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@Geof_cox might have a good view here as he is probably more left-leaning than I am and more politically astute but so far, apart from the occasional victory during PMQs (which washes off Johnson like water from the proverbial duck), Starmer has been a damp squib.
No coherent vision for Labour or the UK, too reluctant to even mention the âBâ word, no longer able to cash in on being ânot Corbynâ, too reluctant to work with other parties.
Heâs brilliant in so many dimensions but I donât think heâs up to the job of Labour leader/LOTO. Heâd be a good PM, I think, but he has to get there first.
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Sadly Starmer seems to think he is in a courtroom and Mr Speaker the judge. He lays out his argument amd then shuts up expecting the judge to take the lead. He just doesnt have the belly for the fight.
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Havenât watched PMQs for ages (canât stand the sight nor sound of Doris). Doesnât he look âdishevelledâ and âshiftyâ
Awful man.
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@Corona @anon88169868
John,/Paul, Iâm curious to know what theatrics you are looking for in Keir/LOTO.
Is it just in PMQs, or are you looking for explosive media exposure?
The Brexit horse has bolted, so politically pointless to engage on this for at least 10 years. Corbyn isnât even worth mentioning. These are very backward perspectives rather than forward looking.
SNP will be joining the EU in 5 years and the LibDems flip-flop with zero integrity - there are no other parties to work with.
Do you want him to ramble on evasively like Boris?
For example, is there someone elseâs personality (present or past) that you think would be more suitable?
No not looking for theatrics but a feeling that Starmer knows where he wants to take Labour and where he wants to take the UK.
As for Brexit is done - yes weâve left but it is an ongoing process and Starmer should be picking up on every failing of the Tories to implement it well and cooperate with the EU.
I wasnât saying he should be at all bothered by Corbyn - just that the political capital of being ânot Corbynâ was a very short term benefit.
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Socially, he has clearly demonstrated a cohesive rather than divided country e.g. decisive action against anti-semitism, islamophobia, clear signals of diversity in his shadow-cabinet etc etc
Economically, he is stuck with Brexit/Withdrawal Agreement which is not going to be re-negotiated anytime soon and severely limits the countryâs ability to trade with closest neighbour and only leaves wiggle room with far-flung continents (Aus/Asia, Nth America etc)
At the same time trying to join rifts from within his own party to put forward a cohesive party for the next election.
So, I would say he has a clear strategy on the things he has control over.
John, Iâm not sure we were watching the same PMQs. I thought he played like a game of chess, opening gambit, kept going back with facts to discredit the effects of austerity, 6 times he spoke to challenge.
For the topic of sexual violence I would hope that facts and coherent arguments and asking the PM to apologise are preferable to bluff, bluster and witty one-liners.
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Thatâs not a policy, itâs an aspiration and more-so one which no sane person would advocate for the contrary (i.e a divided nation).
But he is not prevented from pointing out what a damaging approach Johnson is taking, and battering Johnson with this at every opportunity - and lets face it Johnson canât be bothered with the constraints of his own agreement.
I would disagree.
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@anon88169868 Paul, thatâs why these forums are so interesting.
I thought you were looking for visions rather than specific policies.
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Yes, but he needs to come across with more personality. You cannot have a Leader if he doesnât attract followers.
It is a political tightrope, but at the moment it seems he is too aware of the safety net.
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I understand and to some extent share the satisfaction of seeing Starmerâs superiority to Johnson in debate - but at the same time, right from the start of his leadership, and the enthusiastic reception of his âforensicâ questioning by the commentariat, the still voice of common-sense realism in me has been saying ânone of this mattersâ.
It does matter, of course, among the couple-of hundred-thousand people in the UK that watch Newsnight - but in terms of votes, I estimate that there is a possibility that perhaps a very few thousand might have been won over.
And on the other hand, I also suspect that when clips are shown outside the Newsnight devotee bubble, for every voter that admires the skill Starmer exhibits, to hundreds of others he comes across as another toff in a public-school debating society - the net effect being just more alienation from politics in general, more feeling that âtheyâre all the sameâ. And in a way, they are. (Corbyn of course was just the opposite: especially in his early PQMs unpolished, hesitant, unable to play the usual clever games - and for this reason much more effective as far as most voters were concerned. Unfortunately myopic advisers, the media and the UK establishment in general ultimately curtailed his originality, and took him from the largest, fastest swing to Labour in history in 2017 to the 2019 defeat - although even in the very adverse circumstances of 2019 Labour would have won easily without the pensioner vote.)
For some governments, of course - even the odd Tory - it would matter in other ways, because they valued the old standards of public life and discourse, and wanted to avoid being caught out in dishonesty, inconsistency, self or party or donor interest, corruption, etc - but that world has gone.
The truth is that Labour has only ever won by motivating the disillusioned, hard-pressed, working-age voters (as opposed to pensioners who turn out for the Tories whatever) - precisely the people that didnât vote Tory, but stayed at home in Hartlepool - and Labour has only ever acieved this motivation with a bold, transformational, hopeful heartfelt message. This is really what links the otherwise very different successes of Attlee in 1945, Wilson in the 60s and 70s, and Blair in the 1990s and 00s - and Corbyn (almost) in 2017.
Could Starmer lead a Labour Party like this? - only if he moves decisively left, but I doubt it.
