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Why should he need to resign?
He doesn't need to resign, but he does need to admit that his strategy of apeing Reform and the Tories has completely failed and that he will now pivot towards more traditional labour policies of making the lives of working people easier by redistributing money and resources from the rich. He's going to lose the next election anyway, he might as well use his massive majority to do some stuff to get the Labour base back on side. Instead though he's going to achieve the double whammy of implementing tory policies and still losing. 🤷♂️
Why should he need to resign?
Because he driving the fate of the country in the absolute wrong direction? And it's too much to chance to let him make anymore awful choices and time is running out.
I'd definitely have an eye on polls if I were him.
Well it looks like today they Kier has written in the Times to attempt to lose young voters.
Well it looks like today they Kier has written in the Times to attempt to lose young voters.
It's only fair - why should young people be excluded from being alienated ?
Speculative polls are just that, and are often wildly inaccurate.
No they aren't. They are very rarely, if ever, wildly inaccurate.
All the polls predicted that the Tories would get slaughtered at the last general election, that is precisely what happened. Now they are predicting a similar fate for Labour, there is no reason at all to doubt their validity.
Why should Starmer resign? For the sake of the country, voters, and the Labour Party. He is clearly a totally inept Prime Minister who isn't up to the job and has proved to be a gift to Nigel Farage.
"Speculative polls"... there is no general election any time soon... current polling is of little use when looking at voting in four years time... they are pretty accurate when looking at current voting sentiment though, so May elections are likely to be absolutely awful for Labour and the Conservatives, looking at current polling.
Polls are very accurate..... close to elections
further out they are less so, and historically Labour vote share is harder to predict than Tory,
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/how-accurate-are-polls-when-forecasting-election-outcomes/
only data i can find is from max 2 years out froma GE
we are 3.5 years away from an election, so what the results will be at the moment are anyones guess, blind faith in the validity of polls this far out seems naive, no matter how much they do confirm your own biases
ultimately it'l come down to how successful Labour are with making people feel better off and how services are being delivered
culture war issues like gaza, immigration, etc can change rapidly, what will their relevance be in 2029?
Kimbers I remember you celebrating Labour establishing a 2% lead over the Tories when Sir Keir Starmer first became leader and castigating me for not doing so. The fact that it was years away from a general election didn't seem to be an issue!
Currently Reform's lead over Labour is mostly in double digits, and they have led every single opinion poll since mid-April. It is probably time to recognise the urgency of the problem!
ultimately it'l come down to how successful Labour are with making people feel better off and how services are being delivered
culture war issues like gaza, immigration, etc can change rapidly, what will their relevance be in 2029?
Well they are not going to be successful by sticking with Starmer and Reeves as a year is enough to know they are really not the right people and don't have any ideas.
Not sure Gaza is a culture war but immigration will still be a big topic as it has been overblown as an issue for long time and is getting more overblown if anything. And rather than try and combat it (as say Polanski would) Starmer is going along with it.
Kimbers I remember you celebrating Labour establishing a 2% lead over the Tories when Sir Keir Starmer
Sorry, should I be celebrating Reforms poll lead?
Speculative polls are just that, and are often wildly inaccurate.
No they aren't. They are very rarely, if ever, wildly inaccurate.
All the polls predicted that the Tories would get slaughtered at the last general election, that is precisely what happened. Now they are predicting a similar fate for Labour, there is no reason at all to doubt their validity.
Why should Starmer resign? For the sake of the country, voters, and the Labour Party. He is clearly a totally inept Prime Minister who isn't up to the job and has proved to be a gift to Nigel Farage.
Those polls you refer to predicted an enormous Labour majority... it was big, but nowhere near as big as anticipated. And this was right before an election. Polls taken mid-term don't show true intentions because people say different things to get an outcome they desire.
What could he have done differently that would lead to a material change to where we are now? He needs some coaching on how to act in the modern world (tip: don't accept money from random people when you already earn in the top 95% bracket because it's a bribe in any other word). And I mean a genuine material change, since we've gone from centre-right to batshit crazy back to centre-right again in the last 15 years.
