You are reading a single comment by @mustardbeak and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
London Fixed Gear and Single-Speed is a community of predominantly fixed gear and single-speed cyclists in and around London, UK.
This site is supported exclusively by donations. Consider donating a small amount regularly.
mustardbeak
I know this thread has become a bit of a 'bash Starmer, fuck the facts' thread - which is why I've stopped bothering - but Starmers ten pledges did not in fact include a promise of free social care. You can still read what his pledges are on his website and he's not rowed back from any of them from what I can tell.
https://keirstarmer.com/plans/10-pledges/
EDIT: and btw, antisocial behaviour is a key test for whether Labour are ready to be the party of government. And I'll explain why because I think a lot of people who don't have to deal with it don't quite get it.
I live on an ex-council estate in Leyton and a few years back we had a problem with heroin users using our block as a base of operations. They stole, they intimidated, they set fires, they shot up in front of children, they left their works in the stairwells, they broke into cars and slept in them. It sucked.
Logically I know that the best way to tackle such problems is through treating drug use as a health issue. Stay away from shaming users, give them other opportunities, allow them to heal whatever’s broken in them and help them to become productive members of society. I know a labour government will do all those things. It’s what they do.
But emotionally I’m also really fucking angry at those guys. They threatened me in front of my wife. They followed me into our alley. I started carrying. For months after I couldn’t relax in my ground floor flat. I couldn’t sleep, every noise at 4am had me up at the window. My work suffered, which means my ability to pay the mortgage suffered.
And to the emotional part of me, all that strategic stuff about helping these people feels like rainbows and unicorns and frogs in little pointy hats. I wanted to FEEL safe, and that's not unreasonable. And I only feel safe if there’s enough cops on the beat, and they’re tasked with dealing with ASB, and they’re not spending their time visiting people for stuff they said on Twitter.
This is the bit Labour aren’t so good at, and that's precisely what this 'Blairite chat' aims to repair. That’s why it focusses on the penal rather than the rehabilitative. People already know we’ll do the rehabilitation. They don’t think we’ll do the law and order. That’s the point.
It is Blairite in the sense that 'tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime'. I think that's the best slogan Labour ever came up with. If people who call themselves Labour supporters still can't get behind it, they should find a new party.