Starmer reneges on nationalisation plans

BlindBoyGrunt said:
Chris, the prevarication is in the clarification. I don't know why you go to such lengths to defend the man, he's an established liar. He has ripped up all of his pledges, and he talks about a broad church even as he drives out left wingers from the party, and suspends left-wing Jews on charges of anti-Semitism. His reason for sacking RLB was pathetic but then we know who funds him don't we, even though he hid that too?

I know you've invested a lot of hope on this man but come on, you must be a little disappointed in his performance since his election.
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I'm not getting drawn into another argument about the rights and wrongs within Labour, but to answer your last point I believe he's done ok, nothing spectacular but he's got Labour broadly back in with a fight at the next election.

I will reserve my judgement until after the next election which if he wins then it shows he's done what needed to be done. After that then it will be his actions as PM.
 
MolteniArcore said:
He clarified it this morning so she knows now. And you have already had it explained to you many times on this thread that it was a mistake.
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Why did she not know before? The Tories would be rightly attacked for incompetence if the chancellor openly went against one of the leader’s top electoral priorities.

He “clarified it” after yesterday saying he agreed with her, when she said the opposite of what he’s saying today.

There’s a huge trust issue with Starmer, I supported his appointment despite his disastrous second referendum policy position under Corbyn.

But he’s proven to be very slippery, all the pledges he stood on are in the bin. He won’t answer simple questions without word salad answers and he comes across as somebody who will just say whatever he thinks people in the room want to hear.
 
Warwickboro said:
Prior to today they would get my vote only because they aren't the tories, now I actually find myself believing that Labour can bring the nation together!
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That usually means: "We're abandoning any policies that might actually help people. You suckers will vote for us whatever we do so we might as well bribe Tory voters with Tory policies so we can win and change nothing".
 
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BlindBoyGrunt said:
Chris, the prevarication is in the clarification. I don't know why you go to such lengths to defend the man, he's an established liar. He has ripped up all of his pledges, and he talks about a broad church even as he drives out left wingers from the party, and suspends left-wing Jews on charges of anti-Semitism. His reason for sacking RLB was pathetic but then we know who funds him don't we, even though he hid that too?

I know you've invested a lot of hope on this man but come on, you must be a little disappointed in his performance since his election.
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Agree with this.

It’s a classic example of sunk cost fallacy.
 
My thoughts,

Public transport should be under public ownership, as should, water services, had and electric services, air ambulances and the RNLI. It's scandalous that a crucial life saving service should have to rely on charity to operate.
 
InglebyUTB said:
Why did she not know before? The Tories would be rightly attacked for incompetence if the chancellor openly went against one of the leader’s top electoral priorities.

He “clarified it” after yesterday saying he agreed with her, when she said the opposite of what he’s saying today.

There’s a huge trust issue with Starmer, I supported his appointment despite his disastrous second referendum policy position under Corbyn.

But he’s proven to be very slippery, all the pledges he stood on are in the bin. He won’t answer simple questions without word salad answers and he comes across as somebody who will just say whatever he thinks people in the room want to hear.
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I'm not sure The Country care about his 10 pledges, other than a small number of Starmer critics.

I am not sure why she didn't know. But it has been clarified now.

If you look at the polls and the direction of travel we might just get the Tories out - that's all I care about. Meaningless pledges 3 years out or the odd policy **** up 2 years out don't really factor in my thinking.

Trust is interesting. Compared to Johnson / Sunak / Truss Starmer is a saint. I know who I would rather have.

The mission is to get the Tories out - I do not care how this is done. And I will judge Starmer when he is PM and what he gets done.
 
MolteniArcore said:
I'm not sure The Country care about his 10 pledges, other than a small number of Starmer critics.
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What difference does who/how many care about it make? It's a matter of fact surely. He made ten pledges, he's since revealed they were a trick to gain votes. He's untrustworthy whether the majority realise or not.
 
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zzzzz said:
Not really

yougov.co.uk

Support for bringing energy companies back into public ownership

To what extent would you support or oppose bringing energy companies back into public ownership?
yougov.co.uk yougov.co.uk
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...Have you understood the graph you've linked?

It shows 60% being strongly in favour or tending to support nationalisation vs 13% strongly or tending to oppose? And that's for energy not rail?

If 60% in favour to 13% against isn't a popular policy for you, it's hard to imagine what possibly could be?

Even if you ignore the numbers and just follow the lines. In Feb 2020 "don't know" was the most popular answer. Now "Strongly support" is. Strongly oppose is the least popular answer right the way across that graph. So if anything the policy's polling is getting even better. BBG was underselling it, merely saying that it still polls "well".
 
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Chris_Boro said:
Also, your point makes no sense, if he wanted to simply win then he would continue to make those promises regardless.
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Right. So it IS ideological rather than pragmatic?

The pragmatic thing to do would be to back the really popular policy that raises money for the country and that you already promised to do? Right? It's in fact ideological to drop the nationalisation policies at this point.
 
SuperStu said:
What difference does who/how many care about it make? It's a matter of fact surely. He made ten pledges, he's since revealed they were a trick to gain votes. He's untrustworthy whether the majjority realise or not.
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The difference is whether or not him abandoning his pledges will have any effect on his electability. I would argue to the majority it doesn't matter. I would also think that these people wouldn't even remember him making 10 pledges.

Things change, policies evolve, the country changes. I'll judge him as PM when Labour win the next GE.
 
Chris_Boro said:
He literally said in that interview that he will continue with the public ownership of rail.

Energy, water and the Mail would be significantly harder and cost vast amounts of money that would be near impossible to cost and while I supported it previously I don't now as things have changed.

