To think Starmer will be gone by the end of Friday? Or will it be Monday evening?

[SingleSexSpacesInSchools]

Whoever you are voting for today, it's probably not Labour - they might loose 2,000 seats.

How long exactly will it be before he resigns?

Should probably have expected this but there is this side of things, alongside posts screaming that's it's WORSE THAN EVER EXPECTED, CATACLYSMIC and so on, on Twitter. Haven't looked in detail but it seems as if things have gone as expected but to a slightly underwhelming degree. Reform have won loads but are not, according to John Curtice, headed to get over 30% of the vote. Labour have lost loads but closer to 50% than 75%. Greens have won some but not with the strong surge some predicted.

All that may hold off the insanity of a change of leader. I hope it does. It does also seem to indicate that Labour should be more concerned about losing votes to Reform than to the Greens and act accordingly. I'm not thrilled about that, but that's democracy for you. And the media need to properly get their act together and actually scrutinise Farage rather than just gush over the drama he and his party create. Do your jobs, journalists.

KS wont go, because let me tell you, AR is a billion times worse than him. In some ways, KS is the lesser of two evils. I wish they would just call a snap election. Oh wait - he wont as he knows he will lose. Again.

Nothing about Starmer could be described as 'left-wing'. What exactly is 'leftist woke welfarism', so I'll know to avoid it when i see it?

Starmer and his cronies are champagne socialists. The absolute worst when it comes to politics, as they pretend to be ordinary while using every advantage their money and position affords them.

Well done, congrats.

From your previous post:

"GB allowed the banks to lend 125% mortgages and dish out BTL loans like smarties”.

If you had said GB didn’t reverse enough of the finance sector wild west which developed out of changes made by the Tories I’d agree with you. However I also remember every time there was the slightest move back to a little more regulation the banking, finance and multinationals all moved in big time to lobby against it. In fact on 125% mortgages specifically there was a tightening up under Labour and I recall my then neighbour talking about buying to let using equity from property inflation becoming more difficult (they ran a property business).

As it stands the worst you can accuse them of is not being able to effectively oppose huge vested interests reluctant to surrender the power they had acquired until by 2008 they were eating their own tail.

Heaven forbid. He's the best there is just now.

Many of the unexpected winners in a landslide know full well that they won’t get reelected so have no incentive to support a government but also won’t vote for an early election.

The model of “sound stunning and brave" for five years and cultivate the right businesses/quangos for the next job applies to the surplus backbenchers whichever party has the majority. Most PMs would rather a smaller majority without the trouble makers on the back benchers.

Uncanny:

https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/2052669277807743190

"These are tough results for Labour. There’s no sugarcoating it. We’ve lost brilliant Labour representatives who’ve stood up for their communities.

People are still frustrated. Their lives aren’t changing fast enough. We haven’t offered enough hope or optimism for the future.

I was elected to change this country - tough days like this don’t weaken my determination to do that. They strengthen it."

And only about 25% of things have been counted.

I (mostly) agree with this.

The results are bad, but not bad enough and so far not near the complete wipeout that was predicted by some.

I don't think they will be bad enough to force Starmer out of power (along with the other issues that he is dealing with at the moment).

I don't think expecting the press to come up with votes for the Labour party is a wise idea. Especially since the press often have their own agenda and aren't necessarily going to turn up on Labours behalf at any time.

Ideally if parties want to gain votes they should do what they have always done.

Listen to the people that didn't vote for them, and instead of name calling engage with them, and come up with policies that address their concerns or meet their expectations.

Unfortunately for the Labour party this probably means a shift to the right, and the enduring problem of balancing the right and left wing sides of the party.

You know only about 30% has been counted?

Yes.

People are still frustrated. Their lives aren’t changing fast enough. We haven’t offered enough hope or optimism for the future.

What the absolute fuck is he in about?!!! He just last week told us all to prepare for inflation having presided over the biggest tax burden placed on working people in my living memory. What optimism does he think he has offered exactly?I

The only optimism I have for the future is these cunts will leave and someone sensible might get in.

No - I agree.

He won't lose a vote of no confidence if one got called in UK parliment- he has enough back benchers who want to stay as they are.

I think that was one of the many problem with last Tory governments so many were either stepping down or knew re-election unlikely so the party whip had little effect on them so actually getting votes for government bills was really hard. TBH though this government seems to step back from fights with back benchers anyway.

I think they are clearly going to cling on and hope something happens to bring voters back to them before they have to call next general election.

