A number of people could sell that vision

Who?

Agree that is needs to be at a high level rather in at the policy level but you’re assuming they agree with your “better” alternative or indeed whether an alternative is even required.

The why needs answering before the how.

A clear, better, brighter vision is needed to overcome this current crop, get that in place then sort you show out behind that.

You’re missing something key… for a lot of voters the “who” they are voting for is absolutely key. Vision, policy, the whys and hows obviously matter… but so does the who. If Starmer is to be replaced now, you need the name of who will cut through better now.

I think Starmer could do the job tbh, but all I’m seeing at the moment is the odd points scored every wednesday which very much needs to be done but there needs to be a bigger picture starting to come into view too (pref using something along the 3 words strategy) not the endless manifesto drempt up last time around, at the moment it’s all micro and no macro – they’re going to need to set that stall out sooner or later

I’d agree timing is key as they’ve a long way to go yet and you can’t ride that big picture wave for too long as life/changes/worldwide pandemics happen which will take it out of view, but the foundations at least need to be started to be out in place and used as a platform to hammer home a consistent standpoint

I think that would disastrous.

The situation right now is disastrous.

Unless you think things could get even worse than having an attention-seeking clown as prime minister with no effective opposition nor any likelihood of effective position on the horizon?

Personally I can’t see how things could realistically be any worse.

I think that would disastrous.

I agree, but if the PLP continue to ignore the wishes of the membership and treat the party solely as a vehicle for their own personal career ambitions then what alternative is there? MPs are there to serve their constituents and their constituency parties not themselves. There are far too many in labour who do the latter.

The situation right now is disastrous.

Not if you’re a blairite right wing labour MP with a safe metropolitan seat. The situation for them right now is very much better than it has been for some time. The trouble is that’s the limit of their ambition.

Not if you’re a blairite right wing labour MP with a safe metropolitan seat. The situation for them right now is very much better than it has been for some time. The trouble is that’s the limit of their ambition.

But people are complaining about his (failed) attempts to appeal to voters in exactly the opposite kind of seat, aren’t they? He’s not been focused on “safe metropolitan seats”, and the Labour voters in those kind of seats, in the slightest. Has he? If you really want to invest in a “safe metropolitan seat” strategy, then I can easily suggest a few alternative leaders that could do that very well. Starmer is going out of his way (but not succeeding) to appeal to voters in marginals that Labour have either lost to the Tories, or come close to doing so and are likely to at the next election now the Brexit Party candidates are gone. If Starmer is failing in those constituencies against Johnson, who can replace him and do better with those voters?

Unless you think things could get even worse than having an attention-seeking clown as prime minister with no effective opposition nor any likelihood of effective position on the horizon?

We only got Trump-Lite with Johnson.

We could have had a full Trump.

We could have had a full Trump.

?

Personally I can’t see how things could realistically be any worse.

Priti Patel as PM?

I think Starmer could do the job tbh

The evidence suggests he can’t. People have formed their opinions of him (those that noticed him).

 with no effective opposition nor any likelihood of effective position on the horizon?

If Labour fragmented into two or three smaller parties with all the bitter recriminations, lack of faith and an unwillingness to co-operate with each other to oust the Tories, that that would mean, then decades of unchallenged tory govt would be the result, and as bad you think it is now, I imagine it would get worse.

Personally I can’t see how things could realistically be any worse.

Didn’t have you down for some-one with such a limited imagination. We’ve a way yet to get to sorts of hyper-capitalism and unregulated marketisation like the US has, but give the Tories a free hand, and I could see us getting there.

Personally I can’t see how things could realistically be any worse.

We used to think Theresa May was a terrible PM…

We used to think Theresa May was a terrible PM…

we used to laugh about how rubbish Gordon Brown was

God, I’d even take Tony Blair now… that’s how bad things have got! And, yes, off course things can get a lot worse, under Johnson or his successors. When people think “things can’t get worse”, they are often ruling out the kind of stuff we’ve seen happen time and time again, across history, across the world… just because “these things don’t happen in the UK”… until they do.

