Keir Starmer Labour Leader

Jezpeza said:
I think there has been a blind loyalty to labour from many with these opinions for a very long time.
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I hear a variation on this argument on a regular basis and it makes no sense. People shouldn't be 'blindly loyal' to a Party because they have chosen a team i.e. the way you choose a football team. However, people SHOULD choose their political allegiances based on the ideas these Parties represent. On that basis, I don't vote for Labour at every GE out of 'blind loyalty', I vote for them because I share their fundamental beliefs about the economy and our society. I could no more vote for the Conservatives than I could start believing that the Earth is flat.

Part of the issue we have is that people DON'T understand the ideologies that underpin these Parties and how that manifests itself in their policies (and/or the reaction to their policies in the media).

If I said to you, purely out of interest, "what is Conservatism?"...how would you answer? I guarantee, if you asked that to every single Conservative Party voter you would get 1,000,000 different garbled, gibberish answers. Most of them would in someway relate to some vague idea of Conservatism they may have picked up from the mainstream media i.e. they might say "The Conservatives are the Party of small business". Well, that's not 'Conservatism' is it. It's a falsehood, for a start and secondly, it's not fundamentally anything to do with 'Conservatism' - or at least not in the way the average voter understands it to be,

That's not a criticism of YOU per se or even Conservative Party voters. I obviously believe that Labour Party voters are making the "right" choice, but I suspect a decent portion of those get there by sheer luck (or as you say blind allegiances they don't really understand). I highly doubt more than half understand 'Socialism' and how and why THAT manifests itself in Labour Party policies etc...

My point is, neither Politics, nor Economics, nor Political Philosophy is on the curriculum at school. I happen to have a treble honours degree in Politics, Philosophy & Economics, so I DO have some background in studying these subjects...but I had to make a conscious choice to do so. Now, that doesn't make me more intelligent than someone who studied a different subject or someone who has learnt a trade or someone who runs a production line...it just means I have skills and understanding in a different area. The trouble is, people AREN'T given the opportunity to develop an understanding of Politics, Political Philosophy or Economics from a young age and then we ask them to go out and vote! To me, that's akin to ignoring a mechanic when you have issues with your car and instead just asking 100 people at random to vote on how you should fix your car. That's not intended as an attack on Democracy either, it's an attack on THIS democracy, that doesn't equip it's citizens with the right tools to make rational choices.

Like I say, that's my two cents, it's not an attack on anybody or anything, just a general observation.
 
Fluctuation0161 said:
Let's play a game, we'll list all the media outlets we don't read rather than the ones we do.

I wonder why...
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Wouldn't just be easier if you mentioned the the media outlets you think should people should read. There might be some geniunely good ones people are missing out on.
 
Lentwood said:
I hear a variation on this argument on a regular basis and it makes no sense. People shouldn't be 'blindly loyal' to a Party because they have chosen a team i.e. the way you choose a football team. However, people SHOULD choose their political allegiances based on the ideas these Parties represent. On that basis, I don't vote for Labour at every GE out of 'blind loyalty', I vote for them because I share their fundamental beliefs about the economy and our society. I could no more vote for the Conservatives than I could start believing that the Earth is flat.

Part of the issue we have is that people DON'T understand the ideologies that underpin these Parties and how that manifests itself in their policies (and/or the reaction to their policies in the media).

If I said to you, purely out of interest, "what is Conservatism?"...how would you answer? I guarantee, if you asked that to every single Conservative Party voter you would get 1,000,000 different garbled, gibberish answers. Most of them would in someway relate to some vague idea of Conservatism they may have picked up from the mainstream media i.e. they might say "The Conservatives are the Party of small business". Well, that's not 'Conservatism' is it. It's a falsehood, for a start and secondly, it's not fundamentally anything to do with 'Conservatism' - or at least not in the way the average voter understands it to be,

That's not a criticism of YOU per se or even Conservative Party voters. I obviously believe that Labour Party voters are making the "right" choice, but I suspect a decent portion of those get there by sheer luck (or as you say blind allegiances they don't really understand). I highly doubt more than half understand 'Socialism' and how and why THAT manifests itself in Labour Party policies etc...

