Powell showing why she should be Deputy Leader, here by making a moral argument against Farage:
This week, the Reform leader announced he would deport millions of people who live here legally, rounding up law-abiding residents with settled status who work hard, pay their taxes and help make our country great. It was the most outrageous political announcement of my lifetime, raising the prospect of US-style immigration raids on homes and workplaces. The parents we meet outside the school gates, the neighbours we chat to on the street and the colleagues we share a drink with after work could be tracked down, arrested and disappeared. It is a disgraceful scheme cooked up by a man who is the love child of Margaret Thatcher and Enoch Powell. No amount of posing with pint in hand and fag in mouth can mask the malice, division and hatred that drives it. We need to call out Farage for what he is, strongly and unashamedly.
And she seems to have a grasp of the fact that the government’s done a lot of good even while lurching around:
Labour has already achieved a huge amount. We are introducing new workplace rights, have raised the minimum wage, brought railways back into public ownership, and created thousands of new GP and hospital appointments. But these policies need to be set out as part of a Labour narrative that explains how we are rewiring the country so it works for everyone.
Labour could also, y’know, stop adopting Farage’s pig-ignorant racist policies.
That’s true, but it occurred to me in the shower this morning that the UK hasn’t voted for a left leaning government since the shambolic Callaghan government of 1976. Vearing left might not lead to electoral success, no matter how much we want it to as the UK as a whole leans right. Add on the inevitable Murdoch press assault, and i fear such a change would be political suicide.