To conclude Starmer's Labour is no longer in any way "left"?

[windowframer]

Labour shadow ministers now use "lefty" as a term of abuse.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/08/middle-class-lefties-wont-stop-labour-using-private-sector-to-cut-nhs-backlog-wes-streeting-says

How can they make it any more clear what they do and don't stand for? Can you imagine the Tories fulminating about how they won't be lectured to be "middle class Conservatives", or Farage slagging off "working class Brexiteers"?

This post is not about "Labour good / Tories bad" OR the opposite. Just clarity about what "Labour" actually is.

Whatever it is . . . . . .

But how do we know that the left policies are going...Labour has been very coy in telling us any policy plans, only backing those areas of Tory policy which they know are vote wnners.
Where is the detail on taxation
Firm nhs and education plans
Increased defence spending has been mooted, but that's always an election winner.
What green policy? What about net zero and the cost on consumers?

The policies will be in the manifesto when an election is called. The Tories have a habit of stealing policies and claiming the credit, better to keep quiet until they can’t do it.

We’ll be holding our noses whichever we vote for this time round.

I agree It would be idiotic at a time like this (global conflicts, economies on their knees worldwide) for Labour to pitch their election messaging on a hard left mantra like Corbyn did. That really would be 'old hat and has been', completely inappropriate and they know it.

I don't agree that "nobody wants nationalised industries", the best decision they could make would be to renationalise all UK public services and utilities, such as energy, water, roads and transport. privatisation is heinous, public services should be government owned taxpayer funded, for the people and not about profit for fat cats. That's what's got us into this current mess.

What do you expect windowframer Labour to suddenly find a windfall of cash take over all of the privately owned services within the NHS so people get the treatment they desperately need when they need it and for many that is now

Its gone way beyond that you work with what you have not an ideology. Labour could look at non profit insurance system (France and Germany manage and both have superior healthcare systems) for much of our healthcare but this isn’t at the moment a vote winner so sadly they won’t

Once again, this is an article that doesn't quite say what the OP claims, and actually has quite a misleading headline. It's just another anti-Labour article from The Guardian. I don't love Streeting using the phrase 'middle-class lefties,' but, as it does say in the article, this came from a piece he wrote for The Sun. Therefore he is just playing to huis audience, which is the kind of thing you have to do to get elected. There have been a number of articles written by prominent Labour MPs for various elements of the rw press recently, and this was just one of them. Such articles are perhaps going to have phrasing in them that displeases the traditional Labour voters, but if you don't get new people voting for you, you don't win.

I’m not left in the slightest. Apart from the private school fees and not knowing what a woman is (he knows; he’s married to one, he just wants to be everything to as many voters as he can and has taken the view that women might not revolt as much as the rest he wants to appeal to) - there’s not much that worries me about them.

So yanbu.

*I feel politically homeless. Keir Starmer is a prick. Rishi Sunak is a prick.
Neither have the public's interest at heart.

This country is well and truly fucked*

A thousand times this.

The majority of Corbyn's policies were popular, individually. That's not incorrect but the Corbyn fans always refuse to understand one key thing - not enough voters trusted him to deliver a long list of ambitious and expensive plans without massively increasing the deficit and debt burden.

I like Starmer and I’m a Labour voter generally, but the lack of vision, ambition, or radicalism is a bit depressing. Literally nothing in this country works well or as it should, it needs shaking up, top to bottom, but there’s no sense of an appetite to do that (at least openly).

On one hand, I get it - they’re heading for a mega landslide, so why risk scaring the horses with something radical? Then again, they aren’t exactly garnering much enthusiasm - their main selling point seems to be that they aren’t the Conservatives.

Of course Scotland is part of the U.K., but it’s not governed by the Tories. @Keeprejoining said that the Tories are renationalising the railways, but the Tories can’t be renationalising the railways in Scotland because they aren’t in power there.

It’s hard to gauge where centre sits anymore when everyone has lurched so far to the right. I’m not even sure left and right work as descriptors in a neoliberal society. No idea what the alternative would be at this juncture but it’s all so bloody inadequate and irrelevant.

