Keir Starmer, yearly review

Casdon

varian

Casdon

varian

Starmer is beginning to look totally unprincipled.

He is not interested in democracy but would rather keep FPTP in the hope that next time or the time after or the time after that the Labour Party will be elected by a process of "buggins turn" and it won't bother him if the majority don't vote Labour as long as our sham democracy gives him a win.

Disgraceful.

FPTP is a Liberal Democrat policy varian. It is not currently a Labour policy. It does matter to Labour policy what Labour voters think of course, but you aren’t going to influence Labour Party policy by badmouthing from the sidelines because everybody knows you are a Lib Dem.. You’d be far better mounting a positive campaign and expending your energy persuading people to vote Lib Dem.

FPTP is certainly NOT LibDem policy as you must know. We support democracy - meaning Proportional Representation which would prevent dictatorship by a minority.

At the last Labour Party conference the overwhelming majority of both constituency and unions reps voted to change to PR.

I urge everyone to support the Liberal Democrats and vote LibDem everywhere the LibDem candidate could win but until we have PR, progressive voters need to vote tactically for the candidate in their constituency best placed to defeat the Tory.

You might like to listen to this podcast from the New Statesman.

www.newstatesman.com/podcasts/new-statesman-podcast/2023/01/labour-change-voting-system

Sorry, getting my abbreviations mixed up, you’re right, I meant PR. Members of the Labour Party did vote in favour of PR at the last Labour conference, but not all voted for motions get into policy, as you are aware - lots of motions are supported, only some are adopted to manage the agenda and priorities, that’s how it works. It’s not to say it won’t be adopted in the future, but it’s not going to make any difference if members of other parties agree or not was the point I was trying to make,

So why are you angry with Starmer for not carrying out an LD policy which is not, at this point, a Labour policy

That's just a bit weird.

In Somerset , a very rural county, the voters clearly do not regard the Liberal Democrats policies as "having an adverse view of country life" .

In May 2022 the Councillors elected to the new Somerset Unitary Authority were -
61 Liberal Democrats
36 Conservative
5 Green
5 Labour
3 Independent

My last post was in response to ExperiencedNotOld Sun 08-Jan-23 14:03:11

DaisyAnne

I so nearly said that but I have had enough attacks to last a lifetime from the "leftist voters".

DaisyAnne

I don't think you're being attacked so much as challenged on the assumptions you make about people's voting habits.

Unless they tell you, you surely can't know their political affiliation?

If someone champions a particular policy or pledge from a party, it doesn't necessarily mean that they vote for them by default.

'On a day when Rishi Sunak is under fire for his relationship to private health care, it beggars belief that the Labour leadership is choosing to embrace the role of the private sector in the NHS,' the Momentum spokesperson said.

'Not only does this undermine the NHS's universal public sector principle, but it doubles down on a key driving force for the crisis we are currently suffering - the damaging role of profit-making companies into public health.

'For Keir Starmer to go back on his leadership pledge to end NHS outsourcing is morally wrong and politically self-defeating.'

Trouble int’ Labout mill then.

Whilst I can see he can’t being doing right as someone will always perceive a wrong, how will he escape the engrained will of some party members.

ExperiencedNotOld

'On a day when Rishi Sunak is under fire for his relationship to private health care, it beggars belief that the Labour leadership is choosing to embrace the role of the private sector in the NHS,' the Momentum spokesperson said.

'Not only does this undermine the NHS's universal public sector principle, but it doubles down on a key driving force for the crisis we are currently suffering - the damaging role of profit-making companies into public health.

'For Keir Starmer to go back on his leadership pledge to end NHS outsourcing is morally wrong and politically self-defeating.'

Trouble int’ Labout mill then.

Whilst I can see he can’t being doing right as someone will always perceive a wrong, how will he escape the engrained will of some party members.

'For Keir Starmer to go back on his leadership pledge to end NHS outsourcing is morally wrong and politically self-defeating.'

I think it is morally wrong - to make pledges and then not honour them. If he wasn't savvy enough to know he couldn't honour such an undertaking (I realise it would be difficult), then he shouldn't have made the assurance.

However, the Tories under the baton of Boris Johnson, famously now, hinted at there being an extra £350 million per week to fund the NHS if we left the EU. Which we did, and there isn't.

... but it never did 'im any 'arm... some in the party - not to mention the electorate - are gagging for his return to the premiership.

