Local Elections.

I see dispite abandoning all his core principles and telling as many outright lies as Johnson that a Starmer led party managed 35% of the vote exactly the same as Corbyn in 2019.

Maybe alienating your core vote and chasing gammon flag ******** wasn’t such a great plan. Who would have guessed.

Forensic.

 

Gonna be gutting when Labour beat a sitting Conservative government for the second time in 50 years innit. I voted for Corbyn & you and other ex Labour left should vote for whoever you wanna vote for. But let's stop pretending that Starmer isn't making himself more appealing to 80% of the electorate - the ones who will actually win him/us an election. It's crackers.

Pragmatic power is 25 million times better than principled opposition.

 

Yes abandoning your principles is famously the only way to win. Lying is the only way to obtain power. Racism is ok if it’s our racism.

I don’t mind a pragmatic effective approach but losing 2 progressive votes for every gammon you attract us the reverse of that. Local election results show no progress in terms of vote percentage. A great night for more left wing parties like the LDs and Greens. Very meh for Labour.

and yep I voted for a more left wing party in the local elections in the LibDems and will definitely vote for any party that can defeat the Tory A or Tory B teams. If I wanted a David Cameron tribute act to be PM I’d entice David out of the shed.

 

Maybe it's a ploy. Try and entice the gammons to vote for Labour, then chuck the Tory style pledges in the bin and actually run the country properly when elected.

 

100% correct.

I’d have loved a proper socialist in power but it isn’t going to happen for the forseeable so this is the next best option.

 

So you'll actively vote against Labour? Even if that means the Tories get in? I Just don't understand the logic or your tone on the topic. Deep down, you know that a left wing government can't win because ultimately this isn't a left wing country. Labour has only ever been able to win in the past by HALF A CENTURY by occupying the middle ground and even then had the support of Wales & Scotland which they can't count on anymore. But when they did they made lasting changes that all of us can claim to benefit from today - minimum wage to name just one. Not bad for a Tory light.

Calling anyone that Labour now attract as Gammon while offering your vote to Lib Dems, the party who famously enacted these left wing policies you voted for when they were in government only a decade ago by rising tuition fees & slashing public spending under the guise of economic necessity just feels a bit twilight zone.

Gimme a man with an obvious & demonstrable moral compass, intellect & experience who seemingly knows how to win as our leader any day of the week. Who was the last one we could say that about?

 

He hasn’t though. That’s absolute ********.

He’s a bit bland and vanilla. And he’s pandering to the centre ground to try and win an election.

Doesn’t make him a Tory or mean he’s abandoning his principles.

I honestly think some folk would prefer to have a true red extreme left socialist as Labour leader in all circumstances - no matter whether it meant they were never ever going to be elected.

Look at what the media and general agenda did to Corbyn. One of the most placid characters there are in politics and a proper Labour man. They crucified him.

We need this rabble out. They are killing the futures of all of our kids. Starmer is a dlittle divisive amongst the core Labour support but if he wins an election and gets power then surely he’s vindicated for being moderate and trying to appeal to the swing vote?

 

The silly phrase flag-shagging gammon used to have a bit of a meaning, now its said and used even if you disagree on anything. Just reeks of moral sanctity now. I.e if you slightly disagree or deviate from my view youre this or that buzzword... Compromise needs to happen otherwise well be stuck with this vile government for yet another 13 long years. Whether you believe it or whether you just see it as the lesser evil, its still that... the lesser evil.

 

Why are people pretending Labour have to move to the centre to win? They tried it under Miliband & it was a disaster. All the anti-immigrant ******** to try & appeal to the working class. Even with Blair, John Smith had a huge lead in the polls before his heart attack. That was a socialist who would’ve in all likelihood been prime minister.

Labour were doing terribly for 2 years under Starmer, they were behind on all the polls. They only built a lead when all the Tory corruption & party gate was exposed.

Despite their lead his personal ratings are still terrible. He’s a liar & people see that.

His biggest advantages are that the Tories have hit the self destruct button & that the prime minister’s not white. Let’s not kid ourselves that Labour are appealing to the masses through anything they’re doing that’s positive.

 

Starmer is appealing to those who bother to vote. I'd like it if we could move to system where every vote counted rather than first past the post.

 

When the GE comes around, I'll vote Labour (as I did in the locals last week) because in my area, they're the only party capable of beating the Tories. Thankfully, the Tories are a distant second place in my area. But if I was in an area where only the Libs or Greens could oust a Tory, I'd vote for them. Because that surely has to be the plan now? Just obliterate the ********. Get every one of them out on their arse.

I'm a lefty looney and supported Corbyn's vision wholeheartedly. There has certainly been a shift right, since Starmer took over as leader. How far that has gone towards the centre, or, in my opinion, slightly right, that's up for debate. It's happened though. But this current version of the Tories is genuinely far right. It's grotesque. So I'm happy to hold my nose a little, accept that this Labour isn't my 'ideal', but it has to be a thousand times more palatable government than what we are suffering these days. It's worrying that they've still got a year or more to inflict even greater damage. Because we all know that it's going to be some clear-up job for Labour if/when they do replace the Tories. But all that is for another day.

I'm not one of those who thinks that as soon as Labour get in, Starmer will pull off a mask revealing Corbyn, and start going left. It feels like it'll be New Labour-esque to me. Which had its good and bad.

 

I feel like he thinks he's going to win by default and is more scared of losing votes than trying to win them. It's not what I want from a Labour leader and I think it's dangerous. The Tories will fire up the bluster and ******** machine and I honestly think they could win.

 

Because history, logic and ultimately mathematics show it's the only way. The sums don't add up when you consider England is a Tory country.

You seem to claim he's not winning it but Tories are losing it then use John Smith who was fighting a beleaguered Tory party post Thatcher and black Wednesday as an example as someone who was beating the Tories? Isn't it exactly the same - that they were both in a positive position because the Tories had lost so much national confidence?

The key question is that if Corbyn was in charge now do you think the party would be so far up in the polls?

 

Let’s do a little tally of Starmers 10 pledges that convinced me I should vote for him:

nationalise Rail, Mail, water, power. Lied
End privatisation in NHS - Lied
End Tuition Fees -lied.
abolish universal credit - lied
Progressive taxation aimed at raising tax burden on richest 5% - Lied.
Defend free movement - lied
Electoral reform - lied

some great clips of him stating to Andrew Neil that he would guarantee the nationalisation of all utilities then telling Laura Kuenssberg ‘I never said that’.

He is the most dishonest politician (other than Johnson) I’ve ever seen) and I worked for Labour when Blair was leader so I’m not naive about the political realities needed to get elected. Bit there is compromises and there’s blatant lying.

 

Did you think that 35% was an acceptable performance in 2019? That’s what Labour just achieved in the local elections.

for the rest I know you weren’t around at the time but Smith transformed a Labour Party that had been ‘led’ by Kinnock who spent his time failing to back striking workers and selling every principle he had for power he never realised (very much like Starmer now). It didn’t work for Kinnock and won’t for Starmer who has no beliefs and substance. Hopefully a centre left figure like Smitj with genuine beliefs and a defined programme will rescue Labour again - though Starmer would have purged Smith if he were still alive.

 

liar lies about lying.

 

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