They are clearly getting pretty desperate that the Mail:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8327255/Man-people-New-Labour-lead...
The nub of the story is that 24 years ago, successful human rights lawyer, Keir Starmer, bought a seven acre field behind his parents house, so that they could look after rescue donkeys. The field is in Greenbelt and as such is worth whatever the value of grazing land is in Surrey.
Sadly both his parents have since died and he along with other family members he has inherited their assets, a semi-detached house and a small area of scrub land between the house and the field. In accordance with the will the house and scrub land are being sold, the latter being offered to neighbours to extend their gardens.
The Mail have decided that this land, which is in Greenbelt, has no planning permission and Starmer has never tried to sell or develop, is worth £10m. Why? Because the successive Conservative governments have been putting pressure on Councils (a Conservative one in Surrey) to free up more land for development. Whilst the land in question isn't even on Surrey's plan, the Mail have obviously decided that Starmer didn't buy the land as an act of love to his parents, he bought it to exploit its development rights, that are no existent even 24 years in the future and extremely unlikely to come forward.
Given the comments, even on the Mail website, I think this smearing may have backfired somewhat.
The Sunday Hate/Daily Hate, not so much scraping the barrel as having worn a hole straight through it to the sewer beneath.
you really have to be careful if you attack anyone who has had any connection to donkey welfare! Quite Rightly!
it's time they suffered a major cyber attack mounted by a mass movement of ordinary folk
The really remarkable thing is that they've managed to write an article that forced the comments on it to be coherent, united, and sensible. Normally the comments make me want to weep for the future of society.
'One neighbour claimed an estate agent was seen showing a developer around the site.'
Well that's it then, bang to rights.
'at least Keir Starmer puts his donkeys in a field rather than the cabinet'
> 'at least Keir Starmer puts his donkeys in a field rather than the cabinet'
Donkeys are hard working, honest and reliable. That doesn't sound like any of the current Cabinet.
If he is capable of planning for events 24 years in the future let's have him as pm please. For years governments of both colours have only concentrated on now and may next week.
The donkey-loving bastard. He’s basically a terrorist sympathiser.
The comments on the DM website are becoming quite scurrilous, it looks like the real hardcore DM readers are being squeezed out. It doesn't help of course when they can't spot irony and satire
Actually there are allegations that the donkeys are Hammas supporters.
This is the third unsuccessful smear in as many weeks.
The doctored interview of him on his work at DPP which was edited to say the exact opposite of what he actually said.
The Thursday night clapping smear which tried to show him as only clapping to get a photo opportunity when in fact he was making sure his daughter was ok.
..and this one where they try to make out he's rich, how dare anyone but a Tory be rich, but instead it turns out he's a loving son who spends money on his mother to make her life better while working as a human rights lawyer.
So, on the one hand we have the leader of the Labour, a self made man from a humble background who spent many years working as a lawyer to make people's lives better, went on to run the DPP and it seems he is a good son and a good father.
On the other hand we have the PM. Utterly establishment, Eton and Oxford. Sacked from his job as a journalist for lying, a serial adulterer who cheated on his last wife while she had cancer, refuses to say how many children he has had from his many wives and is utterly and notoriously untrustworthy in politics.
Further, at PMQs Starmer wipes the floor with both the PM and deputy PM.
No wonder the Tories are shitting themselves.
Keir Starmer - the best Prime Minister we never had?
We'll see what happens in 2024.
> Keir Starmer - the best Prime Minister we never had?
I predict he will end up being one of the best Prime Ministers we have ever had.
> it's time they suffered a major cyber attack mounted by a mass movement of ordinary folk
No. It's time people stopped reading their vile lies.
Don't click on that link. Don't read it. Don't support their click-bait funded hate.
HOW MUCH I DISLIKE THE DAILY MAIL
I would rather
eat Quavers that are six week’s stale,
blow dry the hair of Gareth Bale,
listen to the songs of Jimmy Nail,
than read one page of the Daily Mail.
If I were bored
in a waiting room in Perivale,
on a twelve hour trip on British rail
or a world circumnavigational sail,
I would not read the Daily Mail.
I would happily read
the complete works of Peter Mayle,
the autobiography of Dan Quayle,
selected scripts from Emmerdale,
but I couldn’t ever read the Daily Mail.
