UKH

Is it me, or does he have real leadership potential?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-politics-53502447/russia-report-keir-starm...

There's genuine passion here,  a degree of wit, and he's earned the right to be where he is. 

Johnson has to be grateful that Starmer's predecessor gifted him such a large majority, I think it's not inconceivable that he'll spaff it away over the next couple of years. 

It's the dumb electorate who gifted the majority because they swallowed all the bullshit they were fed.

I wonder, it would be a good survey question, how many people voted *for* Johnson or Corbyn as opposed to how many voted to *keep out* Johnson or Corbyn.

I suspect the next GE will see Starmer face Rishi Sunak. Regardless of who wins politics in the UK will be infinitely better for it.

HTF do I manage to get 3 dislikes before anyone can have had the opportunity to review the posted video? It doesn't affect me personally - you're obviously dimwits, without the courage to argue your corner -  but you really are screwing up a potentially wonderful resource. 

Don't go derailing your own anti Corbyn rant thread with the tired old dislikes bollocks.
I only give dislikes to Rom btw

Anti Corbyn rant? What are you smoking? I'm pleased to say I couldn't even remember his name, let alone rant against him.  

I couldn't bring myself to vote for either but know a few who voted Tory purely to keep Corbyn out or to 'get Brexit done' despite disliking the Tories.....Boris simply couldn't lose on that 'double ticket' 

The tragedy is that he didn't replace Corbyn until after the disastrous 2019 election failure. Corbyn was never, ever leadership material.

I'm just thankful he managed it at all, there's plenty who  supported Rebecca Long-Bailey and her ilk. 

He didn't mention Corbyn... I did, but only to put Starmer's leadership into perspective, and to muse on what might have been.

ERG and Momentum are the two bodies mostly responsible for the parlous state this country is in... 

Just your disguised (with a pane of crystal clear glass) comment: "Johnson has to be grateful that Starmer's predecessor gifted him such a large majority."  We all know of your disdain of Corbyn.

I'd've, and would always, vote Labour if their leader was a piece of rotting cheese.

I vote for the party and what they stand for and the last manifesto looked OK to me.  Borrowing shit loads of cash doesn't appear to be any problem these days.

Did he really need to mention him by name? We all know who he meant. Which Starmer predecessor do you think he was talking about?

Disdain? You must be effing joking. As far as I can see he was at least as responsible for tipping the Brexit vote as any Russian shenanigans, and as for the last election the proof is in the pudding.

Disdain? His incompetence, lack of political acumen and inability to connect with the electorate gifted the not very gifted Johnson an 80 seat majority. Have we heard a word of contrition? No.

He is/was an evil b*stard who has cost his beloved working class more than Thatcher could ever have imagined.

And utter lack of self awareness. I see today he is objecting to Labour apologising for the blind eye to antisemitism under him. 

I wouldn't worry.

Momentum is eating itself in the usual way that part of the left do in times of adversity. Labour is slowly ridding itself of racists and this will accelerate next month after the EHCR report comes out so in a year's time he and his remaining influence will have faded away.

I suppose I'm a Core voter.
At least I wasn't a proxy (???, basically, as a) Tory engaging in the relentless onslaught against a certain you know who.  How many seats did you cost Labour last year?!

He may well have been utter shite, but look at what we've got.

Starmer's great, but unfortunately he only entered Parliament five years ago.

Blind loyalty to a particular party is madness. Always read the manifestos.

I voted Labour, in spite of Corbyn (assuming that the PLP would moderate him), because I could not vote for the bunch of shits that currently dominate the Tory party. But that doesn't mean I supported Corbyn, or that I don't hold him almost as much to blame for Brexit as Johnson, Garage et al.

The contrast between the two is pretty big though. Momentum wracked the Labour party and is very far from achieving any of its goals. The ERG, on the other hand, needs to wait only 6 more months to get something very close to their preferred Brexit deal delivered on a silver platter.

Progressive Britain, beaten by Mark Francois, it is pretty fascinating (and terrifying) to behold.

Yes, but the one enabled the other, by following a different ideological dogmatism. Two extremes, same belief, for different reasons. The fact that they didn't achieve their goals (apart from, perhaps, getting us out of the EU) doesn't matter to them; what matters to them is that they remained 'true to their ideological principles', in spite of the real world consequences for the vast majority of working people they claim to represent. Dogmatism, not pragmatism.

Given the talk of Russian influence, and non-linear warfare, you might even wonder if this warfare also manipulated the LP. Membership was cheap...

My vote has never meant anything, I've always lived in safe Labour or safe Tory places, so voting or not I've made absolutely zero impact.

Same here - we've had the same veteran Euro sceptic Tory MP for over 30 years.

At the last election, the alternatives were a Lib Dem who was an ex-Tory from a neighbouring constituency and a Labour candidate who doesn't even live in the borough.

It would have taken something spectacular to have shifted him!

What a desperately archaic and undemocratic country we've become, having once (in instigating parliamentary democracy) led the way.

It's not just you, the guy is good.

I've never even voted Labour (and as it happens, as long as I live round here I probably never will), but since Starmer came in, I joined the party.

My prediction (which is bound to be wrong, I've been wrong about everything) is that Johnson will resign on "health grounds" (actually it's failure and not having fun grounds, because he's a piece of shit) and Rishi will take over. This will be a risk, because Rishi is brown, but if he can make people feel that they weren't total c^nts for voting Brexit (they were), that will be enough for them to hang on to their new-found nationalist, anti PC identity (they're "not racists but", so maybe they can hold their noses and vote for a p**i).

Then we'll have more Tory government, and I'll start complimenting my alcohol and tranquilliser habit with ketamine and heroin. I won't be voting in the election after that one.

Come on Tim!!!! 

He's useless. His strategy seems to be one of blandness, hoping he will just steer clear of controversy and flop into no 10 if Boris self destructs. 

What does someone wondering what all the fuss is about learn from that clip? That Sir Kier thinks the government sat on a report that described the threat as immediate and urgent and that the government has taken it's eye off the ball. Who cares about the abstract detail that a report was published late? What threat? What is in the report that Boris didn't want to reveal and why? This is the scandal that he should have been highlighting.

He didn't bother to mention that the Conservatives are awash with £3.5 million of Russian donations. That Boris Johnson himself was paid £160,000 in return for a game of tennis with a Russian minister and that in the wake of the Salisbury poisonings the Tories repaid their backers by undermining any attempt at building a worldwide consensus against Russia by non compliance with international law, which gave Putin a get out of jail propaganda tool in the process.

Worse, he played the game Boris wanted because, while wasting his 6 questions failing to land a blow that anyone would remember about Russia, he also failed to even bring up the scandal of yesterdays vote where Conservative MP's handed the NHS over to the USA (or maybe even Russia perhaps). Something any Labour leader worthy of the name would be shouting about from the rooftops.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thelondoneconomic.com/politics/full-list-o... 

After nearly 4 months of non opposition from the Silent Knight (which have included in the region of 60,000 needless deaths) it's no surprise that Labour are still around 8% behind the Conservatives in election polling and that Boris Johnsons lead over Starmer in polling for best PM is 15%. In both of these polling topics the Conservative lead is growing again.

LOL

Starmer's responsible for the covid deaths...? Whilst your preamble may have some substance, that allegation is just bonkers.

I can't see how you're getting that reading from what I've put down there?

To clarify, the 4 months have included somewhere in the region of 60,000 needless deaths which I blame on deliberate choices made by the government to pursue a profits first policy of herd immunity. During that time Starmer's opposition to the government has been useless. 

At Cummingsgate, I was quite genuinely agitating for overthrow of the government. Because I was incandescent with rage. But being a bit more sensible, a change of government in the middle of a pandemic is a terrible idea, and Starmer knows that.

The guy's actually a politician - he's doing what is optimal for an opposition leader who actually wants to get elected. You're much further left than is relevant for electoral politics - you're not his audience. He's got to win over those folks that voted Blair but would never in a decade of Sundays vote Corbyn. He's a clever guy - if you want any hope of not having a Tory government forever, let him get on with it.

What a desperately archaic and undemocratic country we've become, having once (in instigating parliamentary democracy) led the way.

(sic)

I'm not convinced it is.

I hate the Tories.

I hate the f*cking Tories.

I f*cking hate the f*cking Tories.

So, on that basis, isn't it just sensible to vote for whoever can keep the Tories out, regardless of who the leader it?

Vote ..Cheese.

Rotting Cheese.

The French have a word for cheese. 

Thankfully we don't need to now we've got Starmer instead.

Would you recommend team Trump/Bolonaro/Cummings? I mean I don't mind if my Mum gets discharged from hospital where she caught coronavirus after the government allowed it to rip through the whole population, into a carehome, where she proceeded die in isolation and to kill all the other residents and half the staff with her. What's the problem?

Let's vote Cummings in again, with Gove as the front man this time. Or would you have to be an utter c^nt to do that? Just asking.

You must wake up feeling happy everyday then. 

What an echo chamber this is. 

Of course you have stated yourself that you would, and arguably have, vote Conservative regardless of how unsuitable for public office their leader is.

And yet I regularly read the 'discussions' on here put forward by the more left leaning contributors. 

That's just sheer idiocy, and underlines the parlous state of party politics in this country.

Descend into histrionics again if you must but it is just nuts.

Tribal loyalties like this, in my very humble opinion, are at the root of the state of politics in thois country today- working against the public interest, not for it.

What if the person to achieve that was Farage?

The hate of a party (whether left or right) is flawed. We need a range of parties to represent different groups interests and also just to keep ideas stirred up. Although currently the tories seem to be under the influence of a shyster and have a bunch of hard right nutters that is, in many respects, the fault of the centrists in Labour who after spending years triangulating the tories policies have pushed them hard to the right by following their policies every step of the way.

Its the thing the centrists who dream of having no political choice beyond a centrist Labour and a centrist tory party miss. They alienate and disenfranchise large parts of the population when they achieve this goal and we end up with a mess like brexit where the vast majority who arent effectively represented by the centrists feel left behind and vote for change, any change. That is leaving aside also how quickly the centre tends to move in those circumstances.

