X Close

Wes Streeting is a man for all factions Attacked by all, the shadow health secretary is bound to succeed

He's talking to you. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)

He's talking to you. (Christopher Furlong/Getty Images)


July 10, 2023   7 mins

Well, comrades, nearly a quarter of the way into the century, how’s it going for socialism? Oh dear. Our humourless, uncharismatic party leader has decided to launch a purge, apparently. Anyone defying the official line will be expelled. Voices of dissent will not be tolerated. Among the lifetime party members being frozen out: yeah, that guy. The peevish, talismanic figure who was so good at motivating a crowd, so bad at politics. People used to chant his name at rallies. Now cast into exile, he mutters bitterly to whoever will listen that the party has debased itself through its endless accommodations of the private sector.

All this happened 100 years ago, of course, in 1923, when Stalin’s erasure of factionalism was in full putsch. Poor old Trotsky had been banished, and members of The Workers’ Truth — think Momentum blokes with similar beards but sturdier clothes — were expelled from the party, if they were lucky. Of course, nobody for a second is suggesting Keir Starmer is anything like Joseph Stalin. He’s several inches taller and supports an independent Ukraine, for a start. However, the current Purification of Labour certainly has a Stalinist echo, doesn’t it?

So, why does paranoid android Starmer feel the urge to purge? As Marx didn’t say: “History repeats itself, first as tragedy, secondly on Twitter.” There is something both tragic and farcical about Starmer’s war on dissent. All those solemn little Komsomol interns wearing I’m here for Keir! lapel badges, bog-snorkelling through the tides of human effluent on social media, trawling for indiscretions, missteps, wrongthink. He did WHAT? Shared a platform with Ken Loach? Expressed support for the idea of a progressive alliance? “Liked” a “problematic tweet”? Oh, here’s a good one — a Labour MP with a Punjabi Sikh dad tweeted saying Rishi Sunak being prime minister, “isn’t a win for Asian representation. He’s a multi-millionaire who, as chancellor, cut taxes on bank profits while overseeing the biggest drop in living standards since 1956”. No, we can’t have that, Keir’s just been on Sky News telling everyone how he congratulated Rishi “for being a prime minister of British Asian descent, and it’s really, really important that I did that”. Say what you like about Starmer. He really, really admires his own probity.

Yeah, it’s a tough time to be a socialist in the Labour Party. No surprise that the brightest meteor in the sky at the moment is shadow health secretary Wes Streeting, who is clearly being positioned as a man for all factions, in the sense that he’s cheerfully drawing fire from all of them and apparently not giving a shit. His dull but likable memoir has been doing the rounds to generally favourable reviews despite its excruciating title — One Boy, Two Bills and a Fry Up — and prose that’s been ironed flat. It offers an origin story that used to be commonplace among Labour MPs in the days before politicians started going straight into parliament from law, journalism or their gap year.

The Streeting autobiography, like those of Frank Field and Alan Johnson before it, charts a long march from working class poverty to political power. More importantly, here is a young Labour government minister-in-waiting — he’s still only 40 — who understands the acute problems faced by the contemporary poor, not what he calls the imaginary “Hovis working class” beloved of such social scientists as Jacob Rees-Mogg and Nadine Dorries. The only thing his Ilford North constituency has plenty of is deprivation. Streeting knows himself well enough to recognise what he’s lost and gained in the transition to middle-class life. His sense of injustice over the plight of the working poor — a class of people very much associated with the last 13 years of Tory government — is raw, his anger real. We’re a world away from the days of Blair’s public sector spendathon, when John Prescott told everyone, we were “all middle class now”. He might just as well have told us we were all millionaires.

Streeting is certainly showing flair as a self-publicist, and it’s fun to see the fallout. He and his book have been everywhere in the past fortnight, as he relives a Stepney childhood full of stoical women and decent men and a grandfather who was a little bit whee, a little bit whurr, a little bit repeatedly in prison. His media knees-up has already prompted anonymous grumblings among some of his shadow cabinet colleagues, allegedly pissed off that Labour’s policy agenda has been eclipsed by what Trotsky might have called a “cult of personality”. Streeting’s an engaging interviewee. In common with Labour deputy Angela Rayner, he has an ordinary voice. He can be disarmingly frank. He told the Guardian’s Simon Hattenstone: “A great night out is going out with friends and getting absolutely plastered … I’m a bad binge drinker. That’s terrible messaging for the shadow health secretary, but I am a binge drinker.”

The Mail, the Express, the Telegraph, the Sun will all keep that in their back pockets of course, but Streeting’s flawed-Christian everyman candour is at the moment playing very much to his advantage. George W. Bush’s home truth that voters essentially want a candidate they could imagine having a beer with is still a useful guide. I and many party members would much rather have a beer with Streeting than with Starmer. Two beers, tops. If it’s binge drinking, I’d go for vodka jellies with Angela in a heartbeat.

Streeting has made no secret of his ambition to one day be leader of the Labour Party, chiefly by unequivocally denying it, and also by pledging total support for Sir Keir. With his solid reputation as a Labour Right-winger, Streeting even gives notice of how he’d launch a leadership bid: “I’d tack Left. You win the Labour leadership from the Left, as I reminded Tony Blair from time to time. His pitch of 1994 was not the Tony Blair of 2007.” Streeting is clearly an ambitious pragmatist, like Starmer. An infuriated membership beseeches Labour leaders to be bolder. In fact, a huge, roiling majority of the public want to renationalise water, rail and energy, and think nurses and teachers shouldn’t have to use food banks. But Team Starmer simply taps the latest polling screenshot and tells them to calm down. Promising nothing is a strategy now. If you could map the level of fury among fellow Labour members at the perceived inertia of His Majesty’s Opposition, it would look like one of those “hottest day on record” charts.

Starmer’s hero is Harold Wilson and on one hand you can understand why. After all, he was head of a Labour government when the Beatles were in power, when the country was redefining itself for a new, optimistic world. We had a roaring economy, equal rights legislation, BBC2 commissioning Monty Python and Kenneth Clark in colour. The Open University. The World Cup. It was the best of times; it was the best of times. But at least Wilson acknowledged the broad church that the party had always been. He was fond of quoting Ian Mikardo’s clunky maxim: “Every bird needs a Left wing and a Right wing and it can’t fly on its Right wing alone.” Perhaps this is why Starmer appears to be in a holding pattern above the political landscape, Labour circling with its single, flapping wing.

