Starmer hits a new low – politicalbetting.com
Starmer hits a new low – politicalbetting.com
Being a accused of being the most unpopular Prime Minister in history by Liz Truss must feel a bit like having your parenting skills criticised by Josef Fritzl.
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Alas, she appears untroubled by self-reflection. Or awareness.
Starmer hasn't done that yet though I think he's marginally improving
Preferred on the economy.
Starmer leads on some of the other supplementaries.
The only thing Liz Truss led on at the end of her premiership was the worst PM in history.
FPT:
So who is this Alaa guy, that half of the government appear over the moon to have got back from Egypt on a slow news day?
https://x.com/keir_starmer/status/2004603692197036322
https://x.com/davidlammy/status/2004642399230779485
https://x.com/yvettecoopermp/status/2004625697990746201
He appears to have a history of wishing death to people, especially Jews.
Now that Starmer's personal ratings have fallen very clearly and markedly below her own at their worst, as has VI polling for his Government, do we expect her not to refer to this fact? Why?
Russia is fighting an endless broken backed war, with steady technological regression in its military.
They can’t produce a whole range of military hardware at more than a trickle.
Against a country with a GDP between Morocco and Hungary.
What will encourage Starmer though is that on a forced choice voters prefer him to Farage as PM by 57% to 43% on a new poll. So what may still save him is FPTP tactical voting to stop Farage and the divide on the right, as Kemi by contrast is preferred by voters over Starmer by 52% to 48% in the same Ashcroft poll
https://bsky.app/profile/rentouljohn.bsky.social/post/3majmkgfwi22c
Thailand and Cambodia have agreed a ceasefire and we won a Test Match. Not a bad start to a Saturday morning.
The "gap year" recruitment idea for the armed forces is interesting - my gap year wasn't spent in far flung destinations but working for Mecca Bookmakers so glamourous, it wasn't. I suspect it would look good on the CV and better than saying I went to Thailand or Australia or even Mecca Bookmakers in Panton Street.
Needless to say, the Conservatives have lambasted it and come up with £50 billion from somewhere to put into defence - "green projects", apparently? If there were £50 billion lying around, I'd rather it went into debt interest repayments but what do I know?
On Liz Truss, it's interesting - there's something about a British politician being so obsequiously supportive of an American President which grates - we are two countries separated by a common language and for all the shared history, our interests have often diverged and as much now as at any time since 1945.
But Starmer has reached his depth of unpopularity by multiple routes. So his replacement, if one is produced by the Labour party, has to make a major policy correction across multiple fronts. And while it was clear that there was majority support among Tory MPs for at least aiming for sound money, it's not at all clear that there is support among Labour MPs for some of the changes that might be necessary. Whatever those might be. That opinions vary on what is required is also part of the problem.
Some continue to court the limelight constantly - Johnson and Truss. Others prefer the occasional intervention (not often well received) while, as you say, the correct response, once you've published your memoirs and your self-justification for all your mistakes and triumphs, is to retreat into obscurity.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/budget-labour-starmer-reeves-liz-truss-yougov-poll-b2876348.html
2 December 2025, 10% said that they trusted Labour on the economy.
15% said that they trusted Truss's Tories at the height of the minibudget crisis.
Albanian criminal can stay in UK because his partner cannot speak Albanian https://share.google/HNqRcl07p0GsZX1IR
This sort of bollocks decision by the tribunal plays into the hands of those who believe the Human rights act needs reviewing.
The decision isn't just bollocks its effing ludicrous.
Kemi Badenoch ‘wants Liz Truss to shut up for a while’
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2025/01/23/kemi-badenoch-is-100-right-on-this/.
He claimed this outweighed his criminal threat to society given that he had been jailed for less than a year – the current cut-off point above which foreign offenders face automatic deportation.
https://youtu.be/-3PDoq7w_CY?si=Zv1XjzaDE0Airmyp
Starmer has demonstrated that cosplaying Reform doesn’t work.
For example, a Labour government could change the culture from ever increasing regulation and little enforcement on employment rights and conditions.
So more inspectors (with teeth) and less bullshit in the paperwork.
This would reduce costs for the good employers and result in public court cases leading to fines and imprisonment for those who abuse - deliberately paying less than minimum wage, illegal employment etc etc.
“Enforce the Factory Acts” - that should be popular with the Labour Party and a large chunk of the country.
No performative cruelty to migrants required.
Russia has endured incredible hardship, fighting a pointless war of choice - but at some point, it won’t endure it any further.