Not really.  First because "I hate the Tories" is a pretty ludicrous position to begin with (all of them, all their policies, now, historically and in the future??), and secondly the Labour party could well end up worse, and arguably did recently.

For me to vote labour it would mean i would have to align myself with people like you which is a hard sell to be honest. 

Cant you go a few days without descending into name calling? 'cnuts' 'alt-pricks' - give it a rest.

If Jon's stated views are representative of the labour party or its supporters, which they are not. You would have to align yourself more with the likes of Keir Starmer, or even me.......*

Not a bad idea.

*Incidentally, by voting Conservative, does that mean you have aligned yourself with the likes of Priti Patel, Dominic Cummins et al.........

Not particularly no. Im not aligned in any solid direction, for the most part i couldn't care less. 

The left want people to vote for them, only the right can give them the majority....the repetition of such language on a daily basis is hardly a welcoming invitation is it.

You are all c*nts but please will you vote for us?

Edit: I hear all this daily on the uni campus, its quite tiring. 

Did anyone notice how many other stories were brought into the BBC news last night to avoid referring to this embarassment for the BBC's sponsors

Looks as if hanging on to the last practical moment before a recess for appointing a security committee has really worked for Dominic Johninngs

Sorry, I don't have a TV, so please explain. Cheers.

I get what you are saying, and I sort of agree - I don't think Jon will be a candidate for Alastair Campbells replacement any time soon.

But it is extraordinary how much corruption, dishonesty and incompetence this government has managed to display in just a few months. I'm indirectly involved with Test and Trace, directly involved with Capita and other privatised bits of the NHS... You lift a stone and there's an indescribable mess wriggling and writhing underneath, covered up with bare faced lies, bluster and contempt for the electorate.

I get Jon's bitterness.

Isn't it. Same sad posters doing the same pitiful ranting with a new messiah thrown in to help ease their suffering.

I’d like to report a fault in this echo chamber- it continually exposes me to contrary opinions. And they seem to be causing a persistent whining noise...

I would add the popular media including the BBC (whose Director General happens to be an active Tory). 

Billionaire-owned media sources are tightening their stranglehold on what many people read and consequently believe.

Whereas for you to vote Conservative, it would mean you wold have to align yourself with liars, cheats and bullies at the very heart of Government. 

Your choice I suppose, but it seems a little odd to be so put off by one poster on one forum and not be equally (or more so) put off by the current Cabinet of incompetents.

What would you suggest these ‘sad’ posters do instead?

I dont suggest anything. I was merely making an observation!

Just wondered if you could help them with alternatives?

But fair enough, we’ll all just have to put with the endless echo chamber from both sides of the political debate. That’s not aimed directly at you BTW, more just an observation of the polarised left-right politics that appear to be a feature of life in Westminster now, mirrored in UKC.

You must be great company at social gatherings.

You're quite correct about my hopes for Starmer, but someone worthy of respect has been a long time coming. The fact that both parties (and the US since 2016) have been led by dross for 10+ years has left us in a parlous state.

Fortunately I'm not yet so bitter or cynical that I can't find space for a bit of optimism. Maybe you should try it?

To be fair, Sunak  got plenty of praise here and elsewhere for his decisiveness and competence at the start of the pandemic. There are Tories who are well worthy of respect, there's just not many in government right now.

I'm not bitter, cynical probably. I admire your optimism and to be fair to you and other Labour supporters, there is much more to be optimistic about with Kier Starmer in charge instead of the last incumbent. As he said yesterday,  the Labour party is under new management. However, pointing fingers and asking questions is easy. What will he bring to the table that will make a change to 'parlous' state of World politics? Time will tell if he's the man to lead the country as well as his own political party. 

I've not been in this parish long but I'm seeing a pattern. Its sad that 2/3 of the UKC electorate see fit to up-vote your post.

People not seeing the world as you do are a 'dumb electorate'? Voting the other direction in a democratic process is a result of being lesser intellectually? 

This is the language eugenicists, armed with tape-measures, once used to frame the minds of African populations. Of course, being Labour supporters, you are above all that. So no need to worry.

What does that statement even mean?

The thumbs up / down doesn't mean that at all. its just a way for people to express support or otherwise to the post or poster, and all this means in this case is that 20 more people "upvoted" than "downvoted" the post. Many of us never use this facility (in fact you can disable it).

Unfortunately there is some truth in that; not dumb per se, but too willing to accept the (easily provable) lies and deceptions of the tories (88% of their social media posts were misleading or dishonest)

https://metro.co.uk/2019/12/10/investigation-finds-88-tory-ads-misleading-c...

yup - that sort of behaviour is much more usually associated with those who dream of a return to the good old days of empire! Welcome to the party, i'm sure you'll enjoy it.....   

It means I avoid echo chambers by reading views that are likely to be different from my own, and are happy to do so without taking offence. Something many posters on UKC could benefit from.

Who's going to clean up the mess?

Which of course has nothing to do with what  you commented on. It also assumes that others on UKC don’t read a wide range of opinions. You took an incredulous position regarding an unswayable political stance, whilst having recently proudly declared your own unswayable political stance.

He's also helped greatly by the team supporting him; many in the treasury and the BoE were there in 2008 - 10, and learned a lot from the financial issues of the time, and the whole lot enjoy mutual respect. So yes, Sunak and the whole treasury / Boe / HMRC team deserve a lot of praise. Note other departments have "benefitted" from much less experience embedded into their leaders, having been disrupted by friend Cummings' interventions in the civil service, and the purge on sensible adults in the Conservative Party, and are now significantly weaker. Much easier for Sunak to shine; and it should be noted that whilst Javid was got rid of because of his unwillingness to accept Cummings no 10 advice squad, Sunak has by all accounts ignored them completely and stuck to his existing teams in the treasury, who he knew of anyway from his previous career.

Exactly, which is why people can't be arsed, or they simply get angry, or when there's areal chance to change things e.g. Corbyn (though I'm not a fan) he gets drowned out in a sea of shit.

When Corbyn was elected leader it was, for a great many people, a way to change the system to actually have politics for the people, I didn't like him but I could like the policy change and the policies themselves. It all got drowned out in "communism", and links to Stalin and Uncle Joe and character asasination, but for once it looked like we might have politics FOR the people.

I think that's gone now and we're probably doomed to carry on, with Tories raping the country for themselves, Labour trying to undo what the Tories have done.

But either way, I can't see my vote, and I do still vote, making the slightest difference.

This is hilariously ironic - the assertion that 88% of Con ads were misleading and 0% of Labour ones were is massively misleading itself and is based on a warped reporting methodology with a carefully handpicked sample.

https://medium.com/@theintersectuk/were-88-of-conservative-ads-misleading-c...

The problem is, Corbyn played into that sea of shit. He may be principled but he is utterly useless as a politician, so he kept falling into every single trap his opponents set up for him. I'm sure our friendly mammoth here is going to point out that he had to deal with internal opposition and I am going to ask, do people think the Tories, who have been tearing each other apart for years, have had no internal opposition? It is literally the job of the leader of the party to manage the various contradictory forces.

Telling them that party policy is going to be "my way or the highway" is not how this works, it's how you make half the party actively try to take you down. But I'm sure we're about to hear that it was all down to those "traitors" and not the party leadership at all...

If Corbyn was competent, he would have hired some proper strategists, he would have hired some image makers and he would have used the amount of scrutiny he was under as an advantage. It would have been tough but there is a difference between tough and the impossibility of winning he ended up having.

Crying out how unfair all of this is was not only ineffective, it made matters worse.

I took the 'position' as you put it, because of how it was expressed, which was like a spoilt child who can't get what they want. 

Ta for that link - i'll have a read later; its not something i can skim at first glance......

Thing is that people seem to think that because Starmer wears a suit, is clever, shrewd and articulate he's somehow far to the right of Corbyn.

It's not really true. Corbyn and his policies weren't particularly radical anyway and Starmer certainly hasn't decided to ditch any of them although I expect some will fall by the wayside and many will be re thought and re packaged in order to make them workable, sensible and attractive to the majority of voters. 

People like to think that they vote for policies but in reality they often vote for personalities.

In a lot of cases "can't get what they want" is to not get a government or policy that directly an irreversibly negatively affects their lives, so you can excuse people for being a little "annoyed" about this stuff, and that is true on either side of the spectrum.

This country's politics being winner takes all means that it's very much not a "oh well, we may win next time", because next time you may not have a job, or a house, or a business, or you may have been kicked out of the country to please some xenophobic cnuts.

It's the type of politics that makes everything polarised.

The detail itself is not that important, my point is that we're all pretty easily swayed by arguments that conform to our existing biases. It's how misleading ads and campaigning works - the people who are likely to support you aren't going to be fact-checking and truth becomes contingent on partisanship.

If you are going to read anything I'd recommend this comic by The Oatmeal:

https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe

The policies I want to see enacted are popular. Policies aren't the reason that Labour can't get elected. 

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/01/09/eurotrack-...

If I thought that Starmer was the shiny new face that could get these popular policies across the line and make Britain a fairer society, then I would happily get behind him.

All the signs I'm seeing however are that the establishment have placed their man on the inside so they are safe to continue with their project of ripping up society. They are safe in the knowledge that if the blue team push the electorate too far then their man leading the red team won't reverse the project too far.

All of the ideological vandalism that you rage that the tories are inflicting on us all is enabled when the opposition broadly shares the same ideology and only differs in detail.

I think it's worse than that, the Tories went easy on him in the year before the election, to make sure He and the prince of Darkness (Macdonald) would be in post when it came time for the election. 

I thought there was quite a lot more sh!t they could have thrown at him.

I would have agreed with you up until The Purge. I liked Rory Stewart (my opium dealer, as it happens - good times!), Anna Soubry (despite her being a Nazi of course), I've got a right hard-on for Ken Clarke for obvious reasons (his appreciation and knowledge of jazz music)...but no, I'm sorry, what's left of the Tories now is just a filthy, rotten residue of disgusting people. I hate them.