I'm not so sure they actually do anything about voters being so unhappy with them and the fall out from Iran war with food yields due to less fertalizers and high prices and fuel shoratges still hasn't fully hit.

You think the PP constructed that list? Its remarkably similar to the list I’ve just pulled out of a couple of AI tools just for the hell of it.

The London riots were not a one off - there have been similar events in other cities at times of unrest coupled with very hot weather.

The sad thing is that the main reason I wouldn’t want Rayner to be leader/pm is nothing to do with her policies or whether should be good at the job would be that she’d be treated vilely by the press, social media and bots. Because she’s a) woman b) has red hair and that’s just for starters.

Which of your taxes have gone up since 2024? Obviously I’m paying more in tax because my income has risen but that’s the only reason.

Were any of the facts listed incorrect? Do you really think BJ or Truss were even vaguely decent or trustworthy politicians?

I have no trouble recognising May or Sunak as perfectly decent people doing what they believe is the right thing (just a thing I happen to disagree with a lot of the time). I think May was in the wrong job, Sunak was there at the wrong time. Most Tories I know regard Starmer in a similar manner.
BJ was a corrupt liar who spent his time feathering his own nest and subsequently exploiting his position on that nest.

I had to bury my DM in a shitty little funeral without most of her lifelong friends and family and we were not even able to offer so much as a cup of tea for the tiny number of permitted people. That same day Boris and his chums were partying. This isn’t something people forget and trying to dismiss his actions in the way you have if frankly insulting to everyone who was screwed over by him.

The reason why Rayner would make a poor PM is that it is pretty questionable to appoint a PM that moves the party to the left when the major threat in terms of taking votes is appearing from the right. What they need to do is capture more of the centre ground.

I think there is such a dearth of talent in politics in general people would be happy to accept anyone who had an ability to govern the country, irrespective of their hair colour.

The backbenchers are going to have to give up their delusion that with such a large parliamentary majority, they have the luxury of protest voting against the government of which they are part. We're in the quagmire Denis Healey spoke of now, with MPs wanting to enjoy 'the moral righteousness of opposition'. The government needs to have outcomes and results to show the electorate in 2029 or be out of power again.

I don’t think it was an accident that the referendum (15 years ago?) soundly rejected the move away from FPTP. It was obvious that the type of PR was designed to give the LDs a near permanent balance of power and was no more democratic than the existing system.

Of course the rub is which type of PR? Each party in power prefers the model which keeps it in power. Historically the FPTP system has forced both the main parties to be pretty broad churches and so implicitly each government has been a left or right leaning coalition but without the months of negotiations between the election and effective government.

I agree with you that the assumption that one of the many variants of PR is necessarily more democratic is unevidenced and most of the supporters of PR cannot describe which version they want and assume people would vote the same way (IME). There is no reason to assume that an electorate entirely capable of voting tactically now, will lost that ability under a different voting system.

I also believe any significant constitutional change should be able to command a two thirds majority - I’d consider that more important than the minutiae of the voting system which historically has not stopped voters making substantial changes to government.

The trouble Labour’s got with Starmer clinging on is that there isn’t anything he’s done that might work out well for voters, but just needs time. There’s no big economic, structural or political change that’s been put in place and needs to work through, for better or for worse.

The gist of what the government’s done in two years is just tax and spend (wastefully) and plan some pro-union and net zero measures, plus some ineffectual mumbling about the EU. The overall impression that people get is that this government is just for public sector workers and ‘right thinking’ metropolitan types.

You can’t win elections on the votes of NHS employees and the better-off residents of Islington.

And under Starmer Labour looks sleazy and dishonest too - and appallingly hypocritical to boot.

Starmer can’t redefine himself or his party. If he stays, Labour is lost, completely lost.

But is it? The votes leaving Labour appear to be going to the Green Party. It’s the Tories who are haemorrhaging to Reform - look at Johnson’s red wall.

Voters believe Starmer has little or no respect for them

Three quarters of voters believe Sir Keir Starmer’s Government has little or no respect for them, a poll has shown.

A survey by More in Common and the UCL Policy Lab, released on the day of the local election results, found 44 per cent of Britons agreed with the statement: “The Government doesn’t respect people like me at all.”

A further 31 per cent said Sir Keir’s administration only “respects people like me a little”.

Half of all voters (50 per cent) described the Labour Government as “chaotic”, nearly twice as many as the number who said the same about the previous Tory administration under Rishi Sunak when prompted to compare the two.
The Prime Minister’s priorities are also seen as out of step with those of the public.

@TheLandlordsAreFrowning

Missing you, already…