One vociferous faction Starmer’s keen to ignore is the young, energised, progressive wing of the party. The Pink News and Canary crowd. The Just Stop Oil, keeping up with the Owen Joneses guys. It’s one thing to dismiss them as smug idealists, out of touch with ordinary people, luxuriating in their bubbly purity whirlpool. It’s quite another to argue against them. This is why Streeting rather than Starmer is emerging as Podcast Left’s bogeyman. Members of the Streeting Tendency share socially conservative views rooted in a traditional, working-class Old Labour, where middle-class issues are treated with some scepticism, and where it’s acceptable to approve of getting on, “bettering” yourself.

While Starmer blanks the party dissenters, Streeting runs straight towards them. His strength as a man for all factions is not that he wants to please everyone but that he’s prepared to be shot by both sides. He upset NHS absolutists by saying he’d use private healthcare to clear waiting lists — a strong echo of Blair’s “whatever works”. He’s also on record recalling with glee how private care turnover “fell off a cliff” under the last Labour administration because the NHS functioned really well, and how he’d love an NHS so strong it would all but kill off the private sector. His views on abortion upset a broad spectrum of people, including secularists (he has sympathy for those opposed on faith grounds) the religious (he votes “in a secular way” because he believes in the diversity of a liberal democracy) and parents of children with Down’s Syndrome — along with Richard Dawkins, he supports late termination of a foetus with Down’s. Sidenote: as the grandparent of a child with DS I am happy to invite him to shove that one right up his moral vacuum. Reinforcing the belief that a child will be a burden to the parents and a drain on society’s resources? Imagine if we had a society that felt an honourable duty to support children with disabilities. Imagine if that was a Labour Party aspiration.

Oh, talking of “existence debating”, Streeting’s even taken multi-faction fire by wading into the Debate That Needn’t Even Speak Its Name. Even more recklessly, he wants to take a centrist position that, according to the rules of social media trench warfare, doesn’t exist. As the former head of education for Stonewall, he has impeccable credentials as a trans ally. Except he insists on recognising and protecting sex-based rights and seems to have no problem with biological framing. In one interview, he subscribed to that framing, before launching an excoriating attack on the gender-critical feminists using ugly, demeaning language to monster trans people. Right after, he got his 15 minutes of hate from both ends, the public forums ablaze.

And while Starmer is content to allow people to infer that he was always in a way slightly allergic to Corbynism, Streeting smacks his empty lager glass down on the table and calls the 2019 Labour Party “a shipwreck”. Starmer’s personality is still at the printer’s; Streeting meanwhile watches his political stock rise as more and more people in the party see him as the enemy within. Very Blair.

And let’s be frank, a plausible answer to the question “why get tough on Labour factionalism now?” is “have you seen the absolute state of the Tory party?” Stalin — him again, what can I say, he’s quotable — said his two greatest generals on the Eastern Front were January and February. Within living memory, the Tory Party boasted that its two greatest political weapons were loyalty and unity. I mean, look at it now. Its last year has been like Game of Thrones Season Nine. Brutal, tribal, full of awful characters. Boris Johnson trashed the Conservative Party, then half-pulled the scenery down with him when he lurched off-stage. Having effectively created several splinter groups through his presence, he caused several more through his absence. Maybe Starmer took one look at what happens when you don’t ruthlessly suppress factionalism and decided to go the other way. The Tory factions have been getting more desperate and less interesting with each incarnation: “Trussite” was actually a word for at least 36 hours last year. The “New Conservatives”: what do they want?

Rishi Sunak is fading from public view by the day. He’s getting asked the same question as Starmer — what do you stand for? Anything? — but it’s hurting him more. At this stage, Sunak is just vapour in a slim-fit shirt, and Starmer can afford to worry less about being upstaged by his tribal enemy. Perhaps his calculation is that now is the time to quash internal opposition, not in the middle of a general election campaign. At the moment, he seems quite content to make every angry brigade on the Left even angrier, and allow his champion to block the backlash of vengeance. It’s Streeting who faces every beating, and he seems to be thriving. Every purge, after all, needs an anti-hero. Especially one who may lead the party in a few years’ time.


Ian Martin is a writer and a producer known for The Thick of It, In The Loop, Veep and The Death of Stalin. 

IanMartin

Join the discussion


Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber


To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.

Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.

Subscribe
Subscribe
Notify of
guest

63 Comments
Most Voted
Newest Oldest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
N Satori
N Satori
1 year ago

Ian Martin, Terry Eagleton, Aaronn Bastani…
Unherd is looking more like The Guardian or The New Statesman every week. Are Owen Jones and George Monbiot preparing hectoring pieces for the UnHerd readership? Perhaps even boring old Jeremy Corbyn will get a look in – he’ll qualify now the herd have deserted him.

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

“Unherd is looking more like The Guardian or The New Statesman every week”
With readership figures to match, if it isn’t careful.

j watson
j watson
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

Oh I don’t know PR, maybe they might increase? After all the biggest selling Podcast last 12mths was ‘The Rest is Politics’ wasn’t it? Maybe UnHerd grasped got shift a little and get with the zeitgeist?
Chill out and enjoy it.

j watson
j watson
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

Oh I don’t know PR, maybe they might increase? After all the biggest selling Podcast last 12mths was ‘The Rest is Politics’ wasn’t it? Maybe UnHerd grasped got shift a little and get with the zeitgeist?
Chill out and enjoy it.

Harry Smithson
Harry Smithson
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

They also publish loads of right-wingers. Its raison d’etre is non-partisan debate. Besides which, the piece is only describing a dynamic between members of the Opposition, which is informative regardless of the reader’s politics.

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago
Reply to  Harry Smithson

Right -wingers? I haven’t notice any.

Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

Usually means you are one mate

Albert McGloan
Albert McGloan
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

There are no right-wingers writing for UnHerd unless you’re of the opinion that Lenin was right-wing (otherwise reasonable people have asserted he was). Some interesting right-wingers have been mentioned in articles here but that’s enough for UnHerd to be described as “fascist-adjacent”, edging towards the cordon sanitaire beyond which lies “gone full fash” Russell Brand LOL!

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

Odd. My politics are old Labour-pre Blair. I guess that makes me right wing to a metropolitan liberal. By the way, stop calling people mate. It screams fake.

Last edited 1 year ago by polidori redux
Albert McGloan
Albert McGloan
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

There are no right-wingers writing for UnHerd unless you’re of the opinion that Lenin was right-wing (otherwise reasonable people have asserted he was). Some interesting right-wingers have been mentioned in articles here but that’s enough for UnHerd to be described as “fascist-adjacent”, edging towards the cordon sanitaire beyond which lies “gone full fash” Russell Brand LOL!

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

Odd. My politics are old Labour-pre Blair. I guess that makes me right wing to a metropolitan liberal. By the way, stop calling people mate. It screams fake.

