Inheriting a whopping great lead and then lapdancing for Rupert Murdoch.
Keir Starmer Labour Leader
- Thread starter Damien
- Start date
I think you need to look again at the changes. Maybe you missed them while reading Guido.
Cooper, Lammy and Nandy among beneficiaries of Starmer’s ruthless reshuffle
Beefier roles for Cooper and others suggest drive to move Labour party further towards political centre
https://www.theguardian.com/politic...e-labour-frontbench-for-second-time-in-a-year
Still think it is a half truth? Maybe you should look further.
I for one am looking forward to Labour getting in power due to a Tory implosion, making no material difference and doing everything that the Tories would do.
Inspirational.
Inspirational.
John Major, William Hague, Michael Howard.
Progressive policies and a well oiled media machine that captured the nation's imagination...
attacking muslims, migrants, young people & those on benefits.
Very seriousNot sure if serious..
http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj85/lavalette.htm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/347747.stm
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2002/jun/09/uk.politicalnews
He may have spent money on welfare policies, but he & his government took every opportunity to undermine those on benefits as though they're just lazy and abusing the system. Its helped manufacture a lot of the general public's view on benefits today. Throw in casual xenophobia and you have a generation of people who think those on benefits are either immigrants abusing the system, or people too lazy to work & have multiple kids instead.
The UK has a lot of people too lazy to work. I grew up around plenty of them. Obviously that doesn't mean all people on welfare fit into that category, but I think it should be recognized that plenty of those people do exist. As a progressive it annoys me that we seem to have ended up in a situation where even admitting that is a problem supposedly makes you a heartless Tory bastard.
In a society where we have a royal family, corrupt politicians, and tax dodging millionaires & billionaires - being the leader of a progressive party and aiming at those at the bottom of the ladder is incredibly disappointing.
It's certainly an indicator given it's one of the core beliefs of economic conservatism. Your other views may ultimately outweigh it but you're still pushing a right wing economic argument, so to anyone unfamiliar with the rest of your politics it's not a particularly unfair assumption.
Yeah, that's fair.
Disagree entirely, socialist thinking was never based off an assumption that working was a personal choice. Thinking that people shouldn't be able to just choose to sit on their arses and get paid for it does not make you right wing in any way, shape or form. Thinking that anyone on welfare must be choosing to sit on their arses and not work, now that does tend to suggest you're probably quite right wing.
I don't know why you're using absolutes (well, I do) when surely it's a question of how many people you think are choosing to sit on their arses out of laziness. You're saying it's a lot. That's a right-wing opinion.
He was also a terrific enemy to migrants tooNot sure if serious..
Blair won the elections because he had a vision people bought into. Something that's been lacking on both sides ever since then.
Last edited:
This so-called Tory implosion will be forgotten about by the time the GE comes around. They are just wringing out the laundry at the opportune moment. With 2.5 years to go, they can do whatever the feck they want and it won't matter.
Once Boris is replaced a new smear campaign will start up against the Labour leadership among an ever increasing and well publicised migrant 'crisis', leading them to another comfortable victory.
Tory media control has never been stronger than it is right now and never more effective with the power of social media and the techniques at use. Labour has little chance.
The main threat to the Tories is the ever increasing damage of Brexit that may carry on indefinately. Covid helps hide it fortunately for them, for now, but its also a shame our so called opporsition goverment is so so weak on the #1 dividing political topic in this country.
Once Boris is replaced a new smear campaign will start up against the Labour leadership among an ever increasing and well publicised migrant 'crisis', leading them to another comfortable victory.
Tory media control has never been stronger than it is right now and never more effective with the power of social media and the techniques at use. Labour has little chance.
The main threat to the Tories is the ever increasing damage of Brexit that may carry on indefinately. Covid helps hide it fortunately for them, for now, but its also a shame our so called opporsition goverment is so so weak on the #1 dividing political topic in this country.
I could be wrong, I'm just basing it off there being a lot in the small town and surrounding ex-mining villages where I come from. Maybe that's an anomaly compared to the national picture.
Luckily for the Tories, Starmer was kind enough to vote in favour of the deal. So he willingly signed his name to any damage it continues to do.
Major and Hague were more substantial politicians than anything Milliband or Corbyn faced. Blair offered hope in 97 after what felt like never-ending Tory rule. He could never have lived up to the hype and, after 9/11, went way off course but he was hugely skilled as a polician in that 94-2001 period in framing the agenda.
It doesn't really matter how 'substantial' you are if your second term is as much of a political calamity a Major's. Or your spell as leader of the opposition as phoned in as Hague's.
Totally agree.
Hardly progressive to point the finger at the group with the least power, influence and wealth?
Would have been a better point had you said Hague, Duncan-Smith and Howard. 18 years of one party and a shedload of sleaze counted against Major eventually, one can only hope something similar happens again.
IDS didn't make it to a general election though and the point isn't that Major was some clueless idiot it's that he was very easy to beat in 97, which I doubt we disagree on going by your description there.
