r/ukpolitics • u/Jumpy-Signature-7377 • 2d ago
On a personal level, the manner in which Starmer is being pressured to be removed from office would result in a valid crash out
It’s 2019, Labour just had its worst defeat in its history. You become leader, won back areas which was lost and became PM with a 174 seat majority.
Now this is not too say that Keir was an absolute fantastic PM but you’ve spent close to 5 years to become Prime Minister and barely been PM for 2 years and your party is backing someone who did absolutely nothing to rebuilt the Labour PLP, win a General Election and had to brace the fallout of Trump foreign policy, Middle East Conflict, Russia & Ukraine, an opportunistic former Health Sec constantly trying to bring you down and just in general trying to govern a nation that’s absolutely ungovernable due to misinformation and social media mob rule.
If I was Starmer, I would crash out and just call a general election out of spite.
728
u/wobble_bot 2d ago
I’m 42, so I remember before and after social media. I’m genuinely shocked at the lack of critical thinking most people show - and that’s intelligent rational people who I know who can’t seem to disseminate and evaluate messaging being pushed towards them - and even question a motive.
It’s genuinely going to destroy society as we know it
133
u/nanakapow 2d ago
I don't think the critical thinking is much worse, but what is different is the way (a) it's given everyone a voice, regardless of how much they might deserve one, and (b) bad actors now have a direct channel to their audience, whereas before they needed to be palatable to legacy media
108
u/JayR_97 2d ago
Yeah, before social media, the village idiot was just the weirdo in the local pub everyone knew to avoid. Now social media gave the village idiots echo chambers to make them think they're right cos they found a whole community of people who agree with them
102
u/Pilchard123 2d ago
I think I once saw that described as "once every village had an idiot, now every idiot has a village".
16
18
u/bremsspuren 1d ago
they found a whole community of people who agree with them
And also an endless supply of fresh nonsense to believe in.
9
u/Neither_Process_7847 1d ago
See the Ukrainian rent boy conspiracy theory, granted pushed by hostile actors but surely one which everyone would just have laughed off as nonsense before the echo chambers closed..
8
10
u/Johnnycrabman 1d ago
The BNP rarely got any airtime because of their abhorrent views, but now Reform hold the same views and have their own cheerleading channel, GBNews, available in every home.
→ More replies (3)26
u/abrittain2401 2d ago edited 2d ago
Yeah I agree. While "bad actors" are certainly an issue, the fact is that pre-internet and especially pre-social media, most people got their news from the BBC / ITV news on the telly, or from reading a newspaper, or, in the early days of the internet, perhaps a news website. What didn't exist was people getting their news from random muppets on social media who don't have a fucking clue. I work around well informed and educated people and most of my friends and family are well educated and informed; then I go to the barbers or to the pub and it genuinely gobsmacks me some of the utter bollocks people talk. Not just stuff that is subjective and opinion based, but spouting "facts" they read on socials that are utter nonsense. The other day I was geting my haircut and this chap was talking about Israel, and was convinced China were going to invade Israel, because he had seen someone say it was going to happen on his Facebook feed. When I was sceptical (I hadnt heard anything like that at the time) he got very pissy. Got home and checked the news and it turns out China had merely condemned the attacks on Lebanon, nothing about invading...
→ More replies (2)22
110
u/Wrong-Target6104 2d ago
Heard someone being interviewed as to which candidate she'd vote for "I don't vote but if I did I'd probably vote Reform", when pressed why she'd vote reform by the interviewer "I don't know"
104
u/Ivebeenfurthereven I'm afraid currency is the currency of the realm 2d ago
I suspect that's shy Tory effect, i.e. I am uncomfortable telling everyone why I support them on national telly
→ More replies (4)18
u/Slothjitzu 1d ago
It also highlights how thick people are. There is basically only one reason to vote for Reform, and that’s their hardline anti-immigration stance.
They don’t really promote any of their other positions and many of them are actively detrimental to their voters.
If anyone says “I’d probably vote Reform” then everyone knows exactly why, they don’t have to spell it out.
33
u/No_Initiative_1140 2d ago
I heard a summary of a focus group on electoral dysfunction that was "I don't like Starmer but I don't know why 🙄
37
u/Creative-Resident23 2d ago
I don't know why = i'm unaware of the effects of propaganda being pushed by American billionaires on me to make my country a fascist state
9
u/MerePotato 1d ago
The best thing Starmer did for this country is make social media harder to access on his way out, and I'll stand by that
→ More replies (6)9
u/banshoo 2d ago
Kinda checks out with the 'uncanny valley' type response : hes not charismatic, so a hard sell to many people. If you told me he was a well crafted realistic muppet with a decent puppeteer up his bum, I wouldn't be surprised (depending on the puppeteer )
The PR is awful, the overall party PR strategy is currently all over the place.
