In reply to cumbria mammoth:
> ...Previously unthinkable ideas such as an end to austerity and renationalisation have become sensible, mainstream, political ideas. Compare that to the Silent Knight's brand of non opposition and we are currently being prepared to face austerity again, and £ billions of public money is being handed over to profiteers in the chumocracy to (fail to) deliver services that make more sense to be delivered by public bodies.
The situation has changed between Corbyn and Starmer but there are similarities. Corbyn (deeply wrongly IMO) felt unable to seriously oppose brexit. Starmer likewise is constrained in how able he feels to criticise the government. Superficially this seems mad, it's genuinely hard to imagine a government getting more wrong for worse reasons but right now they have a lot of well wishers (perhaps not supporters) and they're currently riding high on some luck with the vaccine gamble. We're also a long way from election day. There's a time to recognise when too much criticism looks counterproductive and churlish.
Do you think we're being primed for more austerity? It's possible, perhaps even likely given the petty intellectual void the Conservative party has become but it's not a given. An unemploment crisis is one of the few things that could actually remove the Conservatives in the early 2020s, I wouldn't be surprised to see them continue borrowing and spending heavily, especially if it's broadly in line with the recovery policies of our peers. Sure it'll be spending indirectly to keep the siphons flowing and the donors fat but I'm not convinced they'll repeat the 2010s. Yet.
> Can you achieve more in government than you can in opposition? Well of course, but not if you don't have a mandate for change that you have sold to the electorate.
You have no idea what Starmer's manifesto will look like and frankly none of us have a Scooby Doo what 2024 will look like.
> Not if you don't intend to deliver any reform either, unbelievably Sunak plans to announce an increase in Corporation Tax next week but corporate man Starmer is opposed to this.
Reference?
> Could Labour have got more votes with a different leader than Corbyn? Could Corbyn have played the Brexit situation better to get more votes? Very probably yes to both and that adds weight to my argument that in the right circumstances a left wing manifesto can win in Britain. Left wing policies are popular (they are even supported by Conservative voters when they are not told where the policies come from), that's why the media always distract people from talking about policy and propagate the unelectable myth.
The policies aren't the problem. The leader (in Corbyn) really didn't help but fundamentally the problem is the press barons aren't finished squeezing the Conservatives yet, their brexit investment had not returned. In the meantime the Conservatives, by destabilising Scotland have consolidated a base the even the popular press may struggle to erode should they ever stop getting just what they want from weak leaders.
> Is Starmer making Labour more electable? Corbyn led in the polls until the Boris Bounce. The media propaganda back then was that anyone but Corbyn would have a 20 point lead. What about these circumstances we are in now? This is now the worst government in living memory, pretty much universally viewed as corrupt and incompetent, much more so than Theresa May's, and Starmer's Labour have slipped backwards to 7% behind the Conservatives in the latest polls today. At this rate Starmer will be lucky if he polls 20 points ahead of the Lib Dems.
It's the worst government in living memory but memories are short, dragging us out of the deadly covid mire, ideally blinkered to the fact the mire was largely of their making will provide quite a boost for the government. The transition from awful to really quite bad is going to feel fabulous. Expect another Johnson landslide despite his catastrophically bad period in office to date. We are that stupid. The Westminster electoral situation with Scotland is that bad.
Labour needs a broad progressive pact to re-take power and demonstrate change is possible in order to secure it. They won't do it (The LD just might after their 2019 obliteration). Frankly people like you are major obstacle to that right now.
jk
Post edited at 13:43