It shouldn't require a wholesale rewriting of Human Rights law. Actions should have consequences.
So, will the same reasoning apply to his deportation prospects unrelated to the crime?
These things happen slowly, then very quickly.
So what happens? Reform subsume the Conservatives and call the amalgamation "Conservative Reform" and everyone is happy. Dropping the "Reform" name after a year or two is even better. Nigel Farage succeeds in his lifelong ambition of leading the Conservative Party. Proof that the mountain can come to Mohammed (not a great analogy regarding Farage).
P.S. PB Tories like HYUFD are getting great mileage out of the Ashcroft poll.
They're only just starting to experience a change in that this year and I have no idea how long they will put up with it.
I don't know what the "bullshit in the paperwork" is either - it sounds like a good idea so the question then becomes why haven't Governments of any stripe implemented what seems a sensible solution? I wonder if it's the legal aspect or a lack of manpower to carry out inspections and enforcements.
To what extent, for example, would employers create fraudulent paperwork to show they were complying with regulations and how do you then prove they aren't? In addition, some "migrants" (whatever that term actually means in this context) are often frightened, desperate people with poor English language skills. They are exploited and whether you want to call it modern slavery or not, the truth is their "life" is on many levels, controlled.
https://x.com/mcg/status/2004837407968129467
https://x.com/cricketaus/status/2004845237467054491
Maybe a few lucky fans can get some autographs instead of a Test Match?
They should really have done something sporting back in the ground, with free admission for ticketholders. An all-star T20 maybe, there would have been quite a few former pros there doing media work who could have put their pads on for a few minutes.
Diogo Jota’s two sons to join mascots at Anfield for Liverpool v Wolves
Late Portuguese’s former English clubs meet on Saturday
Dinis and Duarte also attended clubs’ season openers
https://www.theguardian.com/football/2025/dec/26/diogo-jota-two-sons-to-join-mascots-at-anfield-for-liverpool-v-wolves
So one innovative solution would be to give trade unions the power to initiate criminal prosecutions of employers for transgressing employment rights and law. Then the government doesn't have to worry about finding the resources to enforce this area of law, and trade unions are motivated to do a thorough job of it.
The current UK approach to standards goes like this -
Write ever more complex regulations. The user/employer generates paperwork to demonstrate compliance. There is too little enforcement.
For example - a loft conversion. The builder is supposed to put north of 20 pages, as part of a document the size of a telephone directory, on how they will mitigate “slip hazards”. There is a separate section for trip hazards. There is, essentially no enforcement of this. So
1) big builders copy and pasta the same stuff into the boilerplate template every time.
2) the cash in hand mob ignore it completely
3) the well run builders bring in Henry vac along with the kettle. And a broom. And use them.
So lots of people get injured on building sites run by scumbags/idiots.
On the upside, the generation of the bullshit that no one reads is being streamlined by AI.
You might be amused to hear that concerns have been raised that the Post-Grenfell paperwork won’t prevent highly inflammable buildings being built. Because people are gaming the paperwork to comply.
Then again she was Baroness Thatcher, not just a UK but global stateswoman and icon. Liz was outlasted by a lettuce in her time spent in office, much as she might like to think she was a mini Thatcher
I’m delighted that Alaa Abd El-Fattah is back in the UK and has been reunited with his loved ones, who must be feeling profound relief.
I want to pay tribute to Alaa’s family, and to all those that have worked and campaigned for this moment.
Alaa's case has been a top priority for my government since we came to office. I’m grateful to President Sisi for his decision to grant the pardon.
https://x.com/keir_starmer/status/2004603692197036322?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
Between now and then the Tory task is different though hard. A tiny start has been made. By the end of 2027 they need to look like the main party for the 50% or voters who will in the GE vote for what is called (whatever the reality) a right of centre party. Only Reform and Tories fit this.
The Tory hope will be that by then the question is not 'would Tories sustain Reform' but 'would Reform sustain the Tories'.
If it isn't achieved, then the 50% left of centre vote is going to form the next government.
Whatever happened to "Malcolm in the Middle" and the actor who played his dad. Jumpers for goalposts...
Another interesting fact in the new Ashcroft poll was that while 2/3 of Reform voters said the Conservatives were their second choice party, less than half of current Conservative voters said Reform were their second choice.
