What's The Point Of Labour?
Keir Starmer Labour Leader
- Thread starter Damien
- Start date
And therein lies your problem. Missing the point completely. Maybe just go and have a little think if you don't have the attention span to read.
It's probably for the best, for Labour. Nobody likes them right now.
He really has fecked it over the few weeks
Looking at the graph, that's as clear as any evidence you are likely to see of a vaccine bounce. Its pretty galling, tbh, but nothing Starmer or anybody can do about it; they just have to ride it out.
It is good, though, that it is happening now, as it will definitely dispel the notion that it is sufficient to point out Johnson's incompetence.
Even before the vaccine bounce people did not really care that the govt was incompetent. Pandemic was force majeure, 'he's made mistakes but he's doing his best' etc.
The other issue is that no one would thought a Corbyn govt would have faired any better. Labour needs to re-establish themselves as a serious, well-run opposition party first and foremost.
I mean that's it, really. The public by and large want to vote Tory and will excuse rank incompetence as soon as they can in a way they will not for Labour.
Starmer and the centrists think that you solve that issue by being more competent, but define competence in a way which means 'doesnt create negative headlines' and as a result further allow the Overton window to shift to the right.
It's all the more absurd because left wing ideas aren't inherently unpopular in the UK (and actually some real big policy ideas are just outright popular) so Starmer's original leadership pitch made an awful lot of sense, but instead we got this shallow, empty husk of a leader.
The latter point is also important though. When there were genuine pockets of frustration/'cut through' (eg Cummings, school meals, u-turns etc) I genuinely don't think any swing voter would have thought 'we'd be better off if we'd voted in Corbyn'. To be fair to Starmer he inherited a big credibility gap around the Labour Party, which he has to fill. At the same time there is no actual public appetite for outright criticism of the current govt.
What exactly is he doing to fill this credibility gap then? What is he putting forward in terms of policy because he can certainly win votes through good ideas (ones that never actually have to get tested!) but instead we get silent support. There's been plenty of appetite to blame the government the polling showed that but Labour failed to make a narrative of it so now the Tories have an easy get out.
Labour are currently an opposition party that don't believe it's worthwhile opposing or offering alternative views and care more about those who didn't vote for them than those who did. The idea they'll build credibility by not doing their job seems fanciful.
It is not only the "vaccine bounce". Starmer is now being perceived as a fence sitter who is saying nothing and contributing nothing.
What's your evidence for that though?
Amazing* this is being ignored by all the ‘sensible’ cnuts in this thread...
*entirely predictable
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My guess is they're still clinging onto the hope that Kier is their saviour.
Here is a starting point. His negative polling has been increasing since August. Which predates the vaccine rollout.
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/trackers/keir-starmer-approval-rating
Electable, according to some.
We are descending into a "Hillary Clinton scenario" the more we see of Starmer.
Starmer vs Johnson, Clinton vs Trump. We know how that ended.
It wouldn't surprise me if Starmer was an MI5 operative himself.
I say that with tongue in cheek, but then you read stuff like that above and begin to wonder.
I say that with tongue in cheek, but then you read stuff like that above and begin to wonder.
[overexaggerated face palm and sigh]
Congrats Labour centrists. You've fecked the party into irrelevance!
We both know the centrist answer to that is yes. They're now able to forget about politics because one of their own is in charge, that's as far as it extends. In that respect Starmer is perfect as he seems to have forgot about politics as well.
What a time to be alive. I remember every cnut you'd have a discussion with before the 2019 election used to parrot this shite. I hope they're consistently reminded of how shit they are.
Is there a chance that Labour forms a coalition with Greens/LibDems before the election?
The government decision to award the NHS workers 1% gives Starmer a perfect opportunity to attack Boris and force a change.
If he is not able to do that then he and Labour will have failed comprehensively.
If he is not able to do that then he and Labour will have failed comprehensively.
More likely it's the giant once in a lifetime all encompassing crisis that is in everyone's face, in case you've missed it. We'll have a better idea how relevant or not Labour's pitch is when it's over, or at least dialled down, in a the next 2-3 months.
A crisis which has been grossly mishandled by the UK government by almost every metric and country comparison.
You would think we should have a pretty good idea by now.
I'm not sure this is evidence for your conclusion though.
Ah yes, that once in a lifetime, monumental crisis throughout which Labour has managed to completely disappear. Balls to holding anyone to account for anything, let's just sit quietly and wait it out while the Tories dish out mates rates contracts and bungle just about anything and everything. If this is Starmer during Brexit and a global pandemic I'm curious to see his forensic strategy in normal, boring times. More radio silence probably.
The phrase you are looking for is 'completely overshadowed"
Most people appear to think - unfortunately - that the Govt has done the best it could and views Labour's comments in that light. You can even sort of see how all the mates rates contracts stuff might play with a public who probably see it as cutting bureaucratic corners to try to save lives - so the govt gets a pass.
Can't say I agree with it myself but that's why Labour can't get anywhere with this - nobody blames the govt for Coronavirus, that's the basic thing at play here.
I wish it was different.
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I hope not. If the Greens did a deal with a Labour Party with this kind of platform I'd cancel my membership of the party.
I'm not sure many voters are judging the government's response against international benchmarks, they just want it over. And the government is handling that bit of it quite well, hence the poll bounce.
I do think Coronavirus might have damaged Boris Johnson's credibility a bit though, but it's hard to say how that might play out at the moment. The Tories are an accident waiting to happen, so I think there's ample opportunity for something to come along that they will get blamed for.
Right... so basically supporting the Tories, it is
It doesn't matter though, worst case they feck Boris off and stick Rishi in charge just before a new election so there's no time for him to make any catastrophic blunders and then Bob's your uncle they win the election again.
What you need is for the public to actually understand what the government are doing wrong and what the opposition would do better. If you can't manage that in this pandemic then you've already lost.
It's what was particularly bad about Labour's last election campaign in fact. They "thought they'd already won the economic argument" so didn't bother to really explain any of their policies and just threw them all out last minute like it was the 1000th Oprah show or something.
That's the platform at the moment, yeah.
Would you not say that it's the opposition's job to show people why that isn't the case?
It is, but the opposition also needs people's attention. At the moment, everyones attention is elsewhere.
Because they're always hiding. You can't just say "well if they're not looking I won't say anything", it's your job to say it and try to catch people's attention.