Topic: Doesn't matter who you vote for as long as it's for the right reasons!

[Welshred]

Also there's a bit of a debate about BLM at the moment and a number of organisations are moving away from it now due to its politics so it's probably a shrewd move from Starmer to not make any further comment on it right now

https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1278427150518009858?s=20

[Dr. Beaker]

I believe it may have started with this heinous crime.

Cheers Gull, I had found that, but thought there must have been something else, but cheers anyway.

[ljycb]

Also there's a bit of a debate about BLM at the moment and a number of organisations are moving away from it now due to its politics so it's probably a shrewd move from Starmer to not make any further comment on it right now

https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1278427150518009858?s=20

Read your post with great interest thinking that maybe some anti-racism groups previously aligned with Black Lives Matter may have distanced themselves because of politically-charged comments (because there are a couple of Black activists I know who are currently asking questions about who is involved and not getting any answers), but that “number of organisations” stated in the article is the BBC, a police force and Matt Le Tissier? I don’t think Starmer’s been proven right on this one just yet in that instance, sorry.

Not that him being proven right matters. People are still allowed to criticise him dismissing their demands as “nonsense” - just because the majority of people agree with him doesn’t mean the rest have to fall in line. Different opinions and perspectives are a good thing, no?

[Welshred]

Nice bit of ridiculing there by just labelling Matt le Tissier to reduce the point being made but you conveniently forget that it's the whole Sky Sports presenting team who have taken the badges off led by the concerns of Patrice Evra (yeah, yeah I know he's a prick but he's extremely relevant here). The Premier League are also starting to distance themselves from it too, something you conveniently forgot to mention alongside Spurs completely breaking ties with the movement after their tweets about Israel...

There are a lot more organisations that just "the BBC, a police force and Matt le Tissier" who have or are starting to distance themselves from BLM but please do continue to be hyperbolic just to prove your point.

You can't criticise Starmer for not making any further comment on it at this time when by doing so will give the Tories and the media a chance to attack him publicly for supporting what is reported to be extremism within the movement. I'm sure you'll find a way though.

[TSC]

Also there's a bit of a debate about BLM at the moment and a number of organisations are moving away from it now due to its politics so it's probably a shrewd move from Starmer to not make any further comment on it right now

https://twitter.com/Telegraph/status/1278427150518009858?s=20

Appears to be due to BLM leader Joshua Virasami’s attacks on Israel (according to telegraph article).

[ljycb]

Nice bit of ridiculing there by just labelling Matt le Tissier to reduce the point being made but you conveniently forget that it's the whole Sky Sports presenting team who have taken the badges off led by the concerns of Patrice Evra (yeah, yeah I know he's a prick but he's extremely relevant here). The Premier League are also starting to distance themselves from it too, something you conveniently forgot to mention alongside Spurs completely breaking ties with the movement after their tweets about Israel...

There are a lot more organisations that just "the BBC, a police force and Matt le Tissier" who have or are starting to distance themselves from BLM but please do continue to be hyperbolic just to prove your point.

You can't criticise Starmer for not making any further comment on it at this time when by doing so will give the Tories and the media a chance to attack him publicly for supporting what is reported to be extremism within the movement. I'm sure you'll find a way though.

You get really aggressive really quickly don’t you? My point was that when you said “organisations”, I thought you were referring to anti-racism organisations which would have previously aligned themselves with Black Lives Matter, and I even said that there are Black activists I know who are unsure of Black Lives Matter because of a lack of transparency, so how you’ve ended up posting this I simply don’t understand.

Oh and also, you can criticise Starmer for not making any further comment if you believe it to be wrong to do so. People are allowed to challenge you on it but let’s steer clear of saying “You can’t criticise such and such” because it makes you sound like a Corbynite.

[Welshred]

What part of any of that post is aggressive? Any aggression is purely perceived by you rather than intended by me, maybe you should try reading my posts in a different tone?

