A year of Starmer What do you think?

I don't think the letter did suggest we "persuade people they were stupid to vote for Brexit." growstuff and I don't think Galaxy did either. I read the post that she had misread the letter and then expressed what she thought she had read and called it "Breathtaking". However, when it comes to understanding what people mean by what they write it is easy to be wrong.

I would not have shared the letter if I had thought that was what he was saying what you suggested. It appeared to me that what he was saying was that we should learn from the way this no-longer-Conservative party ran Brexit - which was that "a matter of marginal interest to most people before 2016" but was "skilfully manipulated into becoming the defining issue and fault line in UK politics".

He then offers a three-word slogan ‘Defend our Democracy’. This could then be used to hang all the smaller issues. We don't need politicians to go into minute detail about these issues (a failing of Labour). It could be something else but I have not heard any other three-word slogan's suggested that could cover many people's concerns

And finally (I thought it was all so clear when I read it ) on the coalition idea. He does say "This may be no more than reaching agreement before the next election on the need for a Royal Commission on a written constitution and on a few principles for a new voting system based on Proportional Representation (PR) rather than First Past the Post (FPTP)."

They were ideas. They appealed to me and I felt they might appeal to other centre-left voters for discussion- but we can all be wrong.

Survation

Hartlepool Poll Warns Of Shock For Keir Starmer

Good letter PippaZ

Starmer should attack the Tories defend our democracy not the left in his Labour Party. And maybe a temporary colalition would work or contfront the Tories himself. But he isit doing that.

In a situation where the government was culpable for thousands upon thousands of unnecessary deaths, a man with a prosecutorial background should have been ideally placed to draw up the indictment. But Starmer has done nothing of the sort. The chief goal of the Starmer leadership has not been to land blows on the Conservative government. Factional warfare against the Left has been their overriding objective.

He spent time telling everyone I am not Jeremy Corbyn People are rightly asking Well what are you then.

Grany

A piece by Jonathan Cook an award winning journalist

www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/keir-starmer-cautious-tearing-uk-labour-party-apart

I suppose Starmer's poll ratings could improve

This appears to be a view from the old far-left with which I would not agree and, indeed, if this is what Starmer is doing it might make me more keen to vote Labour.

Apologies for my misunderstanding.

Casdon

Okay MaizieD you did ask, this is my opinion. Most of the voting public distrust what they would class as ‘extremism’ in any form, they are essentially conservative with a small ‘c’. Many support socialist principles in a watered down form, but they don’t trust pacifists, they don’t espouse measures which make sweeping steps towards the elimination of unfairness in society even when they are themselves victims because it’s not how they see the world or themselves, although incremental change is palatable, and they value leaders who they perceive to be articulate and principled - but they also want some charisma. Many believe press and social media reports, they don’t care enough to delve beneath the headlines. It’s pointless railing at the press and social media, they are what they are - lies can be challenged, but once said mud sticks. It’s far more effective to try to win them over.

There are many people who are very passionate about politics, but they aren’t, and won’t ever be in the majority, in fact they turn other people off. That’s what Starmer has recognised and is using to develop a slightly left of centre agenda - it’s the only way to challenge the Tories that has a chance of succeeding.

Thank you for writing this. It would be interesting to know just how many agree with you. I would, for one. Am I allowed, now time has passed, to admit I thought Tony had a good understanding of all this. I am sorry he went into an illegal war but probably even sorrier that this is all that is said about what was a very reasonable premiership imo.

I wasnt criticising you Pippa, I just didnt agree with the letter. To be fair whenever I see the word MSM I get twitchy as it's been used for so long to imply people arent very bright.
The lib dems vote has collapsed, I wouldnt advise anyone wanting electoral success to join with them. I would do pretty much anything to have a labour party in power, but I dont think a coalition even a temporary one will achieve that.
I apologise for the word breathtaking, I was probably being a bit arsy there

Having read Adrian Philips letter, I suggest he should continue authoring history books as I doubt he'd ever make a politician, too much naivety in evidence. Coalitions are like putting dogs, cats and mice in the same room and expecting them play nicely.
Starmer has an impossible task, whilst we are in the middle of a pandemic many voters don't want to hear constant criticism of government, they find it unnerving, they want to think we are doing OK, that we'll all be alright in the end. Morale is important and Starmer gets that, I think. The best way IMHO to stop the constant drift to the right is to have an electable LP, which is basically one that takes the centre and holds it. I'm not a member of the LP (or of any party for that matter, just a wishy washy white liberal, but many of my friends left the LP when Corbyn was leader and have since rejoined. when this pandemic is over, labour needs to have clear policies and be more unified or it will never be re-elected. If I were Starmer, and thank goodness I'm not, that would be my priority.

