That Starmer fella...

I read the comment as a criticism of cherry picking one point in time in 2017 as the marker by which to judge, but fair enough.

The stuff about polling is beside the point, really.

The crux of it is that Corbyn, despite being a poor leader with a terrible media rep and elements of his party actively stating they wouldn't vote for him, managed to get 40% of the vote in an election. He was up against very poor opposition, but I think there is also something to the idea that he had policies that people liked.

Keir Starmer is up against a government who have floundered a lot, refused to resign after multiple breaches of the ministerial code, been involved in all sorts of sleaze and handled elements of the pandemic poorly - and is still not beating them in the polls.

I'm not trying to score points in a Corbyn v Starmer debate here, just to illustrate that Starmer is hugely underperforming and that backing demonstrably popular policies (or any policies, for that matter) could be a way to try to mitigate that.

This video is silly but I enjoyed it:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7lsRbDKOXg

Indeed. As should Labour's failure to get fully behind the Yes vote in 2011 - no doubt partly due to the arrogance that they will always be a potential party of majority government, and so AV was not needed for them (yes I know AV was a shit option, but it was the best that could've been expected at the time).

Yup.

Keir Starmer is up against a government who have floundered a lot, refused to resign after multiple breaches of the ministerial code, been involved in all sorts of sleaze and handled elements of the pandemic poorly - and is still not beating them in the polls.

He was beating them in the polls until recently. Obviously lots of different theories why this is no longer the case. Personally I think the vaccine rollout, particularly compared to the rest of Europe, has handed the Tories a large boost.

I think you're right - and whether the credit is due to the government or not, it has been impressive.

That said, so much has preceded this that could, by rights, have sunk a government,* but they've managed to weather it all. How?

*off the top of my head:

• Boris Johnson's "lots of people will die" approach to Covid and failing to close the borders (before Starmer, admittedly)
  
• Boris Johnson boasting about shaking hands with Covid patients and then nearly dying himself
  
• The awful numbers of Covid deaths
  
• The shortage of PPE and the handing out of contracts to friends
  
• Gavin Williamson's assessments fuck up Pt.1
  
• The inexplicable pre-Christmas easing of restrictions and then the Christmas lockdown
  
• Gavin Williamson's assessments fuck up Pt.2 (after his "cast-iron guarantees")
  
• Priti Patel's bullying
  
• Boris Johnson's latest affair
  
  

How can a successful rollout cover that up?

And how can Labour have failed so badly to make political capital out of the non-sensitive parts of that?

Still makes me chuckle when I think about Kier Starmer “putting the government on notice”. Labour have been pathetic throughout, a truly unmemorable performance.

so much has preceded this that could, by rights, have sunk a government

You're absolutely right on this. And I think Keir absolutely could have used those fuckups as leverage to sink the Tory government. I think where we depart is whether or not that's a good idea.

We are in a global pandemic, utterly unprecedented. The closest analogue is WW2, and just like in those times, the job of the opposition is fundamentally irrelevant. Labour would do more or less the same thing as the Tories in power - furlough, roll out the vaccine, test and trace, manage expectations. Yes, Starmer could go down the route of Corbyn-esque reactive opposition, which I agree went down really well in 2017 against a background of austerity and rising inequality, but I think it would go down like a cup of cold sick at a time when we're just looking to get out of lockdown and people want some good news.

I think Starmer's attack line last year of 'incompetence' was excellent. Right up until the vaccine rollout, it was a wound he could poke every week at PMQs. Fortunately for the country but unfortunately for Starmer's strategy, the Tories have knocked the vaccine rollout out of the park, and they're getting the poll bump for it.

I do agree that Starmer needs to do more to cut through and that these stats are not excellent. But I absolutely understand why he's laying back in the cut for the moment. It's the wrong time for it. People don't want to hear sniping from the sidelines against the background of a literally world beating vaccine rollout. Covid is all that matters and Labour is 80 seats down.

Whether that's cherry picking is another discussion, but calling 2 years of Corbyn's Labour polling a blip is quite disingenuous.

I misunderstood what tbc was saying - I thought he was saying that Starmer's personal approval ratings were better than Corbyn's in 2017, when they were talking about Labour's polling now vs Labour's GE performance in 2017 - but there's no need to call me disingenuous. It is a fact that choosing Corbyn's best and Starmer's worst as your point of comparison is cherry picking the stats. People are very welcome to do that - I do it myself! - but it's quite reasonable to point it out.

