So I’d think mumsnet, which is a hotbed of supposed feminist and “feminist” activists and a well known source of crappy stories and trolling by the right wing press would be aware of the use and manipulation of public opinion to shape attitudes to government.
The UK (and the US) have the most virulent snd aggressive right wing press universe whose unrelenting goal is to secure benefits from the government —or end government restrictions on—for billionaires and oligarchs.
One of the things the press seeks is to keep center/left governments out of power. Another is to kneecap any such government whenever it gets into power.
Portraying Starmer as inauthentic, weak, “a boy about to cry” “wetting” himself “frightened” “uncertain” not really experienced, and (my favorite) not really a winner but simply the passive beneficiary of Tory incompetence is an absolutely bog standard set of right wing tropes.
Of course no individual poster here making fun of the new PM is doing anything other than “having a larf” its all just bantz, isn’t it? But its part of the torrent of delegitimization (the mummy party, the nanny state, champagne socialists, effete overeducated elites and “who do they think they are” outsiders” who “don’t know how to behave “ on the world stage that left wing governments have to face even as they also have to tackle the enormous mess that the previous government has left.
Whether you know it or not this stupid thread is part and parcel of the right wing ecosystem of insults which are dimply a form of politics by its other name: culture war. As Steve Bannon has always argued as he has employed these methods “politics is downstream from culture” and you get to the political by shaping the outlook of the masses.
As for all the supposed Labour voters who “just” feel uncomfortable with Starmer’s handholding A) obviously on the internet no one knows who is who. B) its possible to vote with your head but return to some pretty atavistic and non rational prejudices on cultural or aesthetic issues.
The whole tempest in a tea pot is expressly the absurd but significant charge that Starmer is inappropriate snd not behaving like “one of us” (not manly, not professional, not authentic) well: who is the implied “we” there? The implication from the poster and her supporters is “real” and “good” UK people. If the elected PM isn’t good and british enough for you who is? Surely the implication is that he and his voters are an error that needs correcting?