Anyone understand why Johnson is so far ahead in the polls?

Galaxy and Anniebach are right to point to our recent history. I’d like to see Starmer as prime minister but feel we are likely to see him, like Kinnock, as a reformer. He became leader after a terrible defeat, the direct result of Corbyn, who was distrusted, disliked and despised by many. Starmer is trying to unite a party where some members and former voters prefer a Conservative government. Attempting this during a pandemic where instinctively, most want to support its governments efforts.
Johnson is taking credit for the nhs/l.a/volunteers making the vaccine roll out successful. People are more focussed on that than the corruption around contracts for friends.

Kinnock did do a good job, he had the far left to cope with

Why does the Labour Party elect leaders like Foot and Corbyn, whose outstanding achuevement is to make the party unelectable for 15 years r so?

One mistake is understandable, but to do it twice, suggests a failure to learn from previous mistakes and does not bode well for the future.

MOnica, I liked Foot, he was a man of integrity. I saw Corbyn on 3 hustings during the first leadership campaign he won. He was popular in those halls but it was obvious to me he’d never win an election. What a different position we’d be in if either Yvette or Andy had become leader then.
My worry is that Starmer’s attempt to unite the LP is doomed because of the splits that remain. It’s clear many who claim to be on the left would rather see this country governed by Conservatives than support the leader we have.

Because Starmer (who I had high hopes of) has turned out be a very disappointing leader of the opposition. If there was an election tomorrow I probably wouldn’t vote because I couldn’t bring myself to vote for either of them.

I will be voting conservative tomorrow. The only reason being: to try and stop planning permission to build on beautiful green belt land.

MerylStreep

I will be voting conservative tomorrow. The only reason being: to try and stop planning permission to build on beautiful green belt land.

Interesting because in my area it's the Conservatives who want to do the building. The main opposition party is trying to stop them.

When Kinnock became leader the far left were working against
him, the same is happening now.

Starmer becomes leader then came the pandemic , Johnson on
tv every week, the majority do not sit watching PMQ,.

The brexit campaign, Johnson on his bus, Corbyn went on holiday.

The far left blame the right wing press for Corbyn’s defeat, was there no right wing press after the disastrous 1935 election ?

Michael Foot was an honest man

Because he is better than the opposition (all as much good as a chocolate tea pot!) and the vaccine roll out has been brilliant. I actually think he has done well considering it was unknown territory. AND I couldn’t care less about his wall paper!!!!!

Watching our local election with interest tomorrow, Lib Dem have bern in charge for 12 years, building over and above central governments targets. The latest is a 3,000 unit site which they bought and gave themselves planning permission for, a huge debt. There’s a lot of local unrest, whether that translates into votes, we’ll see.

MerylStreep and growstuff your posts epitomise the problem.
Under our Labour council, we have houses currently being built on green belt land. I’m not sure the Conservatives wouldn’t do the same. So which way should I vote on those grounds?

MaggieTulliver

Because Starmer (who I had high hopes of) has turned out be a very disappointing leader of the opposition. If there was an election tomorrow I probably wouldn’t vote because I couldn’t bring myself to vote for either of them.

Agree Very low poll ratings for Starmer, you can't wonder at it.

Papering Over The Cracks? The Beginning of the End for Boris Johnson

rachaelswindon.blogspot.com/2021/05/papering-over-cracks-beginning-of-end.html?spref=tw

The red wall Tory vote has been a long time building with its roots in the Thatcher era and before.

Teeside was central to much of the wealth of the U.K. throughout the first part of the 20th century, including production like petrochemicals, mining, steel making etc.

In the 1980s and the beginning of globalisation of capital and neoliberal politics, capital rapidly shifted its resource to countries where production could be carried out at much reduced costs.

Thousands of well paid, permanent jobs evaporated almost overnight and were replaced by often poorly paid unreliable non-unionised jobs in the service sector.

The cultural and social experience of the working classes in the various industrial sectors, built up over hundreds of years was hit hard. The final nail came when the blast furnace was shut in 2015.

Then austerity in the early 2010s hit the poorest and those least able to cope. The Tories weren’t worried as there were no votes to be had in Teeside. Welfare was hit hard and there was no plan or real economic policy to help this area.

The stage was set for a political earthquake.

I think Boris is high in the polls because people have been terrified of the pandemic. He appeared to maintain a leadership stance on the downing street briefings last year. Admittedly helped greatly by the impressive scientists. Yes there was,in hindsight, a delay in starting lockdown , getting ppe, and care home residents sent home without adequate cover to protect other residents from infection. It was all a tragic learning curve on how to deal with a pandemic.
But would another prime minister coped any better given the circumstances ?
Now with the success of the vaccine rollout people seem uninterested about possible sleaze enquiries on Boris.
Maybe if I had been still working in the NHS or been personally affected by bereavement from the pandemic I would maybe have different views on him.