Labour has made some decisions and changed their mind. You might perceive it as u-turning, but that's a blinkered view. We should instead disparage governments that don't review their decisions and change them on the basis of new information. Changing them because voters are getting grumpy about them is a different argument, of course.
It's only been a year, when you think about it.
Kimbers I remember you celebrating Labour establishing a 2% lead over the Tories when Sir Keir Starmer
Sorry, should I be celebrating Reforms poll lead?
Wow, that takes deliberate disingenuous comments to a whole new level! 😂
Those polls you refer to predicted an enormous Labour majority... it was big, but nowhere near as big as anticipated. And this was right before an election. Polls taken mid-term don't show true intentions because people say different things to get an outcome they desire.
They were extraordinarily accurate, modern MRP polls in particular are. I think the YouGov MRP poll's prediction of individual seats was 94% correct.
YouGov only over estimated the number of seats Labour would win by 20 seats, which in the context of Labour actually winning 411 I call extremely accurate.
Obviously a couple of years before the general election the polls were predicting a much smaller majority for Labour, so what they are predicting now isn't inaccurate, it is just what the situation is right now.
If you think what is happening right now, ie Labour is massively unpopular, isn't important because everything will be just fine in 2029 then you have nothing to worry about. And of course there is no reason at all why Sir Keir Starmer should resign.
Although I would be very interested indeed in knowing how how you think things will magically change for Labour. Any clues?
Crisis? What crisis?
Although I would be very interested indeed in knowing how how you think things will magically change for Labour. Any clues?
how it will change?
I have no idea, Im not too optimistic, Starmer has fallen into the trap of chasing reform voters that will never vote labour, his personal popularity is much harder to fix and hes done his reputation no favours, his delivery is often flat and uninspiring.
but as I said earlier IF people are feeling better off in their pockets and they see services around them improving then Labours prospects will definitely improve 'its the economy stupid ' still holds true
How they achieve that:
#1 keep inflation low- that is what people care about most- populism flourishes when people are financially desperate
#2 grow the economy- hampered massively by our post brexit economy and trumps tariffs
#3 Better services- (massively) reduce NHS wait time, fill potholes, bobbies on the beat , revitalise high streets
#4 more houses- its a shitshow at the moment for the young
#5 fix imigration, by that I mean safe legal routes (keeps libs happy) & deport those whose claims fail(robs farage of grievance to peddle) -kinda like the new 1 in 1 out scheme but massively expanded.
Thats it, pull all that off and theyll win the election and Reform will be left to ranting on GBNews and Question time
can they do that in 3.5 years? no. The global headwinds are too strong and 15 years of austerity has left the country too far up the creek,
how far along with each of those things will determine where the polls end up on election day
Thanks for not dodging the question kimbers, top man 👍
I agree with most of that. It's worth pointing out though that the UK currently has the fastest growing economy in the G7. So I think the most obvious thing missing from your to-do list imo is redistribution of wealth and reducing the growing inequality of recent decades.
That would drive a horse and cart through Reform. However such a radical proposition could never be on the cards with such a centrist government that is very noticeably to the right of Gordon Brown.
I'm hoping all that list comes good Kimbers... I don't think it would be enough to stop the momentum behind Reform though... better off, in a better economy, with better services will not be enough to stop the rising tide of hate and misinformation that is coming towards Labour in the next few years (and the Greens & LibDems to a lesser extent).
The problem for the polling companies is that last time it was a strong “anyone but Tories” with tactical voting (as witnessed by the Lib Dem vote) and a lot of seats won by relatively narrow majorities. So, not only will it take a relatively small swing against Labour for them to lose a disproportionate number of seats, any swing against could go to several different parties depending on local conditions, and all well within the usual margin of error.
in FPTP and 3 relatively equal parties tiny swings make huge differences. We saw this in the last GE where labour got a huge majority not because they were popular but because the vote against them was split.
