Keir Starmer

[HRN]

Just like America. The fiscally "responsible" parties screw things up so bad that people finally look left, so they come in and have to attempt to undo the damage with horrendously unpopular decisions.

The rightist party throws out populist opposition and will get into power just as things start to pick up and ride that wave right onto the rocks, for the cycle to begin again.

Starmer is barely even left of centre though.

 

[KolaKubes]

Just like America. The fiscally "responsible" parties screw things up so bad that people finally look left, so they come in and have to attempt to undo the damage with horrendously unpopular decisions.

The rightist party throws out populist opposition and will get into power just as things start to pick up and ride that wave right onto the rocks, for the cycle to begin again.

Starmer is barely even left of centre though.

Labour had the option of staying out here after the Celtic tiger crash and didn’t. A generational error.

 

[HRN]

Labour had the option of staying out here after the Celtic tiger crash and didn’t. A generational error.

Gave us the rise of SF too.

This nonsense that a party must go into government.
We'd have had a Labour led government by now

 

[How bad boy]

https://twitter.com/x/status/1999026391606772019

That clarification comment is disingenous. The £2 bus price cap was implemented as a temporary measure. It was then extended in Oct 24 until Dec 24, at which point it was put up to £3.

The government was paying the difference between the price cap and what private companies decided the price should be on that route. Estimates are they reduced what they were spending on it from half a billion a year to £150M. Some more deprived parts of the country, like the North East, got a £2.50 price cap.
I'd argue it was still probably quite good value for money, especially when compared with things like spending on new road infrastructure. But it didn't have to be extended at all, it was a temporary measure.


Incidentally, I think Starmer and Reeves are doing an ok job overall, Starmer doing very well with foreign affairs, Reeves has built a lot of credibility with the bond markets.


If you read the press on them though, you'd swear they spend the day murdering kittens. I think Starmer only has a year or so to go, he's now electoral poison, but the MPs don't want the Labour party to give the leadership position to a headbanger. Which is what the Labour party would probably do if it was an open vote today, the overall party is much further to the left of Starmer...

 

[knockfiarna]

Under more pressure today as Scottish labour leader calls on him to resign

 

[jams]

wonderful that this is only the second story on the BBC UK news - Kate and William as worried about Andrew's relationship to Epstein.

 

[How bad boy]

There's a pundit I particularly like (Phil Moorhouse) have Starmer as done, it's just a matter of time and Angela Rayner will be the replacement, if she gets cleared by HMRC of wrongdoing (as is expected, what she did was nowhere close to prosecution worthy).


I seriously doubt he's going to make the election, made too many mistakes politically. It's a shame, they're doing good stuff.

But expect the new leader to distance themselves from those mistakes like PIP, winter fuel, etc... Would put the chances of success reasonably high. There's a bunch of economic indicators that are starting to look good, headline inflation is due to drop rapidly over next few months, wage growth is pretty healthy, GDP per capita is finally starting to grow, immigration is down at a perfectly reasonable 200k or so a year.
Starmer (and thus Reeves) going would result in a spike in bond markets, but unless they really cock up the timing, it should calm down in a few months.


It's almost certainly going to be Rayner, there's a few potentials on the left of the party (Lucy Powell, Emily Thornbury), ayner is much stronger than they are. Streeting won't get it because the party is much further left than he is.

 

[HRN]

He seems like a great number 2 but not a "leader" in the days of soundbites and optics.
He's also not doing enough to "Sell" the work they are actually doing and why.

I get that if you're explaining then you're losing, but you still need to manage the message a bit better

 

[knockfiarna]

He seems like a great number 2 but not a "leader" in the days of soundbites and optics.
He's also not doing enough to "Sell" the work they are actually doing and why.

I get that if you're explaining then you're losing, but you still need to manage the message a bit better

Think he just lacks the charisma and presence to hold people's attention, even with the mess the tories were with Johnson Truss and sunak he really failed to capitalise and nail them .
People will point to the last election and the big majority achieved but many many people just wanted rid of the tories and saw labour as the conduit to that goal.it really wasn't down to their policy platform

 

[How bad boy]

He seems like a great number 2 but not a "leader" in the days of soundbites and optics.
He's also not doing enough to "Sell" the work they are actually doing and why.

I get that if you're explaining then you're losing, but you still need to manage the message a bit better

Absolutely, he's got no shiny-shiny.

Have met him in person, seems like a nice chap, but charismatic is not a term I'd use to describe him.

The bigger problem though is that he's had a dreadful comms team. They just don't get social media at all, in any way, shape or form. As an example, on the official Labour youtube channel (https://www.youtube.com/@labourparty/videos), the vast majority of videos have fewer than 2k views.

That's pretty pathetic. The very worst Farage videos still get 10k views, most get ~50-200k

https://www.youtube.com/@NigelFarageOfficial/videos