McCluskey really wants to ensure Labour will never be electable !

Blair understood the electorate that's the difference. There are certain sections of the labour party who think they just have wait for the electorate to catch up.

The question to ask is why Blair won so many elections. It was because he listened to the electorate and offered them the policies they wanted, rather than the policies the party purists wanted.

I am neither defending Blir nor attacking the activists, but this is the dichotomy that continues to face Labour and they have never really come to grips with. The Conservatives generally go for pleasing the electorate.

I did consider voting Conservative in 1979 and Labour in 1997, but each case I didn't because I had deep reservations and an uneasy feelings about Mrs Thatcher and Tony Blair and I was right on both accounts.

Blair was such a failure, yet the only Labour Leader to win
3 consecutive general elections,

I think KS is right not to reveal his long term vision at the moment. Doing so would give the Tories, and the right wing press, the opportunity to turn the limelight of public scrutiny from themselves and their failings to KS and his vision. We must not allow that. KS needs to keep the heat on BJ over covid-19 and the incompetent way it is being handled. IMO KS is doing an excellent job of that.
As AB and Iam64 say, four years is a long time away and KS and his competent team will build up the pressure over that time. I understand that Labour supporters want more from him but we need to practise patience at the moment to get over the pandemic and the first flush of Brexit. The rest of our agenda will follow.

I do hope you are right MaizieD I want to have confidence in Keir Starmer, but then I had confidence in Tony Blair. I don't want to rehash all that was disappointing to me about the last Labour Government, that is in the past now. But I still don't want a Tory Lite party.

trisher - I struggle to understand how you can think the LP under current leadership won't be so much better for the country than any Conservative government.
Iam64 To paraphrase the Who- "We won't be fooled again"
The small bits of good Blair did are outweighed by the things he failed to do. If he had changed the Trade Union legislation we would have better working conditions,if he had made the money collected from council house sales available to build more we would have fewer homeless.

I was away so missed the Observor, will try and find it.

According to Starmer's interview in the Observer last weekend I think that long term vision is the next step..

I’ve found Starmer’s speeches and his work record have given a view of his belief system, his core values. As Annie says, mid pandemic and probably four years to an election .

I think it is the time, yes.
Boris Johnson is talking about his long term vision, surely Labour needs to present one as well, otherwise the Boris Johnson vision will define the narrative, and Labour will be left just discussing the Johnson vision instead of presenting their own.

Is it the time to start talking about a long term vision ?

4 years to a general election and the country battling with
Coronavirus

I agree with you MaisieD which is why I put "balancing the books" in inverted commas. It is meaningless when applied to a country's economy, but what I wonder is if Keir Starmer will go along with the Conservative narrative or will he present a more sensible alternative and present it to the public with conviction and enthusiasm. I just wish I knew more about his long term vision.

GillT57 - if we had an applause emoticon, I'd post that in response to your comments at 12.45 today

But now that Rishi Sunak is giving indications that he might reimpose austerity to "balance the books" will Keir Starmer agree with him? He seems to be trying to paint the Labour party as the one to be trusted with the economy, does that mean he will ape the Conservatives? Who knows?

I'm not sure what 'balancing the books' means when the tories are busy handing out hugely expensive contracts to private companies owned by their friends and donors (many with no experience at all of the goods they're meant to be supplying), without a proper tendering process and which seem to end in complete inability to supply. Tracing app? Useless PPE? Serco test and trace? The Moonshot, apparently relying on technology not yet in existence. While at the same time ignoring the state funded infrastructure which has the experience and expertise to do it so much better. Is he going to claim that the public is going to have to pay for their profligacy?

I would very much hope, that, even if they don't get their heads round MMT (which they really, really should ) Labour at least looks to 'rebalancing in favour of redistribution of resources to curb wealth and to improve the lives of the poorest and most deprived in the UK.

But we have to get away from this notion that a state is like a business and has to be run for a profit and 'balance the books'.

McCluskey is a dinosaur, left over from the days of masses of blue collar workers cycling into the local factory. Well, those days have gone and it is time he moved over for someone with a better idea of current employment, things have changed. McCluskey is the Tories secret weapon and combined with the Tory supporting press with their whispers of Marxism, Starmer has a hard job ahead. I think he should be out there reminding people of the good things brought about by the Blair and Brown administration; I know this is anathema to many, and the Iraq war was inexcuseable, but SureStart, school investment, shortening of hospital waiting lists, all of which made life an awful lot better for many people. We seriously need a Labour government to put a halt to the slow erosion of our standards of living in the UK, to put a stop to the constant use of austerity as policy, to put a stop to the cronyism and corruption which has been going on under the emergency powers brought about due to covid19 but which will likely never be revoked.

I like Andy Burnam too, but am not sure how different things would have been under a Labour government led by him at the time. He was very much in favour of austerity and it is that which has done so much damage to our society.
I don't think he would support austerity again, having seen how much damage it did. But now that Rishi Sunak is giving indications that he might reimpose austerity to "balance the books" will Keir Starmer agree with him? He seems to be trying to paint the Labour party as the one to be trusted with the economy, does that mean he will ape the Conservatives? Who knows?

Andy Burnham is our mayor and how different the world could be if he'd won the leadership

trisher - I struggle to understand how you can think the LP under current leadership won't be so much better for the country than any Conservative government.

Is winning the next general election any use if all you have is a watered down Conservative party who won't commit to changing anything? New Labour may have done some things but as Margaret Thatcher said Blair was her greatest legacy. It may be that things change at local level first. So we see the Mayors of the North stepping up as a real opposition news.sky.com/story/coronavirus-boris-johnson-faces-backlash-from-mayors-in-the-north-over-new-covid-19-restrictions-12098907

Can small left wing organisations win the next general election?

What Len Mccluskey said in the statement from him that I read, is that the union will be directing the money that is not going to the Labour party to various small left wing organisations. Someone has to try and improve the lives of working and unwaged people, it should be a priority for the Labour party, but if it is not, then someone else has to try.

New Labour did improve schools enormously, but they did it in a way that sort of pretended that it would not cost money, by bringing in PFI s instead of giving out the message that good public services cost money but improve the lives of everybody and are therefore worth paying for.

Keir Starmer is against Universal Basic Income; but nor is he an advocate for a Jobs Guarantee as an alternative.

Why should Union money go to a LP which shows no concerns for them. There are plenty of left wing organisations which would benefit from the money and really improve thngs at grass roots level.

Whitewavemark2 it is no more blackmail to say to the LP we need you to support us and change practices which damage working people than it is for a millionaire to say to the Tories look I'd like less legislation about tax. He who pays the piper calls the tune.

I can’t believe a Labour Party supporter would think / say that

Perhaps Tightening the purse strings will MAKE him ?

Attempted blackmail ,