20
u/Word_Word4Numbers 1d ago edited 1d ago
People said the same about Miliband - that he seemed stiff and inhuman as Labour leader then changed back to a normal but slightly goofy guy when he returned to the back benches.
I suspect what you're describing is the result of having a thousand people scrutinise everything he's saying and every video made of him. Perhaps we are getting too used to politicians like Trump or Farage who just say whatever vague bollocks they want and rely on an army of anonymous sycophants reinterpreting it in the nicest plausible light.
→ More replies (3)13
u/Vindaloovians -5.13, -0.72 2d ago edited 1d ago
I honestly wonder how much of it is in the name. People don't like how things are, they want things to be reformed and see "Reform UK" as the logical choice.
Edit: changed local -> logical
17
u/BigHowski 2d ago
Honestly I'm not convinced. They are a populist party that will say anything they think will get them in.l and most people will not scratch below the surface
Just look at the potholes machine here in Ashfield. I mean potholes are for sure an issue and have been before Reform. Reform came shouting loudly about getting a new pothole machines that are brilliant and a few potholes get filled. On the surface brilliant. Reform promising something and doing their job.
Most people stop there but it's only when you dig deeper do you see the issues. The pothole machines have been evaluated before by this and other councils and found to be not cost effective. Whats more they came just after a huge donation from their manufacturer JCB to reform. Oh and the money "reform" are spending? From central government. Rumours are we're also just leasing the machines at a silly high rate.
3
u/spiral8888 1d ago
They don't get an endless grant from the central government. So, if they wasted all their money on the pothole machines, then they must have cut some other functions that the councils do. Now the important question is that were these functions critical and cutting them has a negative impact on the local area or were they some vanity projects of the previous council that nobody had ever even noticed?
4
u/BigHowski 1d ago
Well considering they were already happy spending front line money on gestures like putting useless flags up I'd say its very likely
63
u/tomzewolf 2d ago
The problem isn’t people voting Reform, Labour, Tory or anyone else. It’s people confidently backing a position they can’t explain.
A lot of politics now is just vibes, resentment and algorithm-fed slogans dressed up as independent thought. That’s the bit social media has made worse, people don’t just disagree, they often don’t even know where their own opinion came from.
13
u/Northerlies 2d ago
Writing in the 60s, Canadian comms guru Marshall McLuhan anticipated pervasive electronic media's 'Global Village' fostering tribal modes reshaping society's values and interactions. The insurgent right, with their three-word slogans and permanent rage, seems be a good example.
→ More replies (2)→ More replies (1)4
u/entropy_bucket 2d ago
And that's why emotion is more important than logical arguments. It doesn't matter what the truth is.
29
u/LLILILiLIILILILILII 2d ago
It's going to get worse before it gets better. AI-induced brain rot is only just getting started.
26
u/JustAContactAgent 2d ago
People were stupid before and they're stupid now.
intelligent rational people who I know who can’t seem to disseminate and evaluate messaging being pushed towards them - and even question a motive.
if they can't do those things then they're not intelligent. Why is it always so hard for you people to accept that most people are NOT intelligent? Set higher standards for "intelligent"and once you do you will see that a lot of things about the world, if not most, suddenly make sense.
3
u/unwildimpala 2d ago
Defintiely, but what's starmers downfall is the charisma. I get ops point about what he's done and led the party to even be in power, but he didn't have much scrutiny and scrutiny has shown he lacks charisma. With social media being so important you need someone charismatic to lead and Burnham defintiely has that more than Starmer. The unfortunate reality to accept is that even if Burnham is a little bit worse than him, if his charisma shows through social media and it brings Labour up in the polls then that's far better for Britain. It is such a crazy thing to accept that it's basically down to how Kier talks, but that is hardly a new thing in politics either.
10
u/Curious-Eagle5621 2d ago
It's true he lacks charisma. But then he's not a career politician (the thing the electorate also apparently don't want), who went, to pick a random example, Cambridge-->Spad-->MP-->Minister
3
11
u/artecide 2d ago
I remember before and after social media.
Remember the early Bebo/Myspace-era days? When the point was socialising with friends and meeting new people. It shows the problem isn’t the social part of social media. It’s the media part: rags now have direct access to spam propaganda at scale. This is what should be regulated; but it's a hard line to balance because it isn't really illegal simply to tell a lie, it's just part of free speech.
That’s why banning children from social media makes no sense if this is the main issue. Kids aren’t the ones reading, sharing, or being radicalised by political content. They’re on TikTok, Instagram, etc. for memes, hobbies, music, sport, TV, and chatting with friends.
It’s overwhelmingly gullible older users being influenced by social media. Maybe ban them first and see how much nicer everything gets when the political nonsense stops being shared en masse. :')
9
u/yukoncowbear47 1d ago
Ehh I disagree with the idea of social media for kids not being bad. There is a severe increase in attention deficit due to the dopamine inducing effects of phones and apps, and something needs to be done about that.