If you don't understand why I've posted this then try not to ridicule my initial post by including Matt le Tissier as an organisation...

I'm going to leave it there with you before you try to twist anymore of my words

[ljycb]

What part of any of that post is aggressive? Any aggression is purely perceived by you rather than intended by me, maybe you should try reading my posts in a different tone?

If you don't understand why I've posted this then try not to ridicule my initial post by including Matt le Tissier as an organisation...

I'm going to leave it there with you before you try to twist anymore of my words

You keep saying I’m trying to “ridicule” your post when I’m not at all. But yeah, best to leave it, I wouldn’t want to upset you any further.

[Jiminy Cricket]

I'm not sure how the mental gymnastics are being performed to paint Reeves as an anti semite but seems to have originated in a piece in the Canary;

https://www.thecanary.co/trending/2020/02/24/heres-why-laura-kuenssberg-and-centrists-spent-all-day-celebrating-a-rabid-antisemite/

Reeves has written a book celebrating a 100 years of women in Parliament. Astor was the first woman to take her seat (Markiewicz, in line with Sinn Fein policy, didn't take her seat) so the focus on her.

I haven't read the book but the Guardian review points out it covers female politicians from extremes such as Thatcher to Abbott, with a healthy dose of centrists like Shirley Williams in between. Without reading the book I don't know how much discussion there is of the subjects politics but if authoring this book makes her an anti semite does it make her a Thatcherite too?



https://www.theguardian.com/books/2019/mar/15/women-of-westminster-by-rachel-reeves-review-the-mps-who-changed-politics

So, that's the hill Starmer is supposed to die upon!? Pitiful. A history of women at Westminster somehow equates to support for the antisemitic politics of just one of the women covered within the book. Unless Reeves waxed lyrical about Aster's antisemitic ideals and words, I fail to see what was she has done wrong in writing the book and what Starmer is supposed to do her.

[Jiminy Cricket]

You get really aggressive really quickly don’t you? My point was that when you said “organisations”, I thought you were referring to anti-racism organisations which would have previously aligned themselves with Black Lives Matter, and I even said that there are Black activists I know who are unsure of Black Lives Matter because of a lack of transparency, so how you’ve ended up posting this I simply don’t understand.

Oh and also, you can criticise Starmer for not making any further comment if you believe it to be wrong to do so. People are allowed to challenge you on it but let’s steer clear of saying “You can’t criticise such and such” because it makes you sound like a Corbynite.

You must have lead a very sheltered life if you find Welshred's post somehow 'aggressive'. There is more tone in my wife's sweet-nothings than that post from Welsh.

[RedForeverTT]

Is hospital treatment after a GP visit free as well?

GP is not free because GP practises are mainly private. However there are free clinics spread across both islands to support lower income population but generally people do get used to paying £20-£40 for GP visits that is shorter in queue.

Government hospitals are free and damn well equipped. However, these services are free at the point of use for HK residents only. So don't walk in there with your appendix hanging outside your belly and expect a free operation if you were not local.

There are private hospitals for those who wish to have shorter waiting time for appointments and choose their own consultants to attend to them like it is over here.

[Zeb]

Cheers Gull, I had found that, but thought there must have been something else, but cheers anyway.

Kind of started with the statue of Astor in Plymouth and the very online left. My fault for mentioning Corbyn in relation to it, but chap has consistently over the decades marked anniversaries of Astor entering Parliament without anyone thinking he was supporting Astor's politics or personal views. Could have used Abbott or Chakrabarti or Dawn Butler to make the point. Or Harman or Boothroyd or... etc.  But some now claim to see an equivalency with marking that achievement with, say, uncritically pushing forward antisemitic views/ideas.

This is a good long read from outside the UK on the origins of it last year: https://www.cjr.org/analysis/nancy-astor-statue.php

[TSC]

Johnson’s dad has circumvented the Greek ban on UK visitors by going to his ‘Greek’ home for Summer break via Belgium.  Boasting about it on twitter apparently.

