Keir Starmer Labour Leader
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik (@Rood) and Imran (@Annihilate Now!) are here to discuss Amad saving our blushes in a win against Southampton as well as our now annual loss at home to Brighton. They discuss Amorim's post-match comments, revisit how mid-table we may or may not be, and discuss some transfer news.
Free press in this case means being rich enough to pump out your agenda through the media.
Let's not pretend the press in the UK are a bastion of free speech for the people. It is a consumable commodity these days.
I think answering a question with a question is tedious.
Since 2010 there have been centrist Labour leaders and it hasn't worked. My point was, the solution is not as simple as moving centre or moving left and you'll get elected.
Scotland being a key part of my question in that regard, if you have an opinion on that it would be good to hear?
Maybe people should just stand up for the politics and values they believe in. I know this is hard for the centre which doesn't really stand for much beyond 'not that' and believes politics is simply managerialism.
I agree to some extent, a lot of the problems has been due to leadership (or lack of) for voter confidence, policies have been fine but no trust from the electorate in executing them. For the last 3 elections Labour have had obvious challenges in leadership and have gone backwards in seats. Logic would suggest that the electorate isn't liking that current approach (or head) of the party, and that to radically change the path of the ship is to pull its approach back to the centre. The biggest part I still don't get is the lack of listening to the electorate. if it was a business & they wasn't listening to their customers, they wouldn't survive long.
Scotland is an interesting one for me, I think Sturgeon is that far ahead that I don't think any party has a chance unless she leaves the SNP or there's a huge scandal. The policies that the SNP have you could see on both sides on the political spectrum and probably reflects a true centrist party if ever there was one. Would a centrist Labour win that back? It would give its best opportunity to win seats, however the impact of strong leadership and a central figurehead is most evident in Scotland (it's no coincidence that the beginning of weak leadership in Labour, is timed with the rise of the SNP seat dominance in Scotland), and unless Labour wants to drive a populism approach in Scotland then I don't see SNP losing seats.
I think most do stand up for the politics and values they believe in (you'd be naive to assume otherwise), however they do this through the voting system. I'm guessing this was most reflected emphatically at the last election, and a lack of listening both internally and to the electorate, pushed Labour back to its worst position since 1935. Einstein's quote on insanity feels most relevant here.
You're right in that Labour have no chance up North of the border but the decline of Labour in Scotland has nothing to do with weak leadership and everything to do with the drift to the right of Labour. The loss of faith in Labour begun under Blair (the creep towards paid for higher education, for instance, was met with horror up here).
The SNP are socially to the left of Labour, other than under Corbyn, and Labour moving to the centre to win England (which, who knows, might be a successful strategy) is not going to win back Scotland (and certainly not the West). People who would never have dreamed of voting for a party with the word "National" in its name do so with utter commitment not just because of the SNP generally being more left than Labour but simply to escape the politics of the population base of England's incompatible right wing voting patterns.
In short, if a drift to the centre is the only successful tactic to win England for Labour they have no chance in Scotland. Truth is, it probably doesn't matter now anyway. The faith is broken and Scotland has a viable alternative to just "better than the Tories" in most voters eyes.
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How do you determine which bits they should listen to? Bringing back the death penalty continues to have broad public support, should Labour adopt that as it's listening to their customers?
Yeah, people as a collective are dumb. Labour should really be doing more to shift and change people's opinions rather than just telling people want they want to hear. If they're not offering anything majorly different to the current government why would people switch and vote for Labour?
Still early days into Starmer's leadership but I do want to see Labour start being a bit more offensive.
Still early days into Starmer's leadership but I do want to see Labour start being a bit more offensive.
Most labour policies offend me... (smiley face)
I would suggest going out and listening full stop, understand the electorate. To entertain your extreme, I don't think the death penalty was a reason for the Tories winning an election, but the fact you're facetious with it shows that you don't believe that there is currently anything wrong with the last election result for Labour.
