Starmer’s loathsome “2019” jibe

“I got principles and if you don’t like ’em, well, I got others” – Keir Starmer Groucho Marx

“Israel continues to pummel Lebanon, proving itself the only country in the world that can bomb and invade all its neighbors at will without serious international consequences.” – Simplicius the Thinker, September 25, 2024

This from the Telegraph yesterday afternoon:

Sir Keir Starmer joked that a protestor who interrupted his conference speech had a ticket from when Jeremy Corbyn led the Labour Party.

The heckler interrupted Sir Keir when the Prime Minister said every child deserves respect, asking him: “Does that include the children of Gaza?”

As the protestor was removed from the hall, Sir Keir said: “This guy’s obviously got a pass for the 2019 conference. We’ve changed the party.”

Sir Keir’s ascendance owes much to a powerful Israel Lobby which, after other modes of attack – Hamas-gate, IRA-gate, won’t-nuke-Russia-gate, Virgin-Train-gate and crap-dresser-gate – on his more principled predecessor had failed to land, saw to it that an evidence-free allegation of little interest to voters (said doorstep canvassers) would deal a fatal blow to his leadership. The allegation being that ‘Jezza’ had overseen a huge surge of antisemitism within the party

That aside I’ve seen many a smug-ugly put-down of hecklers by politicians of various stripe, but this takes the biscuit: a Labour prime minister joking to his fawning fanbase about an ongoing genocide. And while I’m on the subject of that fanbase, let me say I’m with Caitlin:

I have no patience for people who this late in the game still say they don’t know enough about the Palestine situation to have an opinion. It’s like, okay, well, that’s a character flaw, and you should change it. 

Western ignorance and indifference on this issue is hurting real human beings; you don’t get to just be all “tee hee I don’t like learning” and expect this attitude to be treated as some kind of cute little personal foible. 

Caitlin Johnstone, yesterday, September 24

There have been many effective condemnations of Starmer’s vile response to Daniel Riley, the young man who interrupted his “respect for the child” cant.  (There’s this one at Sqwawkbox – thanks to reader Dave Hansell for the heads-up.) But not for the first time I’m running with one from Owen Jones. Yes, I’ve been and remain critical of this man on major issues – Syria, Putin, Assange and Corbyn too – but on the Gaza holocaust he’s been more than good. He’s been outstanding. ¹

Outstanding too on the rottenness of Labour and its leadership. Judge for yourself as he takes a lens to that Conference, to Starmer’s put down, and to one scarcely less stomach-turning by his viciously incompetent Chancellor, Rachel Reeves.

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1. To be clear, I see Owen’s woke worldview as clouded by identity politics, and an attendant failure to see – because his grasp of imperialism has been shaky at best – that his criticisms of Bashar al-Assad, Fidel Castro and Vladimir Putin are (a) ‘informed’ by dubious sources and (b) music to the ears of empire narrative managers. On these things he may or may not be improving his act – time will tell – but I refuse to damn anyone who (unlike yours truly) goes repeatedly into the lion’s lair to confront Zionists in combative exchanges.