In 2002 I was having a chat with a friend of mine, the son of a CotE,the topic how do the Torys beat Blair. The only conclusion we came too was an external event or Blair retired. In the end after multiple attempts the Torys went for a Blair clone, which they thought was better than the original.
So when Labour elect their Boris MKII we may be getting close to Lab being in power again.
Starmer is the wrong choice for these times, but then so are all the other candidates.
Starmer is more of a Blair and Cameron clone than a Boris clone, if they want to go for Boris, at least in style, they would go for Jess Phillips
Expect to see Skwawkbox and Novora Media attacking on Starmer on a daily basis now, and attempt to dig up (or invent most likely) any skeleton they can find.
They will "discover" he owns half of East Anglia - "Farmer" Starmer
And that he is sponsored by Pfizer - "Big Pharma" Starmer
And a mass-murderer - "Dahmer" Starmer
The bastard deserves all he gets for replacing Corbyn - "Bad Karma" Starmer....
In 2002 I was having a chat with a friend of mine, the son of a CotE,the topic how do the Torys beat Blair. The only conclusion we came too was an external event or Blair retired. In the end after multiple attempts the Torys went for a Blair clone, which they thought was better than the original.
So when Labour elect their Boris MKII we may be getting close to Lab being in power again.
Starmer is the wrong choice for these times, but then so are all the other candidates.
Starmer is more of a Blair and Cameron clone than a Boris clone, if they want to go for Boris, at least in style, they would go for Jess Phillips
Can you imagine Starmer taking it well if somebody took the piss out of him? Not the first person you think of when you hear the expression "self-deprecating...."
A pompous humourless stiff-shirt automoton. Versus Boris.
In 2002 I was having a chat with a friend of mine, the son of a CotE,the topic how do the Torys beat Blair. The only conclusion we came too was an external event or Blair retired. In the end after multiple attempts the Torys went for a Blair clone, which they thought was better than the original.
So when Labour elect their Boris MKII we may be getting close to Lab being in power again.
Starmer is the wrong choice for these times, but then so are all the other candidates.
Starmer is more of a Blair and Cameron clone than a Boris clone, if they want to go for Boris, at least in style, they would go for Jess Phillips
Can you imagine Starmer taking it well if somebody took the piss out of him? Not the first person you think of when you hear the expression "self-deprecating...."
A pompous humourless stiff-shirt automoton. Versus Boris.
Humour and bluster is great when you haven't a record to defend, and at the beginning of a very complex process. It's not so good later on - see the experience of David Davis.
In 2002 I was having a chat with a friend of mine, the son of a CotE,the topic how do the Torys beat Blair. The only conclusion we came too was an external event or Blair retired. In the end after multiple attempts the Torys went for a Blair clone, which they thought was better than the original.
So when Labour elect their Boris MKII we may be getting close to Lab being in power again.
Starmer is the wrong choice for these times, but then so are all the other candidates.
Starmer is uninspiring. But he also doesn't have the same baggage as Corbyn. He hasn't lain any wreaths on the graves of terrorists. He hasn't spoken at events organised by anti-semites. He hasn't invited the IRA to the Houses of Parliament weeks after the Brighton bombing.
My guess, therefore, is that Starmer will do "fine". He'll oversee a resurgence at the local level for the Labour Party, if only because the Conservatives are still at a bit of a high watermark. He'll probably benefit from a bit of tactical voting from LibDems, because he won't be seen as so dangerous. Likewise, some of the Conservative voters in 2019 were simply anti-Corbyn. Take him away, and while they might not vote Labour, they probably won't vote Conservative.
Will these things be enough to return the Labour Party to power in 2024? Well, there is the big question of "events". Will Boris Johnson oversee a successful, prosperous period, or will he be PM at a time when the UK is buffeted by negative factors? If I had to guess, I'd go for the second option. And that means there is the real possibility that K Starmer, QC will be the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
She needs more time to look after the ‘children refugees” she offered to house in her own home. Also she needs to nurse her tiny majority. That letwin-Cooper stuff seemed a little less clever at her constituency count. If the result was that close she would have thought she had lost it for much of the night.
In 2002 I was having a chat with a friend of mine, the son of a CotE,the topic how do the Torys beat Blair. The only conclusion we came too was an external event or Blair retired. In the end after multiple attempts the Torys went for a Blair clone, which they thought was better than the original.
So when Labour elect their Boris MKII we may be getting close to Lab being in power again.
Starmer is the wrong choice for these times, but then so are all the other candidates.
Starmer is more of a Blair and Cameron clone than a Boris clone, if they want to go for Boris, at least in style, they would go for Jess Phillips
Can you imagine Starmer taking it well if somebody took the piss out of him? Not the first person you think of when you hear the expression "self-deprecating...."
A pompous humourless stiff-shirt automoton. Versus Boris.
Humour and bluster is great when you haven't a record to defend, and at the beginning of a very complex process. It's not so good later on - see the experience of David Davis.
Tell us more about that hung Parliament we were supposed to be in right now...
Who replaces Starmer after he gets tonked in 2024 ?
Surely Rayner must go for it then. People are going to be bored shitless with 4 years of Starmer as LOTO.
If Brexit is the Johnson-fueled fuck up I am expecting, smashing those Northern seats the most, then Starmer may seem like calming oil on troubled waters.
Starmer has a reasonably high profile compared to many of the other candidates, he generally looks and sounds competent, and although it ended up backfiring he was very very remainy and successfully moved the leadership as far along that path as he could, which I'd assume the membership outside the core Corbynites would adore.
In 2002 I was having a chat with a friend of mine, the son of a CotE,the topic how do the Torys beat Blair. The only conclusion we came too was an external event or Blair retired. In the end after multiple attempts the Torys went for a Blair clone, which they thought was better than the original.
So when Labour elect their Boris MKII we may be getting close to Lab being in power again.
Starmer is the wrong choice for these times, but then so are all the other candidates.
Starmer is uninspiring. But he also doesn't have the same baggage as Corbyn. He hasn't lain any wreaths on the graves of terrorists. He hasn't spoken at events organised by anti-semites. He hasn't invited the IRA to the Houses of Parliament weeks after the Brighton bombing.
