Labour Wonder Why #noagenda

For those not paying attention to the UK General Election, they may not have noticed a second election campaign running concurrrently: namely the battle within the Labour party for who should be the leader.

Over the past week or so, there has been increasing speculation on the question of if Corbyn wasn’t the leader where would the party be in the polls. Various names have been thrust forward, Keir Starmer being most often mentioned. But according to long time Corbyn critic Rachel Reeves, the new leader should be a woman. A theme picked up by ex-Tory Nick Boles.

Rainy Days, and Corbyn, Always Get Me Down

Matters are further complicated by the Tory party sending out a letter on behalf of Ian Austin, urging decent Labour voters not to vote for the party.

This argument predates the current General Election, and is in some sense not surprising given that the two papers most in support of Labour are the Mirror and the Guardian: in the words of Jim Hacker, “the Mirror is read by people who think they run the country, the Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country.”

Hey-ho, it’s not for me to say…

Meet Emma Pencheon, self entitled, over privileged know-all. Who the chances are, will never pay a single penny of tax in her life. I don’t deny, she does an important job: as a doctor. But I find it frankly odd that she feels the need to lecture others about poverty, but doesn’t seem to understand that those people are in poverty (among other reasons) because the money is being spent to pay her wages .

For as we know, if we are to believe the current narrative, she as a junior doctor (I think she said) is getting £80,000 a year. Well maybe she’s not. Which makes me wonder why she isn’t correcting this mis-information, rather than blathering on with Labour talking points that make a) no sense and b) win no votes.

The NHS isn’t going to be sold to the Americans — not in the way she is claiming.

And Ms Pencheon wittering on in her faux accent, (as if somehow she understands from reading poverty porn in the Guardian or the Independent), may feed her dopamine addiction through comments about her being ‘so brave’, but it clearly isn’t cutting it with the voters: if the polls are to be believed.

I suspect this would be the case regardless of the leader, because the message Labour are selling only applies if you live in Labour-land.

For instance, the issue with trains is not the ticket price (the price is what it is) but rather not knowing if you are going to get fined.

And claiming that the usage of food banks has increased by four thousand million per cent since 2009, or whatever, is all very well. Except there weren’t many food banks in 2009.

And it doesn’t take a genius to work out that if you drive up the price of heating by switching to inefficient and expensive green energy, then people will be skint. Yes, yes I know, if we produced cheaper electric with coal fired power plants, or nuclear, the phone-ins on radio stations would be packed out with asthmatics complaining they can’t leave their homes. It’s best we stick to the plan of waiting to get rich when the coal seams turn to diamonds.

Still one things for sure, if Labour lose Ms Pencheon will be out of the streets with the rest of her reedy friends, hoping to become a great thinker like Laurie Penny.

In yet another stunning bit of vote losing, (IRA man) John McDonnell has come out with the extraordinary claim that under Labour ‘families’ will save £6,700 a year.

You might wonder what the hell he’s talking about, since Labour are committed to spending something like £400billion, which will no doubt lead to inflation and devaluation of the pound. I would add the current national debt, but exact figures are hard find.

“ In a dossier to be published alongside the speech, McDonnell will claim that Labour policies including nationalising utilities and reducing the cost of rail season tickets would put £6,700 in the coffers of the average household.”

Now while I agree, in principle, with re-nationalisation. It should be pointed out that Labour’s figure of £6,700 is the best case scenario. It doesn’t factor in the strikes that will inevitably occur, due to renegotiation of employment contracts. Nor does it explain how they are going nationalise sectors of industries, for instance energy, currently held as part of nationalised industries in other countries.

And that is completely ignoring the fact that if the second referendum goes against them, and there is no Brexit/Lexit, there will be no savings at all because they will not be allowed to re-nationalise.

Of course if Labour were serious, which we all know they are not, they would re-nationalise the Bank of England, and bring monetary policy back under the responsibility of ministers.

No doubt, economists would throw up their hands. But regardless of the economic consequences it would at a stroke make politics more serious. Instead of wasting time on pointless debates and policy, members of parliament would be forced to address real issues, and be held liable for the consequences of their actions.

It is perhaps a sign of how little politics actually matter to the Labour party that they find themselves trapped in a loveless marriage between the Blairites and Momentum, with a voting base consisting of an Anywhere class, leaching off the poor, and those too proud to ever switch votes.

With a week to go, to actual voting (and counting) only a fool would predict the result.

But I suspect things are worse in the Labour party than they seem on the surface. Unleashing Laura (I’m sure you’ll agree) Pidcock to push the message is a sign of desperation.

What has happened to Liz Kendall?