Shall do. I must admit, two things surprised me about the 88 - 0 statistic.

1. Nobody else has ever queried it, and its been put out there quite a lot.

2. A political party of any colour on zero? Nah, doesn't ring true......

That's a perfectly fair point. I could apologise, but it would be insincere.

I've made it pretty clear than I'm quite a long way down the road of despair, drinking, self-medication etc, so being told off for being grumpy on an internet forum is not really high up on my list of concerns. Alan is very welcome to ban me if I've over-stepped the mark, indeed it would probably be quite a good idea, since when I read the complete shit, sorry, the valid alternative opinions people come out with on here, it tends to make me want to go Raul Moat.

When it comes to deciding on political allegiances though, I would gently suggest that you might want to reconsider your priorities. I know that lefties can be bitter and use blue language online from time to time, but we're not responsible for 60,000 unnecessary deaths due to a total lack of interest in keeping vulnerable people safe, leaving the country economically ruined as a consequence, and then still pressing ahead with policies to drag us further into ruin. If what's important to you is grumpy drunks on the internet and who they vote for, fair enough I suppose, but this country is f*cked, for good now, thanks to the Tories. I'd have a little think about that if I was you.

Yes, I agree, the current Tory party certainly seems to be the nationalist populist party, and generally despicable.  Note, however, how quickly things can change - e.g. Labour. I know there is at least one decent Tory minister still and presumably quite a few MPs, so I don't think saying "I hate them all" is really helpful.

I miss Rory Stewart. Was listening to an interview with him the other day and was reminded of his quiet thoughtfulness and conviction. Also Dominic Grieve, David Gauke etc - in fact, Gauke is still writing really interesting articles for Conservative Home, though who knows how long they'll continue to publish them given the cascade of frothing indignation they seem to cause below the line. Alas, the modern Tory party seems to have no room for anyone other than Brexit ideologues and those craven enough to put party interest and unwavering support of the executive ahead of what is best for the country.

What's wrong with that?

It's a bit weird when people pick others up for swearing, when you look around at what's going on in the world, a PM that lies to your face and expects us to lap it up like milk from a teat.

Please don’t ever apologise for your use of language. I find it quite refreshing. Posters from across the political spectrum may not use the same words but they all say the same thing. Speaking ‘politely’ doesn’t mean your not being offensive. 

Isn't that the Tory line?

And the second line is, please do as we say, not as we do. Our rules are for you not for us.

Bollocks!

Have to give that a LOL

Look at some of the Social media regarding masks and then come back and tell us the electorate aren't dumb.

Lisa Winwood @Jimbo Baggins you are keeping it real. The world shut down for a type of flu?I don't think so, there has to be a much bigger agenda behind this.

Lee Bailey Lisa Winwood it can't limit the spread coz there is nothing to spread, why can people realise this is all a game to take control of all of us, I've carried on working through all of this being in a office with atleaat 30 different people who all have members of family they mixed with, also been in close contact with round 200 customers had 4 house party's though lockdown with a packed apartment, and guess what not one of us even has been unwell, not to mention every person I know on this planet as well
It's all complete crap, unfortunately to many people like yourself have been Brian wasted be the media. Not your fault its exactly what they have set out to do

These are the electorate, or some of them at least.

Obviously, not everyone's daft as arseholes, but I know plenty who think "White Lives Matter" is a good post to put up, who will post any old shite up if it fits there particular "thought for the day" without checking where it comes from.

They'll then argue that what they're posting isn't racist and neither are they.

Totally agree. Politics is only loosely related to policy. It's about emotion, identity and marketing.

I don't believe that. But I do agree with your point about the NHS amendment getting lost. If Starmer was "their man on the inside", why did he support the amendment in the first place? I would guess that he sees PMQs as a pantomime, which he's really good at, and just chooses whatever's easiest to ruffle Johnson with, and to make himself look good on camera. 

Cheer up Jon. you miserable cnut.

Ha! That's more like it.

I have thought about it. 

60000 unnecessary deaths, funny i thought it was a pandemic virus that was responsible, shit me it was the tories all along!

Would that be the same pandemic virus they've been hit by in Germany?

That isn't what I call thinking.

Yes everyone who disagrees with you is dumb. 

Let's have a little quiz:

1) Which Prime Minister did not attend any of the COBR meetings after repeated warnings from other countries that a pandemic is on our doorstep, even when neighbouring countries were already in quite a lot of trouble and we had not even suspended travel from them?

a) Tony Blair

b) Margaret Thatcher

c) Boris Johnson

2) Which party is aforementioned PM the leader of?

a) The Labour Party

b) Plaid Cymru

c) The Conservative Party

You are allowed to call a friend.

No, just the ones that believed Johnson's bullshit and voted for him because of those, not the ones that are traditionally conservative voters.

Can I please have a 50:50 choice 

Thanks 

You think 60,000 is a reasonable number?

Don't apologise. Johnson, Gove, Cummings et al are a bunch of appalling bastards. There's simply no point in treating them respectively. They're not proponents of an opposite viewpoint that deserves to be heard, as previous incarnations of Tory politician were. They're liars, traitors and criminals, and history will ultimately remember them as such. I just hope they face justice in their own lifetimes.

Starmer is making a good start at establishing himself and his stock is currently rising.

However it is too far away from an election to be of any use. Johnson knows this and will tolerate his own lowered ratings for a while, turnng on the taps in 3yrs time when ratings become important again. By then he will have gathered enough on Starmer to at least attempt to bring him down. 

Yet the UK has the fouth highest death rate in the world from covid-19 (and two of those ahead of it are tiny countries with populations of a few thousand - so second worst really). 

So maybe think about it again, perhaps at a deeper level?

Quite.  Maybe you'd be better sticking to alternate bastions of diversity of thought.  Perhaps the Daily Mail or Breitbart would be better suited to providing the intellectual stimulation you crave?

1.  d) Nicola Sturgeon

2.  d) The Scottish National Party

Missed more Cobra meetings than BOJO.

So what you are saying is that anyone who listened to an argument and changed their mind is dumb or easily deceived, yet someone who is a traditional voter, ie. someone who votes purely based on their region and class, is sensible.

Since we can statistically assume that you, and everyone else on this forum are only of roughly average intelligence, like most of the population you are all as dumb as each other with a fairly even distribution about the bell curve. Therefore I would suggest that anyone who decides that the electorate has been deceived because they disagree with the way they voted has no ground to stand on since you cannot prove that you are not above average intelligence, or that you are not also deceived into believing another falsehood of one type or another.

I assume that you wish for another party to be in government, this is entirely reasonable, however based on the assumption that the population is misled today it leads to the obvious conclusion that the population would be equally misled if your party was to win power at the next general election. Thus you are only serving to remove legitimacy from any future government, the left should be wary about playing this card because the Far Right will play it when the left eventually takes power and that will lead to trouble that no person of average intelligence wishes to see.

i don't know, and neither do any of you. What should the number be? Zero, as Jon seems to suggest?

Perhaps you should not assume what other people choose to read. I regularly read articles from a range of sources to understand what they think, I have literally no fidelity in this. Guardian, Telegraph, Canary, Breitbart, whoever it's useful to know what others thing and why. It seems to be heresy to say that some articles you disagree with may even add nuance to your opinion, or even change your mind. It's challenging not to narrow your news source to those which sit comfortably with your existing bias. I would suggest that with the prevalent, leftist, self congratulatory nature of the UKC forums that people choose to post here because it echoes their existing bias. There is no substantial "diversity of thought" here as anyone who dissents from the forum party line is shouted down rather antisocially.

I have blanche but i have to go to work and i cant be bothered arguing with an idiot. Its like teaching a pig sing, its a waste of time and it annoys the pig. 

My thesis is a bit simpler than that:

No, being convinced by a side on a political argument is not at all a problem, it is a sign of healthy politics. By traditional conservative voters I do not mean Conservative (with a capital C) I mean people that hold conservative views.

However, when you have one party run a campaign of literal and demonstrable lies that are being deconstructed by a lot of major media, and then you have large swathes of the population that have been their political enemies since at least Thatcher fall for it, I am afraid that is not healthy politics.

We ended up with people not only believing but actively defending literal lies and uncosted policies pre-election and I only have one name for them, no matter where they sit on the political spectrum: dumb.

Labour's adding more and more things I would call voter bribes to their manifesto on the 11th hour before the election was not healthy political discourse either, although to their credit they did at least try and cost them.

And just to come clean with regards to my own political views, because this bollocks about "the left" and "the right" irks me a bit, I am a centrist. I am also not allowed to vote in this country, due to the policies of a certain Home Secretary that became a failed PM, moving the goalposts constantly, even after 16 years of residence.

My preferred political party at an election would be the one with well thought out policies that I support, or at least the one most likely to keep the ones I don't out. That could be Labour, it could be the Lib Dems, it could even have been the Conservatives at times. I try not be swayed by populist policies because I have seen what that does to a country first hand, having been born in Greece:
Voting for clowns that promise the earth f*cks things up.

You are entirely right that believing that large swathes of the population are dumb delegitimises any future governments too, of course it does. It does unfortunately appear to be and true that there are indeed a lot of people that do not perform any analysis or even plain skepticism to what they are offered before heading to the voting booth and that is absolutely not in any way unique to the UK. 

She and her position are not even remotely as important as the position of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (sorry Tom!).

Do you think we would have been in the same shit we are now, with as many deaths, had we suspended travel to and from affected areas and more aggressively locked down on large social and entertainment events before a complete lockdown became necessary?

In other words, do you believe that if we had followed what Rory Stewart was endorsing weeks before lockdown became a thing, we would not have had a better outcome?

Do you believe that if we had actually joined the EU PPE scheme, which we were entitled to regardless of Brexit, we wouldn't have had access to more PPE?

Do you believe that had we actually had a reasonable health policy that did not involve dumping elderly people back into care homes without testing we wouldn't have ended up with fewer deaths?

All of those are things that were raised before they transpired and at the time, not in hindsight.

20,000?
https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-health-coronavirus-britain/uk-coronavirus...