Last edited 1 year ago by polidori redux
Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

Usually means you are one mate

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago
Reply to  Harry Smithson

Right -wingers? I haven’t notice any.

Simon Blanchard
Simon Blanchard
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

I thought Unherd was an unbiased platform for reasoned debate not a right wing echo chamber. Surely your views aren’t so fragile they can’t be challenged? As a Graun reader (boo, hiss) I’m happy to admit I’m regularly pulled up short by stuff I read at Unherd. I find it refreshing and I’ve changed my mind about certain things.

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago

“I find it refreshing and I’ve changed my mind about certain things.”
Really? But you are Guardian reader. You cannot change your mind.

Simon Blanchard
Simon Blanchard
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

I guess I’m here to prove you wrong.

Simon Blanchard
Simon Blanchard
1 year ago
Reply to  polidori redux

I guess I’m here to prove you wrong.

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago

When I started reading Unherd it published refreshingly original articles by new and thoughtful contributors. It is now attracting old lags peddling the same old, same old – the very content I came here to get away from.

N Satori
N Satori
1 year ago

Describe one or two of those certain refreshing things you’ve been pulled up short and changed your mind about.

Simon Blanchard
Simon Blanchard
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

I’ve revised my knee-jerk aversion to small c conservatism. Any good?

N Satori
N Satori
1 year ago

Feeble.

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
1 year ago

What about Brexit and Covid?

Simon Blanchard
Simon Blanchard
1 year ago

Well I’ve been adversely affected by Brexit on both a personal and business level, so I doubt I’ll shift much on that. Covid? Let’s just say they won’t be sticking any more needles in me.

Simon Blanchard
Simon Blanchard
1 year ago

Well I’ve been adversely affected by Brexit on both a personal and business level, so I doubt I’ll shift much on that. Covid? Let’s just say they won’t be sticking any more needles in me.

Benedict Waterson
Benedict Waterson
1 year ago

Why would anyone have an aversion to small c conservatism? The vast majority of people are small c conservatives

N Satori
N Satori
1 year ago

Feeble.

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
1 year ago

What about Brexit and Covid?

Benedict Waterson
Benedict Waterson
1 year ago

Why would anyone have an aversion to small c conservatism? The vast majority of people are small c conservatives

Simon Blanchard
Simon Blanchard
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

I’ve revised my knee-jerk aversion to small c conservatism. Any good?

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago

“I find it refreshing and I’ve changed my mind about certain things.”
Really? But you are Guardian reader. You cannot change your mind.

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago

When I started reading Unherd it published refreshingly original articles by new and thoughtful contributors. It is now attracting old lags peddling the same old, same old – the very content I came here to get away from.

N Satori
N Satori
1 year ago

Describe one or two of those certain refreshing things you’ve been pulled up short and changed your mind about.

Marcus Leach
Marcus Leach
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

Personally I enjoy the chance to respond to deluded old socialists in the comments. Usually they hide away in institutions abd publications where no one has the opportunity to set them right.
Echo chambers weaken their consumers’ ability to argue their position with reason and facts. By tearing in to this author’s socialist guff it keeps one match fit to counter their nonsense wherever it rears it ugly. destructive head.

N Satori
N Satori
1 year ago
Reply to  Marcus Leach

Unfortunately Marcus Leach, deluded socialists (is there any other kind?) are taking up far too much space here.
By the way, I haven’t noticed that the MSM’s Left-Liberal echo chambers have weakened their position at all. In fact they succeed in creating an impression that their preferred range of morally acceptable views – on issues such as race, same-sex attraction, climate change, multi-culturalism to name but a few – are established common sense. Dissent can now be dismissed as insignificant, morally suspect, extremist and (God help us!) the work of atavistic cranks.
Tear into Eagleton’s socialist guff all you want. Very satisfying – but outside the debating forum your point-scoring counts for little. Opponents of that contemporary socialist iteration we call Woke like to claim they are winning the argument (online forum victories all!). I can’t help but notice that the legions of Woke are taking more and more territory regardless of public opinion and in the face of ‘devastating’ counter arguments.

Marcus Leach
Marcus Leach
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

I notice something different. I see the woke brigade becoming more and more extreme and ever more absurd in their reasoning, and the public’s mood shifting swifty against these people.
I suggest that the reason for the Leftist descent into madness is that they isolate themselves from debate and counter arguments. It has become their undoing. While full term abortions, expermenting on and sexualising children, shutting off all fossil fuels immediately might be acccepted as normal within their leftist echo chambers, as soon as normal people hear it they are horrified.
JSO may get the opportunity to speak on MSM they dearly want, but it becomes immediately apparent they are deluded nutters. Mermaids may take legal action against the LGB Alliance. but when placed in the witness box their trans ideology sounds like infantile gibberish. What these groups have in common is that they are unused to having their ideas and ideology tested. Without moderating counter argument . the result is that they become absurd extremists who are unable to defend their position.
The Leftist “Progressives” gained their position through an insidious creeping through our institutions. By going mainstream they have now revealed themselves as the intolerant, ugly extremists the more watchful already knew about. As I said, just letting these people express their deluded, silly ideas will be their undoing.

Last edited 1 year ago by Marcus Leach
Steve Murray
Steve Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  Marcus Leach

“Creep through the institutions” – yes!
Much more accurate than a “march”.

Last edited 1 year ago by Steve Murray
Steve Murray
Steve Murray
1 year ago
Reply to  Marcus Leach

“Creep through the institutions” – yes!
Much more accurate than a “march”.

Last edited 1 year ago by Steve Murray
Marcus Leach
Marcus Leach
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

I notice something different. I see the woke brigade becoming more and more extreme and ever more absurd in their reasoning, and the public’s mood shifting swifty against these people.
I suggest that the reason for the Leftist descent into madness is that they isolate themselves from debate and counter arguments. It has become their undoing. While full term abortions, expermenting on and sexualising children, shutting off all fossil fuels immediately might be acccepted as normal within their leftist echo chambers, as soon as normal people hear it they are horrified.
JSO may get the opportunity to speak on MSM they dearly want, but it becomes immediately apparent they are deluded nutters. Mermaids may take legal action against the LGB Alliance. but when placed in the witness box their trans ideology sounds like infantile gibberish. What these groups have in common is that they are unused to having their ideas and ideology tested. Without moderating counter argument . the result is that they become absurd extremists who are unable to defend their position.
The Leftist “Progressives” gained their position through an insidious creeping through our institutions. By going mainstream they have now revealed themselves as the intolerant, ugly extremists the more watchful already knew about. As I said, just letting these people express their deluded, silly ideas will be their undoing.