My point is, neither Politics, nor Economics, nor Political Philosophy is on the curriculum at school. I happen to have a treble honours degree in Politics, Philosophy & Economics, so I DO have some background in studying these subjects...but I had to make a conscious choice to do so. Now, that doesn't make me more intelligent than someone who studied a different subject or someone who has learnt a trade or someone who runs a production line...it just means I have skills and understanding in a different area. The trouble is, people AREN'T given the opportunity to develop an understanding of Politics, Political Philosophy or Economics from a young age and then we ask them to go out and vote! To me, that's akin to ignoring a mechanic when you have issues with your car and instead just asking 100 people at random to vote on how you should fix your car. That's not intended as an attack on Democracy either, it's an attack on THIS democracy, that doesn't equip it's citizens with the right tools to make rational choices.

Like I say, that's my two cents, it's not an attack on anybody or anything, just a general observation.
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I like Keir Starmer he seems like he would be a nice bloke but a leader he most definitely is not. He looks out of his depth and just resorts to always talking in hindsight and doing his best ‘outraged Piers Morgan’ impression about some nonsensical tabloid style attacks on Bojo. People don’t give a shit about a tiny amount spent on his flat, probably nor did he yet it was his only straw he could clutch at in his grandstanding, who is he really fooling.. Even beyond him though the Labour Party is in even more of a mess. It doesn’t even know what it stands for except a few things that are actually extremely unpopular in the mainstream. Then when it’s rejected in historical ways repeatedly the people remaining just like to claim that it’s because the people are actually stupid and read The Sun. Just absolute snobbery, arrogance and delusion.
 
In my opinion the 'brand' of the Labour Party is finished. This is a party I have voted for all my life but only seen one elected government in forty years. By 2024 it will be nearly half a century since someone not named Tony Blair led Labour to Number 10. I've seen proudly left-wing leaders and more moderate leaders. I've seen Labour do reasonably well in local elections while getting wiped out in general elections. I remember when once upon a time the youth vote trended Conservative and Labour's core constituents were the elderly people in these working class strongholds up north who were scarred from the post-war industrial reckoning by Thatcher's government. A lot of voting trends have been turned on its head but one thing remains that Labour struggle to have a coalition that can put them into power to enact the policies which on their own when polled do extremely well. The individual items of the 2019 manifesto were popular. The party was not.

To me there is a moral and existential dilemma the Labour Party has. They would have to step back from the activist politics of intersectionality which has been caricatured as 'wokeness'. Labour's policies in 2019 were popular across the board in polling demographics but the white working class rejected those policies and in fact voted for the complete opposite policies because an innate fear has been successfully drummed in. Think about it this way: the Tory government has had eleven years of power yet nothing has really got better since the last Labour government. In fact in many areas things have gone worse because of budget cuts, austerity, lack of opportunity. The Tories should have to own the rising use of food banks, child poverty, homelessness and income inequality. This government has been in power longer than Tony Blair was. Yet when asked to this day the common theme seems to be Labour have let people down or Labour did nothing for us. Labour had one uninterrupted thirteen year period in power in my lifetime and has not been in power to do anything since 2010 as far as central government goes yet it is they, not the ruling party, who take the blame.

How can you turn that around? I don't think you can. As far as I see there is a sizeable amount of people in this nation who are now okay with the Tory overseeing of a national demise so long as they do not suffer a loss in status compared to the minority groups. Minority groups make up a very small section of the population but they feel Labour give them an over-represented sense of involvement and that has driven people who claim to have once been lifelong Labour voters back in the days when Thatcher was deriding Labour policy as anti-British to now do a total flip on their economic and societal values and support Johnson and co who do the exact same thing.
 
Lentwood said:
I hear a variation on this argument on a regular basis and it makes no sense. People shouldn't be 'blindly loyal' to a Party because they have chosen a team i.e. the way you choose a football team. However, people SHOULD choose their political allegiances based on the ideas these Parties represent. On that basis, I don't vote for Labour at every GE out of 'blind loyalty', I vote for them because I share their fundamental beliefs about the economy and our society. I could no more vote for the Conservatives than I could start believing that the Earth is flat.

