Keir Starmer - FoM now a red-line

SuperStu said:
I don't know what to say to this. You say let's stick to the facts and then immediately go off them.

Yes the 1922 committee were threatening to change the rules so they could re-run the VONC. Yes the political context was he had to go because he'd completely tanked his own and the party's support. But the facts are a VONC failed and then he announced his resignation.

Anyway my point was you can't just write off the lockdown parties he and his staff were having as being the root of Johnson's demise. You were claiming he was kicked out because of lying and not because of the parties. I'm just clarifying it's not like that's something you can point to and say it's 100% this. It's not like he lost the leadership on a technicality or a rule breach or something.
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I didn't write off his behaviour. I said that the privileges committee wouldn't have got involved had Starmer not trapped him in lies in parliament. He could say what he wanted away from HoC and there would have been no parliamentary oversight. Equally another leader may or may not have trapped Johnson in those lies. Starmer kept on hammering the point long after folks on here were saying he should move on.

As for how and why he left. To suggest with your juvenile laughing emoji that it was the press who saw him off is, frankly ridiculous. To then go on and suggest he left voluntarily is at best disingenuous and as I mentioned earlier, there is a fair bit of that on this thread.
 
Okay, suit yourself (y) He was kicked out for lying. The good old lying rules came into play and that was that. Starmer discovered the whole thing during one of his detective investigations.
 
Nano said:
You are still missing the point. Starmer could use Corbyn's manifesto and they wouldn't consider it to be far-left. Where as Corbyn would have been labelled a marxist if he had used Johnson's manifesto. There is a difference between the leader and their manifesto. Starmer is considered to be a centrist and he hasn't even published a manifesto. He had some pledges which got him elected which were obviously popular enough for him to win and they've been abandoned. There is no reason to ideologically impose a centrist manifesto when he could include left-wing policies. No reason whatsoever other than ideology.

Seeing how many voters Labour gain isn't the same as people wanting to vote Labour. There are many people that no longer want to vote Tory and they know the only change is Labour. Corbyn got people to vote Labour. People actually wanted what he was offering and they weren't just voting for not-Tory. Starmer doesn't have that. He'll get votes because he's the only option.

Stop talking about what might have happened with Corbyn. He has gone. We are talking about Starmer. Corbyn won't be around at the next election. Starmer has already got the perception from the public of not being Corbyn or left wing so he's not going to get any anti-Starmer votes from the Tories so you can dismiss that point. It is up to him what policies are in his manifesto and he could do something that will actually change people's lives or he could conserve the status quo which benefits the people that are already benefiting. There will be no levelling up, no increases to NHS wages or other public services, no increased taxes on the wealthy and no transfer of wealth from rich to poor. It'll just be the same old carry on and hope the people really suffering is a low enough number to keep them quiet.
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He could, you're right there, it's the person as well as the manifesto, you know full well the press go after the person more if the person is left, and they would do more if the policies were actually left also. Corbyn is probably way more left than the actual policies were, but the press will frame that like he's going to take the policies further left. If the polices are left, attack the policies and the person, if the person is left, attack the person. If the person is centre left, and the policies are yet unknown, it doesn't give them a great deal to go at. It's all in the media, like we all know.

I agree on the Labour gain partially, it's people voting in a two-party system effectively, this has always been the case though. Blair got people to vote Labour, loads of them, and he retained it too for a good stint, nobody has done that for 45 years, and loads of the Corbyn fans go after him too (retrospectively). Maybe they would have preferred 13 years more of the Tories.

In a two-party system in England, people are Tory or Labour, but they both either have to give way some, or lie to get into power. I think Starmers doing the former, but we will see when the manifesto comes out, but he would only be proven a lier once they've got power.

Starmer's not the only option, he's the only viable alternative option, who makes himself viable, and who was elected by labour members/ supporters who knew his rough position in advance. Hardcore tories will still vote Tory, and if a left leader was in charge then more of them would still vote tory, regardless of policies.

I'll talk about what I like thanks. The thread is about Starmer, and most of the anti-Starmer crap is driven by Corbyn fans, against a manifesto which doesn't exist yet. Yes, the public perception is certainly against Corbyn, and the media go after him and the left wing.

