Could Sir Keir Starmer fall on his sword? – politicalbetting.com
Could Sir Keir Starmer fall on his sword? – politicalbetting.com
While most Britons feel it's unlikely that Keir Starmer will still be prime minister at the end of the year, this proportion has fallen since the February aftermath of Peter Mandelson's arrestLikely: 28% (+6 from 9 Feb)Unlikely: 57% (-6)yougov.com/en-gb/daily-…
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A med student says he’s made thousands of dollars selling photos and videos of a young conservative woman he created using generative tools. He’s not alone.
Like many medical school students, Sam was broke.
The 22-year-old aspiring orthopedic surgeon from northern India got some money from his parents, but he says he spent most of it subsidizing his licensing exams, and he’s still saving up to hopefully emigrate to the US after graduation. So he started searching for ways to make additional money online.
Sam, who requested a pseudonym to avoid jeopardizing his medical career and immigration status, tried a few things, with varying degrees of legitimacy and success. He made YouTube shorts and sold study notes to other med students. It wasn’t until he started scrolling through his Instagram feed that he landed on an idea: Why not make an AI-generated girl using Google Gemini’s Nano Banana Pro and sell bikini photos of her online?
But when Sam started posting generic photos of a beautiful, scantily clad woman on Instagram, he was dismayed to find that none of the content was hitting. He turned to Gemini for advice. “If you create a generic ‘hot girl,’ you’re competing with a million other models,” it said, according to a transcript Sam provided to WIRED.
https://www.wired.com/story/ai-generated-maga-girls/
Not the refinery, which is still on fire after five days, but the town itself, where it’s now raining oil and contaminating everything.
https://x.com/jayinkyiv/status/2046823436823990547
“Well now Chernobyl is in Tuapse”.
https://bsky.app/profile/adamserwer.bsky.social/post/3mjssl3otck2v
Yes he might have considered quitting after Hartlepool but that was when he was not in office and power intoxicates. I believe, particularly given his experience re Hartlepool, that he will consider he can turn it around again.
What I would say is that I do think there is a question of timing here. It is still a bit early after the last GE for him to decide to stand down IMHO - if he goes it will be because of being dragged out by a challenge or damaging resignations. If, however, he manages to survive the year and we get into 2027/2028, I think the chances increase of a ‘retirement’ (probably forced behind the scenes but seemingly voluntary), if the polls have not turned and the government remains deeply unpopular.
But he looks around and his inflated self-worth says "Nah. Nobody will do better."
There's a definite parallel
I don't think Starmer was planning to go just yet, but increasingly he looks like a lame duck. After the meltdown in May would be the best, and a new PM by conference.
A GP who practised in Bath ….
Didn't Churchill hang on far too long because of his doubts about Eden being up to the job? After all, the record shows that he probably wasn't.
The people who are paid to attempt to influence online debate use them to multiply their efforts.
Some of our Saturday visitors were using LLM assistance, for example.
Played bagpipes one day for a laugh
Thatcher didn’t do this. She had outspoken opponents in the cabinet all the way through. And was brought down by them, in the end.
Think it began under Blair - his pushing out the hard left gradually morphed. The. We had Brown. Then the Brexit purges.
Starmer leaving in 2027 is better for him and his replacement.
Reform regain a bit of the fall from last week's More in Common, otherwise little change this week, 'others' doing well though
Small changes in this week’s voting intention as Reform’s lead grows to 5pts over the Tories and 7 over Labour
➡️ REF UK 27% (+2)
🌳 CON 22% (nc)
🌹 LAB 20% (-1)
🌍 GREEN 12% (-1)
🔶 LIB DEM 11% (-1)
❓OTH 5% (+2)
🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
N = 2,235 | Fieldwork 17-20/4 | Changes w/ 5/4
https://x.com/jayinkyiv/status/2046834786488991758
“…in the autumn we will face that which happened in 1917.”