My guess, therefore, is that Starmer will do "fine". He'll oversee a resurgence at the local level for the Labour Party, if only because the Conservatives are still at a bit of a high watermark. He'll probably benefit from a bit of tactical voting from LibDems, because he won't be seen as so dangerous. Likewise, some of the Conservative voters in 2019 were simply anti-Corbyn. Take him away, and while they might not vote Labour, they probably won't vote Conservative.
Will these things be enough to return the Labour Party to power in 2024? Well, there is the big question of "events". Will Boris Johnson oversee a successful, prosperous period, or will he be PM at a time when the UK is buffeted by negative factors? If I had to guess, I'd go for the second option. And that means there is the real possibility that K Starmer, QC will be the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
I agree with this. When boris’s honeymoon is over Starmer will take sustained poll leads. Will do very well in local council elections. Ashcroft constituency polls will show how Workington man has turned against Boris. Six months before the GE the lead will diminish and the Torres will pull ahead and Boris wins on a smaller majority with labour picking up the seats trending their way but make little progress in the red wall ashes.
In 2002 I was having a chat with a friend of mine, the son of a CotE,the topic how do the Torys beat Blair. The only conclusion we came too was an external event or Blair retired. In the end after multiple attempts the Torys went for a Blair clone, which they thought was better than the original.
So when Labour elect their Boris MKII we may be getting close to Lab being in power again.
Starmer is the wrong choice for these times, but then so are all the other candidates.
Starmer is uninspiring. But he also doesn't have the same baggage as Corbyn. He hasn't lain any wreaths on the graves of terrorists. He hasn't spoken at events organised by anti-semites. He hasn't invited the IRA to the Houses of Parliament weeks after the Brighton bombing.
My guess, therefore, is that Starmer will do "fine". He'll oversee a resurgence at the local level for the Labour Party, if only because the Conservatives are still at a bit of a high watermark. He'll probably benefit from a bit of tactical voting from LibDems, because he won't be seen as so dangerous. Likewise, some of the Conservative voters in 2019 were simply anti-Corbyn. Take him away, and while they might not vote Labour, they probably won't vote Conservative.
Will these things be enough to return the Labour Party to power in 2024? Well, there is the big question of "events". Will Boris Johnson oversee a successful, prosperous period, or will he be PM at a time when the UK is buffeted by negative factors? If I had to guess, I'd go for the second option. And that means there is the real possibility that K Starmer, QC will be the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
No one on the Hard Left will be sleeping tonight as they plot ways to keep him off the ballot.
'Systems thinking' is a buzz phrase of recent years that I particularly don't like given it usually amounts to little more than a ponced up restructuring, and I'm just waiting for it to be renamed 'Dynamic analysis' or something in a few years.
Who replaces Starmer after he gets tonked in 2024 ?
Surely Rayner must go for it then. People are going to be bored shitless with 4 years of Starmer as LOTO.
If Brexit is the Johnson-fueled fuck up I am expecting, smashing those Northern seats the most, then Starmer may seem like calming oil on troubled waters.
We keep being told about all these Johnson fuck ups..... How are they working out for you guys so far?
The left won`t give up their position easily. I wonder whether Corbyn will stay on longer than expected?
If so, would Starmer challenge him? How does this work given the new rules?
Corbyn really won't. It's been a duty rather than a pleasure for some time.
A weakness of the left has for some time been the narrow inner circle - really only McDonnell and Abbott among MPs, neither of whom fancy it. No serious thought seems to have been given to bringing on the next generatgion of left-wingers.
I actually feel sorry for Long Bailey. A run at the leadership now is, from any objective perspective, ridiculous. She hasn’t even been a Labour member for that long (less than 10 years, I think) and has been almost entirely invisible. She will be a factional candidate, nothing more.
Faction is everything to a lot of people, it would appear.
Expect to see Skwawkbox and Novora Media attacking on Starmer on a daily basis now, and attempt to dig up (or invent most likely) any skeleton they can find.
They will "discover" he owns half of East Anglia - "Farmer" Starmer
And that he is sponsored by Pfizer - "Big Pharma" Starmer
And a mass-murderer - "Dahmer" Starmer
The bastard deserves all he gets for replacing Corbyn - "Bad Karma" Starmer....
It's brutal out there. If you have a read of the leftwing media sites, and Labour's outriders on twitter, they've already dumped RLB and moved onto Ian Lavery.
The "spontaneous" eruption of videos showing how he's the only one tough enough to take on the Tories, is a sight to behold.
In 2002 I was having a chat with a friend of mine, the son of a CotE,the topic how do the Torys beat Blair. The only conclusion we came too was an external event or Blair retired. In the end after multiple attempts the Torys went for a Blair clone, which they thought was better than the original.
So when Labour elect their Boris MKII we may be getting close to Lab being in power again.
Starmer is the wrong choice for these times, but then so are all the other candidates.
Starmer is more of a Blair and Cameron clone than a Boris clone, if they want to go for Boris, at least in style, they would go for Jess Phillips
Can you imagine Starmer taking it well if somebody took the piss out of him? Not the first person you think of when you hear the expression "self-deprecating...."
A pompous humourless stiff-shirt automoton. Versus Boris.
Humour and bluster is great when you haven't a record to defend, and at the beginning of a very complex process. It's not so good later on - see the experience of David Davis.
Tell us more about that hung Parliament we were supposed to be in right now...
Perhaps tell us more about those European nations queuing up to break single-market rules to push a negotiated settlement with us first ?
If Brexit goes as badly as it looks like it will, my overconfident predictions of Tory losses will look like a drop in the ocean compared to the monumental tide of hubris that has followed the election result.
The party Starmer is really going to help............ will be the Lib Dems. Noone is going to be TERRIFIED of a Starmer premiership in the same way Corbyn gave anyone remotely right of centre nightmares. Labour having awful leaders makes things very hard for the yellow peril.
This is a key point. Starmer makes it much easier for soft Tories to vote LibDem.
Only if those soft Tories are also soft in the head and don't notice that Starmer's manifesto will be virtually indistinguishable from Corbyn's...
Without meaning that the public would not notice, fact is leadership baggage and style matters a great deal, and even if he does pursue the same policies people probably would not object to it as much. We know that sort of thing to be true by the easy method of asking people if they support policies, and only afterward saying who suggested them, and knowing it would have a big effect on continued support of the same.
