Stronger Future Together really is the worst kind of vacuous management-speak gibberish. Means nothing, has no resonance, doesn't penetrate the brain. Half a decade on from Take Back Control and progressives still struggle to learn from their opponents.
Blimey. "Cleaning up the Tories' Brexit mess". She said the bad word.
Honestly it took my brain a moment to compute that. By far the toughest I've heard any Labour frontbencher on Brexit since it happened.
That was a good speech from Reeves, lots of strong ideas and decent policies in there
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Right, don't shit yourself, but I've got some good news about the Labour party. Nick Thomas-Symonds just did a very good speech on crime, which contained the kind of consensual politics the party needs to succeed inews.co.uk/opinion/labour…
I mean you look at the main news agenda and the party is an absolute state - mute on a national crisis, beset by internal warfare, hit by front bench resignations, losing unions, the lot.
But when you take a peek at the speeches from front benchers - particularly Thomas-Symonds and Rachel Reeves - you can see the outline of an smart, effective and confident policy programme for the next election.
Quite telling that many Corbyn supporters think criticism of Starmer is a gotcha moment. It was their inability to exercise critical distance from their own leader which saw the project descend into hero-worshipping lunacy.
That was one of the most powerful moral instructions of the Corbyn period: A reminder of what happens if you let your critical faculties degrade in the name of tribal identity.
So yes, you can be sympathetic to Starmer, think he's a damned sight better than what came before and most existing alternatives, and yet still believe he's under-performing. It isn't difficult. You just need a little independence of mind.
Fascinating to watch Shapps, IDS and the rest attempt their little post-truth 'it's all the RHA's fault' gambit over fuel shortages. Like a replay of 2016, except this time against reality rather than a warning of reality.
Thing is though: it's not working. Despite muted media explanation of the causes, silence from Labour and outright denial from the Tories, the public seem fully aware of why this is happening
And that makes sense. The Tory position is internally contradictory. If it's nothing to do with Brexit, why are you responding by opening up to foreign workers?
There's three routes to solving the HGV issue, although none of them will work quickly. 1) streamlining training 2) opening up to European drivers 3) improving conditions. The first has been done badly, the second resentfully and the third not at all.
It's hard, long term work: sorting the sleeping arrangements, showers, toilets and food that drivers get. In some European countries, these are free and of good quality. In the UK they're charged and of very poor quality.
Ultimately it's about treating drivers with respect. And for all the government's efforts to dress up their anti-immigrant agenda by talking about a 'high skill high wage' domestic economy, they've shown fuck all interest in accomplishing that.
He goes off to run a populist right wing 'anti-woke' channel in which he'd capitalise on national division by railing against 'the elite' in between jetting off to his French and New York pads.
It turned out they can't find their arse for their fucking elbow. So he pretends it's all a matter of high principle, rather than the fact he took a punt on toxic right wing politics and ended up looking a bellend.