Why is Keir Starmer so disliked (before the Mandelson scandal?)

[JacquesHarlow]

AIBU to ask this? Why was he so vehemently, fundamentally disliked by the British public, even before the Mandelson saga and the (admittedly awful) lack of judgement?

I have seen worse PMs in the last decade alone. I have seen venal, self-serving, arrogant liars hold the office in that time. I have seen hapless, posh types. We’ve all seen the one who couldn’t outlast a lettuce.

So why does Keir Starmer get so much vitriolic hate in comments sections, despite having only held the office for such a short time?

Is it his perceived lack of communication skills? I’ve seen some people criticise him for not being strident, positive, energised, chummy or any of the things we often see in modern politics.

Is it his lack of identifiable policies or political strategy, where people find they can’t get behind him because they don’t know what he (personally) believes in?

Is it ageism (yep I said it!) in that he comes across as formal and correct, in a time where we’re used to seeing other personalities on the world stage?

Or is it that thing I long suspected, that the country is by default Tory in nature, and that despite a heavy frustration at the last five years of Tory incompetence, they can’t bring themselves to accept this party, and are keen to take him down any which way?

The recent saga of the last week is awful. As a woman I can’t stand to see people like the former US ambassador be enabled.

However the hate for Keir long pre dates this.

so why?? Why do people “hate” him?!

P.S I do not work for Ipsos MORI, or Labour HQ, I am not a bot or a troll or whatever people accuse others of when they don’t like the question.

I didn’t dislike him before. I just thought he was terrible at herding his backbenching cats and that Rachel Reeves is completely incompetent and out of her depth and will bankrupt us all even more. I am sick and tired of them coming for families like us like we are some cash cows and responsible for all their mismanagement and bad choices.

However, now I have realised what a complete amoral liar and snake Starmer is I hate the entire Labour Party. I hated the Tories too for Brexit, I still do.
Not sure where this leaves me. Labour are a nasty deeply misogynistic party with zero respect for people’s hard work, utter disrespect for girls and women, students, educated people. They are deep poison as far as I am concerned.

Having said all of that, we are stuck with them for another two years and I can’t see anyone else being significantly better than Starmer. Rayner is terrible and the public would never ever have voted for Labour if she had been the leader. So if they put her in, that will be them finished for good for people’s living memories. There is a reason Corbyn never got anywhere.

I think the country’s values are small c conservative but also pro honest hard workers across all “classes”. I think successive politicians have destroyed this country and our values system and there should never have been this much centralisation and power and remote governing. It’s like we have gone back to imperial times of the elite out of touch dirty royalty in charge and all us commoners fuelling their debauchery and them just knocking for our sons and taxes and backing off our hard work.

"a heavy frustration at the last five years of Tory incompetence"

Five years?

He’s a lying, self serving little weasel of a man. He had none of the charisma (can’t think of a better word) required to lead and represent us on the world stage. He’s actually one of those men who makes my skin crawl.

He stands for nothing and goes for the lowest hanging fruit every time it’s possible.

conference: Not right to say only women have a cervix, says Starmer - BBC News www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58698406.amp That was it for me

He never had my respect again after that. What a fucking stupid man.

I think people are fed up and want miracles which no one can deliver.

I also think there is an element of those impacted by labour polices eg some private school parents have louder voters than those who were impacted by Tory polices.

I can’t see anyone who could replace Starmer at the moment though.

I don't think he is "vehemently, fundamentally disliked by the British public". There's definitely a vocal section of people who seem to spend their spare time commenting on Facebook (and here) but I don't think the population as a whole feels so strongly about him.

It was blandly obvious he didn’t have a clue before the election. No plan. No ideas. Just thought they could do better (tbf it was hard to see how they could be worse) but have clearly shown himself to be incompetent

No charisma. No deeply held convictions. No ability to articulate a vision for the country.

He's had a kicking from the start. The propaganda machine is powerful and very well funded. That's not to say he hasn't made some shitty decisions and said some fucking awful things ("island of strangers" comes to mind) whilst in post, mind.

It was clear he was weak and spineless in the shadow cabinet but as PM he's demonstrated he's also a liar and lacking in morals and integrity, as well as being utterly incompetent. He treats the British public with disdain and assumes they are all fools.

From the moment Labour got in certain sections of the media have launched an relentless campaign against them. For years the left were criticised as hysterical, frothing snowflakes but Christ, the Mail, Telegraph et al have been crazed since the last election.