Expect to see Skwawkbox and Novora Media attacking on Starmer on a daily basis now, and attempt to dig up (or invent most likely) any skeleton they can find.
They will "discover" he owns half of East Anglia - "Farmer" Starmer
And that he is sponsored by Pfizer - "Big Pharma" Starmer
And a mass-murderer - "Dahmer" Starmer
The bastard deserves all he gets for replacing Corbyn - "Bad Karma" Starmer....
Big user of aerosol cans in the 80's - ozone layer harmer Starmer.
Supported the apartheid regime in South Africa - Afrikaner Starmer.
Only if those soft Tories are also soft in the head and don't notice that Starmer's manifesto will be virtually indistinguishable from Corbyn's...
I know this is a betting site and it's all about what's going to happen in the future but if you think you can predict the manifesto of a fairly pragmatic hypothetical leader five years in advance you may be overestimating your abilities.
The leader Labour probably needs right now is Andy Burnham I reckon.
They need somebody that is as hard as nails that are going to take on and chuck out all the hard lefties and AS people and then resign to allow a more electable leader to take over with no baggage. Thornberry is the best candidate for that.
I can see Labour moving forward in the likes of Milton Keynes, Reading West, Peterborough whilst going further backward in Hemsworth, Normanton and Doncaster if Starmer becomes leader.
While Starmer is uninspiring, he's also unthreatening.
I think he'd end up doing better than Corbyn everywhere.
Mrs Foxy is backing him.
Telling too that Owen Jones and NickP do too. They are both loyalists.
Not sure Owen is backing him.
Haven't decided yet, I want to hear some speeches and ideally a debate. But if I had to decide right now I'd go for Starmer.
The leader Labour probably needs right now is Andy Burnham I reckon.
They need somebody that is as hard as nails that are going to take on and chuck out all the hard lefties and AS people and then resign to allow a more electable leader to take over with no baggage. Thornberry is the best candidate for that.
Andy Burnham, once the bete noir of the new model Cameroonian Tories for his enthusiasm for New Labour's exceptionally intrusive ID system proposal.
I like dull politicians but I do wonder if somebody like Starmer can make it in the social media age. Since Twitter started dominating the discourse there's been a tendency for successful politicians to be a little bit spikier.
The party Starmer is really going to help............ will be the Lib Dems. Noone is going to be TERRIFIED of a Starmer premiership in the same way Corbyn gave anyone remotely right of centre nightmares. Labour having awful leaders makes things very hard for the yellow peril.
This is a key point. Starmer makes it much easier for soft Tories to vote LibDem.
Only if those soft Tories are also soft in the head and don't notice that Starmer's manifesto will be virtually indistinguishable from Corbyn's...
Without meaning that the public would not notice, fact is leadership baggage and style matters a great deal, and even if he does pursue the same policies people probably would not object to it as much. We know that sort of thing to be true by the easy method of asking people if they support policies, and only afterward saying who suggested them, and knowing it would have a big effect on continued support of the same.
No doubt that effect exists, but frankly I object to being robbed by a clean-shaven bloke in a suit just as much as by a beardy twat in a Lenin cap...
The leader Labour probably needs right now is Andy Burnham I reckon.
They rejected him in 2015 and he is now Mayor of Manchester, ironically in a much more powerful position than Corbyn now is
Not worried Corbyn will be powerful as the wise old party grandee steering the adoring membership behind the scenes?
Given only a few of the prospective candidates seem like they want to criticise Corbyn directly, understandably given the selectorate, I wonder how many months or years it will be before a new leader is brave enough to do so.
Expect to see Skwawkbox and Novora Media attacking on Starmer on a daily basis now, and attempt to dig up (or invent most likely) any skeleton they can find.
They will "discover" he owns half of East Anglia - "Farmer" Starmer
And that he is sponsored by Pfizer - "Big Pharma" Starmer
And a mass-murderer - "Dahmer" Starmer
The bastard deserves all he gets for replacing Corbyn - "Bad Karma" Starmer....
It's brutal out there. If you have a read of the leftwing media sites, and Labour's outriders on twitter, they've already dumped RLB and moved onto Ian Lavery.
The "spontaneous" eruption of videos showing how he's the only one tough enough to take on the Tories, is a sight to behold.
Lavery is like that attack ad on Spiro Agnew. That started out with a few titters. Then laughter. Then people rolling about, pounding the floor with their fists in mirth.
Expect to see Skwawkbox and Novora Media attacking on Starmer on a daily basis now, and attempt to dig up (or invent most likely) any skeleton they can find.
They will "discover" he owns half of East Anglia - "Farmer" Starmer
And that he is sponsored by Pfizer - "Big Pharma" Starmer
And a mass-murderer - "Dahmer" Starmer
The bastard deserves all he gets for replacing Corbyn - "Bad Karma" Starmer....
It's brutal out there. If you have a read of the leftwing media sites, and Labour's outriders on twitter, they've already dumped RLB and moved onto Ian Lavery.
The "spontaneous" eruption of videos showing how he's the only one tough enough to take on the Tories, is a sight to behold.
I can see this being Lavery vs Starmer, with maybe Nandy as outsider.
I like dull politicians but I do wonder if somebody like Starmer can make it in the social media age. Since Twitter started dominating the discourse there's been a tendency for successful politicians to be a little bit spikier.
Yes, and its tricky to adopt a new style in a natural seeming way too. Remember 'Hell yes, I'm tough enough'?
Only if those soft Tories are also soft in the head and don't notice that Starmer's manifesto will be virtually indistinguishable from Corbyn's...
I know this is a betting site and it's all about what's going to happen in the future but if you think you can predict the manifesto of a fairly pragmatic hypothetical leader five years in advance you may be overestimating your abilities.
The reason he's doing so well is that he (very astutely) opened his leadership bid by explicitly promising to keep all the "radical" policies in the manifesto, just without the Corbyn baggage. If he tries to ditch their favourite pie-in-the-sky giveaways, the membership will scream betrayal in no time...
I like dull politicians but I do wonder if somebody like Starmer can make it in the social media age. Since Twitter started dominating the discourse there's been a tendency for successful politicians to be a little bit spikier.
Yes, and its tricky to adopt a new style in a natural seeming way too. Remember 'Hell yes, I'm tough enough'?