Last edited 1 year ago by Marcus Leach
N Satori
N Satori
1 year ago
Reply to  Marcus Leach

Unfortunately Marcus Leach, deluded socialists (is there any other kind?) are taking up far too much space here.
By the way, I haven’t noticed that the MSM’s Left-Liberal echo chambers have weakened their position at all. In fact they succeed in creating an impression that their preferred range of morally acceptable views – on issues such as race, same-sex attraction, climate change, multi-culturalism to name but a few – are established common sense. Dissent can now be dismissed as insignificant, morally suspect, extremist and (God help us!) the work of atavistic cranks.
Tear into Eagleton’s socialist guff all you want. Very satisfying – but outside the debating forum your point-scoring counts for little. Opponents of that contemporary socialist iteration we call Woke like to claim they are winning the argument (online forum victories all!). I can’t help but notice that the legions of Woke are taking more and more territory regardless of public opinion and in the face of ‘devastating’ counter arguments.

Lord Plasma
Lord Plasma
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

Come on N. I’ve got no time for socialism but surely the whole point of Unherd is to listen to all sides? And it helps that the article is effervescent and funny. If we all just took a more mirthful attitude to serious matters…

N Satori
N Satori
1 year ago
Reply to  Lord Plasma

All sides?! Really? UnHerd’s range of regular writers is too narrow for that.
Anyway, opinon-churning sites such as this simply provide a form of online entertainment for the intellectually inclined idler.

Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago
Reply to  Lord Plasma

Exactly. Sadly, we live in the age of intolerant silos. Merely shrieking “leftie” or “right wing” at an opponent nowadays seems to function as a substitute for debate.

N Satori
N Satori
1 year ago
Reply to  Lord Plasma

All sides?! Really? UnHerd’s range of regular writers is too narrow for that.
Anyway, opinon-churning sites such as this simply provide a form of online entertainment for the intellectually inclined idler.

Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago
Reply to  Lord Plasma

Exactly. Sadly, we live in the age of intolerant silos. Merely shrieking “leftie” or “right wing” at an opponent nowadays seems to function as a substitute for debate.

Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

Do you actually read the Gridiron? I do, and I can assure you the similarities you refer to are rather difficult to discern. I also subscribe to the Torygraph, before you ask. Unless you’re of the view that Unherd should be a cosy right-wing thought bubble for you to feel safe inside?

Albert McGloan
Albert McGloan
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

Why would anyone read the Telegraph? And you pay for it?

Albert McGloan
Albert McGloan
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

Why would anyone read the Telegraph? And you pay for it?

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

“Unherd is looking more like The Guardian or The New Statesman every week”
With readership figures to match, if it isn’t careful.

Harry Smithson
Harry Smithson
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

They also publish loads of right-wingers. Its raison d’etre is non-partisan debate. Besides which, the piece is only describing a dynamic between members of the Opposition, which is informative regardless of the reader’s politics.

Simon Blanchard
Simon Blanchard
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

I thought Unherd was an unbiased platform for reasoned debate not a right wing echo chamber. Surely your views aren’t so fragile they can’t be challenged? As a Graun reader (boo, hiss) I’m happy to admit I’m regularly pulled up short by stuff I read at Unherd. I find it refreshing and I’ve changed my mind about certain things.

Marcus Leach
Marcus Leach
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

Personally I enjoy the chance to respond to deluded old socialists in the comments. Usually they hide away in institutions abd publications where no one has the opportunity to set them right.
Echo chambers weaken their consumers’ ability to argue their position with reason and facts. By tearing in to this author’s socialist guff it keeps one match fit to counter their nonsense wherever it rears it ugly. destructive head.

Lord Plasma
Lord Plasma
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

Come on N. I’ve got no time for socialism but surely the whole point of Unherd is to listen to all sides? And it helps that the article is effervescent and funny. If we all just took a more mirthful attitude to serious matters…

Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago
Reply to  N Satori

Do you actually read the Gridiron? I do, and I can assure you the similarities you refer to are rather difficult to discern. I also subscribe to the Torygraph, before you ask. Unless you’re of the view that Unherd should be a cosy right-wing thought bubble for you to feel safe inside?

N Satori
N Satori
1 year ago

Ian Martin, Terry Eagleton, Aaronn Bastani…
Unherd is looking more like The Guardian or The New Statesman every week. Are Owen Jones and George Monbiot preparing hectoring pieces for the UnHerd readership? Perhaps even boring old Jeremy Corbyn will get a look in – he’ll qualify now the herd have deserted him.

Susan Grabston
Susan Grabston
1 year ago

“Starmer’s personality is still at the printer’s”. There was some LOL imagery in this article. Thank you.

Susan Grabston
Susan Grabston
1 year ago

“Starmer’s personality is still at the printer’s”. There was some LOL imagery in this article. Thank you.

Ben Jones
Ben Jones
1 year ago

It’s always amusing to see Boomer leftists realise their politics are toast. As for Wes? He’s toast too. He’s going to try to resuscitate some sort of neo-Blairite feel-good vibe for a generation who don’t even remember Blair. Although Gen Z need to be reminded not only of Ian’s failed politics, but Blair’s too. Labour has only two flavours; failed hard left and failed centre left. We’ve got the next five years to see where that takes us. The same way the Tories have failed wannabe-Blairite left and neo-LibDem left.
When West Streeting stands up and says we need to dismantle the NHS as it now stands, and accepts it’s a failed religion like socialism, will I take him seriously. But he won’t. He can’t. He’s carved from a block of weapons-grace ambition.

Ben Jones
Ben Jones
1 year ago

It’s always amusing to see Boomer leftists realise their politics are toast. As for Wes? He’s toast too. He’s going to try to resuscitate some sort of neo-Blairite feel-good vibe for a generation who don’t even remember Blair. Although Gen Z need to be reminded not only of Ian’s failed politics, but Blair’s too. Labour has only two flavours; failed hard left and failed centre left. We’ve got the next five years to see where that takes us. The same way the Tories have failed wannabe-Blairite left and neo-LibDem left.
When West Streeting stands up and says we need to dismantle the NHS as it now stands, and accepts it’s a failed religion like socialism, will I take him seriously. But he won’t. He can’t. He’s carved from a block of weapons-grace ambition.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 year ago

Nurses and teachers are not using foodbanks. And if they are, they should learn to manage their finances more responsibly.

Ian Martin trots out the same middle class preoccupations and concerns he claims to oppose, the very things that the actual working class have little time for – including, incidentally, the clamour for full-blooded socialism.