Justice may involve the Greek government sticking him in some isolation facility.  But of course he will likely be left to enjoy his hols in the Greek heat.

[So… Howard Philips]

Johnson’s dad has circumvented the Greek ban on UK visitors by going to his ‘Greek’ home for Summer break via Belgium.  Boasting about it on twitter apparently.

Justice may involve the Greek government sticking him in some isolation facility.  But of course he will likely be left to enjoy his hols in the Greek heat.

So we'll be spared the sight of him drinking a pint of true English ale on Saturday some consolation.

Maybe someone should grass up his Turkisk origins to the Greek authorities.

[TSC]

So we'll be spared the sight of him drinking a pint of true English ale on Saturday some consolation.

Maybe someone should grass up his Turkisk origins to the Greek authorities.

Will probably circumvent any Brexit impacts in due course too.

[Robinred]

So we'll be spared the sight of him drinking a pint of true English ale on Saturday some consolation.

Maybe someone should grass up his Turkisk origins to the Greek authorities.

Sickening isn’t it?

Not just the double standards, and the sheer gall of it. But the attitude behind it, which is exactly the attitude Cummings and his lapdog displayed after the trip to Northumbria. It betrays an arrogance and ‘them and us’ beliefs that are deep rooted. (And it’s a belief that seemingly, the Great British public, by and large, are indifferent to).

[Charlie Adams fried egg]

So a week in which the Tories and Johnson have exceeded their previous high standards for fuck ups and lies, people who allegedly want them out are doing their best to create a situation which could well help them to stay in power. Nice one.

Annoys me when people are losing their because they think Starmer doesn't meet their own standards of morals / views without acknowledging the difficult path he has to tread.

Labour needs to gain power, it's as simple as that and if they don't soon I really dread what the future has in store for this country.

[RedForeverTT]

Johnson’s dad has circumvented the Greek ban on UK visitors by going to his ‘Greek’ home for Summer break via Belgium.  Boasting about it on twitter apparently.

Justice may involve the Greek government sticking him in some isolation facility.  But of course he will likely be left to enjoy his hols in the Greek heat.

Locking him up in Greece is too good for him.

Should make him walk back, via Bulgaria.

[So… Howard Philips]

Locking him up in Greece is too good for him.

Should make him walk back, via Bulgaria.

What have you got against the Bulgarians?

[So… Howard Philips]

Sickening isn’t it?

Not just the double standards, and the sheer gall of it. But the attitude behind it, which is exactly the attitude Cummings and his lapdog displayed after the trip to Northumbria. It betrays an arrogance and ‘them and us’ beliefs that are deep rooted. (And it’s a belief that seemingly, the Great British public, by and large, are indifferent to).

Sadly large segments of the British public, as long as they have someone else to look down on, are more than happy to tug the forelock to their betters.

[Dr. Beaker]

Kind of started with the statue of Astor in Plymouth and the very online left. My fault for mentioning Corbyn in relation to it, but chap has consistently over the decades marked anniversaries of Astor entering Parliament without anyone thinking he was supporting Astor's politics or personal views. Could have used Abbott or Chakrabarti or Dawn Butler to make the point. Or Harman or Boothroyd or... etc.  But some now claim to see an equivalency with marking that achievement with, say, uncritically pushing forward antisemitic views/ideas.

This is a good long read from outside the UK on the origins of it last year: https://www.cjr.org/analysis/nancy-astor-statue.hope

Cheers Zeb. It's hard to know what to say really. I hate to be unnecessarily inflammatory, but then again I would have to say people went to some extraordinary lengths to criticise Corbyn - just wish we could bin all this shit, there are far richer Tory seams to be mined.

[Alan_X]

I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn’t read Real Rasta’s post properly, rather than take this as a deliberate twisting of words. They didn’t claim that Starmer “supports right wing racists”, they expressed disappointment in the weakness of his response to right wing racists. Even our PM - an actual racist - managed to call them what they were.