Part of the issue we have is that people DON'T understand the ideologies that underpin these Parties and how that manifests itself in their policies (and/or the reaction to their policies in the media).

If I said to you, purely out of interest, "what is Conservatism?"...how would you answer? I guarantee, if you asked that to every single Conservative Party voter you would get 1,000,000 different garbled, gibberish answers. Most of them would in someway relate to some vague idea of Conservatism they may have picked up from the mainstream media i.e. they might say "The Conservatives are the Party of small business". Well, that's not 'Conservatism' is it. It's a falsehood, for a start and secondly, it's not fundamentally anything to do with 'Conservatism' - or at least not in the way the average voter understands it to be,

That's not a criticism of YOU per se or even Conservative Party voters. I obviously believe that Labour Party voters are making the "right" choice, but I suspect a decent portion of those get there by sheer luck (or as you say blind allegiances they don't really understand). I highly doubt more than half understand 'Socialism' and how and why THAT manifests itself in Labour Party policies etc...

My point is, neither Politics, nor Economics, nor Political Philosophy is on the curriculum at school. I happen to have a treble honours degree in Politics, Philosophy & Economics, so I DO have some background in studying these subjects...but I had to make a conscious choice to do so. Now, that doesn't make me more intelligent than someone who studied Marketing or someone who has learnt a trade or someone who runs a production line...it just means I have skills and understanding in a different area. The trouble is, people AREN'T given the opportunity to develop an understanding of Politics, Political Philosophy or Economics from a young age and then we ask them to go out and vote! To me, that's akin to ignoring a mechanic when you have issues with your car and instead just asking 100 people at random to vote on how you should fix your car. That's not intended as an attack on Democracy either, it's an attack on THIS democracy, that doesn't equip it's citizens with the right tools to make rational choices.

Like I say, that's my two cents, it's not an attack on anybody or anything, just a general observation.
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i think thats a very good point. I think its something I would express that you have party ‘supporters’ or people that vote on ideology. So there will be people who always vote labour, and people who always vote torie. Then theres the people in the middle. I dont think Labour communicate with them or me very well at present. I have stopped voting for labour. In recent years I have found that when I have concerns about things like immigration and welfare spending one side gives listens to you and gives reasonable answers and one gets aggressive and dismisses you with terms ending in ‘ist’ or ‘phobe’. Which one would you vote for?
 
Fluctuation0161 said:
While voting for our populist dear leader Boris? :lol:
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"Ah, but he's a character though, ain't he? Tells it like it is, like I do."

People will sooner vote for a privileged lying hairdo of a man because of stuff like that than spend a couple of minutes thinking about policy.
 
Rolandofgilead said:
OK, I'll start.

The sun.
Daily mail.
Telegraph.
Times.
Daily star.
Mirror.
Independent.
Guardian.
Daily sport.
Viz.
Leave.eu
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Forget it. They are all expensive trash.
Just don't waste your money on papers and get the latest news as it happens, rather than be brainwashed to think what the papers want you to think (assuming you can actually think).
 
decorativeed said:
If you're living in a house that is in a council tax band of over £200 a month, surely the people who live in the house will be paying over that in income tax? My council tax is under £125 a month, and between myself and my wife we're paying much more that in income tax.
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Yeah I think so... we are in band h so it's about £400 quid a month for us which as you say is pretty insignificant compared to income tax as that's well over £4000 a month

I do almost resent the £400 more though as beyond getting a bin emptied (or chucked all over the ground depending on their competence) every couple of weeks (if they actually turn up) does kinda annoy me that the service is so bad
 
sun_tzu said:
Yeah I think so... we are in band h so it's about £400 quid a month for us which as you say is pretty insignificant compared to income tax as that's well over £4000 a month

I do almost resent the £400 more though as beyond getting a bin emptied (or chucked all over the ground depending on their competence) every couple of weeks (if they actually turn up) does kinda annoy me more
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H! I didn’t even know you could get H! I thought it stopped at D. :lol:
 
Berbasbullet said:
H! I didn’t even know you could get H! I thought it stopped at D. :lol:
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No it stops at h... which i think is based on a house value of 320k or more in 1991

