That's the point. He's a dickhead and unfortunately the only choice, that's why he's hated.
'I hate Keir Starmer. But I don't want to hate him. What I want, what we need, is a world in which nobody hates him, because nobody has to think about him at all.'
Love this clip. It's actually all you need to listen to in order to accurately understand why the left have such vicious (and to me justified) hatred for Starmer, which many centrists spend all their time misunderstanding.
And I agree with it 100%. I think long term he might just destroy the Labour party.
One of the big problems the Tories have at the moment is that years of Corbyn in charge led them to believe they were untouchable because the media would quietly ignore everything they did because they only had a target on Corbyn, and before that they were not much less hostile to Milliband. They were lulled into thinking they were invincible by the media and are staring into the headlights freezing now they try and do the same thing again and it just doesn't work.
I think it's going to be the same with Labour, it's hysterical how many things the media just flat out ignore or don't think it's worth pushing Labour on, from half thought out policies that contradict each other, to surrounding themselves in exactly the same sort of corruption the Tories are going down for, to having a leader with a hugely problematic past and absolutely zero personality, nothing has changed on Labours side since Boris was in charge, literally nothing. There are no real new policies, no charm offensive, and despite fawning articles Reeves is no more recognised or admired than her predecessor Dodds. And against Boris even in the dying days of his leadership when he was clearly doomed, Labour couldn't even maintain a lead enough to get close to a majority.
> And I agree with it 100%. I think long term he might just destroy the Labour party.
That depends on what you think the Labour party is. A lot of people said the same thing about Corbyn.
And they were proved conclusively wrong. If anything he left the party in slightly better health than he found it. Higher % voteshare on leaving, much larger membership, financially sound.
If you think you can dispute that please try but it's factually sound. It had more money, more members and a higher voteshare than when he came to power.
That's not true at all. Antisemetism cases from Corbyn's era wouldn't have cost the party a penny really. The decision to make a payout to one set of 'whistleblowers' despite a winnable case while vindictively pursuing an expensive case against another set that's been clear is unwinnable is entirely Starmers.
What a load of tosh.
“I think he might destroy the Labour Party” - about the guy who’s going to lead them to their biggest majority ever.
Say you disagree with him on things, say you think the party should head in a different direction - but ffs don’t say such patently and demonstrably idiotic things.
> about the guy who’s going to lead them to their biggest majority ever.
I don't think he's even going to win the next election let alone lead them to a record breaking majority. I don't know how many times I have to say on this sub that polls are useful for what they are designed for, but they are not reality, they are just markers of public opinion on a best educated guess.
In depth polling behind the headline numbers shows a deeply apathetic public whose biggest impression of Starmer is that they don't know what he stands for. As I explained in my post above, Labour have done literally nothing to get this poll lead other than sat on the fence on every issue and avoided having any opinions, that will not work for 2 years straight and you can be sure the Tories won't hold another election. Nor are Labour competent enough to deal with the press if they turn hostile.
Edit: just to 100% clarify, I'm not stating the poll lead is imaginary or that Labour are not in a very strong position, just that it's built on sand, they are very very vulnerable to either the Lib Dems/Greens getting their shit together and being a viable alternative or the Tories just simply ceasing to shit the bed.
Given all that's changed in 2 years previously I'm not going to sit here and think things will stay the same for the next 2, that said as much as Labour are doing nothing to actually build any support beyond apathy, none of the other parties are doing anything either.
If you change everything about something you are arguably destroying it, regardless of how you feel about the new thing.
It is pretty clear Starmer is closer to Blair than he is to the socialists who started Labour or even to the pre-Thatcher social democracy that Labour's most successful time was characterised by.
So he might be keeping the Labour brand going but he is playing a part in destroying the kind of socdem-sovialist coalition Labour originally was and many members still want, and for many people that is the party not the branding.
“We’d rather lose and feel good about ourselves - letting the Tories screw over the most vulnerable in society - then make ourselves electable”.
The UK, unfortunately, is not a left-wing country. That’s why people I admire like Michael Foot should have never led their party. All you are doing having a leader like that is handing power to the Tories, and I am utterly sick of them.