And yet here you are, making your own point, with the same freedom that we all enjoy. And for all the 'prevalent, leftist, self-congratulatory nature of the UKC forums', we have an right-wing English nationalist government, with a collection of liars and incompetents at the helm. 

It does make me wonder what the right actually wants beyond what it already has. 

But didn't you know the real threat is cancel culture? The fact that Katie Hopkins might not be able to give a speech at a university will lead to the fall of western civilisation. And it'll be entirely the fault of the UKC hive mind

'I would suggest that with the prevalent, leftist, self congratulatory nature of the UKC forums that people choose to post here because it echoes their existing bias. '

Prevalent, leftist,  despairing is probably closer to the mark.

'anyone who dissents from the forum party line is shouted down rather antisocially.'

Listened to but disagreed with politely is probably a more accurate description.

Just because a Tory says something it doesn't automatically make it true, even if that is how Johnson has built his entire career.

I know it should be lower, when you compare us to other European countries, it's pretty obvious we did a shit job.

Add to that we had an extra 2 weeks to prepare and we look even worse!

The Tories were in charge of our response, and for the first week, "It was a hoax" then , "We could take it on the chin".

So of course it was the virus that killed people, but just like drink driving when it's the car that does the killing, it's what's behind the wheel that counts.

And who did the better job of dealing with the crisis, besides that, she not the PM  is she?

There does seem to be a very strong victimhood culture in parts of the right. 

She is actually quite important as she is responsible for the care of just under 10% of our population. I would suggest you read this rather damning article of her track record. Obviously you and others (Snats) here are intelligent enough to sift out the facts which regardless of politics are pretty stark.

 https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/nicola-sturgeon-s-care-homes-catastroph...

I do not agree that we should have moved to lockdown based purely on emotion and not scientific reasoning as you suggested. SAGE did not suggest the possibility of a lockdown until the week before. South Korea who were very successful never locked down and Germany did not confine the majority of the population to theit homes with draconian laws which disproportionately affected the poorest in society.

Add to this that even a week before there was no significant public appetite for lockdown, as demonstrated by the fact that no opposition front bencher called for it, and the leader of the SNP or labour in Wales didn't enact it unilaterally. Consent is incredibly important if you wish to deprive people of their civil liberties. 

These are the people who were briefed by the scientists and none of them made an assessment to follow any course of action materially different from our own PM. Rory Stewart is an outlier who has no skin in the game, he doesn't actually have to weigh up the consequences of lockdown to the economy. He doesn't have to worry about the impending recession killing the poor when it won't affect him. He's not a player in the game and therefore he can say what he thinks will get him elected, which is incedentally how the media and yourself wrongly dismiss the accountability of Nicola Sturgeon. 

You are not going to find me defending Nicola Sturgeon. Frankly, since I don't live in Scotland I have not given her handling that much consideration.

Anyhow, you seem to have missed my point by latching onto lockdown. There were steps that could have been taken before lockdown happened that may have even reduced or eliminated the need for a full on lockdown.

Why were large scale sporting events against teams from one of the worst affected regions of Europe allowed, with full fan participation?

South Korea had no lockdown but had very strong track and trace, something we still don't properly have, 7 months into this.

We needed a full lockdown because the situation was allowed to get to the point where there was no other option. It is obvious that no government, let alone a conservative one, would have wanted the social or financial hit of a full lockdown, yet it appeared at the time that they were attempting to continue with business as usual when lighter mitigation policies applied earlier would have potentially had substantial effect. That is the failure of leadership that we (the critics) see as sleepwalking into a catastrophe.

Do you think that anyone in the country would have objected to suspension of football matches and gigs, as an example? Considering the exponential growth nature of infection, the number of visitors on such events can have potentially huge effect on the overall case numbers, so why allow them to continue?

Edit: Thank you for actually having a proper discussion.

Sturgeon is doing well, cut down her  briefings to three a week rather than five or six but communication has been clear as she's not dodged them. No flim-flam or bluster, seems on top of the details.

More importantly, a single* death in the last fifteen days compared to about a thousand across the UK in that time.

*Covid confirmed by test, maybe a dozen unconfirmed but mentioned on death certificate.

PS Germany did shut schools and workplaces, people were confined. My nephews and nieces were off school, their parents were off work or working from home and my elderly MiL and FiL stayed home. Timings vary as health is responsibility of Länder and not national government.

Are Sturgeon and the SNP invited to COBR meetings?

Most people I know had already self isolated themselves (if at all possible, those that couldn't were worried about what was coming). The leader of the opposition isn't the arbiter of the general public.

The company I work for introduced progressively restrictive measures on travel (including elf isolation), meetings and, eventually, office working, well before the government introduced lockdown. We all started WFH a week before govt lockdown. I avoided travelling to my sister's 60th birthday more than a week before govt lockdown.

I guess that's just my company, and me, not 'The Public'...

ps. You're not, by any chance, that B Johnson, with a typo...?

Not on UKC there isn’t.

The only problem we have is trying not to appear too smug about Brexit and the last general election.

Just a few more months and that will be the least of your problems.

I’m just enjoying it while it lasts.

Like coronavirus?

So my politics isn't irrelevant to winning a general election then is it. Don't forget how close Corbyn came in 2017, only the sabotage of centre right Labour party employees made the difference. It just needs the right packaging and many of the 600,000 Labour members thought Starmer was the right package but there are an awful lot of people disappointed with what they are seeing. He claimed to be the unity candidate but he has surrounded himself exclusively with right wingers 

Because it's just a detail isn't it. He knows what causes a Labour politician has to be seen to support but it obviously wasn't his priority on Wednesday.

The establishment project isn't short term. It's a long term shrinking the state ideology (unless a bailout is needed), including removal of democratic controls, privatisation of state enterprises, deregulation, outsourcing government services, tax cuts for the wealthy alongside removal of welfare. Its a huge redistribution of power, wealth, and opportunity from the poorest to the richest, in direct contradiction to the stated aims of the Labour party, which has been ongoing since 1979 and Starmer is not showing any sign that he has any alternative vision.

Its funny how much people forgot the whole leaked labour report and its contents in regard to the amount of powerful labour party aristocracy who REALLY didn't like Corbyn. People seem to forget that in electoral politics this stuff is practically a game to MPs.

This country will continue to pawn off state assets to private persons, and continue the great capitalist project of creating more and more unequal societies by monopolising capital into the hands of the owning class. Labour party of course, has been complicit throughout it's whole history. When people figure out that Labour doesn't seem to disagree with the end goal, the regression into hyper capitalist-fuedal societies that US is chasing, but thinks we should get a bit of free healthcare on the way.

Don't think I'll vote them in at this point unless at the minimum a soc-dem leader like corbyn comes along. Green for me I think, or the workers party for a laugh (altough their parent group, the CPML-GB, are transphobic, then again all parties are).

At this point I'm starting to see the point of accelerationists.

Corbyn did not come close in 2017, the fact his fans claimed being 60 seats short of a majority as some sort of 'victory' simply highlighted how low expectations had sunk....and I told numerous Corbyn lovers the Tories would not have such an ineffective campaign again and the next election would be a disaster for them....yet they pushed and pushed for another election.....it was like watching Turkeys wishing for an early Christmas....delusion doesn't begin to describe it. 

My three favourites as well, possibly for different reasons. I also confess to a crush on dishy Rishi, and I’m guessing I’m not alone there.

I agree, as far as I can tell Labour is shedding thousands of members with each new disappointment from Starmer. He may well be appealing to people who admire Rory Stewart and Ken Clarke but this is meant to be the Labour party ffs! He doesn't appeal to me and I can't see my vote going to Labour at this point.

I'd love to be wrong and for Eric or Rob or some of the other apologists to show me that I've just been consuming the wrong media. Maybe there are some counter points out there somewhere that show a signal that the Knight is actually going to deliver some sort of reform. He's had 4 months, what does he stand for?

Equal opportunities, redistribution of wealth, closer alignment with our near neighbours, end to NHS privatisation, increased controls on the private sector, better protection for the environment ... You know, the usual.

And unlike his spectacularly unpopular predecessor, there's a fighting chance he will actually be in a position to achieve something.

Seats alone are what ultimately counts but it doesn't really give a true picture of how close it was. I think with 7 more seats Jeremy Corbyn could have led a coalition, those seats would have been swung by 2000 more votes.

Those votes would obviously have to have been highly targeted but then we learn in the leaked report that during the 2017 campaign and on election night, right wing employees of the Labour party in senior positions were secretly working against victory by diverting party resources away from the key marginal seats and towards safe seats held by their allies. It's highly likely that those 2000 targeted votes would have been delivered if it wasn't for their actions.

Don't call me an apologist.

You're an apologist.

And you smell.

My Dad's a policeman and he'll lock your Dad up.

Do you work at the North Pole by any chance?

Great typo.

I can sympathise. Though it seems from the other side of the political bridge looking over. 

The climbing discussions here appear moderate and apolitical.

The political and social discussions resemble long, run-out, first-ascents on worsening rock in deteriorating conditions. Down-climbing is no longer possible. Meanwhile the end of our rope has just popped out of our partner's gri-gri and little known to us we're now free-soloing a thousand feet up. We think we can probably shout "Take!" and rest. But we can't. We're on borrowed time if we keep charging forward so single-mindedly focussed on where we think we need to be.

It is difficult to understand the degree to which people embark on the deeply entrenched directions they do. Everyone viewing everyone else as trolls and as bad-faith actors.

I'd be interested to know where you get your current affairs news from.

Having recently become deeply sunk into Twitter it dawned on me the room for misunderstanding and for vanishing down a rabbit-hole of enraging viewpoints, presented with only negative viewpoints from one side of the divide and positive from one's own, is incredibly easy. Probably easier than it has ever been. We're likely in no different a news environment than that which created my father's mindset that 'the Nips' and 'Jerry' were vermin in need of extermination, well into the 1980s.

