Do politicians need sex appeal to be successful in these social media times?

A millionaire.
Wow, and all his own hard work.

That's to be admired

MissAdventure

It's strange that a company's house representative has said there has never been any record of starmers father as having a company.

No it’s not. If he was a sole trader his company does not have to register.

He had a very distant relationship with his father.

I think it’s about scale. Owning a company doesn’t make you rich, or middle class. Self employed plumbers, painters etc. may employ a few people, a self employed upholsterer may own a premise, but don’t make a fortune, and that’s the scale Starmer’s father was operating at - there are hundreds of thousands of similar businesses in the UK.

And could be richer and have a much easier life if he’d not turned to politics. Which I, personally, think he did because he wants to make this country a better place.

Callistemon21

MayBee70

Well, he is further left in a way in that, unlike Corbyn he is actually from a working class background. So imo he has proper socialist values but is pragmatic about how far to implement them.

Corbyn was middle-class, not upper class.
His mother went to university which was fairly unusual for women in those days, but she did work as a teacher.

Well he in my eyes he was upper middle class because he lived in a Manor House and went to prep school.

I so agree MayBee , he does want to make this country a better place, he doesn’t have a flashy smile, play games with umbrellas, I truly believe he a honest man.

Casdon

Labour Heartlands is a political blog from the far left, not a reliable source of information.

All thats available Casdon: a spiteful and nasty piece of writing too:

we don't know for example what is likely, that Starmer senior started off as an apprentice working for a firm - he couldn't have started off without some sort of longish training for those skills, then developed as a skilled tradesman as a one man band. As wiki says, a toolmaker.

Ah apologies, primrose
I imagined some much bigger set up for some reason.

Chestnut

Dickens

Chestnut

pascal30 Keir Starmer is further left than Corbyn which I think we will soon find out. He also doesn't know what a woman is.

Keir Starmer is further left than Corbyn...

Is he?

How?

We'll probably just have to wait and see, and if he becomes PM then watch that space.

We'll probably just have to wait and see, and if he becomes PM then watch that space.

... so no evidence or information to back up Keir Starmer is further left than Corbyn then?

Just a hunch?

I questioned your statement Chestnut because - although not a great fan of the man myself - I haven't seen anything that would indicate he's more left than JC. Coupled with which, I've read quite a few social-media complaints from Corbyn-fans and supporters who are convinced Starmer is basically a Tory with a red rosette.

I just thought maybe you knew something we (and they) didn't.

I believe for some, Corbyn was very much too left wing and we seem to be more a middle-of-the-road nation of voters, so it would've been interesting to discover what makes Starmer more left-wing than even Corbyn.

Primrose53

But millionaire Keir prefers to suggest his father was much more humble.

Casdon yes I know that so why hasn’t KS ever said “I am proud of my Dad because he had his own toolmaking company which he built up himself rather than working for other people.”

I think it's really a case of he's going to be damned regardless of what he says or how he says it about his background.

If you don't like someone's politics, it's not difficult to find ways to discredit them.

Why so wrong for Starmer to have a million, why can he not be
a true Labour Party member !

Tony Benn owned a large London house and a country estate, was he not a true socialist?

They need to inspire trust. From face to face meetings, I would certainly put John Smith in that category, but no Conservative front bencher I can think of, except perhaps John Major.

grumppa

They need to inspire trust. From face to face meetings, I would certainly put John Smith in that category, but no Conservative front bencher I can think of, except perhaps John Major.

John Smith and Alan Johnson were the only Labour politicians I respected.

Anniebach

Why so wrong for Starmer to have a million, why can he not be
a true Labour Party member !

Tony Benn owned a large London house and a country estate, was he not a true socialist?

recent estimates are over £7 million actually.

People with entrenched political positions are not going to be persuaded to vote differently. I don’t expect Starmer to appeal to staunch Tory supporters, and don’t much care what they think of him either, because it doesn’t matter. It won’t have any influence on the outcome of the election.
What matters is the people who are undecided - that’s why the polls are the best indicator we have of which party is going to win out. I don’t think sex appeal has anything to do with it, nor do I think the leader is the most important factor in people’s minds when they make a decision about which party to vote for.