You've summed up what I feel. Blair was a centrist social democrat but he injected urgency and a feeling that things would change. One thing that he did was the pledge cards - little printed business cards they handed out with five pledges that Labour would see through. These were concrete, measurable targets: no child in a class over 30; treat 100,000 patients on the NHS waiting list; get 250,000 under-25s into work.

Starmer has tried to do the same but instead of actual targets he has vague slogans: "Take back our streets" and "break down barriers to opportunity". I don't have any sense of any actual change he will enact.

You mean exactly like Keir Starmer pledged to do when he ran for leadership of the Labour party?

That's right.
600 isn't for any particular reason, it just has a nice ring to it I think :P

The SDP did work. It prevented there being a Labour government for a decade. That was its purpose.

All I claimed is that Streeting used lefty as a slur, an insult, which is clearly true. What you're doing here is examining the possible reasons he did that - playing to his audience, and suggesting it may be justified. That doesn't mean that the article doesn't say what I claimed. It does.

My daughter has a condition that is treated in hospital via NHS but she is under a “private company “ that the nhs pay for in terms of supplies / nursing support / etc etc
and IT works sooo well.
we can’t complain about the company and doesn’t cost us a penny.

I think we need a better understating of what they mean when they say using “ private “ sector.

It does feel a little bit like Streeting has gone for the Lee Anderson playbook. I think they are probably holding the middle class , more left wing voters in contempt a bit, assuming we'll vote Labour because we hate Tories more. They are probably correct for now as there isn't a viable more left wing alternative .

If Streeting were my MP, he'd be hearing from me about contemptuous attitudes to a loyal voting base consisting, no doubt, of a lot of NHS workers.

Was responsibility for railways devolved? Network Rail covers England, Scotland and Wales.

Indeed. The Tories are currently doing the exact same thing, but because they are Tories, no-one likes the idea, and shouts "privitisation". Hopefully Labour, because it's Labour, will be able to make some meaningful changes, because, you know, it's OK, because they aren't Tories but Labour.

And you could say that about most policies to be frank. Labour will pretty much do the same as the Tories, but it will be more palatable, because people are ready for a change, any change.

To the OP - No "real" lefty parties have won elections for decades, Labour has to be centre left to get elected aka "New Labour", hence the need to distance themselves from the "loony left".

I agree Starmer and the Labour Party now doesn’t create the interest or excitement that things can change as New Labour did. Blair’s passion and charisma was a great advantage and a number of the shadow cabinet were high profile they also had Peter Mandelson and Alistair Campbell

But we have just come through a time of huge changes with big political personalities and political turmoil I think many will trust a leader who just gets on with the job, there won’t be the shiny pr spin, politics isn’t always entertaining I think many voters who may find Starmer dull will also feel he provides more certainty

their main selling point seems to be that they aren’t the Conservatives.

That is their only selling point most of the time. One has to ask one’s self - what sort of party is so ineffectual that people have no idea what they stand for, except for the old we’re not the nasty tories trust us we’ll get those rich people just you wait. Pitiful.

To be honest, after some of the right wing lunacy of the the Tories and the left wing lunacy of Corbyn, I'd welcome some centrist politics

You and me both

Unfortunately the Corbynista/Momentum headbangers haven't gone anywhere; they'll try to keep them out of sight for now, but once the party's elected they'll be stampeding all over the place once again

The non dom thing is a good example if why Labour aren't talking about their policies. The non dom status thing was earmarked by Labour to raise taxes for infrastructure planning etc, which now cannot be used, because the Tories have stolen the policy and used it for tax breaks. The pre school tooth brushing. Widely mocked until exactly the same proposal was made by Andrea Leadsome. I think Starmer has spoken about closer alignment with EU rules on trade, which the Tories can't steal, because they will poke the Reform bear. He has also spoken about constitutional reform, which I feel is important. I dont believe he is going to be some kind of Messiah, but I do believe that when the only alternative is a Tory government being rewarded for the disaster they have caused, voting Labour is the only way. You need to live in the world as it is, not in the world as you would like it to be. I feel some on the Hard Left would love Starmer's Labour to lose, so they can carry on agitating and activating instead of governing, and maybe try and get a Hard Left leader back again. They have no chance if Starmer wins.