I mean the fact that our house wasn't even built in 1991 does make it even stranger and probably there should be a revaluation / banding of houses and or a total look at local government funding (eg stick a few percent extra on income tax?)
 
sun_tzu said:
Yeah I think so... we are in band h so it's about £400 quid a month for us which as you say is pretty insignificant compared to income tax as that's well over £4000 a month

I do almost resent the £400 more though as beyond getting a bin emptied (or chucked all over the ground depending on their competence) every couple of weeks (if they actually turn up) does kinda annoy me that the service is so bad
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did you ever think its a ludicrous idea that the notional value of a house you rent/own should have relevance to the cost of services in your area?
 
Buster15 said:
Forget it. They are all expensive trash.
Just don't waste your money on papers and get the latest news as it happens, rather than be brainwashed to think what the papers want you to think (assuming you can actually think).
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I think you missed the sarcasm mate.

I don't read papers or as a rule watch too much news. I read alot from news outlets online, but ensure I read the same story from several different sources.
 
sullydnl said:
Of course you can. You can argue that the election results were down to Brexit and a host of other problems, including Corbyn.

The lack of nuance shown by people who insist on blaming one thing (be it Brexit, Corbyn or whatever) for Labour's decline is remarkable.
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There’s never “only” one reason for anything. If a meteorite slammed into the side of the Earth and wiped out every human bar five astronauts, ultimately seeing the human race wiped out within 100 years, you couldn’t say the meteorite was the ONLY reason for human extinction but it’s a bloody big b*stard of a reason!

Breixt is that meteorite. Hartlepool, one of the safest Labour seats in history (100% Red) voted 70% Leave, yet Labour run a vocal Remainer in the by-election...get smashed into insignificance.
 
sun_tzu said:
No it stops at h... which i think is based on a house value of 320k or more in 1991

I mean the fact that our house wasn't even built in 1991 does make it even stranger and probably there should be a revaluation / banding of houses and or a total look at local government funding (eg stick a few percent extra on income tax?)
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I know. Convince Boris that Council Tax ought to be replaced with a much fairer system. And give it a new name.... How about Poll Tax...
But having said that, because it is Boris, people will love it.
 
Rolandofgilead said:
I think you missed the sarcasm mate.

I don't read papers or as a rule watch too much news. I read alot from news outlets online, but ensure I read the same story from several different sources.
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Thanks. And I notice that I mentioned you. Didn't mean you in particular, just the wider you in general.
The only thing papers were good for was me being paid to deliver them (when I was a kid).
 
Ekkie Thump said:
We talk politics all the time, which is often very stressful. If you're looking for a cogent framework from which he derives a conclusion then I'm at a loss. Like most folk he's a gumbo of conflicting ideas, opinions and emotions out of which bubble up a bunch of positions. If pushed I'd say tradition and memory cause him to still vote Labour. He always has done. He remembers what the Tories visited on his town in the eighties. He spent his working life interacting with them and fighting his corner against their education policies. I'd say he still votes red because despite his belief that Labour have abandoned working class people in favour of a sort of minority driven US style liberalism they still represent the interests of the general poor more than the Tories. He recognises that despite the bluster and the rhetoric the abiding truth remains that the Tories couldn't give less of a shit for the people of places like Hartlepool. This makes him precisely the captive Labour have relied on for decades. Not really represented, not really helped and generally ignored even in the rhetoric.
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Interesting. What did he think of Corbyn's Labour?
 
Boycott said:
How can you turn that around? I don't think you can. As far as I see there is a sizeable amount of people in this nation who are now okay with the Tory overseeing of a national demise so long as they do not suffer a loss in status compared to the minority groups.
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I think you make some very good points. The part I have quoted in particular is something I have argued in the past. The British public don’t fear hardship as much as they fear someone, somewhere getting something for nothing. Conservatives tap into that expertly.
 