Starmer’s comments are linked below, and start with a nice bit of both-sidesery about the police. Weak as piss, if you ask me.

https://www.indy100.com/article/keir-starmer-london-protest-far-right-racist-racism-9565111

Profile photo, opens profile page on Twitter in a new tab
Keir Starmer
@Keir_Starmer
Any violence against our police is completely unacceptable. No ifs, no buts.

Today’s protests in London were led by those intent on causing violence and sowing hate for their own ends.

We must not let them win.
7:43 PM · Jun 13, 2020

How is that 'both sides'?

[filopastry]

Westminster voting intention:

CON: 42% (-2)
LAB: 38% (-)
LDEM: 8% (+1)
GRN: 5% (+1)

via @RedfieldWIlton, 01 Jul
Chgs. w/ 25 Jun

[Alan_X]

...Mental gymnastics right here. Why is a lurch towards UKIP on race related issues ‘maximising the party’s chances’?...

What the fuck?...

[Alan_X]

Correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t you refuse to vote for Labour in December because of Brexit? If so, I don’t really see how a) your argument that “a Labour government of any form is better than a Tory government” holds much water and b) you can preach to Snail about the need to accept a Labour leader’s decision-making purely on the basis that doing the opposite would upset too many people.

Let's be clear - a Corbyn-led Labour Party stood no realistic chance of forming a Labour Government so it's a moot point.

[filopastry]

Clarification from Starmer on his language around BLM.

NEW: Sir Keir_Starmer has told @BBCNews he regrets his use of language in calling the Black Lives Matter movement a “moment” and has apologised for his words. Clarifying his position, he said he meant this was a “defining moment” and a turning point in race relations.

[TepidT2O]

Clarification from Starmer on his language around BLM.

Good....

Makes sense too.

[Zeb]

Cheers Zeb. It's hard to know what to say really. I hate to be unnecessarily inflammatory, but then again I would have to say people went to some extraordinary lengths to criticise Corbyn - just wish we could bin all this shit, there are far richer Tory seams to be mined.

Fair. Will try harder myself to ignore the background music as Labour tries to recalibrate itself towards a more flexible approach on values issues. Would say though that the party would probably benefit by having a more nuanced and broader view of even its own history on some issues. So it doesn't run Eleanor Marx - Cable Street - WW2 - Hooray and forgets Hardie and Tillett and Webb and... . Or pick out the genuinely good things done with the Race Relations Act while ignoring, say, the Commonwealth Immigrants Bill. Personally think having that sense of things being all kinds of messy, but that we can learn from good and bad, might be a useful tonic to the performative outrage which seems to get confused with principle.

[Welshred]

I think everyone can agree that was the right move

[Dr. Beaker]

Parliament is sticking with 2 metres. One rule for us....

[killer-heels]

Clarification from Starmer on his language around BLM.

Isnt that what was implied? Loads have called it a moment in that same context.

[Welshred]

Isnt that what was implied? Loads have called it a moment in that same context.

Probably but it still hasn't stopped people from claiming that Labour is now institutionally racist. The good thing about this is the change in the press reaction towards the Labour leader as it's barely been mentioned but probably would have been negative headline news if it was Corbyn, which is good I suppose.

[ljycb]

Let's be clear - a Corbyn-led Labour Party stood no realistic chance of forming a Labour Government so it's a moot point.

What’s a moot point?

[killer-heels]

What’s a moot point?

Its a cows opinion.

[ShakaHislop]

Its a cows opinion.

That joke was udderly terrible.

[ljycb]

Its a cows opinion.

 

[Elmo!]

That joke was udderly terrible.

What's your beef?

[ljycb]

Labour leader Keir Starmer has appealed to Black voters not to leave the party, following backlash over an interview in which he dismissed the Black Lives Matter goal of defunding the police as “nonsense”.

HuffPost UK revealed in June that scores of Black people were leaving or considering leaving the party over concerns that anti-Black racism was not being adequately addressed by the leadership.