Last edited 1 year ago by UnHerd Reader
Billy Bob
Billy Bob
1 year ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

The average rent in London is well in excess of 500 quid a week, and a nurses salary is around 650 before tax. Add in expensive utilities, travel costs etc and I can see why some may need to resort to a food bank now and again

Glyn R
Glyn R
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

My sister is a nurse and disputes the food bank claim too – a single parent, she raised two children. However it is true that she didn’t have to pay London rents but then again with rents and mortgage costs the way they are it is a wonder that the majority of Londoners are not having to resort to food banks.

Jacqueline Burns
Jacqueline Burns
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

You have forgotten the very real benefits nurses get. Subsidised housing on site or very close to their work, subsidised food at work, very good healthcare (well as good as the NHS gets these days but certainly no queues), subsidised pension, practically safe employment, etc.

Fiona English
Fiona English
1 year ago

I think you’re thinking of nursing back in the 1950s and 60s. Nurses accommodation has long gone, they don’t get fed at work and have to live on what by any standard is a poor salary for one of the most important jobs in any society.

Fiona English
Fiona English
1 year ago

I think you’re thinking of nursing back in the 1950s and 60s. Nurses accommodation has long gone, they don’t get fed at work and have to live on what by any standard is a poor salary for one of the most important jobs in any society.

Glyn R
Glyn R
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

My sister is a nurse and disputes the food bank claim too – a single parent, she raised two children. However it is true that she didn’t have to pay London rents but then again with rents and mortgage costs the way they are it is a wonder that the majority of Londoners are not having to resort to food banks.

Jacqueline Burns
Jacqueline Burns
1 year ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

You have forgotten the very real benefits nurses get. Subsidised housing on site or very close to their work, subsidised food at work, very good healthcare (well as good as the NHS gets these days but certainly no queues), subsidised pension, practically safe employment, etc.

j watson
j watson
1 year ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

BB’s given you much of the reality UH. To add – whole cohort about to be further walloped as mortgage increases work through the rental sector.
I think your unwillingness to believe any such professional might have such a basic problem just underlines how detached those insulated can become.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
1 year ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

The average rent in London is well in excess of 500 quid a week, and a nurses salary is around 650 before tax. Add in expensive utilities, travel costs etc and I can see why some may need to resort to a food bank now and again

j watson
j watson
1 year ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

BB’s given you much of the reality UH. To add – whole cohort about to be further walloped as mortgage increases work through the rental sector.
I think your unwillingness to believe any such professional might have such a basic problem just underlines how detached those insulated can become.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
1 year ago

Nurses and teachers are not using foodbanks. And if they are, they should learn to manage their finances more responsibly.

Ian Martin trots out the same middle class preoccupations and concerns he claims to oppose, the very things that the actual working class have little time for – including, incidentally, the clamour for full-blooded socialism.

Last edited 1 year ago by UnHerd Reader
Jane Anderson
Jane Anderson
1 year ago

Starmer makes an exception, though, in keeping the young Momentum ‘Pink News’ progressives sweet with his stance on Gender Self Id, and in doing so alienates many former Labour members and voters. I personally find it very strange why he has chosen this one particular talismanic remnant of Corbynism to stand firm by.
Anyone care to explain?
(Gender critical women do not use ugly, de-humanising language at all. That is just a lie. Unless you mean by correctly stating that transwomen are in fact still male?)

Last edited 1 year ago by Jane Anderson
Jane Anderson
Jane Anderson
1 year ago

Starmer makes an exception, though, in keeping the young Momentum ‘Pink News’ progressives sweet with his stance on Gender Self Id, and in doing so alienates many former Labour members and voters. I personally find it very strange why he has chosen this one particular talismanic remnant of Corbynism to stand firm by.
Anyone care to explain?
(Gender critical women do not use ugly, de-humanising language at all. That is just a lie. Unless you mean by correctly stating that transwomen are in fact still male?)

Last edited 1 year ago by Jane Anderson
Andrew Horsman
Andrew Horsman
1 year ago

I don’t care what the likely future Health Secretary thinks of Owen Jones’s politics, how many beers he likes to drink of an evening, what his accent is, or how much time his grandad spent in jail.

What I want to know is whether or not he will follow the instructions of the corporate-captured, communist-led WHO when it “inevitably” (Tedros) declares “Pandemic II” (Gates), and they attempt to impose mandates & restrictions, using the universal digital ID and IHR / pandemic treaty framework that they are now quietly assembling. Will he dismiss and silence courageous dissenters, or will he listen with an open mind and and open heart? Will he bend to power, or stand tall and seek the truth? Will he crumble under the weight of invasive globalist authoritarianism, or defend centuries-old English liberties?

Those are the only questions that really matter.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Horsman

Gates will be round for tea as soon as he takes office.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago
Reply to  Andrew Horsman

Gates will be round for tea as soon as he takes office.

Andrew Horsman
Andrew Horsman
1 year ago

I don’t care what the likely future Health Secretary thinks of Owen Jones’s politics, how many beers he likes to drink of an evening, what his accent is, or how much time his grandad spent in jail.

What I want to know is whether or not he will follow the instructions of the corporate-captured, communist-led WHO when it “inevitably” (Tedros) declares “Pandemic II” (Gates), and they attempt to impose mandates & restrictions, using the universal digital ID and IHR / pandemic treaty framework that they are now quietly assembling. Will he dismiss and silence courageous dissenters, or will he listen with an open mind and and open heart? Will he bend to power, or stand tall and seek the truth? Will he crumble under the weight of invasive globalist authoritarianism, or defend centuries-old English liberties?

Those are the only questions that really matter.

Malcolm Webb
Malcolm Webb
1 year ago

Unherd does service in giving space for an article which clearly shows how full of hatred many Socialists are – including for others of their own ilk. For the Socialist it is seldom” try to understand, grow and get better” but always “ deny, divide and seek to get even”.
Furthermore, comparing anything which Starmer has done to the murderous terror which Stalin unleashed is a despicable corruption of the truth.

Malcolm Webb
Malcolm Webb
1 year ago

Unherd does service in giving space for an article which clearly shows how full of hatred many Socialists are – including for others of their own ilk. For the Socialist it is seldom” try to understand, grow and get better” but always “ deny, divide and seek to get even”.
Furthermore, comparing anything which Starmer has done to the murderous terror which Stalin unleashed is a despicable corruption of the truth.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago

If Brexit taught us anything at all it was that it’s not possible for one political party to represent public sector and corporate professionals and media class types like this writer as well as the working poor because the interests of these two groups can never be reconciled.

Ultimately both Starmer and Streeting will choose middle class globalism and identity politics because that is what will win in Hampstead and North Oxford and put them in power. Meanwhile the working poor will work harder and get poorer, just as they did under New Labour.