Jezpeza said:
did you ever think its a ludicrous idea that the notional value of a house you rent/own should have relevance to the cost of services in your area?
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Indeed... as I say why not a complete overhaul of local taxation... I just think that will be so unpopular nobody will do it... just like they have not revalued houses for 30 years.
 
sun_tzu said:
Indeed... as I say why not a complete overhaul of local taxation... I just think that will be so unpopular nobody will do it... just like they have not revalued houses for 30 years.
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just seems to follow a logic of house worth more = you must be rich. Not necessarily the case.
 
Buster15 said:
I know. Convince Boris that Council Tax ought to be replaced with a much fairer system. And give it a new name.... How about Poll Tax...
But having said that, because it is Boris, people will love it.
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Or just get rid of council tax and make people pay for the services they actually use... even open up those services to his mates erm I mean free market competition... he could probably pull that off and earn enough backhanders erm donations to buy some extra wallpaper as well
 
Jezpeza said:
just seems to follow a logic of house worth more = you must be rich. Not necessarily the case.
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Yes but look what happens with the poll tax when you try and make it a flat tax

I think longer term just put a few percent on income tax and ring fence it for local services but can't see any government wanting to raise income tax for that

Problem with any major tax change is that those who loose out get really angry (eg poll tax riots) and those that win keep quiet about it and think how they will use the extra cash... basically it will almost always be unpopular and governemnts therefore just leave it as it is
 
Lentwood said:
I think you make some very good points. The part I have quoted in particular is something I have argued in the past. The British public don’t fear hardship as much as they fear someone, somewhere getting something for nothing. Conservatives tap into that expertly.
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If you look at most of the small towns they are places where the least effects of immigration happens and the cities are where most effects of immigration take place. Yet the small towns are the most fervent prejudice against immigrants takes place and where the political issue of immigration takes paramount rather than material issues that would help them. That's precisely what I mean whereby they are willing to vote against something that maintains their status than for something that could help them get better but lifts other marginal groups up with them.
 
sun_tzu said:
Yes but look what happens with the poll tax when you try and make it a flat tax

I think longer term just put a few percent on income tax and ring fence it for local services but can't see any government wanting to raise income tax for that

Problem with any major tax change is that those who loose out get really angry (eg poll tax riots) and those that win keep quiet about it and think how they will use the extra cash... basically it will almost always be unpopular and governemnts therefore just leave it as it is
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i dread to think what we will be wasting servicing debt after this. I think something that we all need to remember is governments arent businesses and they are redistributing taxation. I think theres going to have to be tax hikes somewhere. I dont advocate a poll tax but theres something a bit funny and daft about paying more than your neighbour for the local police because you have an extra bedroom
 
groovyalbert said:
Labour need a complete re-set which will almost certainly only be possible after a few years in the political abyss. They've simply got no solid-ground to rely on outside of London and university cities. Leaders aren't going to change that around overnight, and there certainly aren't the characters in the party to do this currently.
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There are no leaders in the Labour party. They're all mostly career minded woke box tickers.
It was delightful to see many of them swept out of Westminster in 2019, along with Jo Swinson :lol:
My salt intake went through the roof that day.
 
Jezpeza said:
i dread to think what we will be wasting servicing debt after this. I think something that we all need to remember is governments arent businesses and they are redistributing taxation. I think theres going to have to be tax hikes somewhere. I dont advocate a poll tax but theres something a bit funny and daft about paying more than your neighbour for the local police because you have an extra bedroom
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I suspect governments are gonna kick the tax rises down the road as long as they can.. probably sustainable while interest rates are low but also probably not a good long term strategy

Yeah why it costs more to empty my bin than my neighbours just because we have some extra spare rooms always seems strange... I just see it as a bedroom tax basically which is fair enough.. its a strange system but it's the one we have and like I say council tax is less than 10% of the taxes I pay so just something I tolerate despite it being illogical
 
Jezpeza said:
i dread to think what we will be wasting servicing debt after this. I think something that we all need to remember is governments arent businesses and they are redistributing taxation. I think theres going to have to be tax hikes somewhere. I dont advocate a poll tax but theres something a bit funny and daft about paying more than your neighbour for the local police because you have an extra bedroom
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Is there not something equally funny and daft if someone in a tiny bedsit is paying the same for local services as someone else in a six bed detached mansion?
 
