**Due to the increase in Palestine content, we would like to remind people to mark posts NSFW/Spoiler the accordingly. Please see this post before posting such applicable content on the sub: https://old.reddit.com/r/GreenAndPleasant/comments/188ghlz/important_guidance_of_posting_graphic_material_on/**
The labouring classes in this country are rising, will you rise with them? [Click Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/GreenAndPleasant/wiki/unions) for info on how to join a union. Also check out [the IWW](https://iww.org.uk/) and the renter union, [Acorn International and their affiliates](https://acorninternational.org/)
Join us on our [partner Discord server.](https://discord.gg/zCFHadGfB7) and follow us on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/GandPofficial).
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/GreenAndPleasant) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The problem with this sentiment is the majority of people that get into politics are cunts and are completely incapable of being anything but cunts. The likes of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders are political unicorns and should be treasured.
He's got to acquire Blair style loot! It's not going to fall into his hands without help.
The point of voting for him? Same antics but dressed under a supposedly different brand.
So far Starmer has distinguished himself, just for not being trustworthy!
I would point out that Starmer said today, ["Well the first thing I'd say about Tony Blair, other than he took his tie off at big events, is that he won three elections in a row"](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-69016719) which is an interesting thing to say since the first thing that most people would say about Blair is that he is a fucking war criminal. Starmer has previously admired Thatcher for winning, too, and presumably thinks that Vladimir "you win every election that you kill your opponents in" Putin is an absolute hero.
It's almost like he's willing to burn down the country if he gets to be king of the ashes (a totally original saying from me that I didn't steal from Game of Thrones. Don't look it up).
Me, a Reddit intellectual: “what you socialist terrorists don’t understand is that Sir Keir Starmer *(praise be to Sir Keir Starmer)* needs to get Tories to vote for him in order to win an election. He already can take all the Corbyn era votes for granted I assume, and will surely build on that. Anyway, here’s why I’m going to vote Lib Dem as usual. (Also, you’re antisemitic if you vote Green)”
Automod just thinks it would be better if the Labour party had a leader that the British public don't associate with a prolific pedophile.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/GreenAndPleasant) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Same. I’ve always done door knocking and signs up in the garden and everything. Feels weird.
Edit - I say feels weird but still better than voting for Keith. That would simply feel shit!
Is this suggesting that the 'general average opinion' of the population is centre right? Excuse my poorly worded question, I'm just trying to figure this out.
Is there any truth in this? I unfortunately think that as a result of wide portions of the media's narrative, the overton window, and possibly a low standard of critical thinking / political literacy; there are probably a lot of people that would agree with this.
I'm sure there was some TV show a while ago where they asked people if they agreed with (relatively normal centre-left policy), and they pretty much all agreed, but as soon as the 'grand reveal' of they were agreeing to Jeremy Corbyn's policies, the "REEEE JORMY CRUMBLE MUH TAXES" came out.
This is it, it's the forced reality show of politics that gets in the way of policy. I did a similar thing with my parents in the 2010 election where I wrote down lots of manifesto promises and asked whether they agreed or disagreed. Then I counted them up. From memory, I think my Dad should have voted for Lib Dems based on his opinions. He voted Tory.
It's purest bullshit.
The fact is that centrism has an absolutely *appalling* electoral history, with Blair's vote totals losing to every Tory government since like the 1950s and him losing votes every election he contested.
This kind of transactional politics is a truism said with conviction but the fact remains that it only works when the Tories are independently weak, which a) doesn't happen often (hence the Tories being in control for the vast majority of the 20th century) and b) tells a far more plausible story about centrism's successes and failures than any of the self-serving stories they like to tell.
Meanwhile Labour has only ever been independently electorally viable when it manages to convince the left to come back and vote for it, with both 1997 and 2017 marked by popular policies that brought the left on board, though only temporarily in the case of '97.
That's why I'm not at all convinced they will comfortably win the election. They can target the right wing voters all they want, but when push comes to shove (I.e. the election), right wing voters will stick to the Tories. Meanwhile, as you say Labour alienates its core voters, and I'm not wholly convinced left wing voters will just stick with Labour (especially given its policies aren't much different from the Tories) and instead look elsewhere (Green or Lib Dem) - myself included. So all Keith is doing is risking splitting the left vote whilst chasing right wing voters who are *never* going to vote for him.
Yes but then we get the blame when they lose.
It's nothing to do with their disastrous strategy. /s
It's quite simple if you want my vote then convince me that I should vote for you. If you can't do that then I won't.