It's a massive failing on the part of Labour/Starmer that you have so easily described their position in a way that is easy for anyone to understand and they (many varied and intelligent professionals) have failed to do this on so many occasions.

They're also spending way too much time trying to communicate through the instruments of power (like the BBC, PMQs). Which is flawed because those instruments are easily subverted.

Why is Kier not posting a weekly YouTube video on what the govt did last week, what he supported, what he would have done differently and why? If he did this, and did it well, he could use it as a platform to push the Labour agenda, defend the left-centre ground, call out the Tories for policy-theft and ultimately present a different view of a Labour future. Had he been doing tis since the beginning, he could have quantifiably presented a different version of the present where a Labour government would have locked down earlier, had less deaths, saved more businesses, not fucked a years schooling, etc...

FFS if Russel Brand can do it from his bedroom they should be able to do something impactful.

His tactics are just whack.

I'm sure if Churchill's party has been giving out billions of weapon and armour contracts to mates for guns that don't work and helmets that don't exist then the opposition of the time would've said it wasn't a good show old chap. Yes there needs to be a bit of unity against a common Covid foe, but not a free pass for profiteering and failures that cost thousands of lives.

This ignores the whole point though, which is whether that would be welcomed or viewed negatively.

There's a reason they keep banging that "captain hindsight" line, it's because it weaponises Starmer's criticisms of anything in the past.

Russell brand may be able to do it but commanding the support of a relatively small number of people who tune into your YouTube because they already like you is not the same as getting majority support.

You could make a weekly YouTube video absolutely massive if the content was good. I think it would be welcomed.

The people of Britain who aren't Tories want someone to rally behind, no? Someone they can believe will make a better future?

The people of Britain who aren't Tories want someone to rally behind

As long as they're not too posh, too working class, too old, too young, too female, too Northern, too Southern, too left, too right, too centrist, too socialist, too neo liberal, too radical or too traditional.

.

You could make a weekly YouTube video absolutely massive if the content was good. I think it would be welcomed.

I'm not convinced you could. I'm fairly interested in politics and I can't imagine I'd bother watching that. I suspect most of those watching it would be those that were already behind him.

Most would consume it through out of context snippets in the media or twitter/Facebook, etc which would lose control of the message.

I think a lot just don't care. Boris got Brexit done, he's a true patriot who loves this country, he's doing something about those bloody immigrants, look at the cock-up the EU has made of vaccinations, imagine if Corbyn had been in charge, it's a national emergency you've got to skip some of the red tape, it's just those woke lefties complaining because he says what the man in the street is thinking, etc

If you lived in Hartlepool, would it not be better to have a Tory MP for the rest of this parliament as boris and Rishi will be chucking Tory “red wall” constituencies much more money for the foreseeable. I can’t think of any downsides in the short term.

I normally think you lot are too hard on Starmer and expect too much but this story has really annoyed me for some reason, Labour didn't join the other six parties calling for an inquiry into Johnson's dishonesty as Labour don't join initiatives started by other parties, just seems so weak

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/19/parties-inquiry-boris-johnson-failurehonest

"Now is not a time for division"
-Starmer, probably

Labour didn't join the other six parties calling for an inquiry into Johnson's dishonesty as Labour don't join initiatives started by other parties

Gotta agree that's a weak reason not to join. It annoyed me when Corbyn refused to join the GONU on similarly weak grounds. Either something is the right thing to do or it isn't.

This kind of shit has been going on for years, it was a real hindrance at times during Brexit and other parties have been guilty of the same kind of stuff over the years.

It would be nice if the country was put ahead of party politics but, whoever is in charge, that seems sadly optimistic.

This on the other hand I think is quite important:

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/apr/19/labour-will-never-govern-unless-it-can-appeal-again-to-working-class-report

Polling which took place before the 2019 election showed that voters often liked Labour’s economic policies until they found out they were proposed by Labour, Healey said: “That tells you the damage, and therefore the task, lies in the sentiment, in the view of who we are, what we stand for, and what we offer the country.”
Healey said: “We can’t duck the really difficult conversations about things like tax, and race and culture divides. If you don’t have a bigger vision, then others will fill that vacuum.”
He added: “We need to avoid being limited to the politics of compassion. There is a core that will always have Labour on the side of those who are most vulnerable and most disadvantaged, but also opportunity, fairness and ambition have to be a big part of what Labour stands for.”

I also liked this:

He's a bloody lad after all.

I have no idea who Starmer supports but I can just picture him being an Arsenal fan.