Of course a party need to listen to the electorate, but what we saw in the last election is that they saw through the blatant pandering form labour. They picked anything they could think of as popular lilies and threw them out there. Free broadband was just one example. It made it look like they wouldn’t be able to deliver them, especially as they were made on the hoof.
The Tories has a very simple message.
No party is going near the death penalty as it’s a polarising and divisive policy, whatever your view.
So Labour are now Pro Businesses (and it won't be that corner shop, more the Amazon's). And the Tories are now putting themselves up as the peoples party.
What nonsense. Political moderates reject extreme with us/against us views and categorisation, believe in a rational, evidence based, non ideological approach, believe in understanding rival positions and keeping room for dialogue, accept that politics must involve compromise and believe in pushing back strongly on attempts to prevent this. Us moderates reject the destructive tribalism the lefties and righties have inflicted on the rest of us.
You know who else is dumb? Labour activists who think Rome can be built the day after the worst electoral thrashing in memory.
First, Labour needs to earn the electorate's trust that they care about the same things the electorate does, and aren't going to mouth off like a bunch of students at a demo about every last thing that comes into their head, which was pretty what Corbyn's Labour seemed to do.
They need to earn the right to a hearing. They are slowly beginning to get that, I'd say. When they have that, then they will be in a better position to shape opinion.
Business provides jobs and tax revenue. Why shouldn't Labour be pro- the organisations that do this properly? (Also Labour should be the party of work - clue's in the name. The perception that they were the party of welfare was an open goal to the Tories.)
No, it should be pro the people doing the work, not the wankers at the top. If they want to be the party of the CEO, they should let the unions know their money and campaigning time isn't needed.
Obviously that won't happen with the silent knight leading the party.
It’s the SMEs that will drive the economy forward, Labour has mostly been anti business, and this is not just Apple/ Google but small businesses.
Those poor businesses who only managed to profit from the NHS under the last Labour government, whilst they simultaneously made their workers input into the party via union minute and declaring itself a party of enterprise and markets whilst continuing to rake in the unions' money.
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Those poor businesses who only managed to profit from the NHS under the last Labour government, whilst they simultaneously made their workers input into the party via union minute whilst continuing to rake in their money.
I’m not talking about big business, I specifically said SMEs.
So the Labour Party have been mostly anti-business, apart from the businesses they were pro. Once again, New Labour prided itself on being 'the party of enterprise and markets' at the expense of influence from the people who worked in them but not their union money.
I’m not sure we are understanding each other.
I think Labour are anti business.
I have no issue with them trying to rationalise big business, however, this negatively affects smaller businesses, which are the lifeblood of the economy and they deserve more. A CEO of a 5 person business is not the same as the CEO of a FSTE 100 company, and most do not get paid much.
Not sure why you're worried anyway. The chances of the silent knight having a policy on business that is beyond a cigarette paper from the Tories' is absolutely zero.
Everyone views themselves as moderate. No matter where on the political spectrum.
The fact you don't understand this fact means you could take a step back and find yourself somewhere on that political spectrum you didn't expect. Ironically, this leads to the exact problem you identified in your post above.
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No you are being disingenuous. Because you say we should listen to the electorate, except not on the things you disagree with the electorate about.
This is literally just saying the exact same thing as I did in more words: "not that" and managerialism. Add on the delusion that maintaing the current prevailing ideology = not having one, and a self-righteous notion that they believe in compromise whilst continually rejecting the left, and yep, that pretty much captures centrist politics.
Inappropriate Behavior
Is this satire? Are people still peddling the nonsense that ‘centrism’ is a non-ideological position? The smugness and political illiteracy of this post is well and truly painful.
I would suggest that the arrogance of denying that there is nothing wrong, is probably more disingenuous. Listening to the electorate (ignoring the whataboutery comment of capital punishment) would mean that Labour wouldn't have lost the key seats which have been strongholds for years, to the Tories of all people. The last leadership I don't think really understood what the view was from voters, otherwise it wouldn't have let to such a tragic result.
It's not saying the same thing at all. You said that political moderates don't stand for anything. I reject that and I reject the idea that moderation and centrism are equivalent (although they wear similar clothes). And I reject the idea that somehow it's a position that makes change impossible. For example, John Hume was a moderate Irish nationalist.
