Keir? Next PM?

[irisetta]

I don't think he is. Comes across as whiny and self-righteous. Next election I suspect the Tories are toast.

So - if not Dishi Rishi or Sir Keir - then whom?!

he has to be worth a shot

Ringing endorsement there.

You have to win an election in order to govern the country and that's the thing Starmer will have trouble with. If he wins, it'll be because people are sick of the Tories, and they put up a bad candidate.

Isn't that what always happens?

People hated the Tories in 1997 and went for Blair, against a bad candidate.

I suspect that much like in Australia and the USA, people have had enough of "personalities" and will go for boring instead.

Labour need drum home the message that after 12 years in power, nothing has improved & have got worse.

However, the huge problem Labour have is the lack of reporting on their policies and ideas.... at a recent Starmer Q&A, the right wing press didn't even turn up, Starmer was left saying "next we have Dave from the 'Express/sun/Mail....." who wasn't there.

We seem to be getting a very one sided narrative.

Polly Toynbee writes ‘Now the party must get people to listen’

that is the issue people switch off from Starmer, Rayner is loved by some Labour supporters but certainly doesn’t have broad appeal to voters and the rest of the shadow cabinet …. a few carry them (Streeting, Lammy, Cooper)

They are not getting their message across

Labour can't blame the right-wing press, any more than the Tories can blame the left-wing press.

That’s how all elections are won.

What left wing press @Florenz? Apart from The Guardian there is none.

The left-wing printed press is far smaller in number (Guardian + Mirror vs. Sun + Mail + Express +Telegraph + Times) and less influential in terms of number of readers.

Studies also prove that r-w views are amplified massively more on social media.

They can’t. They need someone to bridge the two warring fractions. A safe middling pair of hands.

I really like Starmer.

I might prefer bland and boring, if they actually had policies which benefitted the poorest and most vulnerable, and if they ensured that women’s rights could be protected from gender ideology. If childrens’ safeguarding needs were paramount and benefits for the poorest were put in place. Affordable rental homes. A return to the EU should also be seriously considered. But with the current band not prepared to take back some of the nonsense I don’t hold out much hope. Still not going Tory though.

I agree with you regarding the press but I had no idea about social media! I would definitely have thought it was the opposite.

Could you link to the research, please, I’d like to learn more?

He also diner have the unions on his side. The Unions drive all Labour’s elections manifestos.

@Thecatsatonthewalls absolutely. The right wing press are ignoring him. They haven't been able to find any skeletons in the cupboard apart from the ludicrous donkey sanctuary smear so they can't undermine him like Corbyn. They ignore the policies the LP are suggesting (see windfall tax and elimination of VAT on fuel) and then moan they have no ideas.
Folk are just parroting stuff about his lack of charisma when Cameron had about as much appeal as a smarmy second hand car salesman and as much integrity too. Blair and Johnson were both charismatic but look how well things turned out with them.

@ChardonnaysBeastlyCat some of the unions are no longer affiliated with the LP hence their issue with the RMT union.

@DifficultBloodyWoman read up on Cambridge Analytica and Dom Cummings. They managed to resurrect 2 million non voters to vote in the EU Referendum.

I thought there was a split in LP about this, some against and some supporting the strikes.

I might be wrong though.

That is/was more along the lines of targeted advertising rather than ‘amplifying’ right wing views.

I had the impression (possibly incorrectly) that the research @carefullycourageous was referring to was regarding amplification of grass roots voices. Again, my interpretation and I may have leapt to conclusions.

That is what I would like to learn more about as I always thought that the left wing was more amplified online. That said, I’m now wondering if it varies from country to country.

If anyone knows more about this, please point me in the right direction.

In the 70s perhaps but Labour has moved well away from that since Blair.

Union membership fees in 2019 were £6m, party membership was £16m.

But proves what an insurmountable task Labour have in getting their message across.

The guy who things it's wrong to say only women have periods? Yuck no thanks.

If any woman votes for that shit you're sealing your own fate imo.

When did he say that? I don’t remember it. What he did say is

Asked to define a woman, Starmer replied: “A woman is a female adult, and in addition to that trans women are women, and that is not just my view — that is actually the law. It has been the law through the combined effects of the 2004 [Gender Recognition] Act and the 2010 [Equality] Act. So that’s my view. It also happens to be the law in the United Kingdom.”

That’s democracy in action, right? The press reflecting it’s readership.

I think what you quoted actually works against Keir Starmer. It’s not painting him to be some rational politician who understand science.

It’s not painting him to be some rational politician who understand science

Just one who understands the legal position. Which is more than all the hyperbolic posters who maintain only Tories know what a woman is do. The legal position has been the same for the last 12 years.

And that will win him an election? Or is in line with the mood on this topic? He is wilfully politically inept.