In before 'it's crap because they agree with it' - frankly even if you agreed with every dot and comma of the big picture stuff, you should have enough about you to attack your opponent's plan to give billions of pounds to the Taliban.
Replies
Here's the other good thread from Adam.
aug 26, 2025, 4:18 pm • 79 5 • view
If you want to fight and win a fear election, you do in fact need to be able to say loud and clear what it is people should be afraid of.
aug 26, 2025, 4:19 pm • 244 46 • view
Indeed. From 2010 to 2015, would hear constantly (and correctly) that things would change when the forced choice was Cameron vs Milband, but the Cameron machine didn't just complacently assume this. They attacked Ed Miliband relentlessly.
aug 26, 2025, 4:36 pm • 173 27 • view
They described the energy price freeze, a policy they essentially adopted wholesale as being from 'a Marxist universe'! Michael Fallon said that Miliband would stab the United Kingdom in the back just like he had his brother!
aug 26, 2025, 4:37 pm • 102 5 • view
Ditto, New Labour echoed and gleefully reminded people of the 'something of the night about him' description of Michael Howard and handed out versions of his CV! They didn't just go 'eh, when the Forced Choice (TM) happens it will be fine'. Need to actually have a plan for the Forced Choice (TM).
aug 26, 2025, 4:41 pm • 120 6 • view
The final closing argument re: Howard in 2005 was "economic stability is at risk. Your mortgage is at risk. Your job is at risk", frankly, none of which was in any way true.
aug 26, 2025, 4:43 pm • 82 7 • view
I mean, it was, but the election was irrelevant to that.
aug 26, 2025, 4:53 pm • 8 0 • view
Yes, fair point, but you know what I mean.
aug 26, 2025, 4:54 pm • 5 0 • view
A lot of people seem to have convinced themselves that the Starmer strategy is a deliberate masterly inactivity. It's not, but even if it were, no winning government has ever gone quiet and just gone 'well, the opposition is just self-defining as extreme'. They went out and labelled it as such.
aug 26, 2025, 4:53 pm • 334 60 • view
The thing is, though, what the government is doing is working. Small boats' arrivals are falling, deportations of foreign offenders have increased, the asylum backlog is a shadow of what it was a year ago. Asylum claims are now being processed in months rather than years. Report that.
aug 26, 2025, 5:21 pm • 2 0 • view
I’m not a reporter, but I have actually written all of these things. You should read what I write not lecture me on what you *imagine* I’ve written.
aug 26, 2025, 5:24 pm • 7 0 • view
I know a number of people who work for the HO who are tearing their hair at out at the yawning gulf between the clear trajectory of progress, progress which they have worked themselves sick to achieve, and the way the media is uniformly reporting things.
aug 26, 2025, 5:30 pm • 0 0 • view
Just one quibble: small boat arrivals aren’t falling. You need to live in the real world.
aug 26, 2025, 5:24 pm • 7 0 • view
Working? Dear Lord! Nothing is working because this all migrant issue is nonsense. It won’t change a bit the real life of people. Even if the 30000 immigrants in the repurposed hotel (because better remember they are not actual hotels with concierge and breakfast in bed) vanish in a night no one
aug 27, 2025, 7:49 am • 1 0 • view
single UK citizen life will improve and the fanatics will move to the next non existent problem. Labour needs to point out that what Reform is saying is BS, bring facts and start doing what really the country needs. Fix the NHS, tax the very rich and companies, go after…
aug 27, 2025, 7:49 am • 0 0 • view
To reiterate: literally *NONE* of this stands up to any scrutiny as an argument, but it did something that this Labour party is never gonna do without major changes (win re-election).
aug 26, 2025, 4:54 pm • 96 9 • view
I am genuinely not entirely sure what the government’s main criticism of Farage to the electorate *is*?
aug 26, 2025, 4:57 pm • 31 0 • view
He isn't competent enough to deport all the immigrants seems to be the one they're going with today. We're going to deport them better
aug 26, 2025, 5:45 pm • 16 0 • view
They really have boxed themselves in; can’t do Trump attack (yet), don’t want to do Brexit (despite it being a huge blot on NF’s record) and don’t want to do immigration- so they’re left with a vague attack around public spending and a quote he gave on the NHS years ago
aug 26, 2025, 5:04 pm • 0 0 • view
You know that tweet about "Your going to the camps!" "Its 'you're'" Well imagine if that was the entire political strategy of the government of a G7 nation
aug 26, 2025, 5:07 pm • 28 4 • view
Look here, kid...i am not like your dad ok? I know what its like to be a young guy. You have certain things you want. You want a girl and a pint and an insane racist policy on immigration. I want that too...i get it...and you think nigel is fun and hip...but you cant have TOO much fun
aug 26, 2025, 5:02 pm • 12 0 • view
this has actually made me even more depressed so kudos
aug 26, 2025, 9:12 pm • 44 0 • view
Hope it also inspires you to push the Greens and the LibDems to do the naming and push the messaging locally and nationally against the Fascist Reform Party and to repeat it every week in multiple different ways through the Starmer tenure. For, if not, Starmer WILL hand the UK over to the fascists.