The status quo is 15 years of the Tories, I don't see Labour being anything like that (never seen a labour manifesto look the same s a tory one), and certainly nowhere near as bad as another 5,10,15 years of them, which is the alternative. It's not going to be easy, no matter who is in charge, the UK is in a massive hole, and expecting to be able to climb out of this in one term, make everyone's lives rosy (or even livable), and retain power is not possible, not unless the direction caters for those in the centre also. The last 15 years of Tory rule has baked in a lot of problems, which are going to take a long time to fix, it's not going to be possible to fix everything at the same time, and changes will likely be incremental.

Like I say, a balance is needed, and if there isn't a balance then Labour will be out again, and we know what that means, and we don't need the Tory manifesto to know that.
 
Andy_W said:
I get the same thing with a lot of people, could have wrote that nearly word for word!

Loads of my ex-military mates used to share countless posts on facebook which were anti Corbyn (and Abbott), not really anti-labour. Any time we met back up for drinks or whatever it was always about the people, not the party, when it boiled down to it.

This does make me think that labour could be more left, but the leader would need to be untouchable but the press would likely then make them touchable, and they seemingly have more interest in this when the person is less like the right, as they are.
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So we let the press and the rest of the establishment tell us who should lead the party? That seems like a great strategy to me.
 
Andy_W said:
I get the same thing with a lot of people, could have wrote that nearly word for word!

Loads of my ex-military mates used to share countless posts on facebook which were anti Corbyn (and Abbott), not really anti-labour. Any time we met back up for drinks or whatever it was always about the people, not the party, when it boiled down to it.

This does make me think that labour could be more left, but the leader would need to be untouchable but the press would likely then make them touchable, and they seemingly have more interest in this when the person is less like the right, as they are.
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Starmer already is that person. If he was "touchable" then they'd already have done it. You think whoever "they" are want a Labour leader at all? Of course not. They would already have tried everything with Starmer but he's clean so they have nothing.

Now that is out the way, we can move on to the next point which you have been pushing back on which is about personality and not policies and then you say yourself that your mates have all been voting on personality. Clearly Starmer has free reign to implement whatever policy he wants to and it won't matter how left they are because people vote for people. Why aren't people like you urging the party to be doing more for the people it is supposed to represent instead of arguing with us all about attracting the centrists?

Fact is that you are not talking about the centrists because all the centrists would already be voting Labour because the Tories are unelectable so the only people left to attract are those that are right of centre and I refuse to believe a Labour should be occupying the centre just to win a handful of centre-right/right voters. What would be the point in winning? It's mental that you could even think that just sticking a red cover on a Tory manifesto is the best we can hope for. Your strategy might have been reasonable if the last 3 years hadn't happened and we were talking about reducing a majority with no real chance of leading but they have happened and Labour will almost certainly be the leading party so you and other centrists should be seeing the opportunity to take a significant step to the left instead of a defensive move.
 
SuperStu said:
Okay, suit yourself (y) He was kicked out for lying. The good old lying rules came into play and that was that. Starmer discovered the whole thing during one of his detective investigations.
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I think I'll do exactly that, as will everyone else on this thread.
 
exiledinboro said:
Socialism:

“a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.”

It sounds like centrism is all about keeping things as they are - which given most things have been sold of and privatised is actually what we have

Andy what you’re actually saying is you want a socialist party to be socialist party in name only? Why you are so attracted to it and have done nothing but criticise Corbyn I do not know 🤷🏻‍♂️

As for Johnson having to resign because of Starmer? Really he was getting blowey in his office, was a serial liar mishandled the pandemic, had asked enormous sacrifice from
the public and had run out of room.

Party gate was November and he only left in the summer
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The thing about centrism and centrists isn't that they want things to stay the same but that they want things to be neither right or left. The problem they are missing is that to have centrism with a 2 party system you have to have a left and a right and swings between them so the average is centrism. If you only have a right and a centre then the balance is centre right. Centrists are to blame for there not being centrism because they are preventing the swing between left and right by only ever choosing between centre and right and rejecting left.
 
bumface said:
So we let the press and the rest of the establishment tell us who should lead the party? That seems like a great strategy to me.
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No, the members decide and >50% voted for Starmer in a 3-horse race, because they wanted a candidate who could win, given the press and people we have, which we can't change.

Normally winning is a better strategy than losing.
 
Nano said:
Starmer already is that person. If he was "touchable" then they'd already have done it. You think whoever "they" are want a Labour leader at all? Of course not. They would already have tried everything with Starmer but he's clean so they have nothing.