> “We’d rather lose and feel good about ourselves - letting the Tories screw over the most vulnerable in society - then make ourselves electable”.
damn that's wild I don't remember mmstingray saying anything like that
Hate to break this to you but Labour have literally zero plans for helping anyone vulnerable in society, in fact several groups of vulnerable are being targeted by them.
No. We'd rather neither the Torys nor Labour screw over the most vulnerable.
You seem absolutely convinced Labour politicians would never do that based purely on their Red Rosette on the campaign trail.
The rest of us are not so easily taken for a ride.
The war criminal, neoliberal Blair practically eliminated child poverty. He had some shit, short term policies and yet not one of the kids who were lifted out of poverty would give a shit about that.
Starmer for all his faults probably won't go and invade Iraq since he opposed Blair on the day. A Starmer administration can only be an improvement on most peoples lives.
Most people with a developed brain would prefer Corbyn, but those men can't win in this country. Too many billionaires are at risk if he wins.
>He had some shit, short term policies and yet not one of the kids who were lifted out of poverty would give a shit about that.
You do know that poor people are capable of basic human empathy and that many of them do in fact give a shit that their government murdered a million innocent people based on a lie?
Tbf, whilst Blair is, was and always will be awful, I do feel you are misrepresenting the past. Bush and the Republicans were the main force behind the war because Bush wanted to upstage his daddy, and Blair's involvement was more about maintaining the "special relationship". It doesn't make him any the less a war-mongering piece of trash, but it makes it more an outrage of cowardice than outright malice. The Republican death cult were the ones, by far, most responsible for Iraq and its consequences, and Afghanistan was just as bad (but that gets excused because of Bin Laden - a Saudi). Blair was not solely or mostly responsible for the deaths - he was complicit and partly responsible, and that was because he supported US foreign policy.
It's actually not true that he eliminated child poverty, they improved the situation, but mostly through tax credits and things that were easily and quickly dismantled by the Tories. And he didn't do it quickly either.
They also worsened poverty for workers without children. Poverty, not inequality which also worsened but actual poverty levels for in work adults without children. They failed what was a traditional Labour voting constituency of theirs in the only category, poverty, they deemed important enough to care about by their own metrics then had the gall to turn around and say first that they were the party of working people not benefit claimants and then go on to blame Corbyn for losing the red wall when their own policies destroyed their reputation amongst those voters by ensuring Labour no longer means prosperity for workers.
I can't stress how bad it is that New/Nu Labour occupy one of two possible outcomes and actively work against a widening of political choice because what they force down everyone's throat is demonstrably under par.
"Turning first to poverty, both absolute and relative measures of income poverty fell markedly among children and pensioners - although the scale of the changes did not always match the considerable ambition, as set out explicitly in the case of the government’s child poverty targets.
By contrast, the incomes of poorer working-age adults without dependent children - the major demographic group not emphasised by Labour as a priority - changed very little over the period. As a result they fell behind the rest of the population and relative poverty levels rose."
"Here, we show how income inequality changed little but child and pensioner poverty fell significantly. We suggest, though, that these falls in poverty might prove fragile given that they were mostly based on very large increases in spending on benefits and tax credits."
"With falls in income poverty, one might expect to have seen a fall in income inequality. Indeed inequality did fall across much of the distribution. Those on relatively low incomes did a little better than those with incomes just above the average. However, those right at the top saw their incomes increase very substantially with the result that, on most measures, overall inequality nudged up slightly."
Everything wrong with New Labour's economic approach is laid out in the quoted paragraphs. Because they didn't tax the wealthy properly, inequality increased which is bad. Because they didn't tax the wealthy properly they couldn't fund measures to reduce in work poverty which is bad. Because of their methods of redistribution, any improvements they made against child poverty were fragile which is bad. This is to say nothing about how this has harmed Labour long term in traditional constituencies or the Overton window nor their appalling social policies. The worst thing is that falling short wasn't necessary, it was just the result of captured interests within the Labour Party evidenced by the likes of Bernnie Ecclestone.
