To wonder what could Starmer do, to turn things around?

[B0xes]

He was elected on fewer votes than Corbyn with very lukewarm support, the Tories lost that election, Labour did not sweep in on a tide of public approval, they just benefitted from peoples anger at the Conservatives. Since then, Starmers approval rating has tanked. He seems to have gone from one ill judged move to the next and seems totally tone deaf in speeches. Can he turn it around? What would he need to do?

Totally this. But he won’t because I think he knows he would lose.

Bit why would any PM with a massive majority even think of calling an election less than seven months after their party was elected?

@PandoraSox

"Bit why would any PM with a massive majority even think of calling an election less than seven months after their party was elected?"

Exactly- it's just not going to happen!

Hypothetically?

Because they’ve squandered it?

What would people expect the Torys to do differently?

The biggest reason they were voted out is the NHS. That's seriously under funded and not something that can be fixed over night.
It needs extra beds which in turn would next extra staff at all levels from cleaners to surgeons.
And actually the bed they have are understaffed too.

Exactly. I'm not loving a great deal of what I see as yet, but the situation running up to this has been horrendous.

Well the logical rational thing any government should do to improve the economy immediately would be to rejoin the EU.

But a load of idiots make that impossible.

I take it you mean the fact that Labour's lead in the polls has tanked recently and they are only a couple of points ahead?

Were you calling for a GE when the Tories "squandered" their lead in the polls and were well behind Labour for months on end?

I’m not calling for anything.’

Do you know what “hypothetically” means?

Look it up. Im sure there is an online resource you can use.

So essentially looking to be in the EEC, not the EU.

If the referendum had been on Maastricht, then we might still be in EEC

With Reform resurgant, though, I don't see this happening. We just have to make the best of the hand we've got.

His job

So you don't think that Starmer should resign or call a GE. Good! We are in agreement!

Drop all ‘woke’ nonsense. Everyone is over identity politics and policing of speech.

It was in the Reform election manifesto but I don’t remember anyone talking about it.

@LittleBigHead

"But a load of idiots make that impossible"

Well for a start there is the question of whether they would even want us back.

@noblegiraffe

"It was in the Reform election manifesto but I don’t remember anyone talking about it."

Well to be honest the fact that Reform's election manifesto was £150 billion underfunded meant that I pretty much glossed over this tax raise.

And what about social cohesion? Whatever those in their ivory towers may think, importing hundreds of thousands of young men with prehistoric attitudes towards women and zero desire to integrate isn’t actually a great idea. Even if they pick fruit. We need to get back to expecting people to see coming here as a privilege, not a right.

Go now, don’t keep clinging on to the end of the year..

Labour need to deal with

immigration

incentivising entrepreneurship

creating opportunities for young people to get into work

more affordable housing not filling the country with housing people can’t afford

sorting out social care

sorting out universities

I want to see genuine innovation, vision and creative, radical thinking to solve the problems we have.

I don’t see any of that. It’s all just tinkering around the edges. Labour adjusts everything a bit one way and the Tories come and adjust a bit in a different direction. It’s same old, same old.

Given that people are saying that Farage is going to be the next Prime Minister, perhaps there should be a bit more scrutiny of what he has planned.

I think Labour sadly probably need to engage the right wing media in some way like Tony Blair did, if they are to gain popularity.

I suspect they're front loading a lot of their unpopular policies, in order to put distance between these painful decisions & the election.

Thus far I support most of what they've done

Those who are calling for a general election now, who do you want to run the country instead?

The Tories? Seriously, how bad do you want our public services to get? Labour might not be able to work miracles, but at least they don’t seem to see the NHS as a cash cow for themselves and their donors. I wonder if any of them will be brought to justice for the Covid corruption scandals?

Reform, with the support of Trump and Musk? I can’t think of anything worse. They couldn’t care less about us and we would soon find that out the hard way.

The Lib Dems? They may not be a disaster, but they might not exactly be able to fulfil their election promises either. The last Liberal PM to lead a majority government was Herbert Asquith, who took office in 1908, but was later forced to form a coalition government with other parties (sounds familiar) and then to resign in 1916. So they’re a bit of an unknown quantity.

I don’t understand why they are giving uk tax payers’ money away to other countries, then taxing uk people more. Can someone please explain how this is supposed to benefit uk people, whether tax payers or not?

Why aren’t they sending our money to our schools, emergency services and hospitals instead?

Quite a bit of this I agree with...
planning reform, definitely, but with limitations on the development/use of prime agricultural land for housing. National infrastructure (power, water, transport) probably needs slightly different rules, but we may need a discussion on the maximum desirable population size.

High quality high density housing.

Social care reform, equally a very high priority, which will make any changes to the funding of the NHS more palatable, and honesty about what can/can't be funded within the context of continuing to advance medical science and improve surgical techniques -- which is a global race; for the next 25 years, this is likely to be very costly.
Rethink Net Zero targets and timetables... BMW claim to have a breakthrough in hydrogen fuel cells which may render EVs obsolete
Delay free prescriptions to retirement age, retaining the option of the annual Rx pass for those who need multiple drugs every single month to keep them at work.
Reduce Corporation Tax and minimise business/HR compliance burdens, especially for SMEs -- leaving vital health and safety measures untouched.
Time limit most benefit payments to 12 months, except in hopeless situations, but with better provision for reskilling and upskilling while the benefits are payable.

Much of the pension reform is largely done with auto-enrolment, but no opt-outs before the age of 55, and we need the rules/guidelines need to remain fairly steady instead of being tinkered with every two years.
Pensioners with income above the tax threshold to part-pay NI on their earnings over the equivalent to 2/3rds of NMW towards NHS and future social care needs.

Rejoin the Customs Union, Interpol and Erasmus, with a free pass for 18-30 year olds to move between countries to wherever they want to work or study, but without any benefits except basic or emergency health care.

He lost me before the election and there's no way back for me now.