Now that is out the way, we can move on to the next point which you have been pushing back on which is about personality and not policies and then you say yourself that your mates have all been voting on personality. Clearly Starmer has free reign to implement whatever policy he wants to and it won't matter how left they are because people vote for people. Why aren't people like you urging the party to be doing more for the people it is supposed to represent instead of arguing with us all about attracting the centrists?

Fact is that you are not talking about the centrists because all the centrists would already be voting Labour because the Tories are unelectable so the only people left to attract are those that are right of centre and I refuse to believe a Labour should be occupying the centre just to win a handful of centre-right/right voters. What would be the point in winning? It's mental that you could even think that just sticking a red cover on a Tory manifesto is the best we can hope for. Your strategy might have been reasonable if the last 3 years hadn't happened and we were talking about reducing a majority with no real chance of leading but they have happened and Labour will almost certainly be the leading party so you and other centrists should be seeing the opportunity to take a significant step to the left instead of a defensive move.
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He does seem untouchable and seems to have a very clean past, and there have not been any scandals either. Nah, course they don't want Labour, but Labour under various leaders is a different proposition, some they find it harder to go against, as we're seeing now.

Old mates/ collegues I suppose, don't really see them much now, you kind of get forced to be mates with all sorts of people when you're with the same guys all the time, going to various places etc. Most of them went to war under Blair (like myself), and they talked far less crap about him than they did Corbyn. It's good in a way, as you get to see all sides, and don't only hear the same things in your social bubble. All my mates now are pretty much aligned to what I think (so it's more like a bubble again), most will take any Labour over any Tory government, and not many of them have many digs aimed at Starmer. Still meet loads of Torys through work, but I don't have to live and go out on nights out with them.

I don't think they're just voting on personality, but that was what they were most vocal about, as that was easier to target. They saw something they didn't like, largely fueled by the media I expect. Most of them were probably middle class when I knew them best, but most are now top 5%. A lot more of them have moved back to Labour now mind, even though they've gone up significantly in wealth.

I'm pretty sure the policies will be discussed with MP's, based on the thoughts of members, unions etc, and they will have a strategy with that, to try and win. The party will end up representing a range of people, from left to centre, from being skint to being quite well off, but hopefully, it will favour the least well off more than the last 15 years has. I've not seen the manifesto yet (and neither have you), so for the time being I'm going to assume it's centre left (you can assume whatever you want), which is where the average of the people will be. Doing more for the people is only possible if you win, what did Labour do for the people when they lost, when the Tories were in power for what will be 15 years?

The centrists will largely all vote Labour if there was a vote now, but there's not a vote now. They don't need to attract more, all they need to do is retain what they have, or not let a load of them get pulled away by the tories. Chances are the tories might have to soften up to get these voters back. I don's see the labour position changing much, but do expect the tories to gain some voters back, which means the weighting of the party/ voters would be further left, and they would still win.
The situation will have changed a lot in two years, but probably not as much as it's changed in the last 3 years. Anything can happen though, as the last two years have proven.

It's mental that you think the Labour manifesto is the same as the Tory one, when it's not even out yet :oops: The only manifesto I can see on the website is the 2019 one, if you have the 2024 one please provide a link.

I don't think now is the time to assume Labour are going to win by such a landslide (not as shown now anyway), the only indication this would be the case is the current polling. To assume that current polling will materialise in two years would be assuming the position/ situation stays the same with inflation, energy, war, covid, whatever, I don't think that's the case. Any changes from this will probably be marginally positive, and the press will dress that up in Sunak's favour (more than it actually is). I still think Labour will get 340-380 seats, no matter what mind, with Starmer in charge anyway.

I think the better chance to take a step further left (from the manifesto none of us have seen) will come in the second term. Labour should be able to iron out a lot of problems in 2025-2030, so will get more trust in them, as a result of that.
 
exiledinboro said:
Socialism:

“a political and economic theory of social organization which advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.”

It sounds like centrism is all about keeping things as they are - which given most things have been sold of and privatised is actually what we have

Andy what you’re actually saying is you want a socialist party to be socialist party in name only? Why you are so attracted to it and have done nothing but criticise Corbyn I do not know 🤷🏻‍♂️
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No, the Tory's have been pushing things further and further from the left, and further from the centre. What I want is to undo that damage first, and stop them from doing more damage. To expect the UK (which votes Tory 2/3rds of the time) to flip in an instant is not likely, that would be a long process, not possible in one term.

I want Labour to win at least half of the time, and I think that would do more for the people than the Tories winning 2/3rds of the time. I also think this would move where the centre actually sits, further to the left. I don't think it's possible to have a fully socialist party win, never mind win enough that they can actually do something with it, without having a massive reaction the other way when they lose.
 