I don’t believe you are an anti-semite

And finally. Why did you persist with your nonsense then? I’ll take that as your apology, because that’s probably as good as I’m going to get. Well done.

It’s a pity that you’re so invested in your narrative that you continue to peddle this falsehood.

it would be beneficial for you to stop and have a think

😀 You’re funny. Deluded, but funny.

God, I’d even take Tony Blair now

I’d take literally any other prime minister from the last 100 years.

Including Call Me Dave and Thatcher.

We could have had a full Trump.

That isn’t imo a realistic possibility for Britain.

It is quite astonishing that Trump become US president, even if he didn’t quite get the majority of votes.

However I can’t see that being replicated in Britain. Firstly we don’t have a directly elected prime minister, the British establishment would never give power to someone like Trump.

Secondly the huge support for conspiracy theories which exists in the US, coupled with a deep, ingrained, and lasting hatred of government, simply doesn’t exist here.

Thirdly the British people actually like their leaders to be smart, whatever you think of Johnson most people don’t think he’s stupid.

Many Americans on the other hand appear to be strangely attracted to politicians who aren’t very capable intellectually, I suspect that it makes them feel they have more in common with them. Along with conspiracy theories and deep hatred of government there is probably also a dislike and mistrust of “know-it-alls”. I think Ronald Reagan tapped into that with his famous “oh there you go again” comment.

I’d even take Tony Blair…

Into a back room and waterboard the ****?

If Blair was in charge now, I think we’d be in exactly the position we are now. Possibly even worse.

And finally. Why did you persist with your nonsense then? I’ll take that as your apology, because that’s probably as good as I’m going to get. Well done.

It was a point I made several pages ago, so it’s just further evidence that you respond to what you imagine is written, rather than what is actually written. I look forward to your retraction of your complaint together with a promise to do better next time.

😀 You’re funny. Deluded, but funny

You can do better than that. Have another go.

That isn’t imo a realistic possibility for Britain.

“these things don’t happen in the UK”

All the obsession on here with who is Prime Minister is a bit weird. Boris is very easy to dislike, but really he’s only a puppet, a figurehead who will do the bidding of people in the shadows and maintain their power. Pretty much all the prime ministers before him were the same, and their freedom to change things is quite limited so it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. If you want evidence of this then look no further than Corbyn.

Unless of course people or more bothered about the image he presents rather than what he does. Which is also odd because I find the fact that he can attend an international summit with scraggy hair and an ill-fitting suit and behaving like the pissed uncle at a wedding pretty hilarious. These things are designed to project power and make the rest of us defer to them. Boris sort of does the opposite to that, which probably explains his popularity.

Boris is very easy to dislike, but really he’s only a puppet

Ooh, careful… 😉

All the obsession on here with who is Prime Minister is a bit weird.

In a thread about the leader of the opposition. Really?!?

Pretty much all the prime ministers before him were the same, and their freedom to change things is quite limited so it doesn’t really matter in the grand scheme of things. If you want evidence of this then look no further than Corbyn.

He’s never actually been PM, you do know that, don’t you?

I prefer the obsession with the Rose and Crown, Ramsbottom. It’s far more interesting and entertaining.

I know some of you will turn your nose up at anything written by Owen Jones but this should be setting off major alarm bells. First labour ostracised it’s working class base, then the young and idealistic, now it’s hugely loyal muslim voters. Starmer looks less like a leader and potential PM and more like a liquidator winding up a bankrupt business.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/jun/16/labour-batley-and-spen-jeremy-corbyn-scottish-voters

Ah, good old Gorgeous George Galloway.

Leadbeater is a great candidate. Depressing to think that anyone would campaign for Galloway because of her selection. Really hope she can cut through and hold the seat for Labour, she’d make a great MP.

I’d take literally any other prime minister from the last 100 years.

Including Call Me Dave and Thatcher.

Unless of course they are on the hard right of the Tory Party I am intrigued to know why someone should prefer Margret Thatcher to Boris Johnson.