The old world of news and media presentation is gone. It's a changed world. Without realising it we are more likely now manufacturing our own news. A reinforcing cycle feeding the platforms that require our patronage for their business model and viability [UKC itself could probably shut 'The Pub' and improve everyone's lives.  But what would it do to their own advertising revenue?]. Meanwhile the consumers are like punters in a Vegas casino mindlessly putting coins in the slots.

Ever considered that the rage currently being felt is entirely manufactured? That we could be sat right where we are now and, by doing nothing more than closing our newspapers, switching off our laptops and TVs, and turning to Jazz FM rather than Radio 4, our political and social antennas would be no less fed but our minds freed, our anger decreased, and our views on humanity corrected? That actually the world is in a very very good place [on the whole] and that we are making massive positive advances, addressing every negative we can find, and arguing only about the pace and degree of positive change? Who here really wants to live in 1920? Or 1820? Where the life improvements made in the 20 years between 2000 and 2020 are probably greater than everything that took place in the 200 years between 1800 and 2000? 

If I were an agent sat in Beijing, Moscow, Pyongyang or Syria, plotting the fracturing and downfall of Western civilisation, I would have no greater asset than the gambling machine-like interfaces we put in front of ourselves. Maybe Darth Vader was less a black-robed villain actively seeking out 'the dark side' and closer to a supposedly forward-thinking Silicon Valley techie, a journalists, elected politician, or university lecturer, convinced they were making the world a better place while causing untold harm?

A lot of boomer labour voters seem to have forgotten that if you have to shift your entire poltiical platform a considerable amount to win, maybe changing the electorates mind, or working with them through increased democratisation of the party, is the way forward.

Party politics is the death of democracy, as much as it's a cliche. And once again the leader of the glorious labour party will inevitably be some obama type figure who talks a big game about social justice while bombing some Arabic speaking country that ends in 'istan' into the ground and then arming some faction within it to secure market and resource access

A good point, what does he stand for?

I think he's a good "politician" and he's great in PMQs, but what does he stand for?

That sounds a great strategy.

This, apparently

https://keirstarmer.com/plans/10-pledges/

The b*stard. Practically a Tory.

Not a whiff of Brexit. If only he had more guts.

Politics IS the art of the possible. Rejoining a restructured EU is going to be a delicate 20 year project. The first priority is to get elected.

Radio 4. Used to be Channel 4 News but I don't watch it at the mo due to technological issues. TLDR News.

I don't use twitter or facebook, my only SM is UKC.

It isn't. I'm witnessing the social progress I saw over the last 30 years go into reverse. We have a PM who just wants to be "world king" and has no relevant skills or motivation to serve the public. I watched the Cummings press conference, at which it was established that lying outright in the full knowledge that everyone knows you're lying is acceptable. Just like Trump's "alternative facts". 

I can't live in that world. It's not good enough. 

Corrected? Of course, I could just spend all my time in a k-hole and avoid reality, but that's not how you feel good about your life. What I want is to think about the society I live in and think "yes, it's OK. People are OK. The future is OK." I don't think that, I think the country's f*cked, because we have liars and charlatans in charge, people's worst instincts are being exploited, and the high-point we reached during the pre-Iraq New Labour bubble is behind us, and while I thought it was a bit shit at the time, I'd give both legs to be back there. The future fills me with dread because of the decisions being made by our government, which reflect the complete lack of any value they have as people. I find them disgusting because they have gained power by lying in order to serve themselves. Johnson, Hancock, Patel, Shapps, Williamson, the lot of them. I hate them, because they're destroying my future, and that's not because I've spent all my time in facebook and twitter echo-chambers. It's because I listen to what they have to say at 8.10 on the Today Programme. I listen to them, and they make me feel ill with the words they say.

I agree with the Steven Pinker argument about the positive trends in human history - but he wrote Enlightenment Now because he sees the same threats to that progress as me. The positive trends in social attitudes have gone into reverse with the rise of poplulism, and that threatens to turn the trend of positive outcomes in health and wellbeing - the cash value of policy - into reverse too. 

So, my emotional state is a lot to do with the facts of the world, and not a lot to do with SM distorting those facts. Sure I can listen to music instead, and just not think about it, but the failure of this government is impacting almost every waking moment due to coronavirus. My job's shit, my leisure time's shit, I can't see my friends the way I normally would - and it's had minimal impact on me compared to others. Then what's going to happen with Brexit? My job will get worse and my standard of living will decrease. The prospect of life in a k-hole is looking more and more attractive.

What is a k-hole? A ketamine hole? Out of body but still aware of all that is going on? How would that feel better? Sounds like it's only a physical dissociation. Or am I missing something?

Losing all contact with reality due to a heavy dose of ketamine. 

Firstly, I apologise if my turn of phrase directed at you and Eric was overly provocative last time. I really just want to see a sign that Starmer would be better than the second coming of Blair and I think you two are the most likely people that could give any hope.

I'm glad to hear that's what you believe he stands for, I am behind that. The question is a matter of trust I suppose, why do you think those 10 pledges have any meaning to him other than the things he had to say to be elected leader of the Labour party? I'm sure you can see that Corbyn also stood for the same types of reforms so why is Starmer now surrounded by the people who spent the last 5 years fighting from within the party against Corbyn and this type of policy direction?

It does seem to me that he and his shadow cabinet are taking every opportunity to distance themselves from already popular policies of that nature.  Where do you see him making the case for those types of reforms in opposition?

You're paying far too much attention to policy - it isn't the issue. People fought against corbyn because he couldn't win - and they were right. Like me, and starmer, most of them probably agreed with 90% of the policies, they were opposing his disastrous leadership. 

Since we're talking about effective opposition, my observation is that the most effective combination has been devolution, creating a "Master and Commander" sea-vessels perpetually chasing each other situation. That wrangle-someness has been the most effective force in our politics recently, -driving differences are good. The tension is an important part of British politics.

A depressingly accurate post. Prior to the Brexit vote the negative changes I saw around me since 2008 felt like part of the usual ebb and flow of global politics but since 2016 it's had a different character. My quality of life, my career prospects and my sense of belonging in the UK have all been diminished over the last four years. But what's worse is seeing the deepening societal divisions and the acceptance of lying, cheating and corruption within the public sphere, in which nothing matters as long as you win or you can spin that it's not your fault. And then you add to that Trump, Bolsonaro, Duda, Orban, Modi, Erdogan, Putin, Xi etc and it's hard not to feel bleak and powerless about the future. At a time when global solutions and compromise are most needed to mitigate and adapt to climate change we're seeing nationalism and the retreat of liberal democracy. That k-hole looks increasingly appealing...

I had to look up the meaning of K-hole!!!!You've educated me....See, your life is purposeful after all.

Ha!

Actually, having experienced one once I don't recommend it. It's a thoroughly disorientating experience!

A bit more education then.

Better get back to politics.

Just how do you think Labour can win under our present voting system if they don't appeal to people like me who admire Rory Stewart and Ken Clarke. Labour need my vote (I'm a Lib Dem in a Tory/Labour marginal) and they need yours!

Martin

Be careful, it starts with K-hole and before you know it you're knee-deep in A-hole

Yes devolution seems to have worked well - especially with the difficulties of the UK parliament functioning within social distancing rules.

This where we have the unknown about Starmer as yet, namely his political acuity. There is a lot more than just a policy and articulation of ideas  there is political strategy, which in the worst circumstances is all there and to hell with policy and ideas, But a degree of it is needed. Will Starmer ever coalesce if there is enough common ground in policy with other parties or agree to PR to overcome the first past the post distortion? Does he see a need for a radical , dare I say it ,  european style approach  which is more flexible and coalition orientated in strategy? Will he suffer the hubris of Corbyn and support a two party head to head even so and despite.? We just don't know him yet.And your constituency proves a constant in politics at the moment- it is driven to the edges, polarisation, because of years of a two party system with the cultural divide that also produces. This is  the fault line that  we are constantly prey to. And you perfectly exemplify that need. As I do when I vote in the union's general elections  {except I'm in Scotland and get an  outlet through the PR Scottish Parliamentary system  where I get a lot of what I believe in represented because my vote carries proportionate weight}

God, I hope so. Labour have some bright people in the party - they must be able to work out the electoral maths and calculate that an outright majority is impossible without the Scottish seats that have been lost to the SNP. Those seats don't look like they're coming back any time soon and, given the growing support for independence, Labour might not have that long before they're lost forever and the Tory advantage is cemented even further in Westminster.

I listened to an interview with Layla Moran and Ed Davey recently, who both seemed quite positive about the prospect of working with Labour so there's some cause for optimism there.

That's just not true, they were fighting against Corbyn because they were terrified he would win and bring about real change towards a fairer society.

Corbyn 100% would have been PM in 2017 were it not for the sabotage of the Labour right. 2500 votes targeted in the key constituencies or 0.35% uniform swing would have been enough. The disaster was engineered by the Labour right and there is no doubt that this hatred was to do with policy rather than leadership.

Here's Tony Blair saying in 2015 that he didn't support Corbyn style policies and would rather Labour do not win an election than have them form a government on that type of platform.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tony-blair-says-he-wouldn-t-...

And here's Tony Blair advising voters not to vote for Labour during the 2019 campaign.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/10422485/tony-blair-jeremy-corbyn-dont-vote/

In the leaked report there are right wing Labour staff ridiculing their colleagues who want these policies that 90% agree with. Even Ed Miliband's "austerity-lite" shadow cabinet were considered to be "trots". Worrying for the current day is that they criticise Owen Smiths policy platform during the 2016 leadership coup attempt and they hope it is a "genius plan" of Smith to pretend these are his policies in order to be elected by the membership and then to quietly shed the policies. These are the people that Starmer is protecting and has surrounded himself with.

https://off-guardian.org/wp-content/medialibrary/200329-Labour-Report-Final...

And you know that was correct before you did your best to turn it into a self fulfilling prophecy?

It is not unreasonable for there to be a 'human element' to people's voting preferences - to be tipped one side or the other because of a candidate's perceived personality. Quite a lot of people didn't like what they saw of Corbyn. They were entitled to that opinion.

