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Is a negative campaign against Starmer really going to work? – politicalbetting.com
Is a negative campaign against Starmer really going to work? – politicalbetting.com
There are a lot of reports around at the moment about how the Tories think they can fight the election by going negative against Starmer. We see this in Sunak’s regular efforts at PMQs when he tries to make Starmer’s role while working for the then LAB leader, Corbyn, into an issue.
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It'll be as successful as this.
Alien vs predator?
However I gravely doubt it would work, Brexit is fading in the rearview, and besides, voters have decided that they want the Tories out, the bland banal lawyer just has to do... nothing, and say as little as possible
The day after he gets the top job, this will all change. His honeymoon will be startlingly brief, it will not be Blair 2.0
No one likes the Tories, neither the party or the leader. They’ve ripped themselves to shreds and have nothing to offer; they’re not radical or Conservative, sensible or charismatic. They don’t seem to like each other so why should anyone like them?
There *are* attacks which stand a chance of landing, but I don’t see them pushed by the Tory-Retard industrial complex.
What, exactly, was Badenoch's proper job?
Inconsistency really wont stand a chance.
As is customary the chief opposition to and campaigning against a Labour success comes from the Labour party, whose capacity to oppose itself is legendary. It is not impossible that some sort of Burgon/Abbott/Jezza axis could pull the trick off once more.
Bet accordingly.
Amongst the wide range of people in my social circle (i.e. Mrs Carp) his politics aren't particularly popular or impressive, but as a professional man with a smart suit and a decent haircut he's unimpeachable. Of all the things going wrong with Britain today, "Lefty Lawyers" isn't in the Top Ten. Indeed, when Starmer responds by saying how tough he was as a Public Prosecutor, the Tory attacks might actually play to his strengths. And when all else fails, at least he isn't an ex Goldman Sachs investment banker with a Green Card.
Incidentally, the Times interview with Ed Davey today might impress a few people, even if they don't vote for him. His back story is positively Dickensian in his struggle to overcome setbacks that would pole-axe most of us. The online comments are particularly revealing - especially in their hostility to attack-dog politics.
Software engineer, Logica.
Systems analyst, RBS.
“Associate Director”, Coutts.
Digital director, Spectator.
Suspect the Coutts job was a tech job, not a finance job, but in Britain’s weird caste system it’s more prestigious to pretend otherwise.
I don’t mind Kemi, or at least, I don’t mind the concept of Kemi. She doesn’t appear born to grotesque privilege like most of the Tory circus.
That would do far more damage than any assault from the feeble Sunakites
This would be a simple continuation of his strategy which (no-one notices because it is so boring) has worked brilliantly so far. It is precisely why this Tory is voting for him.
scribbling on the sky the message 'We are Dead' because as far as their election prospects are concerned nothing now can ever come to any good.
"Guyana, Venezuela agree to not use force or escalate tensions in Esequibo dispute"
https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/venezuela-guyana-presidents-meet-amid-territorial-dispute-2023-12-14/
What a shit bank, I am so glad I left.
I have for a long time thought that the strategy is to manage expectations so strongly that an otherwise lightweight manifesto will seem positively ambitious because it surprises on the upside.
I have already seen these attacks on Starmer's wife by the Labour left. The Tories should amplify them
There was a queue of people in Sale waiting to wonder at this view of what is normally a fairly humdrum bit of sky:
I'm not dismissing your SAD - but days like this I feel very fortunate to be so far from tge equator.
Starmer strikes me as similar to May.
Essentially a technocrat, driven by a sense of service, but of limited vision and lacking strong communication skills.
He is however, clearly more competent than May.
In fact, I expect him to be the most administratively competent PM since…?
Never seen a country admit to committing a war crime before.
Using antisemitism to win an election, no wonder you regularly fellate Putin.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-67738032
Don't come over all Mister Innocent (for a start, he's had enough, frankly), this is an adult political site for adults discussing politics
Brave.
You're not far off but you overestimate him. Again, things like anglophobia, Brexit and mushy liberalist wishful thinking creep-in, together with barely hidden anger towards the current regime.
This isn't my header.
The rather big bold letters at the bottom tells intelligent people that Mike Smithson wrote this piece.