David Lammy managed it. From mild mannered if worthy dull MP, to shock tweet fake news race baiting. Success is counted by retweets and likes.
Only if those soft Tories are also soft in the head and don't notice that Starmer's manifesto will be virtually indistinguishable from Corbyn's...
I know this is a betting site and it's all about what's going to happen in the future but if you think you can predict the manifesto of a fairly pragmatic hypothetical leader five years in advance you may be overestimating your abilities.
The reason he's doing so well is that he (very astutely) opened his leadership bid by explicitly promising to keep all the "radical" policies in the manifesto, just without the Corbyn baggage. If he tries to ditch their favourite pie-in-the-sky giveaways, the membership will scream betrayal in no time...
Right because if there's one thing you can rely on in life it's a politician's promises
Well Tommorow's World 2020 got Alexa spot on. The whole lights turning on and off as you enter the room can't be too far away (Is it there already ?) with Bezos' plans for world domination now either ?
I like dull politicians but I do wonder if somebody like Starmer can make it in the social media age. Since Twitter started dominating the discourse there's been a tendency for successful politicians to be a little bit spikier.
Yes, and its tricky to adopt a new style in a natural seeming way too. Remember 'Hell yes, I'm tough enough'?
David Lammy managed it. From mild mannered if worthy dull MP, to shock tweet fake news race baiting. Success is counted by retweets and likes.
Presumably that's because his mild manner was the unnatural style for him?
Only if those soft Tories are also soft in the head and don't notice that Starmer's manifesto will be virtually indistinguishable from Corbyn's...
I know this is a betting site and it's all about what's going to happen in the future but if you think you can predict the manifesto of a fairly pragmatic hypothetical leader five years in advance you may be overestimating your abilities.
The reason he's doing so well is that he (very astutely) opened his leadership bid by explicitly promising to keep all the "radical" policies in the manifesto, just without the Corbyn baggage. If he tries to ditch their favourite pie-in-the-sky giveaways, the membership will scream betrayal in no time...
Right because if there's one thing you can rely on in life it's a politician's promises
Of course - but if he lies about those things and moves in a Blairite direction, then he loses his base. And as the 2016 Clinton campaign and the 2019 EU Elections showed, that can be deadly.
Only if those soft Tories are also soft in the head and don't notice that Starmer's manifesto will be virtually indistinguishable from Corbyn's...
I know this is a betting site and it's all about what's going to happen in the future but if you think you can predict the manifesto of a fairly pragmatic hypothetical leader five years in advance you may be overestimating your abilities.
The reason he's doing so well is that he (very astutely) opened his leadership bid by explicitly promising to keep all the "radical" policies in the manifesto, just without the Corbyn baggage. If he tries to ditch their favourite pie-in-the-sky giveaways, the membership will scream betrayal in no time...
Right because if there's one thing you can rely on in life it's a politician's promises
Of course - but if he lies about those things and moves in a Blairite direction, then he loses his base. And as the 2016 Clinton campaign and the 2019 EU Elections showed, that can be deadly.
To where? The Greens? Starmer will be more centrist but he is no Blair and in any case there is nowhere else really for the left to go
The leader Labour probably needs right now is Andy Burnham I reckon.
They rejected him in 2015 and he is now Mayor of Manchester, ironically in a much more powerful position than Corbyn now is
Not worried Corbyn will be powerful as the wise old party grandee steering the adoring membership behind the scenes?
Given only a few of the prospective candidates seem like they want to criticise Corbyn directly, understandably given the selectorate, I wonder how many months or years it will be before a new leader is brave enough to do so.
If Long Bailey won that might have been true, if Starmer wins Corbyn will fade into oblivion
Only if those soft Tories are also soft in the head and don't notice that Starmer's manifesto will be virtually indistinguishable from Corbyn's...
I know this is a betting site and it's all about what's going to happen in the future but if you think you can predict the manifesto of a fairly pragmatic hypothetical leader five years in advance you may be overestimating your abilities.
The reason he's doing so well is that he (very astutely) opened his leadership bid by explicitly promising to keep all the "radical" policies in the manifesto, just without the Corbyn baggage. If he tries to ditch their favourite pie-in-the-sky giveaways, the membership will scream betrayal in no time...
Right because if there's one thing you can rely on in life it's a politician's promises
Of course - but if he lies about those things and moves in a Blairite direction, then he loses his base. And as the 2016 Clinton campaign and the 2019 EU Elections showed, that can be deadly.
To where? The Greens? Starmer will be more centrist but he is no Blair and in any case there is nowhere else really for the left to go
Actually one of the (few) astute observations Lewis Goodall has made recently is that a Green surge that cost Labour even a few points of support could be disastrous for them, given that it would erode one of the last solid Labour demographics. Similar Green surges have happened recently across Europe, and a wise Tory strategist might want to find a way to help nudge one into existence here...
Of course - but if he lies about those things and moves in a Blairite direction, then he loses his base. And as the 2016 Clinton campaign and the 2019 EU Elections showed, that can be deadly.
EU elections don't tell you much about national ones and Hillary didn't lose her base. She lost black voters compared to Obama, but that wasn't about policy. She lost some of the Bernie bro's to Trump, but that was mainly about gender and process, and they weren't recognizably the Dem base. But her main problem was that she lost swing voters in the mid-west.
Come 2025 Labour members will be desperate to win, they'll take a few symbolic policy wins as long as they get a strong contrast with Boris. Election campaigns have a distorting effect where all the media attention is on the areas of disagreement and nobody pays attention to the things both sides are agreeing on, so at that point in the cycle the leadership has a lot of latitude.
Only if those soft Tories are also soft in the head and don't notice that Starmer's manifesto will be virtually indistinguishable from Corbyn's...
I know this is a betting site and it's all about what's going to happen in the future but if you think you can predict the manifesto of a fairly pragmatic hypothetical leader five years in advance you may be overestimating your abilities.
The reason he's doing so well is that he (very astutely) opened his leadership bid by explicitly promising to keep all the "radical" policies in the manifesto, just without the Corbyn baggage. If he tries to ditch their favourite pie-in-the-sky giveaways, the membership will scream betrayal in no time...
'...explicitly promising to keep all the "radical" policies' is more than a stretch of what he's said.