Also we have very much regional differences with parties concentrating their support in some areas
Good luck to that as long as cost of fuel remains high.#1 keep inflation low
The govt will be grinning from ear to ear if they can hit 2% growth (I think 1.4% is currently projected but still better than many in EU)#2 grow the economy
Where does the money come from?#3 Better services
Well, if the jobs are all located in the big cities there will never be affordable house.#4 more houses
The more the world is at war the more people will seek asylum. The problem is to separate the genuine ones from the fakes.#5 fix imigration
#5 fix imigration, by that I mean safe legal routes (keeps libs happy) & deport those whose claims fail(robs farage of grievance to peddle) -
Asylum seekers are a relatively small proportion of total immigration. Farage-ist grievances aren't limited to asylum seekers.
What happens after you create a UK-specific safe legal right to claim asylum for any prospective asylum seeker anywhere in the world?
Farage-ist grievances aren't limited to asylum seekers.
He will adopt Trump's style immigration policies. i.e. everyone out.
None of them will qualify.What happens after you create a UK-specific safe legal right to claim asylum for any prospective asylum seeker anywhere in the world?
This is correct. The small boats are annoying but 50,000 per year is a drop in the bucket. The large cities worth of people every year seemingly forever is the real issue.
we currently have no legal route to claim asylum in the uk
This is correct. The small boats are annoying but 50,000 per year is a drop in the bucket. The large cities worth of people every year seemingly forever is the real issue.
you mean those folk that come here to work in the NHS? huge problem without them
I think you are not allowed to enter to claim it, but if you are already here then the act of claiming is not illegal.
TJ makes a decent and often used argument. I’m sure someone will fact check me but the last time I looked the % of NHS staff who are immigrants is roughly the same as the % in the population at large so it’s neither here nor there as far as I’m concerned.
If we as a country cannot train and retain enough NHS staff ourselves then this needs to be looked at. The answer shouldn’t be to poach them from the rest of the world, the countries that they come from need them as much as we do.
edit - talking bobbins 🙂
The proportion of non-UK staff is higher for doctors (35%) and nurses (28%) than for staff overall (19%).
Here are the stats on immigrants working in the NHS
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-7783/
If we as a country cannot train and retain enough NHS staff ourselves then this needs to be looked at. The answer shouldn’t be to poach them from the rest of the world, the countries that they come from need them as much as we do.
Well yes but that's not an argument that I have ever heard people like Nigel Farage really make. He moans about immigrants coming to the UK, helped by Sir Keir Starmer talking bollocks about "incalculable damage", without any recognition of their contribution or accepting that we would be properly ****ed without them.
The anti-immigrant nonsense that the Farages of this world spout feeds a toxic mixture of hate and division and contributes nothing positive to society.
Sometimes I feel like I’m the last person in England to not give a **** if someone was born elsewhere. Why the fascination? And why are we letting these hate mongers dominate everything? I’m sick of the conversation being constantly dominated by the hatred and scapegoating of immigrants (well, people that look and sound like immigrants to the xenophobes and racists and hard of thinking). Why can’t people grow the **** up, tell the likes of Farage to **** off, and get to know people rather than label others as the problem because they look foreign to them.
I’m sure someone will fact check me but the last time I looked the % of NHS staff who are immigrants is roughly the same as the % in the population at large so it’s neither here nor there as far as I’m concerned.
Yes, it’s not just the NHS that would be decimated by a mass deportation programme of the type that Farage is now including in his policy basket of monstrosities; migrants that currently have a right to work and live here but are not citizens are essential to lots of services and industries.
As I pointed out many weeks ago, immigration should be based on the needs of the country. If the country needs 500,000 new people a year to do stuff that supports the country and can't be done without them then great. But isn't that sort of the process already with visas?
Anyone claiming we shouldn't need them then fix whatever is requiring the country to import labour and then cancel/don't extend visas. I am sure Starmer has that in hand.