Far better to
stand outside in a storm of hail,
be blown out to sea in a powerful gale
then swallowed by a humpback whale
than have to read the Daily Mail.
Even if
I were blind
and it was the only thing
in Braille,
I still would not read
the Daily Mail.
... Brian Bilston
> Keir Starmer - the best Prime Minister we never had?
Well I for one could never vote Labour whilst Corbyn was in control of the party, and I said so.
Now that Starmer is in charge I feel that my vote at the next election is 90-odd % likely to go to Labour even at this stage.
The Daily Express is just as bad. Look at this from the other day"
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1282610/Coronavirus-lockdown-Scotland-uk-...
The headline read: "Coronavirus border: Scottish police block more than 100 English travellers - drivers fined"
The first line of the actual report read: "POLICE in Cumbria fined more than 100 English travellers making their way to Scotland over the bank holiday weekend amid coronavirus lockdown restrictions."
Of course, maybe they are thick enough to believe that Cumbria is actually part of Scotland.
I'm thinking of setting up one of those websites that will just count down the number of days until Labour get elected.
Only 1302 days to go.
I'm sure this has been on here before, but have you never played;-
> Well I for one could never vote Labour whilst Corbyn was in control of the party, and I said so.
> Now that Starmer is in charge I feel that my vote at the next election is 90-odd % likely to go to Labour even at this stage.
Yep. Mine too.
I have traditionally been slightly right of centre with a somewhat begrudging vote for tory in recent years, apart from Libdem in 2020.
Given this and the last Tory government, Sir Starmer has at least one extra guaranteed vote in the next election. Gove, JRB, Boris, Patel, DC et al.......
F*cking lying useless bunch of arse they are.
I literally just thought to myself “imagine how good election night 2024 will be. Coronavirus will be over, and we’ll be kicking the Tories out. This will be my generation’s 1997”
which is sort of a nice thought but also sort of weirdly depressing.
Give the man a chance. He's only just been elected leader. Anyway wasn't John Smith the best PM we never had? Blair was good in his early days but look what happened in the end. Likewise Thatcher was good if you were a Tory but consider her demise too.
Prepared to be shot down big time from all you good folks on here : )
We have to put deluded hope in SOMETHING right now! And Starmer, to be fair, looks like the best candidate there has been for that for quite some time. Since Blair, in fact. And on the evidence so far, there's a lot more to like about him than there was Blair, who was already exhibiting signs of Blairism as early as 1994 ("tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" etc).
> I'm thinking of setting up one of those websites that will just count down the number of days until Labour get elected.
> Only 1302 days to go.
I think you’ve missed a digit
Well now big man. My parents read the Daily Express so I expect your last sentence is fairly accurate.
> I think you’ve missed a digit
Missed a year of the five year fixed term parliament, I think...
4*365.25=1461 minus ~5 months is about 1302.
I was working on a 4 year term - wishful thinking.
> Given the comments, even on the Mail website, I think this smearing may have backfired somewhat.
Good that they're worried enough to try something so daft really.
jk
> The comments on the DM website are becoming quite scurrilous, it looks like the real hardcore DM readers are being squeezed out. It doesn't help of course when they can't spot irony and satire
They're all at the Daily Telegraph now.
> I literally just thought to myself “imagine how good election night 2024 will be. Coronavirus will be over, and we’ll be kicking the Tories out. This will be my generation’s 1997”
Have some ambition: 1947
jk
1945, surely?
> Of course, maybe they are thick enough to believe that Cumbria is actually part of Scotland.
quite a few people in Cumbria have been annoyed when the road signs on the M6 were changed a few years and the main heading "SCOTLAND" in very large letters appeared as if Scotland was no longer a destination but had somehow subsumed Cumbria unto itself.
It has been said that it could confuse people from the south/elsewhere unfamiliar with the region as to whether they were already in SOTLAND rather than still in Cumbria.
I can't recall whether the reason a young speedster escaping the police put himself right through a roadsign on the M6 a few years back was a protest or not.
> My parents read the Daily Express
Well, as long as they don't write it, I guess they're not included in the 'stupid' comment...?
I waited 37 years for 1997. It seemed a long time coming but was good when it did even though I couldn't vote for 18 of those years. You'll love it when it happens and it will have been well worth the wait.
Yes, let's hope so.
