How stupid are Labour MPs?!

[JoyousOpalLemur]

One after the other on the BBC this morning, all but one patting themselves on the back and almost dancing for how clever they are that they're forcing Starmer to resign so that Burnham will be coronated the new PM.

They all think they've got the new Boris.

Maybe he is, but it didn't work out very well for him - or for us - did it?

Starmer stood for leader once, won by a landslide, and then won a landslide general election. Burnham has stood for leader twice before, and got trounced both times. Winning a mayoral election in a Labour heartland is hardly a remarkable achievement.

They all seem to think Burnham will unite the left, but he hasn't given one policy idea that will appeal to left wing voters.

Starmer is a decent man. I don't regret voting for him. Burnham is an actor who says anything that he thinks will make him popular. I know who I'd rather have.

I've already posted about the Makerfield by-election.

Yup, Aberdeen North voted pragmatically.

I genuinely cannot believe that the focus is on Burnham’s definition of a women. A position that he is has shifted on.
Reform are pledging to revoke the equalities act. They are going to remove many of the current legal protections women have.
They have consistently voted against legislation to protect women in parliament.
It doesn’t matter if you ‘know what a women is’ if you don’t support them.

I support sex-based rights and protections, but anyone who believes Reform will support them is in denial about how they have voted in parliament and their stated intentions.
Reform are currently the most likely next government.

Starmer is an adenoidal cardboard cut out devoid of a backbone. Lacks gravitas. Thinks he’s cleverer than he is. The grown ups are in charge my arse.

King oft North will take us to hell in a handcart. 40 years in the planning <runs screaming from the room>.

Are we basically ungovernable? I hear Peru is trying to elect its 8th leader in 10 years. Are we the same as an ex South American dictatorship? How the fuck did we get here.

I do know but I’m not telling.

Totally agree with this.

I am so angry that the Labour Party have allowed themselves to be manipulated by the press. Some of whom are very right leaning, and some of whom just seem to think their job is to create drama rather than report things that have actually happened.

I was both astounded, and incensed to get an e-mail from The Labour Party themselves actually asking for donations to support Burnham's campaign, despite the fact that it is well documented he was standing specifically so he can oust Keir Starmer.

Reform must have been laughing all the way home in their 'win win' scenario - either an extra MP however incompetent or a Leadership battle in a party that actually already have enough to do balancing the immense amount of work they have to do to drag the country back from 14 years of austerity and years of shit stirring by bigots manipulating the hard of thinking, whilst also negotiating all the World's issues being created by Trump.

The big issue is that so few politicians have ever worked outside politics. Labour couldn’t articulate they meant by “working person” as they’re so divorced from reality: if you haven’t spent a decade clocking in, dealing with challenging bosses or the public, maybe being late to get to work or pick up kids as public transport lets them down..

This leads people to think they’re good at spending other people’s money because they don’t know how hard it is to earn it.

Farage’s weird selling point is that he and his candidates seem like people who have had jobs and understand the value and hard graft in having a job. The Conservatives have had real jobs, even if more white collar.

Until they get back to normal people in jobs going into politics, Labour will sound unconvincing.

A different AI overview
Leading UK online newspapers by digital audience.

BBC: Reaches the largest digital news audience in the UK, consistently drawing tens of millions of unique monthly visitors.
Mail Online: The dominant commercial newspaper website, reaching well over 20-30 million unique UK monthly visitors and hundreds of millions globally.
The Guardian: A major quality broadsheet that operates a highly popular digital-first, ad-free-supported platform.
The Sun: Reaches a massive audience across the UK with its extensive mix of news, entertainment, and sports.
The Telegraph: A premier premium digital broadsheet that focuses on politics, lifestyle, and business news.
The Independent: A widely read digital-only news brand in the UK.
Daily Mirror: A leading tabloid and mainstream news provider with a substantial online readership.
The Times: A prominent legacy publication with a robust digital subscription base.
Financial Times: The premier destination for global economic, market, and business

Statistics don’t exist in a vacuum.

I assume they are all hoping for advancement under Burnham and hope (desperately) he will be in favour long enough to give them power in the next election before he too falls out of favour.

@ExitPursuedByABare , Lacks gravitas. Thinks he’s cleverer than he is. Complete bollocks. He is highly intelligent and is well-respected on the world stage. What he lacks is a 'media-friendly personality', something the likes of Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson have in spades.

Currently 74% of people polled think Starmer is doing badly. Burnham may turn out to be no more popular, but I think it is pretty easy to see why they are doing this. I might disagree with the view of Starmer, but he is massively unpopular. If you don’t maintain power you are impotent. They think rightly or wrongly this will improve their chances.

https://yougov.com/en-gb/trackers/keir-starmer-prime-minister-approval

The Guardian trash every Labour leader. They were appalling with Corbyn and are twice as bad with Starmer. I hate that they do this under a perceived left wing stance, so deceptive, you expect it from Times and Telegraph.

I’m no big Burnham fan although he is on the very, very long list I would prefer to Farage. It’s just that the motivation. (a belief it will give them a better chance electorally) seem pretty transparent to me.

The world stage will move on and various leaders will be relieved their parties haven’t ousted them yet and hob nob with Burnham instead.

And they like them because they’re entertaining and fit the readers’ instincts about politics and other things.

Are you suggesting that their readership is too stupid to understand there are other sources or to spot editorial preference?

I laugh when I see political front pages of the Mirror and the People, but I don’t think less of their readers. It’s what they want.

The same level of charisma as Gordon Brown, I would say. NOT smarm boxes. NOT part of the personality cult. That is, Keir Starmer.

Err no.
I don’t laugh at anyone or think they are stupid based on their media choices. What an odd thing to say.
I think they present information is a way that is appealing (all media does that). I think all commercial sources present information in a way that supports editorial and ownership interests. Discerning the truth behind the headlines is a challenge for us all.

And they like them because they’re entertaining and fit the readers’ instincts about politics and other things.
They like them because they don't realise that the 'media personality' is not the politician himself.

Johnson was not going to win in 2024, not after partygate.

Yes this is the political reality of where things stand.

I’m inclined to think that just shy of 5400 votes in a northern constituency with 76,641 voters, in a country with 48.2 million registered to vote is hardly a mandate!

Burnham's attitude to trans completely sums him up and is emblematic of why I don't like him.

He was campaigning for self ID when it was popular in 2019.

Now he refuses to say trans women are women as it's no longer popular.

His view did a 180 degree change simply because it stopped being popular.

And he's like that on everything else.

This is about his judgement not whether men should have access to women's spaces. If he's opposed that when it was brave to, like in 2019, I'd have far more time for him.

Why would Labour MPs do what the right wing press tells them to do, and not what people who voted for them want them to do?

Why can't people accept that this chaos was entirely brought about by Labour MPs themselves, on their own accord?

We’re facing a whole load of issues in the UK and the wider world, and you think the choice of PM should depend on his view about whether or not someone with a willy can call themself ‘she’?

Literally the post you're quoting states the opposite - that his view of that is emblematic of his view of everything else; he has no ideology he just says bland, vague things that he knows are popular at the time