Thread 29 Starmer - Paint your Bandwagon

[DuncinToffee]

And do a little rain dance

previous thread
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/5385382-thread-28-starmer-weodmonath?page=40&reply=146569893

Well, yes, Labour leadership look v weak & rudderless...

Huge majority but unable to command.

And yet in August's YouGov political favourability ratings 61% view Reform's Farage unfavourably.

The Labour politicians who do have conviction are pretty much drummed out or silenced tbh and that is a problem. By 'since Blair' do you include him? Because a lot of Blairism is about not having 'extreme' views.

Not sure there are any tubthumpers left.

Yes they do but most Americans don't like Trump....

34% was enough to get Lab into power.

Blair railroaded the UK into an illegal war. He abused the position of Prime Minister to solemnly go on TV and tell us that the UK faced an existential threat and that anybody who disagreed was a danger to the UK.

I watched that and I thought "Much as I dislike the guy, no one would ever lie at that scale. You can be too cynical".

Turned out I was wrong.

And because it's all an old boys club, successive premiers have failed to call that out and just bumbled along as it it was nothing to see.

That's my opinion. That's my worldview. Others are available.

No one can be sure. But the regional instability that resulted from USUK involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan - all in pursuit of a Saudi Arabian bad boy is certainly one of the drivers for refugees. And if you are a 20-something Afghan man living in Afghanistan thinking "OK, it wasn't heaven on earth but pre 2003 things weren't anywhere near as bad as now" then you too might want to head for the land of the people who fucked your country over. If for no other reason than you probably learned their language when they were patrolling your streets.

You know how many times the old "Why don't they stay in France ?" line is trotted out ? One of the reasons is that French soldiers were not patrolling Kabul.

Yes Starmer is personally responsible for sending to jail every person who breaks the law and is sent to jail or let off.

What nonsense is that 😂 ?

How is that achievable in the next four years? Timid doesn't play a part in politics unless it's on an foreign/international scale.

A local in my FB group has just posted about being "woken up" by a Labour leafleter at 5am. Complete with doorbell footage.

First comment was that it was probably one of "Starmers illegals" with a picture of the local Labour surgery times and locations.

I am not sure what Labour is expected to do with these Reform speeches. Go on a full attack and validate Farage?

BBC and Sky are both live streaming his speech, why?

When the BBCs lead story is about what a party with 5 MPs is talking about doing, ignoring even the Tories who have over 1o times as many MPs, you know the game is up.

Who is paying for all this free publicity ?

Oh, look, it's us.

Responding to Farage, Prime Minister Keir Starmer's official spokesperson told reporters:

"The ECHR underpins key international agreements on trade, security, migration, and the Good Friday Agreement, and anyone who is proposing to renegotiate the Good Friday Agreement is not serious."

Just to come back to parliament, Trump has disbanded congress, so there's no reason to think Farage wouldn't just dump parliament.

Yep massive open goal on the Taliban and they go on about an agreement most don't understand or give a fuck about.

Clueless.

Makes it easier for him not to attend

🤢

Ellie Reeves

I ask the same question. The leader of a party with 4 MPs, given such massive prominence.

I think this may explain https://www.adambienkov.co.uk/p/the-bbcs-plan-to-appease-nigel-farage

As a useful diversion, how do folk think the UK could truly fracture in the coming years ? Generally the only thing I can take from history is it will probably be unexpected.

In that vain, I can see a future where "England" has to take over the running of Scotland and Wales in order to protect the "Russian English speaking minority" from Celtic oppression.

The US is a republic with a written constitution and is not comparable to the UK Parliament. Meaningless.

And yet still only has four MPs.

So where is this famous "constitution" ? Where are congress ? How is Trump being allowed to rule by diktat ? When was the last time anything he ordered was denied or reversed ?

Sorry, the Americans have spent too long preaching about their blessed Constitution to actually understand it. Familiarity does breed contempt.

The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and that is expensive.

So a peaceful coup?

It's not really a coup is it ? There's been no struggle (yet).

I am sure we can all think of similar courses of history. It's not the point of submission that's the flashpoint. It's when the populace realise they have been had. And by then, it's too late.

Gore Vidal (much overlooked prophet of the latter part of the 20th century. Foresaw Thatchers downfall - and the reason - in 1986) was on a UK chat show (possibly Parkinson) in the early 80s. The chat was about the UKs recovering and selling abroad and how closer ties with Japan would naturally be inevitable because - well because we are British donchaknow

There was a measured pause and then the perfect response ...

"You know I know a lot of Japanese friends, and if I were to ask them what Britain has to offer they say: 'Britain has the English language. And we have already stolen that'."

Trump wanted power. And he has already stolen it.