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Comment: What do Labour stand for under Keir Starmer?

What weird times we're living in.

Published
Toby Neal says he feels sorry for Sir Keir Starmer

We're ruled by a free-spending public school-educated dictatorial Communist cabal with an iron grip on the machinery of the state, the Labour Party has morphed into the Conservative Party, and rebel Tory MPs are the flag-wavers for libertarianism along with Jeremy Corbyn.

It's Sir Keir Starmer I feel sorry for. Well, not exactly sorry for, as he's a grown up politician, but I appreciate his predicament.

When the shadow chancellor, Anneliese Dodds, criticises Rishi Sunak for being cavalier with public spending, and when Labour opposes raising taxes on big business, you know Labour is in an unusual ideological place.

Oh for the clarity of Jezza and his sidekick John McDonnell. You knew what they stood for. They had things called policies, except on Brexit where they had a Monty Python sketch written by Sir Keir – you know, the one where Labour remainers would go to Brussels to negotiate a deal for Britain they didn't believe in and wouldn't support.

They lost the election but at least electors had an idea of what they weren't voting for. You didn't need a political search party to find Mr Corbyn.

So here's the question. Does anybody know where Sir Keir is?

Talking about Monty Python sketches, there's new legislation which clamps down on the way people can protest. And it received a major fillip thanks to those scenes in Bristol.

There were hundreds or thousands of people wanting to make a peaceful protest, albeit in the middle of a pandemic, yet their point was eclipsed by the actions of those who wanted to break things and set things alight.

They were operating under the slogan Kill The Bill, which is probably a hate crime in itself as it is a double entendre which is an incitement to murder police officers, as of course Bill is a slang term for the police.

It has been said that there are no bad causes, just bad people. The mayhem at Bristol has highlighted the cause, but if anything will have made those watching think that anti-protest laws really do need tightening up.

Ignore the hotheads for a moment, and let's have a look at what's in the bill. An offence of "intentionally or recklessly causing public nuisance" is included. That covers all protests then.

Police could impose noise limits. So no shouting "Maggie, Maggie, Maggie – Out, Out, Out!" although no doubt murmuring it would be permitted.

A single person carrying a placard and wielding a megaphone could be told to shut up.

Even Theresa May, who didn't have a reputation for being soft during her time as Home Secretary, has warned of potential unintended consequences of some measures in the bill, which was passed this week, along with Comrade Boris' coronavirus powers to control all our lives for many months more.

Police were overwhelmed by events in Bristol which were illegal under existing laws anyway, and shamed for what they did during that Sarah Everard vigil, so it may all prove academic, because there doesn't seem any point in giving police new powers if they don't have enough officers to enforce the powers they have already got.

There have been a lot of pent up things over the last year. The desire to get out more, eat out, drink out. The desire to go on holiday. And, judging by what happened in Bristol, a desire to smash the place up.

Now is the summer of our discontent?

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