Starmer ditches his 10 Pledges

Ton thread at least.

A principle is much more woolly than a pledge.

I notice the ”effective opposition” pledge has gone.
 
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I think Starmer wants out.

The rule changes for leadership elections he's bringing to Labour conference this weekend. Why would you do that if your intention/plan/assumption is that you'll stay on as leader for the next 7-12 years (2 years until a general election, which you'd plan to win and then a term or two as PM). What's the big rush? Why is this worth picking yet another fight with the membership? Why is this worth plastering Corbyn's name all over the media? It could only be if you're expecting a leadership election in the near future.

So then what's the point of an 11,500 word essay you may ask? Reputation/legacy management. He won't want to skuttle off mocked as a cowardly loser who didn't dare go to the polls. He's trying to position himself as a schorlarly wise old owl IMO. Hence the essay having no actual policies - that makes it timeless. It's the old quote about going from rising hope to elder statesman with no interim.

Why would he want out you may ask? Cause he's sh*t at this says I. Looking at his career he's probably never felt sh*t at something before. I bet he never expected to be sh*t at this. But here we are. The members are leaving. The party is skint. He's stuck in a weird trap with party discipline where his cronies are constantly alleging that Jewish Labour members are antisemitic. Because of the parliamentary arithmetic he had no chance of forming a government back when he was polling well. But now he's been polling badly for nearly a year. Why wouldn't he want out?
 
Starmer wants rid of the hard lefties - to get into power he needs to capture most the ground that Blair did and this is impossible with the hard left.

He's taking a page from Johnson's playbook - don't back down - he'll chop off the diseased part of the party that is stopping Labour becoming electable or get outed trying.

And if you haven't worked it out yet, he's chopping off the Corbyn luvvies who despite what they say will never change their mind or compromise on their direction or policies.

Labour need to be in power. No matter what they come up with it will be better than what Johnson is doing. But again, the Corbynites would rather remain in opposition, in fight and stand by their principles whilst the country goes to the dogs.
 
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