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Itâs PMQs. Not even those inside the Westminster bubble watch it. They could defile a bus load of nuns and conduct Satanic rituals live in Parliament TV and the electorate would only know if it was shown on Loose Women.
Even then, most would only utter âWestminster, innitâŚâ and wait for more on whichever Z lister has been caught doing unspeakable things with a Hornby InterCity 125 power car on his/her OnlyFans channel.
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the mind boggles⌠
Either would be good.
Starmer says he wants a âfair societyâ - but even the Tories say that sort of thing. Pausing to note that I am more likely to believe it of Starmer than of Johnson the problem is that no-one in their right mind would fight a political campaign saying that they want an unfair society so itâs a bit on a non-policy. Itâs laudable but does not add substance.
This is precisely what worries me, as you say very few people, even in the Westminster bubble, care much about PMQs. Johnson knows this and so treats it with disdain.
Maybe - but itâs one of his problems. The Labour centrists already think he is a bit left wing, the Labour left think he is a closet Tory and the RW media hound him on the âSirâ instilling (successfully) even in Labour supporters that he is one of the âprivileged eliteâ that they see as the problem (when the truth is he started out with a modest background and got where he is on merit - about the polar opposite of Johnson and his cronies).
Unless Labour figure out how to break through in the media they will get nowhere - this has been made worse by Johnsonâs majority which means there is actually little Starmer can do in practice and the pandemic which has made Labourâs position even less relevant (see also: 80 seat majority).
I donât envy him the task. Corbynâs leadership made it an order of magnitude harder unfortunately and the current situation magnifies that but I had hoped to see something of how he would address all this and Iâm not sure that I do.
I am really disappointed in Starmer and I think you are spot on in your analysis.
I donât see what he stands for and furthermore in his wish to win back the red wall/blue wall (whatever you want to call it) it seems like he is pursuing policy led by focus groups rather than by inspiring leadership. Itâs reactive and simplistic.
In doing so he is going for that damp squib of an aspiration of just being slightly less bad than the tories.
I know we disagree on Jeremy Corbyn but he did invigorate a big base of new voters. The following article in the Guardian is interesting and further sums up the problems Starmer has created.
@ChrisM I donât agree he has done a good job tackling anti-Semitism. He has successfully reinforced the view that criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic and created a rod for his own back. And in so doing he has completely disaffected the Muslim vote as we will see in the upcoming by-election in Batley and Spen.
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Maybe a reference to Hornby having a third rail 
This is indeed the issue. All the evidence is that the Corbyn policy set, at least in 2017, was very popular with the public - not only the evidence of the swing in the actual campaign despite media misrepresentation, but also polling on the individual policies; moreover, Corbyn vastly expanded and remotivated the activist base, and in so doing both resolved Labourâs financial difficulties and generated a lot of campaign funding.
The evidence inside Labour is crystal clear (Iâm in contact with quite a few members, including a couple of MPs; my sister is a branch chair) - and itâs also the evidence from left parties in many countries, including surprisingly the US Democrats where âsquadâ members have won through: it is possible to circumvent media opposition only with a huge activist base constantly engaged, over years, in community organising - and not just in politics, but in all kinds of community initiatives.
But the problem is that the Labour right is scared to death of a big activist base - not so much because activists always tend to the left, but because such a base poses challenges to power-bases MPs, officials, etc, have carefully cultivated for years.
So what do they do?
They imagine, against all the evidence, that they can sneak into office under the media radar with an anaemic leadership.
They lose a constituency that was won under more left-wing previous leaderships, and conclude the party needs to move further away from the left.
They look at the very positive views of radical left policies in opinion surveys, and the increasingly negative views of the leadership, and conclude itâs the policies that are wrong.
They see the UK electorate vote for the most extreme right-wing government for a century, and desert the explicitly centrist LibDems almost completely, and conclude the electorate is still centrist.
And, of course, they focus on their internal frights and fights, and the problems created by the party not having any money left any more - instead, precisely, of looking squarely at what actually needs to be done.
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@Jane_Williamson
Very true Jane, I think I am now beginning to see where everyone is coming from.
I also underestimated @Geof_Cox Geofâs points too - itâs more about getting marks on ballot papers at the end of the day (sorry Geof, I know that was oversimplified).
It is such as shame; itâs almost as if the Enlightenment was a waste of time; the masses just seem to want to see a public witch-burning or a guillotine rather than a steady-hand at the helm.
I suppose one can debate this forever, but getting down to practicalities, I think whatâs needed to get rid of the tories is a smoking gun.
Watching Newsnight just now and it is also highlighting violence against women (as Starmer did at PMQs). The Government has declined to participate in the discussion. So these bastards donât turn up on Ch4, and now they donât turn up on the BBC. However they fall over themselves to claim credit for the vaccine rollout (which was down to the NHS, Local Authorities and volunteers, not any politician nor Brexit) or how wonderful the shitty trade deal with Oz is.
Maybe Starmer has a lever now, Tory austerity nobbling the police, the courts and the prosecution service has been a disaster (not in the bucolic home counties stockbroker belt of course).
Attacking the Tories on multiple (albeit well deserved) fronts only dilutes the impact. Choosing one and hammering them with it is more effective. Then choose another and do the same.
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There are plenty of smoking guns but a lot of people donât seem to care. That coupled with a complicit media means that right now the Tories seem untouchable. Very depressing.
There needs to be an inspiring, effective and feisty (for want of a better word) alternative for people to gather behind.
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