We don't need asylum seekers, just like no other country needs them but sometimes we just have to be kind!
But that's still labelling people born abroad as a resource, one that we are trying to "use" less of.... it's just rationalising the feeling that it is people born here that are all that really matter. I really don't care if in my pharmacist was born in Nigeria, or my plumber in Brazil, or my co-worker in France. I'm very aware that many people in this country feel otherwise, but why do we let that feeling dominate politics? It's the "you can't talk about" subject that is all we seem to talk about.
Although I would be very interested indeed in knowing how how you think things will magically change for Labour. Any clues?
I don't think things will change, unfortunately. But I also don't think there's anything they can do to actually address that. They can't out-Reform Reform. Would swapping Starmer for Burnham change things? I think unlikely in the long run.
What I do think has happened is that they've discovered that making changes to anything is exceptionally difficult when things move slowly and lobby groups / big industry has its mitts all over parliament. Ed Milliband was enthusiastically pushing for improvements to energy production, supply, and pricing before the election, and now he's discovered just how corrupt the energy tanker is.
Change in attitude to prisons etc is welcome, but actually something that Michael Gove was doing a decade ago.
While Labour has a big majority and knowing they're going to lose the next election to Reform - can you see a realistic way that they can avoid this? - they should be biting the bullet and making the changes which are unpopular but necessary. Proper tax reform, proper planning reform (the cost of planning for HS2 probably exceeds the material cost of building it), possibly pension reform (ahem - triple lock), shift investment away from London into the poorer areas of the country.
But that's still labelling people born abroad as a resource
Everyone is a resource if you look at it that way. People are needed to do stuff and those that can't for whatever reason should be looked after. The point is we will always need to import additional resources for 1,000s of different reasons and that is how Starmer should be representing it along with the damage of blindly reducing numbers rather than joining in with Farage.
. But I also don't think there's anything they can do to actually address that. They can't out-Reform Reform. Would swapping Starmer for Burnham change things? I think unlikely in the long run.
Yes they can do something about it, they just won't. If voters felt that Labour had a radical programme which would transform both society and their lives Reform would not get a look in.
The growing support for Reform isn't because Reform have won the argument in the eyes of voters, it's an act of desperation.
The existing status quo is no longer tenable, people want something substantially different. The far-right agenda isn't the only alternative and not the only thing which is substantially different, as many seem to think.
And yes I agree that Andy Burnham wouldn't make a huge difference. Yes he would probably help stem the loss of support that Labour are losing to the left but he doesn't have anything substantial to offer those attracted to the right.
It is worth remembering also that this is not an all-or-nothing situation. It will be very difficult to stop Reform ending up the largest party after the next general election but reducing the size of their "victory" is a more attainable goal which should at least be prioritised.
The growing support for Reform isn't because Reform have won the argument in the eyes of voters, it's an act of desperation.
Agree, which is the why Starmer is such a massive disappointment. To an average voter who is not into the political details there is so little difference between Tories, LibDem and now Labour that they will go for anything different. Bit of a shame that is Reform and if they were into the details it may not be, but it is.
If voters felt that Labour had a radical programme which would transform both society and their lives Reform would not get a look in.
Think they'd settle for being able to get a GP appointment. On that subject, I don't know if it's a result of govt policy but my local GP has implemented an online triage platform which is the only route to getting an appointment. My Mrs used it this morning in the hope of getting a routine appointment in relation to a urinary infection (she gets them fairly regularly and needs antibiotics), after spending 30 mins answering questions the app told her to go to A+E. She called the surgery and they said they can't book appointments outside the triage app. So the upshot is that it's now much harder to get a GP appt now than it was before. It's not just my Mrs either, one of my mates told me yesterday he had the same problem. Curious whether this is a common or universal problem but if it is I foresee a crisis on the horizon in General Practice and A+E waiting times.
em. Curious whether this is a common or universal problem but if it is I foresee a crisis on the horizon in General Practice and A+E waiting times.
my GP has been online for over a year and its been excellent, no longer have the ridiculous nonsense of being 35th in the phone queue at 08:01
Its also a very simple online form to fill out and you get a response pretty quickly
it sounds like your practice has a duff IT system!
it sounds like your practice has a duff IT system!
