That's a disgusting view. I know we disagree on this topic, but I'm shocked to see you say that.859 innocents:So utterly predictable, if depressing: support for Hamas soars in West Bank after October attack.What was Hamas achieving on 7/10 other than the murder of 1200 innocent Jews?
What is Israel achieving other than sowing the seeds of future intractable conflicts?
Welcome back @MoonRabbit 👍That’s not a bad Opinium for Labour, before swingback the pollster must have found at least 42% for Labour. With pro government swingback built in, it’s a LLG of 58.OpiniumOne week late! Slackers!
@OpiniumResearch
🚨 New polling with
@ObserverUK
Labour lead sits at 13 points.
• Labour 40% (-3)
• Conservatives 27% (+1)
• Lib Dems 11% (n/c)
• SNP 3% (n/c)
• Greens 7% (+1)
• Reform 9% (n/c)
https://twitter.com/OpiniumResearch/status/1736114016446038166?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^tweet
Any way, Broken, sleazy Labour on the slide!
It will also help Labour massively if the Conservatives actually use the term Ceasefire. As in UK government position of calling for one. And Labour can tack towards that. The Statement from David Cameron is excellent, and clever politics to strap it to the German government position so it’s not thought of just a position of one of the Five tory Houses.
Only for the ones which the grammar school system didn't exclude in the first place.Abolishing grammar schools kicked away the ladder for many working class children in Britain.Starmer risks looking very fake if he carries on in this direction:I grew up in a working class family. My mother was a butcher and my dad a welder. I went to university, got a PhD, now I am a senior lecturer (in the #1 programme in my field) and assiciate dean at a major business school. Not a day goes by where I don't remember that things could have been very very different for me. I really value social mobility, but sadly I don't owe it to the UK. I am half Danish and did my BSc MSc and PhD there....then came back here for tenure. I totally get where Starmer is coming from. Get this: if you are born into poverty in the UK, on average it takes your family 5 generations to make it up to median income... FIVE. In Denmark that takes two generations. 🤷 That difference is no coincidence... it is class society.
https://x.com/keir_starmer/status/1735710450216538243
Coming from a working class home, I never thought I'd end up studying law at university.
God, how many times have we had to endure that? It must be eleven plus.Starmer risks looking very fake if he carries on in this direction:Oh no. You can now expect another excruciatingly dull grammar school debate between myself and HYUFD. I am sure you have had prior warning.
https://x.com/keir_starmer/status/1735710450216538243
Coming from a working class home, I never thought I'd end up studying law at university.
I think John Major ate the country’s most famous Curry.In my humble opinion, Starmer is the worst Prime Minister we've had since World War 2.He the country's most (in)famous curry.
I'm struggling to think of anything he's achieved.
Remember when our North Wales correspondent spammed PB in 2022 about it?
I’m, I think one of the most aged posters here, and as far as I’m concerned we can’t get back into the EU too soon! I’ve been pro-Europe ever since the early ‘60’s when de Gaulle was being ‘difficult’.FPT for @SouthamObserverWhen oldsters like us fall off the perch more enlightened voters who want to visit Europe for more than 3 months, get a job in Europe, fall in love with dusky Mediterranean maidens and bring them home, might have different ideas.
"However, there’ll be some things Starmer will find it extremely hard to keep a lid on if he does become PM. I think the relationship with the EU is one. Ministers, MPs and Labour members will all want much closer ties. Whoever succeeds him as leader will do so having not ruled out rejoining."
++++
I've been making this point for a while, that Starmer (one of the grandees of the 2nd vote campaign, let us not forget) is hugely pro-EU and all his instincts (and MPs and activists etc) will be demanding that he, at least, rejoins the SM and CU and regains Free Movement
And he will be minded to do exactly that. However the more I think about it the more difficult it becomes - I have, in short, changed my mind. From day one Starmer will be under intense pressure re immigration - even more than the Tories now, as ultimately voters do not trust Labour on migration. Starmer will have to crack down ASAP on the migrant numbers or his polling will crater quickly. And how does he do that? Certainly not by opening the borders to Free Movement AS WELL
So he cannot join the SM coz the EU won't give it without FoM
That leaves some tweaks on alignment, Erasmus, etc, there isn't much else to be done, save the big one: Rejoin
Starmer won't go near that, it means all the horrors are disinterred, another referendum, it means begging the EU to let us back in = national humiliation, or so it will be painted = it means the euro and Schengen and everything, and no rebate (the EU rightly won't permit anything else, in case we eff off again, we will need to be shackled permanently). On top of that is the grave risk of a veto from some EU member: Ireland, France for the lolz, Spain in a bad mood about Gib, somewhere like Bulgaria or Hungary or Cyprus just trying to lever advantage
All this will apply to any successor to Starmer, and their successors. These problems are insuperable. We aren't ever rejoining
Brexit is Forever
For the time being we are in charge and we can slag off the EU, wokery, foreigners, especially Meghan Markle and make life difficult for young whippersnappers to our heart's content.