He talked about being "radical" and not "lurching to the right", but he was critical of the manifesto as "overloaded". Too many policies crowding out the important ones around pay and housing.
I'd suggest he's hedging with the left membership as much as possible, but if he's said anything explicitly it's that he WON'T keep all the policies in the manifesto.
Of course - but if he lies about those things and moves in a Blairite direction, then he loses his base. And as the 2016 Clinton campaign and the 2019 EU Elections showed, that can be deadly.
EU elections don't tell you much about national ones and Hillary didn't lose her base. She lost black voters compared to Obama, but that wasn't about policy. She lost some of the Bernie bro's to Trump, but that was mainly about gender and process, and they weren't recognizably the Dem base. But her main problem was that she lost swing voters in the mid-west.
Come 2025 Labour members will be desperate to win, they'll take a few symbolic policy wins as long as they get a strong contrast with Boris. Election campaigns have a distorting effect where all the media attention is on the areas of disagreement and nobody pays attention to the things both sides are agreeing on, so at that point in the cycle the leadership has a lot of latitude.
So long as neither Clinton nor Bloomberg is the Democratic nominee, then my kids will have new shoes this year.
If Buttigieg gets it, they'll get NetJets memberships for their birthdays.
I've been thinking about this and I think Buttigieg has the same problem as Hillary: Aside from the actual practical implications of Trump being in charge of the nuclear arsenal for another 4 years, it would be too much fun to watch him lose. Just imagine the look of disappointment on the side of his bizarrely spherical head. Wouldn't it be great? I don't quite know why - I think he'd be a perfectly good president - it just would. Whereas if Biden or Warren lost it would just be sad.
Of course - but if he lies about those things and moves in a Blairite direction, then he loses his base. And as the 2016 Clinton campaign and the 2019 EU Elections showed, that can be deadly.
EU elections don't tell you much about national ones and Hillary didn't lose her base. She lost black voters compared to Obama, but that wasn't about policy. She lost some of the Bernie bro's to Trump, but that was mainly about gender and process, and they weren't recognizably the Dem base. But her main problem was that she lost swing voters in the mid-west.
Come 2025 Labour members will be desperate to win, they'll take a few symbolic policy wins as long as they get a strong contrast with Boris. Election campaigns have a distorting effect where all the media attention is on the areas of disagreement and nobody pays attention to the things both sides are agreeing on, so at that point in the cycle the leadership has a lot of latitude.
I like dull politicians but I do wonder if somebody like Starmer can make it in the social media age. Since Twitter started dominating the discourse there's been a tendency for successful politicians to be a little bit spikier.
In a way I wonder whether it is best for the centre left if some joke Corbynista gets in. Then Corbynism will be fully dead when they lose in 2025. Now if Starmer cuts the Tory seat total but loses again, the hard left will be blaming it on him being a Blairite.
Of course - but if he lies about those things and moves in a Blairite direction, then he loses his base. And as the 2016 Clinton campaign and the 2019 EU Elections showed, that can be deadly.
EU elections don't tell you much about national ones and Hillary didn't lose her base. She lost black voters compared to Obama, but that wasn't about policy. She lost some of the Bernie bro's to Trump, but that was mainly about gender and process, and they weren't recognizably the Dem base. But her main problem was that she lost swing voters in the mid-west.
Come 2025 Labour members will be desperate to win, they'll take a few symbolic policy wins as long as they get a strong contrast with Boris. Election campaigns have a distorting effect where all the media attention is on the areas of disagreement and nobody pays attention to the things both sides are agreeing on, so at that point in the cycle the leadership has a lot of latitude.
I knew you'd come around Essentially my question is what is there to stop Starmer becoming Miliband Mark 2, a fairly unthreatening but uncharismatic figure who is too left for Middle England, too woke for the North/Midlands/Wales, but too right to excite the Corbyn fanatics who do all the social media activism and canvassing? Labour up 30, Tories down 30 takes us back to 2015 and Conservative domination of the entire 2020s - and that's assuming no boundary changes!
I like dull politicians but I do wonder if somebody like Starmer can make it in the social media age. Since Twitter started dominating the discourse there's been a tendency for successful politicians to be a little bit spikier.
In a way I wonder whether it is best for the centre left if some joke Corbynista gets in. Then Corbynism will be fully dead when they lose in 2025. Now if Starmer cuts the Tory seat total but loses again, the hard left will be blaming it on him being a Blairite.
I get what you mean but I think there's a recognizable cycle of loss -> self-indulgent diagnosis -> [sometimes repeat a few times] -> more electable candidate [ -> that helped but not enough, repeat] -> victory.
If the Corbynist candidate loses the Corbyn people will still be there but most of them will get with the program, and new members will start tilting the centre of gravity back. So I don't *think* they'll be trying Corbynism again for a while, if the YouGov poll is right and they've got it out of their system.
Expect to see Skwawkbox and Novora Media attacking on Starmer on a daily basis now, and attempt to dig up (or invent most likely) any skeleton they can find.
They will "discover" he owns half of East Anglia - "Farmer" Starmer
And that he is sponsored by Pfizer - "Big Pharma" Starmer
And a mass-murderer - "Dahmer" Starmer
The bastard deserves all he gets for replacing Corbyn - "Bad Karma" Starmer....
And that he runs a dodgy website - the Daily Starmer...
So long as neither Clinton nor Bloomberg is the Democratic nominee, then my kids will have new shoes this year.
If Buttigieg gets it, they'll get NetJets memberships for their birthdays.
I've been thinking about this and I think Buttigieg has the same problem as Hillary: Aside from the actual practical implications of Trump being in charge of the nuclear arsenal for another 4 years, it would be too much fun to watch him lose. Just imagine the look of disappointment on the side of his bizarrely spherical head. Wouldn't it be great? I don't quite know why - I think he'd be a perfectly good president - it just would. Whereas if Biden or Warren lost it would just be sad.
Umm, surely Hillary's problem is that she's not actually running.
Expect to see Skwawkbox and Novora Media attacking on Starmer on a daily basis now, and attempt to dig up (or invent most likely) any skeleton they can find.
They will "discover" he owns half of East Anglia - "Farmer" Starmer
And that he is sponsored by Pfizer - "Big Pharma" Starmer
And a mass-murderer - "Dahmer" Starmer
The bastard deserves all he gets for replacing Corbyn - "Bad Karma" Starmer....