Whatever misgivings I have about Starmer at least I think he’s capable, or will be and a decent sort.Boring? Yeah maybe, but boring’s not a bad thing with politicians is it? After the excitement of dear old Boris, ahem! Then the female blonde bombshell.Maybe Sunak’s a bit boring too, but that can only be good.😁

Starmer is a principled pragmatist.

it’s looking as though many people will vote for the candidate who will beat the conservative candidate

The LP has some good mp’s. We need the tories out, it’s simple. They’ve destroyed all our public services. Their behaviour suggests They don’t care about the state of the country .
Starmer has to appeal to my neighbours in this red wall seat. Corbyn was the name mentioned most often to those of us canvassing for Labour last time. ‘I’ll never vote Labour with yon mon in charge’ .

Keir can’t seems to be getting it in the neck from all sides on Facebook. Remainers accuse him of selling out and brexiters accuse him of wanting to take us back into the EU.

Yes, so many who claim to want the tories out doing all they can to undermine the Labour leader.

ExperiencedNotOld

'On a day when Rishi Sunak is under fire for his relationship to private health care, it beggars belief that the Labour leadership is choosing to embrace the role of the private sector in the NHS,' the Momentum spokesperson said.

'Not only does this undermine the NHS's universal public sector principle, but it doubles down on a key driving force for the crisis we are currently suffering - the damaging role of profit-making companies into public health.

'For Keir Starmer to go back on his leadership pledge to end NHS outsourcing is morally wrong and politically self-defeating.'

Trouble int’ Labout mill then.

Whilst I can see he can’t being doing right as someone will always perceive a wrong, how will he escape the engrained will of some party members.

I think you have misunderstood quite comprehensively what is being proposed. The NHS cannot significantly reduce waiting lists, because there are not the staff, beds, operating theatres or diagnostic resources to do everything that is needed within the NHS now. Using the private sector for the next few years to pick up the shortfall in NHS capacity is the only way of reducing waiting lists. It will take 10 years to rebuild the NHS and remodel on a fully public sector model. This is a pragmatic approach which will be sticking in the Labour leadership’s craw, but they are putting the population need above principle.

Momentum is the Corbyn wing

And are now marginalised within the labour party.

There are certainly less of them in our clp

Sorry Galaxy - I’m fed up that the expectation was everyone support Corbyn, which as a LP member, I did but that doesn’t continue with the current leadrr

m.youtube.com/watch?v=prIaLxB55cI

Dr Bob Gill explains that Starmer wants privatised NHS, public services.
People have to wake up he wants the same as tories but won’t be as bad as the Tory government.

So vote Starmer then when Starmer government finished

The left should get together and bring change needed.

You dont need to apologise to me Iam64 . My CLP is a much calmer place to be.

Oh, I quite see what’s happing Caslon.

And I quite agree that those that can afford it should pay for a service if they choose. What I am surprised by is such a bald statement as there will be many that disagree with that principle.

Iam64

Starmer is a principled pragmatist.

it’s looking as though many people will vote for the candidate who will beat the conservative candidate

The LP has some good mp’s. We need the tories out, it’s simple. They’ve destroyed all our public services. Their behaviour suggests They don’t care about the state of the country .
Starmer has to appeal to my neighbours in this red wall seat. Corbyn was the name mentioned most often to those of us canvassing for Labour last time. ‘I’ll never vote Labour with yon mon in charge’ .

I agree with your post Iam64. (although I don't know your neighbours )

Yes, so many who claim to want the tories out doing all they can to undermine the Labour leader.

And this one.

MayBee70

Keir can’t seems to be getting it in the neck from all sides on Facebook. Remainers accuse him of selling out and brexiters accuse him of wanting to take us back into the EU.

Yes, I noticed that, too.

I said in another comment that he was trying to run with both hare and hounds and suggested that, ultimately, it wouldn't work. Most seem to disagree.