It would be interesting to see how people would you order the integrity and competence levels of Starmer, May, Johnson, Sunak, Truss and Cameron and then compare that to the press they receive.

I think people saw an honest and decent man and thought that after the chaos of the last few Tory administrations he might make things better.

Unfortunately, the structural problems in the UK's economy allied to years and years of weapons-grade national self-delusion about what life should be like in a country of this size and wealth make it ungovernable, and that's before the rest of the Labour Party started holding him to ransom.

As I said on another thread the other day, there is a theory that the soul of the Labour party never really wanted Sir Keir to become PM. What they wanted was someone respectable enough to detoxify Labour after the Corbyn years, who would narrowly lose an election then quit before the right sort of proper socialist then took Labour back to power. The machinations going on in the party now were supposed to happen after Sir Keir lost in 2024, not after he won. The media are only too happy to help destabilise him, but they're not really the problem. His own party is.

It’s a fair question.

I think the reason is that he’s an unpleasant, hypocritical arse with terrible judgement and grabby habits, and who’s painful to listen to.

Which in turn is a fair answer.

How did we end up with a choice of Starmer, Kemi, Ed, Nige or Zack/Dave? It beggars belief.

Hurray (another) thread on why Starmer is / isn’t disliked .. to give all the same people, all the same arguments, they have been having for the last couple of weeks.

Unfortunately, the structural problems in the UK's economy allied to years and years of weapons-grade national self-delusion about what life should be like in a country of this size and wealth make it ungovernable,

nail on head @InveterateWineDrinker absolutely brilliant summary

Thanks @ExtraOnions for your kind contribution.

This “another” thread is designed to focus on why he appears historically disliked. It is not a Mandelson thread.

Hope that helps.

He always looks scared, he sounds like an automaton, he walks as though they're are mines on his path and he's braced himself for certain death. He's a terrible judge of character, and a terrible decision maker. He knows he's out of his depth, and it shows in his every move.

I've never seen anyone less suited to the world stage.

Because he’s clueless, he doesn’t appear to do anything, doesn’t stand for anything or have an opinion on anything, he’s probably too scared of offending anyone to open his mouth.

You mentioned a whole raft of options for why people dislike him except the for the reasons that are actually the point - he clearly doesn't know what he's doing.

Every government u-turns occasionally but he has gone back on policy time and time and time again. I voted for him and I'm not sure there is a party better than his right now but as a leader he has been truly awful.

The second reason is that he totally destroyed business confidence when they came to power. His first public statements were all about what a state the country was in. We know why he did - he was attempting to make the Tories look terrible and Labour look like our saviours, (and that has worked by fooling you by the sound of it!). The reality is that the country had been battered by covid, brexit and Putin but was on the path to recovery. Business confidence was increasing, inflation was recovering, NHS waiting lists were coming down. The country was already on the right path but they came in and told us everything was terrible and so in every Board room across the country, businesses started to panic. That is starting to get better as people acknowledge that the bleak picture that Starmer painted is not actually as bad as they claimed but there's a long, long way to go.

Finally, he has increased taxes so much, certain sectors (eg hospitality) are on their knees. At the moment, we have not seen any benefit from that. Maybe we will but right now there is zero improvement in public services. Whether he has set us back to leap forward remains to be seen. But right now, there is no tangible improvement to life that is a result of Labour policy and in many areas we have gone backwards.

He is a Labour PM and people expected him to fix everything and we are a country of small c conservatives so Labour PM have to work that bit harder

he doesn’t connect well with people

very poor pr

I do not believe he is disliked as much as Thatcher and as many as equally loved her and similar with Blair in his last years. No one holds him up that high and I don’t get the feeling in 20/30 years time people will still be going on how much they hate him as they do with Thatcher and Blair

and social media makes politics appear so much more divided than what the majority of people feel

He's a hypocrite - sold himself as being morally whiter than white and within months got caught taking freebies, bending lockdown rules and generally judging himself to different rules than others. He doesn't appear to stand for anything - he u-turns and flip flops on decisions and doesn't seem to have any convictions. He seems to hate Britain and wants us to be governed by a set of international laws that are all about virtue signalling as opposed to making the lives of ordinary UK citizens better. He can't control his back benchers so clearly lacks leadership skills. He also has no charisma and sounds like Zippy from Rainbow when he speaks. Other than that, he is great.

It's because of all his awful decisions.

sounds like Zippy from Rainbow

So, so true.