And that he runs a dodgy website - the Daily Starmer...
I knew you'd come around Essentially my question is what is there to stop Starmer becoming Miliband Mark 2, a fairly unthreatening but uncharismatic figure who is too left for Middle England, too woke for the North/Midlands/Wales, but too right to excite the Corbyn fanatics who do all the social media activism and canvassing? Labour up 30, Tories down 30 takes us back to 2015 and Conservative domination of the entire 2020s - and that's assuming no boundary changes!
I think that's more plausible than what I read you as saying before, that Starmer is basically going to be running on the same manifesto as Corbyn.
Starmer could easily be the Kinnock figure, make some progress, move the party back towards electability, but not enough. They're way, way behind, and winning from where they start is an exceedingly heavy lift. But I think that's the best Labour can realistically hope for at the moment.
So long as neither Clinton nor Bloomberg is the Democratic nominee, then my kids will have new shoes this year.
If Buttigieg gets it, they'll get NetJets memberships for their birthdays.
I've been thinking about this and I think Buttigieg has the same problem as Hillary: Aside from the actual practical implications of Trump being in charge of the nuclear arsenal for another 4 years, it would be too much fun to watch him lose. Just imagine the look of disappointment on the side of his bizarrely spherical head. Wouldn't it be great? I don't quite know why - I think he'd be a perfectly good president - it just would. Whereas if Biden or Warren lost it would just be sad.
Umm, surely Hillary's problem is that she's not actually running.
I knew you'd come around Essentially my question is what is there to stop Starmer becoming Miliband Mark 2, a fairly unthreatening but uncharismatic figure who is too left for Middle England, too woke for the North/Midlands/Wales, but too right to excite the Corbyn fanatics who do all the social media activism and canvassing? Labour up 30, Tories down 30 takes us back to 2015 and Conservative domination of the entire 2020s - and that's assuming no boundary changes!
I think that's more plausible than what I read you as saying before, that Starmer is basically going to be running on the same manifesto as Corbyn.
Starmer could easily be the Kinnock figure, make some progress, move the party back towards electability, but not enough. They're way, way behind, and winning from where they start is an exceedingly heavy lift. But I think that's the best Labour can realistically hope for at the moment.
Exactly - he gives off a very strong Kinnock vibe to me. It's not impossible that he could return Labour to power in a coalition, but even on current boundaries that means taking over 50 seats from the Tories to make C&S with a minor party unworkable. I really don't see his political persona helping Labour in the areas they just lost.
Forth like the 4th male, pale and stale leader Labour are about to elect in a row.
If you think Starmer is pale and stale you are in for a rude awakening. He'll make Johnson's life very difficult.
Agreed.
Starmer is the stand-out candidate. His soberness, sanity and intellect contrasts well with The Clown and his band of cheerleading chimps. Labour would be stark, raving bonkers not to go for him.
I know that these things don’t count for much around here, nor in the rest of the Westminster bubble, but Starmer is also the only one that at least has a chance of assisting rather than further hindering a SLab recovery. RLB would be yet another catastrophe for SLab. Scots voters like a thinker, and dourness is no hinder. And as a bonus, AFAICR Starmer has no Scottish “baggage”, leaving him free to re-assess, re-align and re-focus. Scottish Labour need to become unashamedly pro-Scottish again, and Starmer might just be the one to coax them in the right direction.
Not my cup of tea, but for all you Union Flag underpant-wearers out there, Starmer strikes me as a very “British” candidate, which is likely to be advantageous against the All Trappings No Substance Yank about to trash Whitehall and sell the family estate to those dreadful loud chaps across the pond. That said, as English society becomes increasingly indistinguishable from American society, maybe a Yankee PM is just what you guys need?
Only if those soft Tories are also soft in the head and don't notice that Starmer's manifesto will be virtually indistinguishable from Corbyn's...
I know this is a betting site and it's all about what's going to happen in the future but if you think you can predict the manifesto of a fairly pragmatic hypothetical leader five years in advance you may be overestimating your abilities.
The reason he's doing so well is that he (very astutely) opened his leadership bid by explicitly promising to keep all the "radical" policies in the manifesto, just without the Corbyn baggage. If he tries to ditch their favourite pie-in-the-sky giveaways, the membership will scream betrayal in no time...
Right because if there's one thing you can rely on in life it's a politician's promises
Of course - but if he lies about those things and moves in a Blairite direction, then he loses his base. And as the 2016 Clinton campaign and the 2019 EU Elections showed, that can be deadly.
To where? The Greens? Starmer will be more centrist but he is no Blair and in any case there is nowhere else really for the left to go
Actually one of the (few) astute observations Lewis Goodall has made recently is that a Green surge that cost Labour even a few points of support could be disastrous for them, given that it would erode one of the last solid Labour demographics. Similar Green surges have happened recently across Europe, and a wise Tory strategist might want to find a way to help nudge one into existence here...
Spot on.
Watch the Green Space.
The SNP have already taken pretty much everything they can from Labour (some local government patches being the exception).
The Tories have maxxed-out. From 2021 onwards it will be all rearguard action.
The Lib Dems have totally screwed themselves, repeatedly, over many years. Their taste for spectacularly idiotic unforced errors looks unabated.
Which leaves the Greens. They are the only parties left which could significantly damage Labour. There is a huge, pent-up desire for Green politics. It cuts right across the old left/right spectrum, and exists in most demographic sectors. If you believe that Cummings is an evil genius, look out for ginormous amounts of under-the-radar gifts to the Green parties.
The last leader of a nationwide party to lose his seat was Archibald Sinclair (Lib) in 1945. Previously there were the examples @Fishing cites, then Henderson (Lab, 1931) Asquith (1924 and 1918) and Balfour (1906).
Thanks for the correction.
I’ve also just found out - and I didn’t realise this until I started investigating a bit just now - that Ernest Brown, the leader of the Liberal Nationals, also lost his seat in 1945. So both factions of the Liberals were left leaderless.
However, it is of course somewhat open to question how far the Liberal Nationals under Brown were a party separate from the Conservatives.
Liberals seem very good at this losing a leader lark!
Because they have very few seats and even fewer of them can be considered safe.
Trivia question - how many seats have the Liberal Democrats held consecutively for more than five years?
