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Tag: John McDonnell

  • John McDonnell: Labour alienated its core and failed to attract Reform voters. Now will Starmer change tack?

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    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/03/labour-reform-voters-keir-starmer-local-elections

    Keir Starmer visiting the defence contractor Leonardo in Luton, 2 May 2025. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/PA

    The local elections showed that voters feel betrayed. But in a party that brooks no dissent, that message isn’t getting through

    The response from Labour spokespeople so far to the loss of Runcorn and Helsby – and to the election results as a whole – has been especially tin-eared. There doesn’t seem to be any understanding of the deep-seated emotion in the reaction of Labour supporters to the party’s behaviour in government over the past 10 months. There used to be talk of the need for emotional literacy in politics. What we are witnessing is a staggering level of emotional illiteracy.

    Labour supporters feel deeply that their party has turned its back on them. It’s not just that they feel they are not being listened to. It’s that the Starmer and Reeves government is doing things that they believe no Labour government should ever do.

    After 14 years of enduring year after year of austerity under the Conservatives, there was such a collective sigh of relief in getting rid of the incompetent, corrupt and brutal Tories. There might not have been much in the way of inspiring politics from Keir Starmer in the run-up to the election last July, but at least we had a Labour government.

    The problem now is that, at times, the government is unrecognisable as a Labour government. This isn’t the traditional argument about whether the Starmer administration is behaving like old Labour or New Labour. It’s whether it’s Labour at all in the eyes of people who have supported us or would want to support us.

    …

    Guardian article continues at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/03/labour-reform-voters-keir-starmer-local-elections

    Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.
    Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.
    UK Labour Party government Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are participants and complicit in Israel's Gaza genocide providing Israel with army and air force support. They explain that they don't do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.
    UK Labour Party government Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves explain that they are participants and complicit in Israel’s Gaza genocide providing Israel with army and air force support. They explain that they don’t do gas chambers but do do forced marches, starvation, destroy hospitals, mass-murders of journalists and healthcare workers.

  • Labour MPs urge Starmer to change course after Reform takes Runcorn safe seat

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/labour-mps-urge-starmer-change-course-after-reform-takes-runcorn-safe-seat

     Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and actor Ross Kemp join the national phone bank at the Labour Party headquarters in central London, during campaigning for tomorrow’s local elections, April 30, 2025

    LABOUR MPs, trade unions and campaigners called on the government to urgently change course today after Reform UK overturned the party’s majority of 15,000 to win the Runcorn and Helsby by-election by six votes for its candidate, former Conservative councillor Sarah Pochin. 

    Thursday’s local elections saw the far-right party also take their first mayoralty in Greater Lincolnshire for ex-Tory MP and minister Andrea Jenkyns, and come close seconds to Labour in three other mayoral races, as well as taking hundreds of council seats from the Tories and winning control of many councils.

    Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer responded to the losses by saying ”I get it,” and pledged to go ”further and faster” in changing Britain.

    But veteran Labour MP Diane Abbott said: ”Labour leadership is saying the party will go further and faster — in the same direction. 

    ”They don’t seem to understand: it is our current direction that is the problem.”

    Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell MP said: ”The message to ministers is: drop plans to attack disabled people.”

    And Labour MP for Leeds East Richard Burgon said that Labour’s defeat in Runcorn was ”entirely avoidable” and a ”direct result of the party leadership’s political choices.”

    …

    Article continues at https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/labour-mps-urge-starmer-change-course-after-reform-takes-runcorn-safe-seat

    Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.
    Keir Starmer says that the Labour Party under his leadership all feel a small part of Scunthorpe.
    Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.
    Nigel Farage explains the politics of Reform UK: Racism, Fake anti-establishmentism, Deregulation, Corporatism, Climate Change Denial, Mysogyny and Transphobia.
    Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves discuss wasting money including David Lammy spending £1MILLION on private jets.
    Keir Starmer and Rachel Reeves discuss wasting money including David Lammy spending £1MILLION on private jets.

  • ‘Tax the Super-Rich’ instead of slashing services, Labour told

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    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/tax-the-super-rich-instead-of-slashing-services-labour-told

    Protesters outside the Treasury this evening

    Chancellor Reeves’ planned public spending cuts will ‘open the door’ for Reform UK, McDonnell warns as campaigners get set to rally outside the Treasury

    TAX the super-rich instead of slashing services, Chancellor Rachel Reeves was told today, on the eve of her Commons statement, expected to announce more public spending cuts.

    Campaigners from a range of charities and voluntary organisations are set to rally outside the Treasury this evening to demand a wealth tax instead of “austerity with a red rosette” in the words of a leading trade unionist.

    And former shadow chancellor John McDonnell, presently suspended from the Labour whip, has warned that Ms Reeves was in danger of making Labour “just another austerity party” if she missed a last chance to change course.

    The wealth tax option is growing in political popularity following recent announcements of a £5 billion cut in disability benefits and huge cuts to overseas aid to fund new arms spending.

    It is backed by the TUC and a broad range of Labour MPs.