aug 27, 2025, 12:11 am • 6 0 • view
aug 27, 2025, 12:43 pm • 1 0 • view
In the counterfactual world, I reckon the 2005-10 Tory term would have faced substantial economic headwinds, especially 2nd half of it Opposition leader Brown would have been well placed to claim it was fine under his stewardship...
aug 27, 2025, 1:51 am • 1 0 • view
Agree with most of this SB analysis. Suspect many *other* politicians like to think they’re cleverer, more subtle than Farage. Actually he’s canny, e.g: taking advantage of the Westminster public-school calendar to fill the news vacuum. Relatively, current Lab seem tactically dozy, complacent.
aug 28, 2025, 1:17 pm • 0 0 • view
I thought going into 2024 that Starmer's "let the 20s Tories be 20s Tories" was an intentional strategy. It seems "say nothing" is Starmer's default position and it just happened to work out that one time.
aug 26, 2025, 5:00 pm • 8 0 • view
I honestly believe he thinks results will change minds. But the public aren't an intelligent judge with the ability to process complex information. They need to be led by the hand to the point Labour need to make, which is Farage is a lying racist grifter who will make their lives worse not better
aug 26, 2025, 6:14 pm • 1 0 • view
But it didn't work out that time, they only got 34%! That could easily have gone horribly wrong if the votes fell differently and set the tone for the lack of popular support/buy-in
aug 26, 2025, 6:00 pm • 4 0 • view
I hope Starmer's strategy is built on the 2024 US Election. Democrats couldn't have been clearer in pointing out Trump's horrifying political positions. But in the end "it's the Economy, stupid" - inflation and the lack of feel-good factor out-weighed everything else. Hence Labour's focus on growth.
sep 1, 2025, 1:01 pm • 0 0 • view
Exactly. It should be as simple as, saying "When people say who they are, believe them."
aug 26, 2025, 4:55 pm • 1 0 • view
It’s like with the argument that people will vote for them when they see the improvements in public services - first you need to fund them & second how will people know it was you when you respond to people claiming you actually spent their taxes on child sacrifice with nowt more than a wry smile
aug 26, 2025, 8:38 pm • 8 0 • view
The 'reject your eyes and ears' around this is quite grating. On one side, "trust the plan"; on the other, "ThIs iS wHAt They ReaLlY tHInk". When it's so clear that the little strategy that does exist is badly misguided electoralism that reeks of insincerity and can't deliberately work.
aug 26, 2025, 8:54 pm • 139 15 • view
It's true of the govt at large too. Nobody in and around Labour can cope with incompetence as an explanation for its issues, so keep imbuing things with hidden genius or hidden malice as appropriate.
aug 26, 2025, 9:10 pm • 150 31 • view
Had an exchange with a Corbynite a while ago. Got him to say he valued ideology over competence. 😨
aug 28, 2025, 9:21 am • 0 0 • view
I regret that I can only retweet this once.
aug 26, 2025, 9:22 pm • 30 0 • view
Do they know they more-or-less got Hanlon's Razor backwards?
aug 27, 2025, 5:25 pm • 1 0 • view
This is true and so so depressing.
aug 26, 2025, 9:30 pm • 0 0 • view
There is a large chunk of truth to this but I do think a degree of ideological underpinning - nostalgia for who Labour’s base *should be*, reactionary inclinations of individuals, and a broader tendency to paternalism on the Labour right towards minorities - makes visibly bad decisions easier.
aug 27, 2025, 10:45 am • 5 0 • view
Like, most of what has gone wrong - from the Treasury to the Home Office - in some way stems from people at the top trying clever-clever 5D election tactics, but without the necessary understanding of electoral dynamics or policy implications to pull it off for the government or party.
aug 26, 2025, 9:10 pm • 58 6 • view
If someone is prepared to enact - and loudly promote - racist, ableist or transphobic policies to win an election, then that person is racist, ableist and transphobic. That isn’t me “imbuing things with hidden malice”. That’s just identifying obvious, actual malice.
aug 27, 2025, 7:34 am • 9 2 • view
This is true of all organisations. Thank you.
aug 27, 2025, 8:25 pm • 0 0 • view
“Difford’s Razor” “Never ascribe to genius that which can be more adequately explained by incompetence…”
aug 26, 2025, 11:41 pm • 3 0 • view
The basic litmus test for "is the Labour Party in disarray and without a project" is "are lots of people interviewing Lord Glassman"
aug 28, 2025, 12:13 pm • 17 1 • view
I said this to a friend a few months back. They are a staunch Lab activist of the centre left. They pushed back a bit, but not much. It is incompetence. They weren't ready for government. I can't believe they weren't ready, but here we are.