I met him a few weeks later and congratulated him on being correct. I asked him where he got his information and he proudly told me. It was 100% watertight. His source was an unimpeachable client and he was proud to tell me who and how he knew him. He didn't even tell me to keep it to myself. Well he now tells me history is about to repeat itself.
A scraper tool gets all the comments, back into the distant past. The LLM then prepares a cheat sheet per poster.
The LLM also suggests responses to individual posters to make it sound personal.
So, even if a human clicks “go”, they are selecting one of several pre-prepared responses. That way they can run chats on multiple boards at the same time.
Too many moving parts as usual.
I cannot imagine the stress Starmer must be under, and with the May elections and another huge drop of Mandelson files in mid May then he may well stand down by then, subject to labour electing his successor
This controversy is paralysing labour and the government, so labour need to decide where they go now
Yes, such things had happened previously - but it was an escalation.
5 games, 5 loses, no goals scored
https://youtu.be/P4kQvkvGi9M?si=ihERd4Ncswdi_baO
Of course what followed had a few hiccups!
https://x.com/JesseBWatters/status/2046747317320192497/video/1
Sounds like the US don’t believe that whoever turns up to peace talks representing Iran, has any authority over enforcing an agreement.
So the blockade continues. Which, at least for me, is better than the alternative!
Note that under Blair, even Iraq didn’t break the Coaltion that was the Labour Party.
The Conservatives and Labour were coalitions. Blair realised this.
Blair offered more spending on schools & hospitals and other things to the coalition of the Labour Party. Solid chunks of Red Meat.
Brown offered the same, but with a redder tinge.
Corbyn was back to 1983 - the age of The longest Suicide Note In History.
Keir thought to was 1993 all over again. And purged and purged. Then offered the remaining hard left nothing.
Starting with the WFP set the tone - we are in government, and you will get nothing. Gaza was just the last straw.
As far as I can see there is no cause as such, just an attempt to run the shop reasonably sensibly. That isn't setting the bar very high, although some way higher than some of the governments of the past ten or so years.
Unfortunately I can't see that Nobody would indeed do better. If Labour had a Nobody who might, the Party would surely be lining him up right now. They haven't, and they aren't.
And as soon as you start talking about Somebody, all of the sudden the incumbent doesn’t look so bad after all.
There are people like Carns who do have managerial skills. Unfortunately the mainstream media seem to like to promote the terminally useless like Milliband and Burnham.
Whoever takes over has three years to ensure that whatever replaces this Government it is not led by a gurning grifter .
Which would have helped Brown in the long run.
The lying pornographer was doing plenty of briefings against ministers and factions he He could have told Brown to tell McBride to put a sock in it.
But, given Campbell’s behaviour, that would have been a bit hypocritical.
Which would have helped Brown in the long run.
The lying pornographer was doing plenty of briefings against ministers and factions he He could have told Brown to tell McBride to put a sock in it.
But, given Campbell’s behaviour, that would have been a bit hypocritical.
I reckon the key that the lock needs is a John Major figure, who suddenly appears out of almost nowhere and everyone agrees is acceptable.
(It might be harder now. I'm pretty sure that the balance of personal and ideological ambition has tipped too far in the personal direction.)
We are constrained by the wars in Ukraine and Iran, and longer term our demographics. No leader of any party is going to fix this for us.
The sad thing was that Hull were nothing special and on the brink of the playoffs. It was one of many games we could have won if we weren't a shambles on and off the pitch.
Next season will be dire. Administration may well be possible, and further points deduction. See your* team next year may have the same too.
What a mess. FFP seems to punish only lesser clubs while the Man City's and Chelseas of this world get barely a slap on the wrist.
*sorry, confusing you with BJO 😀
Starmer may be in a bit of a hole but comparatively Eden was down a deep mine shaft of his own making.
(*Actually it's a drama-documentary with talking heads, which does make one hark back for the days of proper documentaries tbf.)
