What should I expect from Keir Starmer?

atypical_boro

Well-known member
As a moderate Left-thinking centrist, with one or two fairly dogmatic views about the monarchy and Trident, what will he offer me that Corbyn (who I once supported but didn't vote for in December) didn't?
 
I think it might just be a lot harder for the Tories to sling mud at him, like they did with Corbyn. JC was a very easy target, that didn't seem to want to help himself or the party stop being a target.

Rebecca Long Bailey is a Corbyn fanatic, so any hint the public get of her being similar or liking Corbyn, will never ever work, for anyone other than JC fans, and there's not enough of them to win seats/ elections.

So, basically Starmer will possibly have a chance of winning against the Tories, when it doesn't appear that any of the others would.
 
I think it might just be a lot harder for the Tories to sling mud at him, like they did with Corbyn. JC was a very easy target, that didn't seem to want to help himself or the party stop being a target.

Rebecca Long Bailey is a Corbyn fanatic, so any hint the public get of her being similar or liking Corbyn, will never ever work, for anyone other than JC fans, and there's not enough of them to win seats/ elections.

So, basically Starmer will possibly have a chance of winning against the Tories, when it doesn't appear that any of the others would.
Hmm ok. So politically do you think he'll offer more of the same?
 
Hmm ok. So politically do you think he'll offer more of the same?

Corbyn isn't as left as the Tories/ press make out, but Starmer appears even less left. So there wouldn't be massive changes policy/ manifesto wise/ I expect, but he will be a hell of a lot more electable. Obviously brexit is out of the way now, so should be easy for Labour to win votes back, and everyone likes being on the winning side, it creates momentum.

Enough people actually liked most of Corbyn/ Labours policies for them to actually win, the problem wasn't the party, it was the man. There's no way in hell they could ever win with Corbyn in charge, even if he was giving out free iPhones. When the labour voters don't like the leader with a mass majority, then how on earth do they expect to get Tory voters over, never mind the Ukip lot.
 
Corbyn isn't as left as the Tories/ press make out, but Starmer appears even less left. So there wouldn't be massive changes policy/ manifesto wise/ I expect, but he will be a hell of a lot more electable. Obviously brexit is out of the way now, so should be easy for Labour to win votes back, and everyone likes being on the winning side, it creates momentum.

Enough people actually liked most of Corbyn/ Labours policies for them to actually win, the problem wasn't the party, it was the man. There's no way in hell they could ever win with Corbyn in charge, even if he was giving out free iPhones. When the labour voters don't like the leader with a mass majority, then how on earth do they expect to get Tory voters over, never mind the Ukip lot.
Do you think Starmer will go down the road of nationalising Royal Mail and free broadband? Things nobody really seemed to be asking for?
 
Do you think Starmer will go down the road of nationalising Royal Mail and free broadband? Things nobody really seemed to be asking for?

No idea, but I doubt it, as like you say, there's not a great deal of demand for that, is there? I don't know anyone who would have even asked for those, prior to an election.

Free broadband is completely pointless anyway, most of the country will be 5G in a couple of years and their house might be on the same contract as their mobile. The speeds that will be possible will knock the socks off the speed of current cable/ copper broadband, and it will be miles easier to introduce to the masses.
 
Starmer would bring a fresh approach. A costed sensible and realistic approach, even. He is a pragmatist in my view. I think many of the daft spending ideals of Corbyn wont be at the forefront. Given we will be 5 yrs on at the next election, I would hope he will look at where Britain is in 2024 and keep any policies reasonable, modern, doable without increasing taxes too much on the working and middle classes and look after public services and the NHS. Britain will look very different come 2024 though, especially if the Scots and Irish ever got a referendum within that time (unlikely). It will be an issue in the next election though and a sensible policy needs adopting that does not risk the Union (for me)
 
I imagine he will just be more liberal and keen on public spending than Boris. He's certainly a clever bloke who doesn't have much of the whiff of the comrade about him.

Can't see him doing much to address issues like housing though. Depends how much the future creeps up on us in the next five years. At some point someone's going to have to do something.

**** knows though.
 
I was always a big fan of Jeremy Corbyn and remain so, and for all that it ultimately failed to bring Labour to power I do feel the focus of the debate has shifted. A lot of the electorate now have a view on things like homelessness and inequality and those discussions will remain relevant in years to come.

As a Labour Party member I will be voting for Keir Starmer in the upcoming leadership election and the primary reason is that he is the most electable and in my opinion is the one the Tories will fear the most.