Leaders like Foot and Corbyn were the exception rather than the rule. Ramsay, Attlee, Wilson, Callaghan, Kinnock, Smith, Blair, Brown….all came from either from the ‘right’ of the party or were mistrusted by the radical, ‘unionist’ left
This is what gets me of criticism that a Labour leadership that looks towards the centre is somehow a betrayal of the history of the parliamentary party. Corbyn and Foot were the most out of step leaders with the Labour movement that there has ever been. I think Starmer has all the charisma of a sock but so many self professed ‘traditionalists’ have close to no fecking clue about the history of the party they claim to be upholding the values of. Long before the party even got a foothold in parliament as the main opposition the purpose was to achieve its aims incrementally through parliamentary democracy rather than through direct action.
Ramsay was effectively led a Tory government in all but have under the guise of a government of national unity, Attlee was prointerventionist and nuclear arms….i really don’t know why some people think Labour that gravitates to the right of itself, at least in terms of its leadership, is somehow a betrayal of its value. That IS it’s values and has been since at least the 1920s
This is what gets me of criticism that a Labour leadership that looks towards the centre is somehow a betrayal of the history of the parliamentary party. Corbyn and Foot were the most out of step leaders with the Labour movement that there has ever been. I think Starmer has all the charisma of a sock but so many self professed ‘traditionalists’ have close to no fecking clue about the history of the party they claim to be upholding the values of. Long before the party even got a foothold in parliament as the main opposition the purpose was to achieve its aims incrementally through parliamentary democracy rather than through direct action.
Ramsay was effectively led a Tory government in all but have under the guise of a government of national unity, Attlee was prointerventionist and nuclear arms….i really don’t know why some people think Labour that gravitates to the right of itself, at least in terms of its leadership, is somehow a betrayal of its value. That IS it’s values and has been since at least the 1920s
Last edited:
If that's the case then Starmer should've ran his leadership campaign on those very principles and made the argument. Rather than deceive the party and proceed to break all of his pledges.
Since WW2
Foot and Corbyn - 0 years served as PM... 0 wins out of 3 elections... success rate = 0% responsible for the 2 worst election defeats since WW2
Ramsay, Attlee, Wilson, Callaghan, Kinnock, Smith, Blair, Brown - few days short of 37 years as PM, 10 wins out of 16 elections... success rate =62.5% including labours best results ever
Simple facts if you are party on the left and you look to the radical left of your own party for leadership that leadership is going to be to the radical left of probably 95% of the general public and yeah well we see how that has played out with Corbyn and Foot
But pretty much since WW2 labour has been in power about half the time and its leaders excluding foot and corbyn have won half the elections they have stood in - with of course blairs 3 out of 3 accounting for half of those wins.
If a labour leader tries to move too from from that centre ground then they re basically handing the conservatives 5 years of power with a majority so large they can do what they want (see corbyn / foot)
Last edited:
Yup. The UK is a centre/centre-right country at heart regardless of whether we like that or not. Electoral results over modern history make this perfectly clear.
Rubbish.
There was a definite strategy in place to attract a wide range of voters and a set of policies such as Health and Education that were popular with voters.
But importantly, they were seen as a modern progressive party, not dominated by the left wing.
Could not agree more with you.
The aim of any political party has to be to win an election; not simply to be a party of protest.
And the simple facts are that the majority of the British public do not support left wing policies.
You have to appeal to the majority and that means moving toward the centre.
In Labour case, center left.
Which is exactly what Starmer is trying to do.
That's not true. Nationalisation various industries is consistently popular across in British polling. It's more correct to say that the British public doesn't support left wing policies they're told are radical left-wing policies or which have Corbyn heading them.
87 Police
84 NHS
83 Armed Forces
Above to be expected.
Support for below with even split on bus subdivision of transport:
81 Schools
65 Royal Mail
60 Railway Companies
59 Water Companies
58 BBC
53 Energy Companies
50 Bus Companies
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politic.../nationalisation-vs-privatisation-public-view
2017.
Water has taken a hit and the BBC has been subject to persistent undermining for years, so that might be down a bit too, but transport and the rest are consistently high and historically always have been. So, er, yes.
He inherited a 13 point poll lead from the late John Smith, that's a categorical fact. He won the 1997 election by... just under 13 percentage points.
He also didn't lapdance for Rupert Murdoch, if anything he's godfather to one of Murdoch's sequels because of how much he hated him.
It would be more accurate to say the boomers are centre right. What comes after remains to be seen but it will be a shift left, how much is the question.
Every generation has said that for 50 years and then inheritances start being passed down and property given to them. Some of us stay on the left, most move to the centre and a few move to the right.
Is that not linked to gaining property and wealth as you said? But isn't a decent percentage never going to acquire property so the shift won't be as prominent?
I know nothing so just throwing this out there and happy to be corrected.
Fair point, if less wealth gets passed down or earned it is likely that a lower proportion of people would look to protect what they have compared to previous generations.