A year of Starmer What do you think?

I do object to the constant criticism of the way Keir Starmer talks when the comparison is the bumbling buffoon sitting opposite him in parliament, ruffling his hair and lying constantly. Having said that I have to agree with most of what Urmstongran has said which proves that people can always find things that unite them if they try hard enough. Think I need a lie down now, or a cup of tea. Or a brandy. Or all three.....

varian

We need Keir Starmer and the Labour Party to wake up and reject our sham democracy before it is too late.

But they can oppose this latest act of gerrymandering all they want, the vote will be won by the government.

Casdon another great post from you. Interesting POV and well put.

The rumblings inside the Labour Party continue on. Diane Abbott is the gift that keeps on giving to the Tory party. Is she on their payroll?
?

Why on earth a more left leaning approach would appeal to voters in England right now just beggars belief!

Keir Starmer doesn’t come over as authentic. His PMQ’s drone on to the point of boring us into submission.

Andy Burnham is the man of the moment with a whopping 67% of the votes in Manchester. Will he be approached in the next few months to lead the party?

The upcoming by-election in Tracy Brabin’s constituency will be another huge defeat I predict for Keir Starmer. He is a dead man walking.

We need Keir Starmer and the Labour Party to wake up and reject our sham democracy before it is too late.

varian

I am not young but I am still idealistic and my idealism leads me to a place where our country becomes (albeit the last European country) to embrace democracy.

That will only happen when we introduce proportional representation and all votes are of equal value.

But it’s even worse than that isn’t it? This corrupt government is going to change the Mayoral voting system to FPTP. I know the supplementary vote system isn’t PR but it’s better than FPTP. There's not a moral or ethical bone in any part of their corrupt bodies and increasingly we are becoming a totalitarian fascist state.

Exactly Doodledog. The young people I know who voted for him were idealistic and hoping for a better country, to remain part of Europe, and for the UK to be a more equal place. They are post university so uni fees were an irrelevance to them.

My daughter like Doodledog's is still a JC supporter. I agree with her sentiments, but have seen governments come and go.

I don't think it is 'simple as that' that the young supported Corbyn because of his promise to scrap tuition fees.

Obviously that was/is important to them, but they are not fools. My two were both fans, and yes, they were idealistic, as befits their youth, but they listened to far more than that one promise. My son (the elder of the two) is less enamoured of him now, but my daughter often says that she wishes he were still the leader.

I think that maybe there should be a split. There is clearly a chasm between the right and left of the party, and there is nothing to be gained by one side sniping the other instead of concentrating on what needs to be done.

The LibDems are all but washed up, and historically they took votes from the right of the Labour Party, so there could be room for a joint effort there, leaving the left to offer their agenda to the voters, and neither side would have to temper their message to suit what is considered by others to be electable.

Either way it’s a disgrace that people in the Labour Party see fit to ridicule someone who is leader of the party. Makes certain sections of the party look childish imo

MayBee70 A TV newsman in an interview called Keir Keith that was funny ? I think a lot of people have picked up on that name. Well he is not on the left like the Keir Hardy he was named after it seems.

I am not young but I am still idealistic and my idealism leads me to a place where our country becomes (albeit the last European country) to embrace democracy.

That will only happen when we introduce proportional representation and all votes are of equal value.

I’m afraid I stopped reading what you wrote once you referred to Keir as Keith, that momentum’ish insult that’s being flung around by the far left.

Not all were young and idealistic nothing wrong in being idealistic, young people not fools people could see what they were voting for. We nearly won the election in 2017 I joined the party became a member for the first time because I believed in Corbyn someone honest and decent with strong radical polices that this country needs right now and fully costed, that you could get behind. Who knew what Starmer believes in Prople are still asking what does Keith Starmer believe in what does he want for the Labour Party??? And where is he taking the party to the right by looks of it. At his first speech he said he was a Zionist made a big fuss about antisemitism People knew this was weaponised used against labour does he think people are stupid? Jeremy Corbyn value system is fighting inequality racism something Starmer should be standing up for fighting against. This new right wing Rachel Reeves is anti Semitic she praised Nancy Aster.Now Starmer has all the people who undermined the Corbyn leadership and buried the Forde Report. Not many watch PMQ if they did, would know Jeremy holds the record for government u turns. It has been a disgraceful 14 months where Starmer has done nothing right it seems everything's gone wrong Lost hundreds of councillors and 8 councils including Hartlepool.

Corbyn spent most of his life voting against his own party on many issues that I respected him for. But once he became party leader he wouldn’t tolerate dissent of any kind. I’ve never forgotten Hilary Benn ( who I have great respect for) making a speech in parliament and Corbyn sat next to him with such hatred in his face: it looks could kill Benn would be no more. I think Corbyn lost my emotional support that day but I still voted for him because of the Conservative alternative. The young adored him because he said he would scrap tuition fees. It was as simple as that. He was on such a high from appearing at Glastonbury that he failed to notice he actually lost an election. I’d love a Labour government that has people like Corbyn in it. It doesn’t have to be either or. We all want the same thing, a fairer, more just society. But we’re never going to get it at this rate.