The usual PB suspects would under normal circumstances cry "but Hamas started it, with what they did on October 7", but that doesn't really count here.
It's probably all they've got, but that doesn't make it right. Wind up antisemitic angst, to what end? Reducing the Labour majority by a dozen or so?
He will flip-flop a lot in office.
Labour was prepared to be overtly anti-Semitic itself, against Michael Howard
I am merely, amd more cunningly, suggesting that the Tories should shed some light on the less savoury elements on Starmer's left
I was more outraged at Labour portraying the Jews Howard and Letwin as pigs.
LAB maj 30. LAB fans should be very pleased with that 👍
My thesis is no (see below) not if it comes from the Tories. People are bored of the Tories and the Tories after 13 mediocre years in power have no basis for attacks
However negative campaigning by proxy might be more effective. Illuminate the shady elements of pro-Hamas Labour, who are - right now - complaining that Starmer is steered by his Jewish wife
Nasty? Yes. Effective? Might be. Also possibly justifiable: people need to see what lurks in Labour, still
I never saw it as anti-Semitic and I’m not sure 99.9% knew or cared that Howard was ethnically Jewish somehow, including whoever came up with the campaign.
The whole point about PM when you acknowledge that your own party that you lead has two views on a key issue and that the nation must decide is that you are absolutely ready for both outcomes, personally in terms of being prepared to carry on, and admin wise by having a deeply coherent plan. If no such plan is possible you either don't call a referendum or you say in public no plan is possible.
Not with anyone sentient (which admittedly does not include current Tory supporters).
It’s up there with the pathetic attacks on Cameron by the dying Brown administration.
But he was not (Lansley, Brexit) at all a good administrator.
Barely hidden implies one cares about the opinion of people for whom anger is not the instinctive position.
It absolutely does.
Found the latest one
https://twitter.com/jdpoc/status/1734622061576765665
107 UTurns, pledges reversed, policies scrapped, promises abandoned, under #Sunak.
333 since Tories Elected in Dec 2019.
#Sunak stated just a day ago that the #Rwanda Bill was as tight as he could possibly make it.
Today he promised to rebel MPs to “further tighten” The Bill.
You will be gravely disappointed.
But it doesn’t do anything electorally, because the Tories already have the loon vote, with the very loon vote now flaming off to Reform.
I'm struggling to think of anything he's achieved.
But I think to any reasonable person (ie me), that particular campaign was merely a pisspoor attempt to cast Howard as a dodgy end-of-pier mesmerist.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking” was of course a much classier piece of politickry.
They will certainly be his nemesis.
The real difficulty in getting a purchase on how to start (if you don't pick on a recent date like 7th Oct, or today or the day Israel began the invasion of Gaza etc) is that there is no start. In his excellent analysis a few weeks ago Rory Stewart boldly started as recently as
70 CE. 586 BCE would be a good date too. as would Joshua's occupation, c1400 BCE. Others abound. 1948. 1940-1945. The call of Abraham. 1967. 1973. The Persian sacking of Jerusalem in ?614CE. The Islamic Arab invasions of the 7th century. The Crusades. Ottomans. Balfour 1917 anyone?
And yep he's likely to be a disappointment but he's likely to be vaguely competent with a vague clue on how the world actually works which would be a distinct improvement,...
"People who boast about their IQ are losers."
Feynman's mum:
“Our Richie? The world's smartest man? God help us! “
Remember when our North Wales correspondent spammed PB in 2022 about it?
We need a Netflix series, obviously. (Or better, Apple+).
Plausibly deniable, of course. Sort of thing Leon would think was smart.
The Labour movement is filled with wokey types fighting the culture wars of the mid 2010s, and - with the absence of much money - they’ll be sorely tempted to push their agenda onto the public services in favour of actual reform.
I’m not sure how alert Keir is to this.
He needs an Alan Johnson or some such to act as a kind of internal woke watchdog.
The picture and caption made a few PBers upchuck.
https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2022/05/15/tears-for-keir/
Beginning to catch on, too.
https://x.com/keir_starmer/status/1735710450216538243
Coming from a working class home, I never thought I'd end up studying law at university.