To feel completely disillusioned with the Labour Party?

It's beyond bad.

They're really not sensible as an option.

Vote independent.

YANBU

Starmer represents the establishment's ultimate infiltration and capture of the Labour party and its reconfiguration to make meaningful change impossible. Our electoral system - a blunt instrument for the expression of popular will at the best of times, due to the perversions of First Past The Post - is now nothing more than a rubber stamping exercise to make the public complicit in its own economic and cultural decline and helpless before the challenges of climate change.

I won't be voting for this exercise in mass delusion, in either of its (largely identical) manifestations.

This is spot on and exactly why you need to vote OP.

Starmer’s Thatcher comment would have been extensively tested & focus grouped. It was obviously targeted at people who voted Tory in 2019, but feel disillusioned by the government’s failures. The fact that he made the comment in a Telegraph article tells you all you need to know.
This is the reality of electoral politics in a two party system under FPTP. Swing voters in marginal seats are the only ones who really matter. Boris persuaded millions of them to vote for him in 2019 which is why places like Stoke, Blackpool and even Mansfield are currently represented by Tory MPs. Starmer’s job is to win them back, and he’s currently making a very good job of it.

I don't have a political affiliation, and never have had. Given the national situation, and my situation, I vote for my best interests. Currently, I tend to think the Tories are out of ideas and Labour is the better option. Interested to see what Wes Streeting has to say about reforming the NHS when he returns from his research visit to Australia.

He didn’t praise her.
He’s made it clear that he thinks the bombing of Gaza should stop.
Vote for the Tories (or someone who will let them in) if you like, but don’t do it because of nonsense made up by the media.

I'm considering not voting Labour for similar reasons OP. I don't feel comfortable giving my vote to a labour leader who praises Thatcher and won't condemn laying siege to the entire population of Gaza. Also a leader who has broken every promise he made to members and tramples all over democracy in the party. I'll probably vote for a party unlikely to get anywhere but to the left of Labour. I'm hoping the message will get through and the party wil adopt a less corrupt and right wing leader. If the Tories get in again so be it. I'd rather that than be stuck with more of the same but from Labour this time

All incoming governments are somewhat hamstrung by the economic legacy left to them. It's how they manage their way past it that distinguishes the above average. Blair's landslide victory in 1997 came on the back of Ken Clarke diligently assembling an economy ready to boom back to health, despite the travails of the early 1990s and the shitty corruption scandals (on both sides of the HoC) from the mid 1990s.

With FPTP it’s also about voting against someone you don’t want to win. I really don’t understand how anyone would want the current shit show to be re-elected…

No, I’m in Cheltenham. We have the joy of the Justice minister Alex Chalk as our MP sigh……

Hertfordshire market town by any chance?

I voted Green last local elections and for the first time in my life, and I'm 62, someone I voted for got in. All the other votes were arguably wasted on a safe Tory seat.

I'm with you OP, politically homeless. I hate the idea of spoiling my ballot paper but none of the parties is worth voting for.

All I can hope for is a decent local independent candidate with some principles and a backbone. Otherwise, I just don't know......

I’m a centrist and feel like the only person in the world who thinks he’s sensible, professional and better than the other offerings. He’s got my vote, and it will be the first time in my life voting Labour.

Did you vote for Blair we all know he was an admirer of Thatcher and even Brown was begrudgingly

I don’t think Starmer is usually particularly good at playing the political game but this time he has even if not done intentionally. To distance himself from the far left is the best thing he can do to win the next election

Checking tactical.vote, it's unsure about my consituency where Lab and LDs are neck and neck, with the Conservatives hoovering almost 60%.

Even if Labour gets in not much will change. It's hamstrung by the massive borrowing debt that the Tories have left behind.

So much else is a side issue when you look at economics. It really does affect the rest of policy eg the NHS, taxes, public spending.

This website is handy for those considering tactical voting:

Tactical voting guide

Even the biggest landslides have less than 1 in 5 eligible voters vote for them due to low turnout and fptp system.

Somewhere on MN there is a post where I went through the last election results and showed that if less than 50,000 people had changed their minds, we'd have had a hung parliament.

Probably best not obsess on that - it's dangerous knowledge.

One of the political sites does a really great map, showing what the outcome would be if the latest batch of opinion polls were right. It's quite surprising how many seats once considered safe are actually fairly vulnerable.

I mostly look at the SE, as that's the area I'm most familiar with, and there are a surprising number of seats that were generally regarded as safe Tory seats that could well be at risk, including Jeremy Hunt's, in leafy Godalming, and Chris Philp's in Croydon South (the latter particularly delighted me, because Philp is an idiot, and because I lived in Croydon until I was in my 30s, and the prospect of the Tories losing Croydon South was considered beyond anyone's wildest dreams.) The Tory majority in Guildford was less than 6%, so only needs a 3% swing to the LDs for the LDs to win it.

Also if every single person actually voted and voted how they wanted it could easily not be tory or Labour win. Even the biggest landslides have less than 1 in 5 eligible voters vote for them due to low turnout and fptp system. Of those who do turnout less than 2 in 5 vote for the winning party. So all votes def do count and can quite easily swing all seats. If all eligible voters voted in most constituencies that is enough to overturn the current mp.

When you are polling at 45% like Labour is currently, then there are no 'swing voters ' left to persuade. The 22% or whatever supporting the Conservatives are unlikely to switch because the Labour leader said something vaguely nice about Thatcher. They are probably considering Reform or something similar instead.

On the other hand you risk alienating many of the people who voted for ' levelling up ' in 2019. The voters Mandelson thought you could ignore because ' they have nowhere else to go'. He was so wrong. This idiocy notwithstanding, Labour will surely win the next election? The danger is they will piss around doing Tory lite for one term and be swept away by another far right demagogue.

Vote for the least worst alternative. All parties have some policies that you won't agree with. Some more than others.

@GasDrivenNun I think we have far, far bigger issues than gender woo right now, although I appreciate it is an issue...

It isn't what KS actually wrote that matters - the problem for me is that he did not have the wisdom to foresee how the media might spin this. If he wants to be PM (and we need to get rid of this government) he needs to develop a bit more in the way of common sense.