this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2024

21 points (78.4% liked)

United Kingdom

4113 readers

239 users here now

General community for news/discussion in the UK.

Less serious posts should go in !casualuk@feddit.uk or !andfinally@feddit.uk
More serious politics should go in !uk_politics@feddit.uk.

Try not to spam the same link to multiple feddit.uk communities.
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.

Posts should be related to UK-centric news, and should be either a link to a reputable source, or a text post on this community.

Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.

If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread.

Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.

Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

tom

GreatAlbatross

frankPodmore@slrpnk.net

Keir Starmer was beaten up as teenager trying to defend gay friend, book reveals (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 9 months ago by thehatfox@lemmy.world to c/unitedkingdom

18 comments fedilink hide all child comments

top 18 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] peter 28 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Quick, we're losing the core left voters - deploy the gay story

[–] tygerprints@kbin.social 9 points 9 months ago (1 children)

How I hope that is truly the case. That is, that the right is losing ground to the left (ie progressive) sector of the world. It needs to happen, and by all "rights" it should have happened long before this. Luckily the pendulum always swings back to the left at some point - and i really believe that time is coming.

[–] JoBo 5 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

This is just bullshit fluff to cover up the fact that they have absolutely no intention of making ordinary people's lives better.

Don't get me wrong, I'm glad he's not a homophobe. But this is just the Dems self-defeating demographic strategy. Fuck the working class but hey, marginalised people, vote for us!

And he can't even do it properly because he's decided transphobia and racism are A-OK because otherwise the media he is too afraid to stand up too will attack his spineless self.

[–] tygerprints@kbin.social 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Well I'm a staunch democrat myself and I don't believe I've ever wanted to "fuck the working class" over - hell I am the working class. And I want all marginalized people to be included in the process of democracy.

I live in Utah where transphobia is enshrined into law - they just passed a law disallowing trans people from using public restrooms. I'm glad I'm not the guy who has to sit at the bathroom door examining everyone's penis to make sure it matches what it should be on their birth certificate.

Anyway I think all people have to make a concerted effort to stand up and fight of phobia and get involved in voting for more forward-thinking and less fearful people.

[–] JoBo 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Well I’m a staunch democrat myself and I don’t believe I’ve ever wanted to “fuck the working class”

This thread is about Labour in the UK. Far too many similarities, mind.

Loyalty to a political party is a bit weird but whatever, you need to pay attention to what they do not what you wish they'd do.

“For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in western Pennsylvania, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs in Philadelphia, and you can repeat that in Ohio and Illinois and Wisconsin.

Chuck Schumer, 2016

That's how the Dems lost in 2016 and it's how they may lose again in 2024. And it's how Starmer's Labour party will fail to undo the damage the Tories did, just like Blair's Labour party failed (because it had no intention of trying).

[–] tygerprints@kbin.social 0 points 9 months ago (1 children)

It is because I've paid attention for 70 years to what democrats do vs. republicans that I am and always will be utterly loyal in every way to the Democratic party. They will not lose this time around, that's one thing I can promise - a blue wave is about to sweep over this country from one corner to the other. And even if that doesn't happen, I believe being a democrat that I never lose at all.

But, that's just me and how I see things. I get where you are coming from in regard to the problems with labour and class inequities in the UK.

[–] JoBo 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

The US has even worse problems with labour and class inequities, and if you've been paying attention for the last 70 years you would have noticed how much everything has changed since Thatcher/Reagan.

You can hold your nose to vote, you know? Sometimes it is necessary to vote for the least worst option but it is never necessary to pretend that it is actually perfect.

[–] tygerprints@kbin.social 1 points 9 months ago

Sounds good to me.

[–] casmael@lemm.ee -4 points 9 months ago

Kier starmer errrr ~~used to be called ‘gay starmer’~~ ~~likes the word ‘gay’~~ ~~has a cool Grindr profile~~ has gay friends yes that’s it that’s the one bingo got it yes gottem

[–] autotldr@lemmings.world 2 points 9 months ago

This is the best summary I could come up with:

Keir Starmer was beaten up in a nightclub in Cornwall as a teenager after trying to defend one of his friends who was attacked for being gay, a new book reveals.

In an incident that the book’s author, Tom Baldwin, suggests demonstrates Starmer’s values, the Labour leader describes how he was disgusted that his friend had been kicked out of the family home in the 1980s for being gay by his father who told him “you’re no son of mine”.

In the summer after he sat his A-levels in 1980, Starmer and two friends from school, Mark and Graham, worked at a holiday centre for a disability charity in Cornwall, where they went on a night out.