aug 28, 2025, 7:30 pm • 1 0 • view
I don't quite believe that it's just fully insincere electoralism. The /Green Street/ Rule applies here: anyone distinctly keen on the "oh alas, for noble reasons of strategy I must disguise myself as a ruthless far-right hardman, so that they will embrace me as one of their own" notion is, well …!
aug 29, 2025, 7:24 pm • 0 0 • view
theonion.com/in-retrospec...
aug 29, 2025, 7:24 pm • 0 0 • view
See also "realism"/"salesman putting Honest before their name".
aug 27, 2025, 5:27 pm • 1 0 • view
Starmer is not a leader. A leader with courage would point out that Farage is really talking about immigration and his ultimate fantasy of remigration.
aug 26, 2025, 6:13 pm • 2 0 • view
American democrats did that about Biden. Don’t make the same mistake the US did.
aug 28, 2025, 9:01 am • 0 0 • view
the opposition (which is now firmly identified by Labour as Reform UK) is only extreme in presentation, not policy
aug 26, 2025, 4:54 pm • 3 0 • view
So Farage spins the narrative, the media lap it up and propagate it and you want opposition parties to spend their time responding to what Farage does I disagree, opposition parties need to give an positive vision rather than given yet more publicity to Reform’s batshit policies
aug 26, 2025, 5:00 pm • 3 2 • view
keep going like this and next election Reform will have the absolute majority
aug 27, 2025, 7:40 am • 1 0 • view
'If we go down this road you, Reform-curious voter, will be risking x horrific thing happening to you personally', where x has a grain of truth but is extrapolated to absolute worst case scenario. What Remain should have done, in retrospect.
aug 26, 2025, 6:56 pm • 2 0 • view
Had forgotten this! In light of what we know happened a couple of years later, this hits seriously differently.
aug 26, 2025, 4:51 pm • 2 0 • view
Yes, as Marwood rightly points out, which slightly undercuts my boy scoutish 'this was a vile calumny against Howard' line.
aug 26, 2025, 4:55 pm • 4 0 • view
You can also see, within the argument, the problem New Labour would face against Cameron because the situation basically flips for the self-same reason!
aug 26, 2025, 4:58 pm • 4 0 • view
Yeah - one genuine asset Farage has is that he is *not* tainted by association with the Conservative record, and you can see why Labour are keen* to go 'remember, he agreed with Truss'. *Or at least, when they wake up from one of their Bagpussian slumbers
aug 26, 2025, 5:02 pm • 8 0 • view
I always felt that was rather distasteful and played nastily on him being half Romanian.
aug 26, 2025, 4:44 pm • 3 0 • view
Yeah, the 2005 campaign against Howard had a grimy underbelly to it IMV.
aug 26, 2025, 4:45 pm • 5 0 • view
But then the Tories did campaign with "Are you thinking what we're thinking?"
aug 26, 2025, 4:47 pm • 2 0 • view
Yeah, it was a grim campaign by Michael Howard and a grim campaign against him.
aug 26, 2025, 4:49 pm • 5 0 • view
Oh, both can get in the bin
aug 26, 2025, 4:50 pm • 0 0 • view
turned out nobody was, though
aug 26, 2025, 4:48 pm • 4 0 • view
Totally - it was a combo of that and quiet antisemitism.
aug 26, 2025, 4:45 pm • 3 0 • view
Antisemitism? In the Labour Party? Unthinkable.
aug 26, 2025, 4:47 pm • 1 0 • view
Forced Choice only works when their fear of the alternative is greater than their loathing of the government this also requires the government to act like the alternative is something to fear
aug 26, 2025, 4:45 pm • 3 0 • view
They actually went *further* than the energy price freeze which was a policy to pause some tarrifs for some customers of some suppliers (communist obviously) replacing it with "the government sets the max price for everyone" (pro market, conservative policy). The industry was shocked.
aug 26, 2025, 4:58 pm • 9 1 • view
Feels like Labour are employing the same strategists as the US Democrats at times. Reform need to be relentlessly attacked right now on moral grounds not just practical grounds. You need adverts with Farage in Putin’s pocket like you had with Salmond/Milliband.
aug 26, 2025, 4:41 pm • 14 5 • view
They literally are. Labour sent some of them to “help” the Harris campaign.
aug 26, 2025, 5:07 pm • 0 0 • view
Source: www.politico.eu/article/kama...
aug 26, 2025, 5:08 pm • 0 0 • view
Disagree, there was a lot of criticism of the Dems for getting sucked into Trump's world, spending too long responding to what Trump said, instead of setting a positive vision The election needs to be fought on what Labour will do, not getting sucked into Farage’s sewer www.bbc.com/news/article...