Orkney and Shetland Westmoreland
And I think that is it
That means they have lost SIX of their eight 2015 holds.
Leeds NW, Sheffield Hallam, North Norfolk, Ceredigion, Carshalton and err...
I look at somewhere I know a bit, Hereford. The seat’s has a restructure but in 1997 the LDs has 47% of the vote. The lost it in 2010 with 41%. In 2019 they received 12%. Is there any way back?
The Liberal Democrats in When the Tories took them into coalition, it detoxed the Tories and that effect unwound very spectacularly. So spectacularly it even gobbled up their vote in places the Tories had not been historically strong, including Wales.
I don’t know if there is a way back. They are not going to get far trying to chase Tory votes right now, but they don’t seem to be picking up disaffected Labour voters either probably due to the Coalition.
That said, if Labour elect Lavery or Long Bailey...
What is lowest no of seats Labour has had in the last 150 yrs?
They were founded in 1892 and won two seats in 1900. Their lowest since universal suffrage came in was 50 in 1931, then 154 in 1935.
ty and since then never really less than 200. ,. but what is rock bottom if the red wall completely collapsed?
Sir Keir's Buddhist monk days - Karma Starmer And when he was maybe over-fond of South American animals - Llama Starmer His days as an actor - Drama Starmer Or as a Zen influence on Labour - No Drama Starmer And finally as a black American President - Obama Starmer.
» show previous quotes There's a tendency in all losing parties to go for the opposite of what one had before. We lost with a fiery radical? Time for sober competence. McDonnell would have been interesting - a leftie with a competent manner - but I think he genuinely doesn't want it, and might not fit the current mood.
I don't think Starmer quite has it in the bag yet - he needs to be tested in the campaign, and no doubt there's some media story that he was once seen chatting with Pol Pot or something. But it's probably his to lose.
NO You lost with Corbyn, someone totally unsuited to be Prime Minister, who was accompanied by some serious nasty people like Milne and McDonnell (lets not forget his video of wanting to seize the levers of power by force) with a set of policies that were completely unworkable and without the funds to do it. Corbyn was absolutely loathed on the doorstep. "Fiery Radical" is just a euphemism to cover up for was really on offer,
Any news that suggests RLB isn’t going to win is good news for Labour.
I’m not sure about whether Starmer has what it takes to lead Labour back to government but he is infinitely more preferable and grown up than most of the other candidates on offer.
The sainted Jezbollah has yet to announce he's actually going, though, hasn't he? Certainly in terms of a date.
The timing may reflect how well or badly his favourites are doing in the polling.
He has said he is leaving, but he hasn't formally resigned.
I would have thought he will resign mid-January with the next leader being announced at Easter.
Edit - one reason for this is of course that that's the timetable for the deputy leader election, and it will be cheaper and easier to run the two simultaneously.
Any news that suggests RLB isn’t going to win is good news for Labour.
I’m not sure about whether Starmer has what it takes to lead Labour back to government but he is infinitely more preferable and grown up than most of the other candidates on offer.
Starmer will do very good in Scotland outside of Glasgow, he is the type of leader that the scots usually like: Gray and Dire like Gordon Brown.
He will also do well in London, but not well outside of it.
I can see Labour under Starmer winning 15 seats mostly Scottish and London ones.
But Labour need a swing of 4% just to get to Hung Parliament territory.
A narrow factional candidate like Starmer will not produce that unless the Conservatives implode like in the 1990's, but Labour doesn't have candidates with broad appeal.
Sir Keir's Buddhist monk days - Karma Starmer And when he was maybe over-fond of South American animals - Llama Starmer His days as an actor - Drama Starmer Or as a Zen influence on Labour - No Drama Starmer And finally as a black American President - Obama Starmer.
And after his triumph in the leadership election... BarnStarmer.
An interesting fact. Starmer will be 61 in the 2024 General Election, he is just 7 years younger than Gordon Brown yet he looks like someone in his early 40's.
Unlikely. The Guardian is as usual for the media taking a few plums for the press (He hasn't given a press conference since the last day we worked before the break! How very dare he)!
And we should remember there was a lot of noise it would cost him his job before the last election. Didn't happen - indeed, quite the reverse.
But politics is so febrile and the situation in Australia such a mess you never know.
The UK economy ended 2019 in stagnation, under pressure from long-term uncertainty, mounting business costs and a global economic slowdown, according to a business survey.
The British Chambers of Commerce’s (BCC) latest quarterly economic snapshot, based on a poll of 6,500 firms across the country in November, painted a gloomy picture of the economy at the end of the last decade.
An interesting fact. Starmer will be 61 in the 2024 General Election, he is just 7 years younger than Gordon Brown yet he looks like someone in his early 40's.
An interesting fact. Starmer will be 61 in the 2024 General Election, he is just 7 years younger than Gordon Brown yet he looks like someone in his early 40's.
An interesting fact. Starmer will be 61 in the 2024 General Election, he is just 7 years younger than Gordon Brown yet he looks like someone in his early 40's.
An interesting fact. Starmer will be 61 in the 2024 General Election, he is just 7 years younger than Gordon Brown yet he looks like someone in his early 40's.
Prematurely grey ?
They do it with drugs, you know.
That's why they call him pharma starmer...
In any case a touch of grey is preferable to Starm und Drang...
Comments
AND
VOTE STARMER!
A pompous humourless stiff-shirt automoton. Versus Boris.
Surely Rayner must go for it then. People are going to be bored shitless with 4 years of Starmer as LOTO.
Thank the Lord I cut out for a loss on this market, I had Starmer red for nearly a grand until two days ago
My guess, therefore, is that Starmer will do "fine". He'll oversee a resurgence at the local level for the Labour Party, if only because the Conservatives are still at a bit of a high watermark. He'll probably benefit from a bit of tactical voting from LibDems, because he won't be seen as so dangerous. Likewise, some of the Conservative voters in 2019 were simply anti-Corbyn. Take him away, and while they might not vote Labour, they probably won't vote Conservative.
Will these things be enough to return the Labour Party to power in 2024? Well, there is the big question of "events". Will Boris Johnson oversee a successful, prosperous period, or will he be PM at a time when the UK is buffeted by negative factors? If I had to guess, I'd go for the second option. And that means there is the real possibility that K Starmer, QC will be the next Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.