Any Labour leader in the present circumstances would need to convince Labour backbenchers that unpalatable policies such as welfare cuts* were a necessary part of a plan that would deliver more of what they want overall.
* It doesn't necessarily have to be welfare cuts specifically, but there are definitely unpopular things that need to be done to square the circle of the nation's finances.
I agree that City and Chelsea need to be dealt with, though it looks like Chelsea players are doing it for them
And yes Man Utd need 6 points over 5 games to be certain of Champions League football, though one win will mean Chelses cannot catch them
But I’m not it’s fair to call that “grift”. He worked to create a product - albeit ephemeral- which people were prepared to pay for. Isn’t that just capitalism?
There’s going to be some resentment from some Labour MPs and where exactly will that by-election opening be ? Will he parachute himself into London which in the current climate is the only conceivable place where he’d have a better chance of winning .
He spent some years in the 2010s working for a Catholic charity for a very small salary, and acknowledges that his scumbag younger self in No.10 was perhaps not the best person.
We expect it of the Tories but Labour should be better than this.
David Kelly would wave hello. But he’s unavailable.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/apr/21/downing-street-keir-starmer-peter-mandelson-olly-robbins-no-10
Now, to a certain extent, if the photos were sold by a real woman there could still be an element of grift, in that the people buying photos would be encouraged to believe that they were doing so as part of a relationship with the seller. A lot of these sorts of para-social relationships between content creators and their customers can be a bit problematic, leading to issues at both ends.
Labour are in a real mess, but I am sure lots of plotting is going on to find a replacement for Starmer
Vacant seat
Being nominated
Winning it
Getting enough MPs to back you
Winning the subsequent battle in which Burnham's ego is faced by other egos.
Also: ensuring the PM doesn't time a resignation to forestall you.
Each stage reduces the chance and increases the odds. The current 8/1 is too short. Can Roger outline the plan? I can't see it happening successfully.
The emergence of the A.I.-generated political avatars, researchers said, suggests a sweeping effort to hook conservative voters, a demographic primed by the president and his circle to accept memes, influencers, deepfakes and other digitally packaged messaging. Neither The Times nor the researchers it consulted found any similar left-leaning networks.
From looking at YouTube shorts, I'd say a very high proportion of cute animal shorts are AI generated, and a lot of documentaries are AI-voiced, some clones of famous broadcasters like David Attenborough and Jeremy Clarkson (and probably others I do not recognise).
2026 is known to be bad (but not yet fully factored in by the general public), whereas by 2027-8 Ukraine and Iran may or may not be settled. So some chance of the better situation.
There should be a shortish honeymoon period of relief its not Starmer whoever takes over
The longer a leader is in power before an election the harder it will be to avoid blame for economic reality beyond their control
Making two leadership changes in the parliament is too many, re-enforces public perception of incompetence, and at the MP level leads to factions in constant tension
Combined I think that makes 2027 significantly better for Labour prospects than 2026, where I suspect they may end up needing two changes over the term with the 2026 PM Trussed.
Top man and in knowing that fact, I have every confidence of his truthfulness.. rather than the wriggling and weaving of words by Starmer.
FYI don’t open this link when your other half is about.
https://nypost.com/2026/04/21/us-news/top-maga-influencer-emily-hart-revealed-to-be-ai-created-by-a-guy-in-india/
Played bagpipes one day for a laugh
He made such a din
He had to give in
Or else lose every member of staff
Woman writes to neighbours about bin collections
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce9me80ng3ko
Perhaps May elections will change things but I’m still not getting much of a sense of wanting Starmer out just yet.
I think that if Burnham were to present his campaign for election as an MP openly as a prelude to replacing Starmer then it would maximise his chances of winning any by-election. "Vote for me to get rid of the Prime Minister you loathe," is a pretty strong pitch for Labour sympathetic voters unhappy with the government.
Excruciating for Starmer and government ministers though.