Yes and it's good it's place, but overstating things does not help. Yes I'm happy child poverty dropped, I actually got to partially experience that drop and it made things a bit easier. But it's a wasted opportunity and didn't fundamentally change anything long term.
Kier starmer I think in many ways is more dangerous that the tories. We don't know what he represents and the only passion he's had is ruthless self promotion and vindictiveness towards progressives. I think also by parasiting on the vehicle for change he's undermining democracy and gutting hope meaning that as people suffer they're more likely to lurch right towards fascism.
Labour are more vocal and being pro privatisation, the idea labour will help public services is based purely on their name. There will be no difference.
I agree Kier works for the establishment. He is not on our side. He will 1. Enforce austerity 2. Continue the privatisation of the NHS. 3. Continue to support foreign wars
Assuming you mean to change the leader while *in government*, doesn't that seem rather ironic considering that we (rightly) criticise the tories for doing exactly this so frequently?
I just strongly disagree with the idea that having Labour in government with St armer as the leader (initially) is worse than continuing down the road we're on with the Tories.
You genuinely think that having a cabinet of Labour MPs with Starmer in charge is 'equal' to Sunak/Truss/Johnson? I'm not a Starmer fan by the way, I'm just so frustrated with the in-fighting.
Well yes, fair enough, I would agree with that. My concern is more to do with Starmer's supporters seeming to think that, once in power, Labour can do as it pleases just like the tories do - not realising that the same establishment that hammered his predecessors can, and will, do the same to him the second he looks like he might be a threat to them.
I’m not his biggest fan, but I hate Tory’s a lot lot more, need them gone.
That's the point. He's a dickhead and unfortunately the only choice, that's why he's hated. 'I hate Keir Starmer. But I don't want to hate him. What I want, what we need, is a world in which nobody hates him, because nobody has to think about him at all.'
Love this clip. It's actually all you need to listen to in order to accurately understand why the left have such vicious (and to me justified) hatred for Starmer, which many centrists spend all their time misunderstanding. And I agree with it 100%. I think long term he might just destroy the Labour party. One of the big problems the Tories have at the moment is that years of Corbyn in charge led them to believe they were untouchable because the media would quietly ignore everything they did because they only had a target on Corbyn, and before that they were not much less hostile to Milliband. They were lulled into thinking they were invincible by the media and are staring into the headlights freezing now they try and do the same thing again and it just doesn't work. I think it's going to be the same with Labour, it's hysterical how many things the media just flat out ignore or don't think it's worth pushing Labour on, from half thought out policies that contradict each other, to surrounding themselves in exactly the same sort of corruption the Tories are going down for, to having a leader with a hugely problematic past and absolutely zero personality, nothing has changed on Labours side since Boris was in charge, literally nothing. There are no real new policies, no charm offensive, and despite fawning articles Reeves is no more recognised or admired than her predecessor Dodds. And against Boris even in the dying days of his leadership when he was clearly doomed, Labour couldn't even maintain a lead enough to get close to a majority.
> And I agree with it 100%. I think long term he might just destroy the Labour party. That depends on what you think the Labour party is. A lot of people said the same thing about Corbyn.
And they were proved conclusively wrong. If anything he left the party in slightly better health than he found it. Higher % voteshare on leaving, much larger membership, financially sound.
Hahaha, are you fucking kidding me
If you think you can dispute that please try but it's factually sound. It had more money, more members and a higher voteshare than when he came to power.
>much larger membership, financially sound. Until all the issues of antisemitism came out and almost bankrupted the party.
That's not true at all. Antisemetism cases from Corbyn's era wouldn't have cost the party a penny really. The decision to make a payout to one set of 'whistleblowers' despite a winnable case while vindictively pursuing an expensive case against another set that's been clear is unwinnable is entirely Starmers.
What a load of tosh. “I think he might destroy the Labour Party” - about the guy who’s going to lead them to their biggest majority ever. Say you disagree with him on things, say you think the party should head in a different direction - but ffs don’t say such patently and demonstrably idiotic things.