My argument is that we are too divided now as a nation to unite under any one party. It was possible I suppose, prior to Cameron's pledge to hold a referendum, where a broad centrist stance was viable. But I think Brexit was a Pandora's Box; for the first time people felt that their vote would actually count, and all the simmering rage and resentment against the Tories, Austerity, Cameron himself, the EU, the poverty in de-industrialised areas, the Metropolitan 'elite', immigrants, etc, etc - bubbled over. It was legitimised and given a 'voice'. Some Leave voters have admitted that they voted for Brexit to "sock it" to Cameron... I think the referendum became a repository for all the pent up rage that many disadvantaged people felt and, judging by the comments I've read, and heard, prior to the vote as well as after it, the EU was the perfect punch-bag. You might remember that Boris Johnson himself once said that he believed our problems did not all stem from Brussels, but were home-grown. And then he gave people the opportunity to blame Brussels because being in the hot-seat he couldn't allow the government to come under fire!
This is of course my own purely subjective opinion, and I know others will disagree.
I would still vote for Starmer and his party if Labour were likely to win in my constituency because I want to see this current government out of office. But they (Labour) don't stand a chance in my area, so it will have to be a tactical vote.
The election's a long way off, and who knows what "fresh hell" will be unleashed before then! Regardless, I think Starmer is going to have a very difficult tenure if he wins because, as you say, Remainers think he's sold them down the river, and the Brexiters he's courting, view him with suspicion - in spite of his assurances that it's a done deal and he's going to make it "work". He's given himself a tightrope, and I think he'll fall off it because I genuinely believe you have to choose either the hare or the hounds - if you don't 'deliver' to both, they'll both turn on you in the end!

God post, Dickens.

I largely agree with you about the reasons for the Leave vote, though I still don't understand why so many older voters, whose lives, in the main, were perfectly comfortable and not so adversely affected by tory austerity, voted for it. And who are still the largest group of those who still think that Brexit is a good thing.

I was prepared to accept Starmer choosing a more centrist line, if only to keep the right wing media off his back, but some of the stuff he and his shadow ministers have come out with, like Wes Streeting's latest pronouncements on GPs, have been very hard to reconcile even with that explanation of his caution.

I don't think his intentions are bad, just that he seems to be too much in thrall to the neoliberal market economy view of the world to bring about much change.

I will vote Labour, but in no great hope of much improvement in rebalancing society towards a more fair share for all of even the basics for a reasonable life.

I do think the Brexit issue is being overstated, nobody is going to take us back into the EU in the foreseeable future, maybe in 10 yrs time there will be a move closer and we accept some of their regulations.
The EU has consistently stood firm “accept our laws and regulations or go your own way” they don’t compromise.

I do think the Brexit issue is being overstated,

In what way has i been overstated, and by whom, KAtie59?

Dickens

MayBee70

Keir can’t seems to be getting it in the neck from all sides on Facebook. Remainers accuse him of selling out and brexiters accuse him of wanting to take us back into the EU.

Yes, I noticed that, too.

I said in another comment that he was trying to run with both hare and hounds and suggested that, ultimately, it wouldn't work. Most seem to disagree.

My argument is that we are too divided now as a nation to unite under any one party. It was possible I suppose, prior to Cameron's pledge to hold a referendum, where a broad centrist stance was viable. But I think Brexit was a Pandora's Box; for the first time people felt that their vote would actually count, and all the simmering rage and resentment against the Tories, Austerity, Cameron himself, the EU, the poverty in de-industrialised areas, the Metropolitan 'elite', immigrants, etc, etc - bubbled over. It was legitimised and given a 'voice'. Some Leave voters have admitted that they voted for Brexit to "sock it" to Cameron... I think the referendum became a repository for all the pent up rage that many disadvantaged people felt and, judging by the comments I've read, and heard, prior to the vote as well as after it, the EU was the perfect punch-bag. You might remember that Boris Johnson himself once said that he believed our problems did not all stem from Brussels, but were home-grown. And then he gave people the opportunity to blame Brussels because being in the hot-seat he couldn't allow the government to come under fire!
This is of course my own purely subjective opinion, and I know others will disagree.
I would still vote for Starmer and his party if Labour were likely to win in my constituency because I want to see this current government out of office. But they (Labour) don't stand a chance in my area, so it will have to be a tactical vote.
The election's a long way off, and who knows what "fresh hell" will be unleashed before then! Regardless, I think Starmer is going to have a very difficult tenure if he wins because, as you say, Remainers think he's sold them down the river, and the Brexiters he's courting, view him with suspicion - in spite of his assurances that it's a done deal and he's going to make it "work". He's given himself a tightrope, and I think he'll fall off it because I genuinely believe you have to choose either the hare or the hounds - if you don't 'deliver' to both, they'll both turn on you in the end!

I’m not so sure now that it’s going to be as much of an issue as it was even a year ago, because the tide is turning amongst voters, and the EU will be pleased that the UK government has changed to one which is more prepared to negotiate.
c.newsnow.co.uk/A/1160194107?-850:14274
If Starmer can walk the path of improving relationships, and trading agreements with Europe, and demonstrate that the economic loss to the UK has lessened as a result he will be in a win, win situation. It’s not going to be easy, but the doors are definitely open both with the EU and voters for that to happen. He’d be a fool to promise the earth at this stage.