AIBU to feel the media is pushing Starmer out?

You can't say that when he hasn't had a full term though.
He will never be someone who "didn't do his job" because he wasn't given full time.

Looking back on it, the reason Starmer has been unsuccessful is mostly due to the 2024 general election.

He made a series of promises that he didn't need to in order to beat the Tories, who were in an incredibly bad state. That may have led to a thumping majority, but he would have been far better off having a smaller majority and more policy flexibility.

If he hadn't promised not to raise taxes he would have been in a much better position. In doing so he just committed the country to the same old old.

This is probably at the root of the poor local election performance, which really is what is driving his exit. Other events along the way are just the straws breaking the camels back.

I've just been marvelling at the fact that Kwasi Kwartang has reinvented as a political commentator; he and Truss brought the country to the brink of ruin with his mad budget, and yet there he was on GMB, pontificating about the complexities of government.

The electorate never vote in a PM. We vote in a party, who have elected a leader.

To an extent I agree, however he has done too many u turns and no one knows what he stands for. He has blown a large majority by pandering to the noisy left of the party and not sticking with policy. He was also far too reactive to media criticism.

The media were reporting discontent within the PLP. Thats why Burnham saw an opportunity.

Or are you saying the Labour MPs calling for his resignation weeks ago were all told to by the media?

Me too. I really thought he would.
God help us if someone like Lammy throws his hat into the ring or Angela Rayner and the members vote them in.

Starmer is front bench. The others in cabinet are well educated with degrees from Oxbridge and other top unis. Rachel Reeves has a masters in economics and worked in the bank of England

I don't think anyone really thought this was going to happen this way though - I haven't bothered clicking on any news about it and have completely stopped clicking on Trump/Israel news and "deal" blabberings. So it can't be generating them clicks because it is boring and annoying and smacks of the Tories. No one wants to have a carousel of PM's who get nothing done because they only just unpacked.

Which is what I think as well

Was referring to Labour frontbenchers NOT Starmer.

Labour promised us stability, compared to the last government. Their instability has been brought about by an extremely weak man, who was out of his depth. Of course he was cannon fodder for the media. There's no room for sentiment in politics.

Andy Burnham only ran because the media had been so negative about Starmer that he saw an opportunity.

I used to be a Burnham fan but not any more.

Totally. I was willing him to fight on.

I have said on another post and said it when he was chosen. He's the rebound guy. He was never going to be there for long.

Sir Keir Starmer has a law degree from Oxford, served as a human rights lawyer and was head of the crown prosection service. In what world is that not a smart person? There are many things people can cause SKS of but not being an intelligent person is not one of them. Utterly ridiculous comment.

So it was the media who forced Andy Burnham to run in Makerfield?

Great. Another PM. The new one will be in for a week before people are drooling at the mouth screaming for them to resign. I’m genuinely annoyed Starmer gave in, we needed stability and who the fuck are we going to have next? Bloody depressing.

Take a look here:

https://inews.co.uk/news/social-media-giants-boost-bbc-content-4492384?srsltid=AfmBOops5CZn7DcDlj3jUB7CS_dg69hD2SbpFYjAORfgz_AAHodL6Thy

and here:

https://metro.co.uk/2026/06/18/government-will-come-back-vpns-next-step-social-media-ban-28825858/

Any change of leader should trigger a general election. It's incomprehensible to have a PM that the electorate haven't voted in.

It’s a media/politicians/tribal electorate triple sided issue

Or at least that is how I’ve perceived it since Covid came to Italy.

Media goes for what will generate them more clicks (amplifying the fear we were feeling in that particular context). Policians (of all stripes because we have many layers of national, regional, provincial and local government over here) often came across as more concerned with pacifying the media than making strategic, informed decisions. The electorate picked a side along tribal lines (initially in region I live in, that meant lefties being anti-mask because the regional leader was a rightie and wearing one of the few masks we had, and righties were all gung ho pro mask). Then the leftie national leader started the colour coded zoning of degrees of lock down. So the very same tribal righties went anti lock down and the very same lefties went pro.

I know these people. We’ve been friends & aquentences for more than two decades. Watching them ricochet from one position to the opposite as the media led the dance, the politicians tried to dance to their tune to avoid being the latest “blood on your hand murderer ! anti freedom authoritarian dictator !” and the now very frightened so all the more tribal electorate bounced around the opinion stadium to boo from the appropriate position …. was horrifying and fascinating.

I don’t know what the solution is. I reduced my consumption of news and media considerably. To the point of often being uninformed as the price to pay for not attending the latest opinions match. And I can’t vote here or back home, so I have an advantage in not having to pick a tribe to vote for. So I can afford to work out my position on an issue by issue basis. Or just ignore an issue cos it’s not like I can vote anyway.

From a politican’s perspective, perhaps they should be less keen to dance their little hearts out when the media is going their way, lest them be reguired to jig to a tune they really don’t like when it’s their turn to be “who we despise this news cycle”.

A mass movement of the electorate turning off any news beyond “just the bare facts, no opinion” would nudge the media in the right direction. Returning The News to a loss leader rather than a cash cow would help. But the dopamine hit of being emotionally whipped around is hard to resist, even if like me you are actively trying to keep yourself away from it for very good reasons.

I think to myself he's a smart man, labour have smart people why didn't they just do what was needed

We need more tax, or benefits, public services and pensions need to be cut. We can’t have it both ways. We either want a low tax economy where the government does far less for us, or we need to tax more and provide world class public services.

Of course, the main issue is that we’re currently taxed a fair bit and still don’t have world class public services.

I am not a huge Starmer fan but it has really felt like this is 100% the media stirring everyone up into a frenzy just to create some news. There’s something far wrong when the last British prime minister to serve a whole term was David Cameron.
I was a fan of Andy Burnham before but this whole debacle has felt incredibly manipulative and I was hoping we could just have some stability for once.

Glad he’s gone, worries about being replaced by someone worse though