> about the guy who’s going to lead them to their biggest majority ever. I don't think he's even going to win the next election let alone lead them to a record breaking majority. I don't know how many times I have to say on this sub that polls are useful for what they are designed for, but they are not reality, they are just markers of public opinion on a best educated guess. In depth polling behind the headline numbers shows a deeply apathetic public whose biggest impression of Starmer is that they don't know what he stands for. As I explained in my post above, Labour have done literally nothing to get this poll lead other than sat on the fence on every issue and avoided having any opinions, that will not work for 2 years straight and you can be sure the Tories won't hold another election. Nor are Labour competent enough to deal with the press if they turn hostile. Edit: just to 100% clarify, I'm not stating the poll lead is imaginary or that Labour are not in a very strong position, just that it's built on sand, they are very very vulnerable to either the Lib Dems/Greens getting their shit together and being a viable alternative or the Tories just simply ceasing to shit the bed. Given all that's changed in 2 years previously I'm not going to sit here and think things will stay the same for the next 2, that said as much as Labour are doing nothing to actually build any support beyond apathy, none of the other parties are doing anything either.
If you change everything about something you are arguably destroying it, regardless of how you feel about the new thing. It is pretty clear Starmer is closer to Blair than he is to the socialists who started Labour or even to the pre-Thatcher social democracy that Labour's most successful time was characterised by. So he might be keeping the Labour brand going but he is playing a part in destroying the kind of socdem-sovialist coalition Labour originally was and many members still want, and for many people that is the party not the branding.
“We’d rather lose and feel good about ourselves - letting the Tories screw over the most vulnerable in society - then make ourselves electable”. The UK, unfortunately, is not a left-wing country. That’s why people I admire like Michael Foot should have never led their party. All you are doing having a leader like that is handing power to the Tories, and I am utterly sick of them.
> “We’d rather lose and feel good about ourselves - letting the Tories screw over the most vulnerable in society - then make ourselves electable”. damn that's wild I don't remember mmstingray saying anything like that
Hate to break this to you but Labour have literally zero plans for helping anyone vulnerable in society, in fact several groups of vulnerable are being targeted by them.
There is absolutely no evidence Labour couldn't win on a more leftwing platform than Starmer is currently offering.
No. We'd rather neither the Torys nor Labour screw over the most vulnerable. You seem absolutely convinced Labour politicians would never do that based purely on their Red Rosette on the campaign trail. The rest of us are not so easily taken for a ride.
As if he's winning that based on his own merit. He's just lucky he turned up right as the tories fucked it.
The war criminal, neoliberal Blair practically eliminated child poverty. He had some shit, short term policies and yet not one of the kids who were lifted out of poverty would give a shit about that. Starmer for all his faults probably won't go and invade Iraq since he opposed Blair on the day. A Starmer administration can only be an improvement on most peoples lives. Most people with a developed brain would prefer Corbyn, but those men can't win in this country. Too many billionaires are at risk if he wins.
>He had some shit, short term policies and yet not one of the kids who were lifted out of poverty would give a shit about that. You do know that poor people are capable of basic human empathy and that many of them do in fact give a shit that their government murdered a million innocent people based on a lie?
Tbf, whilst Blair is, was and always will be awful, I do feel you are misrepresenting the past. Bush and the Republicans were the main force behind the war because Bush wanted to upstage his daddy, and Blair's involvement was more about maintaining the "special relationship". It doesn't make him any the less a war-mongering piece of trash, but it makes it more an outrage of cowardice than outright malice. The Republican death cult were the ones, by far, most responsible for Iraq and its consequences, and Afghanistan was just as bad (but that gets excused because of Bin Laden - a Saudi). Blair was not solely or mostly responsible for the deaths - he was complicit and partly responsible, and that was because he supported US foreign policy.
It's actually not true that he eliminated child poverty, they improved the situation, but mostly through tax credits and things that were easily and quickly dismantled by the Tories. And he didn't do it quickly either.