    Just a 2.5 per cent tax on assets over £10 million could raise £36bn annually, according to Greenpeace’s research.

    …

    https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/tax-the-super-rich-instead-of-slashing-services-labour-told

    Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
    Keir Starmer, Angela Rayner and Rachel Reeves wear the uniform of the rich and powerful. They have all had clothes bought for them by multi-millionaire Labour donor Lord Alli. CORRECTION: It appears that Rachel Reeves clothing was provided by Juliet Rosenfeld.
    Keir Starmer confirms that he's proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.
    Keir Starmer confirms that he’s proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.

  • John McDonnell : Advice to Keir Starmer: stop the fawning over Trump. Then help plan for a better world without him

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    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/05/keir-starmer-fawning-over-trump-plan-better-world

    Donald Trump shows off a letter from King Charles that Keir Starmer has just handed him, Washington, 27 February 2025. Photograph: ABACA/REX/Shutterstock

    We need a ‘coalition of the willing’ capable of bringing together those in Europe and the global south. Britain should facilitate that

    There are only so many times Donald Trump can be offered a state and royal visit to temper his political tantrums. With his latest attacks on Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the halting of aid to Ukraine, it’s already clear that not even the offer of a bed for the night at Balmoral has worked.

    The silver lining of the Trump experience over the past fortnight is hopefully that it leads to a more realistic appraisal not just of the implications of the re-election of this narcissistic, bullying, corporate thug, but an understanding of the role the US has played over generations. Trump and his gang members JD Vance and Elon Musk are just the ugliest of faces of the US global policy pursued for a century at least.

    In 1992 Noam Chomsky published a bestselling booklet, What Uncle Sam Really Wants. A read of Chomsky may help Labour’s policymakers overcome their apparent naivety so worryingly displayed in the constant references to the special relationship between the UK and US.

    Trump’s “America First” policy is simply a more blatant articulation of the role the US has pursued globally since at least the second world war.

    …

    There is an opening now for a much greater and more longer-sighted “coalition of the willing” capable of bringing together those in Europe and the global south to create the alliances and institutions needed to pursue the political and economic agenda that the US now resiles from.

    This includes an economic cooperation agenda not based upon tariffs and protectionism for the wealthy, but one that is mutually beneficial and tackles both the grotesque inequalities between north and south and the common threat of the climate emergency.

    …

    Unwise and immoral plans to cut British overseas aid, undermining soft power, are a legacy of a sort, but how much better it would be to see our prime minister using our influence and heft to bring together all those who want to discuss and construct a world reordered without the malign influences of Trump and China. That really would be a place in history worth having.

    Original article at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/mar/05/keir-starmer-fawning-over-trump-plan-better-world

    Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
    Neo-Fascist Climate Science Denier Donald Trump says Burn, Baby, Burn.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.
    Elon Musk urges you to be a Fascist like him, says that you can ignore facts and reality then.

  • Bill would force banks to carry out ‘mass surveillance’ of millions of innocent disabled people, MPs are told

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    https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/bill-would-force-banks-to-carry-out-mass-surveillance-of-millions-of-innocent-disabled-people-mps-are-told/

    A new government bill would force banks to carry out “mass surveillance” of millions of innocent disabled people and other benefit claimants, MPs have been warned.

    The measures in the bill would force banks to examine individuals’ accounts for potential breaches of benefit eligibility rules, and then pass that information to the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP).

    …

    Work and pensions secretary Liz Kendall told MPs on Monday that the measures would force banks to provide data to “help identify incorrect benefit payments people might be getting, including fraudulently, such as if someone has too much in savings, making them ineligible for a benefit, or if they are fraudulently claiming benefits abroad when they should be living in the UK”.

    But independent MP Zarah Sultana said the “algorithm-driven financial surveillance” allowed by the bill would lead to errors that would disproportionately affect disabled and older people and “those already struggling to make ends meet”, and create “a two-tier justice system”.

    She said: “Even a one per cent error rate in the AI system used by banks could lead to thousands of benefit recipients being wrongly flagged, unfairly investigated and forced into lengthy appeals.”

    She said the bill would allow “mass surveillance” and was “deeply unjust” and would “subject millions of innocent people – disabled individuals, carers, jobseekers, pensioners and parents – to unwarranted financial surveillance, treating them as suspects by default, simply because they receive state support”.

    It would, she said, turn banks into “agents of the state”.

    Another independent MP, John McDonnell, the former Labour shadow chancellor, said the government was seeking powers for a “mass surveillance exercise”.

    He said: “The reason why people will feel that it is unfair is that it specifically targets people who are often in desperate need.

    “If there was a group of people whose accounts we would want to monitor because there has been a history of fraud, and who have had to pay money back – some have gone to prison – it would be MPs; I was here during the expenses scandal.”

    …

    https://www.disabilitynewsservice.com/bill-would-force-banks-to-carry-out-mass-surveillance-of-millions-of-innocent-disabled-people-mps-are-told/

    Keir Starmer confirms that he's proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.
    Keir Starmer confirms that he’s proud to be a red Tory continuing austerity and targeting poor and disabled scum.