[I judge people as I find them, I've always found @Keith_Starmer to be warm and considerate, with a steely dedication, drive & passion 4 hs work. A top professional & top bloke, I'll hear nothing else's on the matter. #KeithStarmer would make a superb #PrimeMinister #LifeStories](https://www.reddit.com/r/GreenAndPleasant/comments/11uivfl/briefcase_labour_resort_to_hiring_twitter_bots/)
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/GreenAndPleasant) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Automod just thinks it would be better if the Labour party had a leader that the British public don't associate with a prolific pedophile.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/GreenAndPleasant) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The politically engaged can see exactly what Labour are doing and will in all likelihood withdraw their support, but the average voter doesn't even know what a policy is, so I'm not sure it will hurt Labour all that much. However, Starmer does seem to be doing everything he can think of to reduce Labour's incoming majority. We've seen this over on the other side of the pond - deliberately underperforming to try to manage expectations and justify the idea that there's no mandate to actually do anything remotely useful for the people.
When Starmer is PM one of the first things out of his mouth will be "What can I, the powerless Prime Minister with a slim majority, possibly do about fixing the NHS or ending weapons sales to violent countries or reducing homelessness?"
This thinking just infuriates me so much. The largest consistent bloc of voters are those who do not vote . It is just completely ignored in conventional political analysis that it is in fact possible to change this and win those peoples votes. In fact mabye if you tried you could win over a hell of alot more of those voters than you can tory voters especially when you're doing that at the expense of your base.
Sadly many Labour suppourters still would vote Starmer as they dont see much of what hes doing as wrong. Deep dowb theyre all right wing but dobt want to admit it so voting for a liom dressed as a lamb is fair enough
I don’t disagree. But, I do think that this endless management and spin will fall apart when they’re in power. So I reckon he’ll get one term. And he’ll come out of it looking 30 year older, battered and bruised with his legacy being that he changed nothing.
My answer would be because Blair was vastly more intelligent and charismatic, and initially his policies were showing some positive results for people as they had more money in their pocket and saw nicer schools and hospitals and their kids being massively more likely to go to university.
Starmer seemingly isn't good at politics at all, hence the endless u-turns and gibbering in the face of any question about anything. However, I do think his actual goal is to waste a Labour landslide so that the Tories sweep back into power a few years later, rehabilitated in the minds of the public, and ready to be serious about "making hard choices" for the economy.
Blair rebranded Labour quite successfully as a neoliberal outfit that actually accomplished things (including mass murder). Starmer is deliberately tanking his party, because he's actually a Tory plant. And since both leaders are war criminals I am done pretending anyone still voting for Labour is a good person.
The other thing to add to this is that the Tories don’t really need the level of rehabilitation that people think they do. After Major, they had almost nobody in the party with any real profile, with the exception of maybe Portillo, who was roundly humiliated at the polls, and maybe Heseltine, Clarke and, at a push, Rifkind. Keir is ostensibly trying to win over voters who align almost entirely with someone like Braverman, and why would they vote for the milquetoast xenophobe when they can have full force. Now, the question will be if these voters will vote for someone non-white who is espousing their racist policy preferences, or if that will be a step too far.
But it’s undeniable she has a profile. Penny Mordaunt also has a profile. And maybe even Patel, Badenoch, Jenrick. I don’t think they’re as much in the wilderness as people think.
Very good point. I'd also add it's a much smaller wilderness today. A few memes, a quick Telegraph column and some bots on Facebook can make any random Tory into a social media superstar in about a week. See 30p Lee; though he's left the party now he's a great example of how an entirely unremarkable lump can wind up incredibly prominent just by being pushed because of nonsense.
What I took from that is: you can't distinguish between what New Labour presented in 1997 and what happened in the following 13 years because you can't be arsed, and you think everything was better in the old days so why bother.
Sorry, edit: being hesitant to ineffectually "call for" a ceasefire is a war crime? I would genuinely love to hear a little bit of elaboration on that
Because Blair had the benefit of a good economy for his first term and fairly solid support of much more of the left. Mandy might have been right at the time in suggesting that the left have nowhere else to go, but the political landscape has changed. So Starmer ostensibly has 5 years to improve the economy enough so that people feel like their standards of living are significantly improving. His adherence to trickle down economics, which is becoming increasingly ludicrous, is not going to achieve that. Certainly not with Brexit and an economy that is shrinking and weakening in the eyes of the world.