Margaret Thatcher raised the standard for the small state, public thrift, tax cuts, and the “creative” destruction wrought by free markets. Britain’s steel, shipbuilding and coal industries fell victim to her conviction that if a business needed state subsidy it should not be in business. Prosperity was rooted in the endeavours of enterprising individuals.

One supposes she was turning in her grave this week as Johnson trumpeted his organising mission as increased state support for “jobs, business and economic growth”. The scale of the reversal was laid out in his legislative agenda for a new session of parliament. He has called it one-nation conservatism. True Thatcherites might prefer “treachery”.

https://www.ft.com/content/ad5061b8-6a16-42de-b5a9-824cf15b84b6

Johnson is the most leftwing Tory Prime Minister of last 40 years. Thatcher was the most rightwing Tory Prime Minister of the last 40 years.

Thatcher didn’t just treble unemployment and destroy entire industrial communities with her economic policies, whilst simultaneously giving tax breaks to a new class of wealthy yuppies, but she also tore at the very fabric of society and left us with Section 28, smouldering riot-torn cities, and the most restrictive employment laws in the Western World.

Boris Johnson has a long way to go to match that.

We agree on something. Thatcher did a LOT more harm than Boris ever could and we are still seeing the aftermath of what she did across society.

I agree, but give him time.

Give him time.

So some people might prefer Thatcher to Johnson based on what he might do compared to what she actually did?

Well I said I was intrigued, I am no less intrigued.

He certainly seems to be going in the wrong direction to wrought the sort of damage to society which she inflicted.

He certainly seems to be going in the wrong direction to wrought the sort of damage to society which she inflicted.

Well, as you claim not to know anyone who likes him, or supports him, you would say that.

He certainly seems to be going in the wrong direction to wrought the sort of damage to society which she inflicted.

I think he would be perfectly happy to watch as much or even more of the UK burn, socially, economically, the union itself, all of it.

My previous comment was quite tongue in cheek, don’t take it that seriously. An expression of how truly and utterly awful I think the current lot are, no more, no less. I just didn’t think it needed a smiley face to indicate that.

Well, as you claim not to know anyone who likes him, or supports him

And yet I have never said that.

I have claimed that I don’t know loads of people who love him, which I’m sure you’ll agree isn’t the same.

Anyway I don’t see what any of that has to do with me agreeing with the FT comment that Johnson is going in the opposite direction to Thatcher.

Do think that if I got to know more Johnson lovers I wouldn’t agree with the FT?

Do you think the FT’s problem is that they don’t know enough people who like/love Johnson?

If you aren’t mixing with the people who support Johnson, then your comment about not damaging society makes sense.

I haven’t read the FT piece, or commented on it. In general though, going on Johnson’s track record I would be very wary about cheering his spending commitments… I want to know who is going to pocket that money, and whether they are chosen based on their quality and reliability as regards actually delivering, or for being mates of mates. You can spend a lot of money getting little done if you’re corrupt acting as part of the chumocracy.

You seem to know me better than I know myself Kelvin.

How do you know who I mix with?

I don’t know why you have brought in a comment I made concerning Johnson’s popularity. I said that I had seen no evidence that “loads of people love Johnson”. Yes he might be the preferred choice by a wide margin for a significant minority but I made the comparison with vomiting and diarrhoea. I said that I prefer diarrhoea to vomiting by a wide margin but it doesn’t mean that I love diarrhoea.

None of that has anything at all to do with whether the FT comment that Thatcher must be spinning in her grave is true or not.

I was replying to this statement…

He certainly seems to be going in the wrong direction to wrought the sort of damage to society which she inflicted.

Which I consider a very glass half full attitude towards Johnson, which ignores everything he has done in politics over the last 15 years.

I was not denying that he has proposed splashing money around, he’s always liked doing so promising to do so. If anyone can be relied on to oversee commitments to big spending followed by poor value for money delivery, he’s your man.

That “statement” was in direct reference to the FT article.

I still have no idea why who I mix with has any relevance.

I currently appear to be spending a ridiculous amount of time in the company of middle-class liberals who claim that they once rode a bike discussing bollox.

Does that come into the equation?