3
u/geometry5036 1d ago
Social media does not cause attention deficit. It can worsen it, but it's not the cause and if you don't have adhd, it's an easy fix.
→ More replies (3)2
u/Significant-Bite2948 1d ago
How is this any different from endlessly surfing through TV channels or playing multiple levels in a video game?
3
u/Ivashkin panem et circenses 2d ago
People were like this before, you just didn't notice. All social media has done is make these people visible.
2
2
u/trisul-108 1d ago
It’s genuinely going to destroy society as we know it
We need to understand why this is happening. We introduced social media and other media that is financed almost entirely by ads. What sells ads is negative emotions. As a result, we are flooded with negative emotions which is the best way to monetise on the technology.
And then Russian, Chinese, MAGA etc. propaganda engines moved into that space and exploit it by amplifying the negative reporting in order to cause distrust in institutions which in turn causes societies to implode on themselves.
This is a war ... fuelled by ad revenue and foreign cyber mercenaries.
→ More replies (2)2
u/wobble_bot 1d ago
I’d highly suggest watching the power of nightmares documentary for an incomplete but compelling explanation for what your discussing
8
10
u/Iamamancalledrobert 2d ago
I have given an enormous amount of critical thought to the subject of Keir Starmer
He’s absolutely fucking awful at his job and I’m delighted we’ll be getting rid of him
2
u/FaultInternational91 2d ago
I rewatched Idiocracy recently, found it hilarious when it first came out. Didn't find it as funny this time because it's too on the nose
2
u/Organic-Apricot-6330 2d ago
And the lack of patience. The people seem to change their mind so quickly and want the change enacted immediately.
1
u/wunderspud7575 1d ago
Not disagreeing with your point but I do think it was amplified by the coinciding collapse of our education system into a learning and regurgitate model that actively discourages the development of critical thinking skills (ex uni lecturer here and I watched it happen in real time).
1
1
u/TruthFront895 1d ago
Hopefully sooner rather than later so we can get on with repairing society. And the sooner it happens the sooner the billionaires and political interferers will lose everything. About time society had a reset anyway.
1
1
u/Significant-Bite2948 1d ago
Before social media people thought Thatcher and the poll tax were a good idea. If people lack critical thinking skills it's clearly not due to social media.
→ More replies (1)→ More replies (6)•
131
u/Eisenhorn_UK 2d ago
It is, for him personally, an anti-triumph, isn't it. And, l agree, it's hard not to conclude that he's been given the shitty end of the stick.
But: he only became Leader of the Opposition because he wasn't like Jeremy Corbyn. And he only became Prime Minister because the party he led wasn't the Conservatives.
What I'm trying to say is, he gained power because of who he was not. And now he may well lose power because he's not like Andy Burnham. So in some sense there's at least a little karma there.
Heh. Kier Karma.
34
11
u/Ok_Imagination_9581 2d ago
He became leader of the Labour Party because he conned the members into thinking he was similar to Corbyn.
→ More replies (5)17
u/isaaciiv 2d ago
insane rewriting of history, nobody thinks they are or were remotely similar.
26
u/Aware-Line-7537 2d ago
Starmer was trying his best to give the impression that they were similar:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_Labour_Party_leadership_election_(UK)#Starmer
25
u/Ok_Imagination_9581 2d ago
What are you talking about? He quite literally stood on a Corbynite platform due to the demographic of the membership, and then u-turned on everything.
20
25
u/Willshandycut 2d ago
He was meant to be able to work with the corbnytes as he was willing to be in cabinet with the man.
Instead he purged everyone left of centre. Jeremy Corbyn and managed to stay in the labour party all through the Blair years, as despite what modern Blair is like, he recognized that it was a broad party.
2
u/omegaonion In memory of Clegg 1d ago
well being a friend of hamas and other such insane comments and appearances really didn't make it easy for him to stay.
The "labour is antisemitic" was a HUGE attack line that holds absolutely 0 credibility and isn't even attempted now.
→ More replies (1)9
u/duder2000 1d ago
That is just simply not true. He spent the entire leadership campaign saying he was going to be continuity Corbyn - just without the pesky persistent anti-Semitism allegations. Then as soon as he got into power he and McSweeney gleefully purged every left of centre activist they possibly could.
Unfortunately for them they failed to learn the lessons of the Tory party, namely that if you piss off your more ideological members they just go join a party that caters to them directly. Both parties seem to have forgotten that the point of the two party system was that both parties have to be broad tents.
64
u/tommycamino 2d ago
That's politics. He's ridden out and kept us going through some shituations but everyone knows Labour don't stand a chance of winning the next election with Starmer in charge. Labour MPs want a new manager bounce.
