All my adult life I have loyally voted Labour. Not any  more. For the foreseeable future I will not be voting Labour.

 

At local council elections and the next General election, I intend to vote Green.

I will do nothing that might enhance the chance of Keir Starmer becoming Prime Minister and I will do all in my power to thwart his ambition and bring him down as Labour leader.

He is a liar and a deceiver and corrupt.

Tory governments have sunk themselves and British politics into the mire and Starmer is content to be joining them there.

Boris Johnson is adept at perfidy and at getting away with it. It is this skill that earned him the admiration of Tory MPs and millions of British people, who have come to accept that lying and deception are skills now essential to politicians. Even after demonstrating yet again that he is an inveterate liar and collecting a criminal record, we see Tory MPs wanting him back in government merely because they see him as a vote winner. To such people, honesty and integrity count for nothing. All they want is power.

Then along came Jeremy Corbyn, not only honest, polite and decent, also plain-speaking about his political beliefs.

His intention to end university tuition fees, to abide by international treaties against nuclear weapons and to take back key service industries into public ownership, as well as his outspoken criticism of the Israeli government for its breaking of international laws and persecution of Israel’s Palestinian citizens earned him the ire of the rightwing Parliamentary Labour Party  (PLP) and the heavily biased media.

On the other hand, as demonstrated in the 2017 general election, when he achieved the best Labour vote share since 2001 and a net gain of 3o seats, including unlikely places like Kensington and Canterbury, his policies won the support of millions of the electorate.  This put the wind up the PLP, who decided he had to be defeated, even if that meant having a Tory government.  The PLP and a coalition of the un-dead, including Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair, could not stomach the idea of the Labour Party having socialist policies.

well, that’s how I feel about Starmer.  If he wins Downing Street in 2024, we’ll be stuck with him for life. Suffering another Tory government would be worth it in order to cleanse the Labour Party of Starmer’s blatant dishonesty, opportunism and dictatorial leadership.

He is a liar. He joined Margaret Hodge and the gutter press in their unprecedentedly poisonous campaign of lies against Corbyn’s non-existent anti-Semitism.

In order to win the leadership he lied that he supported the policies that proved so popular in the 2017 election, including

*Abandoning university tuition fees, an undertaking he has now dumped, leaving British university education the most expensive in Europe and British graduates saddled with heavy debt for decades, unless, of course, their parents are as well off as he is.

*Renationalising water, an undertaking he has since dumped, although the mainly foreign-owned water companies which have been selling us our own water and tipping untreated sewage into our rivers and coastal waters with impunity or laughably small fines. The government is allowing the water companies to continue their sewage discharges for another 27 years up to 2050. During this time they must spend£56 billion on new infrastructure in order to end polluting discharges. Does that sound a lot? Well, it is £1 billion less than the £57 Billion the companies have paid out in dividends to share-holders over the past 27 years. If they had spent some of that money on surface water drains and treatment plants, keeping rainwater and sewage separate, Britain might not now be the filthiest country in Europe. The water company executives ought to be put in prison. That’s what Starmer should be demanding. Instead, they are paid millions in bonuses and move at glacial speed in stopping their putrid habits. Why should they care? They have private swimming pools. Check out my  March 2023 blog, The Muckiest country in Europe. 

Renationalising energy, a promise he has since dumped, although the energy companies are making obscene profits during the world energy crisis.

*Renationalising rail, a policy he has now dumped, although such a policy would be popular with the people. But basically he is in sympathy with the Tory dogma that private ownership is best. When asked why he has changed his mind, he comes out with the weasel worded trope that he has “moved on”.

*Increasing taxes on the richest, a policy he has dumped.

He cannot be trusted. He will make pledges if they advantage him, then renege on them when he sees it as suiting his interests..

His policies are aimed at winning the support of readers of the Daily Mail and Sun, but they will probably not vote for him, because they are just as capricious and vacuous as he is.

If, in 2024, he gets into Downing Street, it will not be a Labour win. It will be a Tory loss.

It will be a repetition of the 1997 landslide, when Blair won largely because of the unpopularity of John Major.

 

Shallow as he is, he is content to get into power by virtue of the unpopularity of the Tories, rather than having Labour policies with mass appeal.

He will then continue with Tory policies,

*cosying up to big business,

*continuing to court the special relationship with the USA,

*continuing the Trident programme, although it is totally useless against the biggest threats to this country’s security,

*continuing the creeping privatisation of the NHS and our schools,

*continuing the anti-trade union policies introduced under Thatcher and strengthened by subsequent Tory governments.

 

Have I grounds for calling him corrupt?

Serving as a shadow minister under Corbyn whilst being part of the conspiracy against him, was corrupt.

Being involved in the conspiracy which cost the Party millions of pounds from members’ subscriptions and donations (including mine) was wrongful diversion of Party funds to suit his political agenda. In other words, corruption.

Being part of the conspiracy in which MPs and officials sabotaged the Party’s 2019 election campaign from within constitutes corruption on an egregious scale.

Between Starmer and Sunak, in respect of policies, there is not so much as a puddle, let alone clear blue water.

Like the Tories, Starmer is anti-trade union. Oh, he wants the unions’ cash for the Labour Party, but he joins the rightwing press in damning them.

 

*Has he pointed  out that The Tories have been  deliberately prolonging the rail strikes by compensating the rail companies for the revenue they  have lost during the strikes (see my December 2022 blog, The Strangest Strike In History)? No, he has not.

*Has he pointed out that staff vacancies in the NHS are more responsible for delays and long waiting lists than the strikes by NHS staff?  No, he has not.

Has he pointed out that staff vacancies in the NHS are more responsible than strikes for delays and long waiting lists? No, he has not, for fear that he might give the impression of being on the side of the nurses and the doctors. And their unions.

This is a Labour leader who is against all strikes and strikers.

When Jeremy Corbyn was leader, Labour was the biggest political party in Europe. For Starmer and the PLP that was not a desirable position. Having the Party and its policies under the democratic control of tens of thousands of members was not acceptable to the Starmer, Blair, Brown and Mandelson gang. They see it as their god-given right to determine Labour policy, although allowing the ordinary members to raise money and do the donkey-work at elections.

When Starmer was serving as a member of Jeremy Corbyn’s Shadow Front Bench, he was already plotting against him. He was a viper in the nest.

Like Boris Johnson, he should not be allowed into high office.