Thread 25 Starmer - Cheers for a falling out among thieves

[DuncinToffee]

Previous thread

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5338688-thread-24-starmer-casting-the-net-wider?

Pretty everything that is wrong with the UK can be traced back to her... she did what she did to make sections of society extremely wealthy.. i'd call that corruption... not skilled politician... aided by a right wing media, she was basically a polite Trump.

I also think she would have pandered to the ERG, as it was in the 2010s, she did become come Eurosceptic after all.

May sold out the country to keep her party together... which has worked out well....

On the wider point, PMs/Leaders of parties, should be selected on ability only... by enlarge, with an exception or two, Labour do select on merit.

It’s completely stupid that someone losing their footing on a pebble beach should have any impact on how people view their political competence. Same as Ed’s bacon sarnie.

I agree with that - I'm old enough to remember Thatcher being elected, but I was only 11 at the time. It's a negative development, though. The way debates on MN about school uniform always have people mentioning in all earnest that 'uniform prepares them for the world of work' just goes to show how blind people are to the way the world is changing - or how blind they want to be.

Pretty everything that is wrong with the UK can be traced back to her...

I agree - but Blair didn't help either. I believe we'd be in a very different country today if John Smith hadn't died.

I agree about John Smith.

Me too. Greatest PM we never had.

If John Smith hadn’t died though, Tony Blair was much less likely to have succeeded him. There was a huge swell of love for John Smith which Tony Blair benefited from.

I’d forgotten that @derxa

What I will always remember though, is this speech:

If Margaret Thatcher is re-elected as prime minister on Thursday, I warn you.
I warn you that you will have pain–when healing and relief depend upon payment.
I warn you that you will have ignorance–when talents are untended and wits are wasted, when learning is a privilege and not a right.
I warn you that you will have poverty–when pensions slip and benefits are whittled away by a government that won’t pay in an economy that can’t pay.
I warn you that you will be cold–when fuel charges are used as a tax system that the rich don’t notice and the poor can’t afford.
I warn you that you must not expect work–when many cannot spend, more will not be able to earn. When they don’t earn, they don’t spend. When they don’t spend, work dies.
I warn you not to go into the streets alone after dark or into the streets in large crowds of protest in the light.
I warn you that you will be quiet–when the curfew of fear and the gibbet of unemployment make you obedient.
I warn you that you will have defence of a sort–with a risk and at a price that passes all understanding.
I warn you that you will be home-bound–when fares and transport bills kill leisure and lock you up.
I warn you that you will borrow less–when credit, loans, mortgages and easy payments are refused to people on your melting income.
If Margaret Thatcher wins on Thursday–
– I warn you not to be ordinary
– I warn you not to be young
– I warn you not to fall ill
– I warn you not to get old.

Tony Blair PM is an anagram of I'm Tory plan B.

I really wanted then (and still want) a more traditional socialist option.

I’d rather John Smith had benefited from it.

By the time Blair came along, it was all too late, NS oil sold off, most of our utilities sold too, proceeds given away in tax cuts.

He could have turned around housing and supported the unions far more but, heck he was head n shoulders above what we've had over the last 14 years.

& no i don't blame him for Iraq, that was always going to happen, the US wanted that war and it was going to happen regardless plus what if we'd done nothing and Iraq did have WMD's or went on to remanufacture them? Saddam had used them before.....

Well yes, but let’s not pretend that the Labour party were going to be voted in then. Tony Blair did what he had to do to get the party into power. It was his later years that have discredited him.

A powerful speech

Time to recommend this book again:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Prime-Ministers-We-Never-Had/dp/1838952411

I don’t think that’s true. We’d had 18 years of Tories at that point. Major himself says they were exhausted and fresh out of ideas. We’d have had a change of government under Smith.

The massive exception to this being Corbyn, a man who had been on the backbenches of the Labour Party for a very good reason. It wasn’t even his political stance that bothered me, it was his absolute lack of guile which made him incredibly ill suited to a role where to base cunning and eye for the main chance is essential.

Politically Corbyn's views are close to mine - but I'm also not daft enough to realise that he really wasn't a 'leader'.

I don't think Margaret Thatcher actually hated social housing, it was more that she believed people wanted to be home owners which I think is true. People would much rather own than rent. She felt that by introducing the Right to Buy it would help working class people to achieve that.

Corbyn was the leader than batted me away from Labour for a while.

Johnson and Truss sent me back with a great forehand.

I didn’t dislike Sunak completely but for me the Tory party had lost too much direction and gone too far East (right) for my liking.

I sit quite centrically with more left views than right and so one nation Tories are a better suit to me than far left. And a more centric Labour is better suited to me than a Tory far right.

I always chose Labour over Tory until Corbyn. If I was ever faced with the same dilemma again I’d go Green or Lib Dem.

I honestly think I’d never lend my vote to the Tory’s again tbh.

Can I just add I’m loving the conversation on his thread so far.

It’s great to get into a deep debate about PMs past and present and how we got to where we are.

She could have mandated that every house sold should be replaced - but she didn't. That was her mistake, and it was unforgivable.

I don’t know how old you are, or if you were around back then, but there was a pretty seismic shift after John Smith died, that significantly benefited Tony Blair. Whether or not John Smith would have won, obviously we’ll never know. But it’s a sad fact that his death galvanised a definite move towards Labour.

I’m old enough to remember, and to have voted. Pretty sure @BIossomtoes is a similar age. Tories were a spent force.

None of the other parties after Thatcher did much about it though they could have done.

Even Private Eye were kind about Smith. I remember the cover they did when he died.

Still, it was the time of the great Scots (ahem) at the top of Labour politics and all throughout 2010. A very impressive set of politicians