Thread 24 Starmer -Casting the net wider

[DuncinToffee]

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https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5329855-thread-23-starmer-reflux-remedy?page=40&reply=144419737

LK told members that her first priorities include finding solutions to reduce disruption on Kent's roads, putting pressure on Government to adequately fund social care and improving education and skills for the County's young people.

Not much to argue with there.

I fear that Reforms contact with local government is going to reveal that people care far more about potholes than immigrants. It's one thing to ponce around in Dubai blaming immigrants for everything. It's quite another to tell a pissed off pensioner that the open cast mine outside their home is because of small boats.

"I wanted my bins collected, not a party political broadcast everytime I complain".

Maybe put taxes up to improve social care.

Then that will be something that Reform will say that they would also keep in place, whilst reversing tax cuts.

It's one thing to ponce around in Dubai blaming immigrants for everything 🤣

I can only speak for myself, but any future government is going to have to show it can use the tax it's getting efficiently before I'd pay more.

(This leads into a joke about an archaeologist and a palm frond)

Angela Rayner is on LK this morning (as is Badenoch)

The Scum is reporting a secret plot to bring back boris

That’ll be interesting. Badenoch is intimidated by anyone with any ability to communicate well!

What it comes down to is Rayner has charisma which Starmer does not have.

The amount of repellent comment about Rayner on MN however tells me that there are quite a lot of women with very strong negative feelings about her. The Tories were disgusting about her.

She did dispatch Lee Anderson pretty handily in Parliament and is probably one of the few politicians Reform might be worried about because she has that street fighter quality (this is compliment btw) which is an actual threat. Labour will not win elections by technocratic skill alone.

Really? Wouldn’t he need to fight a by-election and a leadership contest? Would he want to give up the dinner party mega bucks circuit? Seems very unlikely.

The UK government has plans to take on the housing developers.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj42wz92rl0o

I went to the leadership and deputy leadership hustings when she and Starmer were chosen. I said then that the deputy candidates were more impressive than the leadership ones.

So that is basically anybody in Parliament. Badenoch is bloody awful. She was made to look relatively good by her coterie of civil servants as a minister and now they are not available, she is revealed as lazy, unimaginative and leaden. I do not like Jenrick but he is conspicuously playing an impressive game. There is something wrong with the Tory members; they really believed she would clean up at PMQs based on her performance as a Minister. They should have considered what she might be like in a tight spot - it turns out no bloody good

He isn't an MP either, he has to win a seat first

I might not be so keen on Boris. One, the Boriswave, two, the distinct possibility of a Reform vs Tory face off where he actually loses and does not get in. The days of safe Tory seats are perhaps behind the party. Three, he is arguably the reason they are in such a mess in the first place. Had they not acceded to his Boriscult they might have kept a better informed membership but he made it a mission to get rid of any intellectual competition and embraced the worst quality Cabinet of my lifetime

I can’t see him taking the huge fall in income a return to politics would require.

Maybe if things go badly for this chap, there could be a by-election for Johnson to stand in?

www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0lnggjj9gko

Another Rayner thread has popped up. Why the little flurry of them?

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5341556-angela-rayner-set-up-to-fail

MN also seem utterly convinced she is a far left Corbynista and I wonder if this is just based on assumptions.

I honestly think some people think she is Rebecca Long Bailey.

She’s a very capable politician and if she manages tackle housing effectively then this would make her nearly unique. So many vested interests she will piss off in the process.

I also liked this this morning. Nobody sane can claim rail privatisation has been a success except for the shareholders. Time to turn the taps off.

www.theguardian.com/business/2025/may/25/first-train-service-renationalised-under-starmer-begins-south-western-railway

I read somewhere suggesting that it is McSweeney panicking when the attacks on Rayner start.

Wish I could remember where I read it.

Anyone else miss the Great British National Strike yesterday 😅

https://bsky.app/profile/parodypm.bsky.social/post/3lpy6cfcxyc26

I wish McSweeney would eff off quite frankly. He is doing nobody, least of all Labour, any good.

Well Labour are in trouble. 23 percent in the polls and Starmer and Reeves are very personally unpopular. I think it was always clear this Labour government would piss off a lot of vested interests but there seems to have been a huge naivety in terms of what the press would do.

If this situation is still largely the same in six months then it does not look good for the hard work on the domestic agenda which will start to falter. I give Starmer credit for the international work he has done which is clever and nimble, but you don’t win elections on this stuff.

I completely agree. In an ideal world Starmer would be Foreign Secretary under a different PM. I think Reeves is going to have to be jettisoned before long, she appears to be completely captured by the Treasury, less rigid thinking is required.

The amount of repellent comment about Rayner on MN however tells me that there are quite a lot of women with very strong negative feelings about her.

Let's be honest. It wasn't women who put Mrs Thatcher in power.