That Starmer fella...

Is your ‘absolutely not’ just because he’s not on the left of the party?

No. We won't get a leader from the left of the party in my lifetime, I'm afraid. But he's on record as saying he's for more private sector involvement in the NHS which I find staggering for a Labour Health spokesman. Plus he's LFI, which for me is a deal-breaker. YMMV.

When Corbyn was in charge he was always first to undermine him in the Daily Mail (in exactly the same way that happens now from the left).

But tbh I get behind anyone once the vote is won.

I thought it was an odd comparison because of the differences in the ships * they steer and the context of their roles.

* trains can't steer, right?

Then I realised you'd mistakenly said Mike Lynch, the most (in)famous of which is the Autonomy dude, rather than Mick Lynch, the RMT guy.

Then I realised you'd mistakenly said Mike Lynch, the most (in)famous of which is the Autonomy dude, rather than Mick Lynch, the RMT guy.

Ha, sorry about that!

Anyway, I'm genuinely not a starmer fan boy. He's bland AF. Its true that he's not taking strong political positions. Its true he's staying quiet on a lot of issues that are important to people. I do however think there is a method to the madness.

Also my view. Its undeniable imo. And while I do understand that for the left of the party, who've spent the last six years having red meat thrown their way by Corbyn, the change to not speaking about these passion points is unwelcome and painful, I also think after the worst result in a hundred years its probably worth trying something else.

People may think its an abdication of responsibility for Labour to not stand loudly, shoulder to shoulder, with the unions. They may have a point. But others have an equal point when they say it's an abdication of responsibility to give no thought whatsoever to how a position might lose us votes, and therefore reduce our chance of being a party of government.

I keep thinking about the 97 election. We said almost nothing about making the Bank of England independent leading up to the election - it was a complex, annoying policy, and one which the Tories would've been able to frame as terrifying and dangerous - but it was so important to us that we did it in the first week of govt.

Despite what some will tell you, Starmer is to the left of Blair by a considerable margin. He is in love with the romance and the history of the trades union movement. It is, I imagine, quite painful for him to see himself framed as a neoliberal. But he also seems quite willing to shoulder that if it increases his chance of winning an election. That, to me, seems entirely right.

I do agree that he needs to start articulating a clear vision about what a Labour Britain would look like. He needs to start taking risks, and start setting the narrative. But let's not pretend the approach isn't working. We're further ahead in the polls than we have been since 2013. Should we be doing better? Sure. But are we doing better than we have since the days of Ed Miliband? Absolutely.

Great PMQs performance from him too. I was fearing the worst after the last few weeks.

What's frustrating is that Labour do have a loose visions and alternative solutions to current problems but seem to be terrible at communicating them,not all on board and happy to contradict each other. Emily Thornberry seems to be one of the only ones who ever manages to go on TV and clearly spell out what their position is, what their position isn't and not get bogged down in wedge crap or media/tory traps. Not that I would want her as leader but some of the others could do with being able to replicate that.

Agree. She got the Brexit position exactly right too, years before anyone else managed it (I saw her arguing for soft Brexit in 2017. If only we'd listened). I've no idea why she isn't shad cab.

Also repost this FT piece from last week which seems basically say what the argument here is on here, you can be the status quo party or the change party, opposition can't win being status quo but Labour doesn't articulate how it's change

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcontent%2Fff893049-943f-43ee-9ffb-2a3858884fd0

While Labour has numerous policies it is hard to comprehend its overall plan. What is the big ambition for education or health? In the current climate it cannot just be to spend more. Labour will be more trusted to modernise the NHS but what is its notion of 21st century healthcare? Where is it now on Brexit or immigration? There is a cogent green strategy (though one senses nerves about it going too far). What is the strategy for economic growth? How would it tackle inflation? Who will pay more tax? Labour needs to ram home its overarching vision, illustrated by just three or four emblematic policies. Voters don’t want pages of detail, just enough clues to join the dots and decide they like the picture.

The looming rail strikes illustrate the problem. Labour had weeks to prepare and yet struggles to say which side it is on, strikers or commuters? Starmer wants negotiations not strikes, but who doesn’t? He could have placed Labour firmly against crippling industrial action, on the side of people trying to get to work in hard economic times. He may yet get there, but, shorn of a clear line, frontbenchers have freelanced enough to suggest sympathy for the strikers. This is not a failure of message discipline. It is an absence of message.

