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?!

It's depressing when Keir Starmer is the best Labour can come up with. None of the Tory candidates are very inspiring either. WTF has happened to politics in this country?

I think that’s the right word.”bland” . Labour needs to find someone bigger and better, to do better, if they ever want back in. Pretending they are there and rhe electorate will vote them in is so idiotic. They are no where near.

I recall at the last election, some folks on here so adamant Labour would take it, when any fool could see it was going to be a landslide. And right now, irrelevant of the polls they are not in a much better situation.

But he didn't get more covid money. And whilst Joe Anderson in Liverpool acceded to the govt and got on with getting the numbers in his city under control by accepting govt aid with City wide testing, ultimately falling from the highest numbers to the lowest in the north west, Burnham refused to lockdown, even as the doctors in the GM hospitals were begging him because they couldn't cope with the numbers. And as a plus, he was telling Anderson that testing wouldn't work.
But hey, he's got a bee tattoo so he must be a great Manchester mayor.

Of course he has to sort out air quality in the city. He has to. Because the govt gave a legal directive to get 10 boroughs sorted out. And he can apply to their fund to do so. His clean air plan is a mess. It should have been in place in 2024 but it's been put back to 2026. And let's leave the whole issue of charges to one side because who can even figure out what he's doing about that. I guess he's got a focus group onto it.

And of course it's going to be the. Cleanest. City. Air. Ever. 🙄

I could but I don't live in Manchester so I don't pay close attention to local politics there.

How many who voted for Johnson (outside of London) could have named all the good things he did as London mayor?

It's the whole system.

Build a new parliament in Birmingham, open Westminster to tourism and sell it off. Abolish the House of Lords. Build a new elected second chamber based around the regions (another Burnham idea). Change the voting to PR.

If we want things to change then it'll take change.

Social media and unfettered Internet reporting. I don't who could or would want to have their lives picked over in the way theirs are. I remember people discussing Theresa May's infertility in the most disgusting of ways. The comments on Twitter were shocking. You've got to have a huge ego and the skin of a rhino to withstand it which is why you end up with Boris. The able but sensible people just wouldn't put themselves ir their family through it so wouldn't run. And it's only going to get worse.

People used to moan about Neil Kinnock but he was a hell of a lot more charismatic and inspirational than Keir Starmer. Same with Thatcher. Even John Major had a bit about him than current politicians. They all come across as very unlikeable.

I thought he did get more money not the amount wanted

I have not said Manchester would have the cleanest air (for a city) but I thought that was the aim

he has broad appeal Starmer simply doesn’t

So you could, but you can't because you don't know. So if you don't know, how do you know he's done anything good?

You're not alone, though. No one knows. And remember, he does have that bee and lovely eyelashes.

Kinnocks wife wasn’t liked (can’t remember why now) and Kinnock had to mend the party after Michael Foot

thats probably Starmer’s role now

@MarshaMelrose Our politics needs to change and Burnham has the right ideas IMO. Starmer is just another establishment man - like Blair was - so nothing would actually change and then after a term or two it's back to Tory rule again.

Proportional Representation, an elected second chamber and moving away from London-centricism would actually usher in some positive change. It's the stale old way of doing things that led to Brexit and the upcoming break up of the UK.

I don't know about charisma but Neil Kinnock had passion. You could see he was speaking with conviction and from his heart.
I wasn't a big Blair fan but he brought energy and enthusiasm. A plan for the future.
And then Starmer...🥱😴

That's the thing. Starmer wasn't appointed leader to become Prime Minister. After the scale of the 2019 defeat Labour had realistically written off the next election and thus were resigned to 10 years in opposition. Starmer was seen as a safe pair of hands to keep the party together after the Corbyn/Blair factions had been at war for years. So Labour would have a respectable defeat in 2024 and then maybe someone like Burnham would come back in and have a proper push for the election after that.

The scale of the Tory/Johnson meltdown since has been so vast (not helped of course by an unprecedented pandemic in terms of quickening up the process) that suddenly Labour have an open goal to win the next election, but they're stuck with a fairly boring, uninspiring leader.

So get rid of Starmer and get someone in who can win.

I'm not challenging your support of him. It's just interesting that as a Minister he never stayed in a position longer than a year. And he's not achieved anything as mayor. And yet people think he'll be great as a PM. And maybe he would be, who knows. But in a political career of over 20 years he doesn't have any sort of track record.

A two termed mayor, limited ministerial experience, achieved little as mayor, concentration on looks and what he does is going. To. Be. The. Best. Ever. Now who does that remind you of? 🤔 😉

@MarshaMelrose I don't think he'd necessarily be a great PM, but his main policy ideas and vision that he's set out are what we currently need and no other leading Tory or Labour figure are going to bring in that change. All the Tories ever care about is being in power, so they never change things for the better. Although the last PM to change the country was Thatcher because she had a vision, some of it was good, a lot of it was bad.

Starmer I don't see changing much.

So while i'd back Burnham I couldn't give a shit about his looks or style (although the personality helps in campaigns) but his outlined policies. I couldn't tell you what Starmer stands for, or what his policies would be.

@Quia
He's widely acknowledged by people who actually know about the work he did as one of the most effective DPPs of the last 30 years.

Oh yeah rotherham Saville ect whether he saw those cases or not he was head of the service.

Oh and his arse lickers think he did good lol.

He is useless wishy washy and no good to me.

any fool could see it was going to be a landslide

How odd, that surprised even Johnson. Certainly none of the pollsters or political commentators saw it coming.

Allow me to help you out.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/apr/12/labour-winning-policies-party-keir-starmer-public

Wait, Polly Toynbee writes glowing about Keir Starmer? What a shocker!

You've just demonstrated that you know nothing about the work he did. But, face it, even if you did you would still be prejudiced against him.

She sets out Labour policies which a pp said she didn’t know about. Now she does. What difference does it make who wrote it?

Starmer is intelligent with integrity. To say that you don’t ‘’think’’ he’s got what it takes to run a country and therefore you won’t vote for him, means you are happy to put up with the tories, even though you know for a fact they hold the British public in contempt with lie after lie and scandal after scandal, cuts to public services over the last 12 years and millions in poverty.

I just don’t understand how things can get any worse. He might not be everything everybody wants, but at this point in time IMO he has to be worth a shot. The man has more integrity in his little finger than that turd we have now. For Christ’s sake!!

To rule someone out who hasn’t even been given a chance in favour of the misery we already know is a shocking logic, especially when we can be confident that while Starmer isn’t perfect, he’s going to be better!

I despair sometimes.

More to the point, it astounds me how anybody ever thought Johnson was fit to run a country but Starmer isn’t good enough. 🤔🤯