Starmer is on TV live now from Sussex. He is talking about his childhood in Oxted and saying “my father was a toolmaker and worked in a factory”.

He is also saying his own first job was picking stones off fields for farmers!! I do know from my late father that in the 20s unemployed men had to do that or they got no dole money.

Not sure if I believe this Keir. He was born in 1962 so if he was 10 when he was supposedly stone picking it would have been the 70s. I never saw kids doing that and I lived in a very rural area.

Eh picking up stones, 'e 'ad it easy. We 'ad to crawl round on our 'ands and knees sucking'em up from ground. And at end of day farmer give us a turnip if we were lucky

Primrose53 anybody would think you’re looking for lies! People still stone pick. It’s very stony where I live in the mountains of Wales, and they mainly pick from sports pitches now, there’s less arable land, but in the seventies it was still common on farmers fields,, as was potato picking by hand. Rural does not necessarily equate to stony, stony relates to the ground type in the area. I wish that wasn’t the case, I’ve got so many in my garden that I’ve got an area where I have to dump them as I remove them from the borders,

Glorianny

Eh picking up stones, 'e 'ad it easy. We 'ad to crawl round on our 'ands and knees sucking'em up from ground. And at end of day farmer give us a turnip if we were lucky

🤣🤣🤣🤣

Casdon

Primrose53 anybody would think you’re looking for lies! People still stone pick. It’s very stony where I live in the mountains of Wales, and they mainly pick from sports pitches now, there’s less arable land, but in the seventies it was still common on farmers fields,, as was potato picking by hand. Rural does not necessarily equate to stony, stony relates to the ground type in the area. I wish that wasn’t the case, I’ve got so many in my garden that I’ve got an area where I have to dump them as I remove them from the borders,

It’s all flints around here which are sharp and lethal but I have never seen anybody picking them off fields in the 70s to the present day.

I'm a champagne socialist: I want everyone to afford champagne, ( ok , cava)
Tony Benn was a committed, caring socialist from a grand family ( Wedgwood, since you ask). Your origins do not limit your worldview. Margaret Thatcher came from humble origins but definitely wasn't a socialist.

I don't mind where politicians started from. I don't mind if they make money. I do mind if they feel they have to misrepresent their origins by pretending life was more of a struggle for them. It's insulting to those who do struggle and it's not recognising the advantages you were given and how that helped you.
Tony Benn never pretended to be anything other than what he was, a rich aristocrat who rejected the hierarchy and believed passionately in human rights.

Primrose53

Casdon

Primrose53 anybody would think you’re looking for lies! People still stone pick. It’s very stony where I live in the mountains of Wales, and they mainly pick from sports pitches now, there’s less arable land, but in the seventies it was still common on farmers fields,, as was potato picking by hand. Rural does not necessarily equate to stony, stony relates to the ground type in the area. I wish that wasn’t the case, I’ve got so many in my garden that I’ve got an area where I have to dump them as I remove them from the borders,

It’s all flints around here which are sharp and lethal but I have never seen anybody picking them off fields in the 70s to the present day.

So are you actually saying Starmer is lying, because you’ve never seen stone picking?

Chocolatelovinggran

I'm a champagne socialist: I want everyone to afford champagne, ( ok , cava)
Tony Benn was a committed, caring socialist from a grand family ( Wedgwood, since you ask). Your origins do not limit your worldview. Margaret Thatcher came from humble origins but definitely wasn't a socialist.

I agree. Why can't people accept that others can think for themselves and don't need to buy a package of beliefs from any party/religion/organisation? There is no reason I can see why someone who drinks champagne shouldn't want others to be able to do likewise, or to have more than a basic lifestyle in other ways. The idea that Labour voters/MPs are hypocritical if they don't live in council houses and work in mines or mills is as idiotic as thinking that the same applies to Tories without trust funds and titles.

That should, of course, read 'I can't see. . .'.