The last time Labour won a GE, it had a couple of dozen Scottish MPs, whom it's now lost. If Labour is going to win again, it's going to have to rely on English seats with a handful of Welsh ones. Constituency border changes are going to make that even more difficult. It needs to win back not only the "red wall" seats but quite a few seats which haven't been Labour for many years. It needs to find a niche somewhere, although I'm not sure where that is.

Casdon

Okay MaizieD you did ask, this is my opinion. Most of the voting public distrust what they would class as ‘extremism’ in any form, they are essentially conservative with a small ‘c’. Many support socialist principles in a watered down form, but they don’t trust pacifists, they don’t espouse measures which make sweeping steps towards the elimination of unfairness in society even when they are themselves victims because it’s not how they see the world or themselves, although incremental change is palatable, and they value leaders who they perceive to be articulate and principled - but they also want some charisma. Many believe press and social media reports, they don’t care enough to delve beneath the headlines. It’s pointless railing at the press and social media, they are what they are - lies can be challenged, but once said mud sticks. It’s far more effective to try to win them over.

There are many people who are very passionate about politics, but they aren’t, and won’t ever be in the majority, in fact they turn other people off. That’s what Starmer has recognised and is using to develop a slightly left of centre agenda - it’s the only way to challenge the Tories that has a chance of succeeding.

Thanks, for responding, Casdon.

What would be your judgement of proposed policies on this list? Hard left, mildly socialist, left of centre (or any other description one might care to use)?

I'd be interested in people's opinions, maybe a 'leftiness score' for each one Or, which ones would scare the horses voters

£15 minimum wage (includes raising sick pay to the living wage, free childcare and family-friendly rights in the workplace, sectoral collective bargaining)

Time for proportional representation (change to general election voting system)

Global climate justice (includes rapid decarbonisation by 2030, legal recognition of climate refugees’ right to asylum,
cancellation of all low-income country debt held by UK institutions, bringing the banking and financial system into democratic public control

Build council housing and end homelessness (includes building 150,000 social rent homes each year including 100,000 council homes, scrapping right to buy, giving councils the power to requisition the 250,000 long-term empty homes with minimal compensation, repealing the 2012 anti-squatting legislation

Green jobs revolution (includes creating millions of well-paid, unionised green jobs with publicly owned entities, retrofitting all homes by 2030, universal basic services, universal free broadband, repealing all anti-trade union laws

Build back fairer: attack poverty and inequality (includes increasing Universal Credit to £260 a week, extending and strengthening the furlough and self-employment schemes, abolishing the ‘no recourse to public funds’ immigration policy

Reject integrated care systems, renationalise England’s NHS and social care (includes repealing the Health and Social Care Act 2012)

A four-day week (32-hour working week with no loss of pay)

If we actually had a democracy, where a majority government could only gain power with the support of the majority of voters, we would most likely have coalition governments, which do work well in many democracies. The defenders of FPTP always point to the few which do not.

As we have an undemocratic electoral system, we have confrontational politics (reflected in the layout of the HoC) which has caused so much damage.

I think the Adrian Phillips letter contains a lot of sense. Those of us who are politically active should not behave like the Judean People's Front refusing to co-operate with the People's Front of Judea which seems to happen all to often within the Labour Party.

It has long seemed to me that although there are all sorts of nuances of principles and policies to be argued about, under our adversarial system you just had to decide whether you were pro-Tory or anti-Tory.

Now that the former Tory Party has been usurped by the Vote Leave ultra-right wing English National Party, that decision is even more stark . Are you for them or against them?

P.S if anyone recognises them & their source please don't say where they've come from until people have had a chance to respond.

I'm afraid I do recognise them, so I'm not going to comment.

£15 minimum wage (includes raising sick pay to the living wage, free childcare and family-friendly rights in the workplace, sectoral collective bargaining)
I think this is a good idea, but would want more detail about 'family-friendly rights' I would probably support it, but I never sign anything I haven't read .

Time for proportional representation (change to general election voting system)
I would need to see more detail before deciding on this. Where I live is sparsely populated, and I fear that places like it might lose what little representation we have if PR came in.

*Global climate justice (includes rapid decarbonisation by 2030, legal recognition of climate refugees’ right to asylum,
cancellation of all low-income country debt held by UK institutions, bringing the banking and financial system into democratic public control*
This is too big, vague and mixed up to comment sensibly, but on the whole I am in favour with caveats as above.

Build council housing and end homelessness (includes building 150,000 social rent homes each year including 100,000 council homes, scrapping right to buy, giving councils the power to requisition the 250,000 long-term empty homes with minimal compensation, repealing the 2012 anti-squatting legislation
I am in favour of all of this, but would want more detail about the squatting.

Green jobs revolution (includes creating millions of well-paid, unionised green jobs with publicly owned entities, retrofitting all homes by 2030, universal basic services, universal free broadband, repealing all anti-trade union laws
Again, this is too vague and too broad, but I can't see anything there that scares me. Again, the devil is in the detail.