Admittedly it's not a political philosophy that lights fires in hearts, but that's a point in its favour when the world is burning..
You must listen to the electorate - but you don't have to agree with the electorate's solution. Take capital punishment - if the electorate is expressing a view on it, chances are it's rooted in a view that murder is treated too lightly. So if you agree, you can ensure sentencing is heavy, or jail time is not easy etc (it's called 'moderation'). You won't get everyone on side, but you don't always need to.
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I am not sure what is meant by centrism. It seems to be a bit like 'neoliberal', ie a slightly abusive somewhat ill defined word used by the left, that changes meaning depending on who you talk to and where the Overton window is at any particular moment.
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We're going down a rabbit hole of capital punishment here which was suggested in a bit of whataboutery. I think in principle Labour had a confused position on Brexit (arguably the biggest mistake they made), an unpopular leader, and a manifesto that people didn't think they could deliver. Those are the issues that Labour has to listen to the electorate on address head on over the next four years, plus the fall out of covid, to try to win back voters. It's a huge task though and the EHRC report on anti-semitism could set them back further.
Clearly centrism would be dependant on the Overton window. Sounds like you do understand what it means.
Problem is that if the Overton window drifts further away from your personal political position you suddenly find that your relatively moderate and considered opinion is seen as extreme in some quarters.
I think you blur dogmatism with ideology going by your earlier description. I am unaware of this moderate evidence based political position you describe and such homogeneity, were it to exists, sounds rather like a political ideology and a rather attractive one.
I see no evidence that is an ideology that Mr. Starmer adheres to. Indeed, it is hard to discern any ideology at all from Mr. Starner at all right now. It seems to me this is a political choice. It seems to me to be a calculated one based on electoral strategy and media management. It may well be successful but I prefer my politicians to actually have a political vision: evidence based scientific decision would be an interesting one to me. There's no chance that the focus groups would guide Mr. Starmer in that direction.
No one's going down a rabbit hole. You said political parties should listen to their customers, and I was pointing out that this is just a cover for saying that you don't think the Labour party should stand for the policies of 2019. Whether this is for pragmatic reasons, or ideological ones I don't know. But low and behold as soon as I point out something the electorate believe in that is a bit controversial we shouldn't do that kind of listening. That's 'whataboutery'. I mean we can make it about something else if you wish: It's somewhat hard to stomach centrist voices (Keir included) making a show and dance of how we must listen to voters, when they spent three years endorsing an ever more electorally unpopular Brexit position.
The fact that the EHRC report is a bigger deal than the government starving Mercy Baguma to death says it all about how much the country and those propogating that story actually care about racism.
Neoliberal is not at all used exclusively by the left. It’s used as a pejorative by the left, sure, but I don’t think you read much if you think it’s ill defined or only a left-wing term.
You're right, but maybe there is a sweet spot somewhere between the centre and where Labour were under Corbyn? I want Labour back in power but not as New Labour #2.
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Have Labour under Starmer published a manifesto. Or are you referring to the previous manifesto under Corbyn.
What was so wrong with New Labour (not just Tony Blair).
Three election victories on the bounce. Record investment in public services. Hospital waiting times at a record low. Schools modernised. The economy booming.
No government since has got even close to their achievements.
Clearly it was a quip. Will be interested to see what direction he takes Labour.
For the first time since Blair was elected I’d now consider voting for labour again. Corbynism is just populism based on envy, in the end everyone would be worse off.
I certainly wouldn't claim they didn't do some good.
But, they essentially relied on the economy and economic growth to create a more equal society, which boils down to neoliberalism and Thatcherism. The sight of Labour leaders fawning over that woman on a Downing Street visit is something I'll never forget.
So, for me, New Labour abandoned the founding principles of the party. Many may feel that isn't a bad thing, even a good thing. For me, those founding principles are what makes the party - or made it anyway - and shouldn't be forgotten. I'm not necessarily talking about Clause IV, more so the principle of the redistribution of wealth.