Personally I haven't liked Corbyn very much for as long as I've been conscious of him. I didn't like the 'angsty' persona he displayed - 'no I'm not from humble beginnings but I feel your pain', I didn't like the fact that he was incredibly disloyal to his party by frequently voting against it while not having the principles to  give up the whip, I was unimpressed by his totally predictable response to any given crisis or controversy.  Anyone who went to university in the 70s will have seen any number of corbynites in the CP, WRP, SWP and any number of other groups, wholly convinced that they were always correct and that the 'traditional working class' were still a majority of the population, waiting for that final push to sweep away capitalism and attain the sunlit uplands of a socialist state.

Once he became 'leader' his weakness at tackling issues such as the conflation of anti-Israel and anti Semitism, a coherent position on Brexit, a confused attitude towards defence,  having any sort of social policy other than throw more money at every problem  funded  by taxing 'other people', and the totally pathetic way he refused to engage with critics or media, (highly reminiscent of a certain B Johnson)... That's what gifted the Tories their 80 seats. You can blame the DM for some of that if you will, but you're deluding yourself if you think it really made much of a difference.  

Don't get too depressed Jon, the darkest hour is the one before dawn and all that.

It's looking increasingly likely that Trump is going to get badly beaten in November and the Republicans might well lose the Senate. A combination of C19 and the economy.

Bolsonaro in Brazil is also pretty unpopular and likely to out of office when elections come round.

In Britain we're coming to the end of a decade of shit politicians. Starmer is at least competent and sensible and can be trusted to run the country without phuqing things up and I just don't see BJ making it to 2024. His chancellor seems again, a safe pair of hands even if you don't like his ideology and appears to be free of the stink of corruption that follows many cabinet members around at the moment.

Cheer up! Populism has had its day. People tried it and are turning away from it. Things are looking up again.

I wish I could share your optimism. We shall have to wait to see if Johnson makes it as far as 2024. He can and will plead the special case of Covid-19 for the economic woes still to come over the next couple of years and will rely on Sunak to do the heavy lifting. Sadly, his replacement will be elected by the Conservative party membership, and having elected Johnson, I see no reason to think they might not elect someone equally incompetent next time. In the meantime, we have to suffer a right-wing English nationalist government with the least able Cabinet in my memory. 

My perception is that if the Tories elect another idiot they'll lose.

Most people are sick and tired of populist nonsense. They have it a shot, possibly because they had little choice, but if a sensible alternative comes along then they'll vote for that.

?? I have no influence. Literally none! And if people had decided to do what Jon Stewart off UKC thought was right (which I'm sure many hundreds, if not thousands did) they'd have voted tactically to keep the Tories out.

No just a Messiah but modest too!

...the fact that he couldn't even win an election against that weird, awkward lady who wasn't very good at dancing. Remember why she called an election? Because all the data at the time said she could obliterate Labour! OK, the data weren't quite right but still Corbyn lost because not enough people voted for him. I don't know how you managed to massage those numbers? Could you show your working?

You and I both want to see a fairer society in which disadvantaged people are not shat on by those with more resources. Under Corbyn, that style of presenting the public with a radical change to a much more socialist, much less nationalistic, form of governance with someone in charge who looks like a geography teacher, won't sing God Save The Queen, and takes the side of "the terrorists" in conflicts has been tried, and it failed. It failed not because the PLP, who are more moderate than the far-left Momentum membership, sabotaged the effort. It failed because the public don't want that. It doesn't appeal to them at the emotional level at which electoral politics works.

There's only one way to win an election: get people to put a cross in the box. You don't do that by presenting them with arguments about policy, you do it by appealing to their emotions. You have to make them scared of the other guy getting in - fear is probably the most powerful motivator in politics. Make them feel that you represent their in-group against the outsiders who are threatening them. The Tories know this, Farage knows this.

Idealistic Kum-Ba-Ya is not going to work. Forget it!

I am merely spreading the word of the Messiah (Natalie Wynn - check out "The Left" by Contrapoints).

The question is why. Since their opinions will have, in most cases, been formed by what was given to them.

Not quite sure where this comes from.

Aside from he wasnt disloyal to his party. What he was disloyal to was the leadership which, especially for labour, is not the same thing.  The best test of this is to look at how often he voted against both the Labour government AND the tory party. Which is a far smaller number. It says far more about the Labour government than it does about him.

Lucky I arent then isnt it. Far more of the blame lies with the "moderates" who put all their efforts into attacking him rather than attempting to work with him. The waahhhhh we didnt get the person we want it so we are going to throw the toys out of the window and help the tories push through a hard right f*cking brexit. The same idiots helped create the circumstances for brexit by their attempts to turn both Labour and the tories into identikit parties that represent the "centre" and left many people wanting a change, any change.

Talk about re-writing history! Corbyn was the one who went AWOL in the Brexit campaign.

That mate, is absolute f*cking gibberish. It's the moderates who've been 100% anti-Brexit from the start. We've got Brexit because there was no effective opposition to Cumming's campaign, and a hard Brexit because of the war within the Tories.

Yes, if Labour had had Corbyn all along instead of Blair, we'd all be living in your utopian pipe-dream, wouldn't we? Get real!

Imho, Corbyn's abysmal failure in the last election had very little to do with his policies and everything to do with his charmless lack of leadership qualities. He sat on the fence on so many crucial issues. I think, first and foremost, a majority of the electorate couldn't see him as a safe pair of Prime Ministerial hands on the world stage.

Standing in front of a memorial to terrorists with a phuqing wreath for a start.

That is simplistic to the point of being moronic. Now why do you think Cameron felt the need to go for it in the first place? Why do you think people were susceptible to the promise of brexit changing things for the better? Why did an issue which wasnt on anyones agenda suddenly become top priority?

What are you dribbling on about? Its not a difficult concept although it seems beyond most centrists.

I want to see all the different groups being represented. So a proper right wing choice, a proper left wing choice and a centrist choice and so on. When they decide to focus on the "centre" thats when we get the syste moving hard left or hard right. Thats when we have people feeling utterly disillusioned since they arent represented by any party since those who would traditionally represent them consider it a free vote for them to chase swing voters.

Internal Tory politics, his main mission was to crush the Euro-sceptic right wing of his party (who largely coincided with the repugnant JRM types who he thought were dragging the party back and putting off the next generation of voters), and see off the threat of Farage.

Miserable in a trough of the economic cycle, fed up with immigration after the impact of the A8 in 2004, then whipped up by Farage. Fintan O'Toole is good on how Brexit scratched a certain itch in British identity.

You can blame policy preferences if you like, I blame the economic cycle.

I take it you've always voted for parties offering electoral reform then?

40% of the electorate voted for Corbyn's Labour in 2017 which is a vote share that usually wins elections. I don't know if that included your vote or how many of those 13,000,000 people also included people who also admire Rory Stewart and Ken Clarke but whatever their motivation, it shows that it is possible to reach enough people without a centre right policy platform.

Tony Blair is usually seen as a great success and of course 1997 was a stunning victory but the legacy of Blair's move to the right was the loss of 5,000,000 voters between 1997-2010 as traditional Labour voters felt betrayed by the Labour party and many people were alienated from politics because "they're all the same".

Blair's strategy of alienating the base in pursuit of votes from right wingers could only work because the base had nowhere else to go but the base could only be let down for so long and in the end they did go somewhere else. First, Scotland gave up on Labour and went to the SNP because of austerity lite. Elsewhere, many of the lost voters came back to Labour in 2017 as finally their interests were being placed ahead of service to the global establishment, but in 2019 Labour lost the North of England due to Brexit which was seen as a huge betrayal.

So, Labour probably do need both of our votes but first and foremost Labour needs to re-engage the base because they can't count on either of our votes anymore. If they don't stand for anything they will soon become an irrelevance.

So Jeremy Corbyn was unable to communicate his alternative vision to tired and huddled masses, yearning to be free. Cr*p politician then.

Besides, your analysis is plain wrong. 

Blair was easily the best politician ( and I mean politician, not somebody who has political dogma like Corbyn) this country has had in recent years. An excellent communicator, you only have to listen to him now to understand this. Unfortunately like most politicans they " burn out" after 2/3 terms in office, that was the real issue with Blair..His current comments on the current state of Breixt, UK governance and current global geopolitics are well worth listening too.

Some Labour voters felt let let down by Blair, not all. A really common mistake made by those who felt let down by him.He was and is a centrist pragmatic politician ultimately.

Starmer is roughly in the same mould.( lawyer..does this not tell you something)

I am going to get plenty of dislikes for this post!

Quite a strange analysis.

Simple response first. I did vote Labour in 2017. As a Lib Dem in a Labour/Tory marginal it was a straightforward choice between a strongly Remain supporting Labour candidate and a Tory MP who I had worked with on the Remain side in the 2016 referendum but who subsequently defected to join the Tory Brexiteers - he lost. I was certainly not voting out of love for Corbyn.

You say Blair "lost" 5m votes between 1997 and 2010. Where did they go? I don't remember turnout being that much lower than in 2010. Perhaps 1m were lost to the SNP. I suspect the rest went Tory or Lib Dem - hardly the response of Labour supporters disillusioned by Blair's "shift to the right". No, after 13 years, Labour looked tired and Brown himself looked even more tired. Cameron (and Clegg) at that point looked fresh and competent. 

Do you support proportional representation? You should, I think. One of the benefits is that it would provide a release valve for people of the further left or further right who could vote for parties who would represent their minority views in parliament (and perhaps occasionally in coalition) leaving the parties of the centre left and centre right free to govern sensibly without constant risk of infiltration from the extremes. 

But while we're stuck with our present voting system, abandoning Labour because Starmer is leading the party back to the centre will just lead to 10 more years of Boris.

Martin

You can manipulate the numbers to your heart's content but the simple truth lies in the fact that Tony Blair won three elections and Jeremy Corbyn lost five.

The concentration on numbers of votes ignores the different dynamics between the parties, the strength of the Lib Dems for example, the turnout when in an election where the result was a foregone conclusion. On the other side of the balance sheet is who was voting *for* Labour as opposed to who was voting *against* Corbyn. Certainly in the first two of Blair's GE victories were down to voting *for* Blair. Certainly the last two GEs had a lot of people voting *against* the Tories despite their misgivings about Labour's competence under Corbyn. 

