual.
OfQual wrote the alogrithm with the assistance of the teachers unions & after a consultation in which their proposals were recommended by 74 professional teaching bodies including all of the teachers unions ( probably why they have been largely quiet ). In fact the General Secretary of ASCL, Geoff Barton, went on C4 news stridently supporting the alogrithm just days before the results came ouut, and the NEU praised the alogrithm saying it helped with consistency and fairness.
As for Labour, in the run-up to the 2019 General Election, Labour campaigned for the scrappage oof Teacher-Assessments in all scenarios saying they were deeply unfair and dsicriminated against BAME students. The then Shadow Education Secretary – Angela Rayner even put out a press release saying that teaher grades were wrong in the vast majority of cases saying that students should have the right to takethe exam if they wished. they opposed using teacher-assesment from the outset.
Indeed in Wales (run by Labour remember) Marke Drakeford the First Minister is still – despite dropping the alogrithm and adopting Teacher-Assesment, against Teacher-Assessment and statesheonly changed because England did and that immediately disadvantaged Wales students and his opreferred option was to stiick with the alogrithm.
But you Anne, being a Labour stalwart, knew all this because it’s actually your party’s declared position and it’s also the declared position of the unions. After all, my squinty-eyed cat (the most stupid of my 5 cats), knew it. So what was your position? Did you support what your party were sayin before it became apparent to all that OfQual were talking rubbish?
Williamson has learnt some valuable lessons – OfQual are garbage and teachers have no idea about what they are on about. (Much the same as Hancock has learnt about PHE and NHS England)