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 . . . . . .

The Tories do*, but it hasn't stopped them from shitting on us from a great height.

*Pretend to anyway

Still more credible than the shower of shite that is this Tory party.

Trouble is, like with Blair, what is "popular" with the voters is often not actually the right thing to do given the big picture. Sometimes, the majority of the voters aren't actually right as they either don't understand the issues (Brexit) or they vote for their own interests (i.e. tax reductions), rather than what's best for the country as a whole.

But that's the issue - credible means believable. And Starmer got elected as party leader on false pretences - he's gone back on everything he claimed to stand for. So why do you think he won't do the same on his current rather different promises?

Who knows really. What I do know is that this current government are an absolute shit show.

I'm basically voting Not Tory and that's Labour in my area.

So many of the Tory policies have caused actual harm to people. I can't vote for them after that.

Maybe Labour won't keep all their promises, maybe they will. The Tories have proven they won't so I'd rather give someone else the chance.

Because he’ll be elected to govern the country on those promises and will be held accountable. Which of the manifesto commitments it made in 2019 has the Tory party kept?

Exactly.

Not to mention them trying to push the Rwanda Bill through and pointing out that the Lords aren't an elected chamber. It's evidently escaped their notice that the public didn't vote on a manifesto including Rwanda and nobody voted to have Sunak as their PM.

Read today's FT's George Parker interview with Ken Clarke if you can access it. Ken Clarke handed over an economy growing at 4% in 1997, and he acknowledges that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were serious and responsible stewards. As reported, in Clarke's view Sunak and Hunt have stablised the huge wounds Liz Truss left bleeding, but Rachel Reeves won't be able to wave any magic wands. As usual in politics. It is always about making the best spin on the possibilities. But anyone who thinks the funding for their preferred hobby horse is going to materialise with a new Labour administration is kidding themselves.

The most difficult thing in politics is that there are always more people in need of help than there are people keen to pay more tax. Most people won't work longer or harder or invest more if any reward is taxed so hard that the risk of taking it isn't worthwhile. It is vital that the proceeds of a few extra hours work benefit the person working and their family.

But when the state commandeers most of the profit, and wastes it on lost causes, why would anyone bother? It is very easy (and free) to claim that the rich could pay more, and should, to help the poor. But when the "rich" (by which I mean the busy successful self-employed tradespeople (like builders and plumbers who don't feel rich) earning £84k pa to stay under the VAT threshold) decline the risk of expansion, they do so knowing that most of the people who need more help could do a great deal more to help themselves.

@windowframer your initial post pushes so very many of my buttons and not necessarily in a good way.

let me explain why.

first of all, if you think politics are linear, who is to the right and who to the left really does depend on where you draw the line in your mind, that indicates the centre. That line can, and does change. Thatcher moved the line more to the right, hence New Labour. And on it goes. It seems to me that the ruling party at the time redraws the line. So Cameron was left of thatcher, then May was right of him, Johnson to the right of May (except socially, where he seemed quite liberal, sadly) and Sunak to the right of May (I exclude Truss as she seemed to me to be off the scale).

If you think of political opinion as circular, then the very far right and far left can, at times, seem almost inseparable. Some Trotskyist became Stalanist who can be seen as closer to Nazis than most other groups. See Russia.

When voting, I tend to go for a group who can realistically get into power and who put forward ideas that are better than (maybe not perfect, just better) the others.

I believe that we shouldn't let be "better" be the enemy of "perfect".

Sorry for the diatribe, I did warn you I'd had buttons pushed. Political theory is an interest of mine, despite having no formal education in it.

Starmer believes in a quasi religious ideology, if that isn't extreme I don't know what is.

I would go further and say they have a flawed perception even of what their own interests are. Eg voting for tax reductions if it means insufficient funds available to address the climate crisis, rather than voting for their children to have a habitable world to live in.

God what is it with this lazy thinking? Some elections are won from the middle, some aren't. Earlier I raised Margaret Thatcher, probably the most successful political leader of recent times, as an example of the opposite approach, although apparently that didn't count because it was so long ago. Still waiting to find out exactly when the rule was introduced that only centrists could win elections from that point forward.

