Starmer the warmonger

Sir Keir Starmer has denounced the Stop the War movement as some sort of tool of Russia in a desperate attempt to further ingratiate himself with what he thinks is the dominant section of the British ruling class. Writing in the Guardian following talks with NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in Brussels the Labour leader says the anti-war movement is at best 'naive' and at worst a force bolstering those who threaten democracies while telling the Times that Labour is the “party of NATO”.

   Conjuring up the ghosts of Labour’s old right wing Starmer said “Attlee, Healey and Bevin saw communism for what it was and were prepared to stand up to its aggression,” he said. “Today’s Labour party has the same clear-eyed view of the current regime in the Kremlin. We know, as they did, that bullies only respect strength. Russian tanks sit, engines revving, on the verge of annexing Ukraine but protest placards waved here by the usual suspects condemn NATO not Moscow... to condemn NATO is to condemn the guarantee of democracy and security it brings and which our allies in eastern and central Europe are relying on as the sabre-rattling from Moscow grows ever louder”.
   The people of Serbia, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and Syria will, no doubt, have other ideas about NATO.
Starmer may think that posing as a super-patriot will convince the ruling class of his usefulness when the time comes to get rid of Boris Johnson. He also clearly believes that there is widespread public support for wars and military interventions in Britain. He’s wrong both counts. The Tories don’t need Starmer and the people don’t want war.

Bye Bye Cressida Dick

No one will shed any tears over the departure of Dame Cressida Dick, the Metropolitan Police chief who was finally forced to resign after a damning indictment from the Mayor of London last week.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan said he was "not satisfied" Dame Cressida could "root out the racism, sexism, homophobia, bullying, discrimination and misogyny that still exist" in the force or restore Londoners' trust in the Metropolitan Police.
   The Labour politician said the last straw was the Commissioner’s less than robust response to police watchdog's report into the Charing Cross cops who joked about rape, LGBT people and violence towards women on the social media. Khan said that "the response from the Commissioner wasn't up to the scale of the change required in the Met Police Service".
   It’s surprising it took so long for Khan to see through her though to be fair, Cressida Dick’s talent was in brushing aside criticism from the public the police claim to protect. . Repeated claims of misogyny and racism in the force; the dismal handling of the “spycops” scandal and the “partygate” investigation and accusations of that the Met had failed to properly investigate claims of indecent exposure by one of the force who raped and killed a woman in 2021.
None of us will miss Cressida Dick. Whether her successor will be any better remains to be seen.

Tories Ahead

 The Conservatives are seven points ahead of Labour in the opinion polls that also say that some 88 per cent of the public think that the Government has done a good job getting the public vaccinated as soon as possible.
    While Boris Johnson basks in the reflected glory of the NHS’s coronavirus vaccine roll-out the future looks bleak for Sir Keir Starmer and his diminishing band of supporters. The knives are already out amid speculation that Labour is going to get a hammering in the local and regional elections in two months’ time.
    `The Blairites backed Starmer to get rid of Jeremy Corbyn and drive the Corbynistas out of the party they tried to reform during Corbyn’s time at the top table. Now they’re having second thoughts.
    Some are openly saying that Starmer is a hopeless campaigner who is clearly unelectable. Others are staying their hand -- waiting to see what actually happens in the May polls before making any move to trigger another Labour leadership contest. But who’s going to lead them?
    Not the old has-beens on Labour’s back-benches who still think Labour’s fortunes can be restored by returning to the imaginary golden age of the Blair era. Nor the others who want to lure David Miliband back across the Atlantic to lead Labour when the time comes.
    They want Miliband. Whether he wants to give up his cushy number as head of the International Rescue Committee in New York in exchange is another matter. We’ll probably never know because there are plenty of other wannabe leaders in Labour’s ranks.
    Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, has got his hands full campaigning for re-election in May. But Andy Burnham, the ambitious Mayor of Greater Manchester, has set his sights on the leadership. He said as much last month while denying planning a coup to oust Starmer. Though ultimately a careerist who loyally served the Blair and Brown administrations, Burnham can also count on the support of some of the big guns in the union movement.
    One of them is Len McCluskey. The leader of Unite, the biggest union in the country, told us in October that “Andy Burnham has been doing a fantastic job in speaking up for and defending the people he has been elected to serve. Unite members will be forever grateful to him for fighting the corner of the low-waged and those in insecure employment, the vulnerable and the young, all of whom are paying the heaviest price of this dreadful virus”.
     Grateful or not Labour’s rank-and-file are not consulted over Starmer while the Corbynistas are left fighting a losing battle against the bureaucracy’s suspensions and expulsions.
     Rebecca Long-Bailey, Starmer's closest rival in last year's leadership contest, has been sidelined. Momentum, with its claimed 40,000 plus membership, is a broken reed.
     Nevertheless the New Communist Party’s electoral policy is still to vote Labour. It’s not because we think a Labour government can solve the problems of working people. We know that isn’t possible in a bourgeois “democracy”. Our policy exists because it is based on the concrete conditions that exist in Britain today.
    In our view a Labour government with its continuing links with the trade unions and the co‑operative movement, offers the best option for the working class in the era of bourgeois parliamentary democracy.
    Our strategy is for working class unity and our campaigns are focused on defeating the right‑wing within the movement and strengthening the left and progressive forces within the Labour Party and the unions to create a truly democratic Labour Party that will carry out the demands of organised labour when in office.

