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Why Starmer’s pivot might actually lose him votes not gain them – politicalbetting.com
Why Starmer’s pivot might actually lose him votes not gain them – politicalbetting.com
While Labour's attempts to appeal to Reform UK voters have not gone unnoticed, just 4% say they are likely to consider voting Labour2024 Ref: 56% feel Labour are appealing to them / 4% would consider voting Labour2024 Lab: 48% / 70%2024 Con: 36% / 9%2024 LD: 32% / 38%2024 Grn: 12% / 24%
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As some Labour politico said recently, "Farage is right; don't vote for him!" isn't a credible campaigning theme.
% of 2024 voters saying they would never consider voting Labour
Ref: 79% (+29 from 20-29 July 2024)
Con: 60% (+21)
Grn: 27% (+17)
LD: 16% (+4)
Lab: 8% (+8)
Good morning,everyone.
I didn't hear much about how Tony Blair was looking to lose votes when he responded to the spike in asylum seekers in 2002, and fixed it.
He won the subsequent election.
Reform and the Conservatives are fighting over the same ground. If Labour takes on, or knocks out, Reform, the main beneficiaries are the Tories.
The attitude seems to be we can keep dumping on our core voters and they’ll run back at the next GE .
By which time Labour could be trailing the Lib Dem’s !
We're getting a strong rearguard action by the Liberal Establishment here to defend free migration and open borders.
How to fuck up a U-turn. It is just inept politics.
Britons are more likely to describe themselves as anti-immigration (41%) than pro-immigration (28%)
Pro-immigration: 28%
Neither pro/anti: 24%
Anti-immigration: 41%
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/52233-who-thinks-keir-starmer-is-anti-immigration?utm_source=website_article&utm_medium=bluesky&utm_campaign=52233
Only 41% are anti-immigration, yet that is the pool that Starmer chose to fish in with his characteristically tin-earred speech.
Thanks for the header, @TSE .
If you realistically want to sort the UK finances, then any government should deal with the tax for subsidies industry that has grown up. WFA is just one of these but there are farming subsidies, transport, in-work benefits, shipping, energy etc. Charities are probably the worst (or best depending on your POV) at getting cash out of government departments.
Have a look
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/?s=subsidies&searchblogs=1&startdate=&enddate=
What might influence votes rather more is whether the government has had any significant success in controlling the immigration numbers.
If it was about Lineker giving back, it would have been that his podcasts were on BBC Sounds first, or there was exclusive episodes only available on there.
Interestingly Mayo / Kermode film podcast is really struggling. They have a huge fan base when they were on the BBC, but they are really struggling to get video on YouTube and they have quit doing it in proper studio. It is now very much a budget affair with Kermode in his back bedroom.
It would have been far better to talk about the positives of immigration while reducing the numbers.
(This is not a new thing: I remember a GCSE geography question in 1991: "describe two benefits of immigration" - even at 16 this struck me as curiously unbalanced.)
https://youtu.be/pqyu_Q91Q5o?t=101
I'm not very keen in him given his predilection for ill-researched interventions in Lords' debates, but this is a bit more balanced. He agrees with a need for more traditional policing, whilst pushing back quite hard at their attempts to justify a "two tier" narrative, and claims about Lucy Conolly having been imprisoned "for tweets", rather than for calls for people to be burnt to death inside their buildings.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2002/may/23/immigration.immigrationandpublicservices2
His handwritten notes saying "we must consider more radical measures", including a detention camp on the Isle of Mull and breaking international law:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67827016.amp
I don't remember him being called Powellite, or appealing to the far-right - and these are far stronger measures that what Starmer is saying now.
We judge people now on the rhetoric and the pissing, not the action.
I want the action.
I’m not pro mass inward migration a la The Boriswave. I’m not pro importing hundreds of thousands of minimum wage workers with economically inactive dependents who will never be net contributors and my view on that has hardened over the last 12 months.
If I’d answer that poll I’d describe myself as pro immigration.
This is cobblers. And now the IFS have done a study into the cut to Sure Start. Every £1 spent saved £2.05. So when provision was axed to save multiples of £1, it cost multiples of £2.05.
Can we stop talking about cost and start talking about benefit?
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2025/may/22/sure-start-centres-saved-uk-government-2-for-every-1-spent-study-finds
In no way was it a business decision from the BBC. Who would pay for non-exclusive content that you only get sometimes after the next episode has already dropped on YouTube for free and this is not content with any lasting value really. Talking about last weeks football matches, nobody cares next week, let alone in a years time. So it isn't like some deals media companies do to buy content that they know will get consistent repeat plays week in, week out, for years e.g. Friends, the Office.