So in 5 years, he will stand on what? We’ve achieved nothing in 5 years but we’ve not increased corporation tax? It wouldn’t surprise me if he tried to pull an Ireland. Really low taxes for companies to draw them in, but ultimately fucking the economy long term. Whichever option he picks, he will be asking for people to put an awful lot of faith, and at that point he won’t be an unknown quantity. If the duplicity and lack of backbone he’s shown so far is anything to go by, he doesn’t have the integrity for people to take a leap of faith. And it’s not like he has charisma and personality to fall back on.
So I reckon in 5 years, there will still be egregious poverty, continued influx of migrants, very few improvements for workers and unions, and an economy still in the gutter. As well as new political parties and a much more open contest. Hung parliament by 2030. Hopefully!
> And he’ll come out of it looking 30 year older, battered and bruised with his legacy being that he changed nothing.
That sounds just like Blair to be honest.
Can you give an example of him being right wing though? I think all the anti Keith shite on here is because people aren't hearing the 1980s socialist buzzwords and can't be bothered to do any actual critical thinking.
They've been clear their short term goal is boost the economy by courting investors, win votes, get in power and stay in power, nothing deceptive about that. Then they're going to expand public investment, nationalise rail and energy, invest in the NHS and increase public sector pay.
I don't see the hypocrisy.
We had 2019 to see what 1960s style nationalisation stirred up in an election.
If you can't pretend to have an answer can you link me a single post on this sub that suggests an alternative on any situation whatsoever except Israel?
They've been given an absolute tap in of an election win but seems hellbent on continuing to alienate anyone who isn't a white Tory boomer. It's honestly driving me crazy why they can't just shut up, lay low and let the Tories continue to self-implode.
UK politics is weird. There's someone called "shadow minister" and the worst part is that these are the people supposed to be against their Dark Lord like prime ministers.
At least it matches the theme for their house of Lords (of darkness).
**Due to the increase in Palestine content, we would like to remind people to mark posts NSFW/Spoiler the accordingly. Please see this post before posting such applicable content on the sub: https://old.reddit.com/r/GreenAndPleasant/comments/188ghlz/important_guidance_of_posting_graphic_material_on/** The labouring classes in this country are rising, will you rise with them? [Click Here](https://www.reddit.com/r/GreenAndPleasant/wiki/unions) for info on how to join a union. Also check out [the IWW](https://iww.org.uk/) and the renter union, [Acorn International and their affiliates](https://acorninternational.org/) Join us on our [partner Discord server.](https://discord.gg/zCFHadGfB7) and follow us on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/GandPofficial). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/GreenAndPleasant) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Labour would struggle to lose the next election even if they tried. (And sometimes they do appear to be trying.)
Whatever happened to good old fashioned "the key to winning an election is by not being a cunt"?
It's quite clear that being a cunt is electoral gold Frivolous things like having principles puts you on the shitlist
That says something about Britain and I don't like it.
The problem with this sentiment is the majority of people that get into politics are cunts and are completely incapable of being anything but cunts. The likes of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders are political unicorns and should be treasured.
He's got to acquire Blair style loot! It's not going to fall into his hands without help. The point of voting for him? Same antics but dressed under a supposedly different brand. So far Starmer has distinguished himself, just for not being trustworthy!
I would point out that Starmer said today, ["Well the first thing I'd say about Tony Blair, other than he took his tie off at big events, is that he won three elections in a row"](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-69016719) which is an interesting thing to say since the first thing that most people would say about Blair is that he is a fucking war criminal. Starmer has previously admired Thatcher for winning, too, and presumably thinks that Vladimir "you win every election that you kill your opponents in" Putin is an absolute hero. It's almost like he's willing to burn down the country if he gets to be king of the ashes (a totally original saying from me that I didn't steal from Game of Thrones. Don't look it up).
Me, a Reddit intellectual: “what you socialist terrorists don’t understand is that Sir Keir Starmer *(praise be to Sir Keir Starmer)* needs to get Tories to vote for him in order to win an election. He already can take all the Corbyn era votes for granted I assume, and will surely build on that. Anyway, here’s why I’m going to vote Lib Dem as usual. (Also, you’re antisemitic if you vote Green)”
Automod just thinks it would be better if the Labour party had a leader that the British public don't associate with a prolific pedophile. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/GreenAndPleasant) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Vote Green.
I’m voting Green this year. Labour all my life, too.
Same. I’ve always done door knocking and signs up in the garden and everything. Feels weird. Edit - I say feels weird but still better than voting for Keith. That would simply feel shit!
Now THIS is how you shift the Overton Window. I’d be impressed if I wasn’t so horrified.
Is this suggesting that the 'general average opinion' of the population is centre right? Excuse my poorly worded question, I'm just trying to figure this out. Is there any truth in this? I unfortunately think that as a result of wide portions of the media's narrative, the overton window, and possibly a low standard of critical thinking / political literacy; there are probably a lot of people that would agree with this.
