That Starmer fella...

A single line from a long dry political article burried in the middle of a sunday paper. So many papers, pieces, topics.............

Yet these few words are all over the media, here, Twitter / X, on the Radio 6 news.

He's captured todays media cycle, well played Sir Keir!

"divisive" lol

lol. did she aye

Thanks for posting the content of the complete article, not sure I necessarily agree with it but it’s more nuanced than the headline and some posters here claim

🤮

Think Sought is quite a key word isn’t it?

“Margaret thatcher tried to do something” isn’t a positive or negative statement.

I mean, he could have just said something else entirely? Such is the way of triangulation.

I’m fairly certain there are better ways to unite the two clans than just appease them on current political norms.

Ngl it reads like a good peice to me (assuming your aim is to get elected of course).

It's captured the news cycle. Slammed the government on all of their own policies. It's basically explained to conservatives that the Tories are neither conservative or competent, and it's OK to vote for him.

Whether you like it or not over 17m people voted for Brexit. When presented with the prospect of Corbyn as PM the country handed the Tories one of their biggest victories.

I accept the idea that the Tories are on a hiding to nothing, so now is the time to be bold, not timmid. But I don't think that's Starmer. I think he's cautious (maybe to a fault).

You might not remember the east London of the 70s - the Long Good Friday London. Docklands literally waste ground. Productivity even worse than it is now.

For better or worse, that changed with Thatchers government. By the end of the 80s the uk was a more business friendly place and there was more money around.

Whether she gets the credit or the blame for that is entirely your view. But I don’t think you can say it didn’t happen under her watch.

I didn’t make any request for nuance, I just said that his actual words don’t seem to justify the hubbub.

You explained why people were so upset by making a load of stuff up he might have otherwise decided to say about boats. And I’m still none the wiser about why people are annoyed by what he ACTUALLY said.

The Tories have no obvious route to victory

• they can’t run on their record of delivery as whether they start the click at 2010, 2016, 2019 or the last 12 months, it’s a catalogue of administrative incompetence, waste, corruption and nastiness (and they’ve deliberately ramped up the latter over the last year)
  
• they are desperate to find a wedge issue but all attempts so far have failed to stick (doesn’t mean that they won’t go full on in the lead up to the election)
  
• even the “we delivered Brexit” doesn’t stack up given the ratings that the project currently enjoys
  
  

Their only hope is that the non-Tory vote gets split and that they manage to squeak in most votes by just pandering to their guaranteed core vote. That might not give them enough to form a government in their own but who knows what unholy alliance can be cooked up. And if that happens, we’re all properly fucked.

An alternative of a split not-Tory is that Labour scrape a small majority or have to form a coalition as largest part (and the latter is on the face of it quite appealing) - cue even more challenges to address the scorched/salted earth that the Tories are looking to bequeath and the attacks will be relentless leading to a return of “the natural party of government” before the end of the decade. As above, that leaves us fucked.

What has this got to do with this thread? A lot as it was only a page or so back that Starmer was described as a cunt. That doesn’t mean a reductive “if you don’t support Starmer, you support the Tories” but it does speak to the desired outcome of the next election - getting the Tories out is the main objective.

Would a Labour government under any leadership be better than the current shower (or any combination of them since 2010?). I’d definitely hope so and if you hope then there’s at least a chance, right?

it was rhetorical

the very fact that a labour leader is invoking her name in a positive way at all is a massive fucking red flag, as is the fact that people are trying to defend it

invoking her name

He just has to not say it another two times then we're ok.

😃

• A lot as it was only a page or so back that Starmer was described as a cunt
  
  

he advocated for the Israeli government's """"right"""" to commit war crimes, it's entirely warranted.

As someone who generally votes Tory, I've had to hold my nose tactically voting Labour in Scottish and local elections. That tactical vote won't be so conflicted at the GE. Keith and friends are no more (or less) statist than the current shambles. The creeping authoritarian nonsense from the likes of Braverman and the tax burden as a consequence of the disastrous policy choices during COVID will damn the conservative party for a good while for fiscal hawks/social liberals like me.

I don’t agree with his stance but he really didn’t “advicate for a right to commit war crimes”

Please, let's not get bogged down in details.

he was asked repeatedly if they were right to deny Palestinians water, fuel etc - collective punishment - he repeatedly stated that Israel has been he right to defend itself. Maybe (maybe) advocated isn't the right word, but at the VERY least that's a tacit (autocorrected to racist, huh) agreement with collective punishment being just fine.

I mean it's not. It's trying to avoid getting caught in an interview question (and failing), by giving a statement about an adjacent point.

Splitter!

https://twitter.com/andyinafield/status/1731364007158706357/photo/1

I completely agree.

That said, misrepresentation should be highlighted and in the last couple of pages alone we’ve had

• “Starmer praises Thatcher” which is huge if true. But it isn’t
  
• “Starmer has advocated for the Israeli government’s right to commit war crimes” which is incendiary at the moment, even more so with the human rights background. A kind interpretation is that this is an inaccurate representation. I’ll leave the less kind interpretation to others.
  
  

Let these go unchallenged and it becomes, insidiously, accepted ‘fact’. And that’s how it starts.

To be clear, I’m not a particular fan of Starmer but I’m much less of a fan of the inaccurate shit that gets chatted.

edit: actually I'm done. hyperfixation on this has ruined my day tbh.

would like to know what this meant though: "I’ll leave the less kind interpretation to others"

Sorry I was taking the piss.

But you're probably right. It shouldn't be made light of. But after beards there's nothing the left likes more than a bit of hyperbole.

Why the three line whip to vote against the ceasefire if he wasn't supportive of the Israeli government and IDF's actions

Bro! Do you even follow politics?

I don't normally like replying to points like this, but you need to go do some cursory research yourself.