RLB? Very principled and pretty much a continuation of the movement of the party to its traditional roots but she will always be tarred with being Jeremy Corbyn mk2. She will be slaughtered by the media and as much as I like her and am largely aligned with her politically, I just don't see her in a position where she'll take power back from the Tories.

Emily Thornberry has no chance of leading the party and while I like Lisa Nandy I just don't feel she's the right person for the job though I think her and RLB will absolutely have a big role on the Labour frontbench.

I also don't think that Keir Starmer is a centrist, he is just more centrist than where Labour are currently. I think he will still appeal to a lot of the post-Brexit Labour supporters who voted elsewhere in 2019, while I can also see him appealing to the middle classes who voted Tory while pinching their noses in the last election.

If Starmer does get the job I think he'd be crazy to lurch the party away from its left-leaning stance - people didn't vote for Labour for a variety of reasons but generally the policies were popular. Maybe there were just too many of them and they should have focused on 3 or 4 of the big promises instead of having quite a few others and appearing like they just wanted to give something to everyone.
 
Hopefully he’ll provide unity and a bridge between the Blairite moderates, the left of the party who support Corbyn and the traditional Labour voters who have decided that Johnson more than Corbyn represented their views, an appeal to middle England and the best of recent policy with tweaks to make it irresistible to the electorate at large, he doesn’t have the baggage of a radical past nor the Iraq war stain of support of that conflict, for me the first key is unity of the party and once that is achieved the next step is convincing that public at large that he’s a better option than Johnson.
 
Male/Remainer/London

But it looks immaterial anyway as RLB will get in with Starmer and Nandy splitting the center ground vote.
 
I was always a big fan of Jeremy Corbyn and remain so, and for all that it ultimately failed to bring Labour to power I do feel the focus of the debate has shifted. A lot of the electorate now have a view on things like homelessness and inequality and those discussions will remain relevant in years to come.

As a Labour Party member I will be voting for Keir Starmer in the upcoming leadership election and the primary reason is that he is the most electable and in my opinion is the one the Tories will fear the most.

RLB? Very principled and pretty much a continuation of the movement of the party to its traditional roots but she will always be tarred with being Jeremy Corbyn mk2. She will be slaughtered by the media and as much as I like her and am largely aligned with her politically, I just don't see her in a position where she'll take power back from the Tories.

Emily Thornberry has no chance of leading the party and while I like Lisa Nandy I just don't feel she's the right person for the job though I think her and RLB will absolutely have a big role on the Labour frontbench.

I also don't think that Keir Starmer is a centrist, he is just more centrist than where Labour are currently. I think he will still appeal to a lot of the post-Brexit Labour supporters who voted elsewhere in 2019, while I can also see him appealing to the middle classes who voted Tory while pinching their noses in the last election.

If Starmer does get the job I think he'd be crazy to lurch the party away from its left-leaning stance - people didn't vote for Labour for a variety of reasons but generally the policies were popular. Maybe there were just too many of them and they should have focused on 3 or 4 of the big promises instead of having quite a few others and appearing like they just wanted to give something to everyone.

I agree entirely with this analysis, including where I stand personally on the politics. I’ll also be voting for Starmer in the final ballot, mainly because he is the candidate who looks and sounds most like a potential Prime Minister, which is what the party needs.

I also agree that Starmer is far from being a centrist/Blairite. Certainly nothing in his past would suggest so. I think he will provide the right blend between sensible pragmatist and leader of a party promising a genuine alternative.
 
I agree entirely with this analysis, including where I stand personally on the politics. I’ll also be voting for Starmer in the final ballot, mainly because he is the candidate who looks and sounds most like a potential Prime Minister, which is what the party needs.

I also agree that Starmer is far from being a centrist/Blairite. Certainly nothing in his past would suggest so. I think he will provide the right blend between sensible pragmatist and leader of a party promising a genuine alternative.
Being a rabid remainer puts him on the right wing of the party, hardly the left.
 
Can't help thinking that a woman leader is long overdue for Labour. I also think a bright woman will handle Johnson better than a white middle aged, middle class man. Nandy for me.
 
Being a rabid remainer puts him on the right wing of the party, hardly the left.

So by your logic John McDonnell and Diane Abbott must be on the right wing of the party too then?!!

By the way, on your earlier post, it’s a preferential voting system, so you can’t ‘split’ the vote in the way you describe. I would imagine that RLB would need to get over 50% of first preference votes to win as, otherwise, the second preferences of the Nandy and Thornberry (if she makes it onto the ballot) voters are likely to go to Starmer and get him over the line.
 
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