Baldwin recounts how “in cold fury” Starmer “tossed his phone across the table” to show him two photos of his niece’s face, the first looking radiant and happy on her wedding day, the other almost unrecognisably swollen and purple after the attack.

“Starmer’s anger over what happened to his niece, and – despite his best efforts with the police – the failure to prosecute those responsible, is an emotion you rarely see from him in public,” Baldwin writes.

“For my part, I think the argument made casually by a lot of people these days that he stands for nothing is well wide of the mark.”

The original article contains 420 words, the summary contains 222 words. Saved 47%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!

[+] lemmus@lemmy.world -18 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Hopefully he’ll be beaten at the next election for defending Israeli genocide.

[–] palordrolap@kbin.social 11 points 9 months ago (1 children)

By who?

We can only hope this is a way of avoiding the anti-Semitism claims used (in part) to sink Labour when Corbyn was in charge.

He could explain the difference between Israel and Judaism a billion times, but if he denounces Israel, he'll be called an anti-Semite by all and sundry. It'll tarnish his reputation and potentially ruin his election hopes.

Of course, I have no way of knowing his true feelings. Maybe he genuinely is in favour of what they're doing over there.

[–] lemmus@lemmy.world 2 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Just to clarify, of course I mean beaten electorally. By who? That’s a great question.

Antisemitism in the Labour party is a real issue. It is an issue across society. If Labour has a particularly prominent antisemitism problem, we can most likely consider it to have derived at least in part from the Palestine issue. That categorically does not excuse antisemitism, but it does give us a clue as to how to fairly judge when a member or supporter has been antisemitic, and a possible approach to preventing further encroachment of antisemitism into the Israel-Palestine issue.

Opposing adoption of the IHRA was one a way to ensure antisemitism could be countered successfully. The IHRA conflates criticism of Israel or of Zionism with antisemitism. It ensures there will always be a steady stream of wrongful accusations of antisemitism, drowning out the true cases, and perhaps driving people towards genuinely antisemitic views in response to the overreaching definition.

Kier Starmer very clearly supported adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, binding him to an impossible stance on Israel-Palestine. He is partly responsible for the electoral bind he finds himself in today.

I can’t say he supported adoption of the IHRA solely to hurt Corbyn and the left, but it was certainly a useful tool in doing so. I also don’t think he supports any of the awful things happening right now, but his past actions have him in a bind.

He could quite easily condemn genocide of Palestinians and also condemn antisemitism. The public are not so apathetic as to not care for tens of thousands dead, injured, orphaned, dying, whilst also supporting safety for Jewish people and safety for Israelis.

If not Starmer, who? Great question, I don’t have an answer to that, but he needs to think more than one step ahead and do the right thing. If I were him, I’d prefer not to win simply for being the lesser of two evils.

[–] Womble@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Thats an awful lot of words to avoid the question. If you want Labour to beaten at the next election who do you want to win? Given that the only other party with any chance of forming a majority is the tories I would have to assume you want them to win.

[–] lemmus@lemmy.world -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

No. Though I don’t buy that voting for a party that has moved significantly to the right will somehow encourage them to move leftward, and not simply reward them for moving to the right.

[–] Womble@lemmy.world 3 points 9 months ago (1 children)

So who do you want to beat Labour then? You're still dancing round it.

[–] lemmus@lemmy.world -1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I’m not really dancing around it. Our first past the post system is to blame for the difficulty. I want Labour to be beaten from the left (quite a low threshold these days), not by the Tories. Starmer winning by being not-the-Tories is not a particularly strong endorsement; it also hands him and Labour great power to act without much accountability to any particular programme. They’ve already abandoned serious policy, he has long since abandoned his leadership bid pledges, all the while taking spineless positions on a multitude of major issues.

With FPTP, clearly this year people must vote Labour if in their constituency it’s otherwise a win for the Tories. But where a third party could win, people should vote with policy and conscience in mind. That could be LD/Green/SNP/PC, perhaps. None are perfect, but a plurality (maybe coalition) would better serve the people over swinging from one morally bankrupt ruling party to another.

Personally, I’ve always lived in extremely safe Labour seats. I support vote swapping where possible, until we get a mature, proportional electoral system.

[–] Womble@lemmy.world 4 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

So given that there is no significant party to the left of Labour (LDs arent, the greens are viable in about 3 seats and the nationalists only contest around a 5th of the total seats) you don't want Labour to be beaten, you're just frustrated with Labour's position. I get that, it pisses me off how timid they are being as well. But trying to stir up animosity to the only party that can replace the current incompetent and at times bordering fascist government we currently have is not the way to go.