Starmer looks like a man steering between what he believes and what he thinks Labour needs to say to win. This week, he berated shadow cabinet members who privately call him “boring” telling them “what’s boring is being in opposition”. It is a fair point but building excitement about how things could be better is the job. It is hard to look at him as one did Tony Blair and be confident about where he will land on an issue. Clarity of vision will make him look more interesting, less weak and give voters that sense of his values. Right now, he is losing the battle of his own narrative.

Johnson is beatable but it is not enough for Labour to say it will restore integrity (though that would be nice). It will have to paint a convincing and broad picture of the future it offers. Voters may be open to a change. They will not sign up for a less-than-magical mystery tour.

I've no idea why she isn't shad cab.

As Shadow Attorney General, maybe she isn't so good at communicating after all lol

I do agree that he needs to start articulating a clear vision about what a Labour Britain would look like. He needs to start taking risks, and start setting the narrative.

I would expect that the time for that is in the run up to a GE.

Would Wes Streeting be an improvement? I have no idea how people percieve him.

I suspect mainly as "who's Wes Streeting?"

I'd be pretty delighted if Starmer won a GE, we had 4 or 5 years of weird neoliberal policy but during that time the left of the labour party gained more influence. If we ever want to see a proper left wing government, thats the only way it will happen...over two or three GEs.

What is LFI?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Friends_of_Israel

Sorry, 'Labour' Friends of Israel. I put the first word in inverted commas because you don't actually need to be a member of the Labour Party or in any way connected to it to become a member of LFI. Essentially a lobbying group funded in part at least by the Israeli government that exists mainly to ensure no one remotely pro-Palestinian gets a fair hearing in the Labour Party. Starmer's involved too, which is weird given how he used to speak at pro-Palestinian events. Another thing he's ditched now leader. So much integrity, etc.

Right. Rules out an awful lot of possible leaders doesn’t it, looking at that list?

i personally think it's quite smart starmer is playing a tight lipped game of what he will and wont be doing when he inevitably wins power through the great left unity which will show up for him in the polls on the basis of not being the tory party, i imagine he will be running on the hope of a biden/macron type situation - especially if they make electoral pacts with greens/ lib dems / snp in the GE. this is also importantly, the successful stratagy the tories employ before a GE, completely reinventing themselves 6-3 months out and throwing out all the ideas in tune with the current zeitgeist.

it's not exciting politics but it could maybe spur a change or halt some of the more damaging elements of tory party policy currently, maybe we'll get some big umbrella wins like we see in the states (gun reform looking like it will pass, possibly a resolidifying of legal frameworks of protection for marginalised groups, obviously no gun reform here, but maybe we will see some liberalisation of immigration). these are important no less and one is right to point out that, argumentally, the building blocks of building a social new wave of socially progressive politics in more directional pushes. which will take more than one term.

what i do think is uneasy however, and personally leaves me feeling a bit worried, is that starmer has seemed himself to be a bit directionless, not willing to grasp at clear victories in policy/pols in the way a the tories are doing. they sit on some 55/60% majority poling issues and completely ignore them, they do lack red meat for their base. and i think this is not only important but once their in office, they need to be dynamic enough to retain voter confidence to win the GE after (how would they have reacted to imposing a brexit vote, covid, the war in ukrain etc - all of these would have been tory fuel). if their policy is chasing the swing voters at the expense of their base, rather than seeing their base in tune with the swing, and if importantly, they want to avoid a hobbled coalition with greens, snp and lib dems, is encouraging their voters to turn out on the GE vote without the sole driver of "we're not the tories". all these parties will be looking to chomp into them and grab at oppertunity once the tories are removed from the driving seat.

also worrying is that his internal party can't quite agree on what starmer means or doesn't mean, now this could be a sign of healthy debate being alive and well in the party, members reactive to their local constiuency! all good things. but it does feel all these people are talking around, over even, their leader. who is supposed to push them into what is likely to be a battle for the ages at the next GE. right now he seems more like a project manager who is a quarter behind and hoping to make up ground in the later stages of the product development than a decisive CEO.