I understand the negativity of the Tory message on this, but it doesn't actually match reality.They were poorly run and failing during the Wilson/ Callaghan era. They were poorly run and failing during the Blair/Brown era. The idea there was some golden age of public services during previous Labour administraions is nonsense.Not a very effective attack line by the Tories because:The only way he can "address the comprehensive failure of public services" is a) speak truth to the management structure about their massive and long-standing delivery failures - and then sack the underperformers; or b) throw a lot of money at the problem.Though nothing in the idea of raising domestic skills required Brexit, it has always been in the hands of domestic government.And in return, if Brexit was about stoppingTo be honest, this is exactly what I voted Leave for - so politicians had to make speeches like this rather than say they wished they could do something about it, but their hands were tied by FOMSeems to be happening. Here’s Sir Keir’s latest U-turn on Brexit; could be Farage talking (apart from the Labour bit obviously)Sounds ripe for an ‘I agree with Nick’ moment.The trouble is, Sunak's got collapse of May era written all over him. Constant relaunches, reboots, podia. Tears outside number 10 can't be too far off. So it's May vs. May.That clip sums up in a nutshell why I am probably the only one on this website who thinks SKS will not win and the Tories have a fighting chance.Thanks for the explanation Sir KeirThe great hope of the left exposed in the searchlight of a simple question
That's all clear now
https://twitter.com/Hammer_On_X/status/1735711452168691753
You can get away with such a duff answer when the electorate is not really thinking about you as next PM and hates the Government.
It’s another thing when it swings into an election campaign and then everyone is suddenly forced into having to make a choice.
Chances are SKS will get eviscerated in a campaign. Give him any slightly off centre question - ‘define working class’, ‘define a woman etc’ - and he waffles and sounds vacuous.
He’s got 2017 Theresa May vintage written all over him.
Perhaps ‘I agree with Nigel’ this time? Perish the thought.
“ Brexit was a vote for lower immigration – of course it was […] If, in short, you want lower migration and higher wages […] Then I say again,
this is what a changed Labour Party will deliver”
On the Tories
“ every time they run-up against a choice between raising skills and working conditions or issuing more visas, they choose the higher migration option. And that’s not an accident, it’s who they are”
https://labour.org.uk/updates/press-releases/keir-starmers-speech-in-buckinghamshire/
Mass immigration means low wages, and a damning critique of politicians who give out jobs to foreigners. Whoever would have thought it?
Better PM Starmer and the UK out of the EU than PM Cameron and us still in it
the neocolonialist practice of nicking all the
skilled brown and black people once a
government much less rich than ours has
spent public money training them, I’d have
been more inclined to vote for Brexit too.
(I realise this is far from the actual purpose of Brexit, but doesn’t sound a million miles from what SKS is saying in the speech).
Brexit has been a distraction from addressing the problems of this nation, not the solution to the problem.
Starmers speech is interesting and gives some idea of how he plans to campaign. Not gimmicks like the Rwanda groundnut scheme, but addressing the comprehensive failure of public services.
Labour, owned by the unions, will ALWAYS go route b). So the question is - are they lying when they say they will address the comprehensive failures, or lying when they say they won't significantly put up taxes in order to throw a lot of money at the problem.
Probably both. Starmer will raise taxes but not turn around public services.
1) the "useless management structures" have been devised and run by Conservatives over the last 13 years.
2) the argument accepts that public services are failing.
Why would anyone want to continue with this government's policy on public services which we all agree now are poorly run and failing?
What this country needs is the Conservatives and Labour working together on a 10 or 20 year programme for public services. One that would survive a change in administration, where there would be a great political price to be paid if one party or the other tried to backslide. One that would take difficult decisons and follow through on them.
There should be a common aim to deliver this, because any government is going to struggle to provide services that don't massively disappoint. Waiting lists won't notably imporve under a new Labour government. The bare minimum will be all that gets delivered, without any advance on the level of service. There isn't funding available, there aren't the trained staff. Labour is deeply dishonest to suggets otherwise.
A Labour government will spend its term tinkering, to very little effect. But hey, it will be better than the Tories. (Spoiler: it won't....)
Not quite. I am standing for election to be a trustee of a heritage engineering & railway trust.I've decided to run for election next year.For the Conservatives, I presume, good luck!
A good time to start a political career is at the nadir of a parties fortunes, as that is when the recovery starts.
I think that I wouldn't be successful in politics. My views are too idiosyncratic for party politics.