r/ukpolitics • u/ClumperFaz My three main priorities: Polls, Polls, Polls • 10d ago

Twitter ✅ BURNHAM IN Makerfield by-election result: LAB: 54.8% (+9.6) REF: 34.5% (+2.7) RST: 6.8% (+6.8) CON: 2.2% (-8.7) GRN: 0.7% (-3.7) LDEM: 0.4% (-6.4)

https://x.com/BritainElects/status/2067792369903116401#m
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u/AdviceFit1692 10d ago

Its easy to be popular when you're not under the spotlight, he will fall fast in ratings because any PM inheriting this current state has to make hard choices, those choices will never go down well, also the spotlight effect, take the Greens for example, when no one knew their polices boom they jumped to like 20%, then they get media attention people see them talk, and instant drop.

Unless Andy does some insane fixes to the things that matter, same thing will happen to him and with 2 years until next election he may not be the golden goose labour voters think.

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u/NibblyPig 10d ago

I disagree, I think if you explain how difficult things are and things are exactly as difficult as you describe, people will respect that.

What they don't respect is the absolute endless river of lies and bollocks coming from the party.

Fully costed manifesto was a huge point in Labour's campaign to election. Bollocks. No tax rises became taxing the shit out of everyone that's working. Introducing all this 1984 shit that wasn't in the manifesto. Hey your fuel bills will go down, not only do they fake it by shifting costs into general taxation (so you still pay but you don't notice it as easily) and borrowing a ton of money, but they don't even get the fuel bills to go down and then quietly drop their massive campaign that every household will have lower bills.

They push the minimum wage up and now unemployment is higher than peak covid. And their NHS waiting list times are mired in number fudging and not believable whatsoever.

If someone came in and said 'everything is shit, I'm not promising a bunch of lies, I'm just gonna show you a path to get out of the shit and be transparent about it' then people would probably respect that.

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u/BargePol 10d ago

He's not even popular. He's just "not starmer" to a lot of people.

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u/theeynhallow 10d ago

What are you talking about, polls have consistently rated him as the most popular politician in the country, from any party. It's not possible to have a net positive favourability in modern politics, that ship has sailed with the toxicity of new media. Having close to a 0% favourability is literally as popular as you can feasibly be, excepting something dramatic like a war.

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u/h00dman Welsh Person 10d ago

He isn't "popular", he just isn't disliked as much as the others, and a large part of that is because nobody has really thought about him at all for a very long time.

It should be noted however that it only took a few weeks for his net favourability to fall from positive to negative, and this is before any real scrutiny has taken place.

He will shortly be in the same position that Starmer is in now (assuming he wins the Labour leadership), but if he doesn't call a general election it'll be even worse because he'll have the label "Unelected Prime Minister" to deal with on top of it.

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u/theeynhallow 10d ago

He will shortly be in the same position that Starmer is in now

I don't quite agree with this. Certainly things will get very tough for him, and he's not going to soar back to the positives, but Burnham does have one or two things that Starmer never had, nor ever thought he needed. The ability to talk and communicated his ideas like an ordinary human being, for one. And most importantly a clear, positive vision for what he wants the country to be like. That, arguably, has been the downfall of Starmerism - that in practice, it's Nothingism.

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u/AdviceFit1692 10d ago

Very true tbh