now i am not labours core audience right now, im a working class queer yuppie who has to vote for them because every other party would rather see me dragged into a sterilisation chamber or made to kill myself, really what else am i going to do? not vote? write in mark fisher on the ballot? labour (supposed to their current stratagy) doesn't want this but is keeping it all very tight lipped - but when i go home to my parents and speak to my lovely nuclear family in berkshire, one a driver another a house wife approaching retirement, a 40 something professional home owner and some younger members struggaling to get on the dunelm life ladder, now they do not seem enthusiastic to turn out, and a lot of talk circulating which sounds a lot like when i was trying to convince them to vote for miliband! not even the same reluctant forced pep as they had voting for blair on the tail end of his golden years. (from what i seemingly remember of being dragged to a polling office in my jammies when my dad got in from work ).

they're very politically angry mind you, they just hate everyone, think they're all the same (this does not bode well if modern results repeat themselves!)

now ofc what we know about this group is that they have very short memories (or rather have the common sense to not follow the boring cyclical nature of westminster politics and factional fighting) and are very reactionary to the current zeitgeist at the time of a GE, which this stratagy favours! good news, but also they're not exactly the most likely to turn out .... if it's raining, maybe they have a busy day, working late, maybe they don't like their local mp! it will be interesting what they pull out of their hat to get them in the booths, which im sure is being planned in great, managerial detail.

in conclusion i think the debate of is starmer good for the party, bad for the party is pretty moot, in the same way tories decided this about tereasa may in 2016/2017. what's more worrying is there seems to be a lack of anything really inspiring coming from the party other than the chance to finally unseat the tories and a rather unsettling talk of infighting from all sides. this plays well for starmer if anything, gives him a lighter ride in the hot seat with enough doubt internally to not remove him, but not enough external pressure to force him onto uncomfortable, agile ground. but if ol' tezza may was to show us anything, if i was him, i'd be checking for a comical spring under that cusion!

I don’t know as much about this as you clearly do, but it seems to me that supporting a two state solution with a viable Palestinian state is a sensible goal for Israel and Palestine and manifestly not the policy of the Israeli state, so I don’t immediately recoil at the idea. I don’t think that the positions have to be either pro-Palestine and therefore anti-Israel or vice versa, though. Perhaps you do.

I would expect that the time for that is in the run up to a GE.

In terms of policy, I totally agree - no point making ourselves hostages to fortune given how quickly the news landscape is moving.

But in terms of the overarching vision, the background which provides a narrative bed for the policies they announce at manifesto time, now feels like the right time. I keep thinking about that broadband policy from 2019 - if Corbyn had spent the last two years before announcing it banging on about digital poverty and how communication is a right, and the like, that policy might have felt like it had some background. As it was it just came from out of nowhere.

I want to see Starmer lay the groundwork for the policies he's going to want to deliver. That does require a positive vision I think.

All very nice, but pandemic + 11% inflation or something ridiculous aren't exactly fertile grounds for creative political visions; pretty much anything specific you announce will be out of date by the time the press runs it!

@Howard for leader. You have consistently called QE a bomb under the UK economy.

Who was it on here a while ago arguing that inflation is a good thing?

I want to see Starmer lay the groundwork for the policies he's going to want to deliver. That does require a positive vision I think.

This Incam definitely get behind.

The broadband policy was actually quite a good one...the fact it is used to ridicule Labour just shows how badly it was communicated. Worth also mentioning that the Tories have ploughed a lot of public money into addressing some of the same issues since.

The broadband policy was actually quite a good one...

Yeahbut somehow they found themselves leading with it..... it was not leading policy material by a fucking long shot

I remember the manifesto... god that was dreadful. Some nice ideas. Just FIFTY FUCKING PAGES of nice ideas

Now there's even less jam to spread around and what jam there is is rapidly decreasing in value

they're very politically angry mind you, they just hate everyone, think they're all the same

I experience a lot of this. It's like some weird political Stockholm Syndrome when they refuse to vote not-Blue.

I'll be honest, I thought the free broadband policy was dumb. I had no problem with nationalising the infrastructure arm Openreach (though they'd need to do the same with all the full fibre providers springing up to make it make sense) but bankrupting 95% of commercial ISPs by installing a free broadband line to everyone's home was a colossal waste of money. They massively underestimated the upkeep costs too, and also the general ick factor of government controlled information. I would not trust any government to not exploit that power.

Digital poverty is a real thing; it deserves a better solution.