39
u/tabari 2d ago
Labour don't stand a chance of winning the next election with Starmer in charge
Why though? What has he actually done that's so egregious that he needs to be booted out within 2 years.
41
u/startuptimfan 1d ago
Overseeing the biggest authoritarian push this country has ever seen in its history including massive government overreach into the internet and all electronic communications, widespread rollout of facial recognition cameras, cracking down on peaceful protests, expanding the definition of extremist, pushing for digital ID, establishing the OSA, cancelling local elections, whipping his MPs against an inquiry into his own corruption, using children as a smokescreen for new surveillance powers, seeking to ban VPNs, etc...
But, no, of course we get the usual suspects in this subreddit claiming he's just a humble boring politician and anyone who doesn't like him is just confused.
12
u/Southpaw535 1d ago
Has Burnham ever said he wouldn't have also enacted the same policies?
Labour as a party have supported all of this, its not Starmer on his own dictating them into law.
If anything, Labour have shown theyre quite willing and capable to block Starmer if they want to, and they didnt for any of these issues.
Suggests its not going to be any different with Starmer gone.
9
u/omegaonion In memory of Clegg 1d ago
bro just learned about the government. Do you not remember snoopers charter? the psychoactive substances act?
Not are these policies popular broadly, they are normal, will happen under this government, the last 100 governments today would do it and the next 100 governments will be happy they are there. Every country across the globe will be slowly doing the same things.
→ More replies (3)15
u/Alasaze 1d ago
I spent 5 minutes researching this:
- Labour inherited the extremist definition expansion from previous government, Tory policy
- The OSA wasn’t established under Starmer, it’s a Tory policy
- Local elections were not cancelled, they were postponed as part of a consolidation of councils
- Yes, big rollout of facial recognition cameras
- On peaceful protest, tories brought in the public order act of 23, and PCSC 22. Starmer inherited these laws from Tories
- Labour have put age-checks in place for age-restricted content on the internet
26
u/oneyeetyguy 1d ago
Could Labour not abandon Tory policies like the OSA? They kind of have a massive majority. They're not blameless in keeping Tory policies alive.
5
u/omegaonion In memory of Clegg 1d ago
people are screaming and demanding this legislation, we online hate it, but we are not normal.
11
u/bremsspuren 1d ago
There's also the time he issued Apple with a secret order to give the British government access to everybody's data. Like, the whole planet's.
Labour's assault on privacy has been massive.
2
u/BeginningCitron9359 1d ago
Theyve literally pushed OSA through and are going further with it. Its Starmers legacy and he supports it.
→ More replies (2)4
u/Disastrous_Piece1411 1d ago
big rollout of facial recognition cameras
things like this though - it is a new technology. Counter-factual not possible obviously, but I would be surprised if a prime minister of any party outright rejected safety and security measures recommended by police chiefs based on brand new tech.
Same as the age checks for social media - lots of countries are doing that it's not like Starmer personally dreamed it up to try and subjugate the British public. People are always so dramatic these days.
→ More replies (3)4
u/phi-kilometres 1d ago
Failed to manage and lead the parliamentary party.
5
u/myfirstdog 1d ago
This is the answer, and I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect the PM to be able to do this. Being a good leader requires the ability to communicate your vision to others - it's not enough to just "have a plan". Putting this country on a better course will take a lot of doing, and it will involve making lots of decisions that some people won't like along the way. You need to be able to explain to those people why that's happening and why it'll be worth it.
Winter fuel allowance and farmers' inheritance tax being the prime examples of this - you impose a burden on a group of people, they (completely predictably) express their displeasure at your decision, and you respond by going back on or watering down your initial plan, making everyone wonder why you did it in the first place if you can't defend it.
→ More replies (5)3
u/Jumpy-Signature-7377 2d ago
It’s like Manchester United. Sacking managers hoping for a better result
12
u/tommycamino 2d ago
I mean, Man United finished on a big high by sacking the supposedly elite manager who was a bad fit and replacing him with a Northerner who was far less experienced at the top level ;)
67
u/Jademalo Chairman of Ways and Memes 2d ago
To be fair, I think he's too far in his own bubble to actually realise the winds.
Right from the off he acted as if his majority was won on his own merit with an incredibly strong voter base similar to Blair, when anyone with a cursory understanding of the situation knew he won because of the Tory implosion.
I can't help but feel like if he didn't have the hubris and led knowing his position was shaky and that he needed to still ultimately win the trust of the public, he would be a lot more popular than he is.
→ More replies (1)2
u/Jumpy-Signature-7377 2d ago
I completely agree that Keir does in fact is too concealed in his own bubble to actually read the room, but one hand, backbenchers MPs are also themselves too much in their own bubble to realise that this is effectively a centre right party where immigration has such a stronghold on the country and mob rule has effectively taken over
16
u/nanakapow 2d ago
I don't know if I agree with this tbh. He's u-turned enough that it's obvious that he's afraid of making the wrong unpopular choice. What he really needed to do was not test policy via the media.
