Keir Starmer Labour Leader

Buster15 said:
Unfortunately that is true. Nothing wrong with what he said yesterday, but it will simply not resonate with the public.
Why. Because as you rightly say, zero charisma.
Technically, he leaves Boris standing.
But the fact is that he himself is not going to change public opinion.
But he has others in his party who can and will given the opportunity.
He needs to promote the broader party instead of just himself.

EDIT. in particular Angela Rayner and Lisa Nandy.
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That only works if they're allowed to discuss something.

Even the backbenchers are quiet on almost every issue these days. You get the impression they're only vocal when they want to stick the boot in or self-publicise.
 
Turns out you need unity in Labour because the media will always turn on a Labour leader. Brown, Milliband, Corbyn now Starmer. Who is not doing himself any favours with his own party or the media.

If only those shouting "anyone but Corbyn" had used a little foresight, or even hindsight, and realised the smears from the right wing media towards any Labour leader are inevitable.
 
So Labour policy now is to support the government in whatever it does?
 
Labour Centrists have run out of ideas. Clinging on to the Tories coat tails, hoping that people will see you as a more competent version of Boris is not opposing.
 
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Starmer seems to be paralysed by the fear of what the "public" might think, rather than actually judging the current government on its actions. A fantastic strategy that means the public thinks what it always thinks (a 4% poll lead for the conservatives), while he alienates his own party and the only thing the Tories have to fear is a potentially uncomfortable PMQs.

Wasn't a fan of Corbyn the politician but Starmer the politician is turning into a void of nothing. It's a fecking shit show.
 
Berbasbullet said:
For goodness sake Kier, you’re the opposition, start acting like it.
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Definitely. He is in danger of becoming totally invisible.
As I have mentioned, he really needs to allow others who are far more up front to project Labour policies in a way that will enthuse the public. Raynor and Nandy for a start.
 
It's unbelievable how fecking shit he is.

You'd think a QC would have something about them, but no.
 
With the Labour Together stuff hanging over his head, he won't be calling for resignations for a while.

Him being further to the right on weed than Biden is fecking hilarious, mind.

I really hope someone in the media asks him if he is in favour of bringing back the death penalty. Just to see if his head ends up landing on the Mars Perseverance.
 
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Got to say, I was a big supporter of Keir's approach, especially in the early days of his leadership, but he really needs to be putting this incompetent government to the sword more often. He is at risk of becoming totally invisible as any form of opposition and worrying way too much about public opinion.

He would fare much better if he started to set out concrete alternatives to government policy and provide the electorate with another credible option. I have faith that he will with time, set out policies that will be palatable to the far left whilst appealing to the vast majority of the British public, but right now, he needs to get his head out of the sand. Especially now the Tories have the success of the vaccine programme to cling on to.
 
Today at pmq's, bumbling Boris had Starmer on toast.
I am afraid he and his team have got Starmer worked out. At the moment, Boris has the upper hand, primarily based on the vaccine programme. He continues to attack Starmer for backing the UK remaining within the EU vaccine procurement process.
Clever as he is, Starmer is continually failing to mount any form of sustained attack on Boris.
Quite honestly I had hoped for better.
 
Buster15 said:
Today at pmq's, bumbling Boris had Starmer on toast.
I am afraid he and his team have got Starmer worked out. At the moment, Boris has the upper hand, primarily based on the vaccine programme. He continues to attack Starmer for backing the UK remaining within the EU vaccine procurement process.
Clever as he is, Starmer is continually failing to mount any form of sustained attack on Boris.
Quite honestly I had hoped for better.
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I actually agree unfortunately, I mean there was almost zero substance to Boris’ rambling but PMQs isn’t about that it’s about putting on the best show possible.
 
No-one cares about PMQs anyway. Even when he did put in some good early performances it barely registered.
It's the least of his problems.
 
Jippy said:
No-one cares about PMQs anyway. Even when he did put in some good early performances it barely registered.
It's the least of his problems.
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Exactly. It might have been you that said it before but nobody cares about PMQs. The general voter doesn’t pay it any attention at all. It’s thinking things like PMQs matter that perfectly illustrates the disconnect between the politically enthused left and the majority of the UK population.

I don’t think economics will decide the next election - the bedroom tax and change to universal credit barely registered from a voter perspective. I don’t think Labour want to be seen by their metropolitan voters occupying the kind of socially conservative positions that will be needed to genuinely bring Joe Bloggs back on board. I think they’re fecked long term basically.
 
Of course PMQs matters, most people don't watch it but they do catch the highlights and headlines. When Corbyn was fecking up PMQs and the centrists were moaning we at least admitted he was shit at it on here.

There's no substance from Starmer and it's the one place where he can create headlines. He can't lurk for a second year he'll already have an image he can't shake off by then.
 