Whilst we are daydreaming about a Starmer landslide, who would provide the Portillo moment?
Did he provide refuge for any Jewish donkeys?
It would have to be Gove. He would cry and I would laugh.
That's exactly who my first thought went to.
fortunately I probably won't be around in 20+ years when a reinvented Gove is taking Railway journeys on TV! If I am I will just rejoice in being able to watch TV!
I'm not sure that a 3rd career will be open to Gove. He'll spend his declining years wondering why he never became PM, and no-one will have the heart to tell him: 'Because you were smug, patronising, and glib, but also thick and ignorant.'
> I'm not sure that a 3rd career will be open to Gove. He'll spend his declining years wondering why he never became PM, and no-one will have the heart to tell him: 'Because you were smug, patronising, and glib, but also thick and ignorant.'
On the contrary, I think there will be plenty of people who will be more than happy to tell him, directly and indirectly, that he's smug, patronising, and glib, but also thick and ignorant. He'll just try not to listen to them.
Actually, Gove is one of the least thick and least ignorant of the current crop. I know people who have worked with him (civil servants, advisers, policy groups eg environmental consultants) and they all say he actually has a brain and works incredibly hard (so, not Dominic Raab). The problem is he gets an idea and becomes like a dog with a bone, and the only way to get him to let go is to present him with another bone. He also tends to be more persuaded by the speaker than the intrinsic quality of a proposal or idea. However, people say that compared to the dimwits that make up the bulk of the rest of the Tory Party, it’s like being in the presence of Plato. Yes, apparently it is that bad.
i used to despise Gove and the thought of him as PM made my skin scrawl. Now, I’d take him as PM over pretty much the rest of the Cabinet.
OK, just smug, patronising, and glib then.
> I used to despise Gove and the thought of him as PM made my skin scrawl. Now, I’d take him as PM over pretty much the rest of the Cabinet.
I think another point about Gove is that it is important to separate valid criticisms from the simply nasty stuff about how he looks and sounds. I agree that he is in a different league to the rest of the bunch - though I disagree with him on much, I think he is probably basically a decent, well meaning and certainly intelligent person.
> I waited 37 years for 1997. It seemed a long time coming but was good when it did even though I couldn't vote for 18 of those years. You'll love it when it happens and it will have been well worth the wait.
But how much will the Tories have destroyed before then? The disgusting Immigration Bill passed a second reading in the Commons yesterday. We may already be in thrall to a US FTA by 2024.
> ... though I disagree with him on much, I think he is probably basically a decent, well meaning and certainly intelligent person.
Do you really? I'd agree he is certainly intelligent. He is almost as mendacious a liar as Johnson.
> though I disagree with him on much, I think he is probably basically a decent, well meaning and certainly intelligent person.
And a bit of a geezer out in the clubs on a Friday night... Toot toot.
Do you think his legacy as education secretary is underestimated?
> Do you think his legacy as education secretary is underestimated?
I think it would be fair to say that he has received, shall we say "mixed reviews" at education. I do think, however, that he was showing some real promise at justice and at environment. But, of course, he will forever be tarnished by his Brexit legacy.
When I did my teacher training in 2014/2015 it was amusing just how many teachers didn't even realise he was no longer the ed sec.! He obviously left, ummm... 'quite an impression' on the profession.
My mother in law still refers to "Baker Days"
> the Mail have obviously decided that Starmer didn't buy the land as an act of love to his parents, he bought it to exploit its development rights,
Where does the article imply that? it's implying that he's hanging on to it to potentially exploit development rights!
> Where does the article imply that? it's implying that he's hanging on to it to potentially exploit development rights!
They have decided to assign development rights to the land that it never had and is unlikely to get.
That's not an answer to my question. Also developers have bought up all sorts of parcels of supposed green belt land in anticipation of councils having to meet their house building targets.
> Do you really? I'd agree he is certainly intelligent. He is almost as mendacious a liar as Johnson.
He was right about one thing though: Johnson is wholly unsuitable to be the leader of the conservative party and PM. Deep down he probably knows this to still be the case
> He was right about one thing though: Johnson is wholly unsuitable to be the leader of the conservative party and PM. Deep down he probably knows this to still be the case
Well anybody disagreeing with that either has their head in the sand or more than a few screws loose.
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