If you're wondering why leftists are gleeful at Starmer's problems, it's important to understand that the way he treated Corbyn, dozens of left MPs, hundreds of aspiring parliamentary candidates and thousands of members has been despicable, and 100% unprecedented in UK history.
Jeremy Gilbert
2,369 posts
Cultural theory, political analysis, dance party politics. Latest book: Hegemony Now (Verso 2022) bsky.app/profile/jemgil…
- It's great how the media are prepping the ground for Starmer to have lost his job because of Peter Mandelson and nasty emails from staffers ten years ago, rather than because his entire political strategy has demonstrably failed by being far too right-wing.
- It's staggering that Mandelson hasn't resigned.
- I think the real significance of Caerphilly is that once centre-left voters start accepting that they might have to vote for parties to the left of Labour in order to block Reform, then the entire basis for centrist political strategy since the 1970s is out of the window.
- Imagine being a grown adult whose literal job is UK politics and apparently not knowing that Peter Mandelson was a liability.
- Every single time Adam Curtis tells you that nobody predicted a thing, somebody on the Left definitely predicted that thing.
- I'm slowly, resignedly writing my assessment of Starmerism as of Jan 2025 for @MarkPerryman's book (due September). The conclusion I'm coming to is - until the unions get that they must never again endorse a leadership made up of aspiring consultants, we're fucked forever (1/2).
- So I've watched ep. 1 of the New Adam Curtis, and here's the thing. Thatcher did not destroy British manufacturing industry by mistake. That is all you really need to know to understand what's wrong with this way of telling the story, but I'll elaborate a bit. (1/?)
- Replying to @jemgilbertEvery idiot who can read a poll knows that if you wanted to beat Reform, you would put in place a fairly radical social democratic programme. But that isn't their priority. Their priority is is demonstrating loyalty to the City, Wall Street, Silicon Valley at all costs (2/2).
- I really can't stress enough the extent to which you've totally missed the point if, like every single liberal commentator, you assume that the Labour leadership are conducting themselves like this because they mistakenly believe that doing so will help them defeat Reform (1/2).
- One thing to be cheerful about is that 5 years ago, I was still having to convince centrist dads that the 'Labour Right' actually existed, but now everyone knows they do and hates them and they're going to be the most despised political tendency in living memory for decades.
- This is great. We also need this level of propaganda explaining to people WHY even a Labour government won't tax the rich, which means explaining the ugly nitty-gritty of how the party works and who's hijacked it. But that's someone else's job. This is great political education.Why Labour and Trump will both fail
00:00 - All true. Thing is, I think they know that a left turn would be the only way to beat Reform, but they’d regard that as a defeat in itself. And they’d always rather lose to the right than to the left.Reform are now beating Labour in the polls. Labour are losing a member every 10 minutes. Reform could soon overtake them there too. But on WhatsApp Andrew Gwynne cheered on members leaving. Labour is heading for annihilation because it has hundreds of idiots like him as MPs.
00:00 - Your Party deciding to really go for it with mass assemblies, mass canvassing, sortition conference and online voting is a very brave experiment in popular democracy that should be welcomed by anyone who doesn't want us to be governed directly by Elon Musk by 2035.