Boycott said:
In my opinion the 'brand' of the Labour Party is finished. This is a party I have voted for all my life but only seen one elected government in forty years. By 2024 it will be nearly half a century since someone not named Tony Blair led Labour to Number 10. I've seen proudly left-wing leaders and more moderate leaders. I've seen Labour do reasonably well in local elections while getting wiped out in general elections. I remember when once upon a time the youth vote trended Conservative and Labour's core constituents were the elderly people in these working class strongholds up north who were scarred from the post-war industrial reckoning by Thatcher's government. A lot of voting trends have been turned on its head but one thing remains that Labour struggle to have a coalition that can put them into power to enact the policies which on their own when polled do extremely well. The individual items of the 2019 manifesto were popular. The party was not.

To me there is a moral and existential dilemma the Labour Party has. They would have to step back from the activist politics of intersectionality which has been caricatured as 'wokeness'. Labour's policies in 2019 were popular across the board in polling demographics but the white working class rejected those policies and in fact voted for the complete opposite policies because an innate fear has been successfully drummed in. Think about it this way: the Tory government has had eleven years of power yet nothing has really got better since the last Labour government. In fact in many areas things have gone worse because of budget cuts, austerity, lack of opportunity. The Tories should have to own the rising use of food banks, child poverty, homelessness and income inequality. This government has been in power longer than Tony Blair was. Yet when asked to this day the common theme seems to be Labour have let people down or Labour did nothing for us. Labour had one uninterrupted thirteen year period in power in my lifetime and has not been in power to do anything since 2010 as far as central government goes yet it is they, not the ruling party, who take the blame.

How can you turn that around? I don't think you can. As far as I see there is a sizeable amount of people in this nation who are now okay with the Tory overseeing of a national demise so long as they do not suffer a loss in status compared to the minority groups. Minority groups make up a very small section of the population but they feel Labour give them an over-represented sense of involvement and that has driven people who claim to have once been lifelong Labour voters back in the days when Thatcher was deriding Labour policy as anti-British to now do a total flip on their economic and societal values and support Johnson and co who do the exact same thing.
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Well put
 
Could barely care less who is the labour leader tbh, the qualifications arn't that high, just show you give a shit and don't be a scumbag. Starmer is perfectly fine in the scheme of things, just wish people would stop voting Tory, they are not fit for govermenment.

I've always voted Tory right up to and including Theresa (had my reasons, some of which were wrong), I'm fairly conservative but you couldn't pay me enough to vote for this current bunch of arseholes, they are a different breed.

They are the most fiscally irresponsible government this country may have ever had, certainly in my lifetime and memory. They are openly corrupt (so just imagine what goes on we don't know about) and they are personally responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of British citizens. We high the highest deathrate per capita in the entire world at one point (excluding some tiny countries), their handling of Covid has been absolutely tragic.

What the feck is wrong with people, seriously?
 
Jippy said:
Is there not something equally funny and daft if someone in a tiny bedsit is paying the same for local services as someone else in a six bed detached mansion?
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yes., whole thing isnt particularly logical
 
Ekkie Thump said:
Thought he was more like it and didn't think he had a chance.
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Sounds confused. I think immigrant and benefits hate largely spawns from deprivation and a misguided notion as to where it came from. It's a shame that Corbyn offered a real solution to these problems and he was demonized like he was (and still is).
 
Starmer today must feel a bit like the modern version of Bonnie Prince Charlie, who found at the battle of Culloden one of his clan chiefs left early (taking his clansmen with him) because they couldn't fight on the Princes right flank, and another clan turned up a day late after the battle had finished!
Charles had also earlier rejected the advice of his paid professional mercenaries (mainly Dutch) to fight a series of guerrilla actions against the English as they were strung out whist marching towards Culloden and finally with the most potent weapon for the Scots being their fanatical charging of the enemy, he chose a muddy, half water laden-field to fight on.

Never really understood battle plans did our Charlie, and it doesn't look like Sir Keir does either!
 
I thought Corbyn has been kicked out of the Labour Party? How long has Starmer been the leader?
Why is Corbyn still being blamed?
 
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