Thread 16 Starmer - Mad World

[DuncinToffee]

Previous thread

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5251589-thread-15-starmer-nolite-te-bastardes-carborundorum?page=40&reply=141533067

I think it's interesting that most of the 'regulars' on this thread have long established user names. Many of the 'Starmer bashing' and previous 'VAT on achools' threads are started by new or very recent names. Just something I've observed.

Araminta, if you want to see some misinformation on display look no further than today's Telegraph headline

I’m still here lurking away. I thought Starmer would be solid and dull. I didn’t expect what has transpired. To have alienated so many people in such a short time takes some doing. Also he seems determined to depress us.

DH is still completely immobile and can’t do much for himself. He’s incredibly grumpy but that’s understandable.

I love Roland Smith's rolling coverage of the bonkers Telegraph Op Ed headlines. They are hilarious.

Covid Inquiry was back this week

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/jan/21/former-vaccines-tsar-describes-open-warfare-within-uk-government-during-covid-pandemic

"There was “open warfare” between UK government departments during the pandemic, the former vaccines tsar has said, adding the failure to prioritise the needs of clinically vulnerable, immunocompromised individuals was ethically and morally wrong"

What did you post that got you deleted @PandoraSox? Just the jist of it, obvs!

Suggests that old accounts could become currency in the bot wars.

Should that happen, then I can see Twitter, Meta and the associated lickspittles finding creative ways to ban old accounts which aren't posting "the truth according to Adolf".

I saw it - it was just an image of part of another thread (with no user names attached). No idea why this isn't allowed.

Particularly since the original is still on the thread. Bizarre.

I find the shift to the centre right more depressing in all honesty and am not sure that's all on Starmer. Or that most people aren't in favour of it (except the right weirdly, or perhaps not) and I will have to make peace with being wildly out of step with the zeitgeist. Or go down fighting

But that depressing- ness pales into insignificance next to Trump's antics and actions, Musk and his notNazi salutes, and The AfD.

Depressingly, , my sibling and SIL are making plans to leave the USA where they were both born.

@BIWI
These threads were referenced on a different thread - somebody took exception to Pandora's screenshot of that, which is pretty funny really.

Pm'd you BIWI.

He isn’t Johnson so isn’t prone to pointless boosterism. The economic state of the country is poor, it’s difficult to big it up. Some of the policies have been badly thought out but broadly positive and needed and the DT and mail are hardly going to paint them in the best light.

Starmer showed what he was like as Loto, not sure why people expected a different version to appear.

I do think he is growing into his PM role.

I find the shift to the centre right more depressing in all honesty

Is it a "shift to the right" ? Or are we merely being inundated with media to make us think it's a shift to the right with the intention of scooping up those people who have outsourced their thinking to daytime TV ?

Remember - regardless of peer pressure, you can be yourself in a secret anonymous ballot. That's why they have to go. That's why we have to have ,as surveys and polls and petitions where everyone knows who you are and where you live, so that you vote "correctly".

And while those elections still exist and are a nuisance, you need to demonize them and relentless push a narrative that somehow they are wrong.

Why do you think the whole "Reform" thing is happening ?

If Trump had lost (which was always a possibility) notice how he'd already put plan B in place to push the idea that somehow it was rigged.

Visiting Paris, you can still see bullet holes in some places where the Nazis shot resistance fighters in summary executions. People used to put flowers in them. Very humbling.

As we have lurkers reporting posts I suppose we'd better be careful.

I must say though I am really fucked off that my post screenshoting an absolutely hilariously stupid post (with the poster's name removed) was deleted, yet rampant misinformation is allowed to rage across the site.

Rudakubana gets sentenced today. Cue more calls for Starmer to resign I expect.

I don’t think there can be much doubt about a shift to the right. There’s been no point in the last 80 years that Nazi salutes have been acceptable yet here we are.

Hurrah for politicians who aren't interested in their approval ratings. The most stupid measurement that market research agencies insist on using.

I wish political polling wasn't allowed to happen so frequently. (And I say that as an ex-market researcher.). It's pointless, other than it makes money - and generates publicity - for the agencies involved.

Misinformation or disinformation?

As we have lurkers reporting posts I suppose we'd better be careful.

I don't have a problem with that - ultimately it's MNHQ that decide.

On the occasion I report a post, I don't see the need to announce it in the thread. It seems a bit performative to me. Especially as there is no way to check (I refer you to my previous point about secret ballots and public displays).

That is probably their purpose, big brother is watching you, be careful what you say

I would suggest to give them the andrea jenkyns salute

But to lurk on a thread you make no contribution to and is full of posters you clearly dislike in order to report posts is a bit sad IMHO.

If that's how people want to spend their time ?

We need a Golgafrincham Ark B.

“I do think he is growing into his PM role.”

I think the general public is gagging for statesmanship - I think this shift happened during Covid and the PM speaking on TV. People want to see and believe that someone is “in control” and now what to believe that the future is more rosy.
Now how to achieve that without lying through your teeth is another matter.

I am not sure Starmer is comfortable with a quasi realty TV hat on in the same way that media types like Boris Johnson or Trump are or Farage. But that is what the general public appears to me to be gagging for. It is not even about left or right ideology anymore.
I think Angela Rayner is better at this type of thing.

I think the general public is gagging for statesmanship

Whilst that may be true, and while Starmer may not fit the bill, the problem is who does ?

The last PM we had who was even vaguely statesmenlike was Cameron. Who it turned out was a yellow (not blue) cunt who disappeared at the first hint of grapeshot.

Before that, maybe Major - quietly ?

The last big beast was Thatcher - much as I detest her.

And I find the search for heroes in politics rather depressing. It ignores the everyday heroes among us.