Indeed a full 1/3 of Conservative voters said the Liberal Democrats were their second choice party
https://conservativehome.com/2025/12/23/lord-ashcroft-as-christmas-approaches-which-party-leaders-are-getting-coal-from-the-voters/
I attended a community meeting where the police actually berated an org for doing private prosecutions.
1. The public are not seeing or feeling the improvements in living standards and public services and border control that they expected a change in government from Conservative to Labour would bring about. CHANGE. Where is it?
2. The man himself is proving a turn-off to the public. They don't like him. There's no emotional connection. He can't sell either himself or a narrative of what his PMship is all about.
A mix of the political and the personal if you like. Of course there's overlap between these two things but it's useful for punters to separate them when considering Labour’s GE prospects because the second is much the easier to fix (via change of leader).
Despite occasional outbursts to the contrary I think most people recognise that they would be rubbish at being PM and so they're happy that someone else is doing the job, on the proviso that that person knows what they are doing. Starmer scores highly on "not having an effing clue" and that creates resentment.
After all, I could make a horlicks of being PM at least as well as Starmer, so what's the point of him?
A key element in the current trend seems to me to be the whole budget farrago. It put on display for weeks absolute incompetence, and capped it all fatally by being, correctly and instantly, diagnosed as a budget to tax middling workers, whose income is not indexed linked, in order to index and increase payments to those who are not working.
They have also failed completely in a bit of narrative which rarely comes to the top of the agenda but puzzles the thoughtful: If, as we are told, we have already borrowed too much, why are we borrowing more?
https://www.the-numbers.com/movie/Avatar-Fire-and-Ash-(2025)#tab=box-office
A strict teacher in school is a good analogy.
Our views of people who wield power over us are so subjective and highly susceptible to confirmation bias. Starmer's election campaign was primarily 'we'll be better than the Tories because we aren't secretly having parties and bunging our mates cash'. The public bought this, just as an unruly Y9 class will buy into a strict new teacher laying down the law.
But in both cases there is an undercurrent of latent resentment and mistrust: 'everyone says that in the hectoring tone that you're currently using, most people are lying'. So it only takes a little slip (free glasses) for the resentful population/class to stop taking their medicine. And the rebellion, when it comes, is all the more fierce because people felt duped into thinking this teacher/PM might have been different.
Once this rebellion comes, even sensible policies like WFA are subject to the confirmation bias that the government introducing them is incompetent and 'just like the rest', and so people are looking to pick holes in it, rather than rooting for success.
(FWiW I do think Starmer is in a different league in terms of integrity than Truss or Johnson. But I have long since learnt that I am not often in tune with the British public, even less so when filtered through the British media)
You go from prison straight to the airport, and can then appeal from abroad at your own expense to be allowed back in. Most countries work like this.
Meanwhile it’s in practice impossible to deport anyone, and the PM is over the moon at getting this Alaa guy back from Egypt who’s probably going to be at the next dodgy “Palestine” protest.
Time's unflinching rigour,
In mindless rote,
My eldest is 40.
My eldest is 60 in 2026
Always avoided buddying with him. Adrenaline seeking is not optimal for thorough equipment checks.
On another topic, my wife visited the hairdresser just before Christmas and in course of discussion expressed concerns that our Bangkok family might not be able to visit because of the border war there.
"Don't worry`" the hairdresser old her "Trump will sort it; he's don it once and he'll do it again!"
My wife was more than a little surprised and asked if the hairdresser lady thought highly of Trump. And she apparently did. Seriously.
Politicians spoute shite about stopping this. They could. They never do.
You aren’t going to have millions of Marines in cold storage but the military would have lists of people with various levels of training and, hopefully, identified skill sets where they can be fast-tracked in an emergency.
Also it might get people to try it as only a short period who then find that it’s the life for them and they commit which would help the recruitment situation.
Alternatively, as her partner is a criminal, we should expect her to disown him. She probably know everything he was up to and didn't shop him, she is therefore a criminal herself
I would also like to see something between the French pompiers and the TA - an army service that trained and sat within the forces but had a day-to-day role of helping civilians - flood assistance, cat up a tree, perhaps some security stuff to deal with the crime wave, perhaps some deportation duties.
Our police service and possibly other emergency services (Grenfell did not show the Fire service in a good light) are growing increasingly complacent and in some instances anti the public they serve. There are deep philosophical reasons for this, but another one is simply that they have a monopoly on responding to emergencies. If they lost this monopoly, and there was an effective market in such services (not a free market, but a market nonetheless), and people could say 'screw the police I'm calling the army in', that would result in competition, and significant improvements in law and order.