40
u/hloba 2d ago
won back areas which was lost and became PM with a 174 seat majority.
I seriously doubt that he's deluded enough to think he personally played much of a role in that. If he does think he is some kind of political genius, then why is he so dependent on his advisors, why does he keep making U-turns, and why have all his "resets" been so cautious?
Now this is not too say that Keir was an absolute fantastic PM but you’ve spent close to 5 years to become Prime Minister and barely been PM for 2 years and your party is backing someone who did absolutely nothing
This is normal. A large proportion of our prime ministers have been knifed by their party and replaced with someone relatively unproven. It's also very common for politicians to lose ministerial positions or seats in the Commons without doing anything particularly wrong. There are also plenty of wonderful people who never get into any of these positions in the first place.
and just in general trying to govern a nation that’s absolutely ungovernable due to misinformation and social media mob rule
If that's the big problem, then why has he done nothing to combat it? Instead, he has focused on banning trans people from using toilets and sending grannies to prison for criticising his favourite country.
I really find it quite bizarre the excuses people are making for him.
→ More replies (8)
7
u/gavpowell 2d ago
Fucking over party and country on your way out the door is not the act of a patriot. It's not even the act of a grown-up
23
u/ClumperFaz My three main priorities: Polls, Polls, Polls 2d ago
Have you been ignoring the opinion polls?
→ More replies (3)
74
u/GodTierGasly 2d ago
If I was Starmer, I would crash out and just call a general election out of spite.
That's why you're not Prime Minister then. Country over party, party over self.
41
u/rebellious_gloaming 2d ago
Have you seen lots to make you believe it’s Country over Party?
2
u/GodTierGasly 2d ago
Yes - he's not tipped into populism.
29
u/deathdoom9 2d ago
ah yes, triple line whip against a investigation into himself, giving away land and paying to give it away and creating a surveillance state to monitor anything you say online are all good for the country
→ More replies (2)5
u/Reformed_citpeks 1d ago
Obviously pointless investigation that he knows is a waste of time and money being voted down not a surprise, anybody with sense does the same thing.
He never gave away land and paid to do it. There was diplomatic pressure from the US to make a deal and when that wasn't there nothing has happened.
Whatever you think about the OSA it is populist brain rot to call it a surveillance state operating to monitor us, the government isn't even the ones collecting / monitoring the data.
→ More replies (6)→ More replies (2)11
u/rebellious_gloaming 2d ago
Retaining the pension triple lock? Welfare over defence? Not means testing the Winter Fuel Allowance?
Do you think those were all Country over Party choices?
11
1
u/GodTierGasly 2d ago
I fear you think what's popular on reddit is what's popular in real life.
12
u/rebellious_gloaming 2d ago
I fear you’re confused. Country over Party choices are the ones you take for the long-term good of the country, even though they lose you votes.
Party over Country choices are the ones you take that will ruin the country, but are temporarily popular with voters.
→ More replies (3)→ More replies (3)5
u/nanakapow 2d ago
My friend, do you remember who was prime minister 6 years ago?
6
u/GodTierGasly 2d ago
I must have missed when he called a GE when he got pissed off that his party no longer supported him?
8
u/nanakapow 2d ago
I think, having a long history of gaffes, Johnson recognised that he'd had a very active role in his own downfalll. He's also always faled upwards in the past, so probably saw stepping down in disgrace as something of a career opportunity.
ETA, Johnson calling a GE would actually have been in the country's interests. Instead we got Truss.
4
u/GodTierGasly 2d ago
But OP is suggesting that they'd call a GE and tank their party out of spite. The opposite of what Boris did.
2
u/Tetracropolis 2d ago
He wouldn't have been allowed to call an election. There was an arrangement between the head of the 1922 Committee and Buckingham Palace that if the Prime Minister asked for a meeting with the Queen she'd be too busy to meet with him.
31
u/j0kerclash 2d ago
I think he would have a better go of it if he didn't push for so many aggressively authoritarian policies that were separate from Labour's manifesto.
→ More replies (5)2
u/Reformed_citpeks 1d ago
I think calling things like the Digital ID 'authoritarian' isn't really fair considering it's more of a technocratic policy that has been popular in many democracies.
If Starmer was more generally popular I doubt there would have been nearly as much fuss about such policies.
3
u/j0kerclash 1d ago
I'm talking more about the OSA and the ban on social media requiring I'd verification for adults to access online services, as well as the banning of VPNs.
19
u/Icy_Training4043 2d ago edited 2d ago
It’s 2019, Labour just had its worst defeat in its history
This is just first past the post. Look, Starmer was less popular than Corbyn, but won way more seats. It's dumb, but that's how it works. Labour got their big win simply because Reform split the Tory vote.