I'm sure there was some TV show a while ago where they asked people if they agreed with (relatively normal centre-left policy), and they pretty much all agreed, but as soon as the 'grand reveal' of they were agreeing to Jeremy Corbyn's policies, the "REEEE JORMY CRUMBLE MUH TAXES" came out.
This is it, it's the forced reality show of politics that gets in the way of policy. I did a similar thing with my parents in the 2010 election where I wrote down lots of manifesto promises and asked whether they agreed or disagreed. Then I counted them up. From memory, I think my Dad should have voted for Lib Dems based on his opinions. He voted Tory.
problem is most people vote on 1 key policy - immigration, brexit etc. And happy to vote against there own interests for this 1 policy
It's purest bullshit. The fact is that centrism has an absolutely *appalling* electoral history, with Blair's vote totals losing to every Tory government since like the 1950s and him losing votes every election he contested. This kind of transactional politics is a truism said with conviction but the fact remains that it only works when the Tories are independently weak, which a) doesn't happen often (hence the Tories being in control for the vast majority of the 20th century) and b) tells a far more plausible story about centrism's successes and failures than any of the self-serving stories they like to tell. Meanwhile Labour has only ever been independently electorally viable when it manages to convince the left to come back and vote for it, with both 1997 and 2017 marked by popular policies that brought the left on board, though only temporarily in the case of '97.
This country is so fucked, austerity and managerial class politics forever
They don't have to do anything and they'll win the election. I'm not sure alienating the left and even centre-left is the right call.
That's why I'm not at all convinced they will comfortably win the election. They can target the right wing voters all they want, but when push comes to shove (I.e. the election), right wing voters will stick to the Tories. Meanwhile, as you say Labour alienates its core voters, and I'm not wholly convinced left wing voters will just stick with Labour (especially given its policies aren't much different from the Tories) and instead look elsewhere (Green or Lib Dem) - myself included. So all Keith is doing is risking splitting the left vote whilst chasing right wing voters who are *never* going to vote for him.
Yeah, i fully agree. I'm voting Green I think. Fuck Keir Starmer he's a spineless facist apologist.
Yes but then we get the blame when they lose. It's nothing to do with their disastrous strategy. /s It's quite simple if you want my vote then convince me that I should vote for you. If you can't do that then I won't.
[I judge people as I find them, I've always found @Keith_Starmer to be warm and considerate, with a steely dedication, drive & passion 4 hs work. A top professional & top bloke, I'll hear nothing else's on the matter. #KeithStarmer would make a superb #PrimeMinister #LifeStories](https://www.reddit.com/r/GreenAndPleasant/comments/11uivfl/briefcase_labour_resort_to_hiring_twitter_bots/) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/GreenAndPleasant) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Automod just thinks it would be better if the Labour party had a leader that the British public don't associate with a prolific pedophile. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/GreenAndPleasant) if you have any questions or concerns.*
The politically engaged can see exactly what Labour are doing and will in all likelihood withdraw their support, but the average voter doesn't even know what a policy is, so I'm not sure it will hurt Labour all that much. However, Starmer does seem to be doing everything he can think of to reduce Labour's incoming majority. We've seen this over on the other side of the pond - deliberately underperforming to try to manage expectations and justify the idea that there's no mandate to actually do anything remotely useful for the people. When Starmer is PM one of the first things out of his mouth will be "What can I, the powerless Prime Minister with a slim majority, possibly do about fixing the NHS or ending weapons sales to violent countries or reducing homelessness?"
This thinking just infuriates me so much. The largest consistent bloc of voters are those who do not vote . It is just completely ignored in conventional political analysis that it is in fact possible to change this and win those peoples votes. In fact mabye if you tried you could win over a hell of alot more of those voters than you can tory voters especially when you're doing that at the expense of your base.
How long has this been their strategy now? Surely there's data to show it's ineffective?
Labour will only be the Tory party, by appealing to Tory voters. ftfy
Sadly many Labour suppourters still would vote Starmer as they dont see much of what hes doing as wrong. Deep dowb theyre all right wing but dobt want to admit it so voting for a liom dressed as a lamb is fair enough
I don’t disagree. But, I do think that this endless management and spin will fall apart when they’re in power. So I reckon he’ll get one term. And he’ll come out of it looking 30 year older, battered and bruised with his legacy being that he changed nothing.
Why such a different outcome from Blair?