Thank you for such an interesting explanation Casdon.

Okay trisher I’ll rise to the challenge - briefly as this isn’t the place to bore. Gordon Brown will be judged a lot less harshly in future than he was at the time, it was Blair who orchestrated the damage to new Labour.

The chance of a new way for the party was seized because the country was sick of the Cameron Government. When voting for Corbyn, people (many of whom were young and idealistic) thought that he was a credible alternative and joined the party, organised rallies etc. without initially understanding that he had been sidelined within the party due to his extreme views on some key issues for good reason. His personal value system was exposed over time, and the voting public, influenced by the media but also by his poor performance at PMQ, and his stance on issues decided that he wasn’t suitable PM material ( neither were his chosen shadow cabinet).

Many of those initially enthusiastic people have now left the party as their views have tempered - but interestingly very few of them have joined the Global Justice movement.

The future of the party has to be more centrist, or it will never be elected again. Party members are the political animals in society, not the public, and the latter are not interested in electing a traditional left wing party. If the party ultimately vote in a left wing Corbyn replacement I think that will be the end, and a new left centrist party will emerge to take the vast majority of the votes that have stayed loyal to Labour. Back to the Whigs maybe?

I think one of the reasons Labour has been so successful in Wales is that the requirement for consensus/coalition over 22 years has resulted in a different Labour model of government, so it’s still recognisably Labour but it’s not a purist model - and a lot has been achieved by listening to the electorate and the professional experts rather than the party members calling the tune.

suziewoozie

Casdon

You’re right Grany, the buck does stop with him, thankfully. He’s beginning to feel his feet now in terms of the team that will work, we need to give them six months to bed down and then reassess how it’s going.

The problem is, he’s not given a chance is he? The coverage of the reshuffle is getting beyond ridiculous. I would call it obsessive but it’s a deliberate distraction policy. Meanwhile, theres a raft of serious issues that go unaddressed and mostly unmentioned by the media that are squarely in the Govts court. It will be interesting to see what’s in the Queens Speech tomorrow.

The Queens Speech was likely to have been the reason for the reshuffle. It would always attract some bad press from the mainly right-wing sources so he has done it all at a time when they were already exaggerating the LP position.

It was either now or leave people in their place until the summer break. I do think he has tried to put people in positions that will play to their strengths.

So he promised to unite the party Annie how's he doing on that? If you can't keep your promises if you appoint someone like Rachel Reeves as Shadow chancellor is that uniting the party? She'll go down a storm in the Red Wall- a Blairite Remainer with a London background!!!

the far left now working against Starmer, Abbott and MacDonald were ecstatic yesterday

Many of us thought Tony Blair would stick to socialism- we were wrong but he stood on a socialist platform and he used the socialist vote. The backlash of course was years of poor electoral turn out. But why go back into history why not just answer the question why in 2017 did the LP exceed all predictions and almost form a government whilst the right wingers in LP office worked against them? (I asked first)

trisher

Of course if all you want is. centrist LP that has proved itself unelectable for the past 20 years carry on!

So Corbyn was a failed centrist too? When did the electorate last vote for a socialist government?

Casdon

I resent the implication that the more moderate members of the Labour Party are somehow are so dumb that we haven’t followed in detail what’s happened, and that we don’t know what’s going on - we do, we just think it’s time for the left to start listening for once because it’s actually a malign influence that’s now damaging any chance of rebuilding the party to electability, not Starmer’s actions. It’s not a centrist Labour Party that’s unelectable!

Well explain then how a centrist LP failed to make any progress in spite of austerity until a left wing leader was elected. This isn't Corbyn worship incidentally it's asking a reasonable question. Why did the LP exceed expectations in 2017? Why did it lose out this year? If you are going to blame everything on Corbyn all that does is prove Starmer is ineffective. Something left wing inspired voters in 2017 explain it. No point in moving to the right if all that is needed is a more charismatic left wing leader. You are throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I resent the implication that the more moderate members of the Labour Party are somehow are so dumb that we haven’t followed in detail what’s happened, and that we don’t know what’s going on - we do, we just think it’s time for the left to start listening for once because it’s actually a malign influence that’s now damaging any chance of rebuilding the party to electability, not Starmer’s actions. It’s not a centrist Labour Party that’s unelectable!

Because actually, we all have "somewhere else to go" if pushed far enough.

And do people really think that churning out nastiness about those of us supported the policies put forward by Jeremy Corbyn, is going to encourage us to vote for Keir Starmer's party?
Or are you deliberately making it cristal clear that we should take our votes elsewhere?

Well now that Keir Starmer has made it absolutely clear that he is making the Labour party more right wing by promoting Rachel Reeves, perhaps we should give him longer and just see what happens. Otherwise people are going to continue to blame those that they see as "far left".
At least those of us who liked the previous policies and want to see a fairer society will know for sure that our votes are not wanted by the Labour party.