Nano said:
The thing about centrism and centrists isn't that they want things to stay the same but that they want things to be neither right or left. The problem they are missing is that to have centrism with a 2 party system you have to have a left and a right and swings between them so the average is centrism. If you only have a right and a centre then the balance is centre right. Centrists are to blame for there not being centrism because they are preventing the swing between left and right by only ever choosing between centre and right and rejecting left.
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I can't speak for a centrist and by that I mean directly between Labour and Tory, as what I prefer politically doesn't sit there, it's much further left, but I know about numbers, and know we need the centre to win. Unless you can magic up some more voters on the left, or cull the old Torys?

A purely centrist party would need to win centre left, centre, and centre right, and could lose the far left and far right (assuming they're all equal, which they're probably not, 5m voted UKIP mind, so who knows). I'd prefer it to not be that way, but I'd have taken that over the last 13 years. I don't think we need to be that drastic now, and don't think we will be.

You don't get to make up who the UK voters are, unfortunately, and neither can I. You're not going to move the centrists much year by year. Assuming there are roughly 25m voting either Labour or Tory a truly left party would be reliant on probably 5m voters, and hoping it can grasp 5m or so centre left. Where do the other 3m come from to get a numerical majority (needing more than that for seat majority), without invigorating the far right?

As I think you or one of the others mentioned above, Corbyn's policies were centre left, or not fully left, or as left as Corbyn. Would he have got more votes with labour being more left? Of course not (or any he gained would be eclipsed by others voting the opposite), so what do you think that would do to the prospects of the left winning? It would decrease of course, worse than recent performance. If you repeat that over and over again the left would never win, ever. So you end up with the right tories, who pick up the centre and drag them along for their s***y ride. Ultimately this ends up like right/ far right crap, that we've had for the last 13 years. The only very small chance of winning, ever would need an absolute catastrophe, a bit like we have now, but even then the win would be marginal and probably not even a majority, and then 5 years later it would be back to 15 years of Tories.

Don't blame me, I'm centre-left and voted Corbyn twice and didn't stir up crap about him. But what I want won't override the logic behind it, I know we probably need to give up some ground on policy. We can't play the game we want to, we can only play the game we're given.
 
Andy_W said:
It's mental that you think the Labour manifesto is the same as the Tory one, when it's not even out yet :oops: The only manifesto I can see on the website is the 2019 one, if you have the 2024 one please provide a link.
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I said a Tory manifesto, not the Tory manifesto. Big difference. Many versions of Tory, some of them far more moderate than others.

Don't be fooled into thinking there are more right leaning people than left. You will find they only tolerate the right because the majority of them are fully supportive of socialist policies like the NHS, education, police, fire, road and rail infrastructure. Take away them like the true right want and they'd have no voters.

The battle ground is really around who pays for things and there are far fewer people that are net contributors than are net receivers. All that needs to be done is convince people which side they are on and for people to vote for the side that actually benefits them. That's a far better option than becoming indistinguishable from the opposition.
 
Andy_W said:
No, the members decide and >50% voted for Starmer in a 3-horse race, because they wanted a candidate who could win, given the press and people we have, which we can't change.

Normally winning is a better strategy than losing.
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Ah right. So when the members voted for Starmer none of them were voting for the policies he was telling them he'd pursue? They all just liked him cause of some abstract notion of being a winner?
 
Nano said:
There is no reason to ideologically impose a centrist manifesto when he could include left-wing policies. No reason whatsoever other than ideology.
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I've seen it suggested that the reason Starmer distanced himself from the previous manifesto was to deflect from his disastrous stance on a second referendum. By blaming the manifesto for the loss he can hand-wave away his part in the 2019 election loss.

Andy_W said:
[Starmer] was elected by labour members/ supporters who knew his rough position in advance.
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You have a habit of putting the cart before the horse but this example takes the proverbial.

Starmer said "Elect me and I'll do x". He was elected to do x. Then he decided to abandon x and do y.

Why do you think these sorts of threads exist? If Starmer was doing what he said he'd do then there'd be no complaints from me.

You seem to think that the country being dragged right is some natural law that can't be countered. It isn't. A half-decent left-wing manifesto would do wonders to reset the balance and the vast majority would get behind it in principle. If Starmer is the teflon-coated god of centrism that the centrists seem to think he is why is he trying to beat the right by heading in their direction?
 
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