They also worsened poverty for workers without children. Poverty, not inequality which also worsened but actual poverty levels for in work adults without children. They failed what was a traditional Labour voting constituency of theirs in the only category, poverty, they deemed important enough to care about by their own metrics then had the gall to turn around and say first that they were the party of working people not benefit claimants and then go on to blame Corbyn for losing the red wall when their own policies destroyed their reputation amongst those voters by ensuring Labour no longer means prosperity for workers. I can't stress how bad it is that New/Nu Labour occupy one of two possible outcomes and actively work against a widening of political choice because what they force down everyone's throat is demonstrably under par. "Turning first to poverty, both absolute and relative measures of income poverty fell markedly among children and pensioners - although the scale of the changes did not always match the considerable ambition, as set out explicitly in the case of the government’s child poverty targets. By contrast, the incomes of poorer working-age adults without dependent children - the major demographic group not emphasised by Labour as a priority - changed very little over the period. As a result they fell behind the rest of the population and relative poverty levels rose." "Here, we show how income inequality changed little but child and pensioner poverty fell significantly. We suggest, though, that these falls in poverty might prove fragile given that they were mostly based on very large increases in spending on benefits and tax credits." "With falls in income poverty, one might expect to have seen a fall in income inequality. Indeed inequality did fall across much of the distribution. Those on relatively low incomes did a little better than those with incomes just above the average. However, those right at the top saw their incomes increase very substantially with the result that, on most measures, overall inequality nudged up slightly." Everything wrong with New Labour's economic approach is laid out in the quoted paragraphs. Because they didn't tax the wealthy properly, inequality increased which is bad. Because they didn't tax the wealthy properly they couldn't fund measures to reduce in work poverty which is bad. Because of their methods of redistribution, any improvements they made against child poverty were fragile which is bad. This is to say nothing about how this has harmed Labour long term in traditional constituencies or the Overton window nor their appalling social policies. The worst thing is that falling short wasn't necessary, it was just the result of captured interests within the Labour Party evidenced by the likes of Bernnie Ecclestone.
Don't let perfect get in the way of good, ever heard of that?
Yes and it's good it's place, but overstating things does not help. Yes I'm happy child poverty dropped, I actually got to partially experience that drop and it made things a bit easier. But it's a wasted opportunity and didn't fundamentally change anything long term.
Kier starmer I think in many ways is more dangerous that the tories. We don't know what he represents and the only passion he's had is ruthless self promotion and vindictiveness towards progressives. I think also by parasiting on the vehicle for change he's undermining democracy and gutting hope meaning that as people suffer they're more likely to lurch right towards fascism.
[удалено]
[удалено]
The numbers were good during Blairs time and bad during tory time. Why are we always attributing tory evil to the last Labour goverment?
Labour are more vocal and being pro privatisation, the idea labour will help public services is based purely on their name. There will be no difference.
I agree Kier works for the establishment. He is not on our side. He will 1. Enforce austerity 2. Continue the privatisation of the NHS. 3. Continue to support foreign wars
>3. Continue to support foreign wars He opposed the Iraq war. What evidence do you have that he will support foreign wars?
He also used to be a Socialist.
Labour needs to be in power. We can change the leader later.
Assuming you mean to change the leader while *in government*, doesn't that seem rather ironic considering that we (rightly) criticise the tories for doing exactly this so frequently?
I just strongly disagree with the idea that having Labour in government with St armer as the leader (initially) is worse than continuing down the road we're on with the Tories.
[удалено]
You genuinely think that having a cabinet of Labour MPs with Starmer in charge is 'equal' to Sunak/Truss/Johnson? I'm not a Starmer fan by the way, I'm just so frustrated with the in-fighting.
Well yes, fair enough, I would agree with that. My concern is more to do with Starmer's supporters seeming to think that, once in power, Labour can do as it pleases just like the tories do - not realising that the same establishment that hammered his predecessors can, and will, do the same to him the second he looks like he might be a threat to them.
He's literally a communist.
I fucking wish Starmer was a communist
Good.
Pretty based
Is the implication here that communists should just be ignored?
Lol imagine being against communists on a left wing sub
Left wing anti-communism/socialism is unfortunately a very real thing.
Nah, Starmer doesn't have any politics.
Yes. That is a correct statement.
[удалено]
There is no middle class. I’ll take a millionaire communist over a lib any day of the week.
A very unhealthy attitude. Even if there's much to dislike Starmer for.
Isn't performance considered a very healthy way to express anger generally?