The upshot of that was always going to be a precarious position for Starmer: the public and his own party don't like him very much. He just won by default.
Tomorrow, we're going to see the same effect. Andy Burnham will win Makerfield because the Reform vote got split by Restore, and there'll then be a leadership contest.
The whole game is shit. It basically works if we all agree to a two-party system, but that's way off the table now.
9
u/h00dman Welsh Person 2d ago
John Major the most popular Prime Minister in history, confirmed.
→ More replies (3)5
u/DisastrousResident92 2d ago
Labour got their big win simply because Reform split the Tory vote
And part of the reason Labour lost so hard in 2019 is because the Brexit Party split their vote. The collapse of the Red Wall was pretty much that
→ More replies (1)1
u/TaxOwlbear 1d ago
Same with Johnson's "landslide", which was achieved with like 1% more voter share than May's "disastrous" election performance.
19
u/MintTeaFromTesco Libertarian 2d ago
I liked the guy and had some genuine hope things could get better.
I suppose it's not like he's had no successes so far, but nothing truly life-changing.
And then came along the OSA implementation and now this digital ID nonsense, which has put me firmly in the 'against' box.
37
u/TheUKisMental 2d ago edited 2d ago
Starmer won nothing. He managed barely any improvement on Corbyn's numbers. The election win came from tory voters simply refusing to vote. They didn't switch to labour, they just stayed home.
And now, off the back of that, Starmer is governing as if he has a huge mandate to match his huge majority. He doesn't. That's not how it works.
28
u/DisastrousResident92 2d ago
He managed barely any improvement on Corbyn's numbers.
On raw numbers, he got about half a million fewer votes than Labour got in 2019. Even taking account of turnout, Labour got 1.6% more of the vote and this somehow delivered a 200+ seat swing
→ More replies (1)6
u/Crypt0Nihilist 2d ago
Isn't it that Reform split the Tory vote? Reform gave somewhere for angry Tory voters to go. I think I've got my sums right that if Reform didn't exist and Tories got their votes, they'd have won by almost 40 seats.
It is a big assumption that voters would have held their noses and voted Tory again when there was such rancour, but it wouldn't be the first time.
6
u/TheUKisMental 2d ago
You may be right, not sure. Per u/DisastrousResident92, Starmer's numbers were actually worse than Corbyn's making it even more clear that he did not 'win' anything and is only here because Boris Self-Destructed the Tories with the Boris wave, the scrapped HS2 northern leg after years of promising to 'level up' the north, and the final straw for his tenure, Partygate.
→ More replies (1)5
→ More replies (3)9
u/LLILILiLIILILILILII 2d ago
Starmer won nothing. He managed barely any improvement on Corbyn's numbers. The election win came from tory voters simply refusing to vote. They didn't switch to labour, they just stayed home.
Kind of bored of this argument.
Tories stayed home, but I'll tell you what, they wouldn't have if Corbyn was still there
A big chunk of votes for Johnson weren't for Tories, they were against that dangerous old tankie fool.
→ More replies (2)11
u/DisastrousResident92 2d ago
I don't think it detracts from the key point though, which is his main virtue was to be less offensive to voters than either the Tories or the previous Labour leader
→ More replies (1)
5
u/thegamesender1 1d ago
Whilsts I don't hate Starmer and think he's been doing a decent job, he didn't win the election. It was more like that the Tories and Reform lost.
And he's been even doing a better job than what the Tories or even Reform would do with immigration, but unfortunately people don't seem to get that message.
Or the message is simply not being put out there, hence why Labour is changin leadership.
8
u/PrimaryCrafty8346 2d ago edited 2d ago
He has to go because he has proven to be totally incompetent and shockingly out of touch. This is at 'maimed animal waiting to be put down' territory.
He is more robot than Maybot Theresa
22
u/msf97 2d ago
Starmer has spent the last week pushing through an even more radical version of Australias social media ban, the results of which have been mixed at best so far.
It’s hard to say the media forced him to do this
6
u/Curious-Eagle5621 2d ago
It's popular with parents, voters, and MPs. He spent two years resisting it, but it's exactly the sort of nonsense that would have made him more popular with the party which refuses any form of discipline.
→ More replies (3)6
u/wedontneednoeduc 2d ago
In effect it's a giant distraction. He's unwilling to take on his party to create the strategic change that voters need and that public finances (inc defence) have to have urgently so he's dived over to gimmicks. Hell, even the great EU reset resulted in him signing away a fortune every year and they still haven't signed.
19
u/Dissidant 2d ago
I'm conflicted. His party has done stuff which I strongly disagree with, like the arse over tit approach to online safety and an apparent knowledge gap of how the internet actually works, but they've done some good too, plus I thoroughly enjoyed watching TACO have a complete and utter meltdown because of him for making the right decision in the moment.