If you look at the total benefits, the ratio can be something like 7:1. Employment rates among vulnerable kids and their parents tends to be much higher if they have gone through something like Sure Start.
Part of the reason why Kemi is an irrelevance is that her government were so fucking inept at managing the border. She sat there in her cupboard the other day doing her press conference and alongside her was Priti Patel - the former Home Secretary who presided over the points-based explosion.
Interestingly Timpson again never is quoted on any of these changes. Yes they brought in David Gauke to do the report, but I find it very strange that a bloke for whom this is lifes work stuff is Mr Invisible.
My own council - and the LibDems are the minor party in the governing group - has an unmanageable budget deficit thanks to Holyrood cuts. Its axing all kind of things to save £1 now but cost £5 later. Its beyond stupid, but the rules governing local government finance dictate a "balanced budget". It is no such thing.
I hope my party actually takes the lead on this. Borrowing to invest and getting a return on the investment. Stop screeching on about the debt like if we cut it goes down. We're spending money on the wrong things. Spend wisely now - even if borrowed - and save later.
As I say, if you were really doing a proper business deal here you would get exclusive content and certainly not be back of the queue to even receive the freely available episodes.
Here's Davy Russell, Labour's candidate for the Hamilton by-election:
During questions from journalists, Mr Russell criticised Keir Starmer’s use of means-tested winter fuel payments as he also called for its full reinstatement across the UK.
The candidate said: “Hopefully, as money is freed up, the whole of the UK can benefit and hopefully he reinstates it across the UK.”
https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/25182306.labour-by-election-candidate-responds-invisible-man-reform-jibe/
BREAKING:
The planned signing of the Chagos Islands deal today has been suspended after an injunction was granted by a High Court judge in the early hours of this morning
The problem is it's we don't measure the impact of things we take for granted. It would make sense that cuts to public health and primary care have taken 15 years to materialise in our benefits caseload. The same goes for Sure Start - those kids are now in their late teens, nicking stuff from supermarkets.
That doesn't mean we still don't take political dissidents on a case-by-case basis, or admit persecuted groups from particular countries in fair numbers as and when we choose to do so. But the right that as soon as you hit our territorial waters the full gambit of human rights applies to you and your family, you can repeatedly appeal and change your story, and you cannot be deported if you face any risk of being treated not to our standards.
That must end.
Perhaps the Beeb should try to get them back ?
This was enjoyable a few days ago about a remote controlled WW2 naval drone, called the "Helmover Torpedo", which was a huge torpedo (carried by a Lancaster) with a 1 tonne warhead and a 25 mile range, remotely controlled from up to 10 miles away. I'd never heard of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J1W2njKMSks
And the British people have spent decades saying that only a mug would sign up for that. Will of the people, innit?
Too much of it is about understanding the cost of everything and the value of nothing - the embodiment of modern capitalism unfortunately.
As my mother always told me, the end of civilisation began when they got rid of the park keepers.
My coiffeur told me on Monday his view was we were in a "silent recession" as he called it. He reckoned 30% of businesses in his part of Kingston had failed in the last 6 months (impossible to quantify and seemed a little high) and with business rates rising by 40% (is this right?) only the bigger operations were surviving.
He had seen demand fall sharply since Christmas (in the world of hair, you'd think demand was consistent as hair keeps growing but he told me people are leaving it longer between cuts and some women are not having as much done as usual).
The disconnect is obvious - last July, many people thought, by voting against the Conservatives, they would escape the bad times and get to something better. The problem was the incoming Government (and most other people) knew the Party was over and the bill had to be settled and the "bad times" had been the Party (they are so often) and the worse times were to come.
Oh.
https://x.com/paulhutcheon/status/1925124103863709728?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
That should have been Starmer's Bank of England independence. A big conference in Italy or Greece where he thrashed out a new refugee convention proposal with those countries most affected by small boats.
The key thing would be to commit to grant asylum to at least as many people as we do now. Otherwise, the UK has little credibility given our relatively low numbers to other countries.
In his order, the judge said: "The defendant shall take no conclusive or legally binding step to conclude its negotiations concerning the possible transfer of the British Indian Ocean Territory, also known as the Chagos Archipelago, to a foreign government or bind itself as to the particular terms of any such transfer."
But, will he do it?
F1: FIA reckon 60% chance of rain in qualifying.
I presume the claimant brought an interesting legal ground, other than Starmer is a traitor.
She works with a lot of immigrants in the operating theatres, some of them quite recent, and regards them as friends. Indeed she prizes her role in mentoring them as they adapt to working here, and has recieved many thanks for welcoming and supporting them.