The "spontaneous" eruption of videos showing how he's the only one tough enough to take on the Tories, is a sight to behold.
If Brexit goes as badly as it looks like it will, my overconfident predictions of Tory losses will look like a drop in the ocean compared to the monumental tide of hubris that has followed the election result.
Well it is for my book anyway.
Presuming he held Leigh, of course.
Big user of aerosol cans in the 80's - ozone layer harmer Starmer.
Supported the apartheid regime in South Africa - Afrikaner Starmer.
AND
VOTE STARMER!
Given only a few of the prospective candidates seem like they want to criticise Corbyn directly, understandably given the selectorate, I wonder how many months or years it will be before a new leader is brave enough to do so.
But hey guys, knock yourself out....
Come 2025 Labour members will be desperate to win, they'll take a few symbolic policy wins as long as they get a strong contrast with Boris. Election campaigns have a distorting effect where all the media attention is on the areas of disagreement and nobody pays attention to the things both sides are agreeing on, so at that point in the cycle the leadership has a lot of latitude.
If Buttigieg gets it, they'll get NetJets memberships for their birthdays.
He talked about being "radical" and not "lurching to the right", but he was critical of the manifesto as "overloaded". Too many policies crowding out the important ones around pay and housing.
I'd suggest he's hedging with the left membership as much as possible, but if he's said anything explicitly it's that he WON'T keep all the policies in the manifesto.
Laddies @7-4 was pleasent earlier
If the Corbynist candidate loses the Corbyn people will still be there but most of them will get with the program, and new members will start tilting the centre of gravity back. So I don't *think* they'll be trying Corbynism again for a while, if the YouGov poll is right and they've got it out of their system.
Starmer could easily be the Kinnock figure, make some progress, move the party back towards electability, but not enough. They're way, way behind, and winning from where they start is an exceedingly heavy lift. But I think that's the best Labour can realistically hope for at the moment.
Mr Maths is now a big fan of yougov...
Starmer is the stand-out candidate. His soberness, sanity and intellect contrasts well with The Clown and his band of cheerleading chimps. Labour would be stark, raving bonkers not to go for him.
I know that these things don’t count for much around here, nor in the rest of the Westminster bubble, but Starmer is also the only one that at least has a chance of assisting rather than further hindering a SLab recovery. RLB would be yet another catastrophe for SLab. Scots voters like a thinker, and dourness is no hinder. And as a bonus, AFAICR Starmer has no Scottish “baggage”, leaving him free to re-assess, re-align and re-focus. Scottish Labour need to become unashamedly pro-Scottish again, and Starmer might just be the one to coax them in the right direction.
Not my cup of tea, but for all you Union Flag underpant-wearers out there, Starmer strikes me as a very “British” candidate, which is likely to be advantageous against the All Trappings No Substance Yank about to trash Whitehall and sell the family estate to those dreadful loud chaps across the pond. That said, as English society becomes increasingly indistinguishable from American society, maybe a Yankee PM is just what you guys need?
Watch the Green Space.
The SNP have already taken pretty much everything they can from Labour (some local government patches being the exception).
The Tories have maxxed-out. From 2021 onwards it will be all rearguard action.
The Lib Dems have totally screwed themselves, repeatedly, over many years. Their taste for spectacularly idiotic unforced errors looks unabated.
Which leaves the Greens. They are the only parties left which could significantly damage Labour. There is a huge, pent-up desire for Green politics. It cuts right across the old left/right spectrum, and exists in most demographic sectors. If you believe that Cummings is an evil genius, look out for ginormous amounts of under-the-radar gifts to the Green parties.
Yes, I know. I said 'since universal suffrage,' which you may be unaware dates from 1928.
The sainted Jezbollah has yet to announce he's actually going, though, hasn't he? Certainly in terms of a date.
The timing may reflect how well or badly his favourites are doing in the polling.
And when he was maybe over-fond of South American animals - Llama Starmer
His days as an actor - Drama Starmer
Or as a Zen influence on Labour - No Drama Starmer
And finally as a black American President - Obama Starmer.
NickPalmer said:
» show previous quotes
There's a tendency in all losing parties to go for the opposite of what one had before. We lost with a fiery radical? Time for sober competence. McDonnell would have been interesting - a leftie with a competent manner - but I think he genuinely doesn't want it, and might not fit the current mood.
I don't think Starmer quite has it in the bag yet - he needs to be tested in the campaign, and no doubt there's some media story that he was once seen chatting with Pol Pot or something. But it's probably his to lose.
NO You lost with Corbyn, someone totally unsuited to be Prime Minister, who was accompanied by some serious nasty people like Milne and McDonnell (lets not forget his video of wanting to seize the levers of power by force) with a set of policies that were completely unworkable and without the funds to do it. Corbyn was absolutely loathed on the doorstep.
"Fiery Radical" is just a euphemism to cover up for was really on offer,
I’m not sure about whether Starmer has what it takes to lead Labour back to government but he is infinitely more preferable and grown up than most of the other candidates on offer.
I would have thought he will resign mid-January with the next leader being announced at Easter.
Edit - one reason for this is of course that that's the timetable for the deputy leader election, and it will be cheaper and easier to run the two simultaneously.
He will also do well in London, but not well outside of it.
I can see Labour under Starmer winning 15 seats mostly Scottish and London ones.
But Labour need a swing of 4% just to get to Hung Parliament territory.
A narrow factional candidate like Starmer will not produce that unless the Conservatives implode like in the 1990's, but Labour doesn't have candidates with broad appeal.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/jan/02/pm-scott-morrison-defends-climate-policies-and-asks-australians-to-be-patient-over-fires
Starmer will be 61 in the 2024 General Election, he is just 7 years younger than Gordon Brown yet he looks like someone in his early 40's.
And we should remember there was a lot of noise it would cost him his job before the last election. Didn't happen - indeed, quite the reverse.
But politics is so febrile and the situation in Australia such a mess you never know.
The British Chambers of Commerce’s (BCC) latest quarterly economic snapshot, based on a poll of 6,500 firms across the country in November, painted a gloomy picture of the economy at the end of the last decade.
https://phys.org/news/2019-12-reveals-higher-microplastics-london-air.html
That's why they call him pharma starmer...
Time for work. Catch you later.