Corbyn would be a better leader of the opposition than Starmer right now
He dislikes what the Tories do and how they behave and would actually *oppose*
Starmer is instead contorting himself by trying to tell people what he thinks they want to hear
I’m no Corbynista. He was a poor politician in many ways in my view, and Labour is better off with him being gone. His inability to deal with antisemitism in the party is reason enough it’s better he’s gone
*But* on UK politics Corbyn knew what he wanted, and knew where his ethics were
On Hancock behaving unlawfully he’d demand Hancock resign
He’d tear into the supposedly pro-business Tories for a Brexit Deal that kills small businesses
Starmer has to work out what’s ethically right and systematically argue for it - across everything he does. Instead he seems scared and blinded by the situation
(And if you reply to this saying there was no antisemitism problem: you’ll be blocked immediately.)
Johnson sidelining Gove and promoting Frost is going to be a pretty major problem for him. Perhaps not immediately. It means Brexit is going to be more of an issue than it needs to be, at a time when rest of Tory MPs were perhaps ready to partially move on.
Also while Gove is unlikely to be leader, were he to choose to rally behind someone else (also someone pushed aside by Johnson - Sunak for example) you start to see a weakening of Johnson's position.
If The Times piece is right, Johnson promoted Frost because he trusts him, and Frost owes all his power to Johnson. But a good politician is one that doesn't change the apparatus of the state to suit the people who are his mates.
It's not ill intentioned, but don't you think that if I am writing about night trains in Europe... I might have encountered ÖBB's NightJets already? 🤔
And yes, I don't work in the rail industry. There are loads of technical things I do not know, and cannot know, and I am super happy to learn those - and loads of nerds help me enormously with that - dozens of those people are on Twitter and they're ace
But as far as any lay person goes then I think I have a pretty good understanding of what is going on... much of it has been written up here as well: jonworth.eu/category/trans…
Basically everything agreed is too hard to do, grace periods to be extended long beyond April
Leads to legal uncertainty
Typical quote:
Michael Gove "It does not threaten the integrity of the EU single market to have bulbs ordered from a wholesaler in Scotland or England which will then be planted in a garden in Belfast or Ballymena."