aug 27, 2025, 6:05 am • 1 1 • view
It's odd in that in PMQs Starmer is clearly talking past Badeoch and recognises it's going to be him (or whoever is PM) vs Farage in 2029 but then refuses to stick the boot in. PM Farage is legit scary to a majority of people. Remind them why!
aug 26, 2025, 4:39 pm • 7 0 • view
Trying to imagine a world in which the Conservatives spent 2010 to 2015 saying "Ed Miliband's Mansion Tax won't work, but we're taking action in Government to tax high earners"...
aug 26, 2025, 4:44 pm • 4 0 • view
Everyone could learn something from Graham Platner’s candidacy video, where he explicitly says “the enemy is the oligarchy“
aug 26, 2025, 5:23 pm • 0 0 • view
Cancelled my membership today, if they will not push back on 'invasion' and 'risk of public disorder', they are not for me
aug 26, 2025, 4:45 pm • 1 0 • view
Yep, Labour cannot fight a fear election if it is terrified itself. And it is a party in government that is very clearly petrified of the nationalist right.
aug 26, 2025, 4:21 pm • 16 0 • view
I'm not sure the 32%(?) Reform would need to get a majority would be in any way afraid of concentrating camps for refugees.
aug 26, 2025, 4:21 pm • 1 0 • view
People really should have learnt by now that going 'oh I'm going to pick a random figure out of the air for what this party *needs* to win four years out' is not smart. Reform's strength is that if politics fragments they may be able to win with a third to a quarter of the vote, yes.
aug 26, 2025, 4:24 pm • 5 0 • view
But their weakness is that two-thirds of the electorate really don't like them. (This was *not* true of Margaret Thatcher in the 1980s - most SDP/Alliance voters chose her in forced choice polling). So a more effective government than the one we currently have should beat them.
aug 26, 2025, 4:25 pm • 10 0 • view
Well, I hope you're right and I admit it's 3+ years and Farage has a fantastic inability to share the limelight but at this point I feel pessimistic. As in 'your last sentence' pessimistic.
aug 26, 2025, 4:30 pm • 2 0 • view
You'd think it wouldn't be too hard to paint Farage as an incompetent agent of chaos, even without direct comparisons to certain unpopular orange chaos monkeys in the news. Especially as that's a framing that suits both Labour & Tories
aug 26, 2025, 5:31 pm • 4 0 • view
Fearlessly speaking the truth is anathema to modern, bare-cupboard governments. Paying performative homage to the dastardly/disinformed/demented is where everyone’s at. Perhaps wanton flattery and pandering to the mindless - in the hope of economic/electoral crumbs - is all any of them can afford.
aug 26, 2025, 5:05 pm • 1 0 • view
But how far down this road are they really prepared to go? Might they soon be ‘understanding’ sentiments like those expressed (and deleted) by Lucy Connelly? bsky.app/profile/flet...
aug 26, 2025, 5:16 pm • 1 0 • view
"Things will change when the choice is PM Starmner or Farage. No we will not spend any time explaining why that would be bad. Why? Oh well a decade ago in a 52-48 vote we chose to leave a trading block, and since then we obviously can't disagree with ethno-nationalist parties. No me neither "
aug 26, 2025, 4:31 pm • 49 6 • view
This. Terrorism training camps are popping up again in Afghanistan, so it surely isn't beyond the wit of Labour to point out that giving the Taliban money is helping those who would bomb Britain again.
aug 26, 2025, 4:27 pm • 4 0 • view
Well since the last lot of those came from Leeds, I'm sure that their motivation will be for a caliphate in Leeds with a Tram system.
aug 26, 2025, 8:45 pm • 0 0 • view
Paying people for returns - would some governments encourage this? The states mentioned are generally very skint, easy money, so sending people to Europe can be a revenue raiser
aug 26, 2025, 4:43 pm • 0 0 • view
A good operation would be suggesting that they plan to fund the Taliban using taxpayer money, then spend the weekend funding Colombian cartels using their own money.
aug 26, 2025, 4:21 pm • 9 0 • view
The only reason I've seen for not doing that is if you don't want "didn't you say--" about the next time your government shakes hands with a blood-soaked regime - and even _then_ I think Labour should go "he wants to give money to the Taliban" because _it's the Taliban_, they're a level up here!
aug 26, 2025, 8:15 pm • 1 0 • view
“Nigel Farage will take your taxes and use them to pay the Taliban to kill people” is both a true statement and a good attack line.
aug 26, 2025, 4:20 pm • 18 4 • view
If the calculation is that the British people hate asylum seekers so much that they would happily allow say a Afghan woman school teacher to be tortured and killed at taxpayer expense then I think that’s a miscalculation.
aug 26, 2025, 4:23 pm • 3 0 • view