Build back fairer: attack poverty and inequality (includes increasing Universal Credit to £260 a week, extending and strengthening the furlough and self-employment schemes, abolishing the ‘no recourse to public funds’ immigration policy
I hate the slogan 'Build Back Fairer', and would want to know what a 'self-employment scheme' actually means, but otherwise, ok.

Reject integrated care systems, renationalise England’s NHS and social care (includes repealing the Health and Social Care Act 2012)
100% yes.

A four-day week (32-hour working week with no loss of pay)
In theory, maybe. I'm not a great fan of 'one size fits all' policies, though.

All that does is raise more question in my mind, Maisie. One I keep asking (not the right people - obviously) but is it right that we are taxed individually but any benefit is worked out by household? It may be - I don't know but it seems unbalanced.

I am someone who has more questions than answers, sadly.

I also recognise them, fwiw.

MaizieD None of them should scare the voters although many will see some of them as extreme left. For me, they are centre or slightly left of. Nothing to be scared by and everything to be approved of. Much much better than anything the current govt is actually doing.

I am fairly sure I know where it came from.

PippaZ

All that does is raise more question in my mind, Maisie. One I keep asking (not the right people - obviously) but is it right that we are taxed individually but any benefit is worked out by household? It may be - I don't know but it seems unbalanced.

I am someone who has more questions than answers, sadly.

I believe that we should be taxed individually, and treated as individuals for benefits.

IMO, if someone is supported by their family/husband/dog instead of making their own contribution to society, they should not expect to claim from the state because they have no money.

Equally, if someone falls on hard times and has contributed, why should they be precluded from claiming because someone else in the household is earning?

I exclude anyone who is unable to work from all of the above, incidentally - they should be covered (in their own right) by the contributions of the rest of us.

I suppose I see 'the system' in the same way as I do an insurance policy on a house. Some will need to take out more than others, which is absolutely fine, and many will pay in and be lucky enough never to need to claim. If you don't contribute to the scheme, you can't expect to be covered by it, and neither should your claim be denied because you live with someone whose circumstances are different from your own.

'From each according to ability, and to each according to need', in other words.

Dinahmo

MaizieD None of them should scare the voters although many will see some of them as extreme left. For me, they are centre or slightly left of. Nothing to be scared by and everything to be approved of. Much much better than anything the current govt is actually doing.

This is what I am trying to do, Dinahmo; I'm trying to tease out just what 'hard left' actually means.

Though I have to say that the folk who are keen on throwing that phrase into the conversation tend to disappear a bit sharpish when asked to explain just what it means and how one would recognise a 'hard left' policy.

I get an inkling from Casdon's response, but I just wondered if rating the degree of 'leftiness' these policies represented would make it any more clear for me.

For myself, I think I'm just another wishy washy white liberal, but I could be entirely mistaken...

I think your post of 14.35 is really interesting, Doodledog and I think it could start a whole new and different discussion on the role of the 'state' and its relationship with its citizens.

Doodledog Where would you class :
Stay at home mothers/fathers ( I don't mean both, but either mother or father) of young children?
Stay at home parents of disabled children whether young or adult?
People who don't work because they are carers for elderly or disabled family members?

These people, in my opinion save the state a fortune and are doing very valuable, but unpaid, work. They deserve a pension as much as anybody.

I don't recognise where the policies above come from. Are we going to find out today?

Ilovecheese

Doodledog Where would you class :
Stay at home mothers/fathers ( I don't mean both, but either mother or father) of young children?
Stay at home parents of disabled children whether young or adult?
People who don't work because they are carers for elderly or disabled family members?

These people, in my opinion save the state a fortune and are doing very valuable, but unpaid, work. They deserve a pension as much as anybody.

I am not a political theorist (far from it!), and was speaking in principle, but it could be possible to build in 'payment holidays' for parents and carers.

A radical overhaul of a system would need a lot of fine-tuning, and this sort of thing would be one of the areas that would need to be looked at in detail, where the devil usually resides.

Ilovecheese

I don't recognise where the policies above come from. Are we going to find out today?

Only if you play nicely

I didn't give the source because I thought that might immediately create a bias.

The ‘what is left wing’ perception is obviously different for different people, but I think generally the public are cynical of being over-promised to. For example, a minimum wage which is more than 1.5 times the current will be looked on with suspicion. I think many would view writing off national debt and giving asylum to climate refugees as left wing policies too.

Speaking personally, I think the Labour Party has the opportunity to get it right on the NHS and sell that vision to the public, but political dogma within the party had overtaken the reality of the situation facing the NHS and social care, particularly in primary care. What’s happening in Wales (Moderate Labour, Corbyn style Labour never fitted with the political leadership here) is much more akin to the way services should work together in my opinion. I don’t think many understand what integrated care is, but if they needed it they would want it, and there’s a huge difference with it being provided though a not for profit social enterprise and by a profit making organisation.