I can't believe that anyone thinks Johnson showed leadership during the worst days of the pandemic. Just because he was on stage with a couple of sensible scientists doesn't mean he was leading anyone anywhere, except to hell in a hand cart. The "how would anyone else have coped better" excuse has worn thin.

That said, I think you have summed up the situation correctly Jaffacake2 in respect of why he is riding high in the polls.

Then austerity in the early 2010s hit the poorest and those least able to cope. The Tories weren’t worried as there were no votes to be had in Teeside. Welfare was hit hard and there was no plan or real economic policy to help this area

And because Labour were the predominant political force at local level the tories did little for them because there was no votes in it for them (Cameron was quite explicit about this with his comment about there being no votes to be gained from building council housing because it was used by Labour voters.) It is Labour that is being blamed for the cuts in council spending and neglectmoo of the region because they had the highest profile locally. How many people would connect cuts in local services to the party in national government rather than to the party dominating the local council?

It was all a tragic learning curve on how to deal with a pandemic.
But would another prime minister coped any better given the circumstances ??

I am, quite frankly, totally peed off by this pathetic justification for Johnson's total mishandling of the pandemic. I'm not getting at you in particular, Jaffacake, it's been repeated ad infinitum over the past year by various posters. Leaders in other countries did cope better because they took the whole thing very seriously, took lessons from the most effective ways demonstrated in the past for controlling highly infectious diseases and clamped down hard and early.

I can't think that any other PM we have had in my lifetime would have wasted so much time in the early stages and been so resistant to following the advice of the experts..

M0nica

I think it would be more helpful if the Labour Party spent less time criticising their ex-supporters who now vote Conservative and instead really talked to them to find out what the party has to do to make itself electable again - and then do it.

It is not good for any country to become a one party state, which is what we are at the moment.

I admit that I don't follow all the Labout Party says all the time but I haven't seen them do this but surely this thread is about GN members opinions?

It is certainly not good for the country to become a one party state but then I don't think it's good for us to be the same two party state either. People's view of politics is so much more nuenced than that.

Urmstongran

SIR KEIR STARMER has pleaded for more time to turn his party’s fortunes around after a poll showed that the Conservative Party had a 17-point lead on Labour ahead of tomorrow’s by-election in Hartlepool.

I didn't hear him "pleading". When was that Urmstongran? I saw him comment on the vaccine bounce and the fact that the LP has lost four (I think it's four) GE's in a row and that it will take more than a year [a pandemic year] to put things right.

He has said "stop the cronyism, stop the abuse of tax payers money and stop the wasteful outsourcing of contracts" but I feel happy with that view.

[my words]

Anniebach

It took 14 years for the Labour Party to become electable after
1983, Starmer has been leader for a year.

Exactly. As long as he is going in the right direction, although not an LP member, I will be happy with the time he needs. I am hoping that, like Biden, he is well prepared when the day comes.

maizie yes and I think in order to understand why Johnson is popular in Teeside you can’t do so without first understanding what caused the working class to vote for Brexit in such large numbers in Teeside - 70%

So the working class experience during the past 40 years in Teeside is embedded in low wages, the privatisation of and cuts to welfare services, the deregulation of the economy - unions hit hard - growing inequality etc. All as a result of neo-liberal politics and economics. The workers cultural and social experience of strong unions represented in parliament by a Labour MP no longer existed as a result of these economic policies. There was no longer a connection to the industrial base.

Sorry this is a bit bitty but I’m cooking as well as other stuff.

It took Boris Johnson six months after he became party leader to turn round Theresa May’s virtual hung parliament into an eighty seat majority.

Keir Starmer had been leader for a year, still trailing in the Polls?

If a leader has the heart of the electorate he/she will become PM.

Iam64 Wed 05-May-21 08:23:06
He became leader after a terrible defeat, the direct result of Corbyn, who was distrusted, disliked and despised by many.

I think we do have to remember that a large number of members didn't distrust him, liked him and didn't despise him.

As a none party member, I was interested in what he had to say. He made some of the original principles clearer than many have over the years but how he intended to use them in ways I found anachronistic; it was as if we needed exactly what we needed in 1945, forgetting that even that acclaimed government was followed by four Conservative governments.

Someone has to find a way to talk to a modern audience - although I'm not sure that anyone will be able to convince the man I saw this morning saying Johnson is "more like us". That's just sad if this man sees himself a liar and a rogue - and some do think that is clever -perhaps those are the people who make up this swing to the conservatives

If a leader has the heart of the electorate he/she will become PM.

I will never desist from pointing out that Johnson only 'had the heart' of less than half of the electorate. 43%.

57% of the electorate didn't want him. I make that a majority.

And please, no smug clever clogs needs to give me a lecture on how the FPTP works. I am 70. I have voted in every general election since I was 21. I KNOW HOW IT WORKS

If a leader has the heart of the electorate he/she will become PM.

So these days a leader has to act like a pop star? Ah well, now I know this country will go to the dogs.