Ian Dunt Profile picture
Sep 22, 2020 15 tweets 3 min read Read on X
Obvs going to be completely overshadowed today, but Starmer is making his conference speech on here right now labour.org.uk/labour-connect…
Bits out beforehand suggest an attempt to outline a progressive patriotism capable of winning red wall seats back. That's important not just for Labour but for the broader liberal left, to see if it can summon the kind of language required.
The whole chatting-to-an-audience-which-is-not-there thing is weird, whichever way you shake it.
Think fire-side chats are probably the better way to go with these things, until covid passes.
Starmer says the covid crisis revealed Johnson's character. "He's just not up to the job."
"Debate between Leave and Remain is over. We are not going to be a party which bangs on about Europe... If the PM fails to get [a deal]... he will have to own that failure. It will be on him."
"When you lose an election in a democracy, you deserve to. You don't look at the electorate and think: 'What were you thinking?' You look at yourself and think: 'What were we doing?'"
"This party is under new leadership... We're becoming a competent, credible opposition... Never again will Labour go into an election not being trusted on national security, with your job, with your money."
"I don't want to win power just to be PM. I want to win because of the country I love and the values I hold dear."
Starmer now making the big break with Corbyn explicitly, rather than just implicitly. Nearly ever sentence of this is a rebuke to the former leader.
"I can see it, I can describe it, but it's all just a dream unless we win back the trust of the people. We've a long road ahead of us. Trust takes time. It starts with being a credible opposition."
"So to those people in Doncaster and Deeside, in Glasgow and Grimsby, in Stoke and in Stevenage, to those who have turned away from Labour, I say this: we hear you."
"Never again will Labour take you or the things you care about for granted. And I ask you: Take another look at Labour. We’re under new leadership. We love this country as you do."
That was a very strong speech. Impossible for it to have any real impact in the circumstances - delivered virtually, on a day the news agenda will drown it out. But the approach is entirely the right one.
Instructive to consider that speech in light of @Dorianlynskey take on the Corbyn post-mortem - "an irresistible argument for the unglamorous virtue of competence" politics.co.uk/comment-analys…

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More from @IanDunt

Aug 3
There's no intellectual debate to be had about what's happening. It's not about immigration, or integration, or Islam. It's about a bunch of violent thugs blaming Muslims for a terrible crime, being instantly disproved, and then continuing with their bullshit anyway.
If you start saying we need to change policy, or reconsider an approach to anything at all on the back of this violence, you are basically legitimising it. You are laundering the reputation of Nazi thugs.
There's really no complexity here at all. They're cunts. The reptile part of the human brain. They threaten the safety of Muslims and Asians in general. They need to be universally condemned by politicians and stamped on hard by police. That's it. That's the response.
Read 4 tweets
Jul 29
Lots of things can be true at the same time. 1) In opposition, Labour knew the Tories were playing a stupid, irresponsible little game with their future departmental spending & tax cuts. And yet they played along anyway, because it was inconvenient to do otherwise.
2) The figures, particularly on asylum housing costs, were worse than we realised. Labour said wonk and wonk-adjacent critics would change their tune after the statement. They were right. Conservative irresponsibility was, as Reeves says, worse than we thought.
3) The core point is that the Tories basically sabotaged the state. Freezing asylum applications, even though it would cost millions in hotels. Promising tax cuts even though officials were earning them that the prison system was about to collapse. It's truly unforgivable.
Read 7 tweets
Jul 7
Let's have an honest conversation about the election result: No party should secure 63.2% of MPs on 33.7% of the popular vote. And that's as true for Labour as it was for the Tories. shorturl.at/Yl3FK
Image
Many seemingly contradictory things can be true at the same time. 1) the election result is a triumph for the forces of reason and progress 2) The Labour vote is the consequence of a conscious and extremely efficient campaign 3) this result is democratically intolerable.
We should also be honest about something else, uncomfortable though it is. Reform deserved more seats. They got 0.8% of MPs on 14.3% of the popular vote. The Lib Dems got 11.1% of MPs on 12.2% of the popular vote. That's not right.
Read 6 tweets
Jul 4
First, we've no idea if that Reform number is right. Second, come on people what's the matter with you. After 14 years of the most egregious reactionary horror, we're about to get one of the most progressive parliaments in history.
Everything changes now. Everything. Not just the policies, but much deeper than that.
The values and the personalities of the people in charge will be entirely different. You might not like every position they adopt, but they will hold a bundle of decent, humane, tolerant progressive instincts which are completely opposed to what we've seen for the last decade.
Read 7 tweets
Jun 4
Right. TV debates. Basically the worst possible way to spend an evening. I'm starting with this. I do not rule out escalating to rum and possibly arsenic. Image
Are they in some kind of 90s video game?
Sunak has a difficult message here: Starmer will do this (BAD) but also we don't know what he'll do (ALSO BAD). He really needs to settle for one or the other. It's rather a struggle to convince people of both contradictory things at the same time.
Read 33 tweets
May 29
So here's a nice story, in case you needed one.

A little while back, Gary Frank, one of the greatest superhero artists alive, put my book on the cover of his comic. Image
My brain basically collapsed with joy. When I had put it back together, I asked him if I could buy the original art.

He said yes - except that he refused to sell it to me and instead asked that I make a donation to Veterans Aid.
Original comic art is worth a lot, especially for someone at this level - 100s of £, often more. It's a preposterously generous thing for him to have done.
Read 6 tweets

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