Taking bets... Keir Starmer or Kemi Badenoch?

[Papyrophile]

Which will lose their party's favour first?

Kemi will say something offensive and her positiin will become untenable.

Which option are we mean to pick? YABU or YANBU?

The Tory party desperately needs a unifying leader. It’s going to be fighting on two disparate fronts at the next election to regain the voters who moved to Reform and those who went to the Libdems or even Labour. That’s virtually impossible. Add in enthusiasm amongst younger voters for left leaning parties including the Greens and traditional Tory voters dying and not being replaced and they’ve got a mountain to climb. I don’t think they’ve got anyone capable of doing it.

I wondered that myself. Maybe @Papyrophile will come back and tell us.

She's unelectable.

The bookies don't rate her chances.
https://www.racingpost.com/sport/special-events/politics/latest-politics-odds-and-betting-news-ayBho2U1ZFIQ/

@BIossomtoes

"Add in enthusiasm amongst younger voters for left leaning parties including the Greens and traditional Tory voters dying and not being replaced and they’ve got a mountain to climb. I don’t think they’ve got anyone capable of doing it."

I agree that there is enthusiasm amongst younger female voters for left leaning parties but from observations on the French and US elections there is enthusiasm amongst younger male voters for right leaning parties.

Why would Labour get rid of KS? He got them elected with a huge majority after 14 years in opposition.

He only appears unpopular because we've got a rabid pro Tory press which fortunately has a dwindling readership and influence.

Most people are pleased he stuck to his pledges not to raise income tax and NI for employees and he's promised to reform the NHS.

I hope Kemi Badenoch holds him to account when it comes to women's rights (i.e. not trans gender rights) but I'm also confident she'll ensure the Tories are in opposition after the next general election.

I doubt Kemi will last very long.

It's actually very unusual for a party to change leader mid-term when they are not in power. I think the Tories have only done it once (IDS) and I'm not sure Labour have ever done it.

Assuming you mean "without the previous leader having just lost a general election" then I would add Margaret Thatcher replacing Ted Heath, who wanted to stay on after losing in 1974 (and never forgave Thatcher for replacing him).

It's easier for the Tories to change leader because they only need 15% of MPs to write to the chair of the 1922 Committee to ask for a vote of confidence in the leaded, which at the moment means just 19 people. So the possibility of what the Australians call "a spill" is built into the constitution of the party.

I'm not sure what has to happen for the Labour party to get rid of its leader without that person having resigned. In 2016 81% of the 212 Labour MPs voted for a no-confidence motion in Jeremy Corbyn and he went on to lead the party in two general elections, so being leader certainly doesn't require commanding the admiration of even the slimmest majority of the party's MPs.

On that basis I think Starmer can probably stay around as long as he wants to. He's 62 and I doubt if he plans to serve two full five-year terms. Badenoch will last until the backbenchers get tired of her. I'm guessing that she probably will make it to the next general election as there's not exactly a wealth of talented people likely to mount a coup against her. (One concern I have for her leadership is that the unreconstructed racists who stuck with the Tories may well make the jump to the right, and this may affect polling. There's already plenty of unpleasant comments on right-wing social media about her origins.)

100% this. There's little chance that KB will appeal to the majority of Tory voters, never mind the general electorate. She's fairly unpopular - in politic terms - in the wider world.

It’s not looking good for Keir right now….Yougov poling numbers so nothing right or left wing hopefully 😂

I think any party having its first black woman leader is great for the UK, so I congratulate Kemi Badenoch and the Tories on that.
But as a leader personality I don’t think KB works as a unifier. I agree that she is likely to say something outrageous because she will be chasing back the Reform vote. And then the Tories will turn on her.

Moderate centre ground Tories who feel politically homeless since Boris expelled the moderates over Brexit in 2019, will still feel the same. They won’t return to the party under KB. Extreme right wingers have got Reform to vote for now. So the overall right wing vote will remain split. Starmer as a centrist left winger can afford to be relatively a bit unpopular for a bit.

And as Guido Fawkes reports, this was the lowest turnout of Tory members’ votes cast in the last few years. So presumably a good chunk of the membership didn’t much like either of the candidates. That’s not a great starting place for KB. Especially since Tory members must be fed up and desperate for any leader that will stick, after today getting their fifth party leader in the past five years. Since 2019, they’ve had Theresa, Boris, Liz, Rishi, now Kemi.

‘120 days after the election Kemi has survived the MP rounds and taken the member vote. The long slog of actual opposition begins…

• 72.8% turnout.
• Kemi Badenoch received 53,806 votes
• Robert Jenrick received 41,388 votes
• There were 655 rejected ballots.
• 66,288 electors voted online and 29,621 electors voted by post.
• Badenoch 57%, Jenrick 43%. A decent margin…

Turnouts:

• 2005: 78%
• 2019: 87%
• 2022: 82%

A drop this time round. 30% of the membership didn’t bother to vote…’ https://order-order.com/

Opinion polls are meaningless now.

It's fairly meaningless tbh, three months into government after 15 years of Tory rule and a few days post-budget.

True and the real test is closer to five years from now unless one of them becomes so unpopular their own party ousts then before then (😂 cause we’ve been down that road a number of times from both parties). Normally there is a bump when someone is elected but Keir is fairing lower than he should be at this point.

The Mail on Sunday, the Sunday Express and the Sun on Sunday aren't running Kemi's win on the front page.

That's not a good sign.

Maybe the 'rabid Tory press', charged with the demise in popularity of Starmer, didn't get the memo?

He has got a solid majority. He doesn't need to be popular now. He needs to make the "unpopular decisions". He is investing his political capital now with the hope that the return comes before the next election. The test will be whether it works of or not, which it is too early to tell at the moment.

KB is not extreme right wing.

Probably just weren't confident enough at the time of going to press that the letters wouldn't have already gone to the 1922 committee.

I think Labour will win the next election, sadly, and then they will absolutely go to town on pensions and income tax. No taxing more for the big corps or the ultra rich. Just more raids of people's savings to prop up the dying NHS and placate the unions.

The only thing they won't have is the goodwill of the people and the belief that they were going to tax those "with the broadest shoulders", as we now know that means small businesses and farmers.

Kemi is a fascist - no thanks. Kiers' steady, not setting the world on fire but at least has morals - he has a long road to travel still. I suppose the voting at the next election will show how far to the right this country is willing to go, all the talk of 'be kind' doesn't quite tally with the selfishness of far right politics.

.

Hopefully!