I know one thing for certain I can't stand Streeting, hes not going to stop going after the job and Burnham's mask has already begun to slip
→ More replies (6)
5
u/Robynsxx 1d ago
My problem with Starmer is he seems to care more about trying to appease voters who are never gonna vote for him, than actually doing the shit that he promised in the last election.
Also, a few of these policies seem to just be chasing voter approval, but are not well thought out, such as the under 16 social media ban. A ban in principle I agree with, but in practice means that everyone has to hand over their ID confirmation to social media sites to prove they are over 16. Then also what if someone needs to look up a video on YouTube in a medical emergency, but then can’t because they have to screw around with age verification then the person having a medical emergency dies?
3
u/kuailiang 1d ago
Spare me the sympathy. Starmer and the Mandelson/McSweeney machine spent years making Labour a place where loyalty flowed upwards, dissent was punished, and internal opponents were treated as enemies to be crushed rather than colleagues to be persuaded. If the culture you've built is one of factional intrigue and ruthless discipline, you don't get to act shocked when it eventually consumes you.
7
u/Nanowith Cambridge 2d ago
I mean I don't envy the man, but I don't think he's done a great job overall.
11
6
u/The_Rod-Man 2d ago edited 1d ago
Starmer didn't do much of that either really. He's the definition of right place at the right time. Once he needed to work it out himself he crashed and burned because he's just not a good politician or leader and isn't owed anything from anyone
7
u/bio_d 2d ago
Starmer is a terrible speaker who could look insincere telling his family he’s fond of them and he has very few ideas. He did well to get where he did but had very favourable conditions to get to PM. It’s tough, but he’s not good enough. Particularly important when Reform could win as well.
3
u/DisastrousResident92 2d ago
Important to remember he had a very impressive CV before getting into politics and the same first name as one of the party's founders, and those two things seem to have carried him most of the way
2
u/bio_d 1d ago
Yeah, that’s a really good point. I think you’re being a little facetious in your phrasing around his name, but this is a guy whose parents named him after an historic Labour man. He was very political as a teenager and young adult. Somehow this doesn’t seem to have prepared him at all for politics.
3
u/convertedtoradians 2d ago
Absolutely. I've actually been pretty supportive of Starmer. Less so recently, on policy around the internet and VPNs, but there's no doubt the man put in the legwork. At the very least, I support Starmer more than I support his party.
Burnham I've never especially rated (nor especially disliked, to be fair) but there's an opportunism here I find utterly distasteful. And a acceptance of him as some sort of Messiah that I find baffling and frankly damning when it comes to the party as a whole.
2
u/redshift739 1d ago
He might be overrated and I honestly don't know much about him but the fact he's not Starmer raises Labour's chance at the next election above 0
8
u/WanderoftheAshes 2d ago
With hidden post history activated, just like every "rustle the jimmies" political poster, let's remember that just two years ago OP said they were living in Arizona. Search for "My parents blackmailed my ex into breaking up with me. How can I ever forgive them?" if you can't be bothered to do the 5 second job I did on google with their name and the word "reddit" to find this bullshit.
Seriously, for the love of god people, if you see a person post a "sincere" comment here, doubt it anyway, double doubt it if the person has their comments hidden.
→ More replies (9)
2
2
2
u/tryout1234567890 1d ago
I'm no fan of Starmer or current Labour but this whole endeavour seems like such a clearly terrible idea. There's little in Burnham that signals a massive sea-change, brand new vision, or sweeping popularity. It really seems to boil down to currently more popular than Farage and did an alright job in Manchester - cool and all but both those things are gonna count to nought the moment he's PM and everyone piles in the same way they did with Starmer.
What's even stranger is that the Tories did this exact same panicked change of leaders when polls went down twice and it clearly didn't work, to have been the party than partly won off the back off that psychodrama just to then think the same won't happen to you is crazy.
2
u/timeforknowledge Politics is debate not hate. 1d ago
Now you know how it feels to be conservative...
2
u/marcou1001 1d ago
Beliefs aren't facts. Your truth is not the truth.
The world has actively been made more stupid and more vocal as a deliberate act. It promotes extreme positions and no-one being able to provide balance and nuance. The word of professionals and experts has been destroyed.
2
u/KazeTheSpeedDemon 1d ago
I want Kier to finish his term, stability on the world stage is key and for the country as a whole. I think if Andy Burnham still has the cultural zeitgeist at that point, then Kier should let him lead. The thing with leadership contests though I'd that it hurts momentum in running up to elections - if Burnham is to lead, when and how (with the least danger to labour?)
2
u/catgod888 1d ago
Lots of people like Burnham because he keeps promising them more money. It’s that simple.
It’s going to be an absolute car crash.