It was sparked by a leaked report into anti-Semitism in the party, drafted in March and leaked in April, which also appeared to uncover examples of Afriphobia – prompting Starmer to appoint a four-person panel to investigate.

Still, Black voters have expressed disappointment with silence on the matter from leadership while this is underway.

Speaking to BBC Breakfast on Monday, Starmer said: “Nobody should be saying anything about defunding the police.

“I was director of public prosecutions for five years. I’ve worked with police forces across England and Wales bringing thousands of people to court, so my support for the police is very strong.”

Now, amid growing backlash from people who described his interview as “disappointing” and cited it as grounds to part ways with Labour, Starmer is appealing to Black people to stay.

“I don’t want anybody to leave the Labour Party,” Starmer told HuffPost UK on Thursday.

“The Labour Party is a broad church. It is a place that I hope and am determined that Black people feel that they are welcome, that they want to be; we definitely need as much Black representation in the Labour Party as we can possibility get.”

The Labour leader described the party as “anti-racist” and suggested that disciplinary procedures have already taken place internally.

“Amongst the reasons we took the actions that we did [to order an independent inquiry] was to try to show as quickly as we could to people that they could have confidence in [deputy leader] Angela Rayner and myself to root out racism and to take swift action in order to do so without inhibitions. [...]

“We take it really seriously. Angela Rayner and I are determined to root out any racism in the party – whether that’s staff or members. We are a proudly anti-racist party. They are our core values and principles.

“Without hours of getting the leaked report we had ordered an independent inquiry. We didn’t delay, we didn’t just leave it to the internal process, and we have not inhibited that inquiry in any way whatsoever.

“It’s been in place in a matter of a few weeks and people will judge us, I think, when those reports come in. I’m determined it’ll be independent and I’m determined we’ll act upon it when we see the results of that report.

“Meanwhile the internal processes are going on and that has led to action already – albeit, frustratingly, for a number of weeks I wasn’t able to point to that when people were criticising me because of the confidentiality of the process.”

He added: “I asked the team, headed up by Martin Forde QC, to go wherever he needs to go on this, and they’ll report to us. There’s no ‘no go areas’. He has not been given any instructions not to look at anything – he has got complete freedom to go where he needs to go, such is the determination to root out any racism in our party and deal with it – and be seen to deal with it – effectively.”

PA Wire/PA Images
Dawn Butler and Diane Abbott at Labour's Women's Conference in the Telford International Centre.
Black voters are still reeling from the aftermath of the leaked report and many have told us that they now feel “politically homeless”.

The lengthy document revealed that Labour officials used a string of insults in private WhatsApp groups to describe senior Black MPs and officials including Diane Abbott, Dawn Butler and Clive Lewis.

Among those disappointed by the contents of the report were London Mahmoud Junju, who told HuffPost UK it was “damning” and said he found the silence of the upper echelons of the party worrying. He cancelled his membership after almost a decade.

“The findings exposed anti-Blackness in the party – especially towards Black Labour MPs like Auntie Abbott. She’s one MP who has faced the most abuse in recent British history and we can’t ignore the fact that it’s mainly because she’s a Black woman,” he said.

Starmer’s recent BBC interview won the praise of far-right leader Nigel Frottage. When asked by HuffPost UK about his view on that, the Labour leader replied – twice – “I have nothing in common with Nigel Frottage.”

From Huffington Post.

[killer-heels]

If I bothered to become a Labour party member then I would be in trouble because I would also insult Clive Lewis, Diane Abbott and Dawn Butler.

[ShakaHislop]

From Huffington Post.

What evidence are people putting forward that the criticism of Abbott, Lewis and Butler is motivated by the colour of their skin?

Also:

“The findings exposed anti-Blackness in the party – especially towards Black Labour MPs like Auntie Abbott. She’s one MP who has faced the most abuse in recent British history and we can’t ignore the fact that it’s mainly because she’s a Black woman,” he said.

A bit weird.