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I think you're, perhaps deliberately, missing my point here. So for the avoidance of that again, my point is that the press have largely given Starmer a free ride because they don't believe he'll do anything particularly radical and - as you yourself intimated - he has 'considered' what he says at every turn precisely to avoid antagonising them/giving them any ammunition. My assertion is that won't matter a jot come election time and he'll still be on the receiving end of insane amounts of horseshit from the media, as proven by Beergate. And so he might as well fucking grow a pair and stand for something. Like the status quo positives you list, for example, but also on things as fundamentally batshit and deeply unethical about shipping refugees to camps in Rwanda.
But seriousness of purpose, ethics, and policy are equally important.
So far, he's definitely got the face for the first one, failed dismally with the second and continues to prevaricate on the third. D+
ketsbaia-
Pffft sounds like you want him to box himself in to a corner two years before a GE.
It's not his job, right now, to do that.
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I think I understand your point, I just don't see how the two facts you rely on for it to work can both be true: a) that the press has given Starmer a free ride because they don't think he's a threat, and b) that the press will eviscerate Starmer because they think he's a threat.
Starmer has very clearly said that he's against the policy both on practical, economic, and moral grounds. So has Cooper
. So has Lammy
. Labour's position is extremely clear. The only people pretending otherwise are those who think we should try what we tried in 2019 to see if it works any better second time around. I just don't think it's serious criticism.So far, he's definitely got the face for the first one, failed dismally with the second and continues to prevaricate on the third. D+
Labour have been very clear about their moral position on this policy, and in terms of their own policies, have announced over 200 non covid related policies since 2019. I simply don't think your position is supported by the evidence.
Howard
ReekBlefs
I think this is just warmed over 'they're all the same' cant but spoken eloquently and with a hint of 'the system always wins' 70s paranoia. The only people who benefit from such are genuinely unethical politicians like Johnson. There is a fundamental difference between politicians like Starmer and Rayner and Cooper, and politicians like Johnson and Raab and Patel. Competence is one of the metrics. But seriousness of purpose, ethics, and policy are equally important.
I think in the 90s it was a legitimate criticism to say that a politician stood for the status quo, because the status quo - by which I mean the rule of law, rational self-interest, an independent judiciary, a respect for the truth, a respect for our obligations on the world stage - was not under constant and fundamental attack by our government. I think now that kind of invective is pure self-indulgence.