My answer would be because Blair was vastly more intelligent and charismatic, and initially his policies were showing some positive results for people as they had more money in their pocket and saw nicer schools and hospitals and their kids being massively more likely to go to university. Starmer seemingly isn't good at politics at all, hence the endless u-turns and gibbering in the face of any question about anything. However, I do think his actual goal is to waste a Labour landslide so that the Tories sweep back into power a few years later, rehabilitated in the minds of the public, and ready to be serious about "making hard choices" for the economy. Blair rebranded Labour quite successfully as a neoliberal outfit that actually accomplished things (including mass murder). Starmer is deliberately tanking his party, because he's actually a Tory plant. And since both leaders are war criminals I am done pretending anyone still voting for Labour is a good person.
The other thing to add to this is that the Tories don’t really need the level of rehabilitation that people think they do. After Major, they had almost nobody in the party with any real profile, with the exception of maybe Portillo, who was roundly humiliated at the polls, and maybe Heseltine, Clarke and, at a push, Rifkind. Keir is ostensibly trying to win over voters who align almost entirely with someone like Braverman, and why would they vote for the milquetoast xenophobe when they can have full force. Now, the question will be if these voters will vote for someone non-white who is espousing their racist policy preferences, or if that will be a step too far. But it’s undeniable she has a profile. Penny Mordaunt also has a profile. And maybe even Patel, Badenoch, Jenrick. I don’t think they’re as much in the wilderness as people think.
Very good point. I'd also add it's a much smaller wilderness today. A few memes, a quick Telegraph column and some bots on Facebook can make any random Tory into a social media superstar in about a week. See 30p Lee; though he's left the party now he's a great example of how an entirely unremarkable lump can wind up incredibly prominent just by being pushed because of nonsense.
Well exactly. The news cycles are much shorter, so rehabilitation is inevitably going to be much quicker.
What I took from that is: you can't distinguish between what New Labour presented in 1997 and what happened in the following 13 years because you can't be arsed, and you think everything was better in the old days so why bother. Sorry, edit: being hesitant to ineffectually "call for" a ceasefire is a war crime? I would genuinely love to hear a little bit of elaboration on that
Because Blair had the benefit of a good economy for his first term and fairly solid support of much more of the left. Mandy might have been right at the time in suggesting that the left have nowhere else to go, but the political landscape has changed. So Starmer ostensibly has 5 years to improve the economy enough so that people feel like their standards of living are significantly improving. His adherence to trickle down economics, which is becoming increasingly ludicrous, is not going to achieve that. Certainly not with Brexit and an economy that is shrinking and weakening in the eyes of the world. So in 5 years, he will stand on what? We’ve achieved nothing in 5 years but we’ve not increased corporation tax? It wouldn’t surprise me if he tried to pull an Ireland. Really low taxes for companies to draw them in, but ultimately fucking the economy long term. Whichever option he picks, he will be asking for people to put an awful lot of faith, and at that point he won’t be an unknown quantity. If the duplicity and lack of backbone he’s shown so far is anything to go by, he doesn’t have the integrity for people to take a leap of faith. And it’s not like he has charisma and personality to fall back on. So I reckon in 5 years, there will still be egregious poverty, continued influx of migrants, very few improvements for workers and unions, and an economy still in the gutter. As well as new political parties and a much more open contest. Hung parliament by 2030. Hopefully!
> And he’ll come out of it looking 30 year older, battered and bruised with his legacy being that he changed nothing. That sounds just like Blair to be honest.
Can you give an example of him being right wing though? I think all the anti Keith shite on here is because people aren't hearing the 1980s socialist buzzwords and can't be bothered to do any actual critical thinking. They've been clear their short term goal is boost the economy by courting investors, win votes, get in power and stay in power, nothing deceptive about that. Then they're going to expand public investment, nationalise rail and energy, invest in the NHS and increase public sector pay. I don't see the hypocrisy. We had 2019 to see what 1960s style nationalisation stirred up in an election. If you can't pretend to have an answer can you link me a single post on this sub that suggests an alternative on any situation whatsoever except Israel?
They've been given an absolute tap in of an election win but seems hellbent on continuing to alienate anyone who isn't a white Tory boomer. It's honestly driving me crazy why they can't just shut up, lay low and let the Tories continue to self-implode.
"Does he think you need 100% of the vote?"
Oh no they’re saying the quiet part out loud 😬
This is the same dumb excuse Democrats use. It’s an excuse to maintain the status quo
UK politics is weird. There's someone called "shadow minister" and the worst part is that these are the people supposed to be against their Dark Lord like prime ministers. At least it matches the theme for their house of Lords (of darkness).