To not get the visceral levels of hatred people have for Keir Starmer

[LastChristmasigaveyousomesocks]

I’m not suggesting he’s the greatest prime minister ever. I’m not even suggesting he’s good at all. But some people really, really passionately hate him.

He is a bit insipid and doesn’t have much charisma but overall he seems like a decent enough bloke who perhaps lacks the political skill and acumen he needs. He’s out of his depth basically.

But that’s not a reason to actually despise someone is it?

When did we get to a point where we can’t just disagree without painting the other person as the devil incarnate?

I think some countries have decarbonised AND got cheaper energy prices. But I accept that we haven't.

Which ones out of interest?

Perhaps we could follow Norway's model and set up an Equi-uk! Nice little sovereign wealth fund to draw on.

Norway, Sweden and France.

Norway with hydro
Sweden with hydro+ nuclear
And France with Nuclear + renewables

Norway energy prices for the consumer are ironically very high. Mainly because they rely on hydro which freezes in the winter!

?

I think there are some crossed wires here.

Chickenpet had a post deleted for hate speech. There is no doubt about that. You can check with MNHQ if you wish. My remark about 100% etc. was referring to Chickenpet's Crowborough anecdote, not their deleted post.

I like his calm , measured approach.

UK industrial electricity prices are amongst the highest in the world due to two factors:

Cost of production- this is due to effectively having to have double generation capacity needed: One set of renewables to run when it's windy and sunny and a second set of back up gas generation and nuclear to provide electricity when it's not sunny or windy. Plus two lots of transmission lines to connect each set.

Tax - Government subsidies to the renewables and Government subsidies to the gas and nuclear to sit there on standby and come on when needed.

We have a completely ridiculous situation with green hydrogen production in the UK where because of high electricity prices (caused by the green subsidies) it's too expensive to make green hydrogen. So there has to be subsidies for green hydrogen production to compensate for the subsidies to renewable energy.

Agree, the ones who hate on him are people who think he can wave a magic wand overnight The previous idiot and government made a real mess of it there’s no way that can be solved quickly.

Agree with this too, now Norway churn out cruise ships when they could have been built in the uk but short termism aka Thatcherism meant she closed down shipyards on the Clyde and decimated shipbuilding.

From what I just read. The UK builds mostly Naval. Norway does mostly commercial. Industries are both similarly sized.

For goodness sake, Norway is not ‘churning’ out cruise ships.

The largest yards for this type are in Italy followed by Germany/others. And no, they could not have been built in the UK, to scale. Try to look at macroeconomic factors, as opposed to your simple dislike of Thatcher.

The end of shipbuilding on the Tyne is one of those really sad stories where you just long for the decline to be reversed and for the investment to get going again. It has such a romantic history and was so important to the area. But realistically no matter how much is invested it could never be viable due to global competition. China can knock out a super tanker cargo ship from construction to launch in 5 months. And has the dry docks to do it.

Perhaps now the world is rearming we seem to be getting going a bit more on the naval ships on the Clyde as already mentioned. The Clyde has always had shipping. The yards weren't closed down.

No one got their hopes up, dont worry. The ones who hate him are the ones who hate his hypocrisy, incompetence and inept counter-productive decision making.

Most people never thought KS had any magic wand in his pocket. There was very little expectation on him at all when he came in on his loveless landslide.

Loads of work going on up in Barrow-in-Furness.. and for many years to come.
Same in Bristol, Lancashire. BAES and others.

You did. About citizens we might not want back

She's no longer a citizen

Every citizen of a nation has a right to enter and remain in the country

Exactly

I don’t hate him at all, but I’m disappointed in him. He comes across as weak, indecisive, and looks permanently worried (as well he might TBH) but people would like to see a bit of cheerful optimism now and then. He just doesn’t inspire much confidence.

Again
Although its often incredible the level of vitriol that is aimed at him by his opposition, that seems to be the way of society nowadays unfortunately
Its why his potential supporters might dislike him
And that's been covered many times. The thread has now just deteriorated into the usual bun fight of extremes. Ridiculous

In which case, why don’t we simply let the hard data do the talking.

Allow me to start.

Source: Statista
In January 2026, the net favorability rating for the current British Prime Minister, Keir Starmer, was -57 percent, significantly below other political figures such as the Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch and Reform leader Nigel Farage. Starmer's popularity has fallen considerably since taking office in July 2024, and as of this month, he was noticeably less popular than the Liberal Democrats leader, Ed Davey, and the Green Party leader, Zack Polanski.

Some more hard data. At the moment only Davey beats Starmer in "who would make the best PM". Your man Farage beats no-one, which is heartening.

Ok he’s clearly not liked that much, even with mn threads.

You are making some very odd assumptions about why people are objecting to him. I’m looking at his actions since he took power. I can’t see much to be positive about. Few actually wanted him, he just wasn’t the Tories.