But in your heart of hearts I think you know that the argument that winning three GEs was somehow bad for Labour and that Corbyn was actually a more popular leader is a ridiculous one.

Has anything in the past few threads given you *ANY* indication that he does know that, at any depth?

28% of the electorate voted for Labour in 2017.

In 2017 Tories under Theresa May got their highest vote share since 1983. The threat of Brexit under either the Tories or Labour had voters rushing to one to prevent suffering a Brexit delivered by the other. It certainly wasn’t due to the popularity and/or brilliance of their leaders.

Got me into fact checking your 90% claim.  It's a good claim .. and true!!

https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/articles-reports/2019/11/12/labour-eco...

"The most popular involve increasing tax on the highest earners. Close to two thirds (64%) would support raising the tax rate on earnings over £123,000 a year from 45% to 50%. Likewise, six in ten support increasing the tax rate on earnings over £80,000 a year from 40% to 45%.

Most people also support nationalising the railways (56%) and reserving a third of the space on company boards to workers (54%).

Around half (53%) would support a wealth tax, nationalising water companies (50%) and 45% support taking gas and utility companies into public ownership.

But despite the popularity of these individual policies, Labour is still trailing the Conservatives by more than ten points in the polls. So how is Labour is performing so badly if its policies are so popular?

There are many possible reasons. One is that while people like the pledges they also don’t think they are realistic: 53% of Britons brand Labour’s policy platform “not affordable”.

Alternatively, Britons aren’t willing to pay for them. Two thirds of Britons believe that Labour pledges would require tax rises, with a separate question finding just 34% of people support increasing the basic rate of income tax.

There is also the broader case of the low confidence Britons have in Labour’s economic management. More than half (57%) of people think the country will go into economic recession within a couple of years if Labour win the election. Likewise, people are more likely to trust Boris Johnson (34%) with the economy than Jeremy Corbyn (16%).

Another issue may be the unpopularity of Labour’s leader. Our most recent favourability survey finds that fully 70% of Britons have a negative opinion of him, and that he rates far behind Boris Johnson on many key personal attributes. More importantly still, just 20% of Britons think Jeremy Corbyn would make a better Prime Minister than Boris Johnson. More than twice as many (43%) believe his Tory rival to be the better man for the job."

...

Maybe the yougov poll would have returned different results if they had asked questions more like, for example, "would you support nationalizing the railways if it resulted in you personally paying more income tax?" rather than simply "do you support the concept of bringing the railways back into public ownership".  I would hazard a guess that the % support for the policy, stated in those terms and with that caveat, would be significantly lower.  My guess is that paying more tax trumps taking stuff into public ownership.  

I think if you're going to use the 90% supported his policies claim ... you kinda need to use the rest of the facts that came with that at the same time ... many of which suggest he personally/the public's perception of him personally was a major factor in Labour not winning.

I'm sure we could all argue forever about why the Labour vote share collapsed in the Blair-Brown years and came back strongly in 2017 but here are the bare facts.

Year: Turnout: Number of Labour voters rounded to nearest half million (Share of popular vote).

1997: 71%: 13.5m (43%)

2001: 59%: 10.5m (41%)

2005: 61%: 9.5m (35%)

2010: 65%: 8.5m (29%)

2015: 66%: 9.5m (30%)

2017: 69%: 13m (40%)

2019: 67%: 10.5m (32%)

Those turnouts represent between 12-18million registered voters who didn't actually vote so it's not the case that votes lost have to go to someone else. People can stop voting for a party but turnout remains similar without people changing allegiance because it is not necessarily the same people. When people don't feel their views are represented by the political system many don't bother to vote and this is what had happened to traditional Labour supporters in my view. 

Yes, I accept that there are other complicating factors, some will indeed be centrists switching allegiance, which counts against my narrative, but then another complication is that as the centre moves ever further to the right then people further to the right on the political spectrum will become engaged with politics while people on the left of the spectrum give up. This drags our politics ever further rightwards and is what we are seeing now.

If you are horrified by the right wing Brexit and ideological vandalism that the Tories are currently inflicting on society then you can lay the blame for this firmly at the door of Tony Blair who has enabled it by disengaging left wing voters. 

Love it. Tony Blair won- I repeat won- by disengaging extreme left wing voters.

How do you know it is left-wing voters who abandoned Labour? According to the figures you quote, Blair won more votes than Corbyn in their respective 1st elections, and the same number in their respective elections, so I don't really know what you think your data proves, other than an ageing government loses votes in its lifetime. 

After more than years than I care to remember, I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that, according the some on the left, the blame for the catastrophic Tory governments we have suffered should be placed at the feet of a successful Labour PM, rather than at the feet of the Tories. It sometimes seems that the Labour left prefers glorious ideological defeat to pragmatic victory. 

If this is failure, I don't know what success looks like:

In May 1997 Blair won a landslide majority, with a net gain of 146 seats, ending 18 years of Conservative government (their worst defeat since 1906, leaving them devoid of any MPs outside of England, only 17 MPs north of the Midlands, and less than 20% of MPs in London.) 'Labour's victory, the largest achieved in their history and by any political party in British politics since the Second World War, led to the party's first of three consecutive terms in power lasting 13 years.'

Indeed. I've just finished reading Andrew Adonis's biography of Ernest Bevin, in which he makes the point (somewhat tangentially) that Blair and Wilson are the only Labour leaders to have won general elections since the Attlee government. It may be worth noting that Wilson was generally moderate and of the soft left. I'm sure Corbynites would have hated him. 

Many might say the media induced perception of him.

The thing is that reporters etc actually know politicians a lot better than we do. They sit in press conferences and watch them speaking, they talk to their flunkies, they know about their backgrounds, they're aware of how well they deal with issues, they know whether they get tetchy when asked difficult questions, they understand how quickly they can think on their feet and basically, how bright they are. There's a big difference between seeing 30 seconds of edited highlights of a speech on telly and seeing an entire performance at PMQs when you're sitting in the press gallery and can see the nervous ticks and fumbling for papers.

The sum of all this is an overall feeling about somebody. Whether you trust them or not, whether you like them or not, whether you respect them or not.

What is striking about Corbyn is that no one other than the most politically partisan of reporters had any respect for him. You expect hatchet jobs from the Mail and Torygraph but lukewarm reporting in the Guardian and Mirror tells you something important. I actually saw him last year in Edinburgh. He was giving a major speech at an election rally. I was left with the feeling that he was a rather odd character and somewhat detached from reality, not something I'd ever been able to get from TV.

The other point to note about the negative press associated with Corbyn was that he had so many skeletons he needed to use his allotment shed as well as the cupboard under the stairs to store them in. Some stories were exaggerated but many weren't and a simple relating of the facts to the public was enough to tarnish his image in the eyes of many.

Starmer seems a sensible and presentable guy.

He looked suitably misplaced and uncomfortable being interviewed on TV last night, stood on a beach among the holidaymakers while wearing a suit and tie.

Well I think it was his outfit, but it could have been that the labour mp's n cornwall died out many years ago. Still, they reintroduced the Choughs recently, so you never know

Yeah .. no disagreement.

Only really calling out that Mammoth can't really pick and choose the polling results he likes.  If he wants to use the 90% one, which is true, has to also accept that, for whatever reasons, the same polls reported that Corbyn was deeply unpopular with the electorate - even more unpopular than Bobo - and that was likely a big factor in his defeat.

Maybe also calling out the fact that liking a policy in isolation ... I don't really think means anything.

Example:

• "Scottish voters - do you support Independence?"
• "Do you support independence if it meant rejoining Europe having left Europe as part of the UK?"
• "Do you support independence if it meant rejoining Europe and having to use the Euro?"
• "Do you support independence if, having rejoined Europe and forced to use the Euro, your spending power in Europe would reduced (relatively worse off than as part of the UK)?"

All of these questions will get different polling results.  The electorate isn't being asked to blindly support a policy in isolation.  There would probably be high policy support for "do you support giving everyone a kitten".

Well, Thatcher didn't shed voters in each successive election like Blair did. That's because, unlike traditional Labour voters with Blair, the people voting for Thatcher were getting what they wanted. Here are the same stats as above for Thatcher-Major.

Year: Turnout: Number of Conservative voters rounded to nearest half million (Share of popular vote).

1979: 76%: 13.5m (44%)

1983: 73%: 13m (42%)

1987: 75%: 14m (42%)

1992: 78%: 14m (42%)

In 1997 there was a mass rejection of the Tories and people expected Blair to deliver a change in direction. Instead, inequality between rich and poor continued to grow. There was no industrial policy and there was opposition to the unions, a blind eye was turned to tax avoidance but there was a clamp down on welfare cheats, the NHS and education systems started to become privatised with massive growth in outsourcing and PFI, and there was the invasion of Iraq under false pretences. In 2019 there was still a great deal of distrust of Labour because of these disappointments.

It stands to reason really. The centre approximates the central position between the two parties, if Labour moves rightward then the Conservatives are free to move even further rightward, in fact they have to if they want to offer an alternative to the electorate.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/labour-leak-report-corbyn-el... "Anti-Corbyn Labour officials worked to lose general election to oust leader, leaked dossier finds"

Corbyn would have been PM in 2017 if the Labour right hadn't actively worked for defeat due to ideological reasons. Never again will I listen to a centrist lecturing me about preferring ideological defeat. 

It's also the case that in 2019 voters didn't abandon Labour for the centre ground, they went to the party that was offering the most radical change on the only issue that mattered while wearing Corbyn's clothing on issues such as the NHS.

I didn't claim 90%, in a reply to Jon Stewart I was just quoting back his words and asking why the Labour right were so against popular policies? It seems that it's actually the left who are pragmatic and the right who are prepared to throw away victory for ideological reasons.