For that matter, what was centrist about the Tory victory in 2015? Extending the unnecessary ideological austerity that had already devastated large parts of the country? Kowtowing to the far right by promising a Brexit referendum?

The Tories win elections because they express an emotionally appealing narrative about the present and future that resonates with people's values and aspirations. Sometimes this comes from the right (like Thatcher), sometimes from the centre right (like McMillan). Labour win when they do the same, either from the left (like Attlee) or the centre left (like Blair).

Starmer may end up with the dubious honour of being the first post-war leader to win an election despite not doing any such thing (have you ever met a single individual that's excited by his program, or for that matter even knows what it is?), but simply by default because all the narratives of both right and left have failed to convince a sufficient number of voters, and he's stepped into the vacuum thus formed. This probably says more about the state of British society than about him - that we are unable to formulate a solution to our current problems with majority (or even dcent plurality) consensus, so fall back on the old "well, let's just quietly in the middle and not DO anything much that might risk being a mistake".

And Starmer is nothing like Blair.

Which of the manifesto commitments it made in 2019 has the Tory party kept?

Well there's one pretty obvious one.

@user1471453601

Interesting perspective. Right and left are indeed difficult terms to pin down in today's political climate, being used differently regarding different fields (economic or social) in different parts of the world.

I really just meant "left" in the broadest, original sense, of government committed to a function of challenging the structures of economic privilege and inequality that have grown out of the past and determine the present, using its power to reduce that inequality and improve the relative position of the poor at the expense of the rich. Not just in rhetoric or short term policy tweaking, but structurally.

When people say that "the far left and far right are the same" I don't really understand what that means, except perhaps in terms of authoritarianism. Both Stalin and Hitler were so confident of the correctness of their ideology that they were willing to commit authoritarian atrocities to maintain it. I'm not sure of the relevance of that though. Corbyn was not Stalin and Sunak is not Hitler.

Labour is for people who got gifted their house deposits, who support the NHS but go private for some things and who support Palestine.

I'm voting Green

I'm not surprised you don't understand. Corbyn isn't far left and Sunak isn't far right

Does he? Do you have any evidence of that? Any quotes?

Thatcher didn't have an extreme message. She leant heavily into being a woman who know how important the family budget is and would run the country in a similar manner .
she also promised jobs
that wasn't an extreme electoral position

I don't think that he believes it. He won't come out and say that he disbelieves it though. A common theme with him is that I have little idea of where he stands on so many issues. He just equivocates, so scared stiff of upsetting anyone that he ends up putting off everyone.

Why would he say he disbelieved it?

If asked a direct question it's rather telling when a politician doesn't give a straight answer.

I’ve never known any politician of any party give a straight answer to any question in my entire 70 years on this planet.

Really? On this particular subject I can think of several politicians on both sides who have made their positions perfectly clear, and have stuck to them. Starmer's outlook has been changing with the political wind.

BIossomtoes
Labour has never proposed self ID

Yes they have!!

2017
Let trans people self-identify their gender, Corbyn urges May.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2017/jul/19/let-trans-people-self-identify-gender-corbyn-urges-may

Labour's 2019 general election manifesto (page 38);

LGBT+ Equality
Labour is committed to reforming the Gender Recognition Act 2004 to introduce self-declaration for transgender people.

2021
Labour’s Keir Starmer doubles down on vow to reform Gender Recognition Act and introduce self-ID for trans people.

The Labour leader made the pledge to the LGBT+ community as part of a video message for PinkNews‘ Pride for All celebrations on Wednesday (9 June).
(Video message in the link - 2:22 in the clip)

Starmer’s decisive call for action drew a sharp contrast from the Tories and won him effusive praise from LGBT+ veteran Michael Cashman, who said he planned to rejoin the party.

“Absolutely brilliant. No equivocation. This is what I call leadership. Congratulations Keir Starmer,” Cashman tweeted. “Tomorrow I apply to rejoin Labour.”

https://www.thepinknews.com/2021/06/10/keir-starmer-labour-party-gender-recognition-act-self-id-trans-people-pride/