Population losing faith with Johnson.

One of the reasons for Starmer quick rise to popularity

Keir Starmer QC has 60-page Govt document, hops from page to page, loving detail, citing numbers & firing questions.

Johnson has no idea what’s in the document, hates detail & has no jeering, booing Tories to back him.

This is Boris Johnson’s nightmare.

Let’s hope these ratings continue in the same direction beyond the poo storm that is the Tory’s handling of this pandemic - it would be good to see a shift back to the left of centre with Starmer at the helm.

Shockingly for a fervent old leftie, I dislike Boris less than I used to. He is so clearly not in charge, letting Cummings run the show (badly), that I see BJ as just the clown mouthpiece. He's wheeled out to talk and then wheeled back in again.

What I HATE is the dishonesty of having people in charge who were not elected. During this level of crisis, it's horrific to know someone with Cummings belief system is virtually deciding who lives and who dies with the messages he gets the government to put out.

Keir Starmer was in his element with that document. It was great to watch Boris squirm. I’m a Tory but I think Boris is a flake.

Keir Starmer QC, has been trained to be forensic in his cross examination in the courtroom, he is confident in playing to the audience. However, when he is not cross examining BJ or others, his policy and substance is weak.
People should beware of his ‘silken tongue’ as they say.

What are his policies joelsnan?

Whoa! ?A long time to the next GE you know WWM2
And the thing is ( and I do rather like Starmer) the majority of the voting public will not be voting for a party leader because of his page hopping love of detail, citing numbers, or forensic
Cross examining.
The fact is, it’s very early days for him and he is in the honeymoon period of office.

Whitewavemark2
Says Labour must reunite country - but cannot 'give up' scrutinising Tory Brexit
Would give EU citizens the right vote in future general elections
Was key architect of second referendum push - with Remain on ballot paper
Would scrap the Lords and have an elected chamber of regions and nations
Pledges a 'federal UK' with overhaul of the constitution
Has signalled support for a more proportional voting system
Would bring back EU citizens' freedom of movement to UK
Backed Labour's election stance on limited continued migration from EU
But in 2016 called for immigration to be cut after Brexit
End indefinite detention of migrants and close Yarl's Wood
New migration system should not be based on numbers or targett
Now says a trade deal must protect economy, jobs, workers and environment.
I hope he does manage to turn the party around or at least if the party does split, that he will remain leader of the ‘soft left’. However, I watched him throughout the leadership battle, he was the best of a bad bunch, but he did flip flopped his responses to questions to suit his audience.

Once we come through this coronovirus (learning to live with it) and the economy fires up, grateful for the absolute assistance provided for by Rishi Sunak and we Brexit at the end of the year the electorate will return to the polls at the next GE elated we are doing more than hoped for.

Boris might find his next majority is higher than 80!

I’ve just read that the water board have had to issue a statement regarding Boris Johnson’s comment that the virus is in the water supply. It’s like was have our very own Trump: speak first think later (or perhaps not even that).

Starmer now has a higher net leadership rating than Johnson and ..........

What does it matter? BJ is the PM. There wont be another GE for another 4.5 years and surely with a world wide pandemic, there are more important things to be thinking about.

Nice copy and paste job there Joelsnan - thank goodness for The Mirror. Many of the policies and substance you’ve quoted (without the quote marks) and the rest in that newspaper are far from weak.

Starmer has been very measured in Parliament so far he has not been outright confrontational, when the time comes he will be more than a match for Boris. He knows that Boris was only elected because of Brexit, good with catchy slogans and bluster, hopeless on detail. All that is in years to come the Labour Party have got to unite and head in the same direction before any gains are made.

It could easily be that Tory leader is changed before the next election, there are several in the cabinet that are better debaters.

Why would the Tory party want to change the leader that secured them a working majority in the last GE?

So why didn’t Labour sort itself out before the election, and vote in someone electable, like KS? Someone who would inspire confidence?
Instead, despite all the indications that he was going to be an electoral disaster, they stuck with a man who dithered and prevaricated over Brexit, and quite frankly gave the impression of a man who couldn’t find his a*se with both hands.

I bet he’s thinking his lucky stars that he doesn’t have to lead in a time of crisis.

It wasn’t won solely on Brexit David ( as am sure you know.)
Elections are not won in any case by the best orator or those who have a love of ‘forensic detail’.
The Labour Party are just not popular at the moment, and haven’t been for a long time now.Corbyn being leader put the tin lid on it of course.
Boris Johnson is just a popular person ? (I know!!) and quite liked by both Conservative and Labour voters.
Starmer may, or may not, do well, we shall have to see.I can’t see BJ being replaced.

He wont be the only one thankful that he's not the PM at this time Witzend.

At the last survey I could see on YouGov from 23/4, 34% had a positive opinion of Boris, 47% had a negative opinion of him and 17% had a neutral opinion. I can’t see anything more recent but perhaps I’ve missed something that translates to ‘popular person’ in a way that doesn’t suggest more people have a negative or neutral opinion of him.

Another thread, another Tory banging on about the previous leader of Labour.

It's early days but I can see that Starmer is Johnson's nightmare. I suspect he will be on the ropes more often than not. The most worrying thing is that Johnson and the people behind him are tasked with leading the country out of this nightmare. The country needs an effective opposition to hold the government to account. To date it's seems to be Piers Morgan, which is a bit concerning. It will be interesting to see how things develop.

Any other grandparents worried sick about their grandchildren being used as guinea-pigs in the rush to get schools & nurseries open with totally inadequate preparation? Scotland and N Ireland have stated unequivocally that schools won’t reopen before September. I’m assuming that also applies to nurseries. They’re not recommending face-masks for under 2s - but as we all know, it’s difficult enough to keep socks on a toddler, never mind face-masks.

The country also needs an effective government with the likes of Kenneth Clark, Dominic Grieve etc. I bet Johnson rues the day he got rid of them and replaced hem with wet behind the ears yes men. What is worrying is that I even find people like Raab and Eustace more statesmanlike than the PM.

Any other grandparents worried sick about their grandchildren being used as guinea-pigs in the rush to get schools & nurseries open with totally inadequate preparation?

I have 2 grandchildren who are in the specified years that are due back

Also my youngest daughter teaches in Year 1 and daughter-in-law is a Receptionist teacher so both due back at work.

Not very worried, mildly apprehensive more like.

Life does have to start again

We can't just stay in Lockdown forever or we'll be dying of other things.

The schools my relatives work in have been doing work throughout this pandemic on how they will be able to restart. There's a lot goes in behind the scenes.

I believe some parents might opt not to send the little ones back which is their choice, No fines either.

I think I'd have preferred a September start but it's not my choice!

I’m also very worried about this. The basic groundwork to get children safely back to school simply hasn’t been done. And very many of our current school buildings are old and poorly-maintained because of cash shortage over the years. It could be almost impossible to make some of them safe, I’d say.