I was just illustrating that left wing policies are popular so there is no need to move to the centre to gain votes. I've said that if Starmer was the shiny new face that can get popular left wing policies over the line then I'd be happy to support him. However, as far as I can see Starmer and his new shadow cabinet seem to be distancing themselves from policies that already have widespread public support, e.g. introducing a wealth tax. Why distance yourself from popular policies unless you don't actually support them?

‘Borrowing’ (BofE QE program) this much cash would however be a major problem if we had already borrowed loads

Fair dos Mammoth.

I think we need to be careful with these policy questions like “do you support a wealth tax” - they need to come with an explanation before the electorate actually answer.

Example: Belgium introduced a wealth tax in 2017 - 0.15% annually on all security portfolios with an annual average value greater than EUR 500k. Why? Because Belgium had become an attractive place for the high net worth evading, for example, the wealth tax in France (now repealed) or Dutch evading the high taxes there ... and the state wanted a slice of that.  In the year after it was introduced in Belgium the private banks, for those are the companies that bank people with greater than EUR 500k in securities, either moved their clients accounts out of Belgium to the likes of Switzerland, UK, Luxembourg ... or their clients promptly left them for another bank who could.  Luxembourg is a mere 2hr 15m drive down the road from Brussels. 

On France and their wealth tax: “The wealth tax might have generated social solidarity, but as a practical matter it was a disappointment. The revenue it raised was rather paltry; only a few billion euros at its peak, or about 1% of France’s total revenue from all taxes. At least 10,000 wealthy people left the country to avoid paying the tax; most moved to neighboring Belgium, which has a large French-speaking population. When these individuals left, France lost not only their wealth tax revenue but their income taxes and other taxes as well. French economist Eric Pichet estimates that this ended up costing the French government almost twice as much revenue as the total yielded by the wealth tax.”  

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2019-11-14/france-s-wealth-tax-s...

Other’s in this thread have suggested the electorate are dumb. I don’t think we’re all dumb but I do think a large percentage are ignorant/not well read up on the reality of how these things work and that that fact is exploited by politicians, of all colours, with simplistic questions like this.

I’m for a wealth tax. I wouldn’t be for a wealth tax if it drove capital out of the country and I certainly wouldn’t be for any tax policy that cost the state more than it raised.

Labour, of the left and right, has to relearn how to be less ideologically hung up and instead learn to do what works. First past post means if Labour doesn’t relearn that priority #1 = win the election, then labour will spend an eternity in ideologically pure opposition.

Let's park the detail about the pro's and cons of a wealth tax, if it has failed elsewhere then let's learn the lessons and either implement it differently or do something else.

Your wider point I think is that individual left wing policies are popular with the electorate but the whole package is not popular and Labour have to learn to do what works.

I think I have addressed this already in this thread.

1) I don't think that Starmer's strategy of non opposition is going to work. He is picking at detail but not offering any alternative vision. Labour have lost their base because people are fed up of centrism. First Scotland and now the North of England have given up on Labour. People are now fully aware that the status quo serves the interest of the global establishment which is directly opposed to their own interests and are looking for something different. The status quo as defended by centrism is over.

2) If Labour move to the right then the centre ground of British politics also moves to the right. The global establishment can prod the electorate harder because they know that if they push too far then their project to redistribute power, wealth, and opportunity from the poorest to the richest, is not at risk of being reversed. We are already being subjected to right wing ideological dismantling of society so I dread to think what the new normal will be after a few years of Starmer's non opposition. Principles are worth fighting for.

3) There is no need for Labour to move to the right to gain power. Blair would have won on a left wing platform as there was a hunger for change by 1997. Corbyn did achieve 40% of the vote in 2017 on a left wing policy platform and he would have been PM, leading the progressive coalition that many centrists on here have expressed a desire to see, except that their right wing heroes in positions of power within the Labour party preferred to scuttle the ship. 

Meanwhile in the real world......

There is no strategy of non-opposition. There has been a stated position of constructive opposition, which has been the right call during a national emergency when government support is always at its highest. Labour's position on targeted extension of furlough to protect jobs is being drummed out currently. Specific, relevant and with a realistic chance of some movement on it from the government if public opinion can carry it.

The North just went blue under the most left wing Labour leadership in decades. It's not about left/centre/right, it's about a metropolitan love-in whilst taking the provinces for granted. This continued under Corbyn. Brexit and Johnson actually made a direct offer (whether you trust them or not) to the Midlands and the North and that's why they carried them.

Reclaiming the centre does not mean abandoning the left and it is an absolute pre-requisite of winning a GE in the UK. 

Blair won on a centre-left ticket. Corbyn lost on a left-left ticket. This is what actually happened in reality.

Like all stab-in-the-back narratives, the Labour left's stab-in-the-back narrative is a) not actually supported in any real way and b) a completely corrosive obsession that is best dropped if they want to be taken seriously and join the actual conversation.

But that's simply not true, you only have to look at the documentary about the Labour MPs Stephen Kinnock during the election, he was almost willing people not to vote Labour, he was convinced they would lose and was apologising for Corbyn.

When he won he looked disappointed.

So if him and the others like him within the party had backed and supported Corbyn, they might just well have won the whole election , not just Aberavon.

Obviously the people of Aberavon, wanted Corbyn, many openly said they didn't like Kinnock, but tvoted Labour anyway.

I don't think Corbyn was statesman material, but I liked his policies, and I don't see where Labour are going now, they've lost grass root support and the electorate don't seem to care.

Maybe it was time to give a non-stateman-like person a go, personality politics doesn't seem to be doing much good for most of us, and hasn't for a long time.

That anecdote doesn't pass as analysis. The consistent number one reason across polling for not voting Labour in 2019 was Corbyn.

Starmer took over in April in the middle of a national crisis and we're four years out from any GE. The party has offered proposals and amendments to all the emergency COVID legislation that has been coming through and that, as you'd expect, has been the focus. Starmer and Dodds are currently pushing the extension of furlough for targeted industries which aren't in a position to reopen yet. There is a tight focus on job preservation and the message discipline is refreshing. The national policy forum is open for members to propose more long term policy and you can expect more to come out once something akin to a conference is able to happen.

Membership is at a record high 570k, up from a previous high of 564k in 2017, and more members have joined this year than have left. 

The electorate gravitate towards the government in a crisis and especially Sunak is benefiting of being in the position of giving away lots of money, but Starmer's net approval ratings are currently at about +15%, with Johnson's on +0%. The party is still behind the Tories, but considering the pasting they took in December and that rehabilitating the party's image will take longer than that of just the leader, Labour are up to around 37% vs. the Tories on around 43%. Stats from aggregated polls by Election Maps UK.

Corbyn's leadership couldn't have been any more of a personality driven exercise than it was. Unfortunately, most people didn't like what they saw.

Actually support for Labour has increased substantially since Starmer took over, membership of the party is up and Starmer is the first Leader since 2007 to be more popular than the Tory leader.

I've no idea what Stephen Kinnock was thinking as unlike you, I'm not telepathic. 

It's really not, it appears to have just weathered the biggest shock in a century without cracking. Covid could have been the trigger for revolutionary change with two obvious (if divergent) possible options being a green 'new deal' or extreme lassaiz faire market lead liberalism, as yet neither show any real signs of popularity in government where preserving the same old same old seems to hold sway for now.

In the midst of a crisis so badly mismanaged 'picking at detail' seems like a pretty important and potentially electorally valuable task.

Victories are too. Impotent opposition will not constrain those who've seized control of the Conservative party. Johnson and his government are untouchable for now, if Johnson goes it'll be clearing of the decks to detoxify government of the covid scandal in the immediate run up to 2024 and even then only if brexit has delivered for its (and his) sponsors.

2017 was for many a second referendum on brexit, old loyalties and enmities were put aside to deliver a solid bloc of MPs who could deliver a genuine ratification referendum. Corbyn was as much the problem as the cause of the relatively good show in 2017, a lesson his inner circle learned two years too late.

jk

You don't need to be telepathic, just watch the program

It's just a detail. When it comes to the election Starmer won't be able to separate himself from Boris Johnsons profits before people rush out of lockdown and all the unnecessary deaths it will cause because he supports it. How's that going to help him win the election?

I agree and Corbyn must take his share of the blame here but so must Starmer who, possibly more than anyone else, caused Corbyn to go against his instinct to honour the referendum result which was the final straw for the North.

I'd like to believe this and I've repeatedly asked for someone to point me towards a sign that he has any left wing principles that he is going to stand for. I agree with what Rob said upthread "politics is the art of the possible". I can accept some compromise in order to see the start of the transformation of Britain into a fairer society as long as they are going as far as is politically possible. I won't accept any abandonment of the desire to enact meaningful change towards a fairer society though.

Are you joking? The people who sabotaged the election have been caught bragging with each other about what they did. It was your own membership money, time, and effort that they diverted away from the key battlegrounds in order to hand the election to the Conservatives. 2,000 or so extra Labour votes in 7 key constituencies are all it would have taken but activists were secretly diverted (maybe this includes you) to waste time in a safe seat trying to secure another unnecessary vote for Tom Watson or another of their right wing cronies. You voted for Corbyn as leader so even if you did regret it in the end I take it you don't approve of them throwing the election? Surely?

It is absolutely disgusting to read parts of the leaked Labour report and quite shocking to discover just how right wing these people in high ranking positions in the Labour party actually are. I had thought that Starmer had just found himself making the best of a bad job as the fortunate beneficiary of what they had done but all of his actions so far as Leader make me suspect that he was an integral part of the plot. Please prove me wrong on this.

Picking at detail, man alive! 60,000 people sacrificed on the altar of profit and Starmer broadly supports the government and thinks they are trying to do the right thing.

I agree, impotent opposition will not constrain the government and Labour can do more good from government than opposition. But, Corbyn's Labour had been ahead in GE polling up until July and were only single figures behind at the start of the election so they weren't impotent with principles, and if you win an election without principles then what good are you going to do?

Doesn't matter what the reason was, keep hold of your principles and take the chance when it comes (or engineer the chance if you can). 13,000,000 were willing to put a cross in the box for a left wing government as better than the alternative in 2017.