She felt the "Island of Strangers" speech as a personal insult and won't be voting for Starmers party again.
It's an anecdote, but one that backs up the polling in the header.
Sky
Government blocked from signing the Chagos deal by a high court injunction
Who'd have thought leaving patients for longer before treatment would result in their conditions being worse and secondary conditions, resulting in them being on sickness benefit for longer , treatment costing more and taking longer, relatives having to give up work to care for them and it all spiralling outwards at huge cost, loss of quality of life and production.
Completely unpredictable
Have you reached the OMG what was I thinking stage yet?
Otherwise, yes, your view wouldn't be uncommon and is pretty close to mine as a Liberal Democrat and you'll find the view the LDs are pro-mass uncontrolled migration is about as accurate as the line about them being opposed to all development.
Unfortunately, the debate isn't about legal migration any more - it's about illegal immigration, "re-migration" (what I think was called in the 1980s voluntary repatriation) and integration.
Even Farage has admitted large-scale deportations of illegal immigrants won't happen even under a Reform Government - I live in Newham with more illegals (allegedly) than anywhere else. Do I see Home Office and Border Patrol vehicles rounding up illegal immigrants? I do not. They have done raids on businesses to check the immigration status of those working but that was years back.
Now, we have re-migration - are we going to offer migrants money to return to Romania, Albania, Eritrea, Afghanistan, Iraq, Mali or wherever? How much? Would any of them take it? The attitude a few years back was they would rather sleep rough and take their chances than go back.
That leaves the next big cultural battleground - integration. How far would a future Reform Government go to promote integration? What does everyone understand by integration?
North Korea's leader Kim Jong Un has condemned a "serious accident" during the launch of a new warship on Thursday, calling it a "criminal act" that could not be tolerated.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c39xzn970pyo
The problem now is there is so much content you can swiftly become out of sight out of mind, which I think has happened to Kermode and Mayo.
The 1951 convention was limited to European refugees caused by WW2 and the fall of the Iron curtain. It was the 1967 addition that expanded it to all times and places.
I am sure that we are not the only country that would support a repeal of the 1967 bit.
It's still woke though. You can only beat woke if you can find another identity group which is injured by your wokery. Chagossians, in this case. Simply saying 'this is clearly nonsense no longer cuts it'.
The Mayor of Omaha, a Republican, one Jean Stothert, bidding for her fourth term having won her last election by 30 points, was beaten by a Democrat called John Ewing Junior (surely not?) who won by 13 points.
As a Liberal Democrat supporter, I found this inspiring:
In the waning days of the Omaha mayoral election, Stothert attempted to negatively polarize voters against Ewing by nationalizing the race – and, in particular, hammering the GOP’s favorite wedge issue target of late: trans people. As my colleague John Nichols wrote about last week for the Nation, this did not work. Instead, Ewing refused to take the bait and kept his focus on tangible municipal issues – such as housing, street paving and even a struggling streetcar project. In a simple graphic released three days before the election, the Nebraska Democratic party proudly declared: “Jean is focused on potties. John is focused on fixing potholes.”
The Ds are obviously learning from the LDs....
Pour encourages les autres a great naval tradition of course.
Human rights don't prevent a state from managing its borders or locking up criminals or deporting people. It stops them from locking them up without trial or torturing them.
That doesn't mean that it's all bad, just that the overall record is dismal, one of staggering waste of taxpayers' money, crowding out the private sector and regulatory capture.
If government did it better, the old Soviet Union would have won the cold war, North Korea would be the most desirable country in the world today and Singapore or Hong Kong would be impoverished shitholes, and the North East and Northern Ireland would be the most productive and desirable regions of the country.
Allowing the enterprise and dynamism of the private sector to flourish is the way to a more successful country in the medium and long term, not tinkering with and expanding state intervention. Instead we have a government that always thinks it knows best and screws free enterprise over at every opportunity.
Hence our current stagnation and slow decline.
We demand Baroness Hale with her brooch to declare it all as having null effect.
Unfortunately I've got past the high point in the narrative and am just about to reach the "everything gets progressively worse all the time" period...
Get back to pocketbook issues, talk endlessly about the economy* etc.
* should be an open goal with Trump running things into the ground.
We are addicted to other people's money.
Now they aren't on the wireless and I'm WFH.
People are clueless.
It's odds against, I didn't vote red last time, but the alternatives are Badenoch and Farage.
Of course, I might end up voting Lib Dem. But if Labour put in Angela "Tory scum" Rayner then there's no way I'd consider voting for them.