If Kier Starmer thinks restrictions aren't tough enough

And has been begging for harder lockdowns all along then why do I keep seeing him doing media interviews in person begging for everyone's front door to be boarded up? Why isn't he working from home and doing interviews from his home? Does he really need to keep travelling around to do them? In fact do any of the journalists and reporters need to keep travelling to do them in the 21st century?

 

Starmer is a shocking leader, does deserve the Sir title.

 

He's the worst Labour leader that I can remember but the big businesses don't mind him because he's compliant and not a danger to their wealth like the last one

 

He gets my vote. He's not a ditherer unlike some.

 

Bang on.

 

No, he’s basically a conservative though.

 

We all watch the news..
Talk about football. ?

 

Call me old fashioned but I'm still not sure a knight of the realm should ever be a Labour leader. Echoes of Lord Prescott.

 

Agreed.

 

Then you don't know what a real conservative is.

 

I’m not sure you know what a proper socialist is.

 

He will be delighted at the suggestion of making it so people can only leave their home one day a week.....

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...k-refuses-rule-curfews-closing-nurseries.html

How that can be policed I don't know.

 

Nobody claimed he was a socialist. But it's not black and white. You're not either a socialist or a conservative.

The reality is we realistically have to vote for one of two parties. Even if one is Tory-Lite, it's significantly better than Tory.

 

Spoken like a true centrist, potentially worse than a Tory.

 

He claimed he was a socialist when he wanted the membership to vote for him.

http://camdennewjournal.com/article...st-for-me-it-has-a-very-practical-application

 

I'm not a centrist at all. I'm just a realist.

 

He is a socialist his pledges and most of his career would back that up as would his upbringing. Just because he's done well in his career and accepted a knighthood doesn't or shouldn't take away from that.

What good would it have done if Starmer spent the last 10 months shouting and balling going against everything the government have done? He has been firm on what he would do calling the government out numerous times over lock down and the failure of track and trace.

Against an 80 majority his hands are tied though so he can shout all he wants it won't matter he has to play a far more tactical hand picking his battles and letting this lot own the mistakes they make.

After 5 years of protest the party suffered the worst defeat in almost 100 years that path couldn't be continued and the polls since April show that people are warming to Starmer after losing faith during the Corbyn leadership.

The debate on socialism and being tory lite really is a poor one you can have socialist ideals but understand there are different routes to being able to implement them.

 

Firstly, I don't think you can be a socialist and a knight They're completely incompatible.

Secondly, I'm happy for Starmer that people are warming to him. That's what he's after and it's nice he's got it. But I look at the policies, and so far the only thing he's really seemed committed to is purging the left. If I wanted to get involved with a party that was slightly better than the Tories then I'd be a Lib Dem.

I'll always keep up with what they're pushing though, and make a decision based on whatever manifesto is current. Liam Byrne is next up, for the West Midlands mayor. Let's see what that particular two-bit career politican manages to cobble together. I'm sure it'll be inspirational.

 

Edit: Electoral reform stuff - not important now.

 

Sorry, that’s absolute ********.

So to accept an honour you have to be a Tory? Or are MBEs for lollipop men ok so long as you don’t get knighted?

Like or dislike Starmer on his approach, fine. Your choice.

But to dismiss him as he was given an honour for being hugely successful in his previous career? (One in which he’d be being paid much more handsomely had he remained in it than if he hadn’t gone into politics - he’s certainly not in the commons to make money, or facilitate making money in outside interests, unlike many on the other side of the house)?

Come on, I’m pretty much as left leaning as anyone on here but that’s just inverted snobbery.

Clement Attlee was brought up middle class and trained as a barrister, ok wasn’t knighted at the time he was made leader.

He took over as prime minister when the country was bankrupt - and yet created the welfare state, the national health service, he nationalised industries (something reversed by the conservatives, privatisation killing or ruining most. I mean the trains are much better now there’s dozens of different operators and with the repair network being a separate company...), and revolutionised the national insurance bill.

However the hard left criticise as he was against the strikers who opposed the pay freeze on the docks, and he developed nuclear arms etc. He wasn’t a proper socialist... He was too posh... All could be seen as reasonable observations.

You can’t rewrite history - but if Churchill had won the election in 45 the NHS, the welfare state, British Steel, the NCB, British Rail, none of it would likely have existed. The working class could well have been thanked for their war efforts by being on rations into the sixties or seventies and no real employment chances.

Fast forward 75 years, we haven’t been decimated by war but we have a country as good as bankrupt with the welfare state and nhs on its knees.

A few years out from the next election (hopefully it will be sooner, suspect it might be); do we as left leaning folk attack the leader for having a more moderate approach at the point he is quite toothless given the huge majority he faces on the opposite benches and the fact there is officially no pending election for years?

Or do we rally behind him, and make sure it is he and a Labour government that attempt to recover the country from the mess that Covid, Brexit and eleven years, twelve, however many it will be of Tory government has left us in? As opposed to Sunak, Gove, Raab, or whoever is the next cab off the rank for the Bullingdon Boys Club?

Is he Corbyn? No. Is he as far left? Probably not. Well, definitely not.

Does that mean I, we, will think he ought to be stronger as a socialist on some issues? Yeah probably.

But ask yourself who you’d sooner have as your next PM. ‘Sir’ Kier Starmer, or someone like Jeremy Hunt. Also ask yourself if the crazed media train that absolutely mullered Corbyn would ever allow a far left candidate to gain any traction, should Starmer be forced out. I didn’t vote for Starmer in the leadership election (I am a member so I got a vote), but the majority of the party, including the unions, did. They knew what they were voting for.