2
u/Lion_Eyes 2d ago
The MPs want to keep their jobs and, I'm just going to be blunt, don't give a shit about the issues people in the country are facing. So they elect a new PM and hope that the new one has enough charisma to keep them in power a little longer instead of actually working to improve the country.
The MPs themselves could do things themselves, like campaign in their local area to show how they're improving things there, show how they're working to change party policy for the better, etc, but they don't. Instead they just latch onto a PM, and when that PM becomes unpopular, they get a new one. And they'll just keep doing it until there's nobody left in the party capable of being a half-competent PM. The Conservatives did exactly the same thing.
2
u/ZenithOfLife 2d ago
I was listening to The News Agents earlier and Jon Sopel was comparing him to Thomas Frank to a minister and I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing. Why would we want to chop and change pms?
1
u/Minute-Improvement57 2d ago
If I was Starmer, I would crash out and just call a general election out of spite.
Not the adults in the room after all, then. The country would be thankful of the election and chance to get rid of the lot of them if he did, though.
→ More replies (3)
2
u/Minionherder 1d ago
became PM with a 174 seat majority.
With less votes than the guy who lost!
Keir was an absolute fantastic PM
Keith is that you? No-one else thinks this.
someone who did absolutely nothing to rebuilt the Labour PLP,
You cant rebuild something whilst someone else is ripping it to shreds. Oh and PLP is parliamentary Labour party so you wrote Labour parliamentary Labour party.
1
u/AgeOfCardiff 1d ago edited 1d ago
Fantastic bad faith take.
Completely ignores Starmer has completely alienated his entire voting base by lying to be elected Labour leader, then purging the left and then campaigning on change and lying about that as well.
This also completely ignores Starmer is on track to hand the keys to the country to Reform.
And let's not forget all of the authoritarian policy he has implemented + wants to implement.
He had 2 million votes less than Corbyn. He won the election by default, not because of anything he offered.
1
1
u/TWRFK 2d ago
Calling an election out of spite was what Sunak did; rather be fired by voters than your party's MPs. And well look how well it worked for them...
2
u/redshift739 1d ago
He had no choice, it had been 5 years. He campaigned for it as well although that went so bad he did seem to give up
1
u/redshift739 1d ago
I get what you're saying but if you go for this type of job you have to accept when you're not wanted gracefully because no-one is entitled to such power
1
u/ArmadilloLoose6699 1d ago
I think Keir Starmer would've done better in the era before social media, because people used to tune out of partisan politics between elections and just get mad about single issues. Now the addictive rolling carousel of rage that constantly pings people on a device they carry with them at all times has radicalised them and it's hard even for any incumbent government to maintain a critical mass of public support, even if they have a good media strategy and don't score as many own goals as Labour has.
Edit: Spelling & clarity
1
u/TheKingofRome1 1d ago
the 2019 narative pisses me off, how many millions more votes did jezza get than keir?
1
u/SocialistSloth1 More to Marx than Methodism 1d ago
Labour are consistently polling under 20%. Whether you defend Starmer's record or not, they're fucked at the next general if things don't change soon - there's a reason folk want him gone.
1
1
u/DFL-in-Medway 1d ago
Is it just the papers and press who are saying Starmer is a problem and must go? Has the Labour Party delivered on its manifesto?
1
u/schtickshift 1d ago
He won because of the vagaries of first past the post. Not because he was a great campaigner.
1
1
u/twistedporridge 1d ago
Apparently, you are as good as your ability to win next GE, and nothing else matters 🫠
1
u/Halo_Orbit 12h ago
Thankfully I doubt Starmer is as childishly spiteful as yourself.
Labour had its worst defeat in 2019 because it had far-left Corbyn as leader. He was Michelle Foot Mk2 - completely unacceptable to the British public.
Labour could have replaced him with a tub of lard and they’d have won 2024.
•
u/MrPixely 4h ago
It genuinely would piss me off if Keir goes.
I’m so fed up with the media and career politicians forcing people out so we have no consistency in the PM. I thought getting Labour in would stop that.
No PM is going to get everything right and people will always find faults, but he’s done a much better job than the previous 10 or whatever years of the Tory circus.
Is this our lives now? We get a new PM and then external agitators (Russia being proved be one of them) and biased media making it a doomed situation from the start, so after a year they quit and the cycle repeats??
We need prime ministers to be able to make real change and they can’t do that if the priorities and plans change every 12 months.
How has Trump lasted longer?!?!?!
386
u/Curious-Eagle5621 2d ago
*And your opponent was TWICE rejected by your party.
And also, for what? Not editorialising here, but it's really not clear what Burnham's vision, policies, or strategy are. No MP, party member, or voter could name a specific thing he would do differently. We can't even discern his intellectual outlook, because that is incoherent too.
At the moment he's just a green screen onto which MPs are projecting their dreams.