Starmer sees nothing wrong with this. The defence put by an equally compromised David Lammy on Sunday's politics shows - that the PM has to take the threads donated by Lord Waheed Alli because Number 10 doesn't offer state-funded clobber - is probably the most pathetic line put out by a minister in recent years. And that includes the dread periods of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss. Indeed, when Johnson was caught out for getting donors to pay for a garish redecoration of the Downing Street flat he didn't even try to defend it. Which Labour, naturally, attacked the Tories on. It's almost like this government is on fast forward. Just over two months in and we're already at the sleaze/flimsy excuse combo stage.
It's true Starmer hasn't got the most political of brains, which is why he surrounded himself with the most dishonest operators he could find. But bearing that lack of nous in mind, surely even he can see what an appalling look this is. Especially while cutting support for pensioners and promising pain for everyone else. Yet he can't bear the tough choice of digging into his pockets and forking out for clothes and gigs. What an own goal. What an embarrassment.
Why? His statecraft, the project of authoritarian modernisation is, effectively, above politics. No one serious opposes efforts to fix the broken capacities of the state (which, with his promise to cut civil service numbers by a further 100,000, casts Robert Jenrick as the Tory leadership contest's clown-in-residence), or that the economy should grow, and so on. It's only a small step from supposing one's programme is above politics - because it corresponds most closely to the self-evident requirements of British capital - to viewing oneself as recused from the fray. Here, the failing, flailing Emmanuel Macron is the model, not the warning. Though it's the measure of Starmer that while Macron's 'above politics' affectation is done to cobble together governing coalitions, for the PM it's about saving a few quid.
Labour strategists have got to be hoping that most people won't notice or care about Starmer's addiction to freebies. No government money is involved, after all. But for Britain's boardrooms it's reassuring. Contrary to the hysterical opinion pieces that better workers' rights and fixing public services are prefacing full force socialist revolution, Starmer's lorry load of shopping bags and weeks spent in corporate hospitality boxes says loud and clear whose side he's on. That the PM and his cabinet are the sort of people they can do business with, and the snip of treating them like VIPs and paying for an afternoon at Fortnum & Mason's is enough to earn a sympathetic ear and guarantee this Labour government is, in all essentials, their government.
Image Credit
29 comments:
And what is surprising is how cheaply you can buy a British politician for - a couple of pairs of glasses and an ill fitting suit or two. I am sure in the USA or Japan you would have to spend xsome real money.
Making the same mistakes as Enda Kenny
Public sector workers would be out of a job if they did the same.
«It's almost like this government is on fast forward. Just over two months in and we're already at the sleaze/flimsy excuse combo stage.»
A bit of sleaze might be very welcome among Starmer's target voters, so many britons working in private businesses have padded their expense accounts, enjoyed cash-in-hand unreported income, sent purchase orders providing the best commissions, they will recognize Starmer as someone who "gets it".
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/new-labour-flounders/story-e6frg6ux-1225780935815
«A No10 aide admits that Brown does not have the natural empathy with the middle classes that Blair did. "The moment Tony sent his son to the Oratory those voters thought - 'he gets it',"»
«when Johnson was caught out for getting donors to pay for a garish redecoration of the Downing Street flat he didn't even try to defend it.»
A bit of sleaze from either side is a very good way to deflect attention from the policies of the government, and a way to confirm the principle that "politics" is not about interests, because "we are all thatcherites now", but is all about personalities, wallpaper, suits, beer at "work" meetings, tickets to events, etc.
https://blissex.files.wordpress.com/2023/11/dt19901220-operalyrics.gif
«Dogbert: "Dear Senator, I demand a constitutional amendment banning the obscene and anti-american lyrics in opera"
Dilbert: What makes you think a senator will care about an issue like that?
(senator's aide): I think we found another issue to keep us from working on real problems.
(senator): Ooh-ooh!»
«Which Labour, naturally, attacked the Tories on.»
As I expected the right-wing media made very little noise during the electoral campaign about Starmer's astonishing claim of being a "socialist" (in retrospect he probably actually said "socialite" and was misheard), while they had attacked ferociously Johnson over fairly minor sleaze and Corbyn over comically silly smears. They are now attacking Starmer but that is in practice just for show as the election is past and their demagoguery will have zero effect for the time being.