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
1 year ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

100%. There has been a Great Detachment. The entire UK State – as refashioned post 97 by Blair & the EU – parties, admin, quangos all – has now cut itself adrift from the electorate and people. The New managerial Techocracy or Blob is unelected & permanent. They do as they wish; as a collective now, almost a Soviet/CCP. The difference poat Brexit is that they do not even try to mask this reality. They just do not CARE if we losers (aka electorate) know they are pursuing ideologies hostile to the vast majority. Tories Labour Lib Dems & Blob – all believe in mass and uncontrolled immigration; all believe in Net Zero and the war on cheap energy; all sustain the lie about the threat of Islamism; all are comfy with the eco war on the poor and working classes and the corruption of the State’s welfarist largesse. They all believe in a now extreme and toxic CRT identitarianism/equality cult (bonus holes? Really?) threatening all the multicultural harmony brought about by the people,, not them. They all believe in the NHS and the virtue of the striking young doctors. They all supported the tyranny of lockdown, to their eternal shame. How dare they ask they they be called Rt Hon. There is no honour amongst them after that catastrophe. They all believe in punitive high taxes to feed the ghastly wfh inefficient public sector. So why do we even bother to discuss the supposed differences between Sanook and Starmer?? Pointless!!! There are none. The real rulers – who include Supreme Court Judges, unseen Euro judges and I see No Inflation Bank of Englanders (over 500 on 100k+) wield real power. The power of the Executive was blown up. The real Rulers know they cannot be touched now, hence their utter indifference and open contempt for we saddo disenfranchised people and all WE believe in.

Pamela Booker
Pamela Booker
1 year ago
Reply to  Walter Marvell

You have put precisely what is wrong with our society and politicos today in a nutshell.
The answer?
For a start, I’d return the hereditary peers to the HoL, sack the rest and get rid of Blair’s supreme court.
When the HoL consisted of hereditries , there was a sense of noblesse oblige rather than self-service and agrandisment, besides being a nice little earner for some.
Then I’d burn all the quangos and put the electorate back in charge via MPs with the courage and strength of character to lead and serve.
When voting, look at the candidate, not their party.

Pamela Booker
Pamela Booker
1 year ago
Reply to  Walter Marvell

You have put precisely what is wrong with our society and politicos today in a nutshell.
The answer?
For a start, I’d return the hereditary peers to the HoL, sack the rest and get rid of Blair’s supreme court.
When the HoL consisted of hereditries , there was a sense of noblesse oblige rather than self-service and agrandisment, besides being a nice little earner for some.
Then I’d burn all the quangos and put the electorate back in charge via MPs with the courage and strength of character to lead and serve.
When voting, look at the candidate, not their party.

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
1 year ago
Reply to  Hugh Bryant

100%. There has been a Great Detachment. The entire UK State – as refashioned post 97 by Blair & the EU – parties, admin, quangos all – has now cut itself adrift from the electorate and people. The New managerial Techocracy or Blob is unelected & permanent. They do as they wish; as a collective now, almost a Soviet/CCP. The difference poat Brexit is that they do not even try to mask this reality. They just do not CARE if we losers (aka electorate) know they are pursuing ideologies hostile to the vast majority. Tories Labour Lib Dems & Blob – all believe in mass and uncontrolled immigration; all believe in Net Zero and the war on cheap energy; all sustain the lie about the threat of Islamism; all are comfy with the eco war on the poor and working classes and the corruption of the State’s welfarist largesse. They all believe in a now extreme and toxic CRT identitarianism/equality cult (bonus holes? Really?) threatening all the multicultural harmony brought about by the people,, not them. They all believe in the NHS and the virtue of the striking young doctors. They all supported the tyranny of lockdown, to their eternal shame. How dare they ask they they be called Rt Hon. There is no honour amongst them after that catastrophe. They all believe in punitive high taxes to feed the ghastly wfh inefficient public sector. So why do we even bother to discuss the supposed differences between Sanook and Starmer?? Pointless!!! There are none. The real rulers – who include Supreme Court Judges, unseen Euro judges and I see No Inflation Bank of Englanders (over 500 on 100k+) wield real power. The power of the Executive was blown up. The real Rulers know they cannot be touched now, hence their utter indifference and open contempt for we saddo disenfranchised people and all WE believe in.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago

If Brexit taught us anything at all it was that it’s not possible for one political party to represent public sector and corporate professionals and media class types like this writer as well as the working poor because the interests of these two groups can never be reconciled.

Ultimately both Starmer and Streeting will choose middle class globalism and identity politics because that is what will win in Hampstead and North Oxford and put them in power. Meanwhile the working poor will work harder and get poorer, just as they did under New Labour.

Davy Humerme
Davy Humerme
1 year ago

I enjoyed Ian’s article, funny original and insightful. I don’t subscribe to hear mildewed middle brow thinking of either ideology. I like reading the likes of Mary H and Matt Goodwin as well as Eagleton, Bastani and Welsh. However, I am recovering, homeless left winger leaning towards Libertarianism, which is why Streeting is not up my alley. Please! He headed up the NUS and spun for Stonewall, that makes him more of the elite than Mogg in a crown. Streeting’s tight lipped , hard staring, Stepney and up performances may signal authenticity to the Westminster crowd, but for many us it screams simply politician on manoeuvres. Thats basically what Ian says.

Davy Humerme
Davy Humerme
1 year ago

I enjoyed Ian’s article, funny original and insightful. I don’t subscribe to hear mildewed middle brow thinking of either ideology. I like reading the likes of Mary H and Matt Goodwin as well as Eagleton, Bastani and Welsh. However, I am recovering, homeless left winger leaning towards Libertarianism, which is why Streeting is not up my alley. Please! He headed up the NUS and spun for Stonewall, that makes him more of the elite than Mogg in a crown. Streeting’s tight lipped , hard staring, Stepney and up performances may signal authenticity to the Westminster crowd, but for many us it screams simply politician on manoeuvres. Thats basically what Ian says.

Simon Neale
Simon Neale
1 year ago

In common with Labour deputy Angela Rayner, he has an ordinary voice.

You might have a minority opinion there Ian.

Simon Neale
Simon Neale
1 year ago

In common with Labour deputy Angela Rayner, he has an ordinary voice.

You might have a minority opinion there Ian.

David Forrester
David Forrester
1 year ago

Wes Streeting was an ineffective NUS president I have seen no improvement since then.

David Forrester
David Forrester
1 year ago

Wes Streeting was an ineffective NUS president I have seen no improvement since then.