Northern Lights

 Andy Burnham has chosen the right time to challenge the Johnson government. The Mayor of Greater Manchester is being asked to support the Government’s Tier 3 lockdown without the financial support that’s vitally needed to make it viable. Accusing the Tories of “playing poker with people's lives” the Labour mayor spoke for the millions in his region who need financial support to stave off unemployment and poverty that will otherwise follow the new local lockdown regime.

Greater Manchester is calling for between £65m and £75m to support businesses that would be forced to close during a Tier 3 lockdown and he’s won across-the-board support from other local government leaders in the region who have joined him in dismissing the Government’s current business support packages as woefully inadequate.
     According to a Daily Telegraph journalist “Politics is crazy right now. One Tory MP just told me: ‘We are on the cusp of having Andy Burnham carried shoulder-high through the streets of Manchester. He has demonstrated courage and principle, hope and determination and a spirit that the British people can be proud of’”.
     Meanwhile Sir Keir Starmer is calling on Northern Tory MPs to support Labour’s demand for furloughed workers to continue to receive 80 per cent of their wages after the current scheme ends at the end of the month and better financial support for areas in the top tier of restrictions. “The Prime Minister and the Chancellor need to make good on their commitment to the British people to do whatever it takes to help us through this pandemic,” the Labour leader said. “We need a fair one nation deal that can help us through the second wave”.
    This could mean trouble for the Tories particularly in the “red wall” Northern constituencies that they took from Labour in last year’s general election. The Government has put £60 million on the table and the Chancellor, Rishi Sunak, clearly hopes that will be enough to buy off trouble in the run-up to next year’s regional elections. Sunak clearly doesn’t want to maintain the current national business and furlough support at the current levels. This is probably because Sunak fears that a national lockdown of a much longer duration than the currently touted two-week “circuit breaker” is inevitable and he doesn’t want to raise taxes or, indeed, cut the defence budget, to pay for it.
    This could also mean trouble for Starmer himself. Back in 2017 Tony Blair told us that Labour would be 20 points ahead of the Tories if it wasn’t for Corbyn. This year the Remainers said Labour’s fortunes would dramatically change once Starmer was at the helm.
    But that hasn’t happened has it? Starmer claimed to be a “unity” candidate who would continue along the trajectory charted by Corbyn. But he didn’t did he?
    Continuing with the bogus “anti-semitic” campaign and hounding out prominent left supporters of the old regime may have won him the plaudits of the Zionists and the ageing Blairites who still sit in the House of Commons. But it’s cut no ice with working people battling against austerity and the coronavirus plague. There’s been little sign of a breakthrough in England and Labour remains in the doldrums in Scotland.
    If Starmer stumbles in the regional polls next year there’ll be plenty of other “centre-left” Labour wannabees more than ready to take his place. Andy Burnham is one of them. Sadiq Khan is another.