«Labour strategists have got to be hoping that most people won't notice or care about Starmer's addiction to freebies.»
Not only many these will make them think "good that he is one of us unlike that obnoxious person of integrity before him", but as long at he will deliver to them large profits from rentierism they will forgive him almost anything, as they did to most of his predecessors for over 40 years (many voters have been unforgiving of those causing them losses or failing to deliver profits on their "precious").
https://blissex.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/polihousingoldpeoplebigmoney.jpg
Definition of greed.
It seems a defence of the gifts is that it save the taxpayer money in security. Why not go the whole hog and put the PM and Ministers out for sponsorship by companies. Fossil fuel companies could sponsor Energy Ministers, arms manufacturesr Defence, and there would be fierce competition to pay the PMs salary.
This would save the taxpayer and save the Ministers time since they would not have to wait till the retire to forge the contractual relationship with a future empoyer.
The question that I find interesting is whether or not he actually likes all of these freebies that he's flaunting.
E.g. Does he actually enjoy looking down at a stadium full of swifties?
Does he merely enjoy demonstrating that he can look down at a stadium full of swifties?
Does he think that it's useful - or even necessary - to flaunt that he can look down at a stadium full of swifties, and have some people think that he would choose to do so, regardless of whether or not he otherwise would... For many of the same reasons as those posed by Phil and Blissex?
Or perhaps some combination of these?
Yep, so, so scandalous that the UK Deep State's (and US State Department and Trilateral Commission's) man, Starmer has been hammering those millionaire provided freebies (ie, bribes) so blatantly for glasses footie tickets and designer togs.
What else, of obviously lesser import, has Starmer been up to recently ? Oh yes, he and Lammy visited the Chief hegemon, the senile Joe Biden , on the 14th September to request US permission(and US active satellite targeting data) for UK made, and Ukraine-based UK special forces directly assisting, Storm Shadow missiles to be fired deep into Russia against major strategic targets !
Fortunately the (slightly) more sane US Pentagon, CIA, and Defence Departments persuaded senile Joe that, following a quite explicit warning from Putin, this would mean a major escalation towards World War 3. So permission was refused . If, or when, the UK directly assists Ukraine with deep strikes using UK supplied and targeted Storm Shadows, the entire UK itself and UK military assets abroad will be a target for unstoppable Russian Hypersonic retaliatory missile strikes.
So as well as a lover of freebies Starmer is also an insane risk-taking, warmonger. Does the UK Left care ? Not a bit . A few corrupt freebies REALLY matter though. Very strange priorities comrades.
The only surprising thing about it is how cheap he is. A few grand here or there and he's yours.
Somebody (you) needs to check their rectum to see if Putin might have left one of his hands in there. Well, Putin or perhaps someone from Mossad.
Try to make it less obvious, eh? You've been here beating that drum already.
«how cheaply you can buy a British politician»
«how cheap he is. A few grand here or there and he's yours.»
That is just petty demagoguery... Examples of:
* How easy it is to deflect "the narrative" from large scale policy bias by using wallpapers, beers at "work" meetings, suits, tickets also confirming to the "right thinking" britons that cash payments, expense padding, shortchanging, commissions for purchase orders are all right "because everybody does it".
* Some academic papers that argue that since most people cannot related to big issues of policy intuitively because they lack a political education they fixate on small details they can understand like "all those benefit scroungers in the estate down the road", petty self-dealing, immigrants on dinghies, etc. In the lost past working men clubs had public readings of Hansard speeches and main press articles followed by debates helped by experts on the side of workers; nowadays many of those experts have been pacified with large property profits and with a semblance of job stability within a context of constant downsizings and offshorings, and they know which side they are on.
Our blogger starts by doing the same by treating politics as a petty-morality play ("a man who enjoys the high life", "insisted on a chauffeur driven motor", ...) but then arrives to the more realistic conclusions that they are merely tokens of "affection" for one of their own ("PM and his cabinet are the sort of people they can do business with", "this Labour government is, in all essentials, their government").