Smores said:
Of course PMQs matters, most people don't watch it but they do catch the highlights and headlines. When Corbyn was fecking up PMQs and the centrists were moaning we at least admitted he was shit at it on here.

There's no substance from Starmer and it's the one place where he can create headlines. He can't lurk for a second year he'll already have an image he can't shake off by then.
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I doubt that 'most people' statement, but what I'm surprised about is that I can't find any polling to confirm that hunch. In all honesty, I suspect that even the term 'PMQs' has low recognition; there's a Hansard report from 2014 which suggests that and they surveyed again in 2016 but it seems to have dissappeared.

I think you're right generally though that it does matter. It was part of the reason Corbyn didn't convince centrists and Starmer's ham sandwich and ready salted crisps approach similarly struggles to enthuse people. Even if it is little more than an exercise in evangelising to the already converted and maintaining party discipline it's a worthwhile exercise for that reason alone.
 
NinjaFletch said:
I doubt that 'most people' statement, but what I'm surprised about is that I can't find any polling to confirm that hunch. In all honesty, I suspect that even the term 'PMQs' has low recognition; there's a Hansard report from 2014 which suggests that and they surveyed again in 2016 but it seems to have dissappeared.

I think you're right generally though that it does matter. It was part of the reason Corbyn didn't convince centrists and Starmer's ham sandwich and ready salted crisps approach similarly struggles to enthuse people. Even if it is little more than an exercise in evangelising to the already converted and maintaining party discipline it's a worthwhile exercise for that reason alone.
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PMQ'S is not the only metric on which Starmer is failing. Far from it. If that was his only problem then he would be fine.
 
PMQ's matters a bit cause nerds like it and then they write things for papers that normal people skim on their lunchbreak and then say to their colleagues 'Starmer's a bit crap isn't he?'.
 
DOTA said:
PMQ's matters a bit cause nerds like it and then they write things for papers that normal people skim on their lunchbreak and then say to their colleagues 'Starmer's a bit crap isn't he?'.
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Even then, I think that's overestimating engagement.

I'm always reminded of this study: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/...servative-leader-prime-minister-a7719731.html

When the politically interested were mocking the Tories for how banal and overused that slogan was less than 1/5 people recognised it. It's mad how large the disconnect is, and even when we acknowledge it's mad, I still don't think we all grasp it.

Which is another reason why Starmer's outright refusal to do or say absolutely anything that might make a headline is a particularly daft strategy.
 
NinjaFletch said:
I'm not suggesting otherwise; he's bland and insipid. I'm just responding to the point about PMQs.
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This is what I was saying. His inability to cut through or land meaningful blows goes far beyond a few underwhelming PMQ performances.
I agree it's an opportunity to create headlines, but there are plenty of others.
The majority of people really don't care about politics full stop, let alone if someone cracked a decent one-liner at PMQs that day.
 
Jippy said:
This is what I was saying. His inability to cut through or land meaningful blows goes far beyond a few underwhelming PMQ performances.
I agree it's an opportunity to create headlines, but there are plenty of others.
The majority of people really don't care about politics full stop, let alone if someone cracked a decent one-liner at PMQs that day.
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I think Rashford showed you can reach normally disinterested people if you pick the right issue and message well. As did Farage.
 
Jippy said:
This is what I was saying. His inability to cut through or land meaningful blows goes far beyond a few underwhelming PMQ performances.
I agree it's an opportunity to create headlines, but there are plenty of others.
The majority of people really don't care about politics full stop, let alone if someone cracked a decent one-liner at PMQs that day.
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I think it's a general conservativeness which comes through in his PMQ questions. He has a background in creating fact based arguments where small mistakes can cost you the case, and I'm not sure he's grasped that it's more important to call Johnson a raggedy, tossle-haired waste of skin than it is to suggest he might not have interpreted paragraph 3 of subsection 2 of clause 47 correctly.

It's been a personality contest for as long as I can remember and Starmer's yet to show he has one.
 
Contrarian view:

His polling is still doing ok. It wasn't more than a month ago that the centrists here were trumpeting a polling lead (which never existed in the averages AFAIK), but despite a fall since then they're still close. Just a little bit off the 2017 result, which was the best performance for the party since 2005.

I think it's interesting that in 2017, there was a hard Brexit party just above 40, and a soft Brexit party just under 40, and as their stances got confused they both dived, and then you had Boris coming in and Labour changing its stance, giving a hard Brexit party at 45 and a neutral/remain party at 30. Right now, it looks like the 2017 status quo, in terms of both Brexit policy and polling (though probably "soft" Brexit is not the right way to describe Starmer's policy since leaving his Brexit job).
 
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