David Harris
David Harris
1 year ago

“Starmer’s personality is still at the printer’s”
🙂

David Harris
David Harris
1 year ago

“Starmer’s personality is still at the printer’s”
🙂

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
1 year ago

The author is welcome to savage the Fake Tories and the No Manifesto Knee Trembler Starmer who has been reminded by Mandelson that Socialism has been rejected at the ballot box by a ‘No Jeremy Corbyn’ UK electorate for several decades. No one is interested in his internal mission to bash up the race hate Far Left loonies – he is just re running Tony’s New Labour playbook in sad painful slo mo, trying to convince a wary Middle England that he is quietly conservative & now wrapped in the flag. Utter balls of course but the Tories have imploded so horribly and so betrayed Conservative values that Kermit the Frog could take Number 10. He does not even have to fight for a proto Socialist UK. The flag is already flying!! We have a vast EU clone neo Keynsian inefficient Regulatory Quangocracy and public sector Blob, all crushing dynamism and growth. A 217bn 1.8m workforce NHS gobbling near 10% of GDP, and a State Clerisy addicted to ruinous magic money bailouts with billions spaffed on Banks, 900bn QE, energy & housing costs, spiralling welfarism, furlough insanity and more… leading to a high tax regime ( now topped with Net Zero/Pol Pot V2 insanity) all further suffocating the life out of us. Johnsonian Socialism and the EU governance legacy (neutered Executive) has done Jeremy’s job for him and no political party can or will change a thing. The die is cast. We just sit suffer and wait for the doom loop to play out. Brace.

Walter Marvell
Walter Marvell
1 year ago

The author is welcome to savage the Fake Tories and the No Manifesto Knee Trembler Starmer who has been reminded by Mandelson that Socialism has been rejected at the ballot box by a ‘No Jeremy Corbyn’ UK electorate for several decades. No one is interested in his internal mission to bash up the race hate Far Left loonies – he is just re running Tony’s New Labour playbook in sad painful slo mo, trying to convince a wary Middle England that he is quietly conservative & now wrapped in the flag. Utter balls of course but the Tories have imploded so horribly and so betrayed Conservative values that Kermit the Frog could take Number 10. He does not even have to fight for a proto Socialist UK. The flag is already flying!! We have a vast EU clone neo Keynsian inefficient Regulatory Quangocracy and public sector Blob, all crushing dynamism and growth. A 217bn 1.8m workforce NHS gobbling near 10% of GDP, and a State Clerisy addicted to ruinous magic money bailouts with billions spaffed on Banks, 900bn QE, energy & housing costs, spiralling welfarism, furlough insanity and more… leading to a high tax regime ( now topped with Net Zero/Pol Pot V2 insanity) all further suffocating the life out of us. Johnsonian Socialism and the EU governance legacy (neutered Executive) has done Jeremy’s job for him and no political party can or will change a thing. The die is cast. We just sit suffer and wait for the doom loop to play out. Brace.

Jacqueline Burns
Jacqueline Burns
1 year ago

Personally, I have frequently likened Streeting to Janus…looking both ways at once or, as someone once put it, running with the hare & hunting with the hounds. There is not a single issue he has not wheedled himself into playing both sides of the cards simultaneously.

Jacqueline Burns
Jacqueline Burns
1 year ago

Personally, I have frequently likened Streeting to Janus…looking both ways at once or, as someone once put it, running with the hare & hunting with the hounds. There is not a single issue he has not wheedled himself into playing both sides of the cards simultaneously.

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago

“The Mail, the Express, the Telegraph, the Sun will all keep that in their back pockets of course,”
Says the man who broke the story.

polidori redux
polidori redux
1 year ago

“The Mail, the Express, the Telegraph, the Sun will all keep that in their back pockets of course,”
Says the man who broke the story.

j watson
j watson
1 year ago

Wes is good. Now of course he has to be nimble on certain policy issues. Parties are always big coalitions and to lead you have to be able to build and maintain that. And god knows the mess he and Labour may inherit too that’ll determine much of what they can do initially.
His back story contrasts v favourably with the Eton’s, the Winchesters, etc and of course the neo-Victorian Rees Mogg types.
But what I liked most was how he handles questioning in open forums. Guy can think on his feet and when needed inject some humour. Almost the polar opposite of a Truss, or poor Rishi for that matter. That’ll count.

John Ramsden
John Ramsden
1 year ago
Reply to  j watson

By the sound of it, I wish to God this Wes Streeting was a Tory!

Mike Cook
Mike Cook
1 year ago
Reply to  John Ramsden

He will, he’s just not old enough yet.

Mike Cook
Mike Cook
1 year ago
Reply to  John Ramsden

He will, he’s just not old enough yet.

John Ramsden
John Ramsden
1 year ago
Reply to  j watson

By the sound of it, I wish to God this Wes Streeting was a Tory!

j watson
j watson
1 year ago

Wes is good. Now of course he has to be nimble on certain policy issues. Parties are always big coalitions and to lead you have to be able to build and maintain that. And god knows the mess he and Labour may inherit too that’ll determine much of what they can do initially.
His back story contrasts v favourably with the Eton’s, the Winchesters, etc and of course the neo-Victorian Rees Mogg types.
But what I liked most was how he handles questioning in open forums. Guy can think on his feet and when needed inject some humour. Almost the polar opposite of a Truss, or poor Rishi for that matter. That’ll count.

Christopher Barclay
Christopher Barclay
1 year ago

The incompetence of the Tories means that we will have to wait until after the election to see if there is any substance to any of them.
Starmer is getting the purge in early because he knows that he will be dealt an awful hand in 2024: government finances in substantial deficit at the top of an economic cycle, a crashing housing market and falling employment as rising interest rates take full effect, a record current account deficit and an economically ignorant electorate.

Christopher Barclay
Christopher Barclay
1 year ago

The incompetence of the Tories means that we will have to wait until after the election to see if there is any substance to any of them.
Starmer is getting the purge in early because he knows that he will be dealt an awful hand in 2024: government finances in substantial deficit at the top of an economic cycle, a crashing housing market and falling employment as rising interest rates take full effect, a record current account deficit and an economically ignorant electorate.

Richard Rolfe
Richard Rolfe
1 year ago

Vodka jellies with Angela – with an infusion of ginger?

Richard Rolfe
Richard Rolfe
1 year ago

Vodka jellies with Angela – with an infusion of ginger?