Those who are more perceptive (like a comment by D. Lindsay from which I learned this "details") have noticed this interesting pattern in Starmer's recent career:
* New Labour appointed him DPP in 2009 when he was just a well regarded lawyer, pushing him ahead of many more experienced candidates.
* In 2013 after a whole year spent "thinking about politics" he was gifted an ultra-safe central London seat by New Labour, pushing him ahead of many more candidates who had waited for decades for such an opportunity,
* In 2016 after a long 2 years on the backbenches he got a front-bench high profile shadow secretary of state position, jumping ahead of many more experienced MPs who had waited for decades for such an opportunity.
* In 2019 after 3 interminable years on the front bench he became the main candidate for and won the leadership of the opposition, jumping ahead of many candidates with much longer experiences in politics.
* In 2024 having to wait even more, 3 years and a half, he becomes PM thanks to Farage not pulling back like in 2019 but splitting the Conservative vote (already outrage by the lack of progress on house prices).
Curiously Sunak had a similar career: from random professional with no experience or skill in politics to PM in 10 years.
All this without even going through the apprenticeship of a Fulbright/Rhodes or scholarship or a "British-American Project for the Successor Generation" or equivalent sponsorship.
Indeed - very cheap. There seems to be little consequence to lying in politics. The only little choice I have- like most- he wont have my vote.
I struggled to pay for my kids school uniform and yes I do work. I voted Labour but what for?
What change. Oh yes maybe a tweak for the next election. But what change in terms of the standard of living and opportunities. I don't see it about left and right but about the future for most people and most peoples children. To give more opportunities to ordinary people not less.
It is not what they say but what they do. Not just a few grand but nonetheless no good. So much for change.
What are the standards of public office regarding gifts? For example working for a local authority our in the civil service?
Also... You keep referring to Russian hypersonic missiles as "unstoppable", which they have now been proven not to be. Who are you trying to convince? Web-scraping chatbot trainers?
And now they're keeping it on the front pages! Apparently deliberately! By expressing contrition and making solemn promises not to do it again...! What's going on?!
If they have a clue at all, they must be desperate to keep something else OFF the front pages; even though they're getting no end of help with that from an increasingly-obviously-rogue Israeli regime (and if they were hoping to keep THAT out of the news, then we're back to them having no clue).
I would like it to be quicker and more established and be Labour but I will vote Green in the future unless things significantly change. And that does not mean manipulative crap from the LP because guess what we get that. That means real change that invests in the future, Future investment for people the UK. That takes guts.
Working class and new middle class parents want a future for their children. This tells them something else.
Of course it is greed but clearly there needs to be new rules to stop this going on.
So much for change. More like taking the piss.
Another lot so out of touch.
Total cringe.
If Blissex is allowed to talk about property prices under every post then I think original anonymous is fairly allowed to raise their fear of deadly escalation of an avoidable war.
And I have news for you - people hold sincere opinions about this war which may differ to yours. It does not mean they are Putin shills, useful idiots, or bots.
Dearie, dearie me, anyone who dares to raise the slightly more globally significant downside of Starmerism than the relative triviality of his unlimited greed for freebies, by pointing out that he is a dangerous warmonger too , keen apparently to kick off world war 3 over Ukraine, is just a Putin sock puppet is he ? try some factual refutation of Starmer's dangerous desire for direct UK enabled deep strike Storm Shadow escalation with nuclear superpower Russia and you might not appear to be a NATO sock puppet, or just ignorant. We need to stop keeping on poking the bear until we end up in the firing line .
Despite the ludicrous claims by Kyiv that they regularly bring down about 90% of all types of Russian missiles and drones, there is actually no evidence they have ever brought down a single Kinzal missile . The UK currently has no effective missile defense if Russia decides to retaliate against Storm Shadow deep strikes by taking out UK assets either in the UK or bases like in Cyprus.
Yes we do need change. This is just greed. Nothing more and nothing less. But what it does tell us about are priorities and values. And I did want change. It is going to be hard and I think it will take a long time but yes we do need change.
Post a Comment