The priority for any new Labour government should be to rebuild the devastated public sector after 12 years of Tory austerity and to invest in our crumbling infrastructure and return to strong growth

Once that's done, then I think we can look again at re nationalisation.

I can see what Starmer is trying to do, not over promise and under deliver, but it's not going to be popular with people who think Labour should do everything in 20 seconds after being elected. It's just not reasonable after a pandemic that still hasn't gone away and a decade of Tory ideology.
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The trouble with this approach is that in the meantime he's feeding in to a narrative that nationalising energy, water, mail etc is a bad thing. If he keeps going around saying we need to wait until the country's finances are better to do these things it sounds like they're going to be a drain on resources rather than an improvement.

No matter how well the economy is doing, there'll never be a time people want the gov to deliberately harm it!
 
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MolteniArcore said:
The mission is to get the Tories out - I do not care how this is done. And I will judge Starmer when he is PM and what he gets done.
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And this is part of the problem. Winning isn't the mission. Making people's lives better is the mission. All winning does is allows differnt MPs to get paid for doing cabinet roles. If they are just going to do the same thing as the other side then what is the point of winning?

His pledges were things people might want and might vote for. Now he is just a bloke that isn't wearing a blue rosette. That can't be the extent of his appeal so he either needs to tell us why we should vote for him or let somebody else do it.

I feel a bit like I did with Boro under Warnock last season. Fairly safe, not going to get relegated or anything but almost certainly won't get us promoted. Long-term he isn't the answer so better to cut our losses and install someone that might actually achieve something.
 
SuperStu said:
What difference does who/how many care about it make? It's a matter of fact surely. He made ten pledges, he's since revealed they were a trick to gain votes. He's untrustworthy whether the majjority realise or not.
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There haven't been any votes yet, and there won't be a vote until after the final manifesto is released, and that can't be tested for truthfulness unless they win.

The way I see it, most of what they say (especially in random interviews etc) up until the manifesto is testing the water, take it with a pinch of salt, so they can figure out what will and won't be good enough to put in the manifesto, to try and win an election.

You can promise all you like if you're never going to get into power, a bit like what JC did, it was great, but it was irrelevant as he couldn't win. Same as with Brexit, they could promise all sorts, and claim them all as the truth (even though they were contradictory). Turns out only 20% of them were telling the truth (or their way ended up as truth, almost), the hard Brexit nut jobs.

Even after the manifesto is released and if Labour do get into power, then some things will still change from the manifesto, they have to, as the world/ economy will change, and sticking to it regardless of that would be lunacy, it will be give and take as always.
 
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SuperStu said:
The trouble with this approach is that in the meantime he's feeding in to a narrative that nationalising energy, water, mail etc is a bad thing. If he keeps going around saying we need to wait until the country's finances are better to do these things it sounds like they're going to be a drain on resources rather than an improvement.
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It's not a narrative, they could be a bad thing, if they paid a fortune for them and then whoever they chose to run them, ran them worse, which is very much possible. Like with rail, only 2% of fares is profit, if you run them 2% worse you've spent a fortune to buy them, to make nothing, which is a terrible investment. It would be a bit bold trying to think you can make them more efficient in 5 years, so they end up cheaper and you still get your 2%.

There's a time to do things like that, and it doesn't seem the right time to me (not if it means lending), whichever way they chose will have 0% impact on which way I vote, but if they need to do that to win other voters on the fence, then crack on, and see how it goes.
 
Nano said:
And this is part of the problem. Winning isn't the mission. Making people's lives better is the mission. All winning does is allows differnt MPs to get paid for doing cabinet roles. If they are just going to do the same thing as the other side then what is the point of winning?

His pledges were things people might want and might vote for. Now he is just a bloke that isn't wearing a blue rosette. That can't be the extent of his appeal so he either needs to tell us why we should vote for him or let somebody else do it.

I feel a bit like I did with Boro under Warnock last season. Fairly safe, not going to get relegated or anything but almost certainly won't get us promoted. Long-term he isn't the answer so better to cut our losses and install someone that might actually achieve something.
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You can only make peoples lives better if you win, you can't do that from the opposition bench with 200 seats. Even the furthest right version of labour there could ever be, will still be a long way from the Tories (the Tories now are the furthest right I've known). If the parties are close together then it likely means the centre has shifted to the right (which it did because of Brexit).

The appetite of the UK will dictate what ideals you need to give up, to get their votes, you can't pick people up from the far right and dump them onto the far left, it takes years, even decades for the win line on the political spectrum to move, and it's made worse when the other side who you're trying to win power from has been fiddling with the constituency boundaries for 12 years or whatever it is.
 
Nano said:
And this is part of the problem. Winning isn't the mission. Making people's lives better is the mission. All winning does is allows differnt MPs to get paid for doing cabinet roles. If they are just going to do the same thing as the other side then what is the point of winning?

His pledges were things people might want and might vote for. Now he is just a bloke that isn't wearing a blue rosette. That can't be the extent of his appeal so he either needs to tell us why we should vote for him or let somebody else do it.

I feel a bit like I did with Boro under Warnock last season. Fairly safe, not going to get relegated or anything but almost certainly won't get us promoted. Long-term he isn't the answer so better to cut our losses and install someone that might actually achieve something.
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100% agree with this

The aim has to be to improve the country and materially improve people’s lives.

If you’re voting for which shade of Tory you want in power, it’s pointless.

It’s like what’s happening in the US. The left were all beaten into “vote blue no matter who” to get Trump out, they had to vote for Biden and as predicted he’s just Donald Trump without the mean tweets.

The policies haven’t changed, he’s done very little for ordinary people, kids are still in cages on the border but nobody cares as it’s a democrat doing it.

It’s the most depressing kind of politics, victory means nothing if you deliver nothing for your base.
 
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