Andy McSmith
Andy McSmith
1 year ago

You will think this peripheral to your argument, Ian, but your grasp of Russian history isn’t great, “Poor old Trotsky” had not been banished in 1923: he was still in control of the Red Army. You mention something called “Workers’ Truth”. If you mean the Workers’ Opposition, they had been banished, but they had no connection with Trotsky. And Stalin did not make the comment about ‘Generals January and February’. That is usually attributed to Prince Menshikov, who led the Russian side in the Crimean War.
And given that anyone in the communist party who opposed Stalin was arrested, tortured and killed and their families were persecuted, are you sure that calling Starmer’s leadership ‘Stalinist’ is in good taste?

Davy Humerme
Davy Humerme
1 year ago
Reply to  Andy McSmith

Get your point Andy. I suppose Stalinist in this case applies to the approach of the party rulers in using mechanisms of power and bureaucracy to control the movement and to stifle and coerce opponents. It also often refers to a dominant and usually charismatic personality ruling out Starmer! A much better example is the SNP under Sturgeon which was utterly Stalinist in that sense.

Davy Humerme
Davy Humerme
1 year ago
Reply to  Andy McSmith

Get your point Andy. I suppose Stalinist in this case applies to the approach of the party rulers in using mechanisms of power and bureaucracy to control the movement and to stifle and coerce opponents. It also often refers to a dominant and usually charismatic personality ruling out Starmer! A much better example is the SNP under Sturgeon which was utterly Stalinist in that sense.

Andy McSmith
Andy McSmith
1 year ago

You will think this peripheral to your argument, Ian, but your grasp of Russian history isn’t great, “Poor old Trotsky” had not been banished in 1923: he was still in control of the Red Army. You mention something called “Workers’ Truth”. If you mean the Workers’ Opposition, they had been banished, but they had no connection with Trotsky. And Stalin did not make the comment about ‘Generals January and February’. That is usually attributed to Prince Menshikov, who led the Russian side in the Crimean War.
And given that anyone in the communist party who opposed Stalin was arrested, tortured and killed and their families were persecuted, are you sure that calling Starmer’s leadership ‘Stalinist’ is in good taste?

James Kirk
James Kirk
1 year ago

An intelligent article from a Labour fan? Whatever next? Boris was a fool not to finish them off completely. I can’t stand either Starmer or Streeting. If we’re to have a revolution we’d be better off with Corbyn who’d be turfed out in quick time than these Davos creatures. Not only is it not a game, which they seem to think it is, they’re not very good at it while they keep changing the rules.

James Kirk
James Kirk
1 year ago

An intelligent article from a Labour fan? Whatever next? Boris was a fool not to finish them off completely. I can’t stand either Starmer or Streeting. If we’re to have a revolution we’d be better off with Corbyn who’d be turfed out in quick time than these Davos creatures. Not only is it not a game, which they seem to think it is, they’re not very good at it while they keep changing the rules.

DenialARiverIn Islington
DenialARiverIn Islington
1 year ago

Here’s your problem. Spoiler alert – it’s a doozie.
There’s absolutely nothing that Labour can do in power. They’re broken before they’ve even started. The next Government needs to cut a cool £200 Billion per annum from public spending which means, wait for it, real austerity as opposed to the pretend austerity that we had 10 years ago. Health, Education and welfare will all need to be cut.
The credit card is maxed. No more can be borrowed but we still spend £100Bn more than we collect. Taxation is absolutely at its limit and more measures simply collect fewer net taxes. Interest payments alone have increased from £20Bn to £122Bn and are set to rise further – all new borrowing will do is increase the burden. There’s only one option left and it will be a forced one. Cuts. Real cuts. The figure is huge.
There’s only one question of pressing interest. Why on earth would Starmer want the job?

DenialARiverIn Islington
DenialARiverIn Islington
1 year ago

Here’s your problem. Spoiler alert – it’s a doozie.
There’s absolutely nothing that Labour can do in power. They’re broken before they’ve even started. The next Government needs to cut a cool £200 Billion per annum from public spending which means, wait for it, real austerity as opposed to the pretend austerity that we had 10 years ago. Health, Education and welfare will all need to be cut.
The credit card is maxed. No more can be borrowed but we still spend £100Bn more than we collect. Taxation is absolutely at its limit and more measures simply collect fewer net taxes. Interest payments alone have increased from £20Bn to £122Bn and are set to rise further – all new borrowing will do is increase the burden. There’s only one option left and it will be a forced one. Cuts. Real cuts. The figure is huge.
There’s only one question of pressing interest. Why on earth would Starmer want the job?

David Lindsay
David Lindsay
1 year ago

If you believe a word of Wes Streeting’s autobiography, then you will believe anything. And he is politics purely in order to privatise the NHS.

David Lindsay
David Lindsay
1 year ago

If you believe a word of Wes Streeting’s autobiography, then you will believe anything. And he is politics purely in order to privatise the NHS.

Carmel Shortall
Carmel Shortall
1 year ago

Great ‘cold dead eyes of a psychopath’ photo of Streeting at the top of the article. All you need to know about him right there…

Carmel Shortall
Carmel Shortall
1 year ago

Great ‘cold dead eyes of a psychopath’ photo of Streeting at the top of the article. All you need to know about him right there…

Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago

As an outsider looking in, it’s quite simple – the Conservative party is changing / has changed into an English nationalist party, and the Labour party is changing into a conservative party. Lefties really do not belong in the Labour party any more, even though, for historical labelling reasons, some of them are deluded enough to assume that they still have a place in Labour 2023.

Albert McGloan
Albert McGloan
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

All but the most obscure sectarian communists will vote for Labour – mostly the ones who wouldn’t even vote for Corbyn. While leftists evidently enjoy getting shafted by their betters in the Labour party they’re still very much voting for their class interests: the Managerial Class. If you think the Conservatives are “an English nationalist party” you need to lay off the poitín.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

The demographics of British politics are such that now only a hard-line neo-liberal can become PM. That’s why Starmer has become a hard-line neo-liberal.

Albert McGloan
Albert McGloan
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

All but the most obscure sectarian communists will vote for Labour – mostly the ones who wouldn’t even vote for Corbyn. While leftists evidently enjoy getting shafted by their betters in the Labour party they’re still very much voting for their class interests: the Managerial Class. If you think the Conservatives are “an English nationalist party” you need to lay off the poitín.

Hugh Bryant
Hugh Bryant
1 year ago
Reply to  Frank McCusker

The demographics of British politics are such that now only a hard-line neo-liberal can become PM. That’s why Starmer has become a hard-line neo-liberal.

Frank McCusker
Frank McCusker
1 year ago

As an outsider looking in, it’s quite simple – the Conservative party is changing / has changed into an English nationalist party, and the Labour party is changing into a conservative party. Lefties really do not belong in the Labour party any more, even though, for historical labelling reasons, some of them are deluded enough to assume that they still have a place in Labour 2023.