Blair was absolutely not more tolerant of the left than Starmer - and those fuckers are still banging on about Foot and Militant. The big difference today from Blair's early days is that Starmer is immediately crashing and burning - so they can't even claim superficial popularity
Yes Diane Abbot was never deselected by Blair, Corbyn was never kicked out etc. How many SCG MPs has been expelled, deselected or suspended now? Almost all of them . Labour is over. It has been for five years.
but most left MP were deselected as the CLP selections were stitched up. Starmer is literally just copying what Blair and Kinnock did - because he's highly unoriginal, and because it's a lot of the same people doing it anyway, like Mandelson
It's over man. Move on.
all I'm saying is that this is why the left were massively unprepared for power when the opportunity arose
All I'm saying is that opportunity will never arise in the Labour Party again. Stopping it is the whole personality of almost everyone in charge.
as was the case when it last arose
You don't think they'll remember when they all almost lost their jobs?
yes, of course - they'll take it to their graves, just as they do the memory of militant. but that makes them no more omnipotent than it did when corbyn became leader
It's not so much hat he was more tolerant as that the left were much much stronger so he had to make concessions. That's no longer the case. Starmer's cabal control all the key party machinery and can spuriously suspend anyone they think might be a threat (negating candidacy regardless of outcome)
not true - the left were pretty solidly pushed out under Kinnock, so Blair had a clear run. So weak were the left by that time that he could even *rename the party*
Still stronger than he left them
by what metric? Number of left MPs in parliament? About equal - maybe a few more now. Starmer has put down a 20% minimum of PLP votes? Well, Blair literally just handed the keys to Brown
Brown had just spent a decade implementing Thatcherite policies Unions and CLPs and maybe HQ.
Bair's HQ was as right as it came, and the position of unions and CLPs was pretty similar to today: pretty ineffective when it came to setting policy or putting forward candidates opposing the Blair's line