Oh it definitely does. My point is though that if this is widespread then the govt aren't going to be able to use this excuse. They promised to make it easier to get a GP appt, and if this experience is common then they're in trouble.
OMG, just when I thought that this nasty authoritarian right-wing government couldn't possibly get any worse this comes along :
“I think we need to go further than that in relation to some of the chants that are going on at some of these protests.”
And yet the Poundland Nigel Farage fails to give one single solitary example of the sort of chant he is referring to. And for very obvious reasons, ie, he is talking complete shite.
The police currently have all the powers necessary to deal with anything that is illegal. Sir Keir Starmer just wants feed this false narrative championed by the far-right concerning people who are demanding an end to the horrific genocide being committed against Palestinian men, women, and children.
Yesterday Kemi Badenoch talked about a "carnival of hate" in an attempt to vilify those who demand an end to the war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed in Palestine, today Sir Keir Starmer tries to silence the same people who Badenoch attempted to vilify.
On more and more issues Farage, Badenoch, and Starmer, are all singing from the same hymn sheet
I just see all this stuff now as - 'failed at governance' - boxed ourselves in; what desperate reactionary shit can we come up that will please absolutely no one. It's almost on a daily basis now.
That's really all it is. This is what happens when your campaign and manifestos were effectively fraudulent.
If there was a war going begging Starmer would have every 16 year old lined up tomorrow.
Now here's something that you might not be aware of :
https://www.lbc.co.uk/article/displaying-palestine-action-posters-legal-5HjdF8p_2/
Under the Terrorism Act 2000, a person commits an offence if they “arouse reasonable suspicion that he is a member or supporter of a proscribed organisation,” but only if it happens in a “public place.”
So there you have it, if it happens in a public place you are a badass terrorist and should be immediately arrested. However if you do it in the privacy of your own home away from the public then it isn't terrorism and there is no reason at all to arrest you under terrorism legislation.
Who knew that terrorism ceases to be terrorism if it isn't done in public?
You gotta feel sorry for the old bill desperately trying to find ways to ignore ridiculous and highly repressive laws introduced by a "Labour" government which wants to silence criticism.
I particularly liked this little rant from UK lawyers for Israel :
There is a risk that if you allow one and say, that's lawful, that you'll end up with whole streets with these in their windows, creating a distinctly intimidating atmosphere for Jewish people and other people who are generally supportive - for example, the British Armed Forces.
So according to UK lawyers for Israel saying "I oppose genocide" could make some people feel intimidated! Or is it "I support Palestine Action" which might scare "the British Armed Forces"?
I love the way they include the "British" armed forces in people who might feel intimidated, it almost sounds as if opposing genocide might be unpatriotic and un-British!
What I know for sure is that the multitude of Jews who be out this coming Saturday in central London to oppose the genocide being carried out by a far-right apartheid regime won't feel in the least bit intimidated.
https://bsky.app/profile/premnsikka.bsky.social/post/3m2qjn76el22q
Please - not under Starmer's watch he will go into single digits.
Seriously I do think this is brewing but like all predictions they've often don't play out when you expect them.
We are probably due quite a crunch though. Things do seem to be aligning.
Ive got a techbro-crypto****er* mate and he reckons the amount of money goin into anything AI related that gets listed is gobbled up before anyone even knows what it is, BUT hes absolutely adamant that its going to have a huge impact and we are all unprepared for the change thats coming
(*thats a technical name for him- retired at 40 after using the profits from selling his IT consultancy to buy bitcoin when nobody understood what it was, now winters in south america and spends summer in Ibiza with his model/surfer girlfriend)
anyway
I see this conspiracy that was picked up by lots on teh left & right and came from a pro-reform twitter account with a long history of fake news has been exposed
but its still taken as fact by many